Interacting with consumers during major cultural events, like the Super Bowl or the VMAs, is not just for big advertisers. Digital channels act as virtual meeting places to discuss these events and for brands, this means it’s necessary to keep a pulse on conversations and trends at all times.
Register here to join Twitter, Talkwalker and Khoros in our upcoming panel on Tuesday, April 12 at 12 pm ET to find out how brands benefit from consumer intelligence to transform cultural moments into winning strategies.
Google has confirmed an issue with the Google Ads console where there is “higher than normal latency” during the ad review process for Responsive search ads (RSAs). Google said this is impacting a “significant subset of users.”
If you are noticing slowness in the Google Ads console, do know Google is working on resolving it.
The notice. Google posted “we’re aware of a problem with Google Ads affecting a significant subset of users. We will provide an update by Apr 4, 2022, 7:00 AM UTC detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change. The affected users are able to access Google Ads, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior. Currently, Responsive search ads (RSAs) might experience a higher than normal latency during the ad review process.”
Fix ETA. There is currently no specific estimated time when this issue will be resolved but Google is working on it and promises to give us an update by Monday on this issue. I suspect it will be resolved sooner, but we will keep you posted.
Why we care. If you are experiencing slowness, you should know it is not your fault. Google is having an issue that they are working on resolving. So check back later or put the work off until Monday.
Twitter is piloting three new ad types – Interactive Text, Product Explorer, and Collection ads. Only a few brands have access to them, but the new ad types will be visible to all U.S. Twitter users (iOS, Android and the web).
Here’s everything we know about the ad formats and examples of brands using them.
Interactive Text Ads. These ads have a larger font than organic tweets and bolded text. Advertisers can also pick from 10 colors to highlight up to three words from their ad copy. Twitter users who tap or click on the highlighted words will be taken to a landing page, which the brand specifies. Brands testing this ad format include Oreo, Bud Light and Wendy’s.
Here’s what it looks like:
Oreo’s Interactive Text Ad on Twitter
Product Explorer Ads. These are 3D product ads. Users can swipe and rotate a product to view it from multiple angles. Users can click on the Shop Now button to buy it from the advertiser’s website.
Here’s what it looks like:
New Balance’s Product Explorer Ad on Twitter
Collection Ads. Advertisers can display a “hero” image (it remains static) plus five thumbnails beneath it (which users can scroll through horizontally). What happens when a Twitter user clicks or taps on one of the thumbnails? The advertiser chooses what URL to send them to (e.g., a product landing page).
Here’s what it looks like:
Bose’s Collection Ad on Twitter
New Balance, Lexus and Bose are among the “select brands in the U.S.” testing the Product Explorer and Collection ads.
What Twitter says. Could these experimental ad formats roll out to more brands and countries eventually? Yes, but there’s no timeline for that yet. In its blog post announcing the three new ad types, Twitter noted that they will be watching the performance of these new formats to see if they drive results for advertisers.
The platform also highlighted its vision and goals for Twitter ads. Twitter said their ad products should:
Give advertisers opportunities for more creative storytelling and brand expression across every stage of the funnel
Offer consumers a more immersive, rewarding and interactive ad experience
Help advertisers further lean into and unlock Twitter’s conversational power
Why we care. Although Twitter doesn’t have daily/monthly active user numbers that rival Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, it can still drive conversions and revenue for brands and businesses. Because these ad formats are new, they could attract some early engagement from Twitter users. However, it remains to see if that attention will be positive or negative. While these ads are still in testing, it may be worth a small amount of your time to think about how you could potentially creatively use these ad types so you’re ready if/when they become available.
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Climbing the corporate ladder isn’t always the most straightforward process, especially for paid search marketers. Professionals seeking to grow their careers need to map out a path, accounting for their unique roles within their organizations.
“The most important thing is to look at your current position,” said Pascal Skropke, CMO of Design-Bestseller, at SMX Next. “Not everybody has the opportunity to work at a fast-growing e-commerce company or startup.”
He added, “Look at where you are and find out if it’s possible to take steps within your company — and understand what your company needs to succeed.”
Skropke says marketers seeking to climb this ladder should establish an “anchor point” within their company — the cross-section of their company’s needs and their career goals. One of these points is the issue of campaign advertising measurement — the lack of direction, accurate data models, and resources for many brands in the digital retail space.
Here are some of the key measurement challenges paid search marketers can help their companies with.
Address issues in advertising spend and ROI
“Performance advertising is killing it for most retailers,” said Andreas Reiffen, founder and CEO of Crealytics, in the same presentation. “At the same time, we see legacy retailers falling behind.”
Despite impressive increases in compound annual growth rate for online retailers such as Etsy, Boohoo, and Farfetch (44%, 55%, and 64%, respectively,), more traditional retailers are falling behind, even in the e-commerce sphere. Reiffen noted that although some of these legacy brands are meeting their KPIs, their slow overall growth could be a major issue down the road.
“The question we need to ask ourselves is, ‘Why am I seeing great results when the company isn’t growing?’” said Reiffen. “The issue we are all facing today is that the measurement is broken. The methodology that we use to track conversions and conversion values — one click, last click, or many clicks — is misleading us because people don’t necessarily buy when they click on ads.”
He added, “They might have happened to click on ads when they purchased, but there’s no direct correlation.”
Source: Andreas Reiffen
Inaccurate measurement models can disrupt return on ad spend (ROAS) projections, making it that much harder for legacy brands to stay competitive.
Paid search marketers and managers can help executives of legacy-style brands address these discrepancies by optimizing paid advertising spending — adopting more accurate tracking models and allocating spend more effectively. This can help marketers establish more authority within their brand and encourage executives to lean on them for their expertise in the future.
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“We’re seeing big companies like the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey building departments for data analytics,” said Skropke. “This is a sign that analytics is not just something that the data nerd is working on, but something that’s now on C-level.”
Source: Pascal Skropke
Data matters, not just to search marketers, but to all those in brand leadership positions. The sooner search marketers can encourage their managers and company executives to consult paid media analytics when making business decisions, the more respect they’ll garner from those same decision-makers.
“If you work in a paid search manager role on an operation level, it’s rare that you would be asked to do these things,” said Reiffen. “But it’s a major problem that is present now on the C-level.”
He added, “Measurement is the most important thing to get right, so that’s where we see a good opportunity to step up and challenge the numbers.”
Create a growth strategy and align target market goals
Inaccurate measurement clearly causes issues in advertising ROI and data analytics. Unfortunately, it can also disrupt brand growth by derailing target market strategies.
“Wrong targeting leads to poor results,” said Skropke. “So, we should always ask what’s driving the value for the business. Is this the top-line revenue or is it the profitable acquisition of new customers?”
Source: Pascal Skropke
Whether it’s targeting a disproportionate amount of existing customers or pushing products that have lower than average profit margins, C-level executives will inevitably get parts of the targeting and growth strategy wrong. This is where paid search managers can share their expertise and help leadership set clear, actionable goals.
“So, where’s the opportunity here?” asked Reiffen. “It’s in taking the time to explain this, giving [leadership] examples.”
He added, “Start stepping up and explaining that it’s the targets themselves that are limiting performance.”
Google has announced that the first round of testing is here for its crucial Privacy Sandbox initiative. In this round of testing developers will gain access to Privacy Sandbox’s newest measurement proposals: Topics, FLEDGE and Attribution Reporting. These ad technologies are the replacement for the beleaguered FLoC initiative that was killed off back in January.
What are these technologies again?
FLEDGE, or First Locally Executed Decision over Groups Experiment, calculates ad auction data in the browser itself instead of at the server to help increase privacy by limiting a user’s data flow.
Topicsis a technology that helps identify interests for advertising while retaining greater user privacy.
Attribution reporting allows for better measurement on the conversion from ad clicks or views.
Together these technologies are aimed at helping limit the use of personal data while ensuring accuracy in reporting.
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Origin trials. Announced back in 2020, origin trials are a way that developers can test experimental features for a limited time before the public. These trials generally occur on a first-party basis only and on one “origin”. As of today, developers will be able to see and test the code for Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting in the Canary version of Chrome.
After this is iteration is rolled out, testing will then begin in a limited Chrome beta and then to a stable version of Chrome. The origin trials for the above-mentioned Privacy Sandbox technologies are worldwide.
User controls. A nice new addition announced today are updated settings that allow participants to understand and manage their information usage more clearly. This will allow users to manage their interests or turn off trials altogether.
Why we care. Many of these new privacy technologies have been hypothetical until today. It’s great to see this next phase of Google’s (well needed) new ad technology begin to come to fruition. The feedback and news that will be generated in this stage of testing should help marketers prepare for the realities that we will soon face with Google’s initiative.
Interest Category targeting in Facebook may be up to 33% inaccurate, according to new study from North Carolina State University. The NC State researchers conducted two separate experiments, the first to find out which activities were associated with “interest” on Facebook and the second to analyze the accuracy of user interests from participants around the world. The results were far from comforting.
Experiment 1. The first experiment involved setup of 14 accounts, a small sample size, that merely viewed or scrolled through a page in order to see if those topics within the content consumed would be pulled into the “Interest Categories” accounts. The goal was to see what interests would then be associated with the newly formed account and to qualitatively infer how accurate the newly assigned interests were.
The findings show 33.22% of the inferred interests were either inaccurate or irrelevant. “The key finding here is that Facebook takes an aggressive approach to interest inference,” Aafaq Sabir, lead author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at NC State, said.
Experiment 2. To get even deeper, the NC State team wanted to see if the findings would hold true for a more diverse group of users. The 146 study participants were selected by Amazon Mechanical Turk from “different parts of the world”. A browser extension would then extract data from the participants’ Facebook accounts and question the participant about the validity of the interest data.
This study found 29.3% of the interests that Facebook had listed for participants were not actually of interest. “That’s comparable to what we saw in our controlled experiments,” said Anupam Das, co-author of the paper and an assistant professor of computer science at NC State.
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What’s unclear. With samples sizes this small, we should take this study with a grain of salt. While the data is unflattering to Facebook’s targeting, much of the experiment is unclear on the parameters used to determine what is of interest and what is not of interest. Additionally, the second experiment in this study relies on user feedback that does not appear to have quantitative parameters in place for reporting, which may muddy results. Lastly, the participants selected in the survey were in different locations, but sourced similarly using a very specific platform – Amazon Mechanical Turk. By choosing participants tied to one source, it may not be a truly accurate representation of Facebook users as a whole.
Why we care. Most ad targeting isn’t perfect. For example, if logged in, you can see what Google targets your ads to and see what Facebook thinks that you are interested in. The reality is that no targeting is perfect, but the 30-33% inaccuracy found in the study is concerning. Before pulling ad spends to different platforms, it is worthwhile to assess the current account performance and make adjustments from that data instead of a study. Finally, the first portion of this study does show that basic content consumption can influence interests, so again check your results to ensure that your targeting is in fact working for you.
Typically, customer relationship management (CRM) software is associated with professionals that engage in traditional consumer sales. However, modern CRM software can be a valuable asset to mortgage brokers as well.
The mortgage industry is becoming increasingly crowded. Your loan officers need all of the help they can get as they strive to optimize productivity. That is why you and your team need a great CRM solution.
CRM technology includes a broad range of tools and features that will help you better serve your clients. These tools will also enhance profitability, increase transparency, and help you grow your business. By integrating a CRM solution into your mortgage company, you can:
Streamline Communication with Clients
As a loan officer, you understand just how important it is to keep clients in the loop throughout the entire lending process. If you fail to do so, you may lose out on business and damage your brand reputation.
Unfortunately, keeping up with all of your clients can be a major hassle. Each client has a different preferred communication medium. While it is important to use communication channels that accommodate your clients, this approach can also increase the chances that you will miss out on an important message.
A CRM remedies this issue by unifying multiple communication channels into a single platform. Your mortgage broker can access texts, emails, and more from one convenient mobile app.
Improve Lead Distribution
Tired of starting each day with tedious tasks like manual lead distribution? If so, that is one more reason you need to adopt a cutting-edge CRM solution. The best CRMs include automated lead distribution functionalities.
These tools will seamlessly distribute leads received from your lead provider. As an added benefit, they can integrate with proprietary lead generation systems as well. Think of all the time you will save by eliminating the need to manually assign leads to your loan officers.
Facilitate Digital Loan Management
Most modern consumers expect to navigate the loan process digitally. If your mortgage firm is still relying on physical document management practices, this will diminish the borrower experience.
By deploying a leading-edge CRM, you can simplify and enhance the borrower experience. Your team will be able to access online 1003s, manage documents digitally, and much more. This will translate to streamlined loan processing, thereby allowing your loan officers to serve more clients.
Gain Valuable Business Insights
If you hope to grow your mortgage business, you must be able to accurately measure both team and individual performance.
A great mortgage CRM will help you do just that by providing access to data analysis and reporting tools. These tools are customizable so that you can focus on performance metrics that matter most to your business.
If you would like to learn more about why you need a CRM, connect with BNTouch. You can explore our product solutions for individuals, teams, and enterprises.
For a more hands-on option, request your no-obligation demo and try our product for yourself.
Google will be ending support for Maximize Lift bidding for YouTube, the company said, leaving a TrueView, in-stream ads option behind as YouTube continues to enhance its ad offerings.
What it did. Maximize Lift was a very specific bidding strategy that worked in conjunction with Brand Lift measurement with a goal of hitting more of the right audience that was currently in the consideration phase. If you aren’t familiar with Brand Lift, it is a tool that helps to measure recall, awareness and consideration and requires a Google Account Rep to activate on your behalf.
Maximize Lift used details input by advertisers about their brands and products to generate content to be used in Brand Lift surveys. The survey responses were then used by Maximize Lift to focus on those consumers that may be the best fit for your products. Unlike other bidding types Maximize Lift didn’t optimize towards views, rather would optimize towards lift.
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“We launched Maximize Lift as a beta in 2018 to optimize TrueView in-stream campaigns,” a Google spokesperson said. “While we did see some success, we are sunsetting the bidding tool to focus on scalable solutions like skippable in-stream ads that are more in line with how advertisers want to buy.”
Maximize Lift was launched in 2018 with the allure of driving meaningful B2C results. Upon release, Google touted a 2x return on ad spend for COVERGIRL’s Lashblast Mascara product. However, it seems that there has been less and less focus lately on Brand Lift within YouTube.
Why we care. If you are an advertiser that uses Maximize Lift bidding, you’ll need to look for other solutions come April 1. Additionally, this change may alter the results that you see in Brand Lift if you have been leveraging Maximize Lift at the same time.
Kicking and screaming it is. Despite grumbling about Google Analytics 4, the vast majority of marketers tell us they plan to make the switch anyway, even if they aren’t very excited to.
What we found. About 70% of the 250 marketers we polled said they planned to switch and will handle the migration internally. Another 14% of respondents said they planned to switch but would hire outside consultants to help them get set up with GA4. Only 12% said they planned to explore other analytics platforms to use instead of GA4. The remaining 4% cited “other” scenarios, such as having already installed GA4 or that they use a different tool to handle their analytics now.
Why this is happening. Google this month said it plans to sunset Universal Analytics, the current version of GA, in July 2023. The company also said users would not be able to port over data from the older version to the new GA4. That news both stung users and gave them a reason to migrate sooner than later so they will have at least some historical data in the new platform.
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Why we care (and why we’re not surprised). On one hand, Google has never been shy about retiring platforms, or making platform changes, despite user outcry. But the pushback on Google’s decision here highlights the ubiquity of Google Analytics and its power as a free tool. If there were equivalent free alternatives then more people would be using them. While making to switch to something like Adobe Analytics could give users more control over their data, that comes with a price that may be too steep for some organizations.
It’s notable, though, that 14% said they plan to hire outside help. That shows how intricate some GA instances are today. That must seem more daunting to an organization when the platform you are migrating to is confusing and complicated, as marketers have complained about GA4.
The bright side. Analytics expert Charles Farina this week took the glass-half-full approach, highlighting 10 features in GA 4 that he’s looking forward to in a long Twitter thread. These include audience-based conversion tracking, time between interactions data, custom and trended funnels, improved event segments and massive improvements in debugging.
“At first look, Google Analytics 4 seems drastically different and that change can scare people off,” wrote Colleen Harris, a Google Analytics expert who runs our SMX Master Class on GA4, wrote for Search Engine Land around the time GA4 was first announced. “The good news is, as digital marketers, we’re all in the same boat of learning a whole new system. We also have time to learn this new tool.”
