Many brands struggle to understand the ins and outs of their content marketing funnels. They often find it difficult to know what people are looking for and which pieces of content address their needs. “When people enter your funnel, you have no idea where they came from or where they’re going,” said Andrea Cruz, associate director of digital marketing at KoMarketing, in her presentation at SMX Next. Brands producing many different types of B2B content are often shocked that they’re not driving more consumers into their marketing funnels, especially when data shows that 70% of professionals view at least three pieces of content before making purchases. According to Cruz, this discrepancy often stems from a lack of knowledge of the customer and their needs: “We don’t know where they are in the funnel. We don’t know what their pain points are. We don’t know where they consumed our content.” There are on average five or more people involved in any given B2B purchase, so marketers need to scale their content funnel efforts to address each decision-maker’s needs. Take actionable steps to transform your marketing funnel contentCruz says most marketers do nothing to optimize their content funnels, which is why so many campaigns fail. She recommends brands map out the types of content they own and match them to each stage of the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration and decision. “Great marketers map their content,” she said. “B2B marketers are using advertising as a way to leverage and to pass along that information. So, we may be creating these huge amounts of content and then not mapping anyone.” Marketers will find that mapping out content types to these stages will make it easier to generate relevant resources and funnel customers to those areas. Awareness. “When we think about awareness, we’re thinking about videos, infographics, blogs, quizzes, calculators, reports, things that tell customers about their problem,” said Cruz. “That’s the type of content we want to give people at this stage. We don’t want to give people a video of a product — they don’t even know they have a problem, so why are you telling me that I need an invoice management software?” Using “symptom” keywords that point to the problem customers are experiencing can make content in this stage more relevant. For example, if you’ve identified that readers are looking for website speed solutions, you might want to include keyword phrases like, “How do I improve site speed?” within this content. Consideration. The solutions your content offers in the awareness stage aren’t for everyone, which is why marketers should use the consideration stage to clarify your offering’s purpose. This content shouldn’t press customers to buy. “It’s not about a sales discussion at this stage,” Cruz said. “You can even use this stage to disqualify people from your funnel.” “So, interactive demos and trials are things to help them understand if your solution will be best,” she added. Decision. Once customers reach the decision stage, marketers need to provide content that addresses their most important concerns, taking into account the type of individuals involved. Cruz provided some helpful examples of the different types of content marketers can provide based on the customer in question:
Apply new messaging formats to ad platformsFunnel-worthy content doesn’t just have to sit on your website; it can be deployed across ad platforms. This content will need to be adapted to fit within each channel, but marketers can use the marketing funnel stages as a guide throughout the process. “If we take a step back and go back to that basic funnel — awareness, consideration, and decision — you can do the exact same thing with ad formats and platforms,” Cruz said. Marketers can use the content funnel framework in ad messaging in Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads and across many other platforms. The key is to adapt the content formats that are both optimized for the medium in question and match the relevant funnel stage. Not every marketer’s content funnel will look the same, but Cruz believes this framework is the best way to meet customers where they are and drive more revenue: “This might change as you start testing, but having everything written down helps us understand where we are, where our goals are and what we need to get to the next level.” Watch the full SMX Next presentation here (free registration required). The post How to produce actionable content throughout the marketing funnel appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3r2N14n
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Googles Topics API: Advertisers share concerns about topic diversity and other potential challenges1/26/2022 Earlier this week, Google announced the Topics API, its latest ad targeting proposal aimed at replacing third-party cookies. Similar to its predecessor, the now-abandoned Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) proposal, the company has positioned the Topics API squarely between users, who are arguably now more privacy-conscious than ever, and advertisers, who have been holding their breaths over what the future of audience targeting will actually look like. Now that Google has laid out its proposal, search practitioners are evaluating it against the backdrop of third-party cookies and FLoC. Topics may be a more realistic option than FLoC, marketers say“Topics seem more likely to be acceptable to the broader ecosystem as they address several FLoC privacy concerns head on,” said Aaron Levy, head of paid search at Tinuiti, “It’s odd to call this an advantage, but I view anything that launches with a higher likelihood of stability and lesser likelihood of mass opt-outs a win.” The other PPC practitioners that spoke to Search Engine Land seemed to concur with this point: “On their face, Topics seem like they should be less personally identifiable, which would be a plus for privacy,” said Julie Friedman Bacchini, president of Neptune Moon and managing director of PPCChat. “While some privacy people will still claim it’s too much tracking, it seems much more private than what is out there today,” said Brad Geddes, co-founder at AdAlysis. Google’s rhetoric surrounding FLoC has been crafted to woo over the general audience of users and shape public perception regarding its privacy efforts — even when other industry players were highlighting potential vulnerabilities. With the Topics API, it seems like the company has listened to the feedback and made some notable improvements. “I like that Chrome users will be able to see their topics and delete them if they wish,” said Christine Zirnheld, digital marketing manager at Cypress North. While this feature can make life harder for advertisers, options for users will help to appease privacy advocates and regulators, which increases the chances that Google will eventually be able to launch Topics. Topic diversity and other potential hurdles for advertisersThe Topics API’s initial design includes approximately 350 topics, according to its GitHub page. Advertisers are concerned that this quantity won’t be sufficient enough to provide relevant targeting. “Google’s current interest list [of topics] doesn’t offer the level of nuance most marketers need to target people who’d actually want to see their ads,” said Ashwin Balakrishnan, head of marketing at Optmyzr, “If Topics is going to be a success, Google needs to provide more detailed options.” “Advertisers (at least as of now) would have few interests to actually target, and broader targeting does not usually lead to better performance,” Zirnheld said. “An interest in cars & autos doesn’t tell me if that’s luxury, rental, new, used, SUV, etc.,” Geddes added, “That means there will be more competition for less targeted ads,” noting that, at this point, it is still too difficult to predict how Topics will work in practice. For reference, the IAB Audience Taxonomy contains approximately 1,500 audience segments. “One of the most popular drinks in the US is Coffee,” Zirnheld provided as an example, “The IAB Taxonomy has ‘Coffee,’ ‘Coffee & Tea,’ ‘Coffee Creamer,’ ‘Coffee Filters,’ and ‘Tea/Coffee – Ready-to-drink.’ The closest topic Google has (at the moment) is ‘Food & Drink.’” Despite the relatively low number of topics designed into the initial proposal, Google may already be aware of this issue: “This is a starting point; we could see this getting into the low thousands or staying in the hundreds [of topics],” said Ben Galbraith, Chrome product director. In addition to the potentially limited topics, “The limited timeframe could be concerning for advertisers, as they are used to much more persistent inclusion of an audience than one to three weeks,” Bacchini said, caveating that it remains to be seen whether keeping interests more current might also yield benefits. Levy also touched upon this concern: “It feels more directionally accurate than truly precise,” he said, “I hope for some sort of a boolean setup longer term where we’re able to combine, expand or narrow topics, but of course time will tell.” As a privacy measure, there is a 5% chance that a random topic is returned, according to the GitHub page. This is to ensure that each topic has a minimum number of members. “While I understand that this helps ensure anonymity and privacy for internet users, this is obviously not a good thing for advertisers,” Zirnheld added. Chrome might be the only browser to adopt, but that might not matter for some“Chrome is still the big boy in the browser war,” said Steve Hammer, president and co-founder at RankHammer, “I do think Edge will matter as more people get Windows 11, but that’s the lone one I’d worry about for clients.” “While Chrome’s market share is (slightly) shrinking, I don’t anticipate this’ll change our usage at all,” Levy said, “Rather, it will all fit into a broader theme of treating the data as directional rather than ‘right.’” “If it’s limited to Chrome, we’ll see how that affects iPhone users,” Geddes said, noting that, “The lack of cross-browser support is a bit worrisome, but it won’t affect anyone’s budget if they are getting good returns from their marketing dollars.” If Chrome claims enough of the browser market, that might empower Google to continue with the Topics API without having to go to the bargaining table with its competitors. That independence can help the company stick to its Privacy Sandbox timeline, which shows that all associated initiatives are slated to be launched in Chrome sometime in Q4 2022. Is Topics an improvement over FLoC?As with all potential third-party cookie replacements, Topics must be evaluated from the user privacy perspective as well as the advertiser perspective. “FLoC raised privacy concerns and Topics seems more privacy-friendly and attempts to provide more control and transparency to internet users. In that way, Topics is ‘better,’” Zirnheld said. “However, this means broader targeting for advertisers, meaning less control over who sees our ads,” she noted, “We might have to get more creative with targeting for our clients if this is the route Chrome is taking.” “For advertisers, I expect that Topics wind up more restrictive with less options and less precision than we were hoping for from FLoC (which is already a reduction of current tactics),” Levy said. “It’s annoying, but also encouraging that Google is trying to come up with a solution that works for everybody.” Ultimately, third-party cookies are going away, so expect growing painsPaid search marketing practitioners have largely gotten on board with the deprecation of third-party cookies, acknowledging that there should be more privacy protection for users. However, “Anything that is a departure from cookies is going to feel like a step down in targeting, I think,” Bacchini said, “We are going to have to adjust our thinking about what ‘accurate targeting’ actually means and come down off of the sense of strong or accurate targeting that we feel like we have had up until this point.” Despite the uncertainties that lay ahead for the Topics API, there are still ways to prepare your client or brand for the change, and if you’ve already spoken to them about FLoC, much of that guidance still applies:
The post Google’s Topics API: Advertisers share concerns about topic diversity and other potential challenges appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3KMkt7e Account-Based Marketing is essential to any B2B strategy. And advanced practitioners are now looking for the tools to give them an edge to better connect with their audiences. This requires sales and marketing to work together to identify and engage buying groups within their target accounts. Enter Buying Group Marketing. To learn more, register today for “Market, Engage and Sell to Buying Groups Who Want to Hear From You,” presented by Influ2. The post Webinar: The next big thing in ABM appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/34gj0Fu Microsoft released its earnings report yesterday for its second quarter. In it, we learned that search and news advertising was up 32 percent year over year. LinkedIn revenue was grew by 37 percent. The company lumps together search and news advertising revenue and subtracts traffic acquisition costs (TAC), which is money Microsoft pays to Bing Ads network publishers and news partners. In Q2, Microsoft reported more than $3 billion in revenue from search and news advertising. This was fueled by higher revenue per search for the holiday quarter, according to the company. On the conference call, CEO Satya Nadella noted the company’s total revenue from advertising, including LinkedIn, has surpassed $10 billion over the past 12 months. Speaking of LinkedIn, it accounted for another $3.5 billion in Q2 revenue for Microsoft. Overall, Microsoft reported record revenue of $51.7 billion for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2021. Why we care. Microsoft said its Q2 advertising revenue growth was better than expected, which is clear evidence of a strong advertising market. Holidays drive up cost-per-click prices for advertisers, and revenue for the ad platforms every year. But clearly, companies continue to invest money in paid search advertising, which is a proven channel to generate results. As for Q3, Microsoft forecasts more growth, but in the “mid- to high-teens” range. Source: Microsoft Earnings Release FY22 Q2 The post Microsoft earnings: Search, LinkedIn advertising revenue rise appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3H3bV9y Google Ads scripts now supports asset-based video ads, the company announced via its developer blog on Monday. This functionality replaces the previous media-based video ads. This announcement follows the same change in v9 of the Google Ads API, announced in November 2021. Why we careAdvertisers that have scripts to create new video ads must migrate their code by February 28, 2022. After that date, media-based video ads will no longer be supported and their scripts will start failing with errors. The post Google Ads scripts rolls out support for asset-based video ads appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3AN3xZL It goes without saying that the past year has been a time of momentous change for marketers. In previous articles, I addressed how CMOs and leaders have had to navigate an array of emerging trends, from new digital demands and customer preferences to growing workforce dispersion and diversity. These shifts have undoubtedly reshaped the marketing landscape as we know it and led leaders to seek new operating models and digital solutions to keep pace. Now, as ongoing global disruption ushers in a new digital and hybrid era, it’s time for leaders to embrace that there’s no turning back. According to McKinsey, the future of work is hybrid, and Forrester dubbed 2022 the “year to be bold” as demands only grow stronger. Strategic marketing leaders must reshape their agenda in line with these new realities to find success this year. So, where should leaders focus as they reenvision their organizations for the road ahead? Let’s look at the top four areas leaders must prioritize to gain a competitive advantage in 2022: 1. The cost of ineffective communication: Overcome the growing business impact of poor communication to adapt and scale.Success in a digital workplace requires agility to reinvent operations, but one essential—and overlooked—factor hinders marketers from driving growth: ineffective communication. In fact, new data released by Grammarly and The Harris Poll estimates U.S. businesses lose up to $1.2 trillion annually due to poor workplace communication—or $12,506 per employee every year. This is especially true for communications-heavy functions like marketing. And now, evolving workforce and customer demands are continuing to amplify the impact of poor communication across organizations. From the surge of e-commerce and omnichannel to the rapid adoption of new digital tools, brands and customers are showing up and interacting in more ways and places than ever before. In this landscape, achieving clear, compelling, and consistent communication—no matter the channel or context—is critical for both productivity and engagement. By building a foundation of effective communication internally and externally, leaders will build resilience to grow faster, control costs, and create reimagined experiences for customers and employees alike. 2. CX as a growth driver: Address ongoing market disruptors by delivering exceptional experiences that balance quality and efficiency.New market disruptions are driving a renewed focus on the brand and customer experience, at a time when it’s increasingly critical to business success. As consumer spending continues to overwhelm supply chains, experts predict that inflation and higher prices will continue to worsen. This will lead to a far higher bar in customer expectations to pay those prices. In response, CX will reach a critical turning point this year as business and marketing leaders must double down on the customer experience to justify rising costs and keep pace with demands. Success for brands will come down to a delicate balance of meeting customer expectations with both quality and efficiency—i.e., keeping up with high spending patterns while delivering a better, more consistent experience. Leaders must overcome unwanted brand variability across channels and equip teams with the right tools to quickly and consistently meet customer needs. Those who deliver consistently compelling experiences will gain an advantage so that when supply chains normalize, they’ve cemented a loyal customer base. 3. The rise of employee empowerment: Engage employees—and customers—by building an empowered work environment that promotes confidence.Marketers can no longer ignore that the employee and customer experience are inextricably linked. Successful CX depends on first building engaged, productive teams who effectively represent the brand. But from the “Great Resignation” that shows no signs of slowing down to increasing globalization creating more cross-cultural teams, it’s never been more challenging to engage and retain all employees. In a world where employees have increasing choice, delivering exceptional employee experiences will become a foremost differentiator. In fact, research shows business leaders are prioritizing employee satisfaction and retention this year—ahead of team productivity and customer satisfaction. Leaders that deliver a new, location-agnostic approach to EX—i.e., reinventing experiences to be engaging and seamless, no matter the location or context—will come out ahead. Employee empowerment will be at the core of this approach as leaders must embrace new tools and strategies designed to enhance employees’ potential, grow their confidence, and help them be more productive wherever they are. This focus on empowerment will underpin the digital workplace, lead to new customer and brand experiences, and redefine productivity with experience at the center. 4. Empathy as an imperative: Prioritize the human connection to meet customer and employee needs.In many ways, the constraints of the past two years often made interactions more impersonal and transactional. This lack of human connection has left customers and employees alike desiring more empathy and emotionally sensitive support from employers and brands. But that’s a daunting task when paired with the shift to a hybrid workplace and influx of digital touchpoints that have cropped up in recent months. This leaves marketers with a dual challenge: Keep pace with the sheer amount of interactions happening across systems while delivering higher quality in all of those engagements. In response, leaders must invest in empathy in the workplace as a strategic business priority. Human-centric technologies play a vital role in this process by helping teams move faster while maintaining the humanity of a brand. With automated and integrated solutions like communication augmentation platforms, leaders can infuse more of a human touch, strike the right tone, and create more genuine connections with employees and customers in all the places they’re already engaging. ___________ As we tread forward, CMOs and marketing leaders must embrace that uncertainty is the only constant they can expect. As Forrester emphasized, the time to be bold is now—and tremendous opportunity awaits for those who reimagine the status quo. By focusing on the above areas—investing in effective communication, delicately balancing new customer and employee needs, and prioritizing empathy and human connection—marketers will be well-poised to adapt and grow this year and beyond. ___________For more on how to reimagine success in the hybrid-work era and the business impact of poor communication, download the report, “The State of Business Communication: The Backbone of Business Is Broken,” and visit www.grammarly.com/business. This sponsored article was written by Dorian Stone, head of organizations revenue, Grammarly. The post CMOs, put these 4 trends at the top of your agenda for success this year appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3IKbQZ3 The post 20220126 SEL Brief appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3rKVng0 Paid search practitioners have expressed a lot of frustration over the increasing amount of automation that platforms, like Google, have been implementing. However, this push towards a more machine learning-powered industry shows no signs of slowing. For advertisers that see the potential and opportunities that accompany more automation, there may be more impressions, clicks and conversions to be had. “The idea here is, ‘How can we take some form of automated campaign type or strategy that Google is giving us and make sure that we’re controlling it?’” said Michelle Morgan, co-founder at Paid Media Pros. At SMX Next, she and Joe Martinez, also a co-founder at Paid Media Pros, shared four ways to leverage automation without surrendering control. Smart Display with pay for conversions“[Smart Display campaigns with pay for conversions] can be a really great option to leverage a lot of Google’s automation around the targeting, but then still control what you end up paying for those conversions,” Morgan said. With Smart Display campaigns, targeting is automated and Google optimizes it as the campaign runs. Relinquishing control over targeting might sound like a leap of faith, but, “We’re okay with utilizing the Smart Display campaigns because we’re utilizing the pay for conversions bid strategy” Morgan said, adding that, in this case, pay for conversions is not like other automated bid strategies because it is only available for Display campaigns. There are requirements to use pay for conversions, so you’ll first need to verify that your campaigns are eligible. “The nice part is we’re letting Google just go crazy when it comes to targeting,” Morgan said. “The biggest criticism I hear from people for Smart Display campaigns is that they want the control of the targeting, but that goes away as soon as I tell them, ‘Yeah, but if we only want to pay $100 for a conversion, we can set that up and up until you get a conversion, you pay nothing.’” Running a campaign this way can position your ads for more exposure, which typically isn’t ideal unless you’re also getting conversions, but you’re not paying for those impressions. “So now your brand is out there in front of people that Google thinks are relevant and you didn’t pay a lick for it,” Morgan said. Dynamic Search Ads with exclusions and negative keywordsDynamic Search Ads allow you to provide a URL (or a list of URLs) and Google will use that as inputs for an ad based on the keywords that are on the page and your ad copy. While the final URL, headline and display URL are determined by Google, the descriptions are still under your control, “So make sure that they include any important calls to action or messaging that you have, because you never know what Google is going to put in there based on what it found on your website,” Morgan said. In the dynamic ad target section of your reports (shown above), you can view the search terms that triggered your ad, along with the headline and landing page that Google selected for that ad. “You can use that information to adjust what dynamic targets you have in the account,” she added. You should be proactive with the pages you’re excluding (e.g., about us page, privacy policy, etc.) from your campaign, Morgan advised. You can do this by adding exclusions manually or submitting a page feed. It’s also wise to use your negative keyword list. “One thing I like to do is always include whatever your account-level negative keyword lists are and then create a second negative keyword list, but this one is going to contain all of the keywords that you have in your account — all of the exact match keywords that you have, add those to a list,” she said. “This is an explicit negative keyword list for your DSA campaigns and basically what you’re doing is making sure that anytime those exact match keywords are searched, they’re going to show in your Search campaign and not your DSA campaign.” Custom video campaignsTrueView for action campaigns will be transitioned into Video action campaigns soon. “We now get a longer headline and description, so now the placements have expanded and your ad will look a little bit different depending on where your ads are being placed,” Martinez said. If you still want to create Discovery campaigns, you can still create your own by using the Custom video campaign option (shown below). “You want to have a standalone Discovery campaign? You can still do that,” Martinez said, “If you want to have a standalone Trueview for shopping campaign, you can still do that.” “[Google] still gives you the options for control,” Martinez added, “It’s just anything for Trueview for action, understand it is now rolled into the Video action campaigns and we only get responsive video ads here — they haven’t changed anything, they just pretty much added more fields for us to fill to make our ads a little bit more engaging.” Broad match and smart bidding with remarketing lists“Another full strategy that Google is really starting to push now is going full broad and running just on Smart Bidding — [I] don’t think that’s a good move for everybody,” Martinez said, “If you’re new to broad match or you’re just a new account, period, we say hold off a little bit or try something a little bit more specific.” “If you really want to try full broad [and] you’re in a very niche, specific industry and you really need to expand your keyword reach, try using RLSA [Remarketing List for Search Ads],” he suggested. Layering in a targeting audience, such as people who have already been to your website, helps to ensure that the people that see your ad are already familiar with your brand. “This makes it a little bit more specific and makes me much more comfortable going after full broad and with the full Smart Bidding strategy, just to make sure I’m still getting in front of someone who at least knows who my brand is,” Martinez said. As platforms continue to push forward with more automation, it’s up to search marketers to adapt. “Automation is going to keep getting bigger and bigger, and a bigger part of our accounts, whether it’s Google or any of the other paid media channels,” Martinez said, “So as people start embracing automation, the first users who do that and start actually testing all the changes first — finding out what works or what doesn’t work — those advertisers who actually embrace it are going to do better in the long run.” Watch the full SMX Next presentation here (free registration required). The post 4 automated campaign types and how to control them appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3IAfhRR tCPA may not be going away (yet) but it should: Why its time to embrace value-based bidding1/25/2022 If you’ve followed along with the news recently, Google has confirmed that Target CPA (tCPA) is not planned to sunset in 2022. You may be asking, “Why is this even news?” Well, the recent Google Ads video “Expert Series: Welcome to 2022” had many folks (myself included) confused as to the future of non-value bidding strategies with unflattering and cryptic mentions about the popular bid type. One thing that we’ve seen time and again with Google Ads is that smoke usually leads to fire. In this case, you may want to take steps today to get your value bidding plan in order. Google’s tCPA & Max Conversions comments and guidance. At the beginning of the “Welcome to 2022” webinar, Google Rep Neha Shaikh made the statement: “…it [tCPA] is something that we’d like to leave behind in 2021, because we believe that every conversion should get a value…” Later in the webinar, when talking about enhanced conversions, Rogier Kentie, digital marketing strategist at Google, went on to say: “Target CPA and Max Conversions are not supported. Because, as we said in the beginning, we’re moving away from tCPA and we’re moving away from Max Conversions because every conversion has value.” Think I’m reading too much into it? Well, later in the presentation Mr. Kentie went on to state that they no longer advise using the two bidding types: “That is why we won’t advise to use Target CPA and Max Conversions anymore because the one and the zero are the only two values that are actually coming in.” Having worked in Google Ads since its inception, these statements have my spidey senses tingling as to the long-term viability of non-value-based bid strategies. As a result, we are expediting value-based bidding for some of our clients. Value-based conversions are an improvement. Thanks to Ginny Marvin, ads product liaison at Google, we know that there is not a plan to sunset tCPA or Max Conversions in 2022, but for many clients (even B2B!) you can drive better results when moving away from these binary conversions. Google is objectively right on this point. Generally speaking, a contact form lead does not close at the same rate as a demo request lead, the demo request is typically more valuable. What’s worth more? A newsletter sign-up or a request for consultation? The point is that not all conversions are created equal and “moving away” from tCPA is a noble idea. That being said, “moving away” also creates more work for advertisers. How to determine the value of conversions. Unlike e-commerce, a non-purchase conversion can be complicated. Some conversions may be straightforward and easy to track (online dining reservations, appointment bookings, etc.) while other conversions with complicated or lengthy sales processes may take more work. Finding the true value of each conversion is a routine process for the trained professional, but it can be difficult without reliable data. If you have a CRM that is actively used (with good standardization), you’ll be ahead of the game. If you don’t have some way to track the Google Ads conversion into a qualified lead, then you’ll want to start. For many companies, this process can be a uniting principle between marketing and sales to make sure you have complete alignment on strategy. The first thing you need to do is list and define all of your conversions in Google Ads (or on your site if you haven’t set that up yet). From there, you should look at where in the funnel that conversion lies. Is it a top-of-the-funnel content download? Is it a bottom-of-the-funnel demo request? What happens to each after the conversion has occurred? Getting to a uniform lead type will help to reverse engineer the value that should be assigned to each conversion. Some conversions, like a newsletter subscription or membership signups, are easier as you can pull average the lifetime value, or a one-time conversion value if applicable. For conversions with complicated sales processes, we generally look at the conversion rate of the lead type into a sales accepted/sales qualified lead. From there, you can input the average conversion rate of SQL to sale/deal and figure out what each lead is worth. Sample math on this may look like this: Average Deal Size * Lead to SQL Rate * SQL to Deal Rate = Lead Value In this example, if your average deal size was $10,000 with a Lead to SQL rate of 10% and a SQL to deal rate of 25%, the value of a lead that you could use as a Google Ads Conversion would be $250. Of course, you could add in more detail about MQLs, opportunities, additional costs and any other meaningful data points for you and your sales process. It should be noted that there are many, many ways to find this number, and if you have enough data, you can use conversion-specific percentages down to the deal level. While this process could be an entirely separate article, you should get a rough idea of what each conversion is worth. Once you have reverse engineered what an average conversion is worth, you can input those values into the Google Ads goals. You’ll also be able to get another benefit within Google Analytics when you put the conversion value in for each goal — Page Value metrics. Page Value metrics can help show what content is the most valuable (not just driving goals) by showing the influence those pages had on Goal Value. Why we care. When reading the tea leaves of the “Welcome to 2022” video, some people (me) see Google moving in a different direction than tCPA or Max Conversion Value bidding. Whether you believe it or not, taking the time to actually determine the value of leads will unlock value-based bidding. The benefits of this include the potential for smarter Google Ads bidding if you have multiple conversions and a truer view in Analytics using Page Value. Plus, you won’t find yourself scrambling if the smoke does lead to fire down the road. The post tCPA may not be going away (yet), but it should: Why it’s time to embrace value-based bidding appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3AvykKc Google will replace Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) with a new interest-based targeting proposal called Topics, the company announced Tuesday. The Topics API will select topics of interest (based on the user’s browsing history), without involving external servers, and share those topics with participating sites. Google plans to launch a developer trial of Topics in Chrome, including user controls (more on that below), soon. The final iteration of the user controls, as well as other technical aspects of how Topics works, will be determined based on the trial and feedback, Google said. How Topics will work. “With Topics, your browser determines a handful of topics, like ‘Fitness’ or ‘Travel,’ that represent your top interests for that week based on your browsing history,” Google said in the announcement. When a user visits a participating site, Topics selects three topics to share (one from each of the previous three weeks) with the site and its advertising partners. Up to five topics are associated with the browser. Topics are stored for three weeks, with topic selection occuring on the device, without involving any external servers, including Google’s own servers. Google is starting this initiative with about 300 topics “that represent an intersection of IAB’s Content Taxonomy V2 and also our own advertising taxonomy review,” said Ben Galbraith, Chrome product director, “This is a starting point; we could see this getting into the low thousands or staying in the hundreds [of topics].” “With the Topics design, we look at the domain or subdomain of the site to map the topic to that site,” he said, explaining that Google does not parse the text within an article to determine the appropriate topic. If a site does not participate in the Topics API, “Then it doesn’t provide a topic nor does it receive a topic,” Galbraith said. The site itself or its advertising partners can opt into the Topics API. Google has also published a technical explainer containing more details about the Topics proposal. The difference between FLoC and Topics. One of the main distinctions between Google’s previous targeting proposal, FLoC, and the Topics API is that Topics does not group users into cohorts. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation has pointed out, fingerprinting techniques could be used to distinguish a user’s browser from the thousands of other users within the same cohort to establish a unique identifier for that browser. Additionally, under FLoC, the browser gathers data about a user’s browsing habits in order to assign that user to a cohort, with new cohorts assigned on a weekly basis, based on their previous week’s browsing data. The Topics API determines topics to associate with the user on a weekly basis according to their browsing history, but those topics are kept for three weeks. And, Topics selects three topics to share with sites and advertisers, whereas FLoC would share a cohort ID. User controls and privacy measures for Topics. Google is building out controls for Chrome users that would enable them to view the topics that they have been associated with. Users will have the option to remove topics or disable Topics entirely. At this time, there is no plan to enable users to manually add their own topics. Additionally, topics are curated to exclude potentially sensitive categories, like race or sexual orientation, Google said. “Time will tell” which browsers will adopt. Google is in the early phases of implementing the Topics API, so other browsers likely won’t have had a chance to evaluate it. But, Chrome was the only browser to adopt its predecessor (FLoC), so it’s unlikely that Firefox, Safari, Edge or other browsers will adopt Google’s proposal this time either. “We’re sharing the explainer, which is the beginning of that process to discuss with other browsers their view on the Topics API, so time will tell,” Galbraith said. Why we care. Google is deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome sometime next year and now we have a better idea of what audience targeting options will be available. Prior to the Topics API, Google ran into a number of challenges with FLoC, including lack of adoption, industry pushback and regulatory issues. The company has likely addressed some of those challenges with this new proposal, but adoption among other browsers remains unlikely, which could impact how big of a user base advertisers are able to get in front of. For now, Google plans to keep to its timeline of having all of the Privacy Sandbox APIs available for adoption during Q4 2022, but it may update its Privacy Sandbox timeline if adjustments must be made. The post Google kills FLoC, introduces Topics API as its next-gen targeting tech appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3qYsOg4 |
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