Google’s Ads Data Hub helps advertisers do customized analyses for their business objectives while maintaining user privacy. Because marketers and measurement partners have different needs, Google has created two different solutions: Ads data Hub for Marketers and Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners. Ads Data Hub for MarketersThe Ads Data Hub for Marketers is a way for advertisers to analyze their data, get access to insights, and be better informed when they buy media. Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation. Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation (PAIR) is a solution that gives publishers and advertisers the option to securely and privately reconcile their first-party data for audiences who have visited both an advertiser’s and a publisher’s site. New query templates, automated workflows, and reporting updates will reduce the time needed to generate insights. With the implementation of PAIR, marketers will be able to activate their audience segments on new inventory, including YouTube. Ads Data Hub for Measurement PartnersThe Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners gives partners the ability to provide YouTube insights and measurement services on behalf of marketers, advertisers, agencies, or publishers. The launch of Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners means that it’ll be easier for partners to offer accurate measurements and deliver real-time insights. For marketers, it means they can work with independent, third-party partners to calculate and report on YouTube ad performance across devices, formats, and metrics. Additional informationGoogle offered the following information in addition to the recent announcement on the blog: The tailored experiences allow us to focus on expanding our current features for marketers who already use ADH to make the most of their first-party data and build audiences in a privacy-centric way, and focus on feature development that brings the most value to our Measurement Partners.
When Ads Data Hub was first launched, it supported mobile and desktop, but we’ve since introduced CTV measurement. It is now a holistic, cross-device measurement solution that allows for richer insights in a way that doesn’t sacrifice user privacy. Other key features for Ads Data Hub:
Why we care. Different measurement solutions will help advertisers and partners measure insights for YouTube and CTV campaigns to analyze the performance across multiple platforms, in real-time. The new privacy-centric measurement tools protect the data of users online while still providing advertisers, agencies, and partners with comprehensive analytics. The post Google introduces Ads Data Hub for Marketers and Measurement Partners appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/W3MlvdL
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In the history of Google page speed ranking algorithms, we had three different announcements. Most recently we had the page experience update from 2020 that uses core web vitals, in 2018 we had the Google page speed update, and then in 2010 we had the Google site speed update. Google only uses core web vitals. Google’s John Mueller confirmed on Twitter that Google now only uses the most recent update for page speed ranking, specifically the page experience update that measures page speed using core web vitals. John said “it’s all cwv [core web vitals] now” when asked about if the old page speed algorithms are used. Old page speed algorithms. John said “no,” to Google using the old 2010 and 2018 page speed algorithms. Why we care. Truth is, page speed as a ranking factor is super light and does not really make a huge difference for ranking purposes. But either way, it is good to know that Google no longer uses the old page speed algorithms, even though one might consider it obvious for Google not to have two or more competing algorithms. The post Google’s 2010 and 2018 page speed algorithms were replaced by core web vitals appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/ZCNWdF4 Google has just announced three new tools to measure cross-platform app conversions, strengthen performance with privacy-focused measurement, and adapt to iOS and Android standards. Cross-platform conversion measurement. Without cross-platform conversion tracking, google says advertisers will have measurement gaps and optimization limitations across web and app campaigns. To solve this issue, and help advertisers set up conversion tracking, Google is testing alpha testing Web to App Connect, a toolkit that guides advertisers through the process step by step. Deep linking. Google is also prioritizing a frictionless web-to-app experience through deep linking. Deep linking connects the mobile web experience to the company’s app to ensure a smoother, faster, checkout experience. Web to App Connect will be available in beta early next year. Privacy-focused measurement. Google Analytics for Firebase, Google’s privacy-forward measurement solution, provides advertisers with cross-platform measurement capabilities to understand how users engage with your app and optimize your App campaign attribution, reach and performance. Google says when you implement Analytics for Firebase you’ll unlock additional benefits such as audience management and tROAS bidding for app campaigns, and:
Adapting to shifts in platform standards on iOS and Android. Google is now supporting solutions that help advertisers navigate changes to rollout of the AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) framework on iOS, including the new version 4.0 updates to SKAdNetwork, Apple’s measurement API. Next year, Google will also release tools for advertisers using the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK, which streamline setting up SKAdNetwork conversion values and help better optimize their campaigns for in-app actions. Why we care. Measuring cross-device app conversions, enhancing reporting accuracy, and preserving privacy are essential for app advertisers to accurately optimize and scale campaigns in 2023 and beyond. Advertisers can start setting up SKAdNetwork conversion values themselves or work with a measurement partner. The post 3 new tools to measure Google app performance and privacy appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/KSZ0FJi It was a cold, dark night. At the end of the long path was an old, rundown mansion covered in cobwebs. Inside was a candle flickering next to the shadow of a person. You rub the frost off the stained-glass window on the doorstep, and there’s just enough light to see what the man inside is doing. He’s moving his body from side to side, chanting numbers – what could it be? Black magic? You put your ear to the window to find out what you can hear – and you can make out … something: “One, two, three, four paid links!” Alas – he’s not a sorcerer at all – but something even more chilling: A marketer performing the ancient practice of black hat SEO! Does this tale spook you as much as it does me? It’s almost 2023, and if you’re involved in buying links – or any of the 10 things I’m about to detail in this article – you won’t have a chance to compete in the search results. So without further ado, here are 10 spooky SEO practices to axe in 2023. 1. Not getting buy-in from the topYour company may say that you can “do SEO” without actually understanding what SEO means. Fast-forward to a few months down the road when you need to make big decisions about the site, and management is nowhere to be found. To be successful in SEO, you need commitment from the top. In addition, SEO needs to be thought of even when you, the marketer, are not in the room. Every decision on the website impacts SEO. When you have proper buy-in, you can solve so many other issues featured in this article. 2. Hiring people that know less about SEO than youYou’ve hired a big, brand-name agency because you heard they were the best. The company assigns an SEO professional with a fancy title to your account – what could go wrong? Except after only a few weeks, it is apparent that you know more than your SEO team does. And, with a little digging, you find that the person servicing your account has only a few years of SEO under their belt. This is a real phenomenon, folks. Make sure you research the people you hire before you sign that contract. Otherwise, your working relationship will not be fruitful. 3. Being sure you have a plan that will stick“Man plans, Google laughs.” OK, that isn’t quite how that old expression goes, but the reality is that the only thing constant in SEO is change. With Google making thousands of changes to search each year, and your competitors even more, how can you seriously plan for SEO six months from now? You do not have any knowledge about the changes you will encounter. So come to terms with the fact that a long-term SEO plan is worthless. What to do instead? Run in four-week sprints and re-evaluate what the website needs after each sprint. 4. Getting SEO advice and not implementing itIf you’ve invested time and money into hiring an SEO only to ignore their recommendations, then don’t be surprised by the results you don’t get. I understand. Sometimes it seems like an uphill battle to get things done. That is why having buy-in and a plan for how you will implement SEO strategies is the first step before engaging in SEO services. 5. Ignoring the hard changesWhen faced with business silos, competing priorities and a lack of resources, it may seem impossible to get the “hard” changes done to a website. Sometimes, they are partially or even poorly implemented to try and move the needle. The hard changes, though, are those changes that can make a fundamental difference to your SEO program. If the recommendation is to do them, make a case for getting them done and, if you need to, hire outside expertise to do them the right way. 6. Thinking any content is good contentIf you go to the heart of almost any Google algorithm update, you will find it centers on quality content. To succeed now and in the future, you need helpful content – expert, authoritative and trusted content. You must somehow stand out from the competition rather than regurgitate what everyone else is saying. Spinning others’ ideas equates to average content. And Google does not reward the average. 7. Thinking all keywords are equalInventing keywords does not mean that anyone would search for them. Thus they may get no traffic. That is just one point, but you must also consider that there are many keyword strategies, and they vary by industry. Matching your content to query intent can help you perform better in search – and is the key to being considered an expert and gaining ranking. And if it is not ranked, then the content is nearly worthless. 8. Not looking at PPC dataUnfortunately, PPC data is often ignored. And SEO and PPC teams often feel at odds with one another. Knowing what converts in PPC is a solid indication of the ROI for each keyword. Also, by studying the negative keywords in PPC that identify ambiguous keywords, the SEO sees issues that point to the need for schema. Bottom line: If certain keywords have a clear meaning and great conversion, then you may want them in your SEO program. 9. Buying linksBy now, we shouldn’t still be having the “paid links” conversation. Yet many websites still engage in this practice – unknowingly or knowingly. To be fair, link buying is not always a black-and-white issue; there are shades of gray. For example, if I pay someone to write an article and place it on another site, is that a paid link? Google thinks so. The remedy to paid links? Create things worth linking to and then let others know about them. 10. Not taking any SEO trainingHow will you have meaningful discussions with your SEO team if you don’t know what they are talking about? How will you get Bob in IT to actually make changes to the website if he has no SEO knowledge? It is so critical that in-house teams have a baseline understanding of SEO, as well as to keep up with emerging strategies. SEO training is an excellent way to get teams up-to-speed on SEO. This proactive step helps ensure you are making sound decisions and can keep things moving forward. Let go of these spooky SEO tacticsThese are spooky times and, unfortunately for many websites, scary SEO tactics still exist. Give the axe to the 10 items in this article and you will have a chance at competing in the search results in 2023. The post 10 spooky SEO tactics to axe in 2023 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/KrUeE5h Delivering an outstanding customer experience (CX) is no longer a function; failing to meet customer expectations can jeopardize business growth. A recent Qualtrics study found that bad experiences put a business at risk of losing an average of 9.5% of its revenue. But linking CX to business value and the bottom line is a challenge when siloed data and a lack of technology can’t deliver the multi-channel experience customers expect. In this episode of the Solution in Focus series, you’ll listen in as Allison Windon, senior vice president of strategy at Qualtrics, discuss how to elevate CX based on insights you generate from customers’ real-time journeys. You’ll also hear how to fully leverage Qualtrics solutions in your AWS Cloud. You’ll hear how Qualtrics helps you:
Increase customer lifetime value by understanding and improving loyalty behaviors that drive repeat purchases. The post Make business more human with Qualtrics solutions appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/BfsZbQ5 Microsoft Ads has just launched a solution within the Google Import tool to simplify duplicating your Performance Max campaigns across platforms. They’ve also started a pilot program for importing Performance max campaigns that aren’t using a Merchant Center. The new experience will import these campaigns as Search campaigns and create Dynamic Search Ads (DSA). Best practices. Microsoft outlines the following best practices for importing Performance Max campaigns using the Merchant Center. The following are best practices for importing Performance Max campaigns without Merchant Center. Use the Google Import Tool. You can access the Google Import Tool here. Dig deeper. Read the Microsoft blog announcement and access the setup checklist here. Why we care. The post Microsoft Performance Max import updates appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/YHqRaGh If you’re just getting started with Google Looker Studio, you’ve probably experienced blank-page syndrome. You get your data source connected, open up a new file, and you have no idea what to do next. There are no instructions. No guide rails. Just you and an empty page to fill. And while you can start with a template (Google Looker Studio Report Gallery has several), it’s still tough to know how to customize it to perfectly fit your needs. Here are some tried-and-true elements to include in PPC dashboards and reports that will banish blank-page syndrome and give your stakeholders the insights they crave. 1. Titles, subheads and contextWhen you add a chart in Google Looker Studio, you select the data source, dimensions, metrics and date range from the Data Panel to populate your visualization. But your reader doesn’t see the Data Panel and won’t know what your chart is about unless you take an extra step to include it in your dashboard. The two graphs below show identical data visualizations. Figure A includes only the chart, while Figure B includes written titles and context. Figure A leaves questions in your reader’s mind that Figure B answers. You can make your graphs and tables easier to understand at a glance with these tips:
How to do it:
It’s worth the small manual effort it takes to add a text box and include context! 2. KPI scorecardsYou don’t need an article to tell you that your dashboard should include your key performance indicators (KPIs). But while you’re planning out your dashboard, pay special attention to where to include them. Your KPIs matter most in your report and deserve top billing. That means showcasing your KPIs with scorecards like so: Not as afterthoughts at the end of a table: Not only do tables make it hard to identify KPIs, for languages that are read left to right, tucking KPIs on the far right of the table tells your reader these metrics are low priority. Keep your reader focused on your key growth metrics like lead volume, revenue, or return on ad spend (ROAS), rather than vanity and traffic metrics like impressions and clicks. How to do it:
Having KPIs appear in tables and other charts isn’t a problem, but give them added attention by using scorecards. 3. Goal pacingSome advertisers use fixed monthly or annual marketing budgets with no room for adjustments. Others have sales or efficiency goals they need to hit with flexible budgets. No matter what the approach, your dashboard should answer the question: Are we meeting our objectives, and how do we know? Account objectives aren’t standardized, and neither is the approach for including goal pacing in your dashboard. Fortunately, Looker Studio gives you many options for adding objectives and pacing, from literally charting against a goal to adding a written description of the target. Here are some examples of how you might anchor performance to a goal: How to do it:
Including goal pacing gives your reader confidence in how to interpret performance data. 4. Trends and historical comparisonsTrends and historical comparisons let your reader know if things are improving – or need improvement – over time. Maybe you fell short of the goal, but you always miss it because it’s unrealistic. Maybe you hit your goal, but you’re down compared to last year, and you need to take corrective action. Don’t make your reader wonder whether current performance is average, down or “best month ever.” Snapshot (single-metric) comparisonsTables and scorecards give you an easy way to show your reader how performance for this period compares to another, using color-coded arrows to indicate the direction of the change (delta). How to do it:
Line chartsYou can get a complete picture of performance trends using time series charts. Rather than just comparing this period to the last period, you’ve got an entire history revealing trends in seasonality, market impact and more. You can use a continuous Time series chart (shown above) or designate a comparison time period. Here’s how that same data looks as a Year over Year (YoY) Time series chart. Note that the comparison year will show as a lighter shade of this period’s line: Another way to show historical performance is with a line chart that uses a time period as a breakdown dimension. This Line chart is from a report comparing CPCs before and during the Covid-19 pandemic: How to do it:
A few important notes for trends and historical comparisons –
5. Categorical tablesOkay, so tables aren’t that glamorous. But if your Looker Studio dashboard doesn’t have a table, something’s probably missing. Why? Because there are times when your audience needs to compare multiple categories across multiple metrics. And nothing does that more efficiently than a table. Tables are great for comparing default categories like:
And depending on the complexity of your PPC dashboard, you can create tables for:
How to do it:
It’s easy to build tables and add metrics, and it’s easy to get carried away. Exercise some restraint and limit the number of metrics in your table, so it remains useful to your reader. Bonus: Shiny chartsOur list constrained us to five categories, but here’s one bonus for making it to the end: Shiny charts. What are shiny charts? Shiny charts are visualizations that your audience loves and gets excited about, even if they’re not super actionable. Your readers may not learn anything new, but they’ll feel like they learned something new. Maps are a great example. Many dataviz experts say not to use map charts; there are better ways to communicate location data. But try to find a client or stakeholder who doesn’t love to see performance data on a map. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Sure it’s a bit counterintuitive when you’re trying to build out an actionable dashboard. Maybe even a bit controversial. And you don’t have to do it. But a chart that makes your audience feel good just for seeing it has its own merit. Putting it all togetherWhile your Looker Studio dashboard can technically include whatever you want, it should at a minimum include:
These don’t need to (and can’t) all be discrete sections. One scorecard can include a title, KPI, pacing, and time comparison. There are many other charts and visualizations that can take your PPC dashboard from good to great. Getting started with this list will set you up for success and give you a dashboard worth the time it took to build. The post 5 things your Google Looker Studio PPC Dashboard must have appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2huezWK What is the greatest skill in SEO? If you believe this tweet, it’s patience. Although patience is a great answer, I would never say there is a “greatest” SEO skill. Why? Because SEO requires various hard skills (things you can learn or be taught) and soft skills (how you work and interact with others) to succeed. As I’ve always found, asking many SEO professionals one question will get a wide variety of opinions. So I asked several SEO professionals what they would consider the greatest skill in SEO. Here’s what they told me. 1. Research and troubleshootingDave Davies, Lead SEO, Weights & Biases
2. Critical thinkingDan Taylor, Head of Technical SEO, SALT.agency
John McAlpin, Director of SEO Strategy, Cardinal Digital Marketing
3. Problem-solvingElmer Boutin, VP of Operations, WrightIMC
Corey Morris, Chief Strategy Officer, Voltage
4. ExperimentingHimani Kankaria, Founder, Missive Digital
5. Business acumenTrond Lyngbø, Founder, Search Planet
Connie Chen, SEO Specialist, Moving Traffic Media
6. AdaptabilityMaria White, Head of SEO, Kurt Geiger
Holly Miller Anderson, Lead SEO Product Manager, Under Armour
7. CommunicationCasey Markee, Owner, Media Wyse
8. Ability to learnChris Silver Smith, President, Argent Media
9. PersistenceLudwig Makhyan, Co-founder, MAZELESS
10. Cross-collaborationJon Clark, Managing Partner, Moving Traffic Media
11. Understanding the userMike Grehan, SVP of Corporate Communications, NP Digital
12. InquisitivenessMark Jackson, President and CEO, Vizion Interactive
13. Ability to know what mattersOlaf Kopp, Co-founder and Head of SEO, Aufgesang
Joe Devita, Managing Partner, Moving Traffic Media
The post 13 essential SEO skills you need to succeed appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/Dr6UZJX To succeed as a small or medium-sized business (SMB), employees must work smarter. Tight budgets and scrappy teams require innovation at every level — from the Founder and CMO, e-commerce Marketing Director to VP of Marketing, Social Media Director to Paid Search Strategist. This opportunity to bring creativity and agility to the table is one of the many reasons why employees find SMBs rewarding workplaces. Employees can help define the company vision. They can imagine ways to actualize this vision. And often, with SMBs, the product offering aligns with employee values and belief systems. But let’s face it. The job of a digital marketing decision-maker within an SMB can be challenging— from the long hours to shifting budget priorities. Some might say digital marketing for an SMB is just as hard as creating the company product, thanks to ever-changing platforms, resources, content demands, and time constraints. Getting seen by the right audience can be difficult. A challenging digital marketing worldTasked with a new campaign, the digital marketing lead faces questions on how to create, target and execute digital advertising: When do you launch a digital campaign? What platform do you advertise on? How do you reach your target audience? What do you even post? Digital marketers understand online advertising is key to amplifying their brand, but often they’re not clear where to begin; SMB advertising starts to feel like a ball-and-chain. Rapid changes in the advertising industry also contribute to marketer overwhelm. Consumer behaviors and demands for privacy are forcing brands to adapt how they reach and best serve people’s needs. While the digital marketing space can feel overwhelming, now is a crucial time for marketers to forge deeper relationships with people. “You need to continually create and revamp the things that work, staying timely. It never ends. We have to keep tweaking our graphics to make sure they’re going to catch attention. It’s not like back in the day when you could run an ad in a newspaper and that same ad was going to run for six weeks, and you were done with it. You constantly have to make content to stay top-of-mind.“ To help accelerate SMB growth, Microsoft developed a quantitative and qualitative research program to better understand how SMBs manage their digital marketing today and to identify the pain points digital marketing leads face. Advertising decision makers of companies with less than 200 employees participated in a 15-minute survey to understand their needs and top pain points within the digital advertising landscape. Microsoft later conducted qualitative interviews to dig deeper into SMB needs. Most respondents noted they had few internal resources to support their efforts and often relied on agencies or freelancers for support (typically for content production or digital campaign management and optimization). Four universal digital marketing pain pointsThe SMB founders and employees surveyed had different marketing POVs and experienced challenges unique to their roles. Some respondents were big-picture thinkers struggling to keep up with the ever-changing digital landscape, while others valued flexibility, optimization and results but had a tough time justifying marketing dollars spent. Many focused outward, eager to explore new ways to become and stay relevant on emerging social platforms like TikTok, while other leaders spent a large amount of time inside marketing brainstorming sessions, developing strategy with their team. Although the findings were as diverse (and interesting) as the businesses surveyed, four clear SMB challenges emerged as shared frustrations: content creation, time and resource constraints, platform fragmentation, and evaluating ROI/ROAS. Read on for details about shared SMB marketer pain points. Content creationA shared frustration with SMB respondents was the volume and type of content deliverables required per campaign — and the reality that content takes time and effort to create. Many people and review cycles are necessary to strategize, envision, develop, write, design, update and optimize a successful digital marketing campaign. This constant demand for content tests SMBs’ bandwidth to fully execute the planned marketing vision. “Coming up with the right content and being able to put that content together…that’s driving everything these days. Having the right content and current content. For me, it’s a resource thing, I don’t have the resources to generate content in a timely manner. Keeping it fresh.“ Time and resource constraintsThe list of tasks for digital advertising marketers is extensive — from determining the marketing budget to developing and distributing content, managing digital campaigns, to analyzing and optimizing marketing efforts…and everything in between. Marketers have much to do but little time or resources to get the work done. The study shows that, out of necessity, SMB digital marketers are forced to either become marketing “Jacks and Jills of all trades” or are left scrambling to find freelancers or agencies to get tasks accomplished. The result? Mixing varying resources produces varying results. “You spend a lot of time to do a quality check on content, because once it goes up there, it’s up there…Creating and monitoring content has been the thing that takes the most time because it’s only one piece of what I do here, and I’m the only person that’s doing it right now…it just takes time.“ Platform fragmentationThe stress of platform fragmentation is another shared SMB hurdle, as marketers face large quantities of information to learn, manage, and analyze. This is because digital marketers use many campaign and reporting platforms with unique algorithms and ad formats. Plus, these platforms and tools are continuously evolving. Digital advertising leaders experience overwhelm, not only with the many CMS platforms, reporting tools and analytic insights available but also with feature updates within each tool. Forced to keep up with platforms and upgrades, marketers experience pressure to hire more people to diversify the learning load. “Algorithms change all the time. You have to be specialized in digital marketing to understand everything. My marketing department also works in shopper marketing and trade marketing. The amount of specialization that we can get to a degree is limited.“ Evaluating ROI/ROASEvaluating a campaign’s return on investment (ROI) and return on ad spend (ROAS) has always been challenging — but respondents note that it is even harder to track conversions and gauge true campaign ROI/ROAS with recent privacy changes. Another shared challenge is the perceived lack of standardized metric consistency or transparency across platforms. When developing reports for executives, respondents are tasked with piecing together multiple reports from different platforms to paint a clear picture of a campaign’s tangible return on investment. “I think conversions are really frustrating. Some of that is the iOS update stuff that happened recently…it’s not accurate because it’s not giving conversions from Facebook. I want to have a completely accurate ROI for digital campaigns, and I don’t feel I’m getting that.“ SMB digital advertising solutionsIn today’s digital space, businesses need smarter solutions to grow their business online and find new customers. SMBs are time-constrained and know every click matters. That is why Microsoft Advertising offers its newly redesigned Smart Campaigns experience to make online advertising easier and help small to medium-sized businesses reach more customers across leading advertising and social media platforms. Smart Campaigns empowers digital marketing leaders to easily reach high-value customers across the web who have higher buying power, spend more online, and are more likely to engage with ads. It’s easy to get started. Marketers set up ads in a matter of minutes while they watch in real-time as the platform intuitively improves the ad, measures its performance, and shows understandable results across platforms. A new feature within Smart Campaigns is Multi-platform. With Multi-platform, SMBs can expand their reach and maximize their investment by using one ad tool to target many channels like Google Ads, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Microsoft Advertising. Instead of creating ads on fragmented platforms to launch and monitor a campaign, SMBs can save time by running ads on multiple platforms in minutes. Smart Campaigns with Multi-platform is a new digital marketing ecosystem designed to eliminate SMB digital marketing pain points and connect marketers with people at the right moments across work and life. “Hearing that everything could be in one place and that you could manage it all on different platforms, that’s exciting and innovative…I would be very interested. Being able to log on and do everything and see everything in one spot would save me time. That would be amazing.” The post 4 digital marketing pain points SMBs face today appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/xBaGQ5y Performance Max is one of the biggest shifts to automation that we’ve seen from Google. How do we make it work this holiday shopping season? Ideally, you should’ve prepared everything in advance. Black Friday is in ~30 days! If you’re just starting now, you’re already behind. Below are some ways you can still get ahead. 1. Audience signalsThis is the most underrated part of Performance Max, but likely the most important. Google gives you the ability to input signals on who the system should target. Upload your customer and email lists, compile top keywords, use interests etc. We’ve found success with the following audience signals:
Tip: Use the Klaviyo and Google Ads integration. 2. Asset groupsWith PMax, it’s important not to shock the system by making drastic changes. It’s better to make smaller and more incremental changes. You can use these approaches:
If you’re creating a new asset group, do it within the same campaign so that the product-level historical performance will be utilized. Be patient and give it some time to collect data and ramp up. It can take time! Keep in mind: Creating new Performance Max campaigns for BFCM is not recommended because the learning period takes too long to ramp up. You’re best off adding new asset groups to existing Performance Max campaigns or layering on promotional assets with the current asset groups. 3. DatafeedThe datafeed is important all year round, but especially important now! Google Shopping and Performance Max do not allow you to target based on keywords. The system uses your product information to understand what search queries should show your ads. 4. Ad extensionsAd extensions (assets) are an easy way to launch promos without making campaign changes that can throw off the system. You can and should add promo extensions in two places:
In Google Merchant Center (GMC), you'll want to make sure you have Promotions enabled under Growth > Manage Programs. Once you have the option to create promos, go to Marketing > Promotions, then click the big blue button to submit your promotion info. Note: GMC promos are very finicky and subject to manual approval so make sure to set this up correctly. It's especially important to get the product selection right. (Step 2 below.) Give yourself time and submit all promos in advance, just in case. In Google Ads, promotion extensions (assets) can be added on the account level or campaign level. Just click the Assets tab and add new. 5. Bids and budgetGive the system space to perform but don't make super-drastic changes. We recommend increasing budgets and decreasing tROAS targets incrementally. Again, don't shock the system. Anytime you increase the budget, you force the system to find new audiences. It can take time for the algorithm to find a new audience that'll perform well. Also, keep in mind that as you increase your budget, you'll likely see your ad costs increase as well. 6. Smart Shopping styleYou can run Performance Max without any assets, only using your product datafeed. This forces the system to run in a similar manner to Smart Shopping with more placements available. This is a great way to capture high-intent traffic at scale. 7. Paid social styleAdditionally, you can run Performance Max without a datafeed which will exclude the Shopping placements and run display ads only. If you see success with Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, this can work very well for you. And make sure you've got the setup, reporting and optimization basics of PMax covered by reading the following articles:
The post How to make the most of Performance Max this holiday shopping season appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1uytNzb |
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