Less than 24 hours after we learned about Meta’s smear campaign against rival social network TikTok, it has been confirmed that Facebook was showing harmful content to users over a period of six months. The failure was detailed in an internal document obtained by the Verge. It detailed a “massive ranking failure” where Facebook’s systems failed to suppress posts containing nudity, violence and propaganda from Russian state media. Why we care. Facebook wants to create a brand-safe environment. They’re failing. When Facebook allows ads to appear alongside the types of content it failed to downrank here, that’s incredibly troubling for brands and publishers. Facebook has a history of self-inflicted wounds, scandals and a lack of accountability when issues like these have been exposed and made headlines. To date, it hasn’t irreparably hurt them. The big question is how long brands will stop investing money in a platform that has shown great interest in taking their money but little interest in protecting them from being associated with such harmful content. What happened. Over a period of six months, due to a ranking bug, Facebook’s feed distributed an unknown amount of dubious content, including debunked misinformation, that it typically downranks. This helped increase views for this content by up to 30 percent globally, the Verge reported. Meta demotes several types of content – clickbait, engagement bait, and several types of low-quality content and spam. You can read the full list here. What Meta said. In a statement, Meta spokesperson Joe Osborne confirmed the company had detected inconsistencies in demoting posts on five occasions, starting in October, which correlated with small, temporary increases to internal metrics. The company blamed it on a software bug and have applied needed fixes March 11. Osborne said the bug did not have “any meaningful, long-term impact on our metrics.” The post Facebook confirms ‘massive ranking failure’ appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/479OYvW
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How paid search marketers can address brand measurement challenges and grow in their careers3/31/2022 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.” 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. Establish accurate data analytics systems“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.” 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 goalsInaccurate 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?” 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.” The post How paid search marketers can address brand measurement challenges and grow in their careers appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/O0JcrK4 Wondering how to make money as a freelance writer? Well, buckle up, because everyone loves the part of the hero’s... The post How to Make Money as a Freelance Writer: 15 Writing Business Essentials appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger https://ift.tt/n4xVeMy 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?
Together these technologies are aimed at helping limit the use of personal data while ensuring accuracy in reporting. 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. If you are interested in API access, Google has a developer guidance page here to help. 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. The post Google’s Privacy Sandbox ad technology testing begins appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/qDLY3O7 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. 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. The post Facebook ads ‘Interest Categories’ may be up to 33% inaccurate appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/cb8eTIy Google has announced two new features for US based and English language searchers, around helping those searchers evaluate information within Google Search and verify sources and claims of those listings. One is a feature to show a highly cited label in the Top Stories results and the other is improving the about this result feature for rapidly evolving topics. Highly cited label. Google will soon launch in the US English search results a new highly cited label that will appear on Top Stories within Google’s mobile search results. This label will help searchers identify stories that have been frequently cited by other news organizations. Google said this will help elevate original reporting that it first spoke about in 2019 as an area Google wanted to improve on. This label will give confidence to searchers that the story is cited by many other journalists and probably offers unique and valuable information that you can rely on. Google said this helps searchers find the “most helpful or relevant information for a news story.” A Google spokesperson told us this label is building on the search company’s efforts for the fact check explorer. How do you get this label? Google basically said it is about who is getting linked to across the web and which stories are the most cited. About this result for rapidly evolving topics. Google is also using the about this result feature to help communicate to searchers about the potential issues with search results related to a topic or breaking news story that is rapidly evolving. Google will show the notice that the search results for a query may be changing because the topic itself is rapidly evolving. This adds to the about this result feature for rapidly evolving topics where Google would show a notice that reads “it looks like these results are changing quickly.” Google then shows information on how to check the source of the result and also asks the searcher if they might want to come back later in a few hours as Google figures out what is best to rank for those queries. Here is a screenshot of this feature: Here Google is providing information literacy tips, along with a link to a new resource page with best practices for checking the credibility of information. Plus Google is reminding the searcher that you can check whether a source is trusted on a topic, or come back later when there’s more information available. Google has also expanded the information within the about this result feature with more details, here is a GIF of that in action: Why we care. Both of these labels and features may impact how your site is displayed in the Google search results. A story with a “highly cited label” most likely will generate a higher click through rate than a story without the label. Also, if you are covering breaking news on a topic, there is a chance you might get less traffic if Google shows this notice to searchers that they should come back later. The Google search interface changes can directly impact your site’s traffic, so keep an eye out for these features and how they may impact your site. The post Google launches new highly cited label in search and improved about results for rapidly evolving topics appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/vNEt580 Microsoft removed more than 3 billion ads in 2021. That is nearly double the number of bad ads Microsoft took down in 2020 (1.6 billion) and almost equal to the 3.1 billion ads Google blocked in 2020. What contributed to the significant growth of ad takedowns? Advancements in machine learning, multilingual models and human moderation, according to Microsoft’s 2021 Ads Safety Report. However, Microsoft noted ongoing and rising threats, including fake celebrity-endorsed investment ads and more sophisticated account takeover attempts. Billions of bad ads. Yes, billions. Here are some of the statistics Microsoft shared about its year of fighting low-quality ads, bad actors and scammers:
Microsoft also investigated about 70,000 complaints about ads that weren’t complying with its advertising policies in 2021. About 60 percent of those were found to be in violation. Trademark infringement was the most common type of complaint. Misleading investment scheme ads. The number of fake, celebrity-endorsed investment ads increased in 2021. Microsoft said it tried to catch and remove these ads in real-time. Microsoft suspended nearly 10,000 accounts and removed 200,000 ads promoting these schemes. More sophisticated account takeovers. A top threat to Microsoft’s advertisers in 2021: bad actors using techniques to get past multi-factor authentication. To combat this, Microsoft said it “made use of advertisers’ behavioral identity signals to detect such scenarios and protect our customers. We then shared best practices with our advertisers to help them not fall prey to new tactics.” Why we care. Safety is crucial for advertisers and the audiences we want to reach. Search marketing fails when people lose trust in search engines because ads turn out to be scams or of low quality. It’s good to know that Microsoft’s mix of technology and processes is working – but new and old types of threats and attacks will continue to be a reality in 2022 for advertisers. Stay vigilant, my friends. The post Microsoft took down 3 billion ads in 2021 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/KIFPwy5 The post 202200331 SEL Brief appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/5BYv0yx Google has created a new Data Studio template. You can use Google’s Search traffic monitoring dashboard to quickly see if there are any significant changes to the performance of your most important pages and help uncover whether you may have any potential SEO issues. Google also announced that its Search Console connector now includes Discover and Google News traffic data. Google added similar data to the Search Console Search Analytics API in October. How to get the dashboard. You can access the dashboard here. Once you’ve set up the Search traffic monitoring dashboard, you can choose the date range (it’s the last 28 days by default). Then you filter your data by pages, types, countries and devices. How to set up the dashboard. It’s pretty straightforward. Navigate to Data Studio and create a Search Console data source. Choose the URL Impression table, which includes URL-level data for web, image, video, news, discover, and googleNews. The Property Parameter you choose will be your default in your report, but you can access the others via a filter. Google added a couple of “bonus” tips:
Why we care. This is another helpful Data Studio template from Google to visualize data as line charts, bar charts or tables. The addition of Discover and News traffic to the connector is also a welcome bonus. It’s critical to watch the metrics on your most important pages. This template should help make that task a bit easier. The post Google shares search traffic monitoring dashboard for Data Studio appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/kSdIEBV 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. “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. The post YouTube to drop Maximize Lift bidding appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/ozvWhnu |
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