Redefining the Marketing Industry's Most Important Metric

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[00:00:40] Test without cost and present your business to the world. shopify.de.try Simply enter shopify.de.try and start. Made for Germany, powered by Shopify. 80s Wednesday, November 22nd. Today is it time to completely redefine one of the most basic metrics in our industry?

[00:01:05] One consortium group of big players thinks so. Also, consumers don't want your AI. Behind the scenes at X's Ad Sales department and the bizarre livestream that sold millions with barely a word uttered. I'm Tod Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing.

[00:01:24] One of the benefits to being a subscriber to the premium version of this podcast is we go a lot more in depth into the digital ad platforms. Normally, you don't hear those here on the free feed, but every so often we run those columns here.

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[00:02:08] Few things in our industry scare me more than the phrase automatically created. It's not that the creation is troublesome, but it's often followed by a removal of your ability to manually create. Tech bros and platforms alike have gotten very, very drunk on the elixir known as AI

[00:02:27] and they're sharing their drinks with us even if we would really rather abstain. Over the past year, Google Ads has been rolling out automatically created assets, pieces of your ads that are automatically generated for you.

[00:02:41] Google says these ACAs are created using your own existing website and ad content. But of course advertisers don't always want AI to be generating their ad copy. We've been hearing reports that more automatically created assets are showing up in advertiser accounts automatically.

[00:02:58] So for more on this and whether humanity can possibly survive, we turn to our Google Ads correspondent Jill Sascon-Gales. Hello, Jill. Hey Todd. So what is, first of all, what is an automatically created asset?

[00:03:11] Well before I can explain an automatically created asset, it's important to define what an asset is in Google Ads. Oh good call. Because now that word is used to describe two quite different things.

[00:03:22] So an asset is a piece of an ad and an asset can be a headline or description, which are pieces of your responsive search ad or responsive display ad like the core meat and potatoes of the ad.

[00:03:34] But an asset is also what used to be called extensions, optional pieces that may or may not show with your ad. So there are a dozen different assets like site links, callouts, structured snippets, image, etc.

[00:03:49] So assets refers to the mandatory part of the ad, headlines and descriptions and images and video applicable. And then assets also refers to the optional add-ons to your ad. And so an automatically created asset is one of these assets that is automatically created by the Google Ads system.

[00:04:06] Whether it is those headlines and descriptions automatically generated using your website copy or existing ad copy or dynamic image assets created by pulling images from your website or now dynamic business name assets generated by using the verification you did on your Google Ads account, for example.

[00:04:27] And these are opt-in, right? Is Google going to automatically create assets without our consent? Yes. Most of them are opt-in, but there are some new ones that aren't... Oh, you sound very hesitant in that answer.

[00:04:42] There are some new ones that are now opt-out and those are the automatically created business name assets and automatically created business logo asset. I guess Google figured that those are so fundamental, your business name and your business logo

[00:04:58] because those are now showing next to most ads they never used to in Google Ads and now they are. That Google is trying to just automatically generate those. I imagine because most advertisers are not doing the simple thing to add to your business name and business logo.

[00:05:11] But at least for now, those are the only ones that you are automatically opted into. And it's actually very hard to opt out of them. I had to Google how to do it because I could not figure it out in the interface. It's very hidden.

[00:05:24] And we should say you worked for Google for six years, so if you can't figure it out, there's no hope for us. You have to go to assets and there are three dots on the side and you tap the three dots and then it brings you to...

[00:05:35] There's many steps. They don't want you to find it in my opinion. And they don't want us to find it because they believe that their automatically created assets, their machine learning based stuff will perform better than marketers using just our brains.

[00:05:52] Are they right generally speaking? I mean, do these machines... I know Performance Max started out slow but a lot of people, I would say probably most of the industry has accepted that Performance Max actually does more or less better than what we could do.

[00:06:08] Yeah, Google definitely wants to get to a place where everything is done by AI. You give the system your budget and your target ROAS or target CPA and your website or app and it goes from there. That is Google's ultimate goal with Google Ads.

[00:06:22] And they're definitely in my experience is mentality within Google that just AI is better. AI is better. That's not really questioned. At least in my time there, that was no question.

[00:06:32] Now from an asset perspective, most of these assets you still have to opt in to the automatically created ones. I mean, I would recommend advertisers test it right?

[00:06:41] There are chances that you could opt in and then you'll see all of a sudden there's some random page on your website you forgot was there that generates some weird assets. So of course wonky things can happen but I think it's worth testing.

[00:06:52] I think for the vast majority of smaller accounts and smaller business owners, it could potentially be better than things are going to come up with on their own. But if you are a PPC specialist or you have an in-house team or work at an agency,

[00:07:05] you're probably not going to love the automatically generated stuff so much more than your own. But test it, let the metrics show you not just click through rate but perform better but conversion rate will perform better. Everyone whose opinion I respect always has the same answer,

[00:07:19] the same one that you just gave which is the real solution here is to test. That is true, you definitely want to test this, it could be helpful and it all comes down to

[00:07:29] if your website has really great content, your automatically generated assets are going to be really great. So I've said this on the podcast of Fort Todd that the success with Google Ads really comes down to the success of your website.

[00:07:43] If your website performs well then using ad dollars to drive more people there or using tools in Google Ads to pull information from your website is going to work well for you. And if this doesn't work well for you, fine, you tested it.

[00:07:54] But also maybe that's a suggestion that you might want to work on your website. Copy your website imagery, etc. Quickly, while I have you, we're going into a very busy buying season, the season that I refer to as newsletter season because I suddenly get email newsletters

[00:08:10] from brands that I have completely forgotten I ever did business with and it's great, it lets me unsubscribe from them. Obviously Black Friday, Cyber Monday, judging from what you have seen out there in the Google ad marketplace and with your clients and with your students

[00:08:24] from what you've seen in the last couple of weeks, how do you think Black Friday, Cyber Monday will have shaped up this year for brands? How do I think it will have shaped up this year?

[00:08:34] Well, the clients I'm working with more closely and add accounts and see more close here, much kind of smaller businesses, not the kind of big behemoths doing the huge sales. And so what I can see from them is I have a few business owners I know

[00:08:47] who are actually testing either not doing a Black Friday deal for the first time or doing something really scaled back because they just cannot afford to offer some giant discount. So how that interacts with the ads and how that shakes out for them

[00:09:01] of course remains to be seen. But what I have been hearing from a variety of businesses over the last week or two is a drop in conversion rate, you know, people filling up their cards, waiting it out, seeing if that automated email comes to their inbox.

[00:09:14] So a lot of hope placed on the next couple of days to see what happens. But as we all know, as I feel like we say every year from the last couple of years, very uncertain times right now. So we'll see how it shakes out.

[00:09:27] Very much Jill. Thank you. See you in a couple of weeks. Yes, thank you. Jill Sasking Gales is our Google ads correspondent. You can learn more about her Google ads training program at our affiliate link at b.link slash g a training.

[00:09:45] What do we want better measurement standards? When do we want it? Hopefully like maybe around Q3 of next year if that's okay. All right, might not be the most compelling protest chance, but that's essentially what a group of platforms are calling for better

[00:09:59] measurement standards for ads that run within mobile apps. The coalition is made up of the analytics company apps flyer, along with TikTok, Snapchat and the gaming development platform unity. They want a more accurate way to measure how long ads are viewed within mobile apps.

[00:10:15] They also want a way to determine if ads are viewed for a longer period of time than what's required to be considered a view on different platforms. Much of this data was lost after Apple introduced more rigorous privacy controls

[00:10:29] in its smartphone operating system a couple of years ago, quoting marketingbrew.com's coverage of this today, quote, the proposed new metrics include an engaged view when someone watches a skippable video for a minimum amount of time or a video is completed in less than a

[00:10:44] determined number of seconds. The second metric is an engaged click when a user engages with an ad and isn't redirected to an app store or another app. An example could be an ad for a game demo unquote. We reported Monday that TikTok is rolling out something it calls

[00:11:00] the engaged view through attribution, which measures the conversions that take place after a user views an ad for six seconds or more but doesn't click. Then goes on to convert within the attribution window a maximum of seven days.

[00:11:15] Snapchat has a similar model, but considers a view happening at the two-second mark. Again, marketingbrew.com quote, instead of forcing partners to agree to a minimum standard, the hope is that the engagement based metrics will help offer more transparency to the ecosystem.

[00:11:30] Some of the details of the new standards, including the minimum amount of time for some videos to be viewed before being considered engaged views, will be determined in early 2024 unquote. What if it was all for nothing?

[00:11:48] What if all this talk about how consumers are excited to use artificial intelligence to help them shop or find different clothes to try on or different shades of nail polish? What if consumers actually don't want that AI?

[00:12:01] New research from CMS platform StoryBlock says 85% of the 1,000 global consumers they polled couldn't care less about using AI to help them decide on purchases. When asked if they'd be likely to buy something that AI recommended, only 17% said they would.

[00:12:18] 60% said it wouldn't make them more likely to buy anything. That said, the study doesn't account for the fact that much of the AI underpinning things like content recommendations or upsells or card abandonment offers don't specifically identify themselves as AI generated.

[00:12:34] So it's quite likely that consumers just wouldn't know. The study also probed the role of influencers in the marketing funnel and it showed that sector might be cooling a bit. 57% of consumers said a celebrity or influencer endorsement wouldn't make them more likely to buy something.

[00:12:51] Almost a quarter said it would actually make them less likely to buy. Let's be honest, retros can be boring. And if you're the organizer, you know it's more than just running a meeting. You have to synthesize and categorize themes, get the team involved,

[00:13:10] assign next steps, and make it all a fun safe space where teammates want to participate. Miro is the visual collaboration platform that helps you run effective, engaging, and actionable retrospectives. We use Miro at our agency to map out a client's messaging for our engagement team.

[00:13:28] That can be complicated. A lot of if-vents. But making it visual and sharing it directly with our client sped things way up. Plus, our side can share spitballing ideas with private mode. The client doesn't get to see our thoughts until we've decided on the approach.

[00:13:44] Whether you work on the marketing side or in product design, engineering, or UX, bring your team together on Miro. And your first three Miro boards are free when you sign up today at Miro.com. That's three free boards at Miro.com.

[00:14:19] Shopify is only available in your online shop. Without programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient design and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can sell and sell through Instagram, eBay, and Co. It was never easy to reach new target groups.

[00:14:37] Shopify offers a single, secure platform for all tools to build up your online business. You can test and present your business to the world. Shopify.de-try Simply enter shopify.de-try and start. Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify.

[00:15:17] What's interesting about the Miro board is that ad sales at X seem to be in a perpetual fire sale, with reps offering $200,000 of ad impressions for a $100,000 spend. Sounds like a great deal, but those are still impressions on a platform generally now considered no longer brand safe.

[00:15:37] Here's a bit of DigiDays interview with the agency executive. You always understand when working with social that it's a lot of user-generated content. That's always been part of the story when you've done brand safety guidelines for clients and things of that nature.

[00:15:50] But the narrative has really changed to people are afraid to be on the X platform. And these reps are calling and being like, we're still safe. A lack of trust has really been developed where you can't believe the things you're hearing from them anymore.

[00:16:05] Because the things that you're hearing from these reps are directly contradicting things that are happening in the news. On the other hand, it seems X's dire revenue problems are making their reps much more helpful.

[00:16:17] Quote, there's definitely a sign of desperation. You're seeing a lot more follow-up emails, offers and how can I get in front of you? Hey, do you want to do a lunch and learn? Hey, do you want to do a happy hour and meet?

[00:16:28] Where it was more you RFPing them. They're sending a lot of info themselves proactively. It's more them reaching out to you. Meta has some of the worst client reps I've ever seen in my life. Absolutely atrocious. We beg them for help.

[00:16:42] It's exactly the opposite with Twitter. It's like, hey, this is available. What do you need? Unquote. The full piece is definitely worth a read if you buy ads on social platforms, especially on Twitter.

[00:16:54] Look for the piece called Confessions of a Strategist on the strained relationship between X and agencies. We of course have a link in today's newsletter which you can sign up for free at todayindigital.com slash newsletter or by tapping the link in the show notes.

[00:17:08] It looks like Snapchat is following the trend laid out by X and Meta in selling an ad-free subscription plan. Looks like it'll be an add-on to their paid Snapchat Plus plan. I haven't seen any formal announcement on this,

[00:17:24] but there is now a help page up on their site saying, quote, the ad-free plan for Snapchat Plus lets you enjoy Snapchat Plus with no story or lens ads. You may still see sponsored my AI responses, unquote.

[00:17:37] It's apparently still rolling out, but if you have it and want it, you'll find it under your profile then under the Snapchat Plus banner card at the top. And finally, I have seen the future of live social commerce friends and it is depressing.

[00:17:58] This week, Vice News posted a video of a Chinese influencer doing a live shopping stream on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. So she's standing behind a table. Someone off-screen throws a box across the table.

[00:18:11] She holds up the clothing item in it for one second, says something, which I can only assume is like sweater or shoes, then literally throws the box and does it with the next one. 29. She is blasting through these at a rate of probably 40 products a minute.

[00:18:44] I have to say it's quite compelling to watch. Vice says the influencer made $13 million in just one week, so much so that Douyin introduced a new rule saying you have to at least give a little information about the products.

[00:19:00] If you want to live stream and sell on their platform, follow us on social media. We are almost everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads, Mastodon, Blue Sky, Post.News, Spotable, Snapchat and Pinterest. It's a long list.

[00:19:22] Go to todayanddigital.com slash social or tap the link in the show notes. Don't forget about our email newsletter. It comes out every day. It contains everything you hear in the podcast and more. Links to learn more about the stories that we cover, videos, charts, illustrations.

[00:19:37] You can sign up by tapping the link in the show notes or going to todayanddigital.com. It is American Thanksgiving tomorrow. No news ever breaks, so we are taking the day off. I'm Todd Mappin. Thanks for listening. See you on Friday.

[00:20:34] Bye.