The Case of the $2,628 CPM

[00:00:00] 80s Monday March 11th, Today millions of dollars still going wasted on the web's worst

[00:00:07] ad placements. Pinterest's new filter could skyrocket engagement, why is Google showing

[00:00:13] your competitors on your ads and YouTube thumbnail advice from the world's most successful

[00:00:20] video producer? I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:27] Users are still funneling millions of dollars into clickbait sites, defying industry

[00:00:32] efforts to cut back on that kind of spending. This from a new report by Adelidics which

[00:00:37] found that inventory on so-called Made for Advertising websites continues to infiltrate

[00:00:43] the ad market. The investigation was prompted by a Fortune 500 companies request and it

[00:00:48] uncovered that it had inadvertently spent at least $10 million on MFA websites in

[00:00:55] the latter half of 2023 despite their efforts to avoid those. They also found that H&R

[00:01:01] Block delivered more than 2100 ads to a single user on an MFA site within just one hour

[00:01:10] and Comcast paid an astonishing $2,628 CPM to reach a single consumer on another MFA

[00:01:20] site. Adelidics findings highlight what major media buyers know is a widespread problem

[00:01:25] in implementing major ad companies and brands in the purchasing of MFA inventory, whether

[00:01:30] they mean to or not. The report follows the Association of National Advertisers' discovery

[00:01:36] last year that 15% of programmatic ad dollars end up on MFA websites totaling around $10

[00:01:44] billion. Efforts to address the issue have seen some ad tech vendors pledging to remove

[00:01:50] MFA inventory from their offerings, but recent analysis found that brands including

[00:01:54] Moulson, Koures and State Farm kept placing ads on those sites early this year. State

[00:02:00] Farm said that they do not endorse advertising on MFA saying it doesn't align with their

[00:02:05] brand guidelines. Some vendors like OpenX and Pubmatic have taken steps to limit MFA transactions

[00:02:11] with OpenX offering clients the option to just exclude that inventory entirely.

[00:02:22] Pinterest's search tool to filter by different body types and shapes has now rolled out

[00:02:26] in the US. This is a great feature, especially for brands that provide clothes for a variety

[00:02:30] of body types, though for now it's only available for women's clothes and wedding planning.

[00:02:36] The company says they'll add men's clothes later in the year. It can also remember preference.

[00:02:41] If someone filters their search results by a specific type, it will remember that for

[00:02:45] future searches. Pinterest says people who used the filters showed a 66% higher engagement

[00:02:51] rate per session. They have a patent on the tech which can identify various body types

[00:02:56] across the three and a half billion images on their platform. Pinterest has leaned hard

[00:03:01] into serving diverse people. Their filters include the ability to search by skin tone and

[00:03:07] hair styles.

[00:03:08] S-E roundtable is uncovered a slightly frustrating apparent addition to your Google business profile.

[00:03:18] In some cases, your profile will now also show ads for your competitors. This was spotted

[00:03:25] by a user named Anthony Higman who posted a screenshot on social media.

[00:03:30] Quoting him, quote, Google is now running local services ads for all of your competitors

[00:03:36] in your own Google business profile. This is active in all Google business profiles for

[00:03:41] lawyers. This legit is just a really, really awful thing to do to businesses. Unquote.

[00:03:49] S-E roundtable notes this has been seen before with Google local listings and branded knowledge

[00:03:53] panels and LSA messaging so far no response from Google.

[00:04:03] Google has launched a new open source marketing mix modeling tool called Meridian. Marketing

[00:04:09] mix modeling helps media buyers more accurately track how their ad campaigns perform across

[00:04:14] multiple channels. At best, it's an estimate, but the good models are at least reasonable

[00:04:20] at giving you enough feedback to show what direction to send your campaigns in.

[00:04:24] Quoting social media today, quote, through Meridian, Google will provide access to various

[00:04:29] data points, including YouTube, Reach and Frequency, and indexed Google query volume data

[00:04:34] while it will also provide educational resources and technical facts for troubleshooting. Google

[00:04:39] also notes that the Meridian methodology will be completely transparent. Quote, Meridian

[00:04:44] is designed to give the user control as any modeler is fully empowered to change the

[00:04:48] code and model parameters to meet their unique business needs. Think of Meridian as modeling

[00:04:54] clay, a starting point that allows users to iterate and develop further.

[00:04:59] Quote, you could provide you with more options for measuring campaign performance based on

[00:05:03] a more complex methodology that factors in a broader range of marketing data points.

[00:05:09] And given the shifts in data tracking, including the gradual phasing out of tracking cookies,

[00:05:14] there is a need for improved measurement options to ensure optimal performance ROI.

[00:05:25] Putting our podcast and newsletter together can get complicated. We had show notes in one place,

[00:05:30] interview coordination in another brainstorming somewhere else.

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[00:06:27] Today's episode is sponsored by Nerdwallets Smart Money Podcast.

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[00:07:08] Ask any YouTuber what the most important part of their whole setup is and chances are

[00:07:12] they'll tell you it's the thumbnail image. Some creators, like the wildly popular Mr. Beast,

[00:07:18] spend an enormous amount of energy on those up to $10,000 on a design and sometimes testing

[00:07:23] up to 20 variations of thumbnails for each video.

[00:07:27] Last week YouTube's creator channel did an interview with Chuck E. Applebee,

[00:07:30] the guy behind Mr. Beast's thumbnail designs. The full interview is about 45 minutes long.

[00:07:35] We have it linked in today's email newsletter, but here are the four key points.

[00:07:39] The first is about audience trust. If you consistently use click-badi thumbnails

[00:07:44] that don't accurately represent the content, over time people will learn that it's not worth the click.

[00:07:50] And it's not just delivering the promised content, you have to do it fast.

[00:07:54] Applebee says the design of your thumbnail should focus on what you'll deliver

[00:07:58] in the video's introduction rather than what most people do and visually promise a beginning.

[00:08:04] Second, and I know most of us know this consistency. If you look at Mr. Beast's thumbnails,

[00:08:09] they always have one element in them, him looking directly into the camera

[00:08:14] with some kind of emotional expression on his face, usually happiness but sometimes fear or boredom.

[00:08:20] Third, visual clarity. Your thumbnail has to communicate as much of the video's main point

[00:08:26] as possible, but without a ton of clutter.

[00:08:29] Quoting Applebee. Quote, when you design your thumbnail in Photoshop, for example,

[00:08:33] it's very big and it's the whole screen of your computer.

[00:08:36] But when it's actually on YouTube, it's much, much smaller.

[00:08:40] So you have to think about what does it look like when it's smaller

[00:08:43] and how is someone going to perceive this and how is someone going to read this thumbnail

[00:08:46] because all the small details you pay attention to when a large screen

[00:08:50] doesn't really help you as much when it's a smaller image.

[00:08:53] And finally something hopefully none of us need reminding about testing

[00:08:58] while not all of us will have 10 grand to throw at testing thumbnails.

[00:09:01] You should try at least a couple variations.

[00:09:03] Mr. Beast's team often tests 50 combinations of title and image,

[00:09:08] switching everything up from changing his shirt color to adding a logo to his shirt,

[00:09:12] moving where his face appears on the image, and so on.

[00:09:16] And finally for the Nerds Out There, Google will be changing

[00:09:22] one of the metrics in its core web vitals tomorrow.

[00:09:25] Core web vitals are a set of web measurements that Google wants people

[00:09:28] who run websites to improve things like how fast-to-page loads,

[00:09:32] how soon a user can interact with it and so on.

[00:09:35] So first input delay is going out and it will be replaced with interaction

[00:09:40] to next paint.

[00:09:42] That new metric will observe the latency of all click, tap and keyboard interactions

[00:09:46] at the page and will report the longest duration ignoring outliers.

[00:09:52] A low INP will mean the page is consistently able to respond

[00:09:56] to the vast majority of user interactions fairly quickly.

[00:10:01] So it's quite similar in fact to first input delay but just takes a few more

[00:10:05] interactions into account.

[00:10:07] Google has already added INP to its reporting and search console.

[00:10:11] Most experts say it should have no effect on your actual Google search ranking.

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[00:10:38] and to sign out.

[00:10:39] I'm Todd Maffin, thanks for listening.

[00:10:41] See you tomorrow.

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