In previous years, businesses small and large alike have hesitated integrating videos
into their ad campaigns because of both the idea that the campaigns are difficult to
set up and the cost of the campaigns themselves. However, with the shift in how
people use their devices, avoiding video in 2022 is a recipe for disaster. And the
majority of marketers understand that.

You can no longer afford to ignore one of the leading marketing platforms in the
world.

That’s why, we’ve put together this comprehensive guide, to show you exactly how to
advertise on YouTube and get started with your first ad campaign.

All you need is a targeted strategy and the right team, and you can easily capture the
perfect audience by creatively using YouTube video ads. They’re the perfect tool to get
your message to your audience (and get a buy-in) if you know the best practices to
develop your campaign.

The Best Creative Practices for advertising on YouTube in 2022

Simply, remember your A, B, C, & D’s. 

• A_Attract: Hook consumers’ attention and get them to tune in.
• B_Brand: Help consumers see/hear your brand and stand out from the wave of advertisers on the platform. 
• C_Connect: Make consumers think or feel something for your brand
• And lastly, D_Direct: Drive them to take action.

Attract

When trying to attract the right audience there are 4 key elements that matter from
the start of your ad: Framing, Pace, Humanization, and Surprise.

● Framing: Use tight framing on the subject whether it’s a product or a person.
“Focusing on people can increase a viewer’s expressiveness (i.e., an emotional
reaction, gauged by facial expression) as they see an ad. This increase in
expressiveness is tied to cross funnel campaign improvement.” (YouTube
Creative Practices 2022, Kantar)

● Pace: Aim for 2+ shots in the first 4 seconds, scene changes support
engagement if the rate of change is balanced with information load. Simple ads
with low information can have faster pacing than more complex ads with high
information.

● Humanization: People like people. Utilize them when creating your ad campaign
and include human subjects early on within the video.

● Surprise: Use stunning, delightful, unexpected or otherwise memorable
imagery. You want your graphics, text, and your transitions to engage the
viewer and keep their attention.

Brand

Naturally integrated products, logos and audio cues are particularly important
elements to land your brand with the viewers, you can do this by: Introducing,
Mentioning, Reinforcing, & Differentiating.

● Introduction: Introducing your product or brand in the first 3-5 seconds is
positively correlated within all brand metrics.

● Mention: Audio with mentions of your brand by people who are on screen are
associated with better results than audio mentions of people off-screen. This
reiterates one of our first points, humans like humans.

● Reinforce: Logo placement matters, and the most effective placement depends
on your marketing objective.

● Differentiate: Show visuals and colors unique to your brand. “Brand assets,
such as emblems, logos, spokespeople, characters, taglines, colors and jingles
are powerful drivers of brand associations and competitor differentiation.”
(YouTube Creative Practices 2022, NielsenNeuro)

Connect

Storytelling style, message, people and audio are key to keep people watching and
make them think or feel. This is integral to connecting with the viewer and the best
ways to do that are: Integrate, Engage, and Associate.

● Integrate: Use function and emotion as levers that work together or
independently to engage views. Functional storytelling works!

● Associate: Make people core to the story. People help hook viewers in ads
opening moments and facilitate connection. (Example: celebrities or people
‘like me’.)

● Engage: Lean into emotional levers like action, humor, or intrigue when it works
for your brand.

Direct

Audio and visuals are key elements to reinforce your message and encourage your
viewers to act, and you can use these effectively when you: Prompt, Inspire, and
Compel.

● Prompt: Show offers and call to action through text cards, simple animations
or voice overs.

● Inspire: Use offers that inspire a sense of urgency for example, a limited
timeframe or limited units available.

● Compel: Use specific call to action. Clear concise CTAs drive the most impact.

Lastly: Bring it all together!

Having the knowledge of the best practices is just the first step. You need the right
team behind you that is committed to the growth of your business individually. A
team that works with you to create ads that inspire action and compel consumers to
care about your brand. To find this, look no further than 565 Media. We help clients
achieve leaner growth, we are hands-on, agile & performance driven with a singular
goal to grow revenues cost-effectively.

The post YouTube Creative Best Practices first appeared on 565 Media.

When you think of the most powerful and profitable marketing channels, email probably comes
to mind first. And with good reason — it’s hard to find another channel that’s so scalable,
cost-effective, and targeted.

But without a great email marketing platform, managing these types of campaigns are about as
easy as pleasing a tired toddler, amirite?

There are a lot of email marketing tools out there that are fun, simple to use and grow your
business. But none of them are as powerful as Klaviyo. Klaviyo is a growth marketing platform
that gives businesses the power to grow faster with email marketing and automated messages
across multiple channels.

In this blog we’ll dig into some Klaviyo capabilities that help the best marketers create engaging
marketing campaigns that drive growth.

Marketing Automation: Price Drop Trigger

Klaviyo’s marketing automation, Price Drop Trigger, is ideal for ecommerce businesses (and
especially those with dynamic pricing strategies!) Easily set up automated emails to notify
specific customers about changes to an item’s price. And because these customers have
already purchased from you or browsed your website, they’re part of an audience that is already
high-intent — they’ve indicated their interest in the product already by either purchasing from
you or adding it to their cart. This means more sales for you, less time spent managing your
pricing strategy, and a better user experience overall for shoppers who won’t miss out on items
they’re interested in.

Shopify Check-out Opt-in

Customer engagement is essential for online businesses that want to thrive. The problem is that
it can be difficult to make your customers feel engaged – which is why having multiple
communications channels is recommended. You have a better chance of reaching them – and
inspiring engagement – if you’re using their preferred channel. And more and more customers
are preferring to opt-in to receive texts from brands they like. Klaviyo’s Shopify integration
makes this opt-in easy, by enabling merchants to automatically capture consent from customers
during checkout.

This integration follows all legal requirements for capturing consent, meaning you can start
sending text messages (SMS) right away. Texts have a high open rate, making them a powerful
tool in your marketing arsenal. You can use them to send order updates, promotions and sales
info, or price drops. But to do that, you have to get that consent first.

Utilizing Data and a NoSQL Database

An ecommerce platform collects a massive amount of visitor data. If you’re like most online
retailers, however, you’re not taking advantage of this information to improve your marketing
results. Klaviyo collects and organizes customer data so you can use it to target your marketing
campaigns more effectively. Unlike traditional relational databases, Klaviyo is a NoSQL
database, which handles data differently, processing data faster so marketers have better
information about their customers.

Understanding how your visitors experience your site is valuable information that helps you
better understand your audience. If someone has been browsing on your site for several hours
but hasn’t made a purchase yet, that’s very different from someone who drops off after only two
minutes. You should be targeting these two groups differently from a promotional perspective.

Key data points to track:
● Views of a specific product pages
● Return visitors
● Abandoned Cart rates
● Views of marketing messages, whether email or SMS

Automated SMS Campaigns (and when NOT to use them)

SMS is a marketing channel that marketers have only just begun using, but with high open rates
and most messages viewed within minutes of being sent, it’s clear that this is a valuable tool in
the marketer’s kit. With SMS, you’re not competing with other brands for attention because most
businesses haven’t yet adopted this strategy.

Automating SMS campaigns can help you triage customer communications so employees can
focus on genuine customer issues faster. Issues like customer surveys, review requests and
shipment tracking likely don’t need much human involvement, so those types of messages are
easy to automate. But being able to respond to a disgruntled customer within a couple of hours,
or even mere minutes, goes a long way to repairing the situation – and those interactions
shouldn’t be automated.

Coordinate SMS + Email Marketing Campaigns

Communicating with your audience through a combination of SMS and email is a great way to
boost your marketing ROI. Your audience is more likely to see your message, since you’re
sending it through multiple channels. This is especially true for SMS: the average text open rate
is 98%, while the average email open rate is roughly 20%.

When you use both SMS and email marketing, you can test which formats and messages work
best for your audience. Some audiences prefer one channel over another, but others will
respond well to both.

The marketing messaging shouldn’t be exactly the same though. Texts should be short with only
one call-to-action (CTA), while emails can be longer and include multiple CTAs. Texts can work
extremely well for price decreases or limited-time-only promotions, while emails are better for
sharing your latest blog post, lookbook, or new brand collaborations.

3 Klaviyo Workflows to Use Right Now to Increase Engagement (and Revenue!)

Email marketing campaigns can be useful for a wide variety of communication needs – but
manually managing those campaigns is a chore. These three automated workflows will help to
address potential gaps in your sales funnel, build stronger customer relationships, or recapture
interest.

● Back in Stock
Automatically sends an email to customers who have signed up for product notifications
when an item has been restocked.

● Thank You
Let new and returning customers know you appreciate their business with a customized
thank you email.

● Abandoned Browsing
An abandoned browsing email flow can capture customers that may not be ready to buy they didn’t put any items in their cart – but they have shown interest by viewing one or
more product pages. These emails should share additional benefits of the product or
recommend similar products.

Conclusion

Marketing with Klaviyo allows marketers to create a data-driven marketing strategy that will
deliver more effective, targeted outreach. The platform is all about connecting you to the right
customers, making it the perfect tool for digital marketing.

Need some help setting up email and SMS campaigns that deliver measurable results? Contact
the team at 565media.com.

The post Email & SMS Marketing with Klaviyo first appeared on 565 Media.

It’s increasingly becoming a platform to help skyrocket a brand’s social media presence,
and in turn, their profit. And it can all be done with only one viral video. So, you know you
should advertise on TikTok, but how do you succeed? Should you mass-post? What
format should you use? How long should my ad be? Is there a right song or a wrong
hashtag? In this article, we will cover the best practices to be successful, not only by the
benchmarks set by the platform but by the community itself.

So, what should I do?

In 2021, TikTok introduced some of the best creative practices and what each of their
top-performing ads has in common. The most of which is using it’s own video creation
tool. This can be used within the app itself and has a plethora of creative filters, trending
sounds, and engaging options for call to actions, all right there at the tap of a finger. The
use of the video creation tool can ease the creative process as well as help your business
look native to the platform itself. This is a key component when creating ads for TikTok.
But what are the other practices? We’re going to break down what exactly those are, what
they mean, and how you can utilize these practices to exponentially grow your business.
Here are some best practices marketers and content creators on TikTok need to follow:

1. Vertical Videos are a must. TikTok is an app that prioritizes vertical 16×9 videos,
   what does this mean for you? That you should do the same. When creating an ad
   for the platform, think natively. This means your video should be produced
   vertically while encompassing the full screen. “Video orientation matters as well.
   The vast majority of TikTok videos are shot in vertical format which means TikTok
   users aren’t expecting to have to rotate their screen to watch the next video on
   their For You Page. Videos shot in vertical format see a 40.1% lift in impressions
   compared to videos using a square or horizontal aspect ratio.” (TikTok Creative Best
   Practices)

2. Make the video lengths impactful, not long. Ultimately, the length of your
   TikToks should make sense for the message you’re trying to get across, but overall
   shorter videos perform better. It only takes a moment for a user to swipe away to
   consume the next video. Because of this, it’s important to have an engaging start
   to your video, while producing an effective call to action, rather quickly before your
   viewer can move on to the next viral video.

3. Don’t forget the music! If you’re unaware, TikTok actually originally was called
   Musically, an app kids used to make dance videos (sound familiar?) to different
   trending songs. While the name has changed, and there’s far more content on the
   platform now, some things never change – and that’s the importance of music in
   your videos. Including sound – a music track, voiceover, or just you talking to the
   camera – in your TikToks is more than a best practice; it’s a must-have for this
   sound-on environment. Adding audio of any kind causes a significant lift in
   impressions compared to videos without audio, and more than 93% of
   top-performing videos use audio.

4. High res videos? Yes please. Quality matters – don’t let grainy videos prevent
   your message from getting through. There are a plethora of videos that have gone
   viral on TikTok solely because of the quality the video was shot in. What does that
   tell you as far as ads go? Your message is more likely to be retained if the quality
   of the video is the best that it can be. “The overwhelming majority of
   top-performing TikToks, 83.2% to be specific, have a video resolution of 720p or
   higher. These videos see an average 5.4% lift in impressions.” (Best Practices)

5. What’s trending? Use it to your advantage. TikTok trends, whether it’s a
   trending sound, a dance, or a video concept, have historically been the reason
   businesses have gone viral using the platform. But how do you know what exactly
   is trending? Use the platform! Become your audience (if possible) and engage with
   the community that you’re trying to reach. Take Duolingo, for example. Their social
   media presence on TikTok alone has created an environment for their ads to be
   consumed in a way that never have before, all because they’ve taken to the trend
   of commenting on everything.

I know what to do, but how do I do it?

Well, that’s where experts come in. It’s important to have a marketing firm that will stand
behind you, explain the trends, and create concepts that are unique to your brand and
your message. To find this, look no further than 565 Media. We help clients achieve leaner
growth, we are hands-on, agile & performance driven with a singular goal to grow
revenues cost-effectively.

The post Tik-Tok 2022 Best Practices first appeared on 565 Media.

Why is TikTok such a valuable platform for marketers?

Over 800 million people use TikTok every month, making it the world’s fastest growing social
media platform. And about 70% of TikTok users are between the ages of 16 and 24. If that’s
your target demographic, running advertising and influencer marketing campaigns on this social
network are a no-brainer.

With an ads platform that’s still relatively young, much of the content is user-created and the
costs are still lower compared to Facebook or Google ad buys. Businesses can take advantage
of a lower barrier to entry – on both basic ad cost and video-production cost. On the flip side,
you’ll need to get creative to get the most out of your ad spend.

Before diving in and setting up your first TikTok campaign, there are a few additional
considerations to make. Any ad campaign is an investment, so make sure you’re going to get an
ROI before you get started.

Here’s what you need to know before you start an advertising campaign on TikTok.

Is your product or service the right fit for TikTok Ads?

Not all brands are going to be the best fit here. Businesses that are highly visual – fashion, food,
lifestyle and beauty brands, for example – usually perform better than B2B brands, which usually
have sales content that is far more complicated or text-heavy.

But that doesn’t mean that B2B companies can’t win here. To succeed with TikTok, regardless of
industry, you need to create a highly creative campaign that will appeal to users’ emotions and
sense of humor. Tap into what they’re already interested in – like pets, food or tech.

Even industries that are typically viewed as ‘less-than-flashy’, like banking or insurance or
enterprise software, have an opportunity to reframe their products and services in a way that’s
fun and unexpected.

TikTok rewards creative content

TikTok is growing so fast because it’s doing something different from other social media
platforms. It encourages people to express themselves in a more authentic, in-the-moment way.
People who watch these videos are more inclined to share them with others, making TikTok the
perfect tool for marketing your products and services.

The challenge is that TikTok is incredibly noisy, with hundreds of millions of videos being
uploaded every day. To stand out, you need to find a way to make your ads creative and
entertaining, so that they can grab people’s attention.
Here are some ways you can do this:

● Defy expectations. What do consumers think they know about your industry? How can
you present your business in a way that flips that on its head?

● Go niche. Don’t try to appeal to everyone – narrow down your audience and look for a
specific niche of users you want to reach. For example, you might want to target only
teenagers who live in a specific country or city. The ability to micro-target users can help
you to find an audience that is much more receptive to your message and brand.

● Go off-topic. Don’t limit your creativity to topics within your particular industry. Have fun
with memes, holidays, your teams’ interests. Show the faces behind the brand and
connect with a new audience in a meaningful way – even if it’s silly.

Influencer/Brand Takeover collaborations

Influencers can help get the word out about your brand on TikTok and increase its visibility in the
process. Be strategic with how you approach these influencers, though. Many of them have
strict guidelines that they require their sponsors to follow. Be sure to read over these guidelines
before contacting them with your proposal so that you can avoid any hiccups.

There can be huge benefits to pursuing these types of campaign collaborations. You’ll be
introduced to their audience – but you’ll also earn ‘trust through association’. By aligning your
brand with an influencer, they’re telling their audiences that your product or service is worth their
time and money.

Influencer campaigns can fast track your brand awareness, but it’s smart to experiment with
TikTok before diving into one. First, gain a clear idea of who your audience is, what content
they’re already engaging with and who they trust.

Track Success with your TiKTok Ads Campaign

Know your campaign goals before getting started. Whether you want to increase brand
awareness or drive new sales, tracking ad performance is an important piece of the puzzle. By
regularly checking in with your metrics, you’ll know when something isn’t working and adjust
accordingly.

Does video production quality matter?

This is one area of video campaigns that scare off a lot of would-be marketers. Historically,
video production has been an expensive endeavor requiring the hiring of a full crew and hours
invested in production and editing. Without deep pockets, it can be difficult – even impossible –
for small businesses and start-ups to adopt video in their marketing efforts.

The good news is that money is no longer a barrier to entry. In fact, the more Hollywood-quality
your ad is, the less likely it will be viewed as authentic. TikTok is about sharing your experiences
in a fun and light-hearted way – and the vast majority of content is filmed on a smartphone.

That said, you don’t have to make a video yourself — there are social marketing agencies that
specialize in creating TikTok ads.

Know your TikTok ad types

There are several different types of TikTok ads, each with their own pros and cons. For today,
we’ll focus on three of the most popular for businesses – TikTok’s In-Feed Ads, Top View Ads
and Spark Ads.

● In-Feed Ads
Shown inside the user’s ‘For You’ page, In-Feed ads blend into the user’s existing feed.
They’ll be seeing your ad while scrolling between videos from the accounts they already
follow. In-feed ads are excellent for engagement, since users can interact, comment and
share your ads with their followers.

● Top View Ads
A Top View ad is a branded 60-second vertical video spot — similar to Snapchat’s
Discovery format — that users see when they open the app. This type of ad will appear
at the top of your audience’s For You feed to grab their attention right away, but it will
only play sound if they tap on it.

● Spark Ads
Spark Ads offer marketers the ability to use organic posts or a TikTok creator’s organic
posts to drive greater brand awareness and engagement. This is an ideal choice if you
already have a library of existing content. (Because this ad format relies on content that’s
already created, it’s easier and faster to kick off a campaign.) Like other ad types, Spark
Ads drive excellent engagement, allowing users to comment, share and like posts. With
one tap, users can visit a brand’s profile, and marketers can include a CTA on their post
to drive conversions.

Overall, the best way to make TikTok ads work for your business is to plan carefully and to
create a clear strategy around your campaign. We believe that running a TikTok ad campaign
can be useful for businesses in achieving their goals – if it’s applied correctly. From minding the
ad format options, to providing high quality images and videos (and actually interacting with
users), a little forethought, creativity, and intentionality can go a long way. And hopefully, if you
decide TikTok is right for you, it can go even further.

The post How to Make TikTok Ads Work for Your Business first appeared on 565 Media.

As the Delta variant of the Coronavirus reinforces those consumer behaviors of staying at home, online shopping and generally avoiding public spaces, we can expect to see the trends experienced in 2020 continue into the 2021 holiday season. And because online businesses and retailers have now had a year’s worth of experience under their belts, we further expect to see more advanced marketing techniques to capitalize on these demands.

In this article, we’ll explore the consumer trends for the holiday season from 2020, make some predictions for shopping behavior in 2021, and review the most important things to keep in mind when creating a marketing plan for the upcoming holiday season.

2020 Holiday Season Was Huge for Ecommerce

Source: Salesforce

The holiday shopping season in 2020 experienced an unexpected increase in overall sales. Despite some statewide shutdowns and health considerations dampening the public’s eagerness to go shopping in person, total spending in the retail sector was up 6.5% during the holiday season to $1.064 trillion.

Of that total, brick-and-mortar sales grew 2.2% to $878.26 billion, while ecommerce sales increased from 32.5% to $185.88 billion. That paints a pretty clear picture of what shopping trends to expect in the future, especially if statewide shutdowns and mask mandates continue to be commonplace.

“In 2020, global holiday digital sales topped $1.1 trillion. 45% of all digital holiday spend happened by the end of Cyber Week.” 

Source: Insider Intelligence

2021 Is Predicted To Be Even Bigger

According to a study by Intelligence Insider, the market forces that shaped the 2020 holiday shopping behaviors are expected to continue into 2021. Brick-and-mortar stores may continue to grow at a slow pace, but consumers are expected to further push online sales to new heights in the upcoming holiday season. 

“We expect 2021 holiday retail sales to rise 2.7% to $1.093 trillion, with brick-and-mortar increasing 0.9% to $885.99 billion and ecommerce climbing 11.3% to $206.88 billion.”

We would also expect to see a continuation of consumer behaviors that emphasize curbside pick-up or ship to store services.

Source: Insider Intelligence

Shifting Consumer Behaviors

According to a survey by Google, there is a strong desire to head back in-store this year. 85% of holiday shoppers indicate that they plan to return to brick-and-mortar stores in some way. And yet, despite this reported desire for physical locations, 58% of holiday shoppers report that they plan on doing more online shopping than in previous years.

What does this mean? There’s a growing desire to go back to the way things were before the pandemic, but consumers are still likely to increase their online holiday shopping behavior. The convenience of ecommerce shopping appears to be driving more marketing growth.

How to Prepare Your Marketing for the Holiday Season

Mark Key Dates In Your Marketing Calendar

Make sure that your marketing portfolio is prepped and ready to capitalize on spikes in consumer interest. Flash sales, email marketing, affiliate coupons, social media promotions, etc. Your announcements and marketing language should be prepped and ready to go for the following dates:

November:

Diwali (11/4)

Singles’ Day (11/11)

Thanksgiving (11/25)

Black Friday (11/26)

Small Business Saturday (11/27)

Hanukkah (11/28 – 12/6)

Cyber Monday (11/29)

December:

Last shipping day (12/21-12/22)

Christmas (12/25)

Kwanzaa (12/26 – 1/1)

Boxing Day / Post-season (12/26-12/31)

January:

New Years’ Day (1/1)

January sales (1/1-1/31)

Budget Time and Money for the Holidays

It’s standard practice among retailers and online advertisers to plan ahead for a spike in Q4 spending. But when and how much of that marketing budget to prepare for is the question. 

According to Google, 45% of all digital holiday spending happened by the end of Cyber week. So we recommend that your online marketing budget focuses a proportional amount, (with at least 30% headroom), for the weeks leading up to the end of November. For big events like Black Friday and Cyber Week, we suggest a short, sudden burst of spending on search, shopping and display ads around 500% your normal spending levels.

In Nov-Dec 2020, global digital revenue from e-commerce saw a year-over-year growth of over 50%. And that trend is expected to continue upwards for 2021. We recommend taking a look at your business’ historical spending levels for the holiday season from past years, and extrapolating the expected growth in demand, structuring your marketing budget to anticipate these spikes in shopping behavior.

Google’s Recommendations for Holiday Advertising

Audit Your Website’s Performance Tracking

Before making any changes to your budgets or capitalizing on the expected increase in holiday shopping, we recommend performing a quick audit of your performance tracking settings. This will make sure that the performance data that your marketing mix relies on is as precise as possible.

• Assign conversion value to all conversions – For e-commerce businesses, make sure that your data layers are functioning correctly and display the correct conversion value for any individual product sale. For online businesses that rely on more nebulous conversions such as contact form submissions or calls to the office, refer to this guide on estimating conversion values. With a specified conversion value for every goal, your online advertising can take advantage of smart bidding strategies and optimize your marketing budget.
• Remove old goal conversions – Many Google Ads accounts that have been active for a few years will start to build up a large list of tracked goal conversions. Even if your campaigns do not include some of these conversions as goals, they may still confuse the machine learning algorithms for Smart Bidding strategies. Consider removing any goal conversions that are outdated or irrelevant for your active campaigns.
• Implement Google Analytics 4 – As of Q3 2021, Google is still beta testing the next generation of GA, called Google Analytics 4. This will eventually become the standard for web analytics, and looking into the future, historical data will be essential to optimizing your website and marketing in 2022. You can add GA4 to a site that already has Analytics to continue tracking your current performance while collecting next gen data in the meantime.

Google Merchant Center Settings

If your business runs on e-commerce, or your Google Ads accounts rely on Shopping or Product Search ads, it is absolutely essential to make sure that your Google Merchant Center settings are up to date and optimized for success.

• Diagnostics – In your Merchant Center account, check the “Diagnostics” section to troubleshoot any account issues, feed issues or item issues. Google provides individual errors and warnings that may be causing issues with how your product feed appears in the search results. Keep in mind that it takes up to 2 business days for any new product feed updates to be reviewed, so your Shopping campaigns won’t see any instant fixes.
• Activate your Shopping Campaigns – In order for your products to be featured in a Shopping campaign, each product needs to meet the following criteria: The product is approved in your Merchant Center account, the product is active, and the product is in stock. Make sure that you take time to revisit and improve your titles, description, and product images to reflect any seasonal products or offerings. For out of stock products, use the excluded_destination attribute to temporarily opt items out of paid listings

Google Ads Settings

• Stress test smart bidding – In testing, more data means more confidence. And Google Ads smart bidding technology relies on account history, so we recommend taking a closer look at campaigns that have good historical performance data. Try running an experimental split at 50% with a significantly higher budget, and then comparing the results. The Drafts and experiments will alert you when a test has reached statistical significance. 
• Setup Google Ads Tag – Google Ads allows advertisers to import goal conversions from either a Google Analytics tag or a Google Ads tag. There are pros and cons to each, but for e-commerce businesses especially, the Google Ads tag is recommended because it provides more up to date performance data and better attribution settings. 
  • If your account currently uses Google Analytics tags for tracking conversions, consider switching over. Add the Google Ads tags for your most important goal conversions, allow them to run simultaneously (set to “Do not include as conversions” in the settings), and then after about 200 conversions on the new tags, switch the Google Ads tags to be included as conversions, and the Google Analytics tags to not be included as conversions.

Meet demand with Search & Smart Shopping Ads

According to Google, total search traffic increased during the 2020 holiday season. We expect to see the same in 2021. When using Search and Shopping ads in your marketing mix, it is important to focus on which user searches are most relevant to your brand, and what types of ads are most likely to match the user intent behind each query.

• Shared budgets – In Google Ads, you can assign an average daily budget to each individual campaign, or use shared budgets to allocate budget across multiple campaigns. For holiday seasons especially, we’re likely to observe quick shifts in consumer behavior. Using shared budgets for Search allows advertisers to adjust quickly to shifts in demand.
• Predict competitive positioning – It won’t just be your business that increases their marketing budgets before the holidays. It is important to try to predict what your biggest competitors will do, and factor those predictions into your spending strategies. First, evaluate your impression share metrics for the previous year’s holiday period performance. Then check the auction insights report in Google Ads to consider your competitive positioning. Use these insights to ensure that your bidding strategies are optimized.
• Prepare for spikes in demand – The Google Performance Planner uses historical performance data to provide estimates for when the peak season occurs, and how much of your budget to put aside for each spike. Use this tool before the season starts to plan optimal budget and bid settings regularly throughout peak season.
• Use the best Smart Bidding strategies – It is important to make sure that each of your campaigns are running optimally before the holiday spending blitz happens. Depending on your business goals, there are a number of different Smart Bidding strategies to utilize. Check out our expert’s guide to Smart Bidding strategies for which ones work best. But if you are unsure of which will work best, consider running an A/B experiment beforehand to assess the performance of each.
• Segment your most important products for Smart Shopping campaigns – If you’re segmenting your Smart Shopping campaigns, use custom labels in your feed. For example, if you want to promote your holiday decorations at a lower target return on ad spend than the rest of your items, add a custom label to your feed and create a Smart Shopping campaign which includes those products. 

Acquire customers with Discovery Ads and Video Action Ads

Not all online shopping is done in the search results page. If you have reliable and accurate data on your target audience, consider using display and video ads to generate top-funnel interest.

• Discovery Ads – Reach up to 3 billion people as they explore their interests and search for inspiration across their favorite Google feeds (YouTube, Gmail, and Discovery). The 2021 season is the first to feature Discovery Ads, which showcase your brand or your products in a swipeable image carousel, and include additional information to drive action.
• Video Action Ads – Over 40% of global shoppers say they have purchased products they discovered on YouTube. Use Video Action campaigns to showcase your products, and help close the sale.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our Google Ads agency services at 565 Media? Have questions about search ads marketing or digital strategy in general? Don’t hesitate to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.

The post Google Ads: 2021 Holiday Planning Checklist first appeared on 565 Media.

What is Smart Bidding?

Smart Bidding is a series of automated bidding strategies available for advertisers on the Google Ads platform. According to Google, the strategies utilize machine-learning algorithms to help optimize performance for a selected goal. Advertisers can select bidding strategies that maximize conversions, optimize cost per acquisition, target a specific return-on-ad-spend, and more.

Advantages of Smart Bidding

• Utilizes true auction-time bidding – Google’s machine learning identifies users that are most likely to complete a target conversion and adjusts the bidding for every single auction to optimize your budget for that conversion.
• Wide range of contextual signals – Metrics such as time of day, device, operating system, location, language, demographics are cross-analyzed for richer user targeting.
• Advanced optimization capabilities – Google’s machine learning can result in more precise bids and optimize your campaigns beyond what’s possible with manual options.
• Saves time – With the right settings and strategy up front, advertisers can save hours (even days!) of manual bidding adjustments and PPC management.

Disadvantages of Smart Bidding

• Less Manual Control – Bidding adjustments based on device, time of day, demographics, etc. don’t have any effect when using smart bidding strategies. Even if you know your target audience well, you’ll have to let the algorithm learn that on its own.
• Long “Learning” Period – Smart bidding algorithms typically require about a week to complete the learning period, but this will vary depending on the available conversion data.
• Potential for Increased Costs – Google Ads runs on auctions for bidding. If more competitors begin relying on smart bidding to target the same user base, the automated bidding strategies will inflate the prices as they try to outbid each other.

Maximize Conversions Bidding Strategy

The Maximize Conversions bidding strategy allows advertisers to maximize the total number of conversions with their set daily budget. This strategy can be used for search ads, display ads, Discovery campaigns, and YouTube for Action ads.

This bidding strategy is best used when you have conversions that do not have a specific value or if you do not have a specific CPA or ROAS goal for your campaign. We recommend using this strategy if your campaign has a low conversion volume or if you have a limited budget and under 90% impression share. This strategy also allows you to identify a baseline for a Target CPA (tCPA) strategy in the future. 

Maximize Conversion Value Bidding Strategy

The Maximize Conversion Value bidding strategy allows advertisers to maximize the overall value of conversions with their set daily budget. This strategy can be used for search ads, display ads, Discovery campaigns, and YouTube for Action ads.

The bidding strategy is best used when you have specified and varying conversion values for all of your campaign goals, but do not have a specific CPA or ROAS target. This strategy is useful for ecommerce sites that may have very high or very low conversion values to consider, because the machine-learning algorithm will optimize for higher value conversions. This strategy also allows you to identify a baseline for a Target CPA (tCPA) strategy in the future. 

Target CPA Bidding Strategy

Target CPA Bidding, or tCPA, refers to “cost per acquisition” and allows advertisers to set an average target cost for each conversion that the campaign receives. This strategy can be used for either search ads or display ads. 

This bidding strategy only works if you have established a conversion value for each type of goal conversion that you are using in the campaign. We recommend using this strategy if you need to limit your ad spend for a specific CPA. This typically works best for businesses that rely on lead generation or for eCommerce businesses.

The strategy also only works if your conversion values are large enough to cover reach that target CPA. (That means setting a $0.01 Target CPA is unlikely to provide fruitful results.)

How do I calculate my Target CPA bid?

Finding the right initial target for your Target CPA settings is a tricky feat. A lower Target CPA will result in more conversions but more waste. A higher Target CPA will result in fewer conversions and better cost efficiency.

To calculate an initial Target CPA bid, you’ll need to factor in multiple considerations. How much average revenue is gained from a single conversion? How much does it cost to produce your product or service? What are the additional non-marketing costs involved? What is the gross profit and your desired net profit?

The basic equation should look something like this:

Average revenue – Costs of Production = Gross Profit

Gross Profit – Desired Net Profit = Target CPA

If your campaign has been running under a different bidding strategy for a while, Google will provide you with a recommended Target CPA to start with. 

As the smart bidding algorithm learns and optimizes over time, and the campaign is capable of matching your Target CPA, consider increasing your Target CPA by 15% every month until the campaign performance maxes out. If you run your campaign for a month and find that it isn’t able to match your Target CPA, consider reducing your Target CPA by 15% per month until the campaign performance is able to match it.

Another note: There are no conversion minimum thresholds that you will need to meet for this bidding strategy.

Target ROAS Bidding Strategy

Target ROAS Bidding refers to “return on ad spend” and allows advertisers to set a target percentage of conversion value over the amount spent on the ads. This strategy can only be used on search ads.

Similarly to the Target CPA strategy, this bidding strategy only works if you have established a conversion value for each type of goal conversion that you are using in the campaign. We recommend using this strategy if you are tracking multiple goal conversions at differing values, such as eCommerce businesses or businesses that offer different price plans for their services.

How do I calculate my Target ROAS?

To start using this bidding strategy, Google requires an initial Target ROAS. To calculate this value, divide your average conversion value by the average cost of your ad. For example, if you receive $1000 for $10 spent on search ads, your ROAS is 100.

If your campaign has been running under a different bidding strategy for a while, Google may provide you with a recommended Target ROAS or Target CPA to start with. 

After the smart bidding algorithm learns and optimizes over time, you may be in a situation where you are able to consistently reach a positive Target CPA or Target ROAS. From that point, if it makes sense for your business goals and you would like to scale those successes, consider incremental changes to your target. We recommend increasing your Target ROAS by 15% after each month that the campaign matches the target. Conversely, if that campaign is unable to meet your Target ROAS, consider reducing the limit by 15% each month until you find an equilibrium. 

You may have already guessed, but this strategy only works if your conversion values are large enough to cover your target ROAS. (That means setting a 10,000% Target ROAS is unlikely to be successful.)

Another note: In order to use the Target ROAS bidding strategy, Google requires at least 15 conversions per month. 

Other Considerations

The most important thing to consider when deciding on changing your target bids is your overall marketing goal. If you are looking for efficiency in your budget, Target ROAS will allow you to spend your ad budget effectively. However, this method does not necessarily work for businesses aimed at growth. If you are looking to grow your business, less “efficient” budgeting strategies like Maximize Conversions will allow you to reach a larger pool of potential customers.

Other Types of Bidding Strategies

Maximize Clicks

Maximize Clicks Bidding allows you to get as many clicks as possible with your daily budget. This functionality will set keyword bidding automatically to optimize the number of clicks that a campaign gets. This is useful if your campaign does not yet have defined conversions.

One of the drawbacks to this type of bidding strategy is that the Google algorithm does not necessarily know which keywords have the strongest conversion intent. So you may reduce your average CPC overall, but the quality of the leads will depend on your keyword curation abilities.

Target Impression Share

Target Impression Share Bidding allows you to set bids to show your ad at the top of the page. Using this functionality, you can set a percentage of how often you want your ads to appear at the top of the page. Google also allows advertisers to specify if they would like to target the very first spot or any ad positions at the top of the page. From there, the bidding strategy takes over and will charge you the minimum spend required to place your ads where you like.

This is not a smart bidding strategy, so many of the advantages and disadvantages listed above will not apply to Target Impression Share.

When using the Target Impression Share bidding strategy, you will be able to specify where on the search results page your ads will appear –anywhere on the first page, anywhere at the top of the page, or only in the top placement.

From there, you can specify how often you want your ads to appear in that position. The ability of your campaign to match this number will depend on the keywords that you are targeting and your daily spending limit. 

You can also specify the maximum amount that you are willing to bid on any individual auction. This will help limit situations where you get into a bidding war with a competitor over a single keyword.

Best Practices for Smart Bidding

Apply smart creative solutions

Over 75% of the impact of advertising on the Google Ads platform is determined by the quality of the creative. Even if your bidding strategy and settings are perfectly optimized, if your creative isn’t up to par, you’re unlikely to see the best results.

Luckily, we can include the machine-learning algorithm in the ad creative process as well. 

Google Search Ads now offer Responsive search ads (RSAs), which will test out combinations of multiple headlines and description text to identify the best performing search ad creative over time. 

Google Display Ads offer Responsive display ads (RDAs), which similarly automate the process of testing different images, headlines, description text and ad dimensions, and give advertisers a live report on which combinations perform the best.

For both responsive search ads and responsive display ads, we recommend running one in each ad group for at least a month. Then, manually create search and display ads from the best performing combinations. From there, you can safely make edits to the responsive ads to test out new combinations in the future.

Implement a non-last-click attribution model

As most advertisers know, the customer journey down the sales funnel isn’t always a straight line. Some goal conversions have a wide conversion window. Some have more than 10 interactions before a successful conversion.

For the Smart Bidding algorithm to get a better understanding of the customer journey and optimize your campaign settings, it is best to use an attribution model that gives more credit to the different steps along the way to a successful conversion.

Last-click attribution modeling, for example, gives all of the credit for a successful conversion to the last-clicked ad and corresponding keyword. This setting will 

We recommend using the Time Decay or Data-driven attribution models when using Smart Bidding. These settings will assign credit based on the actual contribution of each keyword and ad across the customer journey to a successful conversion, and will learn and adjust that credit over time based on the performance data that your campaign collects.

Add audience lists at the account level

Smart Bidding works best when it has more data. When you set audience lists at the account level, it allows each campaign to access the performance data set for the entire account rather than just that campaign. 

With this setting, the Smart Bidding algorithm will be able to utilize richer user signals, such as intent, context, and recency. This allows for better overall performance and saves time in the “learning “ process.

If you would like to target only new users and want to avoid showing your ads to customers that have already purchased something on your website, we recommend adding the “All Converters” audience list to your campaign and add a -100% bidding adjustment.

Getting Started with Smart Bidding

As we outlined above, many smart bidding strategies rely on past performance data to help the machine learning algorithm learn and optimize a campaign’s settings. But for advertisers that are starting with a brand new account, we have a few recommendations on how to get started.

1. Add conversion tracking – Before any kind of smart bidding strategies can be implemented, you’ll need to make sure that your conversion tracking is in place and working correctly.
2. Soft launch with manual bidding – Make sure that your settings are in order before relying entirely on Smart Bidding to do the work for you. Launch your campaign with Enhanced CPC on a constrained budget for a month and check on your performance metrics to make sure that your keyword targeting, ad creative, ad extensions, and conversions are working correctly. The extra time that you give the campaign under these settings will also help build historical performance data for the machine learning algorithm to use when you switch over to Smart Bidding.
3. Switch to the right Smart Bidding setting – Once your campaign is running smoothly and it’s time to scale up, select the Smart Bidding strategy that works best for your goals. If you do not have specific values attached to your goal conversions, use the Maximize Conversions strategy. If you have a specific CPA goal, use the Target CPA strategy. If you have conversion values added but don’t have a specific ROAS goal, use the Maximize Conversion Value strategy. If you do, use the Target ROAS strategy.
4. Optimize every 30 days – As your campaign matures and the Smart Bidding algorithms learn how to optimize your performance, consider adjusting your CPA or ROAS targets gradually by 15% increases at a time.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does the Learning Period last?

It typically takes one to two weeks for the algorithm to collect enough performance data to calibrate a newly implemented bidding strategy. This depends on the amount of conversion data that the campaign is able to collect.  

If your campaign generates many conversions very quickly, it will likely exit the learning phase quickly as well. As a rule of thumb, you should aim to generate a minimum of 30 conversions per month. If your campaign generates conversions slowly, it will likely extend the length of the learning phase. 

If your campaign does not generate any conversions at all, you have a much bigger problem than configuring your Smart Bidding strategy, and should consider troubleshooting your target keywords, ad creative, and conversion settings under a manual bidding strategy like eCPC before moving onto Smart Bidding.

How do I calculate the appropriate time lag for conversions?

Depending on the business that you are running, some goal conversions may have a wide window between the first impression and a successful conversion.

To identify the average time lag for your search campaigns, visit the Search Attribution report. Set a 30-day window, and the report will show you the number of days that it takes, either from first impression or first click, to result in a conversion. Below each number of days, the report will indicate the percentage of users that have completed a conversion.

To identity the average time lag for your display campaigns, set a 90-day window and segment your campaign-level conversion data by “days to conversions”. This chart will provide the average conversion lag for display ads.

Troubleshooting Common Problems with Smart Bidding Strategies

• Target CPA or ROAS goal is unrealistic – If you are too aggressive with your initial target bids, the algorithm will learn that it cannot meet your target CPA or target ROAS and may stop running ads.
• Not enough time to complete the learning period – The machine learning algorithm needs long term data points to form better predictions for performance. If you look at a few days worth of data and start making changes based on a small sample size, the algorithm will not be able to optimize for conversions or conversion value.
• Not accounting for long conversion delays over time – Many conversions have a window of 30 days or more from first touch to last touch. The first few days of implementing Smart Bidding may seem like it is performing poorly if you do not allow for a time buffer to account for conversion delays.
• Not enough ad budget to find new conversions – If the campaign is constrained by a small budget, the algorithm won’t be able to bid appropriately to find as many conversions as possible.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our Google Ads management services at 565 Media? Have questions about search ads marketing or digital strategy in general? Don’t hesitate to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.

The post An Expert’s Guide to Smart Bidding in Google Ads first appeared on 565 Media.

TikTok debuted in the U.S. in 2017. By 2020, the social media platform had over 100 million users and an estimated 18% market share for all global Internet users under the age of 64. 

With its user base on the rise, especially from younger audiences, as well as a high engagement content platform, TikTok is primed to be the premier social media destination for reaching Gen Z in 2021 and beyond.

Advertisers may be looking to get a jump start on the platform before the competition gets too crowded. Our social media performance marketing team at 565 Media is equipped to help. If you’re ready to get started with promoting your business or brand, here are some tips on how to get started with TikTok Ads.

Step 1: Create a TikTok Ads Account

For Businesses, use TikTok Ads Manager

If you are a business running your own TikTok Ads, the first place to start is to create a new Ad Account. On the sign up page, fill out your business’ information and click Sign Up.

From there, you’ll be asked to add basic information about your business, such as the country/region where your business is located, the time zone where your business is located, your business name and the currency that your business uses for billing. Once you have completed filling out this information, click Register.

Once you have an Ad Account up and running, you’ll still need to fill out some additional information about your business to complete the set up. TikTok requires more business information such as your company website, the industry that best represents your business, and your business location, including street address, state/province, and postal code. You can also choose to verify your business by uploading a government or officially issued number that you use to pay taxes in your country. This is optional, and allows you to use additional TikTok For Business services like the TikTok Creator Marketplace. 

Once you have these basic business descriptions entered into the system, your TikTok Ad Manager account is up and running!

For Marketers, use TikTok Business Center

If you are an advertising agency or plan on managing multiple ad accounts through TikTok, it is important to create a TikTok Business Center account first. The Business Center acts as a hub for all of the various ads accounts that you will be managing, and from there you’ll be able to manage user permissions across the various accounts.

After setting up a TikTok Business Center account, navigate to Ad Accounts and select Create a New Ad Account to get started with a new TikTok Ads Manager Account within your Business Center.

Step 2: Setup Billing and Payments

Advertisers will have two options for payment in the TikTok Ads platform: Manual and Automatic.

Manual payment plans require payment up front and are typically referred to as “topping-up” or a “top-up”. This means that your business plans to deposit a lump sum into the ads account that your ad campaigns will then draw from while they run.

Automatic payment plans do not require payment up front and will automatically charge your credit card or bank account when one of two events occurs — Either when you reach your weekly billing date or when you reach a billing threshold amount, whichever comes first.

Step 3: Add Users to TikTok Business Center

After creating a new Ad Account and setting up billing preferences, you will need to wait a short period for the account to be approved. This process typically takes under 24 hours. 

Once the ad account is approved, you will be able to add, remove or change user permissions for that ad account.

Please note that only users with Business Center admin privileges can invite new members to an ad account.

To Add New Users

1. Go to the User tab in the toolbar on the left and click Member

2. Select Invite Member

3. Enter the email address of the person that you would like to invite as a user. Then select the ad account that you would like them to have access to.

Step 4: Set up the TikTok Pixel

The TikTok Pixel allows advertisers to track goal conversions on a website. It is an essential tool for measuring the effectiveness of your TikTok Ads. It is also used for generating more advanced audience targeting options, so it should be considered a top priority if you plan on running retargeting campaigns or using audience exclusions to remove converters from your retargeting campaigns.

Before launching any campaigns, it is important to make sure that the Pixel is installed correctly. If you plan to use retargeting, make sure that the Pixel is installed for at least 30 days in advance. This ensures that the Pixel has enough time to collect traffic data on your website and match it to existing TikTok users for remarketing.

To Create a TikTok Pixel

1. Go to the Asset tab in the toolbar on the left and select Event.
2. Select Create a Pixel. Make sure to give it a unique name that will help you remember its purpose later, especially if you are managing multiple ad accounts.
3. Install the Pixel code. You can either select Manually Install Pixel Code or use a third-party plug-in. To manually install the pixel, you will need access to your website’s backend code to copy and paste a script into the header or footer or your page. Depending on the platform that your website runs on, there may be third party plug-ins or other options to automate this process. 

To double check and troubleshoot the installation of your TikTok Pixel, use the TikTok Pixel Helper Chrome plugin.

TikTok Pixel allows for a few advanced matching options for targeting audiences. We recommend using the TikTok Pixel Dev Mode & Advanced Matching guide for more advanced setup options.

Step 5: Choose Your Placements and Audiences

There are many different options for creating target audiences in TikTok Ads. Advertisers can use general demographics like age, gender, or geographic area, plus some other standard targeting options such as interests and device types.

Note: Target audiences must be greater than the 1,000 user minimum. This helps to address privacy concerns. We recommend installing the TikTok Pixel up to 30 days in advance of any ad campaigns. That way, the pixel will have enough time to populate a retargeting list than exceeds the 1,000 user limit.

After you have created a target audience for your ad campaign, you can apply the targeting parameters to target specific platforms, News Feed Apps, Vigo, Helo, or Pangle, and TikTok. 

Creating Lookalike Audiences

Similarly to the way Facebook Ads allows advertisers to create lookalike audiences, TikTok Ads gives marketing professionals the option to expand their target audience to users that the platform finds to be very similar to their core target audience.

To create a lookalike audience, find the Assets tab in the toolbar on the left and select Audiences. Select Create Audience, then Create a Lookalike Audience. From there you will need to specify the Source. TikTok Ads will find common attributes from your Source audience, such as demographics, location, operating system, interests, etc. and then target other users and groups that share similar attributes.

Step 6: Create an Ad

TikTok is a very visual medium. For best results, video creative is recommended. If you or your business don’t have access to video content, TikTok allows you to use images, which will be grouped into video content for you. For more information, refer to TikTok’s Video Ads Specifications guide.

Types of TikTok Ads Campaigns

There are many types of advertising and promotional campaigns you can run on TikTok. As experienced marketers on this platform, we will craft a customized mix of options based on your business goals and budget. Here are the different types of TikTok Ads Campaigns that are currently available on the platform.

Brand Takeover
Brand takeovers can be video clips, gifs, or still images that can be linked to your brand page or a hashtag challenge in TikTok. You will take over a particular product or service category and gain the attention of your target audience for a day. Brand takeovers are great because there’s very little competition from other brands and each brand gets exclusive access to the screen for one day in the category. The ad will show up on the user’s feed before any other content.

Native Ads
In-Feed native video ads are also very appealing and catch attention immediately. They can be anywhere between 6 and 15 seconds long, so there’s plenty of time to attract user attention. The ads appear between user videos, and people have the option to skip or scroll to the next option.

Hashtag Challenges
A sponsored hashtag challenge can help you reach beyond a particular category or set of audience. It has a wider reach than in-feed ads or brand takeovers. You can attract new audiences, get user engagement, and encourage user-generated content. All of these options can help you reach a wide audience and get them interested in your brand. TikTok users love challenges and interactive content, which makes this a great advertising option.

Branded Lenses
Branded lenses are also an interactive advertising option that engages users actively. Our marketers can create a brand-based filter or lens to promote your products or services. The filters remain live for around ten days and can generate a lot of engagement.

Best Practices for Video Ads

1. Center all important imagery in a vertical format.
2. Include clear, crisp, high-resolution media.
3. Keep video length between 9 and 15 seconds.
4. Include background music or sound.
5. Include captions so that viewers can understand the message even if they don’t watch the whole ad.
6. Include a clear call-to-action.

Step 7: Track Your Campaign Performance

So you’ve created an ad account, set up your audience targeting, created your ads and launched the campaigns…Now what?

You can now monitor your campaign performance in the ads dashboard.

The ads dashboard will provide you with daily performance data for your ads campaigns. Learn how each campaign, ad group and individual ad by adjusting the filters to segment by specific dimensions and metrics to get a better understanding of what’s working and what isn’t. For more information, use this TikTok Ads Metrics list for reference.

Step 8: Optimize Your Campaign

Once your ads campaigns have been running for a while, you’ll get a good understanding of which video creative resonates with your audience, which audiences are most receptive to advertising, and which messages are most effective. But to truly optimize your campaigns, constant testing is a necessity.

TikTok Ads Manager allows marketers to do Split Testing, also known as A/B testing. This is a method that can help advertisers compare and contrast different variables in the campaign setup to determine which strategies work the best.

For example, you can test two different sets of ad materials, provided that the remaining settings are the same, and see which performs better. You can also take two different audiences, given that all other advertising settings are the same, and compare which audience is more profitable.

Split testing lets you know which audience/ad material/optimization approach performs better using a clean test with mutually exclusive exposed groups. When split testing, groups A and B will be exposed to two different groups of users, which allows your experiment to be completed more scientifically.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our TikTok ads services at 565 Media? Have questions about social media marketing or digital strategy in general? Don’t hesitate to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.

The post How to Set Up TikTok Ads in 8 Easy Steps first appeared on 565 Media.

What is the Facebook Conversion API?

Facebook’s Conversions API is a tool that allows advertisers to integrate campaign performance data with Facebook Ads campaigns. Conversions API uses a pixel-less tracking and attribution method to share web and offline events with the Facebook Ads account, which is then used to optimize campaign performance. It helps optimize campaigns without the use of cookies and aims to prepare advertisers for minimal impact when the web eventually shifts to additional privacy features like those included in the GDPR.

In the case of the Facebook offline conversions API (formerly the Server-Side API), it allows advertisers to send offline events from a separate server directly to Facebook and track users across multiple devices without having to rely on cookies or pixels.

That’s not to say that the Facebook Pixel will be completely phased out. According to Facebook, the Facebook Ads account is capable of integrating traditional performance tracking data from the Pixel with the Conversions API data. When used in conjunction, it improves the overall accuracy of information used in ads targeting, measurement and optimization.

What are third party cookies?

When a visitor interacts with a website, and it shares user data with other websites, that is using a third party cookie.

Changes in GDPR, Apple’s iOS privacy features, and other potential future updates to the Internet are trending away from using third-party cookies.

The Facebook Ads platform traditionally leveraged third party cookies to optimize its audience targeting features. Without the use of third-party cookies, the platform’s machine learning AI will not have access to the user data that it did in the past to help it optimize the advertising experience.

The Conversions API Solves for Cookie Depreciation

Old conversion tracking models for Facebook relied on Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers, also called the IDFA. IDFA is a random device identifier assigned by Apple to a user’s device. So advertisers were able to use IDFAs to track user behavior from the top to the bottom of the sales funnel. 

However, in a cookieless world, IDFAs are being phased out.

Without the ability to track users by device IDs, online advertisers will have to find alternatives to sales tracking and attribution.

In a way, Facebook’s Conversions API reverse engineers conversion tracking from the bottom to the top of the sales funnel. Once a user is on a site, certain behaviors can be tracked and attributed back to the original traffic source. For example, submitting a contact form, adding payment information on the checkout page, or even making a purchase provides the bottom-of-the-funnel event that can be shared with the Conversions API and provide more accurate attribution in the future.

Once the Conversions API is integrated, it’s an excellent workaround to the loss of third party cookie data.

Should I be worried?

Mildly! 

The recent changes to the Facebook ads platform will have the biggest impact on your Facebook Ads campaigns if they are using the same settings from 2020, audience targeting iOS devices, or relying solely on the Facebook Pixel for conversion attribution.

Assuming that you have taken steps to alleviate these issues, you’ll be nicely positioned to return to the old conversion rates that you may have once enjoyed.

Is there any upkeep required if Facebook changes the API?

Like all things in the online advertising world, some regular maintenance is to be expected. However, Facebook has been making moves to ease the transition as much as possible. 

The Conversions API auto-updates any remarketing and lookalike audiences that you may be using in the Facebook Ads platform. Conversion tracking data is more complete than using just the Facebook Pixel, as well.

Because of the current trend towards a cookieless future, Conversions API utilizes a more anonymized data stream, so it’s less likely to get shut down as the Internet enacts more privacy features for users.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our customer acquisition services at 565 Media? Have questions about Facebook Ads marketing or digital strategy in general? Don’t hesitate to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.

The post A Quick Guide to Understanding Facebook’s Conversions API first appeared on 565 Media.

Facebook responded with a series of full page newspaper ads attacking the new features, claiming that the new privacy policies would be “devastating to small businesses.” Apple hit back, accusing Facebook of a “disregard for user privacy.” The public spat between companies is likely to continue in the future. But what does this all mean for advertisers?

This article will hopefully shed some light on the various changes coming to the Facebook Ads platform. Many features and settings are still subject to change, but we’ll make steps towards demystifying the new policies, what they mean, and what changes we recommend you make for your Facebook Ads campaigns in the future in order to mitigate the biggest issues and capitalize on new opportunities.

What privacy changes are included in iOS 14?

Apple’s Nutrition Labels

Back in December 2020, Apple debuted the privacy “nutrition label” for programs downloaded from the iOS App Store or Mac App Store. Similarly to the information listed on food and drink packaging, the nutrition label lists the types of information that the app collects, such as the user’s contact info, location, purchases, browsing history, and more. 

[Include a photo of a typical nutrition label] 

Apple’s ATT Prompt

As of 2021, apps on iOS 14 devices will be subject to the AppTrackingTransparency Framework (ATT). Users on these devices will see a new message, called the ATT Prompt, when they launch a new app, asking them if they would like to allow that app to use their personal data. Without accepting this opt-in, apps will be prohibited from certain data collection and sharing settings that were commonplace in years past. Similar to the GDPR requirements for websites that require users to accept cookies before they can be implemented, apps will soon need to do the same.

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The Private Click Measurement Protocol

In response, Apple has announced plans to introduce a new protocol for web attribution and measurement called Private Click Measurement (PCM). This new protocol restricts the kinds of data that can be shared across platforms, which means that advertisers will have more difficulty tracking and targeting users across different domains or devices.

According to Statista.com, 79.9% of Facebook users only use the application on their mobile devices. It is assumed that most users, when given the choice, will not allow data tracking on their own devices. This means that a high percentage of Facebook users could soon potentially be removed from Facebook’s user data pool, which is incorporated into various advertising features on the Facebook Ads platform.

How do the iOS 14 privacy changes affect Facebook advertisers?

Lower Match Rates on Audience Network Targeting

The Facebook Audience Network, similar to the Google Display Network, is an option for advertisers to place their ads on third party apps and websites to target users who are not browsing Facebook or Instagram. Facebook released a statement saying, “We expect these changes will disproportionately affect Audience Network given its heavy dependence on app advertising.”

What this means for advertisers is that the user data that helps optimize the targeting for users on the Audience Network may soon be negatively affected and, with it, conversion rates of their marketing efforts.

It should be noted that the Facebook Audience Network only adds about 16% additional potential reach for advertisers. So if your campaigns are targeting other placements, this will have a minor impact, but should still be considered when creating new campaigns. In addition, Facebook announced on March 11, 2020 that its Audience Network will only be for in-app advertising, effectively limiting any potential waste for advertisers that are placing ads on Facebook or Instagram.

Changes to Audience Targeting

Without user data for iOS devices, the Facebook Ads platform will have a more difficult time identifying which users match its advanced targeting settings. According to Apple’s announcement, apps will be limited in their ability to collect the following types of user information:

• Device location
• Email lists from data brokers
• Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) for users across different devices
• Combined user data from third-party SDKs across different apps
• Other user data collected from third-party apps or websites.

These user data points are traditionally used to help identify users with the highest potential for conversions. Without these features, expect remarketing efforts especially to become less effective, and costs per conversion to rise over time.

Limits to Facebook Pixel

For advertisers that use the Facebook Pixel on their business’ website, the new privacy changes in iOS may cause issues that will impact measurement and tracking in the future. In response, Facebook is setting a maximum limit of 8 conversion events per domain. For larger businesses especially, this will require advertisers to triage their business goals to choose only the most important conversions. 

Limits to Ad Campaigns

In addition, Facebook Ads will limit new ads to set only one of those eight conversions as the designated goal for that ad. If advertisers were running ads in the past that targeted conversions that have been removed from the Facebook Pixel, those ad sets will be turned off. 

Campaigns that target iOS apps will only be allowed to use five campaigns, each with the same lead goal. Facebook plans on limiting advertisers in the number of campaigns that they can run in the future.

Reporting Limitations

According to Facebook, Apple’s new privacy policies will limit businesses’ ability to track and measure their ads for iOS 14 users. Expect real-time reporting to be replaced with 3-day-delay reporting, especially for campaigns aimed at iOS 14 app install campaigns. 

Facebook is getting rid of the 28-day click window and going down to 7-day click window and 1-day view moving forward. At that point, Facebook announced that this attribution window in reporting will be deprecated, and any ad sets with this optimization window as well. 

In addition, Facebook will begin phasing out breakdown reporting. For both app and web conversions, different delivery breakdowns such as by age, gender, location, and placement will no longer be supported.

And finally, expect some changes to attribution reporting. Once the new iOS 14 privacy settings take place, attribution settings will need to be added at the ad set level, rather than at the account level. For any existing campaigns, you may already have seen the conversion reporting for campaigns at the account level disappear or display zero conversions. You’ll need to dive down to the ad set level to view the accurate conversion data from now on.

Recommendations for Facebook Ads

Change Your Attribution Modeling

The changes that Facebook Ads has made to the attribution models is likely to cause some issues with existing campaigns. We recommend advertisers relaunch all of their existing campaigns with a 7-day Click, 1-day View attribution window.

Lookalike Audiences

The new privacy settings will have an unknown impact on advanced audience targeted features, meaning that lookalikes will need to be re-benchmarked and assessed. The match rate for most lookalike audiences will likely be impacted on the iOS side. We recommend advertisers retest LALs, and test a wider range of audiences to redetermine controls. 

Exceptions for iOS Users

At the end of the day, the changes to the Facebook Ads platform is because of Apple’s iOS 14 privacy features. While Facebook and Apple continue their public spat, disrupter entrepreneurs, small business owners, and consumers are likely to be the ones to suffer. If you start to see any negative impacts on your costs per acquisition or return on ad spend, consider relaunching your campaigns with exclusions for Apple devices. 

Talk to the 565 Media Acquisition Team

With all of the changes coming to Apple devices and Facebook Ads, it can be a little daunting to know where to start. Luckily, where there are big changes there are also opportunities. Our expert team of PPC specialists at 565 Media are experienced, positioned and ready to guide our clients through the issues. 

If you are experiencing any impacts from the iOS privacy changes or Facebook Ads platform adjustments, we’re ready to help solve these challenges and scale up your advertising efforts. Feel free to contact us for a free consultation.

Additional Changes in the Future

The iOS privacy features are not the only things causing disruption in the Facebook Ads platform in 2021. With an eye on long term planning for a cookieless future, Facebook announced that they are planning on rolling out the Conversion API, a tool that aims to complement the Facebook Pixel for web in late 2021. This change should not be confused with the current changes due to the new iOS 14 privacy settings.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our Facebook ads services at 565 Media? Feel free to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.

The post The iOS 14 Update: What to Do With Facebook Ads first appeared on 565 Media.

Back in May 2020, Google announced that they would be rolling out a major update to their search engine ranking algorithm. Also known as the Page Experience Update, the overhaul aims to boost rankings for websites that provide better user experience. In this article, we’ll aim to define exactly what metrics that the new algorithm will be measuring, as well as some insights and recommendations for how to improve your website’s search engine optimization before the update takes effect.

What is the Google Page Experience Update?

Starting in May 2021, Google’s search ranking algorithm will be revised to favor websites with better page experience signals such as loading speed, mobile compatibility, interactivity, and other measurements for user experience. These changes, according to Google, help improve the overall search engine experience and the helpfulness of the results for its users. As an indirect result, websites with better user experience are likely to see a positive change in search rankings starting in May 2021.

In addition to a change in overall rankings, Google announced that the search engine results page (SERPs) would be testing new rich snippets and/or image previews that would help provide context for what users can expect to see on a page before they click on a link. This has the potential to further shake up the SERPs, and an opportunity for websites to jump ahead of competitors that aren’t paying attention. (More on this further in the article!)

How Page Experience is Measured

User experience is a fairly qualitative and subjective practice. So to measure something like page experience quantitatively, Google recently released a list of the page experience signals that will be included in their search ranking algorithm. The new page experience signals combine with our existing search signals available in Google Search Console’s Core Web Vitals reports, which include mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. It is with these measurements that the new ranking algorithms will be adjusted to favor.

Search signals for page experience include Core Web Vitals that can be found in the Lighthouse of PageSpeed Insights reports. Google is also adding other search signals that can be found in Google Search Console. 

Measuring Core Web Vitals

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – The LCP is a measurement of how fast your page loads. Google currently recommends that a page load its main visuals within 2.5 seconds of when a new user begins loading the page.
• First Input Delay (FID) – The FID is a measurement of the time between when a user first interacts with a page (i.e. when they click a link, tap on a button, etc.) and the time when the browser is capable of responding to that action. Google currently recommends that pages have an FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – The CLS is a measurement of visual stability of the elements on the page. Any time a new element (e.g. footer ad, video, large image) is loaded and shifts the position of the other elements on the page (e.g. button, image, text), it can cause very poor user experience. Google currently recommends pages maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.

Core Web Vitals Report in Google Search Console

Measuring Other Page Experience Signals

• Mobile Usability – Now that mobile devices have eclipsed desktop devices in popularity for browsing the Internet, it is important to make sure that your page is optimized for mobile formats. This report in Google Search Console will alert you if any pages on your site have content that extends beyond the boundaries of your page, or if interactive elements are too small or too close together.
• Safe Browsing – This report identifies websites that Google has deemed “unsafe” across the web and will notify users and webmasters of potential harm. For this page experience signal, your webmaster will likely receive an alert if there are any issues.
• HTTPS – This is a safer version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Google will begin adjusting their algorithms to favor websites that use HTTPS over HTTP. 
• No Intrusive Interstitials – This measurement is fairly self-descriptive. Try to avoid adding popups or autoplay videos. Pages with annoying interstitial elements are not likely to gain organic traffic in the future.

Additional Important User Experience Signals

• Bounce rate
• Average time on page
• SERPs CTR
• Scroll length

Although these performance metrics are not included in the Google Page Experience Update, they are still important metrics to follow when considering the user experience of your page. If a page has a high bounce rate, low average time on page, or low click-through-rate compared to the pages that it competes with in the search rankings, those signal to search engines that your page either has poor user experience or poor relevance to the keywords that the page is ranking for. And those signals tell search engines indirectly that the page is less deserving of a high SERPs ranking. 

How to Optimize for Page Experience

Competitive Comparison

Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse reports will provide specific insights for the Core Web Vitals. Any vitals that fall below a certain threshold that Google considers problematic will be flagged with an alert after the report is run.

As a general rule of thumb, good content is still the most important thing to consider when optimizing a page for user experience. Gaming the system with keyword packing or schema manipulation may have short term benefits for rankings, but they tend to fail in the long run, especially if search engines penalize your site for violations. Make sure that the content on your page follows E-A-T standards, short for Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.

Competitive Comparison

If you see in Google Analytics that a page, for example, has an above average bounce rate, compare it to the competing pages in the SERPs. 

What elements on your competitor websites are working better from a UX or UI perspective? 

Do they load faster or have more readily accessible information? 

Do they answer questions that appear in the “People Also Ask” section of the SERPs more clearly?

Core Web Vitals Icon in Search Results

According to Google, the search results page is also currently testing “visual indicators” that are set to appear in the search results pages next to the site URLs. Some eagle-eyed SEOs have already taken screenshots of the icons in beta testing. 

The Web Vital Icon as it currently appears indicates that a site has passed the Google Core Vitals test. It is generally used to indicate that the page experience will be good.

The AMP Icon indicates that a page is using the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) format, a mobile-specific page format that loads almost instantly on a mobile device. This icon simply means that the page is optimized for mobile devices to load as quickly as possible.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our search engine optimization services at 565 Media? Have questions about general marketing and digital strategy? Don’t hesitate to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.

The post What Google’s Page Experience Update Means for Your SEO first appeared on 565 Media.