Today in Digital Marketing - 108: When Good Recommendations Go Bad

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020. Happy World Wildlife Day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital. Today, will Google's new ads recommendations be any good? TikTok books up its analytics. Don't you forget about Bing. And a new LinkedIn filter might help you get more job applicants. Here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:25 Two years ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that stories would overtake the feed as the dominant medium. And this is coming true, if a bit slowly. Facebook has put stories at the top of its web and mobile app, jammed them into Messenger, and they've been a part of Instagram since pretty much the day Snapchat told Zuckerberg to stuff his $3 billion acquisition offer. And indeed, stories, at least on Instagram, are pretty inexpensive from a CPM point of view still, and quite eye-catching given that they're interruptive, which is to say that, like a TV ad, they drop in the middle of your viewing session and take over the entire viewing screen. So if you're thinking of running stories as an ad format, there's a great Twitter thread

Starting point is 00:01:10 linked in this episode's description from ads pro Florian Lissert. He recommends big, broad lookalike audiences for top of funnel. Then in mid funnel, use engager audiences. Those are people who've engaged with your brand's posts in the last 30 days. He also recommends this tip, which may sound a little counterintuitive to big agencies or people who've been in marketing for a while. And that is to ditch the professional video tools and just shoot your story ad through a phone. They won't look as polished. And that's the point. He also has a great tip, which I'm a little embarrassed that we haven't thought of to do for the ads that we do for clients. And that's to add a little simple animation to the video just above the swipe up text to draw attention to it.

Starting point is 00:01:57 The example that he shows is a little half circle that kind of pulsates up. It very much visually suggests a swipe up. Super smart idea. Anyway, it's a great thread. And again, there's a link to it in this episode's description if you want to read it and see some of the examples. If you use Google's mobile app for its Google ads, be sure you update the app because they released a new version today with some new features and a dark mode. Quoting Search Engine Journal, the account overview screen will now display account and campaign level optimization scores, as well as their corresponding performance improvement recommendations.

Starting point is 00:02:31 Campaigns that have recommendations with the highest potential impact will be listed first, and users of the Google mobile app now have the option to receive notifications when their optimization score changes, unquote. I'll be honest, I've always been a little underwhelmed by Google's optimization recommendations, any of the platform's AI-based recommendations, really. They don't, nor could they, understand the context behind the campaigns and the creative and the targeting and the placements and all that.

Starting point is 00:03:00 So usually you end up with some either very generic recommendations like, hey, maybe widen your targeting or recommendations that, you know, clearly only serve the interests of the platform. Like, hey, this ad set looks great. Maybe you should dump triple the money into it right now. So I will wait to see if these recommendations in their mobile app are any good. But if you notice a change in the app, that's what's new. TikTok this week is releasing a new analytics dashboard with more data. Now you'll be able to get real-time insights into influencer campaign views, engagement rates, and engaged audience demographics. You'll find this in the Creator Marketplace, by the way, which is their influencer partnership portal. Don't worry if you can't find it. The marketplace is still invitation only, so a lot of brand

Starting point is 00:03:49 accounts don't have it yet. If you're one of those and you want it, you can apply on their website or reach out via their help center. So far, unless I've missed it, this kind of data is only available on their website. There's no analytics API or anything like that that would allow third party tools to measure and report this kind of data. My web browser's default search engine is not Google. It's Bing, Microsoft's search engine. And not because I think Bing is better at finding relevant results. I don't. I think Google is better. I use Bing because Microsoft pays me to. Every Bing search I do earns me three points, points which I then spend on critically important things like Xbox gift cards. And I bet there are others too, which is why you shouldn't just rely on Google's search tools,

Starting point is 00:04:39 like Search Console, to make sure that your brand has an easily findable online presence. Bing too has a Search Console. They call it Webmaster Tools, just like Google used to before they changed the name. And it's something you'll want to check in on from time to time. One fellow on Twitter yesterday reported that Bing had been blocking some of his brand's webpages for no particular reason. His site wasn't banned. There wasn't any index control metadata. It was just a bug,

Starting point is 00:05:06 apparently. So he used the contact form in Bing's webmaster tools and they manually removed the block. Apparently, Bing is pretty responsive to this kind of thing, but the onus is on you to check the position of your site there too. So maybe stop in from time to time. If your marketing tasks at your company include marketing your company's available jobs, you might want to know about a new filter that LinkedIn is giving job seekers. It's called a fair chance filter. People select it when they are looking at companies with open jobs, and it will surface the companies who will consider job applications from people with a criminal record.

Starting point is 00:05:51 Quoting LinkedIn, many individuals face significant barriers to opportunity based on their backgrounds, including where they grew up and who they know, unquote. Luckily, this filter works only on the job seeker side. You as a hiring person can't filter out people with criminal records with this tool. This is available on LinkedIn's website in the U.S. as of today, and will be coming to the mobile app soon. So if you're one of those companies that would be willing to hire one of the 70 million people in the U.S. with a criminal record, be sure you turn on that checkbox. I had to turn down business today.

Starting point is 00:06:24 I hate doing that. The client was fine. The client was great even, actually. They were a big trade group that I gave a keynote speech to a couple of months ago. But we are just at, we're past max capacity here at EngageQ. I haven't checked the project pipeline this week yet, but I think we're booked until the end of the year, maybe November or so. I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining.

Starting point is 00:06:45 This is a great problem to have. But still, does anyone else get anxiety from turning down business, even if you really can't take it on in the first place? Luckily, I have a new video game addiction. Yes, I'm going to tell you about it briefly. It's called Farm Together. You're a little cartoon character. You basically just farm things.

Starting point is 00:07:00 I'm very excited about it. This game loop is so compelling. Like, literally all day, I've been thinking like, you know, I really should drop into the game at lunch and harvest my eggplants before the season ends. And then I'll get right back to work. Maybe I need to be spending my free Bing points on something else from now on. Listener Neil Haley says, I manage a bunch of social media clients and I'm going to start a digital agency. I've learned so much and I'm going back and listening to all the podcasts.

Starting point is 00:07:27 This is the best digital marketing podcast. Wow. Thank you, Neil. If you too get value from this daily digital marketing news show, please rate and review this podcast. You never know, you might be given a shout out too. You will find a link in this episode's description that makes that a simple one click. Follow me on social links to my a link in this episode's description that makes that a simple one click. Follow me on social. Links to my channels are in this episode's description. I'm Todd Maffin. I fuck it. I'm going to harvest those eggplants right now.

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Today in Digital Marketing - 108: When Good Recommendations Go Bad

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