Today in Digital Marketing - Ads on Autopilot

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Will Meta’s new automation tools bring chaos to ad campaigns? Everything is up in the world of podcasts ads. And a sad farewell to one of the Internet’s OG mobile apps..Today’s story links.📰 Get our free daily newsletter📈 Advertising: Reach Thousands of Marketing Decision-Makers🌍 Follow us on social media or contact us.GO PREMIUM!Get these exclusive benefits when you upgrade:✅ Listen ad-free✅ Back catalog of 20+ marketing science interviews✅ Get the show earlier than the free version✅ “Skip to story” audio chapters✅ Member-only monthly livestreams with TodAnd a lot more! Check it out: todayindigital.com/premium✨ Premium tools: Update Credit Card • Cancel.MORE🆘 Need help with your social media? Check us out: engageQ digital🌟 Rate and Review Us🤝 Our Slack.UPGRADE YOUR SKILLSGoogle Ads for Beginners with Jyll Saskin GalesInside Google Ads: Advanced with Jyll Saskin GalesFoxwell Slack Group and Courses.Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. Associate producer: Steph Gunn.Some links in these show notes may provide affiliate revenue to us.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. It is Wednesday, October 23rd. Be protected. Be Zen. and a sad farewell to one of the internet's OG mobile apps. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. Well, Google announced a bunch of new features for Performance Max campaigns today. You'll recall that Performance Max, or PMAX, is Google's all-in-one campaign type that uses automated bidding, automated target, and is even trying to get you to use automated creative. Here with all the details is our Google Ads correspondent, Jill Saskengales.

Jill spent six years working at Google Ads and is now a Google Ads coach who runs the Inside Google Ads training program and podcast. Jill, lots of activity at Google Ads today, lots of new features. Which one stood out to you? The features that really stood out to me today were the announcements around image generation and video generation, because we know, on the one hand, that's such a challenge for business owners and marketers, and on the other hand, a place where Google's really trying to push AI. So Google announced today that their latest image model, Imogen 3, I believe it's called,

is what will now be used to generate images in PMAX and DemandGen and other campaign types. Previously, when I've tried Google Ads as a built-in image generator, I've not been so impressed, so excited to see a new model there. And then video generation. Now they can take, they're calling it video enhancements. So taking one of your videos, but then automatically resizing it to a vertical video, for example, so that it opens up more inventory to you again in PMAX and DemandGen and other campaign types. And then one more that I thought was interesting is experiments. You know, Google's adding a lot of different experiments in for performance maths, which lets you A-B test different features. And I always consider this a little inside look at what the key advertiser objections are to Performance Max because if Google's adding an experiment about it,

they're trying to prove you wrong that you should listen to them. So one of those experiments is you can test the impact of a feed-only PMAX versus adding assets because of course Google wants you to add image and video assets to serve a more inventory. And then the other experiment that's coming is testing turning final URL expansion on versus keeping it off. And final URL expansion means that rather than just leading people to the one URL that you pick in your ad,

Google gets permission to land people on any page of your website from PMAX that it deems will drive the best results. So most advertisers I know keep that off, but you can now experiment with turning that on. So this tells me these are some big features Google really wants us to do that not enough people are doing yet. Now, are these A-B tests that we control or are these things that Google will just kind of do on their own? These are experiments that you can choose to set up in your account. There's actually about a dozen different kinds of experiments you can run. And basically all the infrastructure is set up for you. So let's say you want to test turning final URL expansion on.

You select that option. And then Google will direct a certain portion of traffic through that experiment, a certain percentage through the control. And will actually tell you when you have enough data to have statistically significant results. So it just makes A-B testing really simple. And you can do this in all campaign types, not just PMAX. But these are two new of these kind of built-in experiments that Google wants you to test because Google feels pretty confident you'll see better results if you do what they tell you to do. Google wants you to test. Google wants more advertisers to adopt Performance Max. How have they been doing that in the last few months or so? I assume by giving advertisers what they want, more transparency, more control.

Maybe a little bit. We've seen a few transparency and control features recently, like brand exclusions, for example, or the fact that negative keywords are coming to Performance Max. Not there yet. But other ways that Performance Max is being rolled out that people may not realize. One is with Google Ad Grants. So Google Ad Grants are a way that eligible nonprofits can receive $10,000 a month to spend on Google Ads with a lot of restrictions. And historically, it's been search campaigns only. Now,

ad grants accounts are starting to be able to use performance max campaigns. However, they'll only run on search inventory. So it's basically a way to run a search campaign with less control if you want to. But that's one way Google is kind of getting people over to PMAX. Another is when you create a new Google Ads account, you used to be defaulted into setting up a smart campaign, which I used to call a dumb campaign. But smart campaigns are gone now. I don't think anyone misses them much. But it means that now when you start a new Google Ads account, you are defaulted into setting up a performance max campaign, which has to be really overwhelming to Google Ads beginners. So those are two ways that Google's kind of phasing out products and moving more advertisers into PMAX who might not otherwise

have used it. And another interesting change, especially ahead of the shopping season, is Google announced that when you have a performance max campaign in your account and a standard shopping campaign, historically, PMAX would always be prioritized. Like if both of them could show an ad for a certain product, PMAX would win. But now Google recently announced that whichever one has the higher ad rank will win and go forward to auction, which is how it always should have been. But again, I think this is a way for Google to say, look, it's okay to test performance max. If your standard shopping still has higher ad rank, it'll win. So we'll see if, you know,

more and more advertisers take a bite out of that PMAX Apple. That's peculiar to me. You know, it sort of flies in the face of their usual model of sort of putting PMAX in front of everything. Do you have a sense of why they've decided to kind of back off the priority on that?

I think it's to get more advertisers to test PMAX who previously wouldn't. Because if you knew that PMAX would always win over standard shopping, you just wouldn't launch PMAX at all. You don't want it to cannibalize your great standard shopping performance or demand gen performance or search performance or whatever else you're running. So with this ahead of the holiday season, Google must want more advertisers, more e-commerce advertisers to be testing PMAX who haven't previously. And this provides a little bit of safety to say, no, the one with the higher ad rank is still the one that will go forward. This is not going to drive it for CPCs. You know, don't worry.

Just go test it. How many more months before the only campaign type you'll be able to run on Google Ads is Performance Max? Oh, I'm still going to say maybe 36 months, but I do think it's coming. I do think it's coming. I do too. All right. Thanks, Jill. Thank you. Jill Saskengales is our Google Ads correspondent. She's here every second Wednesday. You can learn more about her Google Ads training program at our affiliate link at todayindigital.com slash GA. Well, today might be a good day to review your Meta ad account as a new default setting is letting Meta adjust your campaigns without your permission. The tech

giant has quietly activated a new automatic adjustments feature across several ad accounts, letting its system make major changes to ad campaigns without advertiser approval. This system can pause or activate campaigns, adjust budgets up or down, consolidate ad accounts, and consolidate audience segmentations without notifying the advertiser. Several media buyers have confirmed this setting is being turned on by default and reported unapproved changes. One user on social media said, I was so confused when our Advantage Plus campaign

dropped 40% in spend yesterday. Now I know why. Another ad expert told Search Engine Land, quote, it actually turned off profitable ad sets and slowed our ad spend. It also combined some of our lookalike audiences, but thankfully we caught it. Basically, it was defeating the purpose of segmenting them, unquote. So if you want to maintain full control over your campaigns, or as full as we can get these days, here is how to opt out.

Go to the All Tools section. Select Automated Rules, click See Automatic Adjustments. This might be new to your ad account. Look for the Manage Automatic Adjustments page and toggle that bad boy off. Wonder how other small businesses are running their marketing and spending their budgets? A new report from the digital marketing agency Local IQ sheds light on how small and medium-sized businesses are navigating their marketing strategies and budgets for 2025. The data shows that social media marketing has emerged as the leading medium for small and medium-sized businesses, even outperforming search advertising, SEO, and email marketing.

When it comes to specific platforms, Facebook still takes the crown, followed by Instagram and then LinkedIn. In terms of marketing performance, small and medium-sized businesses report the highest satisfaction with search ads. Video ads, despite them only being used by 30% of SMBs, ranked second in performance satisfaction. Paradoxically, satisfaction with social media marketing dropped to 10th place. As for emerging trends, video promotions are gaining traction driven by

the rising popularity of short-form content, while half of the SMBs surveyed expressed interest in influencer marketing. The data also shows that more than of the SMBs surveyed expressed interest in influencer marketing. The data also shows that more than half of SMBs are now incorporating generative AI tools into their regular workflows, primarily for content creation and social media management. We have a link to the full report in today's email newsletter, which you can sign up to for free by tapping the link at the top of the show notes or going to todayindigital.com slash newsletter. The podcast ad boom might be real after all.

E-marketer reporting today that podcast ad spend is on the rise, leading to an increase in ad load. This year, U.S. podcast ad spending is projected to hit $2.3 billion. That is up 16% from last year. And if it seems like you're hearing more ads in podcasts, you're not wrong. Recent data shows that the average podcast episode is now almost 10% ads. That's up from 6% just last year. Shorter episodes, around 15 minutes, tend to feature more ads. As the length

of the podcast increases, the amount of ad content generally decreases. But consumers aren't necessarily listening to those ads. Nearly half of U.S. adults report they skip podcast ads most or all of the time. The top 500 podcasts now account for nearly half of all U.S. ad spend. That's up from about a third last year. And quoting eMarketer, quote, for advertisers, the safest option for reaching a wide audience may be sticking with the most listened to podcasts. But advertisers with smaller budgets or with products they are targeting to a niche audience may find less expensive ad spots on podcasts with smaller audiences. We have a link to the full report in today's email newsletter.

Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. A new platform has entered the chat. There's a new messaging app targeting Gen Z that is set to take on iMessage and WhatsApp.

This app is called Days. It is already blowing up pre-launch. Days lets users send colorful messages that can float across the screen, enhanced with photos, graphics, stickers, GIFs, drawings, a whole bunch more. A lot like Instagram stories. What is fueling this excitement? It's not influencers. It's not influencers. It's not ads. But instead, viral product demo videos that showcase the app's features on TikTok and Instagram.

The app's waitlist already has about 156,000 people on it. And as one app takes off, we bid farewell to another. Foursquare is sunsetting its CityGuide app later this year to focus on its check-in app Swarm. This shift reverses Foursquare's earlier strategy of splitting its services into two separate apps, one for exploration and discovery, another for location sharing. As a result, the wealth of data from CityGuide will no longer be available to users. It will close officially on December 15th of this year with the web version following soon after. The study of the day today is some research on time versus money and what feels fairer to

consumers. What do they prefer? Deals that let them spend time to save money, like waiting longer for a ride, or those that require money to save time, like paying extra for faster service? We have a link to that full study in today's email newsletter. Again, tap the link at the top of the show notes to sign up. It is free. My wife has left me alone. She is off to the city for four days of business work and has left me with the dog, with the puppy. My wife usually is the dog person in terms of chores, so she's left me with a very regimented schedule, I have to say, which I appreciate. And then I converted into my phone reminders.

So every three hours it dings me and tells me whether I need to go out for a walk or whether I need to take a break from work and feed the dog. And I'm beginning to think that this is less about the dog and more about her trying to get me to get up from my desk every once in a while. I don't know. Conspiracy theory? Maybe. All right. Thanks for listening. I'm Todd Mathen. See you tomorrow. 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca.