Today in Digital Marketing - Microsoft Wants You To Run Google Ads

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Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, Microsoft wants you to run Google ads. Shocking new data shows just how influential TikTok videos can be in purchase decisions. Meet the digital marketer who broke Reddit this week. And it was a big day at Google. All the changes on this, their annual marketing day. It's Thursday, May 27th, 2021. Happy Children's Day, Nigeria. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageU Digital. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Back in the 60s, the car rental company Hertz was number one in terms of market share and way

Starting point is 00:00:58 out in front. Number two was Avis. And so, you probably know this story, Avis launched a campaign with the tagline, We Try Harder. The idea being that when you're number two, you work harder for the business. You invest in better customer service. This campaign became an ethos for the company. In fact, it was so successful, they had to retire it because they became number one. Microsoft's Bing platform is, of course, the underdog. But despite that, or perhaps because of that, they've been fast-tracking a whole lot of initiatives.

Starting point is 00:01:32 One big one launched today that has the potential to shake up the social media management industry. They're calling it Unified Smart Campaigns. Part of it is a quick way to get a paid campaign running. You paste your brand website URL into it, and it'll line up some keywords and targeting that it thinks would work for you. You'll be able to pause those keywords and ads, but the setup is mostly meant to run automated. Here's the thing, though. This isn't just ads on Microsoft's platform. You'll be able to launch campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google.

Starting point is 00:02:08 Yes, Google, from Microsoft's platform. And all of those, if you like, in a single campaign. There will be reporting, though it's a little scaled back from what you may expect from the native platforms. Still, the important KPIs will be there. Reach, clicks, conversions, phone calls,

Starting point is 00:02:24 drop Microsoft's pixel on your site, and you'll also be able to see how long customers spend on your site, how many pages they visit after they click an ad, and so on. The only catch? You can't run it to only run Google Ads. You've got to include Microsoft's platform in the mix there as well. And there's more. Organic content management as well.

Starting point is 00:02:44 You can publish posts, save them as drafts, schedule them. You can see and reply to incoming messages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And there's even cross-platform organic reporting. How much does it cost? Zero. You only pay for the ad spend. There's no monthly fee to use this. The rollout has started now. They did not say how long it would take to get to everyone, but there is a link to an early access application form in today's premium newsletter.

Starting point is 00:03:18 As we mentioned yesterday, Google is doing its annual marketing event today, so there are a whack of things to cover. First, on the privacy front, custom audiences should get into the ad accounts of nearly all advertisers soon. Previously, there were some limitations on who could use custom audiences, and they've added consent capabilities to Google Tag Manager. This is in the form of an integration with a third-party solution, but now you can plug it into Tag Manager if you use one of those.

Starting point is 00:03:44 It also connects to consent mode. This should make it easier to automate how your pixels and tags behave without needing, you know, a PhD in tag setup, which GTM sometimes feels like. That should be available later today. Second, over on the ad side of things, they are rolling out Target ROAS bid strategy to more placements. You'll be able to use that now with discovery ads and video action campaigns. Also, performance max campaigns are also getting out to more ad accounts.

Starting point is 00:04:10 This is an automated campaign type across YouTube, display, search, and discover. It will take them the rest of the year to fully roll that one out. But once you get it, you should see some new reporting attached to it, including top performing creatives, auction insights and trending search categories. And this is a nice one. Image extensions are now out of beta. They are now available globally. Third, to Google Analytics.

Starting point is 00:04:34 Modeling capabilities to behavioral reporting are on their way. Modeling, of course, a very nice word for educated guessing. Google says this should help us all understand more about the customer journey, even in a world without cookies. You know, jury is still out on whether or not this new conversion modeling is at all even accurate. Google also announced the rollout of a new advertiser experience in Google Analytics to present deeper insights into campaign performance, like cross-channel performance, ad metrics, and recommendations. Fourth, a bunch of announcements for retail brands. In addition to the business attribute Black Owned, which they launched earlier in the year, Google plans to add additional identity labels you can put on your business profile,

Starting point is 00:05:17 including women-led. They also showed off an augmented reality experience to help buyers get an idea of how clothing would look on a body similar to theirs. This is in addition to the makeup AR they launched earlier. And they're testing a merchant loyalty program integration for your customers. This will let your best buyers get special pricing or benefits like free shopping. You can actually create a loyalty program through Google now. That in itself I thought was pretty big.

Starting point is 00:05:41 Or if you're using one of the major loyalty platforms, you'll be able to link to it. They've also cut a deal with WooCommerce, GoDaddy, and Square for deeper integration between those platforms and the Google Shopping platform. And there are also some industry-specific additions, like for the travel, hotel, and vacation industries. Today's premium newsletter has screenshots of most of these new things. If you haven't joined the newsletter yet,

Starting point is 00:06:02 go to todayindigital.com slash newsletter or tap the link in today's episode notes. They are highly sought after, and now we have some new data on what influences their purchasing decisions. We're talking about Generation Z women. In top place, no surprise, the recommendation of family and friends, 59% said that influenced them. But in second place, TikTok videos at 39%. Third place, right behind that, in-store displays, 38%. And in fourth place, coming in at 31%, TV ads. Just to put a fine point on that, television ads rank much higher for influencing purchasing decisions than influencer posts on Facebook or Instagram.

Starting point is 00:06:53 Television ads. This was a study by IRI. It polled 1,000 women in Gen Z. That's late teens to 20s. In case you're curious about how the rest of it spills out, remember this is what influences their buying decisions. Instagram ads, only 23%. Instagram influencer posts, 22%. Store ads or flyers, 21%. Facebook ads, 19%. Same with web banner ads. Print and magazines, 14%. Radio, 6%. And outdoor billboards, 4%. The big story here, of course, is how suddenly high TikTok got here.

Starting point is 00:07:26 It is the number one influencing factor for this demographic that we digital marketers have direct control over. And despite everything being so digital in the lives of these young women, bricks and mortar retail shopping is preferred by more than half of those polled aged 17 to 23. Today's premium newsletter has a link to the full 25-page PDF report. Well, the good news is now this digital marketer can say a campaign he did literally broke Reddit. A new cryptocurrency token this week held a contest on Reddit to try to get more subscribers. They were giving away 10 billion coins to a random member of the subreddit. All someone had to do was join and post on the contest thread.

Starting point is 00:08:13 Then all hell broke loose. Tens of thousands of people joined and posted. And then the mods got this email from Reddit. Quote, congrats on holding what seems to be a successful contest. And then the mods got this email from Reddit, quote, Congrats on holding what seems to be a successful contest. Unfortunately, the thread for the contest is hurting the stability of the site due to the large amount of comments. Due to that, our infrastructure team has had to block access to the thread in order to keep this from affecting other communities, unquote. The team behind the coin says they'll still honor the commitment and will draw from the post prior to it being locked.

Starting point is 00:08:52 But how about that for a new line on a resume? A campaign I designed literally brought down Reddit. And two small items to wrap up. Spaces, that's Twitter's clubhouse clone, is now available on their website as well. Until now, it had only been on their mobile apps. And the U.S. government has teamed up with Snapchat for a campaign to push young people to get vaccinated. The campaign uses Snapchat's augmented reality lenses and features the American president, vice president and two immunologists answering questions about the vaccine, including a simulated video call from Vice President Kamala

Starting point is 00:09:31 Harris. Well, lots of goofy Canadian references yesterday, and I was actually trying to secure the rights to play a song about Canada from the Arrogant Worms. If you've never heard of them, you're obviously not Canadian. For years, they were the country's, like, unofficial satire band. Well, yesterday afternoon, after we put the podcast out, we did receive permission to use their song, and so I leave you with the Arrogant Worms, who you can find on Spotify or ArrogantWorms.com. I'm Todd Maffin. Talk to you tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:10:07 When I look around me, I can't believe what I see. It seems as if this country has lost its will to live. The economy is lousy. We barely have an army. But we can still stand proudly because Canada's really big. We're the second largest country on this planet Earth. And if Russia keeps on shrinking, then soon we'll be first. As far as we keep Quebec, the USA has tanks and Switzerland has banks. They can keep them thanks, They just don't amount.

Starting point is 00:10:45 Because when you get down to it, you find out what the truth is. It isn't what you do with it. It's the size that counts. Most people will tell you that France is pretty large. But you can't put 14 princes into this land of ours It'd take a lot of work, it'd take a whole lot of work We're larger than Malaysia, but most as big as Asia We're bigger than Australia and its continents

Starting point is 00:11:17 So big we seldom bother to go see one another Though we often go to other countries for vacations. Our mountains are very pointy. Our prairies are not. The rest is kind of bumpy. But, man, do we have a lot We've got a lot of land We've got a whole lot of land

Starting point is 00:11:52 So stand up and be proud And sing out very loud We stand out from the crowd Because Canada's really big. Thank you.

Today in Digital Marketing - Microsoft Wants You To Run Google Ads

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