For years, first- and third-party cookies were critical to personalizing user experience. They have been at the heart of the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem, tracking users across platforms and collecting data that e-commerce businesses analyze to inform their marketing strategies. But as internet, and especially smartphone, use has turned ubiquitous in our lives, consumers have become increasingly aware of how much of their personal information is tracked and shared, and their privacy expectations have changed.

How Have Governments Reacted to Consumers’ Changing Privacy Expectations?

Consumers increasingly want to have control over what information of theirs is collected, for what reason, and why – as well as how that information is shared. As these expectations have evolved, governments have weighed in. By May 2018, the European Union’s Member States had fully implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which put into place certain rights and regulations around personal data in the EU. By 2019, the EU’s top court determined that users have to consent to all analytic cookies when browsing a website. This immediately changed how websites with an EU presence could capture and report on data, and it changed users’ web experiences. You’ve surely noticed that many websites now ask you to consent to the use of cookies when you first visit them.

The EU’s regulations have had a ripple effect outside the EU, but there are also US regulations being put in place around data privacy. The California Consumer Privacy Act, for instance, which was implemented in January 2020, regulates how personal data is collected, held, and shared, and what must be disclosed to the consumer about those processes. As other state and national governments react to consumers’ desire for increased standards of privacy, restrictions and requirements around how data is tracked and used are only likely to increase – which is why the once omnipresent third-party cookie is on its way out the door.

How Have Google, Apple, and Other Companies Reacted to the Slow Demise of the Third-Party Cookie?

Companies like Google, Apple, and Firefox have been both proactive and reactive when it comes to changes in privacy. As early as August 2018, Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection got rid of cookies on their browser, and by September 2019, Safari Intel Tracking Preventions 2.3 release was blocking all third-party cookies. 

Google announced in January 2020 that Chrome will phase out of third-party cookie tracking by 2023, and it has been developing an initiative called the Privacy Sandbox that hopes to bridge the advertising gap while adhering to privacy standards. With Chrome controlling nearly half of the US web browser market share (49.42%) and over half of the global market share (62.78%), changes to Chrome will have an outsized impact on the digital marketing landscape. It will become increasingly difficult to target customers with precision and personalization, to measure, report, and optimize campaigns, and to attribute and understand the path between an ad interaction and conversion, using the same methods digital marketing professionals have been used to employing. 

What Does the End of Third-Party Cookies Mean for My Business?

It’s been a good run, but the time has come to find new ways to gather the information your business used to collect through third-party cookies. If you want to continue to reach your high-value customers, don’t wait until Chrome closes the door in 2023 to come up with your new strategy. Make the leap to Google Analytics 4: it’s a tool built for the cookieless future, and that future is coming more quickly than you think. 

Going forward, organic search will be more important than ever, which means focusing on search optimization so your content is fresh and relevant. By curating great content and offering a thoughtful loyalty program, you can encourage customers to engage with your brand, trust you with their first-party data, and even become the brand evangelists you’ll need to grow your business. In the transition from third-party to first-party data, it’s inevitable that there will be some gaps in your reporting, but thoughtful conversion modeling and analytics can help keep your strategy on track. And as new tools and initiative’s like Google Privacy Sandbox are developed and come online, your strategy will need to continue to evolve. 

NetElixir is Here to Help

Are you ready for the cookieless future? NetElixir can help ensure your business is prepared for what’s ahead. Our experts will work with you on everything you need, from transitioning to GA4 to creating and executing a first-party data strategy to finding and engaging customers. We’ll support you as you design marketing plans that will reach your target audiences on platforms like Facebook, marketplaces like Amazon, and key search engines, even without the third-party cookies you’ve relied on for years. We can help you shift from winning average customers to winning high-value customers.

Additional resources:

• What You Need To Know About Performance Max Campaigns
• The May 2022 Core Update: What to Expect
• Christmas in May: Your Holiday Strategy in the Cookieless World

The post Who Killed the Cookie? A History of Third-Party Cookie Deprecation appeared first on NetElixir.

Performance Max is the latest solution within Google Ads offerings. With new audiences, more transparent insights, and a required diversity of assets, Performance Max campaigns have a lot to offer advertisers.

Google aimed to create a simplified campaign management, but there are a few best practices to keep in mind when setting up your new campaigns. In building your Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads, you want to ensure that you are driving the results you saw from prior campaigns. To make the most of your Google Ads properties, you want to continually feed good data into the algorithm so that the machine learning automations and insights are even more effective.

How To Get Started With Performance Max In Google Ads

Performance Max campaigns will become part of the default campaign structures by Q4 2022. There’s some time to test out the features and ensure you get the best results in time for your holiday campaigns. 

1. Start with low-performing products (in terms of low profit margin or ROAS) when upgrading your Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max campaigns. Select enough products so that you can generate a good amount of volume in order to get the most data out of the learning period. 
2. For hybrid, high-volume campaigns, group your products with the same margins in the same campaign, regardless of their historical ROAS value. 
3. Ensure the products selected for the campaign are excluded from your other Shopping campaigns, as Google will give preference to Performance Max campaigns. 
4. You can create different brand- or category-based campaigns if these distinctions represent different business objectives.
5. Run this campaign and test the results for at least six weeks. Refrain from making unnecessary changes during this testing period.
6. If different margin-based campaigns don’t lead to adequate conversion volumes, then you know you don’t need to run margin-based Performance Max campaigns in the future.

When testing your campaigns, you don’t want to run into budget issues that could hinder performance. You want your campaign to drive adequate conversions (for example, 20-30 conversions a month, consistently) so that the machine learning algorithm can gather more data quickly. Ideally, we recommend a budget of 10-15X higher than your historical target CPA of products added into the Performance Max campaign.

Determining Your Budgets and Bidding

Because you’re in the early stages of adopting Performance Max within your Google Ads account, you’ll want to consider your bidding strategies. Begin with a ROAS target which is about 20-30% lower than the historical average ROAS of the products within your campaign. Use a value-based smart bidding strategy, such as maximum conversion value with ROAS target instead of target CPA.

Google’s machine learning will optimize your asset offering to display the most relevant ad for each search query. When migrating products from Shopping campaigns to Performance Max, set a Performance Max budget that is comparable (or higher) than historical spending for the same products in the shopping campaign. Performance Max is inherently set to maximize your results and drive the most optimal performance for your ads, so you want to give the platform the flexibility to drive those results. 

Optimizing Your Audiences

Use audience signals to incorporate your top-performing audiences into your various campaigns. To boost your campaigns, be sure to include the remarketing first-party audiences that drive, on average, 80% of sales across campaigns. 

Create custom audiences around your top-performing keywords and queries. Direct query targeting is not an option currently available in Performance Max campaigns, so you will have to take an extra step to create audiences around queries. 

At NetElixir, we specialize in identifying, targeting, and engaging high-value customers. Use conversion value rules for your high-value and predictive audiences in order to maximize the auction time bids for these valuable customers. These audiences can be created by Google Analytics 4 and NetElixir’s owned proprietary customer intelligence platform, LXRInsights. 

Asset Groups and Product Targeting

Performance Max differs from current Google Ads structures in that campaigns are structured around asset groups, not ad groups. To make the most of these groups, create theme-based asset groups. You can put different category or brand specific asset groups in the same campaign; more products across categories can lead to more volume at the campaign level.

To ensure creative excellence within your assets, be sure to populate all the available variations from text to image. This allows the machine learning algorithm as many options as possible to create the best ad combination. You don’t have to create from scratch; use your top-performing headlines and descriptions from prior search campaigns to start and refine from there. Be sure to follow Google’s best practices to ‌get your ad strength score to good or excellent. Continually review the asset reporting to replace any creative elements that have a low rating. Check individual asset reports and combination reports to understand how your assets work together and to better inform your creative direction for the next campaign.

Listing groups, which are part of a campaign’s asset group, organize your overall listings by the attributes assigned to them in Google Merchant Center. Use similar product filters used in prior Shopping campaigns for your selected Performance Max products. Be sure to routinely check on your Google Merchant Center health to ensure your product feed does not run into any major issues.

Dynamic URL Targeting

Dynamic targeting and dynamic headlines work well for driving traffic from new inventory across new search queries. Use final URL expansion to drive this traffic. Start with products that have done well in past dynamic search ads to allow for better control over URLs for specific products.

Best Practices For Setting Up And Running Performance Max Campaigns

Follow these best practices to ensure your Performance Max campaign lives up to its name. At NetElixir, as we continue to test out these campaigns, we’ll share our team’s learnings and best practices to ensure all your Google Ads assets are efficient and effective. 

Avoid Running Performance Max and Smart Shopping Campaigns Simultaneously

As Performance Max campaigns will take priority over most of your inventory, advertisers should turn off Smart Shopping campaigns so there are no overlaps or skewed results. This is similar to what we saw when Smart Shopping campaigns were first rolled out; the newer campaign structures took priority. 

Add As Many Assets and Audiences As Possible

Because the Performance Max algorithm relies on asset and audience information to optimize ad placements, the more added for use, the better. This means that you can have multiple opportunities for the best placement of your ad. 

Remember to Update Conversion Settings As Your Campaign Priorities Evolve

To drive better results, ensure your conversion settings are always up-to-date with your latest objective. Consider using conversion value rules to target a certain subset of customers.

Use Data-Driven Attribution

Using data-driven attribution allows the machine learning algorithm within Performance Max to drive more value using incremental gains. Data-driven attribution complements auction-time based smart bidding. 

Carefully Analyze Your Initial Results

Use the ‘Insights’ tab to understand your Performance Max results beyond micro-level campaign assets. Routinely check the ‘Recommendations’ tab to understand what you can do to optimize your structure for machine learning.

The NetElixir Difference

At NetElixir, we continually run tests to determine what works and to discern new best practices for our clients. We have created proprietary tROAS adjustment scripts to maximize a campaign’s budget to drive incremental routines, as well as lower ad spend with a relatively lower impact on revenue. 

Additionally, we have standardized templates that determine bid modifiers based on search-shop-buy behaviors by hour of day and day of week to help with ad scheduling. 

To learn more about how our paid search offerings can better optimize your Performance Max campaigns to ensure your holiday campaigns won’t be affected, contact our experts today.

Further Reading

• Loyalty Programs: Why Brand Allegiance is More Important Than Ever
• AI Opens New Opportunities In Microsoft Advertising
• Empowering You With Data Insights

References

https://www.deanlong.io/blog/google-performance-max-campaign 

https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/performance-max/ 

The post Your Comprehensive Guide To Optimizing Performance Max In Google Ads appeared first on NetElixir.

What Is Google’s Performance Max?

Performance Max is the latest offering within Google Ads solutions. Introduced late last year, it’s a new goal-based campaign structure that allows marketers more opportunities to promote Google Ads across all Google inventory (YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, and more) with the same assets. As a combination of what were previously individual campaign types, Performance Max campaigns offer new audiences, more transparent insights, and a simplified campaign management. 

Performance Max serves all channels and heavily relies on automation to help advertisers of all expertise continue to effectively compete in the cookieless future.

Performance Max is ideal for advertisers who:

• Don’t have time to optimize each and every Google Ads channel individually
• Find it challenging to optimize various campaign types for one location
• Have a smaller budget, but don’t want to sacrifice Google Ads inventory
• Have a large budget and want to reach new and unique customer segments
• Are looking to explore new Geo Markets

Performance Max was available last year through beta testing, but was only available to brands working with select agency partners who did not have a Google Merchant Center feed or Shopping feed available. Later this year, Performance Max campaigns will replace Smart Shopping and Local campaigns.

What Is Required To Run a Performance Max Campaign?

To run a Performance Max Campaign, you need to start with a supported conversion goal, which includes sales-based goals as well as lead generation and offline conversions.

Because a Performance Max campaign can run on several different Google Ads channels, it requires different types of creatives. Google’s asset guidelines is as follows:

Text specifications:

• At least 3 headlines, with a max of 5 (30 characters max and at least one at 15 characters or less)
• At least 2 descriptions, with a max of 5 (90 characters max and at least one at 60 characters or less)
• At least 1 long headline, with a max of 5 (90 characters max)
• Business name at 25 characters max
• 1 CTA, selected from a list
• Final URL

Imagery specifications:

• Landscape (1.91:1, or 1200 X 628) – recommended to add 3, but can add up to 20
• Square (1:1, or 1200 X 1200) – recommended to add 3, but can add up to 20
• Square, for store visits only (1:1, or 300 X 300) – can add up to 20
• Portrait (4:5, or 960 X 1200) – recommended to add 1, but can add up to 20
• Square Logo (1:1, or 1200 X 1200) – can add up to 5
• Landscape Logo (4:1, or 1200 X 300) – can add up to 5

Video specifications (recommended, but optional):

• At least 10 seconds long
• Can be horizontal, vertical, or square

Please note that Google may create auto-generated videos based on uploaded assets if no custom video is added. 

Feeds (optional):

• Google My Business
• Google Merchant Center
• Dynamic Ads
• Business Data

These features are the requirements to begin running a Performance Max campaign; Google’s best practices recommend adding more, such as at least five versions of text assets and five versions of image assets to the asset group.

While Performance Max campaigns have more involved creative types, the reach and automation they provide makes the effort worthwhile. The more assets you provide to your campaign, the more opportunities Google has to serve your ad to potential customers.

How Do Performance Max Campaigns Differ From Other Smart Campaigns?

Audience Signals

In Performance Max, Google uses audience signals in place of audience targeting. Audience signaling begins Google’s ad targeting, but your ads are not limited to just the audience you input. Google’s machine learning algorithm aims to find additional audiences based on your initial signals to increase conversions. Google explains that audience signals will help jumpstart performance, but also continue to inform the algorithm over the campaign lifecycle, especially as first-party data is updated. 

While automation is helpful, it can be a challenge for marketers who are used to having more control over their audiences.

Campaign Structure

Google’s smart campaigns are structured around ad group and ad level. Performance Max campaigns are structured around asset group, which is similar to a responsive display asset. By providing more assets, Google can test which ad performs the best and continually refine what ads customers see.

Bidding Strategies

As its name implies, Performance Max is a performance-based campaign. The only goals available are maximum conversions, target CPA, maximum ROAS, and target ROAS. Bidding strategies are limited to goal-based strategies.

Efficiency

From beta-testing, Google learned that Performance Max campaigns achieved a 20% decreased CPA within the assigned budget in areas that were not performing well in search and video formats. NetElixir is working on our own tests to validate the results so we can continue to deliver exceptional performance for our clients and help them understand this new structure.

Should I Include Performance Max Campaigns In My Paid Search Strategy?

In short, yes, you should start incorporating Performance Max campaigns into your paid search strategy. Smart Shopping and Local Campaigns are going to become Performance Max campaigns by Q3 of 2022. You will still be able to run your current smart shopping and local campaigns, but you won’t be able to create any new campaigns on these platforms later this year. Starting in Q2 is a voluntary upgrade, but all campaigns will auto upgrade by Q3. This means that the 2022 holiday will rely on new campaign structures. 

Through Performance Max, Google is consolidating some of their campaign structures through automation. It is best to get a sense of the Performance Max campaign structure, insights, and targeting now to be able to effectively rely on this channel for your holiday campaigns.

Conclusions

The world of search is evolving to the next level of automation, which allows for business leaders to be more strategic about their holistic growth strategy. Google is actively working toward solutions to ease the transition to the cookieless future and Performance Max is the next part of that solution.

Further Reading

• Tracking and Reporting in a Cookieless World
• Digital Marketing Trends That Are Shaking Up The Industry
• Managing Your Paid Search Portfolio

References

https://www.deanlong.io/blog/google-performance-max-campaign 

https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/performance-max/

The post What You Need To Know About Performance Max Campaigns appeared first on NetElixir.

Engage Your Customers Through Personalization

In order for your campaigns to be successful, you need to meet your customers where they are. We have seen a lot more clicks in social media engagement this year. Platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest are on the rise. The controversies following Facebook have allowed the focus to shift to other channels — and customers are responding well. Meeting customers on the channels where they are active will keep your brand fresh and top of mind. 

In general, the theme of personalization resonates with customers. People want their own preferences to be acknowledged and addressed by brands. Nowadays, people expect brands to have a stand on social topics and respond to messages that communicate a brand’s efforts in sustainability and social awareness.

Marketers should communicate what their brand stands for, as well as core product and offering in their ad copy to connect with loyal customers as well as acquire new customers who resonate with strong brand purposes.

Defining Your Success

It is important to go into this holiday season with a very clear view of what success means for you. 2020 was an anomaly, so any comparisons to last year’s numbers will be tricky. The abnormal highs and lows from last year are difficult to attribute to one specific approach. Last year also saw an October Prime Day, which shifted the holiday demand a month in advance. 

The key to having a successful 2021 holiday season is to create a holiday strategy that is unique in and of itself for this year. While last year’s insights can be helpful, 2020 should not be the benchmark for this year’s success. This October did not have a Prime Day event, but still, sales are up by about 6% YoY.

For your paid search holiday strategy specifically, a major focus area should be campaign automation and how those solutions will drive results. Automated campaigns are running on last year’s data. It will take some time for your current campaigns to figure out the specific demand patterns we are going to see during this holiday season. As such, do not make any more changes to your campaign structure now. While your structure may not be completely optimized, the algorithm will improve over time. As you figure out your right product mix and keyword strategy, so too will the algorithms pick up data and adjust as needed. Anything new created now will be too late for the algorithm to collect sufficient data to deliver the best results.

What you and the algorithm learn about your customers’ online shopping behavior for the next few weeks will inform your last-minute holiday push, as well as post-holiday strategy.

Staying Competitive 

When thinking about your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, responsive search ads should be a focus area. Plan these promotions in advance, as RSA is a complex unit that cannot be easily tweaked. Ensure you pin your offers to headline one or two for maximum visibility.

While it is important to stay competitive, keep an eye on the overall cost per click. CPCs, especially on Google, have been consistently rising across retail industries over the past few months. It is important to understand how much you are willing to spend to maintain a competitive advantage on keywords before it stops becoming profitable. 

Overcoming Supply Chain Issues

Concerns over supply chain issues and inventory stockouts are on everyone’s mind. There’s no easy solution. However, aligning your paid media strategy with your current supply chain strategy requires constant and transparent communication between both teams. Whether you’re in-house or with an agency, your campaign managers need to know what is happening in the backend. 

Your website should have features to hide out-of-stock items or recommend in-stock items, but you need to ensure your campaigns reflect the same message. Shopping campaigns automatically pull out-of-stock items from their display. However, you should still periodically check in to ensure your ads are running smoothly. From a text ad standpoint, ensure your core brand and non-brand ads land customers on a part of your site that has inventory. These changes will need to be done on the fly as you’re updated with any supply chain issues.

Have a Plan B and C ready in case your Plan A top sellers go out-of-stock sooner than usual. You want to have a strategy in place to make up for the potential lost revenue over the upcoming weeks through other, not-so-popular items. Consider what products you have on hand and what is trending so you can continually engage shoppers.

Retaining New Customers

When defining your success for this year, of course, the vanity metrics of ROI and cost per order are still relevant. However, we recommend also keeping a very close watch on the number of new customers that are converting through your paid campaigns. Additionally, you should measure how many of the new customers acquired during the 2020 holiday are returning to your brand this season.

Last year brought over 7 million new-to-online shoppers to the e-commerce landscape. NetElixir predicts that 25% of them will continue to shop online this holiday season. Retaining those new-to-one shoppers by understanding their unique purchasing journeys will create a new opportunity for your brand to engage with a diverse customer base.

A Recap of 2021

From an advertising perspective and their own product development, Amazon’s growth throughout 2021 has been phenomenal. Marketplaces have emerged as a key element of any e-commerce strategy.

With Facebook’s ongoing struggles as a platform, other channels have an opportunity to meet marketers’ needs. So, one of the highlights from the paid search world is the evolution of Google’s discovery ads. Discovery ads are one of Google’s most successful product launches from the past two to three years. Google has improved these offerings with every passing month. To Google, these ads act as a bridge between traditional search advertising and paid social. As such, we expect discovery ads to play an important role in this year’s holiday campaigns.

2022 Forecast

There are a lot of up-and-coming channels to get excited about for 2022.

In terms of Google products, YouTube is poised to have a strong year next year. While YouTube may not be a viable platform for every brand, it will become more accessible to advertisers in the future. Brands should consider how to leverage more video assets in their campaigns.

In the world of marketplaces, Amazon will continue to grow its market share. At their unBoxed event just a few weeks ago, Amazon announced several exciting new launches set for 2022. By integrating with Twitch, Amazon will change how customers interact with their ads and potentially reach a whole new audience. Amazon is taking a stronger stand on supporting brands that follow good sustainability practices. Leveraging your brand’s sustainability and environmentally-conscious measures is not just a trend anymore, but a necessity to keep up with the competition. 

Finally, the social media landscape opens massive opportunities for brands. With Facebook’s struggles, brands along with their customers have jumped to other social channels and found favorable results. Instagram used to be a major focus for any social media strategist. However, now there is more space for brands to find their voice across a variety of channels. Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest will make up a larger portion of a brand’s paid media strategy. 

Managing your paid search portfolio is the secret to meeting your customers at the right moment on the right channel.

Further Reading

• NetElixir’s Holiday E-Commerce Calendar
• Insights Into the 2021 Holiday Season
• Your 2021 Holiday SEO Strategy

The post Paid Search Holiday Tips appeared first on NetElixir.

By constantly running tests across channels and analyzing campaign results and customer data, marketers can more effectively consider how to best use each channel to reach their overall objective and fully engage with customers, new and potential alike. A diverse portfolio that unifies real-time data and consumer insights from every channel will help brands successfully navigate through the competitive landscape, fluxes in pricing models, large brands dominating the ad space, and the impending cookieless world. 

Impact of the Cookieless World

The loss of third-party cookies will have the highest impact on paid search advertising and how marketers target, track, and measure their campaigns. Although Google postponed its deadline to deprecate third-party cookies until late 2023, the cookieless future is still a very real future. To survive in the cookieless world, a diverse paid search portfolio will help marketers capture new opportunities, pivot quickly, expand their reach across channels, and continuously gather data to better inform marketing decisions in the future.

We are already seeing Apple’s iOS updates impacting performance on Facebook. Audience sizes are decreasing by 50% for many categories, limiting the reach of ads. Facebook CPMs have increased dramatically and overall traffic seems to be declining as the platform continues to navigate the recent iOS privacy updates.

Facebook and Google are the two main paid media channels, though each are becoming increasingly more expensive to advertise on. As the two platforms innovate solutions for targeting and tracking in the cookieless world, marketers should have other channels so their paid search strategy is uninterrupted. 

As such, it is important for marketers to diversify their paid search portfolio so they are not losing valuable data and customer engagement by relying on one channel. While brands should keep channels like Facebook and Google active to be ahead once privacy solutions are ready for development, results could be sacrificed by relying solely on one channel. Try testing out different campaigns across different channels and consider expanding more into marketplaces.

Including Marketplaces in Your Paid Search Portfolio

Marketplaces like Amazon can help you navigate the fluxes in the digital landscape, as Amazon operates within its own ecosystem and is roughly isolated from the ongoing privacy changes. 

Amazon has been growing more aggressive as an advertiser itself across search engines. Once a user clicks on Amazon’s ads, they are directed to Amazon’s website and shown more ads — for more Amazon products. Through a dynamic paid search advertising strategy across Google, Amazon can entice more shoppers onto its own platform and serve them its own ads, causing a chain reaction that seeks to keep consumers solely within the Amazon ecosystem. As such, Amazon’s conquest is causing a spike in Google’s CPCs. 

While it may be hard for smaller businesses to compete on Google, they can benefit from Amazon’s conquest with a deliberate Amazon and marketplace strategy themselves.

How Can SMBs Benefit From Paid Search

SMBs can benefit from paid search advertising with a fine-tuned portfolio approach that prioritizes on capturing and engaging high-value customers. 

Advertisers don’t have the level of clarity on audience targeting that they had last year in acquiring new-to-online shoppers and engaging their current audiences. With the current updates on privacy regulations, brands often have to keep spending in order to make some sense of the data. Knowing where to increase spending is difficult because campaigns cannot be as targeted as they were last year. Bigger companies have the luxury of throwing large sums of money into their paid search campaigns to drive results, but the right strategy and partners can help SMBs close the spend gap.

Looking at available channels as a portfolio is important, as it also has implications for managing a vendor landscape. Digital marketing should not exist in silos; insights from one channel can influence your approach, strategy, product offerings, and potential audiences for another.

As e-commerce is reaching all-time highs, diversifying platforms that house your paid search campaigns is increasingly more important to reach the influx of online shoppers wherever and however they shop. As the customer journey becomes more nuanced across several online and offline channels, a seamless and frictionless brand experience is crucial to maintaining customer loyalty. Testing different media mixes and messages across different channels will only improve your overall performance as you learn exactly what resonates with your audience.

A vendor model that involved having one agency for paid search, another focused on social media, and a third for Amazon use to work in the past, but it may be time to bring all these channels together to glean deeper insights and drive better results. A portfolio approach is not applicable just for ad spend, but for a relationship with other agencies and vendors.

How NetElixir Can Help

Data and real-time customer insights will help marketers pivot quickly to capture growth opportunities, capitalize on emerging trends, and address changes in their customers’ needs and expectations. Access to continual data will also help marketers better understand their audience’s buyer journeys, allowing them to target potential customers more effectively at every turn. Although access to data marketers have historically relied on is changing due to the impending cookieless world, NetElixir can help brands make the most of their first-party data and optimize campaigns to target, win, and engage high-value customers.

Request a consultation to discuss your paid search portfolio and discover potential growth opportunities to survive and thrive in the changing digital landscape. 

The post Managing Your Paid Search Portfolio  appeared first on NetElixir.

What The Match Type Update Means

The change starts phasing out support for Broad Match Modifier. Most of the Broad Match Modifier traffic will be captured by Phrase Match going forward, while the remaining traffic will be mainly covered by Broad Match (we SEM managers sometimes call Pure Broad to keep the purpose separated from Broad Match Modifier).

Google says, “Starting mid-February, both phrase match and broad match modifier keywords will begin to transition to this new matching behavior. [ …] In July, once the new behavior has been rolled out globally, you’ll no longer be able to create new broad match modifier keywords.”

Below is a quick blurb from Google that helps us understand the change better:

So essentially, the order of words in the query matching a Phrase keyword will remain unchanged while some new words may find place between two subsequent words. 

Why Is Google Making This Change?

The easy answer is ‘Simplicity’. According to Google, “We’ve seen that phrase match and broad match modifier often serve the same use cases, and that you can reach more of the right customers through a combination of the two.”

The change will save time and efficiently streamline keyword management. Google has been making a lot of changes to get rid of complex account structure for a while now. Be it pushing for hybrid campaigns or using smart bidding for pure Broad, Google prefers simple campaign setups that are aligned with automated bidding solutions. 

“So, Why Do We Use Keywords”?

Advertisers use keywords for reach, relevance, and performance. Based on feedback and data from past few years, Google understood that advertisers would not need multiple options to define an optimal keyword mix when smart bidding, as modern search features and audiences are taking care of better targeting. That’s why Google will now have the following keyword match types for simplicity’s sake: 

• Exact match for precision
• Broad match for reach
• Phrase match and broad match modifier for a balance of both

Customer Experience Is The Top Priority 

Google made an array of changes to all match types to prioritize the intent and semantic match over syntactic match (where words in queries have to match more closely with exact wordings in the keyword). Changes were made not just on the ads side, but on the SEO front as well, starting with Rankbrain and most recently BERT. Google cares about user experience and is the most popular search engine in the world for a reason. To continually improve a user’s experience, such changes are always in the works. Updates are purpose driven to ensure users are finding the most relevant results for their searches. 

Is This A Push For More Smart Bidding Coverage?

Maybe Google wanted to reduce the liberty that advertisers had with using BMM over pure Broad. Advertisers were skeptical about pushing Pure Broad hard while keeping the targeting restricted using BMM. As a result, Google had to roll out Smart Bidding for a Broad Match. Google felt that adoption might remain low as long as advertisers have the option to use BMM over pure Broad. Smart Bidding with Broad will capture more contextual signals including Landing Page, other keywords in the ad groups, etc. to drive better returns. However, we recommend running some experiments before rolling out this bid strategy fully. 

Next Steps 

Google shared a host of match type best practices here. That said, NetElixir has also curated a few important next steps below:

• Stop using BMM match type for any new keyword.
• Don’t change the match type of an existing keyword from BMM to Phrase. This would reset history. Google will automatically apply the new behavior to BMM.
• Keep analyzing search queries to see what queries are now matching phrase matches over BMM. Add or negate queries accordingly. 
• Remove redundant keywords as suggested in the Recommendations tab.
• Phrase matches are likely to see an increase in volume while BMM may see a drop. Adjust budgets accordingly. 
• For tROAS/tCPA smart bidding, targets don’t need to be adjusted if your performance goals are the same. Spend may increase as the strategy drives more volume at your target CPA or ROAS. If you want to optimize within a daily budget instead, you can use Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value.
• For Max (conversions or conversion value) smart bidding strategies, increase the daily budgets to accommodate more volume if you see a spike. 

As always, NetElixir is here to help. If you have any questions about this update, please don’t hesitate to contact our experts. 

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Paid Search Strategy

Data visualization and live consumer analytics are the keys to fine-tuning your paid search campaigns. You can keep filling up ad spaces across search engines, but if you aren’t reaching your target audience or personalizing messaging for their behaviors and expectations, then you’re wasting your budget and the customer’s time. Access to continual data will also help you better understand your audience’s buyer journeys, allowing you to target potential customers more effectively at every turn.

ECommerce is continually growing. The coronavirus pandemic jumpstarted rapid eCommerce growth, accelerating online shopping by nearly two years. Your brand needs a strong online presence in order to effectively compete against and win market share in 2021 and beyond. Diversifying platforms that house paid search campaigns are crucial to success in 2021, as consumers spend more time online than ever before. As consumers researched more prior to purchase during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic times, it is crucial to expand the reach of your ads to continually meet the needs of your customers and stay top of mind. Testing different media mixes and messages across different channels will only improve your overall performance as you learn exactly what resonates with your audience.

Automation will continue to gain importance in a marketer’s toolbox, requiring stronger data implementation. Despite the expansion of automation to yield greater results, campaigns will still need a human touch for that innovation and ingenuity to heighten performance. However, with alerts in place to notify marketers of any problems or changes in campaigns, we can respond more quickly to fix any issues. Marketers will need to use modern technology to stay current with the increasingly digital world, but stay agile and nimble to pick up on any opportunities that come their way.

Social Media Marketing

If content is queen, then video marketing is her crown. Videos continue to outperform other types of content, such as emails, blogs, and social images according to Hubspot. Incorporating more videos into your content strategy can better engage users. And, while quality content should always be your goal, your videos don’t have to be red carpet ready. Customers want to see a more transparent, human side to brands so showing off your WFH set up, your pets, and employees working hard behind-the-scenes will do a lot in helping consumers truly connect with your brand.

User-generated content can be a goldmine for your social strategy. According to SocialMediaToday, USG is vastly outperforming brand-generated content: ads with USG content are getting 400% CTR compared to the industry average. USG content rewards customers for engaging with a brand or product, showcasing what they actually want to see because they actively posted about it. USG can strengthen consumer and partner relationships by being relatable and inspirational. 

A brand’s mission and values are becoming increasingly important to consumers from the Millennial and Gen Z demographic, as they expect brands to speak out for social causes. Hootsuite finds that brands need to have a stronger presence in digital dialogues. Authentically participating in conversations help put the customer’s needs and wants first so brands can respond appropriately. Consumers care about current social issues, safety, and sustainability; showcase how these values resonate within your brand to build out your content strategy and social profiles. 

Amazon Strategy

Recent updates to Amazon’s A10 Algorithms shift prominence to favor buyer’s search intent, seller authority, product credibility off Amazon, and more in determining ranking. As Amazon’s reputation for the store that has everything expands, they’re focusing on user intent more and more. With Amazon’s recent acquisition of the podcast publisher Wondery, the brand is increasing their share of user’s listening time to continue to reach customers wherever they are and through their preferred media.

Amazon will continue to experiment with and expand their frictionless and contactless shopping capabilities. As customers respond well to initiatives like Amazon Go, the corporation will seek rollout to other retailers to expand the technology. According to eMarketer, the coronavirus pandemic greatly increased customer’s preference for mobile checkout, accelerating the need for contactless shopping options. Retail brands need to consider how they could best implement new technologies to make the shopping experience convenient and stress-free for their customers.

Open experimentation and innovation are key strategies to success in the new year. While we have ideas on what will help businesses succeed in 2021, brands still need to find their personal sweet spot in engaging and targeting customers. Amazon is an excellent testing ground, as brands get pretty immediate feedback in user reviews and product and campaign performance. Products that perform well on Amazon can be prominently featured on your home website. Testing on Amazon will deepen your overall e-commerce strategy in giving customers exactly what they ask for. 

Further Resources to Optimize Your Digital Marketing Strategy

When was the last time you scored an A+?

Additional Reading:

• Check out NetElixir’s Amazon services
• Say Hello to Influencer Generated Content

The post 9 Search, Social, & Amazon Trends For 2021 appeared first on NetElixir.

Thanks to the quality of our data and forecasting model, our projections have routinely proved more accurate than those from other industry sources. Our team prides itself on being the go-to source of holiday insights for online retailers, and we’re excited to share this year’s report.

Slower Than Usual Growth in 2019

Retailers anticipating explosive growth this holiday may want to temper their expectations. NetElixir predicts slower than usual 9% year-over-year growth in ecommerce sales this holiday season.

This falls noticeably below the ecommerce growth reported by the National Retail Federation over the past several years. For instance, last year saw 11.5% growth and 2017 boasted a 13% increase.

Forecast Methodology

Before taking a deeper dive into our holiday forecast, here’s a brief overview of our process to give you a better idea of how we arrive at our projections.

• We perform ongoing analysis of ecommerce and search engine marketing metrics for our customer base of mid-size and large businesses with over $500 million in online holiday revenue (defined as November 1 – December 25).
• We analyze over 300 million unique website visits (forecasted for the upcoming holidays) across key holiday retail categories: Gourmet Food, Apparel & Shoes, Home & Decor, Gifting, and Consumer Electronics.
• We’ve been aggregating this data since 2008, making this our 11th annual holiday forecast.

Year-to-Date Data Insights for 2019

Ecommerce performance data from January through August of this year can tell us a lot about what to expect for the upcoming holidays. Consider it our holiday crystal ball, if you will.

These key indicators point to the slow growth we’ve predicted for this holiday season. Overall, YoY growth has shown signs of sluggishness in the third quarter, with revenue and orders down significantly from a year ago. (See chart below.)

The back-to-school season is traditionally a useful barometer for predicting the holidays, and this year the results have also been below expectations. Revenue, orders, and average order value (AOV) grew 9%, 7%, and 3%, respectively. In 2018, revenue grew 17% and orders rose 14%, while AOV slipped 4% YoY.

What Makes This Holiday Season Different?

With Thanksgiving falling on November 28 this year, consumers have six fewer shopping days between Turkey Day and Christmas than they did in 2018. That means the holiday sprint should be even more frantic and competitive over that crucial span.

Knowing what to expect can make this period a bit more navigable for retailers, so let’s take a look at some of the key trends that will shape the 2019 holiday season.

Amazon Stays on Top

You saw this one coming, right? Despite a relatively slow holiday in terms of overall growth, Amazon is poised to grab an even larger slice of the ecommerce pie. We predict Amazon’s share of total online holiday sales will cross 44% this year.

The ecommerce behemoth continues to dominate product searches. In fact, we estimate over 65% of all product searches now occur on Amazon. The Amazon Marketplace is playing a bigger role for retailers, as well. On average, over 15% of a retailer’s online sales come from Amazon, up from an average of 12% in Q4 2018.

Of course, Amazon’s ever-increasing Prime membership doesn’t hurt their growth prospects, either. There are now over 125 million Prime members helping Amazon capture an expanding share of online sales.

Factors Driving 2019 Ecommerce Revenue Growth

While holiday ecommerce growth may be more muted than in recent years, we see the following factors playing key parts in fueling that 9% YoY revenue increase.

• Mobile shopping will continue to surge: We estimate 45% of online purchases (and 72% of all searches) will happen on a mobile phone.
• Better integrated fulfillment: “Near me” searches are driven by mobile devices, along with more prevalent “buy online, pick up in-store” options.
• Growth of voice search: Less friction in the search-to-purchase process will lead to an increase in purchase frequency on voice devices. We estimate 35% of all mobile searches will be voice-activated. It’s important to prepare by creating a voice search SEO “playbook” for your business. (Need tips and insights? Download our most recent voice search report.)
• Heavy Discounting By Larger Retailers: Smaller merchants may face the brunt and margins will suffer, but overall sales will grow.

Resources for Holiday Season Success

Now that you know what the 2019 holiday season has in store, what can you do to make sure this is your most successful holiday yet? NetElixir is excited to offer some valuable resources to retailers to help them develop the perfect holiday strategy.

• Holiday Audit and Paid Search Calendar: Visit netelixir.com/holidayaudit to sign up for a free paid search audit from our team. Our experts will make sure your PPC campaigns are ready for the holiday rush. You can also use our Holiday Search Marketing Calendar to plan your budget around the most competitive days of the season.
• Holiday Workshop and Personalized Blueprint: Register on netelixir.com/holidayblueprint for a free 30-minute consultation with experts from NetElixir and Google. We’ll present you with a blueprint custom-tailored to bring holiday success to your business.

To learn more about what NetElixir can do for your brand, read about our complete range of retail digital marketing services and feel free to contact us for more info.

You can also watch our 2019 Holiday Season Retail Ecommerce Forecast webinar here:

May all your holidays be merry, bright, and profitable!

The post NetElixir’s 2019 Holiday Ecommerce Forecast & Predictions appeared first on NetElixir.

What’s especially exciting about this is that Smart Bidding already accounts for seasonal changes, such as the holidays or back-to-school season. This development effectively lets you incorporate Smart Bidding strategies for non-standard events, such product launches or sales. These seasonality adjustments are currently only available for Search and Display campaigns, with Shopping campaigns expected sometime later this year. 

In the announcement of this feature, Google provides this example:

“Let’s say you’re planning a flash sale for the weekend. Historically, you’ve seen a 50% increase in conversion rates when you’ve run a similar sale. With seasonality adjustments, you can apply a predicted conversion rate adjustment and Smart Bidding will consider that adjustment for the date range selected, while trying to hit your target CPA.”

Google recommends using these adjustments for short events lasting one to seven days. This feature gives marketers more control when it comes to maximizing the opportunity of putting together a short time event. It presents a great opportunity to identify what factors contribute to conversions and what role Smart Bidding seasonality adjustments could play in that strategy.

How To Create A Seasonality Adjustment

Per WERSM.com, this is how you implement your seasonality adjustment:

1 . Sign in to your Google Ads account.

2. Click on the Tools icon in the top-right corner.
3. Select Bid Strategies under “Shared Library” from the drop-down menu.
4. Under “Bid Strategies”, click Advanced Controls.
5. Select the Seasonality Adjustments option at the top.
6. Click the blue plus symbol plus to create a new seasonality adjustment.
7. Provide a name and description for the adjustment, fill in the event’s start and end dates, and choose your scope and devices.
8. Adjust your conversion rate to reflect your estimated conversion rate change.
9. Click Save.

So with this new tool available, what’s the best way to use it? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Here’s How You Can Solve For X:

Find Your Thresholds

Knowing that you have an event coming, identify what benchmarks you’re associating with success for the event so you can properly apply the seasonality adjustment. Conversions is a metric for most events, but decide what the CPA is and what you need your conversion rates to look like to consider the event successful. Then, Smart Bidding seasonality adjustments can help with your heavy lifting. 

Go Macro

It’s vital to consider no just on-the-nose sales events or product launches as potential opportunities for applying seasonality adjustments. What about when you incorporate a new Influencer into your marketing and their first few posts go live? What about a new retargeting strategy? What if your site is expecting an SEO boost that may drive traffic? These can all be events that work in tandem with applying Smart Bidding to help you hit CPA goals, and maximize the impact from other marketing tactics you use. 

Do you want to add seasonality adjustments to your marketing strategy? Contact us to discuss how to maximize your conversion spike opportunities.

The post Solving For X: Google Seasonality Smart Bidding appeared first on NetElixir.

Far from a simple name change, the recent rebranding also reflects Microsoft’s goal to broaden the scope of its advertising offerings beyond the Bing search engine. As we’ll see, AI is playing a key role in this shift.

Why Microsoft Advertising?

If you’re not already taking advantage of Microsoft Advertising, consider this your wake-up call. Placing ads on Bing and other Microsoft platforms connects your brand to customers you may not find otherwise. In fact, there are approximately 63 million PC searchers on Bing that you can’t reach on Google.(1)

Bing users themselves are a diverse bunch, presenting myriad opportunities for businesses to identify likely customers. Half are college graduates, half are married, and one-third have a household income of $100,000 or more. (2) This is an audience that’s ready, willing, and able to buy – and it’s waiting for you.

To put it succinctly, if you’re not advertising with Microsoft, you’re missing out on lots of potentially high-value customers.

Microsoft Audience Network

Fortunately, Microsoft is using AI to make it even easier to engage the right customers across its properties. Earlier this year, it introduced the Microsoft Audience Network, a new audience marketing solution powered by AI and the Microsoft Graph.

The Microsoft Graph provides rich consumer understanding based on a variety of signals, including search and web activity. (See below.) The Microsoft Audience Network uses this data to match the user’s intent with the advertiser’s product or service to drive better performance.

Microsoft Audience Ads

How do advertisers take advantage of this powerful technology? With Microsoft Audience Ads, retailers can advertise with high-quality, cross-device native placements on the Microsoft Audience Network. This includes users on premium sites like MSN, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Edge, and other partners.

Microsoft Audience Ads are available in three formats: image-based ads, text ads, and feed-based product ads. The ads themselves can range from a simple text ad in your Outlook inbox to a large-scale Infopane image on the MSN home page. Images are compatible across platforms, meaning you can repurpose existing assets from your Google Display Network and Facebook Audience Network campaigns.

Reach Customers Beyond Search

Microsoft Audience Ads allow advertisers to expand the reach of their search ads beyond the SERP and into a native environment across Microsoft’s publishing network. For the first time, intent data from search can be used outside of search to put the right ad in front of the right customer.

What does this mean for you?

• A highly relevant audience of consumers who have shown intent or interest in your products or services.
• Massive reach and high-quality, brand-safe placements on MSN, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Edge, and partner sites (with more to come).
• Native ad formats that blend seamlessly into the core user experience and regularly outperform traditional display advertising.

The results: more clicks and conversions for your ad campaigns.

Connect with Audiences That Matter Most

Audience targeting is nothing new, but Microsoft Audience Ads offer a smarter way to pursue your ideal customer. Aside from traditional keyword targeting, you can add a variety of targeting dimensions to gain more impressions. These include user intent targeting like in-market audiences and custom audiences, user profile targeting via LinkedIn, along with location and device targeting.

This helps you target your preferred audience rather than a specific placement while maximizing the value of every advertising dollar.

Who Should Use Microsoft Audience Ads?

Any advertiser interested in native advertising would do well to give Microsoft Audience Ads a try. Not only are they easy to manage, but they provide incremental opportunity for small to mid-sized businesses and agencies, as well as both B2B and B2C enterprises.

If you’re already managing audiences on the Google Display Network, Facebook Audience Network, or Yahoo Gemini, using Microsoft Audience Ads should be a smooth transition. As previously mentioned, you can use many of the same assets in your Microsoft Audience Ads.

Mastering Modern Search

With the search world evolving so quickly, keeping up can be a challenge. For more insights about the latest developments in search marketing and how your business can adapt, be sure to download our Modern Search Best Practices.

If you’re interested in finding out how NetElixir can help you take advantage of the new offerings available at Microsoft Advertising, we encourage you to learn more about our paid search services and contact us for more info.

Sources:

1. comScore (custom), September 2018. The Bing Network includes Microsoft Core Search sites, Yahoo (Bing Powered) sites and AOL Core Search sites in the U.S. PC Only.

2. comScore Plan Metrix, US, December 2018, custom measure created using comScore indices and duplication. Bing Network represents unduplicated visitors to Bing Web, Yahoo U.S. Web Search and AOL.COM Web Search. Yahoo U.S. Web Search is at least 50% powered by Bing.

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