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Google Ads is a black box within a black box within a black box. A Matryoshka doll of black boxes. So is Meta Ads. And so will be every digital ad platform as time goes on. I read an interesting article by the American Marketing Association this weekend describing a second-order effect of these environments called "divergent delivery." The AMA fears this effect could be destroying the validity of A/B tests. I'll share some thoughts about this over at the Smarter Ecommerce (smec) page later this week, so keep your eyes open!

The amorphic nature of today’s advertising ecosystem helps ReThinc to remain valuable to businesses that are looking to make sense of the vast amount of information they are provided by way of reporting. This is especially pronounced in the digital space where we can readily track the customer journey. One of the more common reports you’ll see from our friends at Google is the Business Profile Performance Report. Learn how your business can utilize this feature in our latest blog! ✍🏻

I'm excited to share that I've just published a new blog article on bcwebwise's official website. In this article, I explore Google's recent decision to backtrack on its third-party cookie ban and what this means for marketers and advertisers. Don't miss out on this crucial update! Check out the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dCXc3qeC #BlogPost #Google #ThirdPartyCookies #DigitalMarketing #Advertising #BCWebWise #LinkedInUpdates

You know that second between arriving at a website and when the ads appear? We were curious about what goes on in that brief pause, and found that the answer to be quite loaded with activity (forgive the pun). In our recent Economy and Society article "The Longest Second: Header bidding and the material politics of online advertising," Donald MacKenzie, Koray Caliskan, and Charlotte Rommerskirchen explore the mechanics of how ads are shown to website visitors in the open display marketplace. The process includes a series of near-instantaneous auctions (sometimes coordinated by the user's own phone or device) in which algorithms bid to show particular advertisers' ads. We trace the emergence of Google's centralised auctions, and how they have been challenged by decentralised "header bidding." This work argues that 1) ad platforms should be seen as "stack economisation" processes, which layer different forms of economisation in complex ways, and 2) that those processes are sometimes fiercely contested, and can be the site of intricate - and changing - material politics. Read the full paper below. https://lnkd.in/eZgUeJa3

We discovered crazy discrepancies between products in terms of performance within Google Ads. Any ecom owner/marketer who takes Google Ads even a bit serious, would regularly look at the performance of the products. This is a reminder to do so on every time span available (e.g. week/month/YTD/etc). You might get some new insights. You see, sometimes a person clicks on the ad and is not yet ready to buy. Later on, the person might see your ad or have a thought about your brand, and decides to buy weeks later. (That’s why you also need to understand the difference between regular conversions and conversions by time). You might discover, like us, that the time to convert for some products is way longer than expected, so a “loser” product might just turn into a “winner”. TLDR: check your product performance on a longer time span today, and make your choices based on that! 

New Google Update! ⚡ Google is now rolling out a campaign-level feature called Brand restrictions, and its role is "to ensure your campaign meets your branded traffic needs". In other words, you can tell Google to restrict all traffic to searches that match your keywords and mention your brands. The only condition to use this feature is to have Smart Bidding and Broad Match implemented in the campaign. The way I understand it is that Google is giving us the opportunity to leverage the power of "Smart Bidding + Broad Match" while ensuring also that we don't receive irrelevant traffic (competitor names, similar products or services, etc) in our Brand campaigns. Traditionally, achieving similar results required using Exact Match and manual bidding. The feature is also available for PMax campaigns. It will help advertisers ensure their budget isn't wasted on brands they don't carry in their inventory. I find this feature quite surprising, as we're used to Google removing control levers one by one. So allowing more control is always a welcome move. Thoughts? Adriaan Dekker Navah Hopkins #ppc #googleads #sem #google

Google’s backtrack on cookies announced last week has caused ripples throughout the advertising industry. The u-turn however presents a chance for the industry to reflect on what responsible and sustainable advertising could look like, with or without cookies, for the consumer, advertiser, publisher, and, crucially, the planet. Read our thoughts on what this means for consumer data consent, and generating high quality engagement and consumer trust in brands. https://lnkd.in/epsnU8kM #responsiblemarketing #cookielessfuture #google3rdpartycookies #cookiedepreciation #sustainablemedia

I audited an ad account with a 1.4x ROAS. Here's what I found: Their product feed was a MESS. - Boring titles - Descriptions were just random numbers - Half of their products were disapproved - So much missing information Optimizing your shopping campaigns starts in your product feed. A healthy and optimized product feed leads to a healthy and optimized shopping campaign. Your titles are one of the most important things to optimize. No one is going to click on "Sweater Size L" Optimize this by adding: 1. Main keyword 2, USPs (Like materials used) 3. Brand 4. Color, Size, etc. Next was the descriptions. Google uses these to serve your ads to the right people. Add all of your product information here but make it unique. The next thing was the missing information. This is stuff like: - Gender - Color - Product Type - Material The more information you give Google to work with the better your products will perform. Start adding these things in and watch your performance skyrocket. If you want to run shopping ads, you need to learn Merchant Center. If you need some help with that, shoot me a DM.

📌 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐭 𝐋𝐚𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐞 📱 Google is always 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 in its search results. Below, you can see current tests of 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐬 on mobile. The variation on the right, which shows the location asset 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, is likely the newest one, as Google previously used to display extensions at the bottom of the ad. Note that this may not be a complete preview of all the variations currently running live. 💭 Google's latest initiatives, including digital coupons for Maps, showcase their continued efforts to bridge the gap between online and brick-and-mortar stores. 🛒 What are your thoughts? ------------- ♻ Like or Share this post to spread the word 🔔 Connect with me for the latest news on #GoogleAds and #MicrosoftAdvertising! 🚀 Follow me, Hana Kobzová, and hit that 🔔 icon to ensure you stay updated. #PPC #SEM #PPCadvertising #PPCmarketing

Marketing is a constantly evolving machine. Algorithms, Pay Per Click bid wars, and SEO are just naming a few of the pieces contributing to the mosaic of successful marketing. We mix AI with human expertise to always ensure you are ahead of the changes.