Google’s RDAs have new layouts for a better mobile experience

Want to know more about this upcoming update? Keep on reading

Google announced in the annual Marketing Live 2022 event that Responsive Display Ads (RDAs) are going to be enhanced towards a better mobile experience for advertisers and consumers, aka a mobile-first layout. According to Google, these changes give marketers more control over the ad’s visual appearance on mobile versions. 

What will be different about RDAs?

One of the main changes includes the option of a new portrait image:

  • Previously, the ad format required a square image, and Google filled in the gaps in the mobile version. 
  • Now, advertisers can control the ad’s appearance by allowing portrait images to display on mobile devices

Additionally, Google now gives advertisers the option to use existing resources to create a vertical video for ad campaigns. This format uses machine learning to design and create engaging display ads. However, checking the end result before testing might be preferable, since auto-created videos might not be at your standard level. 

Do you think this is useful for visual creators? Let us know in the comments below.

Another update to RDAs will make images fit in the available space, without needing to expand images. Let’s see an example:

Our Take

It is clear that RDAs are the dominant display ad format in Google’s platform. The possibility to adapt multiple size formats automatically for maximum coverage is a great benefit since traditional Display ads forced advertisers to design each and every image according to the size of the ad. However, RDAs are not quite cooked yet. As we see in Responsive Search ads (RSAs), Google allows advertisers to pin texts or images to guarantee it has a specific position, and this is a crucial feature we do not get to see in RDAs.

There should be more control over how ads are shown in different situations since not all advertisers are willing to have a full design team that builds hundreds of image variations according to each scenario. It would be a great addition to RDAs if Google launches more control tools that show how the ad is actually showing. It can’t be all black or white, some gray would be nice.   

Given that these additions show the importance of mobile usage nowadays, we are eager to see if any more ad formats are taken into account with more tools that give more power to advertisers.

As expected, we will keep you informed of any new updates launched in the near future. Stay tuned!

About Quantikal

Quantikal is a data-driven performance marketing agency based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We help clients scale their business through profitable digital ad spending by constantly obsessing over clients’ key metrics. Quantikal’s experience working in diverse online companies in marketing roles including media buying allows us to provide solutions in the ever-demanding increase of marketing performance, doing more with less thus becoming a strategic partner.

#google #quantikal #rda #display #advertising #video #advertisers #performance

Main Announcements from Google Marketing Live 2022

Here’s everything you need to know about Google’s annual event and how it may impact your business

As you may imagine, we’ve been busy analyzing and investigating Google’s new announcements from Google Marketing Live 2022 event. However, YouTube Shorts is not the only feature that caught our eye. In this post, we’ll list the most important details about Google’s latest updates coming your way.

Updates in Video ads

Video ads coming to Discover

Google is considering the addition of short video ads to Discover. This is a huge announcement for video-focused advertisers since Discover features many videos in the feed with eye-catching images, so it could easily fit with the organic content.

Swipable shopping ads in Search 

Attention apparel brands: this new ad display will be available in Search and Performance Max campaigns, and will pair organic shopping results with your shopping ad, making it even more visual and more appealing for the shop-intent user. (imagen)

3D models of products with AR

Further enhancements also include the addition of augmented reality for shopping campaigns. Advertisers will be able to make 3D models of products appear directly on the results page, giving users a better experience and a better idea of what they’re purchasing. Even though there weren’t many details announced, we are very excited to see what Google has in stock for this new tech feature.  

Updates in automation tools

Performance Max updates

By the end of this year, Google announced updates coming to Performance Max campaigns, such as A/B testing, the ability to optimize in-store goals, experiment tools to help test potential lift, optimization score recommendations, and more performance data such as attribution, audience, and auction insights. This gives advertisers even more information to work with and more tools to enhance your campaign.

Enhancements in the Insights page

Focusing on first-party data, the new insights page includes new performance data, attribution, audience, and auction insights. This can help advertisers see how ads work together across Google’s interface, it can show how different user segments are controlling your campaign’s performance, and it can give more intel for budget optimization.

What do you make out of these new updates? Which one of them are you expecting the most? Let us know in the comments below.

We think Google’s latest announcements are promising, especially for advertisers that prefer a more visual approach. Quantikal will always be in favor of adding more tools for the advertiser to work with, and more control over crucial variables. 

Updates are expected to be fully out by the end of this year, so we are eager to see you try these out!  

As always, Quantikal will be digging deeper into these announcements and you’ll hear from us firsthand if any new features are coming your way. Stay tuned!

About Quantikal

Quantikal is a data-driven performance marketing agency based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We help clients scale their business through profitable digital ad spending by constantly obsessing over clients’ key metrics. Quantikal’s experience working in diverse online companies in marketing roles including media buying allows us to provide solutions in the ever-demanding increase of marketing performance, doing more with less thus becoming a strategic partner.

YouTube is now testing short ads

Learn about this new ad format and how it can influence your business

Google announced new updates in the annual Google Marketing Live event 2022, including the addition and optimization of YouTube Shorts.

With TikTok’s rising popularity, short-form videos and advertisements have been all over the place. Given that the average user’s attention span is very brief, companies like YouTube are testing out new ways to catch the consumer’s eye by experimenting with shorts.

YouTube is beginning its testing with app-install ads and promotions after investing $100 million in a creator fund for Shorts, hoping it would bring more creators into the platform. Advertisers that have been subjets to this new ad format say that user feedback is positive. Google’s data says Shorts is generating 4X more views than in 2021

This feature is comparable to TikTok’s videos, which leads us to believe that Shorts is a competitor strategy. According to AppInventiv and Global Media Insight, TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide and $4.6 billion in revenue while YouTube has 2.6 billion monthly active users and $28.84 billion in revenue.  

What do you make out of these numbers? Do you believe that YouTube Shorts will be a useful tool for advertisers? Let us know in the comments below.

The video-sharing platform also announced that a long-term monetization plan is in the works for creators to make money from Shorts. This would include:

  • The addition of branded content
  • Enhancing Super Chat, which includes the option to buy stickers or messages and place them in the chat, just like we see today in TikTok lives.
  • Shopping directly from Shorts, meaning that advertisers will be able to connect products to campaigns in order to create a shoppable video ad (this could be an interesting addition since users would be a few steps closer to reaching your product). 

It is true that consumers now prefer short-lengthed visual entertainment, and TikTok’s rise in popularity makes other video platforms reconsider their strategy. 

With that being said, YouTube Shorts is something we can get on board with since the video platform is still larger in numbers and TikTok has younger average users, so we recommend marketers to be aware of their target audience before they decide to invest in the platform. 

As always, Quantikal will keep you informed of any new Google features that arise. (Spoiler alert: Google Marketing Live 2022 was a conversation starter). Stay tuned!

About Quantikal

Quantikal is a data-driven performance marketing agency based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We help clients scale their business through profitable digital ad spending by constantly obsessing over clients’ key metrics. Quantikal’s experience working in diverse online companies in marketing roles including media buying allows us to provide solutions in the ever-demanding increase of marketing performance, doing more with less thus becoming a strategic partner.

Digital Marketing Trends to Improve Your Game

If you want to know how to enhance your marketing strategy, keep on reading

Digital marketing is crucial nowadays in the advertising industry. Technology evolved and marketers are constantly needing to update their strategies in order to keep up with the trends. 

But don’t worry, we will give you the lowdown in this article.

Here are some of the most important trends of this year:

  • Influencer Marketing
  • Video Marketing
  • Conversational Marketing
  • Automation Tools

Which system or channel did you try out recently? When was the last time you engaged with any of these new trends? Let us know in the comments below.

Influencer Marketing

Influencers are the perfect gateway to introduce your brand to a specific audience (quick example: if you sell tennis rackets, you might want a sports influencer with a big audience to promote your product). These Internet celebrities already own an engaging audience and a relevant platform, so getting an influencer that knows how to address the public and can advertise your product on social media could mean a positive outcome for your business.

According to Hubspot, 57% of marketers that use this digital marketing trend believe it was a  successful move

Video Marketing

Given the growth of social media, audiences are becoming more and more visual. For advertisers, this means that visual aid or videos are the best way to catch the consumer’s eye.  Platforms such as Instagram and TikTok might be a good way to create short videos that can quickly reach more people. However, this comes with a big challenge: how can you make a short and attractive video that differentiates you from your competitors? 

Conversational Marketing

This strategy uses a dialogue approach to improve customer experience and increase interaction between brands and audiences. Some conversational marketing strategies include chatbots or live chat, where the user can engage with a company representative or a robot that can answer questions immediately, without the need to wait for an answer.

Automation Tools

Artificial intelligence includes user data that can help advertisers analyze behavior, browsing patterns, and customer preferences. These tools can help marketers personalize their ads according to the audience they want to reach, creating a unique way to attract more customers by matching their interests. 

Quantikal is always going to be in favor of trying out new things, especially to test out its results and see if it’s worth implementing.

As always, Quantikal will keep you informed about any new trends that may arise in the near future. Stay tuned!

About Quantikal

Quantikal is a data-driven performance marketing agency based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We help clients scale their business through profitable digital ad spending by constantly obsessing over clients’ key metrics. Quantikal’s experience working in diverse online companies in marketing roles including media buying allows us to provide solutions in the ever-demanding increase of marketing performance, doing more with less thus becoming a strategic partner.

How We Quadrupled Revenue in Less Than 7 Months

Here’s how to successfully spend in the right places.

With the right digital strategy, we were able to 4X the monthly sales from May 2021 to November 2021 while sacrificing only a fraction of return on ad spend (ROAS).  
Yes, you read correctly. If you want to know how we increased Tire Agent’s monthly non-brand revenues from Google Ads from $0.7M to $3.3M in 7 months, that’s an additional $2.6M in monthly revenues, keep on reading! 👇

Tire Agent is an e-commerce business that specializes in selling car tires and rims. They have a large selection of tires, rims, and wheels, and ship them anywhere in the U.S. for free. They carry over 60 brands of tires, including some top-tier brands like Michelin, Goodyear, and Bridgestone. Tire Agent makes sure that they’re offering the best rebates, coupons, specials, and discount codes on the internet, arranging payment plans that set them apart from any other online tire store.

The facts: although there was some initial traction in 2020, from January to May 2021 the company’s sales plateaued. Here’s when we stepped into the picture.  

What did we do to help? Everything but magic.

Since we started working with Tire Agent in May 2021, we immediately restructured and relaunched campaigns. When we stepped in, the client had limited budgets in overlapping campaigns. Using our proprietary methodology and experience, we figured out a way to untap growth in Search.

Following a Structured Process

With new search methodologies for expanding keywords, reordered ad groups, new match type pairing combined with fitting negative keywords, and focused extensions, we were able to make a difference in the details. 

In each step of the process, Quantikal provided monthly forecasted scenarios of different spend levels and ROAS estimates, allowing the client to make easier executive decisions on spend each month.

The key to figuring it out was a regular day-to-day follow-up and a dedicated process. 

We paid special attention to the search campaign that represents 50% of the brand’s investment: tire financing. Although this campaign was already set up when we arrived, it needed to be remodeled. We expanded the way of saying “financing” by adding rims and wheels, competitors, tire sizes, make-model-trim campaigns (MMT), and trying to find new ways of pausing keywords that weren’t working to focus investment on those that were working. 

Also, we tried out new negative keywords to build a more specific search, feeding into the list to see which other searches weren’t taken into consideration. 

Home runs don’t exist but consistent base hits do. 

Google’s keyword recommendations gave us some ideas to work with: “tires near me”. Based on this suggestion, the Quantikal team decided to look into the specifics of Tire Agent’s buyers and saw that location insertion was working better than the keyword insertion, so we launched a near-me location campaign. We targeted the best states and the best cities and built a geo-focused campaign so that users would be directed to the client when they searched for tires in their area, adding new audiences and specifying the search. 

After digging in deeper with the client’s methodology, we decided to build a campaign focused on the tires’ terrain (rocks, rain, snow, mud, etc.) trying out keywords that weren’t considered before. These two examples were the perfect trigger for us to realize that more terms were missing, so people were searching for more topic-related keywords and we weren’t taking advantage of that traffic flow. 

Extending Beyond Search

Another campaign type we worked with is display. It looked like a great field for traffic expansion. Through an increased number of new assets and creatives, not only generic but also related to product offers and rebates. We systematically tested assets, doubling down on the best-performing ones. After polishing and working on these campaigns, we had an average ROAS of 4, which looked positive considering that the average for non-brand was around 6.5.

At Quantikal, we also worked with discovery campaigns. Our expansion mainly came from testing multiple audiences and expanding reach, we used the learnings obtained from observing audiences in search campaigns and adding them into separate ad groups within discovery campaigns. During this period, we got to scale traffic by 10X while getting an average of 5 ROAS which is slightly below the search non-brand average of 6.5.

Hard Work Pays Off

The key to our client’s success was executing a true and tested process combined with close collaboration with our client’s industry knowledge.

Every revision and modification done in the Google Ads campaigns, as little as they may be, placed us one step closer to victory. Success came from consistency, testing, process, and attention to detail, that’s what makes the difference. And what a difference it can make if it increased our clients’ sales from $0.7M to $3.3M in just under 7 months.

Without fail and as expected, we will continue our hard work towards achieving the client’s ideal and we’ll keep you in the loop of our ongoing efforts. Stay tuned!

About Quantikal

Quantikal is a data-driven performance marketing agency based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We help clients scale their business through profitable digital ad spending by constantly obsessing over clients’ key metrics. Quantikal’s experience working in diverse online companies in marketing roles including media buying allows us to provide solutions in the ever-demanding increase of marketing performance, doing more with less thus becoming a strategic partner.

Keywords

Never Ever Use These Match Types Together

To the tune of Taylor Swift’s song.

It has been some time that I wanted to sit down and write this post. I cringe every time I see incorrect use match type in a client’s account.

As of today you can choose from four type of match types:

  • Exact
  • Broad Modified Match (BMM)
  • Generic broad
  • Phrase

Care to guess which ones are ok and which are not?

Explaining this concept to my clients, I always like to do a small exercise of the imagination. It goes somewhat like this: imagine a car. This car is similar to any other car but the difference is each time you press on the gas pedal, the windshield wipers begin working. Every time you hit on the breaks the right doors open. Each time you signal left or right, your car seat reclines. Now imagine trying to drive this imaginary car on your daily commute from home to work. Yes, it will drive you crazy!

Managing and trying to optimize an account with most of the keywords are generic broad or phrase match is like driving that car.

So now you know that Exact and BMM match types are ok, the other two, not so much.

So the begging questions is why?

There are two major concepts on selecting keyword match type, coverage and linear independence.

Coverage is the ability of having a small set of keywords that cover an important amount of user search queries of the interested category you compete in. Coverage is lowest with Exact match as the probability to match a certain user search query is lower than other types of matches. In the other extreme, the Generic Broad has the highest coverage. However, this high coverage comes at a price. A very steep price indeed as you will see below, the price is low independence.

Linear independence is the ability for one keyword of behaving independently of other keywords in the same account. We can think of it as low interdependence or low cannibalization of searches between each keyword. For those of you that remember some algebra, it is similar to the concept of avoiding the co-linearity of vectors. Now, keywords and semantic objects are not vectors. However, organizing an account as clean as possible is the first step to been able to optimize the account in the future through keyword bidding.

Why then do broad generic keywords have low independence? And why should it matter? There two main problems with broad generic keywords:

1) Not all the keywords needed to be present in the query to activate the match. What we call the partial match.

2) Google allows the use of synonyms on broad generic.

This generates many search queries that may not be aligned to your business offerings or there is a lost opportunity of handling a generic keyword as a mixed bag of intentions. Let’s take one example from the auto industry. One might say that the adjective “used” car and “pre-owned” car means the same and Google might interpret them as synonyms. However, I can tell you from experience that keywords +used +car and +pre +owned +car do not behave the same. For a used car classifieds site, generally, the “pre-owned” term usually has a higher conversion rate. Because of this conversion rate difference, it is important to have these terms separated using BMM structure instead of a generic match type. This will allow to bid separately for each term optimizing the account better.

So remember, every time you use a generic broad match a SEM fairy dies. Joking aside, I recommend using a mix of 5%/10% exact match keywords and 90%/95% BMM keywords.

Think about building a good structure and keyword base for account optimization through keyword bidding.

Happy bidding.

lukas-blazek-mcSDtbWXUZU-unsplash (1)

Marginal CPA vs Average CPA: What most people get wrong.

I still get quite surprised about how people within the industry still confuse the two terms: average vs marginal cost per acquisition (CPA).

I remember once I was renewing my drivers license at the local DMV office in Buenos Aires. While attending the mandatory class, the person teaching the class asked us this question: What is the speed limit in a city avenue? Everyone answered simultaneously “60 Km/h”, we were quite confident on our response only to be reprimanded by the DMV teacher that our answer was incomplete. He corrected us saying that the correct response was “30 Km/h as a lower limit and 60Km/h as the upper limit”. That response stuck with me regarding how sometimes one metric by itself might give an incomplete picture of a particular situation.

I believe the same happens relating to CPA, a more complete understanding of how your paid channels are performing involves knowing both average CPA AND marginal CPA.

Calculating Marginal CPA

The average CPA is pretty straightforward, it is the total cost divided by the total amount of paid conversions. An easy way to muddy this metric is to not only use paid conversions but use total conversions (including free/organic).

Ok, so how about marginal CPA? The first key insight of marginal CPA is that it is not a constant. Marginal CPA depends on the amount of conversion one takes as a starting point. The marginal cost for the 100th conversion is not the same as the marginal cost of the 500th conversion. If the sorting of the conversions has been done right (less expensive first), what you will see is that marginal costs is always incremental.

The graph below tries to show both concepts(1). If one were to grab and adwords account and detail the information by grouping the data by keyword adding total cost and total conversions for each keyword. Later ordering the keywords from least expensive to most expensive.

The X-axis shows the accumulated amount of conversions while the Y-Axis tracks the accumulated investment.

In the above example activating only a subset of the keywords, the least expensive keywords to achieve 4000 conversions. One would have to activate 887 keywords for a total of 4012 conversions at a total cost of $31,374. Making the average CPA $7.82.

However the marginal CPA at 4000 conversions is calculated differently. Taking two very close data points we get:

Point A: 3991 conversions, total investment $31,090

Point A’: 4012 conversions, total investment $31,374

In this example and at this specific point marginal CPA is close to double of what the average CPA is. Another benefit of this graph setup is that the slope of the curve corresponds to the marginal CPA.

I usually consider marginal CPA to be a more important metric than average CPA. It is a good indicator that shows how scalable are your current SEM efforts. In the case of selling ad inventory do consider that the real BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) of the buyer is the marginal CPA and not the average.

Building the graph

Extract and adwords report by keyword export it to an excel. There divide cost by conversions for each keyword (CPA), then sort this column in ascending order. In the same file add two new columns: 1) accumulated conversions: the first row should have the number of conversions of first keyword (KW) , the second row should have conversions of second KW plus the accumulated conversions of the previous row. 2) accumulated cost: same concept of the previous column but instead of accumulating conversion, add total cost invested in each KW. After processing these columns, the last row should show total amount of conversions for the account and total cost.

Once you have this data calculated, select the cells of these two columns and generate a scatter plot where the Y-axis is cost and X-axis amount of conversions. Your plot should like something like the graph shown above.

1.The Google Ads data was taken from an account in the auto industry in Argentina, the absolute values were modified for confidential purposes