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SURVEY
Did you answer our survey yet? We have something for you if you do!
We’re pretty sure your business has been affected by this whole COVID-19 outbreak. We even have the data to prove it.
Here’s a small taste of what we know so far.
Over half the online businesses reported a drop in their ROAS, despite CPMs being slightly lower on average. Even so, there’s a segment of about 20% that has increased its ROAS.
What are these products, traffic sources and geos? You will find out in the report.
The more data we get, the more accurate we can be in our finished report, which we’ll get out to you in about a week.
And we’ll have a reward for you too. Everyone who answers the survey and sends us a reply with a screenshot of their submission, we’ll invite to our STACKED MARKETER Insiders FB group!
So go ahead and answer this anonymous survey.
No matter how much you spend on ads, each answer is extremely helpful! Our goal is that, in less than two weeks, we can analyze the data and identify the most important trends:
- What’s at risk (based on traffic source, vertical and product type).
- What’s booming (based on the same elements).
- What’s unaffected.
- What you can do in each scenario to improve.
This will be posted for free. Whether you are a subscriber or not, you will be able to read the full report and share it with anyone who needs it. We will not lock the report behind any opt-in form.
So, fill in the survey here, share it with others who could answer, and in two weeks time we’ll publish the most comprehensive state of the industry report we can.
CORONAVIRUS
What’s happening to Google Ads conversions? Facebook bans still more products
More Facebook Ads restrictions
As shared by Facebook Product Director, Rob Leathern, Facebook expanded their ban to more than just masks. Hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and COVID-19 test kits are now also banned in ads and commerce listings.
He also said that if they see abuse around these products in organic posts, they will be removed too.
The COVID-19 impact on Google Ads
Mark Irvine from WordStream shared a comprehensive report that illustrates how Google Ads performance has changed since the coronavirus outbreak.
How this was built: They looked at the tens of thousands of businesses that work with WordStream across a wide variety of industries.
Average results:
- Google search ad impressions decreased by 7%.
- Conversions dropped by an average of 21%.
But, let’s see what happened for specific industries. Here we can really see the impact of COVID-19:
The gainers:
- Pharmaceutical sector: +34% in Search Ad Clicks and +47% in Search Ad Clicks conversion rate.
- Beauty and personal care: 41% increase in searches.
The industries that have been hit the hardest
- Tourism and travel: The data here is split in different categories. But, to give you an idea, travel booking services suffered a 49% decrease in conversions.
- Bars and restaurants: Restaurants registered a 59% drop in search conversions.
This is just a small segment of the data shown in the report, so check it out if you want to find stats about your industry.
SEO
Search audiences, user intent and on-site search behaviour analysis
This recent post from Search Engine Journal goes into some detail about understanding user intent and how you can use that to build audiences for your site.
The secret to this lies within the search queries themselves. It all starts with the foundational element of building a search audience by understanding what your potential users are searching for. It’s a case of unearthing patterns with the large landscape of search queries.
How do you do that? Look for verbs, adverbs, adjectives or nouns that appear in high frequencies, and which offer insights into our audience’s problems or needs. This is their motive for searching.
Building these query patterns helps you to uncover trends, search behavior nuances and gauge the scope of growth in any given category.
You can further categorize these queries into buckets of interests specific to your target users. With enough data, you can then create detailed topics and subtopics so that you know the interest of our searchers.
The above process helps you build keyword insights, and understand the actual motivations behind the searches.
Here is an example of consumer insights derived from query patterns in the pet food landscape:
+ Keyword Insight: Dog preferences are purchase or product switch motivators for target users.
Consumer Insights:
- User Need: Customer’s dog has stopped eating their current food, broke out in a rash, or simply is not satisfied with their current diet and are looking to switch immediately.
- Actionable Solution: Provide success stories from the “Sensitive Stomach” customer base. Show common issues and possible fixes within ingredient lists that can also help solve the users’ problems. That way, shoppers can feel confident that they won’t experience these problems again.
+ Key Questions:
- Awareness: Why is/does my puppy/dog ______? (not eating, have diarrhea, have gas, itchy skin, etc.)
- Interest: How do I treat ____? What is the best dog food for ______?
- Consideration: Has your business helped others with this problem?
Learn more about leveraging search intent and onsite behaviour from the SEJ post here.
FROM THE CREW
How have we been doing from this new domain?
You’re one of the 1200 people who receive our daily newsletter from [email protected] instead of [email protected] (our old domain and name.)
To help build that reputation, we want to ask for your help. It’ll only take about 30s and we’ll be forever grateful! Plus, it ensures that you get this newsletter on the dot!
For Gmail users – Move us to your Primary Inbox:
- For mobile: In the top right corner of the app, hit those 3 dots, tap “Move to” and then “Primary”
- For desktop: Go back, then drag and drop this email into the “Primary” tab. It should be the first tab on the left.
Oh, and Gmail also likes link clicks. So if you want to send a virtual thumbs-up to Big G, plus look at the cutest Internet kittens you’ve ever seen, click here.
For you Apple mail users – Tap on our email address at the top of this email and then select “Add to VIPs”.
After you do that, you can give Gmail another boost by replying to this email. We’ll be sure to turn this transition into a case study for you all when we’re done too!
ADVERTISING
The ultimate retargeting strategy: 5 platforms for 4x ROAS
We found something that looks very shiny. A case study shared by Ryan Steenburgh, which helpfully covers Facebook, Instagram, GDN, Youtube and Google Search Ads.
Wanna know some results? $344k in revenue at 4X ROAS with 25% margin.
That’s what we mean by a Stacked Marketer! Jokes aside, here are some of the most interesting points.
The business is a beard care brand, and the strategy is essentially split in two parts: Prospecting and retargeting.
- Search and deploy prospecting: The main goal here is finding at least eight core audiences on Facebook, which will be the foundation for scaling.
To find these audiences, they launched a testing campaign with 30-50 ad sets and ran it at $10-20 per ad set per day. Every ad set targeted a different LLA and Interest, and they only used the three best creatives from the last 90 days.
A tip he gives here is to test random Interests. For example, they targeted “Apple” (not the fruit) as an interest, and they ended up with 7x ROAS on that ad set.
- Retargeting: He calls this part “Eco-Systematic Retargeting”, because they hit many platforms.
YouTube: Here Ryan suggests using ad sequencing. A video ad sequence is made up of a series of video ads that you’d like to show to a user. If the user skips the first video, the second video will be shown and so on with the third and fourth, etc. You should look to use a different angle to hook the user in each video.
Google Display Ads: This one is simple – they just target all website traffic with static banners.
Google Search Ads: This is the usual brand bidding as well as targeting all the keywords related to your brand. This is because sometimes people forget about your brand.
Alright, we skipped the retargeting structure for IG and FB because it’s something we’ve already seen. However, we would recommend checking out the post for the whole case study.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- INSTAGRAM: There we go, Instagram gets inspired by a feature from Snapchat and announces the release of Snapchat-like disappearing messages.
- GOOGLE: This new feature in Google Ads AI will allow you to easily appeal all policy decisions and get your ads approved.
- FACEBOOK: A bug, confirmed by Facebook too, is showing an error in your Ads Manager about your Pixel and it looks like all the data has been deleted.
- TOOL: We already shared this in the past, but now it might be more useful: This tool blurs your background during conference calls. Messy room? No problem.
- AMAZON: This post discusses how the e-commerce scenario could be changed once the pandemic is over. This largely focuses on Amazon and other giant retailers.
BRAIN TEASER
I have a little house in which I live all alone. It has no doors or windows, and if I want to go out I must break through the wall. What am I?
You can find the solution by clicking here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
No, please! Don’t do this
The world is almost in complete lockdown, and can you guess how most people are spending their time?
*no brownie points for guessing*
It’s Netflix.
But, unfortunately, there is yet another problem…
Way too many people are watching Netflix in Europe right now. Good right? Well, this sudden surge in viewership could place a heavy burden on the infrastructure of the internet.
Because of that, Netflix today announced that it will temporarily reduce streaming quality.
As per this statement, shared with Entertainment Weekly, Netflix will reduce bitrates across Europe for a period lasting 30 days.
The company did not specify by how much these bitrates will be lowered, or if it will lead to a noticeably lower resolution.
You can play a 4K movie at different quality levels, for instance, much the same way that a 1080P movie on YouTube doesn’t look as good as a 1080P movie on Blu-Ray.
That said, they also released a public appeal for users to watch content in standard definition rather than HD.
There you go, watch content in standard definition. That’s how you can contribute and save humanity!