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New smart bidding reports and an unfortunate bug in reporting
Over the weekend, Google announced that it will now disclose the smart bidding signals that are driving the best performance for your campaigns, allowing you to optimize the bids accordingly.
These signals include device type, location, day of week, time of day, keywords, remarketing and Customer Match lists. There’s the potential for some other signals to be included as well.
You might also get to see combinations of signals, such as time and keyword, for example. Signals in red are less likely to convert for that bidding strategy, while signals in green are more likely to convert.
You can find this report in Bid Strategy Report, although it will only be available for campaigns using Portfolio Bid Strategies.
Moving on to another important but slightly less positive update…
If you have noticed your Google campaigns driving better performance than usual since 11th November, it’s not because you’ve cracked the Google code.
Unfortunately, it’s just a conversion reporting bug that caused over-reporting of conversions for Search and Shopping campaigns for some advertisers.
“Conversion reporting between November 11, 12:01 AM PST and November 20, 11:59 AM PST is affected. The bug occurred on November 20 at approximately 9:00 PM EST.”
For once, it looks like the last-click attribution model is not all that bad, since this didn’t affect campaigns using the last-click model. Campaigns using Smart bidding strategies were also unaffected.
So, if you have made any bid and budget allocation changes during this time frame, review your accounts closely to make sure that you were using the correct data.
BFCM email strategy: $15k from 1 email?
Black Friday is finally here! Hopefully you already have all your Facebook Ads ready to go, but remember not to neglect your email game.
As you’ll see from this case study, emails can be a big channel. Joshua Chin shared this six-step sequence that allowed him to bring in $15k from a single email during last year’s BF:
- Prepare your BFCM pop-ups: Make sure that your Pre-hype pop-ups do a good job of enticing customers to sign up to your email list even before BFCM to get access to the best deals.
- Revise the messages in your flows: Prepare the banners to put in your pre-hype flows.
- Prepare your campaigns in advance: You should prepare flows for optin sequences, pre-hype sequences, BFCM sales campaigns and extended sales campaigns.
- Map out your calendar: Establish the dates for when the emails are sent out, when the pop-up starts to appear, when to send the pre-sales flows etc.
- Send retargeting emails throughout the sale period: Personalize your emails and send retargeting flows for all the different types of customers you have.
- Test everything: Not in the sense of split-testing, but just make sure everything is working smoothly.
That’s all! May your flows hit the inbox and your revenues go through the sky!
SPONSORED
🍾 Get your Free Invite for the exclusive Media Buyers event during AWA19 in Bangkok – Dec 5
What: You’ve been invited!
Where: Media Buyers Meetup during AWA19 in Bangkok hosted by Converting Team.
How: Apply here to get an Invite. Yes, it’s an Invite Only event.
Who’s it for: It’s exclusively for Media Buyers Only! This event if not for Beginners or Affiliate Managers.
Now, let’s get to the “whys” and give you all some genuine reason to attend the event.
- Many of you are already coming to Bangkok for AWA 2019. Perfect timing to attend this. This is the 4th time Converting Team is holding these exclusive and successful meetups of top media buyers around the globe.
- Discuss strategies and techniques to scale and grow your campaigns from top marketers globally that don’t get shared in public. Some spicy tricks could be shared.
- Top tips from the creators of the world’s highest-converting offers.
- A private DJ set.
- Complimentary drinks and snacks.
- An incredible night at a premier rooftop location in the heart of downtown Bangkok.
Yes, that’s the recipe for an event where you will get access to top insider information from global experts and help you discover how to make lots of moolah from your campaigns.
Sneak peak of what exactly you will learn there:
- Facebook and Google magicians with the skills to sell.
- Campaign strategies that will blow your mind.
- Top tips from the creators of the world’s highest-converting offers.
- …and much more!
Apply now to get your invite to the most exclusive Media Buyer’s Event of the Year!
How to stay sane this BFCM when FB goes bonkers on you
The BFCM week is almost here and everyone is busy putting their strategies into action or applying the finishing touches to the most important ad campaigns of the year.
FB is renowned for being not so lovey-dovey for most advertisers, meaning there’s a lot that can suddenly go wrong at the last moment. This can leave us clueless when it comes to the most efficient and effective ways to control the situation.
But Depesh and The Crew have got your six!
It’s a compilation of 8 scenarios that could help you avoid, or at least minimize, any damages during the hottest days of the year.
FB blocking your ad account just when you are about to scale hard: Avoid launching brand new accounts the week before expecting to scale up heavily on Black Friday. Rather, use an account with a good history and consistent spend. Also, increase your account spending limit well in advance.
FB blocking your payment method during the scaling season: Make sure you have a few backup payment methods. Increase your billing threshold. Contact your payment service and get anti-fraud blocks removed.
Minimizing wasted ad spend: If possible, use Supermetrics with Google Sheets to track ad spend. Use Ads Manager or Revealbot rules to avoid issues, and ensure that all rules are set up correctly.
Ad creative death: Test creatives in advance and keep your best performers ready to go. Plus, have lots of back up creative. Dupe ads and test them together. Use PPE campaigns alongside your main campaigns to generate enough social proof. Use Dynamic Content Optimization (DCO) to test faster.
FB policies hitting you hard and leaving you confused at the same time: Get your ads approved in advance, but bear in mind that even approved ads can hit a manual review later and get disapproved.
Combat this by creating multiple versions of the same ad once approved, so if it does get disapproved you can still push the same ad back in the ad set. Finally, audit your funnel, ads, landers to make sure you are compliant with FB’s ToS.
Depesh goes deeper into the details about what to do when you are:
- Facing issues with scaling.
- Getting stalling reach from FB Ads
- …and last but not the least, planning for the unexpected.
Check out his extensive checklist for the BFCM and the holiday season ahead.
ROUNING UP THE STACK
- INSTAGRAM: It seems that Instagram is testing automated abandoned check out recovery emails. That would mean more conversions?
- SEO: This bug in the recently launched new meta tags may have resulted in page deindexing in Google. A fix is currently being worked on, and affect pages will be reprocessed.
- REGULATIONS: From 1 January 2021, the existing VAT exemption for goods up to €22 will disappear, plus more updates for European businesses.
- FACEBOOK: Problems with Facebook Customer Feedback Score? Here are some tricks to crank it up.
- E-COMMERCE: As per these 2019 trends for Paid Search campaigns, Google Shopping is going to be the star of the season for retailers, but Amazon may play the spoilsport.
BRAIN TEASER
I can be cracked, I can be made. I can be told, I can be played. What am I?
You’ll find the answer at the end of this email.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Making $20M with a prototype & zero ad spend
Ladies and gentlemen,
This came from the genius of Elon Musk.
Unless you already moved to Mars, chances are that you heard about Elon Musk launching the Tesla Cybertruck; a futuristic, electricity-powered truck that doesn’t even look okay to drive.
The production of this truck will start in late 2021, but Tesla’s sales already generated $20M in pre-orders at the time of writing. In fact, Tesla allowed customers to buy a spot on the waiting list for $100, and 200k people have signed up so far.
That’s a hell of a launch! Making $20M without even having a product and without doing any advertising. That’s branding at its finest!
And, as Stepan Hlinka shared, there are some lessons we can learn:
Personal branding: Elon Musk’s personal brand is super strong. His personality, story, Tweets and appearances make Elon a celebrity, and that surely had a massive effect in the product launch and press.
Host a live launch: Apple have used these to great effect when producing fascinating product launches! More and more companies are following suit, and that’s because they work!
Polarize: Tesla Cybertruck is not the SUV for everyone. Either you find it good or horrible. Love it or hate it! When you’re able to generate strong emotions, the sales will roll in.
Test the market in advance: This is typical of Tesla. First, they wait for orders. Then they start the production. This looks like a good cash-flow strategy, and it also allows you to test the product.
We can’t know how many of those 200k orders will turn into sales, yet it’s still positive reactions.
Launch gaffe: Elon Musk was caught out on stage when the armoured windows of the Cybertruck shattered during a demonstration supposed to show their durability. Was it done on purpose to get more attention?
You know that saying… There’s no such thing as bad publicity?
BRAIN TEASER ANSWER
A Joke!