Google’s got a fresh idea
Google is still hammering the same message into our heads: all we need to worry about is the creative because they will handle the targeting part.
This time, they will automatically add new people to our campaign using a new feature known as “Optimized Targeting”.
What it does: It’s designed to deliver cheaper conversions by finding people outside of your pre-existing audience. For example, Google will look at what people who converted recently searched for and try to find a similar audience. If this kinda reminds you of Facebook Lookalike audiences, you’re not alone.
According to the SELand article, Google is enabling optimized targeting for all of your campaigns.
Available to some: “This feature is gradually rolling out and may not be available for all Google Ads accounts yet.”, according to Google’s official page on optimized targeting.
Known by many: This time, Google will notify you when they have enabled Optimize Targeting by showing a “Signal” indicator pop-up next to an audience. Thanks Google…I guess?
Reddit is turning into Facebook (but in a good way)
Better than best.
That’s how Reddit describes its recently launched feature, which will show you a feed of posts you might like.
It used to be all about subreddits: “Previously, you’d see recommendations for communities you may like, now you’ll see recommendations for similar posts you may like.”, according to the announcement.
It’s like Facebook: We already know that Facebook’s feed is all about personalized posts. It turns out that Reddit wants to have its own version of that feed too.
Why should you care: Discoverability. And democracy. If you posted something on Reddit, unless it went viral, it would be shown mostly to people who are on the parent subreddit.
Now, Reddit can potentially show and recommend the post to anyone on their platform. Sweet.
SPONSORED BY PROPELLERADS
The closest thing to Christmas in August?
Because you can get a MacBook, an iPhone 12, AirPods, a GoPro Hero 9, and other prizes without doing absolutely anything.
It’s PropellerAds’ birthday! They’re turning 10 years old and they’re organizing a huge raffle.
Everybody can participate, whether you’re one of their clients or not.
All you have to do is register here before August 20.
What are the prizes?
- MacBook Pro with Apple M1 chip
- GoPro Hero 9
- Cash
- AirPods Pro
- Nintendo Switch
And that’s just to get things started…
But hurry up! The registrations close on August 20.
The prizes are different if you’re a client or not. But if you like gifts – and good traffic – you can quickly become one of their successful clients here.
That gives you access to better prizes in the raffle, and 2 billion converting users to target with your ads.
Join the raffle right here, if you’re an advertiser, or here, if you are a publisher.
FROM THE CREW
Tell us your average monthly ad spend and we’ll give you a gift
We want to get to know your advertiser (and media buyer) habits a bit better. We’re looking for some information about your ad spend.
We want to ask you about this to bring you better offers, and better content. If we understand your ad spend level better, we can better curate the right type of case studies, partners, and sponsors for the newsletter.
The survey is quick and painless, only with multiple choice questions (no need to write anything) so you can finish it within 60 seconds.
Complete the survey here and we’ll also give you a gift. Send us a screenshot with the completed survey and we’ll send you our Snow Oral Care deep dive for free.
Snow is a $100M+ teeth whitening brand known for their big celebrity campaigns (Ellen, Floyd Mayweather, and more), that leaves no channel untouched.
Their marketing mix contains Facebook Ads, aggressive funnels, emails, SMS, and plenty of dark patterns. Everything collected and broken down in the full deep dive (preview here).
It’s a must read!
So, help us out by completing this survey and we’ll send you the full deep dive for free.
ADVERTISING
Retargeting, retargeting, retargeting
Cart abandonment is a $4.6 trillion problem for e-commerce stores. But when is the most effective time to remind customers to finish the purchase?
Most people think as soon as possible.
But this might be completely wrong. At least according to a study of 64,000 customers discussed in this Ariyh newsletter issue:
- Retargeting customers too early (less than 1 hour) annoys them and makes them less likely to complete their purchase.
- Retargeting customers after 24 to 72 hours makes them more likely to complete their purchase.
It does make sense:
- Users might get annoyed when a business “follows them” on the web right after they left the business’s website. This might lead to losing that customer forever.
- The sales generated by early retargeting campaigns would happen anyway because in that time window users still remember about the purchase. For instance, after a coffee break.
- The goal of retargeting is to remind people about the abandoned cart. Three hours after they leave the website, they probably still remember about it. But 1 or 2 days later, retargeting can be a useful reminder.
Limitations of the study:
- The retargeting message didn’t use a discount, special offers, urgency, or scarcity tactics.
- The timing of retargeting depends on the industry you’re in. For instance, before somebody buys a DIY piece of furniture, they first have to take measures of the house, check colors, and more.
What does it mean for you?
- Try to pause the instant retargeting campaigns you have on and observe the results. Do it in small steps though. Pause some retargeting campaigns you have on and see if the sales actually decrease.
- Or, if you’re not already doing it, you can test using discounts or urgency right from the first retargeting message.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
INSTAGRAM: Scheduling Instagram stories just got a bit easier. The company made Stories drafts available to all users.
GOOGLE: Here’s a traffic source that’s a *must* if you’re writing news: Google News. Google dropped some tips on how to appear there.
ADVERTISING: We want ad views from actual humans, not computers. Adelaide raises $2M to improve the chances of that. We’ve also seen a trend of other similar companies appearing in this space.
TWITTER: All major platforms appear to be auto-captioning everything that is in a voice format. Twitter is the latest one to do this with voice tweets.
GOOGLE: If you’re in the travel space, Google wants to help you. The company launched a few tools on monitoring travel trends worldwide.
TIKTOK: Video comments are coming to TikTok. The Crew has a question for you: Should we create a TikTok profile?
BRAIN TEASER
I have three lives. With one, I can caress the sky. With another, I can break rocks. With a third, I can make the earth smooth. What am I?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
The person who paid $28 million to travel to space with Jeff Bezos can’t make it this week
The official reason: “scheduling conflicts”.
Yeah, we get it. You know, it happens to the best of us: You paid $28M for a space flight with the richest man in the world but, damn, you’ve got breakfast with the Johnsons on Tuesday.
Sorry, Bezos!
His place will be taken by Oliver Daemon, an 18-year old student from the Netherlands. Though we’re pretty sure Oliver didn’t pay 28M.
In an official statement, Bezos’ company revealed that joining the flight, besides Bezos and his brother, will be Wally Funk – an 82-year-old lady – and Oliver. They will be “the youngest and the oldest astronauts to travel to space” ever.
So it isn’t really about the money, but the publicity.