How the Facebook outage affected Facebook Ads
This time, Facebook really messed up (and apologized).
There was one interesting sentence we noticed in the apology blog post:
“…some advertisers may see accelerated delivery as our services recover from the outage.”
What is “accelerated delivery?” Showing ads to as many people as possible as fast as possible. AdWeek just published a first-person account about this from a media buyer:
“One media buyer noted Facebook’s delivery numbers have gone up dramatically this morning as the platform pumped up delivery to make up the losses.”
How much money did Facebook lose: Tons. On average, Facebook runs $13 million worth of ads per hour if everything goes according to plan. The company was down for 6 hours, resulting in an approximately $78 million loss. Ooph.
Accelerated delivery has a downside: Showing ads to as many people as possible as fast as possible results in two things: poorer conversions and higher ad prices. This is what the media buyers interviewed by AdWeek noticed.
What NOT to do about this: Consider slowing down your ads. We know you have an entire day’s budget to spend. However, spending it equally across the month may give you a better ROI than spending it in mere hours.
Patience is a virtue.
Google Analytics gets attribution superpowers
Advertising and analytics are like Yin and Yang. Unfortunately, the “Yang” portion has been less relevant with each passing quarter since iOS 14, FloC, and a slew of other privacy updates made traditional attribution useless.
Google just added some additional features to Google Analytics to address this issue.
Data-driven attribution: Google Analytics properties will get Google’s data-driven attribution, powered by machine learning and AI.
The goal is for you to gain a better understanding of which marketing channels influence conversion rates while not overvaluing or undervaluing a particular channel.
Last-click vs. data-driven attribution: Last-click attribution gives all credit to the final interaction. Data-driven attribution identifies which channels influence early, mid, and late touchpoints.
For example, a user may have found you when searching for something on Google but converted when they saw your PPC ad.
With last-click attribution, the PPC ad will take all the credit. With data-driven attribution, “organic search” will be the “early touchpoint”, while “paid search” will be the “late touchpoint”.
Furthermore, Google Analytics will be more tightly integrated with Search Console. You will be able to see which search queries resulted in actual conversions.
SPONSORED BY TAPONIT
How to trigger the “word-of-thumb” effect and explode your Q4 sales with this under-used channel
Text messaging is an amazing channel – we are talking about a 19% click-through rate – yet most businesses send boooring messages.
Don’t be one of them. Especially this next holiday season.
TapOnIt built a short, to-the-point, and free guide to help you increase sales this holiday season using text messages.
Yes, “word-of-thumb” is one thing you will learn about… But there’s more.
Like which personalized messages you should send to prospects to make them feel happy and delighted you’re selling to them. Or how to take advantage of the holiday craziness to grow a massive recipients’ database. So you can market to them over and over again.
TapOnIt helped hundreds of businesses bank on text messaging. You can be next!
Stop sending boring messages, and start sending money-making messages.
SEO
The art of sniffing out a bullsh*t content writer
Now when the stench hits you, you’ll know exactly where it is coming from and how to get rid of it.
Content writers are an important part of any growing business, but having the wrong one is literally like trying to use a fork to eat your cereal…ineffective and messy.
Before you go and spend more money on a content writer that may only look good on paper, make sure that you aren’t noticing these red flags pointed out by Aaron Orendorff in this Twitter thread.
1) Not using exact keyword matching. In the first 200 words of the <p> copy, in the page title and meta description, in your <h1> headline, and in two subheadings.
There are more areas where your content writer could be using exact keyword matching, so if these bare essentials are not even being met…we’d call BS.
2) Alt text missing. Not including descriptive “alt text” for every image and having at least two that include exact keyword matching (especially for the featured image) is a no-no.
3) No upgrades or CTAs. Your content writer or agency is not insisting that every piece of content be accompanied by some sort of “put your email here” tool (i.e a PDF, tool, or presentation)?
Red flag.
And if there are no “sign-up” and “get started” CTAs in sight? That’s not a red flag…that’s a fire alarm.
4) The missing link. Not including at least 5 interlinks to existing pages that are high value.
5) Not reporting on traffic and conversion. If you’re only getting reports on keywords, be on guard. You should be getting traffic and conversion reports at 1 month, 3 month, and 6 month intervals.
Sh*t content makes Aaron so sad. If you want to make sure you are staying away from lax SEO writers (and are keeping Aaron happy), then here are five additional signs he says you should be on high alert for.
SPONSORED BY INSIGHTS
If you are tired of hacks, get some real insights for growing your brand
“It’s like a team of researchers…”
“You’re keeping me ahead of the curve…”
“I’m very grateful for what you do…”
“Stuff I can immediately apply…”
Those are just some of the things our members have said about Insights. Why? Because we focus on finding the real insights from what brands are doing right now in their marketing.
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THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
Increase your AOV with a loading bar
See that loading bar in the image above? It’s from the order flow of LadyBoss, an 8-figure per year brand.
One thing they do that we haven’t seen any other e-commerce brand do so far is provide a loading bar graphic to increase the average order value.
We explain in this cool thread how it works.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
MICROSOFT: The Audience Network is now available in 18 additional countries. View-through conversions are getting some key improvements. These are just a few updates Microsoft Ads released recently.
INSTAGRAM: We’re facing a tab-overload problem on Instagram. Fortunately, the social network has begun to simplify things. IGTV and feed videos will be combined into a single category called “Instagram Videos”.
TIKTOK: After conquering social media, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok) is now targeting e-commerce. Apparently, the company is building an Amazon competitor.
FACEBOOK: Matt Navarra reported that Facebook is testing a scrollable info bar below their ads.
GOOGLE: Are the keywords you’re bidding on hot right now? Google is testing a feature that will show which of your bid keywords are currently trending.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Brazil plans to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender
In Brazil, you may soon be able to buy a car, a house, and even a Big Mac using Bitcoin.
Aureo Ribeiro, a Brazilian federal lawmaker, told the media that they intend to vote soon on a regulatory measure that would make Bitcoin a legal form of payment in the country.
Unlike El Salvador, Brazil has the eighth largest economy in the world. That means things could get interesting if they embrace Bitcoin.
We just hope that by the time Brazil adopts Bitcoin, the currency will be more stable.
Otherwise, you might get out of your house wanting to buy a Big Mac. But by the time you reach McDonald’s, you can hardly afford a piece of chewing gum… Or you might buy the whole place!