Four improvements to Performance Max, and other helpful updates
Another day, another big Google update drop.
This time it’s for three separate products: Ads, Analytics 4, and Search. So let’s take them one by one…
Google pumped out four Performance Max updates that should give you more control and transparency:
- Seasonality adjustments let you tweak bid strategies for periods where you expect sudden conversion rate changes: long weekend promos, 7-day sales, and so on.
- Data exclusions: If you experienced conversion tracking issues —like server outages— you can now exclude that data to clean up inaccuracies.
- Explanations should help you understand diagnostics and offer recommendations for improving performance. This feature will be available in the coming weeks.
- Optimization score: Everybody loves a good rating. The score can help you identify room for improvement and also suggests actionable recommendations.
Google Analytics 4 also got a boost, with added metrics like bounce rate, additional UTM parameter values, and conversion rates that will let you report on any event.
… And last, but not least, videos on your website are getting an indexing report on Google Search Console.
That means you can track the status of the videos on your website and see if they’re discoverable by organic search.
And if a video is not indexed, Search Console will tell you why.
Not bad, Google, not bad: With videos becoming more prominent on Google search, optimizing them for best results can help you drive even more traffic to your website.
And while we’re on the subject of videos…
TIKTOK
Nice try, TikTok
Well, that happened quickly.
Yesterday we said the platform’s privacy policy update might not fly in Europe. Well, today it’s official.
Nice try though: It seems TikTok thought their “personalized interest” privacy policy secured a big enough loophole around asking users for permission to target them with personalized ads.
But the Italian data protection body quickly rebuffed this, saying TikTok’s policy breaches the ePrivacy directive as well as GDPR.
Let’s see if TikTok finds a workable solution…
On the bright side, TikTok launched an ad Inventory Filter that gives you some control over the content displayed around your In-Feed ads.
Basically TikTok plans to analyze user posts for risky and mature content, and evaluate it from low-risk posts to posts that violate community standards.
So far, they’ve announced three inventory “tiers” you can exclude from your ad placements: Full, Standard, and Limited Inventory.
Why we care: The privacy update can make advertising a bit challenging in Europe, but it’s likely a reality you’ll get used to… if you haven’t already.
On the other hand, TikTok’s Inventory Filter seems to give you more control of the context your ads appear in.
And who doesn’t want more of that?
SPONSORED BY YOTPO
Using these two channels together maximizes your ROI
Know what the two highest revenue drivers for e-commerce brands are?
Hint: They also happen to be the two most popular communication channels among consumers…
We’re talking about email and SMS.
Put them together, and these two channels can work to generate sales for brands.
Rely on each of them separately, and you miss out on big revenue opportunities.
Yotpo shows you how to combine email and SMS for maximum engagement and results in this guide.
Inside you’ll find out:
- Why it’s critical to combine both channels.
- What type of messaging works best for each channel, plus the kinds of content to use when you combine SMS and email.
- 8 tips for creating a unified SMS + email strategy.
- The long-term benefits your brand can achieve when combining these two channels.
Discover how this power duo can maximize your results.
SEO
Improve both your store’s rankings and conversions with this one tactic
This might sound super obvious, but… When you structure content on your website the right way, you make your website easier to navigate for users.
They find stuff faster.
That means better search engine rankings for you… and better conversions, too.
One way to make your website easier to navigate is by creating internal links for category pages.
Andrea Volpini explains the benefits of creating search widgets in your store, and how to automate the process for all your category pages.
Let’s take a look…
Why widgets? Widgets let you link customers to a recommended product category. This comes with some useful SEO benefits:
- Related links help users skip directly to the category they want, reducing the number of clicks necessary to complete an action.
- They help search engines understand how your content is organized.
- They distribute link equity to other pages, so that crawlers understand what are your most relevant pages.
And widgets offer serious business benefits, too, because they let you:
- Prioritize categories for a sales campaign.
- Promote certain products.
- De-prioritize categories containing out-of-stock products.
To sum up… The easier it is for customers to navigate your site, the more likely they are to convert.
Andrea outlines all the steps you need to set up and benefit from widgets, but we don’t have the space to show them all, so check out his full article if you want to boost your store ranking.
SPONSORED BY PANDA COPY
Struggling to get quality content for your project?
Maybe you need content for a single project… But you have zero time to waste sourcing and vetting a freelancer. And you’re way too busy to write it yourself.
A great solution is getting a vetted copywriter from Panda Copy to tackle it for you. Pay for the number of words you need, and it’ll be taken care of in a couple of days. No risk, no sloppy copy. All content comes with research, editing, and unlimited revisions.
THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
How to write viral YouTube video titles
Going viral on YouTube is nearly impossible.
Unless, of course, you know what you’re doing.
The Crew has spent more hours thinking about marketing on YouTube than we’d like to admit… and one team member has created videos with millions of views.
So here’s a list of viral YouTube title format categories, plus a few templates for each…
Group 1: Titles that involve money.
- [$X item] vs. [$X item]: Which one is better?
- I tried this [ridiculous $X item]—was it worth it?
- I spent [$X] on [Weird thing]
Group 2: Titles that involve weird topics.
- I did [Crazy thing] for [Amount of time]
- I tried doing [Crazy thing] without [Thing you normally need]
- I spent [Amount of hours] with [Thing]
Group 3: Informational titles.
- [Number] of things you didn’t know about [Thing]
- How to get better at [Thing] without doing [Thing you normally need to do]
- [Number] of ways to get better at [Thing] in [Timeframe]
Group 4: Video essay-style titles.
- The downfall of [Thing]
- Why [Thing] sucks
- How [Thing] ruined [Thing]
- Why you probably hate [Thing]
- Exposing [Thing or person]’s dark secrets
There are thousands of successful YouTube channels which thrive purely on the title formats above.
But, remember: The best titles are sometimes the titles that only you can write. If you can think of something totally unique, give it a go.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
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E-COMMERCE: It’s like Black Friday… in July. More and more DTC companies are seriously considering participating in Amazon’s Prime Day. If you’re not already running Prime Day sales, it could be another way to bump up revenues every year.
GOOGLE: You can put away those screenshot tools. Google now lets you download Google Ads overview cards as PNG images, so reporting just got a little easier. Nice!
BUSINESS: Getting pushback on your prices? If you’re in account management or client services, you may face unrealistic expectations now and then. This conversation might provide useful strategies for handling objections.
GOOGLE: Not letting in just anyone. If you’re based in —or running ads in— South Korea, you’ll have to complete an advertiser verification.
*This is a sponsored post
BRAIN TEASER
What is it that given one, you’ll have either two or none?
You can find the answer here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
NASA wants their moon dust back
… And their cockroaches, too.
Wait, what?
Just listen. The moon dust brought back during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission had a heck of a journey.
First, NASA gave samples of the dust to the University of Minnesota.
Then, they fed the dust to cockroaches to see if it would affect them. It didn’t. But when the experiment ended, NASA never got the dust or the bugs back.
Instead, moon dust and three dead cockroaches were put up for auction… Twice.
Then NASA said “Hey! That material still belongs to the federal government!”… and stopped the sale.
It was about to go for $400,000… So close.