ADVERTISING
Google and Meta want to prep you for holiday sales
It feels like a last call before the holiday storm.
Google and Meta both announced a few things that could help you sell more this holiday season, but also prepare for what follows.
Google adds a new Shopping feature to Search Console: The Shopping tab listing feature will provide more information on how your products perform on Google Search.
The new tab will provide more data on your product snippets, merchant listings, and shopping tab listings.
You’ll also be able to create a Merchant Center account from here without needing to re-verify website ownership – making the entire process smoother.
Meta launches new resources for small businesses: If you’re looking for inspiration, tips and tricks of the trade, Meta shared them in abundance:
- A holiday marketing guide for small businesses.
- Try my Reel, a series of Reels templates for the holiday season designed by top creators found in Instagram’s template library.
- #BuyBlackFriday campaign, providing training and guidance for Black-owned businesses.
- Smallday Showcase, a 2022 guide to Facebook’s select few small businesses that are utilizing the full potential of the platform’s features.
So much content, so little time…
Why we care: With the most important sales season coming up, it’s good to have more guidance from Meta on how to gain competitive edge.
Moreover, you’ll know have more insight into how your products are performing on the search engine – and optimize where possible.
More helpful info on last-minute holiday prep later but first…
REGULATIONS
Digital Services Act arrives
It’s been brewing for some time – and now it’s here.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) came into force yesterday.
The act is expected to add a new set of regulations that should place larger online platforms under a “unique new transparency and accountability framework”, among other things.
Who will be impacted by DSA: The act will impact all online services, but the big guns will be under more scrutiny.
The EU will first determine which platforms fall into very large online platforms (VLOPs) and very large online search engines (VLOSEs) categories – if they do, they’ll have tougher oversight and an extra layer of regulation.
According to the EU, any platform or search engine that has more than 10% of the EU population—or 45 million users—falls into the “very large” category. You’ve guessed it – Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon all tick the boxes.
What will be the impact: The act focuses on “limiting the spread of illegal content and products online, increasing protection of minors, and giving users more choice and better information.”
The DSA will require platforms to carry out annual analysis on the above matter and will also enforce new transparency rules that should allow users to opt out of user tracking.
After the EU decides that the platform is “very large,” they’ll provide a four-month window for them to adjust before they start sanctioning – with fines up to 6% of their annual global turnover.
Why we care: Obviously, DSA could have huge impacts on large platforms like Facebook, Google, and quite possibly Twitter – and if you look at the latest developments with the “bird app,” it all points toward an interesting 2023.
But let’s get back to the topic of holiday prep…
SPONSORED BY STACKED MARKETER PRO
400+ marketers told us which holidays generated more sales
We gathered data, marketers’ surveys, and case studies about marketing during holidays.
And we discovered a few things:
- Black Friday is not the event when Americans spend more money.
- The products that drove more conversions during the winter holidays. And 3 types of products people start buying heavily way before the winter holidays start.
- Monthly-long holidays most brands aren’t taking advantage of.
- How out-of-stock items can be an opportunity to eat out your biggest competitor’s market share.
There’s a lot more, and we packed everything into The Ultimate Holiday Marketing report.
Join Stacked Marketer Pro to get it. The data inside this report will help you make more profits from this Q4.
TRACKING
How to track offline conversions from your Google Ads
Okay, you’ve set up your online conversion tracking and everything seems smooth. Ready for those holiday sales, right?
But what if a customer gives you a call after clicking on your ad and you close a deal? Or someone decides to visit your store and make a purchase?
Neither of those sales will be attributed to your ad, despite it being the main conversion driver. You’ll miss out on important ad data and have a skewed perspective of your campaign performance.
But according to Tim Jensen, it’s possible to tweak your Google Ads conversions setup so it tracks the customer journey even when it “goes offline.”
#1 – How to track phone calls? If you’re receiving phone call inquiries, it’s vital to implement phone tracking. Here’s how:
First, set up call extensions: This will allow a phone number to appear with ads in search results. Navigate to Ads and extensions, and add a new extension by selecting Call extension.
Tim also advises using a call reporting option, allowing you to match your calls down to the ad keywords level in the account.
Also, you can choose to only count calls with minimum duration. If you find the most qualified calls last more than 2 minutes, you can track only those and eliminate bad leads.
Second, set up website call reporting: Google provides an option to use their forwarding number for your site where users will be provided with an unique, trackable number.
You can set this up under the Conversions section – create a conversion and select Phone Calls. Choose a “Calls to your phone number” option to make sure all calls are tracked.
#2 – How to track in-store visits? Google uses location data from users’ mobile devices to see if they’ve engaged with your ads before visiting the store.
First, make sure you’re in a country eligible for this type of tracking and that you have multiple physical locations with high clicks and impressions volume. Yep, a bit limiting for small businesses.
Second, you need to claim and verify your store locations using Google’s Business Profile. Furthermore, you’ll have to activate location extensions.
But that’s not all. Tim also discusses how to import offline data using your CRM or automation platform. If you’re interested in reading more, make sure you check out the full article. Hopefully, this will help you get a better understanding of your campaigns!
And if you’re looking for a good opportunity when it comes to paid social ads that can drive results, keep reading.
SPONSORED BY SNAP
Want to see awesome returns on your campaigns? Try Snapchat.
Maybe you’re not on Snapchat, but you know who is?
More than 600M1 users, with 100M in North America alone2. Snap’s growing, unique audience is hard to reach elsewhere. And no, it’s not just teenagers – more than 50% of Snapchatters in the US are older than 24!3
With Snapchat you can:
- Build immersive, engaging brand experiences by creating augmented reality (AR) ads where users are actively engaged.
- Drive Results. How? Mix AR ads with video ads to get the perfect storm. Across CPG, Snap drove an ROI on average 1.78x as much as the total media average!4
Add Snapchat to your campaigns, it’s that simple.
THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
Are you asking your customers the right questions?
Ever heard of a meat-alternative brand called SIMULATE? They’re known for viral marketing, bold claims about the future of food, and a more ‘techy’ take on the meat alternatives market—everything about SIMULATE’s marketing screams modern, tech, and young.
Not everything they do is perfect… But, when we broke down their marketing for Stacked Marketer Pro, we particularly enjoyed their post-purchase survey.
After giving their NUGGS product (imitation chicken nuggets) a 1-10 rating, they asked us:
- What factor contributed most to your rating score?
- How did you cook your SIMULATE products?
- How did you eat your SIMULATE products?
This is really good, and most brands don’t do this.
Reviews are only helpful when you have context, and a post-review survey like this one helps you gather that context.
For example: Imagine if SIMULATE noticed that most 5-star reviews ate their nuggets with sauce cooked them in an oven, and that their 1-star reviews were from people cooking the nuggets in the microwave and eating them without sauce. It’d be a huge insight—and would affect how they marketed and wrote copy for product packaging.
The Crew’s insight: Don’t just ask customers for reviews. Ask them why.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
B2B MARKETING: Get your ideal customer wrong, and everything you do in your marketing becomes harder than it should be. HubSpot’s free Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) ebook and worksheet help you define your ICP and reach the right customers.*
LINKEDIN: There are so many ad types, it’s easy to get lost every now and then. This new LinkedIn B2B guide to every ad type should provide more clarity… and help you set up campaigns on the platform.
WHATSAPP: Hi, Polls! The popular feature arrives on WhatsApp, meaning you can start getting more insight from your communities on particular business and marketing-related topics. Nice!
TIKTOK: Looking for content inspiration? TikTok published a 2022 Discover List of top creators and innovators on the app. A good way to learn more about what’s moving the needle on the platform and maybe even find future influencer partners.
*This is a sponsored post
BRAIN TEASER
A man looks at a painting in a museum and says,
“Brothers and sisters I have none,
but that man’s father is my father’s son.”
Who is in the painting?
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.
The know-it-all machine
Whaaat, AIs are writing scientific papers now?! No, it’s not a joke.
Galactica is a brand new Meta AI language model that’s designed to extract relevant information from more than 48 million scientific papers.
And then it writes organic scientific articles and answers your complex questions directly!
Umm… doesn’t sound concerning at all.
And here’s the most Sci-Fi bit – The model was used to write the paper that announced its existence to the world!
A scenario Stanley Kubrick would be proud of.