April Digital Digest: Are you making the most of your marketing budget? ??

Welcome to our April Digital Digest!

Another month, another award nomination ?? as we’ve been named finalists in not one, but two categories in Campaign’s Global Agency of the Year Awards!?

We’re also gearing up for this month’s BrightonSEO festival where our Director of Organic Performance, Tom Mansell, will be speaking on: Winning in competitive verticals with an evidence-based SEO strategy. Keep your eyes peeled for our guide off the back of this...

For additional insights from Croud, you can always explore our blogs and guides.

Discover the truth about what paid search is doing for your business?

Did you know that around 25% of all adspend globally is spent on Google? It’s the biggest addiction in marketing, but Croud’s Director of Data Strategy, Kevin Joyner,?believes it's not a problem with Google, but?with measurement.

In the first of a three-part series, Kevin outlines how to discover the truth about what paid search is doing for your business and how to start spending what you want -?rather than what you need - on Google Ads.

While it may be common to direct frustration at Google, the main problem is with measurement. The solution isn’t an overnight fix, but it’s an element of what will probably be a years-long roadmap for your business, to a market-leading analytics practice.

The measurement journey passes four stages along the way:

1. First, you’ll start to discover the truth about the effect of the tactical changes you make in your ad accounts.
2. Second, you’ll learn to measure the impact of a decision on bottom-line business KPIs.
3. Third, you’ll start modelling the interrelated causes of performance. You’ll start to understand how channels interact when you make broad changes.
4. Fourth, you’ll discover how to extend your causal studies to machine learning-enabled Media Mix Modelling. You’ll be able to see what would have happened had your media plan been different, and what will happen when you change it.

Read the full article in Performance Marketing World here, and keep your eyes peeled for part two, where Kevin will return to these four stages with more insight.

Intelligence from Croud

Performance Max and AI: The perfect marketing match?

Artificial intelligence has been taking over our newsfeeds for some time now, and in recent years, automation on ad platforms like Google Ads has advanced rapidly. However, predictive AI and machine learning in paid media ads is not a new thing. From optimising URL expansion to refining bidding strategies, our PPC Account Directors, Dan Walker and Jin Huang, have gathered their best strategies and top tips to help maximise the efficiency and performance of Performance Max campaigns in our recent blog.

Why NPS falls short in Ecommerce

While understanding customer satisfaction is paramount in today’s competitive ecommerce landscape, traditional methods like Net Promoter Score have limitations that can actually lead to the opposite of intended outcomes, if not applied carefully. Croud’s VP of Strategic Analytics Konrad Kopczynski explores why businesses need metrics like Earned Growth Ratio for a more reliable and actionable picture, that goes beyond recommendations and captures actual customer behaviour. Read his recommendations in this Retail TouchPoints article.

Marketing for the next gen with Kris Tait

What are the latest marketing trends and techniques used to effectively reach younger audiences? Croud's US Managing Director Kris Tait recently sat down with Adweek’s Digital Editor, Colin Daniels, to share his journey over the years in marketing, explore how companies are successfully reaching?younger generations, and dive into green flags to look for in companies. Listen to the full Young Influentials podcast episode here.

Industry intelligence

Here's a round-up of some of the industry's hottest topics right now:

• YouTube has launched YouTube Select Shorts, offering brands new ad opportunities to capitalise on the short form video format within the platform.
• X has released a new, simplified process for launching ads across their platform, allowing brands to leverage X’s AI-powered targeting tools to reach the right audience.
• TikTok has announced new ad safety controls and expanded partnerships with third-party ad monitoring providers, and has launched more streamlined processes for managing ads within Ads Manager.
• In a move to further challenge OpenAI, Meta has integrated their next-level generative AI assistant directly in the search bar of all of their app platforms.

Let's chat!

Our team would love to hear from you! If you have any questions or feedback on the stories above or any other industry hot topics, please get in touch with our team for a quick chat.