December 2023: Meta's lift studies, Google's bid guide, and Black Week Takeaways

The Bluebird Messenger is a monthly newsletter that recaps all the latest news that digital marketers need to stay on top of their game. Keep scrolling to find out which updates recently dropped and how they impact best practices within marketing. Enjoy the read!

Paid Search

Google launches value-based bidding guide

Google has recently launched a guide on how to a/b-test different bid strategies against each other. It guides you through the recommended experiment settings, recommended timelines, and how to evaluate the outcome. It is common for Google to recommend at least 30 days of uninterrupted experiments, and this time is no exception. Bluebird’s approach is to allow for changes before that, as 30 days is too long of missed revenue should the experiment take too long to calibrate.

Unlock New Relevant Traffic on Performance Max with Search Themes

Search themes are a new feature in Performance Max that allows you to add up to 25 search themes per asset group. Search themes are optional and are additive to what queries Performance Max would match you to using your URLs, assets, and more.?

SEO

Google Releases November Core Update

Throughout the year, Google will launch major updates to its algorithm called “core updates”. These usually have a bigger impact and a wider range of elements that are optimized or changed. On the 2nd of November, only a couple of weeks after the last core update, Google launched another update which lasted until November 28th to fully roll out. Which is longer than the normal rollout time of two weeks.

Many sites experienced high volatility and a big impact right away after the beginning of the roll-out.

November Reviews update

Reviews are signals Google uses to get an understanding of how well a site treats and serves its users, which may impact your rankings in search. On November 8th, Google started rolling out an update to its reviews system to make it better and more efficient. As this system will be regularly updated, Google will no longer post about updates to this system in their Status Dashboard . If you want to read Google's recommendations for writing reviews, you can read more about this here.

New structured data support

On the 27th of November, Google announced that they now support structured data for profile page and discussion forums, with an added report in Search Console to see performance.

The profile page markup lets websites share first-hand information, where Google can use the data to learn about the creator.

DiscussionForumPosting markup helps Google Search identify forum sites and discussions, potentially leading to their appearance in Perspective and Discussions and Forums features.

Paid Social

Brand Lift Monitoring

Meta started to roll out the Brand Lift Monitoring which is expected to be available for all accounts in December. This feature allows advertisers to run brand lift studies on account level on an ongoing basis to measure the incremental contribution from Meta. The upside is that you are measuring the impact across all activities with a relatively small holdout of 5%.

Sunsetting of Automated ads

One of the most known products of Smartly, Automated Ads, will be removed on the 1st of January 2024 which means that everybody using this feature needs to migrate to Workspaces. Make sure to do the transition in time to avoid any disruptions in delivery.

Meta advantage+ audiences

The ASC audiences got rolled out earlier in 2023. The feature allows advertisers to use first-party data and platform data to build personas that the system can use as a recommendation for machine learning. We have seen promising results so far and will continue to recommend clients to try it out going into 2024.

Display & Video

Google TV Network?

• In November, Google introduced the news that YouTube campaigns can now be seamlessly integrated into video-streaming apps through the Google TV Network.
• The Google TV (GTV) network is a media-streaming platform that allows users to stream TV shows, movies, and other video content from their favorite apps. This integration extends the reach of YouTube campaigns, allowing them to be featured on the Google TV masthead or in the eligible video-streaming apps available with GTV.
• Notable, this feature is currently exclusive to campaigns operating within the United States

Adform is introducing Dual Look Targeting

• With Dual Look Targeting in the Adform DSP, increase the effectiveness of your audience targeting by covering two IDs simultaneously.?
• This enables you to buy audiences based on publisher-owned IDs seamlessly, with maximum reach in any browser. Importantly, this is also all done without delaying the auction and while safely unlocking first-party data that was previously restricted to private deals due to ownership concerns.

Analytics

GA4 updates

• Turn on or off existing comparisons: A comparisons toggle has been added next to the comparison at the top of each report which will allow you to quickly toggle on and off the selected comparisons as you look at your reports.
• Admin redesign: A new Admin interface has been added organizing your settings into categories that make it easier to find what you’re looking for and discover what each group of administrative settings does.
• Scheduled emails: Schedule standard and custom reports for team members allowing for periodic updates via email.
• Integrate Salesforce Marketing Cloud with Google Analytics 4: Integrate Salesforce Marketing Cloud with Google Analytics 4 for standard and 360 properties from the Sales Marketing Cloud interface.

Looker Studio updates

• View underlying data: Looker Studio and Looker Studio Pro users can view the data that is available in any chart in a tabular form.
• Google Maps: You can now set and return to a default location and zoom level, tilt and rotate, and combine the properties of a filled map and a bubble map in Google Maps visualizations.

Bonus:

November, The Flurry of Shopping Events

Singles Day, Black Week, and Cyber Monday are officially over, offering us a good view of this month's campaign period. Within the November season, several industry trends emerged, presenting significant takeaways.?

Programmatic Highlights

• Increased faith and investment in YouTube activities compared to the previous year.
• The use of Video Action YouTube Campaigns (VAC) performed surprisingly well as a conversion-driven strategy, showcasing effectiveness in utilizing multiple ad formats and including shorts.
• A notable trend of increased engagement was observed at the beginning of the sales period.
• Among many clients we can see a broader variety of creatives used during the sales period, aiming to provide the algorithm with a range of content to reach varied audiences with tailored messages.

SEM Insights

• Clicks increased by 10-15% while CPCs increased by 5-10% during Black Week
• Search and Shopping campaigns decreased traffic by 20-35% while Performance Max increased by 50+%
• The newcomer Temu was expected to go aggressively during Black Week, but we saw a decrease in visibility from Temu during Black Week vs previous periods. Instead, Amazon increased their presence by about 25%
• It is clear that clients are more and more prepared as the planning starts earlier every year, which is positive for avoiding last-minute preparations and mistakes

Paid Social Analysis

• CPM prices were very similar to the low prices in 2022 for E-commerces with a slight decrease of 4%. At the same time, CTR dropped by 26% which caused an overall increase in CPC by 30%.
• Conversion rates increased by 48% which compensated to some extent, leaving the ROAS flat year over year.
• Advantage+ stood out in the campaign mix with a ROAS development of +65%.

Overall, November 2024 showcased substantial shifts and noteworthy strategies across various marketing platforms, highlighting the evolving landscape of consumer engagement and campaign dynamics within the retail sector.