October 2024: Performance Max, Q4 insights, YouTube ads, and GA4 fixes

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 Boosts Performance Max with More Control and Insights

Google's Performance Max campaigns are getting updates that give marketers more control and insights. Advertisers can now add negative keywords at the campaign level, improving targeting and brand safety. Additionally, search impressions shared for shopping can be analyzed by segments like Product ID and Brand, which are currently available at the account level. These changes help optimize campaigns and provide valuable performance benchmarks for smarter decision-making. For marketers, these updates provide better control and insights, enabling us to optimize campaigns and make more strategic, data-driven decisions.

Enhanced CPC Deprecated by March 2025

Google is retiring Enhanced CPC (eCPC) in October 2024, with all campaigns transitioning to manual CPC by March 2025. Advertisers can choose between manual CPC for more control or automated smart bidding options like Maximize Clicks and Maximize Conversion Value. It's surprising that eCPC is being retired while manual CPC remains, as it contrasts with Google's push for automation. By keeping manual CPC, Google may be encouraging a gradual shift to automated bidding, as poor manual results could eventually push advertisers toward automation without causing backlash.

Paid Social

Insights for Q4

A friendly heads-up to all marketers planning their Q4 phasing! CPM prices remain low in October compared to November, but we are also seeing a drop in CR. Many companies are pulling back on spending due to poor performance. In the meantime, we’re seeing a significant spike in product page views, indicating strong research behavior during this period. Companies that run campaigns to drive top-of-mind awareness and product visibility before Black Week see an average uplift of 57% in ROI, mainly driven by a 39% higher conversion rate.

ASC optimization events

To follow up on the first point, Meta now supports optimization toward events other than Purchase in Advantage+ (ASC). While regular conversion objectives target in-market audiences, ASC focuses on predicted intent, which has shown a 25% higher uplift in incremental sales (Meta, 2024). Considering the activation of ASC to drive sales, as well as to support product research, could be a good test for Q4 this year.

Media Planning on Tiktok

While this may not be breaking product news, it's worth mentioning again. A lot has happened in 2024 regarding brand lift studies and how you buy different placements (Top View, Top Feed, etc.). Unlike Meta, TikTok gives you greater control over how you phase different marketing activities over a certain period, which can be especially valuable during peak seasons to stand out from the competition.

SEO

Google’s August Core Update Rollout Completed

Google's August 2024 Core Update has been fully rolled out. Now it is time to analyze and draw conclusions from the development of organic rankings. If you have been negatively impacted, avoid making radical changes, especially removing good content since this signals to Google that content has been created for search engines, not for people.

Instead, follow the revised core update guidance and focus on user-centric, high-quality, original, and helpful content.?

Is AI taking over??

ChatGPT has launched a SearchGPT prototype that aims to compete with Google. It shows strengths in information summarization and a conversational interface. It falls short on depth, accuracy, and variety, especially for local, navigational, and transactional search terms.?

AI is becoming more and more a reality, but it will require further accuracy improvements to rival Google.

New Property in Video Structured Data

Google added an "ineligibleRegion" property to video structured data, allowing publishers to restrict where their videos appear in search results. This provides more control over regional content visibility and complements the "regionsAllowed" property.

Tracking & Analytics

GA4 Missing Data Recovery

If you’ve been dealing with missing data in your GA4 reports for August 27, you’re not alone. On August 27, Google experienced an issue that caused session data to go missing for some users. Thankfully, Google has resolved the problem, and all the previously missing data should now be restored. This means your reports should be back to normal, with accurate historical metrics reflecting your traffic and engagement.

However, Google identified an error impacting the attribution of subs & rollups where the reprocessed data is attributed to Direct. They are working on this fix and it will take an additional 4-6 weeks.

Over-attribution to Direct Fixed in GA4

Good news! Google has fixed a bug that was causing too many sessions to be attributed to the "Direct" channel. This issue affected users who were using the automatic data collection feature with user-provided data, and it led to inaccuracies between late June and mid-July. So, if you've noticed something off in your reports, this could be why!

GA4 Data Import Enhancements

There’s a new update in GA4 for those working with Data Import. You can now create and manage multiple sources for each import type, giving you a lot more flexibility when handling complex data setups. Even better, this update ensures that new data is seamlessly added without overwriting any of your existing data. You’ll also be able to keep an eye on your data import quota directly from the Admin page, making everything a bit more transparent and easier to manage.

Display & Video

YouTube expands First Position ad placement?

YouTube's First Position ad placement, initially exclusive to YouTube Select inventory, is now available for all YouTube content through Display & Video 360. This feature ensures a brand's ad is the first in-stream ad seen by viewers, maximizing visibility during crucial moments like product launches or cultural events. Advertisers can now access this feature at dynamic rates, enhancing their ability to engage audiences across diverse content.?

YouTube introduces Fewer, longer ad breaks on Connected TV

YouTube has introduced fewer, longer ad breaks for long videos on connected TVs (CTVs), allowing for 50% longer viewing sessions before the next ad interruption. Viewers prefer grouped ads, with 79% favoring fewer interruptions. They can still skip ads after five seconds or move to the next one within an ad pod. This update, aimed at improving the viewer experience while giving advertisers better engagement opportunities, requires no action from advertisers and continues to enhance ad strategies for longform content.