PPC Roundup (Week 22)

The PPC News project is a collaborative effort to help everyone contribute their knowledge or skillet, so they're recognized for it! With this weekly roundup in paid advertising, you can now spend less time wondering what's happening and more of it on your own business.

"In partnership with?Opteo, we're offering you an?8 weeks trial?worth of smart recommendations to improve your Google Ads performances, so take advantage!"

PPC News

May 30th to?June 6th, 2022

Analytics

Google Analytics 4

Behavioral modeling for consent mode aims at filling the consent mode data gap by modeling the behavior of users who decline analytics cookies based on the behavior of similar users who accept analytics cookies.

If you want to learn more, Matteo Zambon shared some prerequisites and limitations.

By using Dynamic lookback in Analytics audiences, you can now create a dynamic group of users who satisfy the value for event_count(s) within the last N days.

Content worth sharing

Brian Clifton (PhD) shared how IP anonymization is set by default in GA4, and updated an interesting study showing that the "differences become significant at the city level with?an average of 76.7% accuracy. However, allowing for a 50Km margin, the accuracy improves to 87.0%. Allowing for a 200Km margin, the accuracy further increases to 93.0%."

Simo Ahava revisited its 10 truths about data: (1) Data is passive, (2) Data is subjective, (3) Data is boundless, (4) Data hates silos, (5) Data is a process, (6) Data can be ignored, (7) Tools can't dictate how your organization works, (8) Real insights are rare and that's ok, (9) Data is a side effect (10) Data is difficult - It's worth having a look!

Chris Brinkworth shared how “a small percentage of traffic” will soon see the initial testing of Google Chrome Topics API go live on July 1.?(source)

Paid Search

Google Ads

In June 2022,?Google will update the serving behavior of keywords that are currently under review. Keywords won’t be able to trigger ads until they've been reviewed.?(source)

Google has announced a series of updates for Hotels Ads.

These include (1) support in bringing online all standard?protocols?including hotel availability, rates and inventory, (2), giving hoteliers the ability to add rates and availability to their Google Business Profile which bypasses technical spreadsheets/files; and (3) finally, announcing advertisers will be able to create Hotel Ads without needing a Hotel Center account in the coming months (source)

Harrison J Hepp is warning us about Automatically Created Assets being out of beta.

Content worth sharing

Google has released a guideline report called "Unlock the Power of Search"

Martijn Beumer shared about the Competitive Visibility report in Merchant Center. It was an open beta (only available in the US) and appears to be rolled out.

The new Loyalty Program was announced at the Google Marketing Live 2022 event. When clicking on it, users can choose to join, and Adriaan Dekker shared with us an example:

Cory Lindholm shared a smart tip to know how much of their ad spend goes to YouTube in Performance Max. You can simply multiply "Views" and "Avg. CPV", and David Closa Ortega confirmed that It works as a custom column using Data Studio.

Lyubomir Popov warned us how Performance Max is able to invest outside your targeted locations. For safety, you could exclude all countries using the list here.

Mike Ryan's detailed insights and framework for business-driven, performance max campaigns are a must-read!

Microsoft Ads

At?Advertising Week Asia, Microsoft Advertising announced that search and native campaigns are now available for agencies and brands located in Japan. (source)

Cryptocurrency ads are rolling out in the United States only, and they’re limited to just Microsoft Advertising Search Network.?(source)

Amazon Ads

Matched Targeting is now available for Sponsored Display vendors and sellers registered in Amazon Brand Registry. You're able to not only analyze performance at the targeting clause level (i.e., "running shoes") but also break down your results based on product detail pages where your ads appeared within that category!

Adam Mellott shared how advertisers, who have access to the Sponsored Brand's Video VCPM, should see quite a few new metrics in the Ad Console.

Hamza Ali shared an update for Sponsored Brand Ads! (Only US marketplace) Advertisers will save time by not needing to appeal rejected campaigns. Instead, of searching the support section, you can now simply "Appeal campaign rejection".

Content worth sharing

Shawn Oleson shared an interesting article about Chargebacks, Shortages and Amazon Smart Match. Amazon is not proactive when it comes to investigating errors. The burden of proof is on the vendor, and disagreements must be resolved within 30 days, after which the vendor must pay the penalty.

Apple Ads

A new bidding strategy (or campaign pricing type) will replace the current CPM strategy. It will be cost-per-tap (CPT), which is their version of CPC. (source)

Programmatic

The demand-side platforms of two ad-tech vendors, Yahoo and Amobee, have removed Google Open Bidding as a path of supply for their clients, sources tell Adweek

“The main issue the industry has is not with Google Open Bidding––it’s with the duplication of bids in the bidstream,” Kane said. “And if you are deduplicating, removing Open Bidding is by far the easiest and most natural first choice.”

Paid Social

Facebook

Bram Van der Hallen shared how you can add or create "info labels". It can help you to provide more information about shipping, return policies and payment methods. Note, 1 to 3 labels per placement will be visible.

TikTok

Now, TikTok has started rolling out cross-session conversion tracking for those who opted out of iOS14, we can finally see how much our ads really work! Jonathan Snow shared that, up until now, sales were underreported, which was confirmed by post-purchase surveys and other tracking/attribution tactics.

Snapchat

With Dynamic Ads for Travel, you can now upload a Travel specific catalog or feed and dynamically serve up relevant trip information to users, based on an individual user's travel preferences and intent.?

Marketing Industry

The DuckDuckGo browser leaks third-party tracking information to Microsoft, but the company doesn't want you to know about it. Peter H. Gregory shared the inconvenience of being confronted by researcher Zach Edwards who discovered this relationship (see BleepingComputer and TechCrunch)

After a class-action lawsuit was filed by the Twitter investor(s) two weeks ago (see BBC), Musk’s legal team threatens to kill the deal. A big drama! (TechCrunch)

Finally, ?Ahrefs announced they'll invest $60 million of resources into its own search engine, called?Yep. With a fresh new path through the world of internet advertising, Yep claims that it will give 90% of its ad revenues to content creators. (source)

Thoughts of the week

There's a new search engine expected from Apple WWDC22 tonight?

We hope you enjoy this content ???We’re always looking for ways to improve?#ppcnews, and we’d love your feedback. Please let us know if there are any other ways we could help!