Rabbbits Weeekly 03.01.22
Or, the one in which we do math, talk a lot about Google and Microsoft, applaud a QR code, and get down with DTC.
ICYMI shit’s going down in Ukraine. Here’s a good roundup for tech-related headlines. Here’re some ways you can help.
This week: the new ROAS, the QR code that won The Big Game™, the hot cities for DTC, TikTok is going long(er), Google and Microsoft announced a lot of stuff, and more!
It’s A Metric
If there’s one thing marketers love, it’s metrics with acronyms. CPC, CTR, CPM, CPL, LTV, ROAS, etc.
It’s that last one I want to talk a bit about and it’s evolution in this post-iOS 14.5 world we live in. (What a time to be alive!)
ROAS = Return on Ad Spend; or, revenue generated from ads divided by the cost of those ads.
So, if you made $100 from Google Ads and only spent $10, your ROAS is 1,000% (100% is breakeven). You could also say your ROAS was $10, as you made $10 for every $1 spent.
Easy enough, but remember that whole iOS 14.5 thing I mentioned?
Yeah, that throws a wrench in things. Especially for social.
Visibility and trackability of the ad-click-to-purchase flow has gotten murkier. (How much of this is from overreactions or attempted solutions by the social platforms that were hardest hit?) Doubly so if you have a lot of cross-device user flows and don’t use social platform analytics for your reporting and measurement. (Don’t use social platform analytics for your reporting and measurement.)
So we just pack it in and go home right? Nah. We just get a new metric.
Enter: MER. Marketing Efficiency Ratio.
It’s like ROAS but you use all revenue instead (and then pretend like your marketing got better overnight). It also helps capture the full marketing and channel ecosystem a little better. But this is one of those numbers that won’t mean much on its own, noticing trends and changes over time is where the value will come from. (Unless your MER is sub-100%, in which case stop spending money immediately and try to figure out what’s wrong.)
But wait, there’s more!
aMER; or, Acquisition MER (I’m not spelling it out again).
New customer revenue divided by total ad spend.
The hope is that you can create a flywheel that maximizes returning customer revenue while minimizing spend there, so aMER helps determine how effective marketing efforts are at generating new customers. (And this is another great example of not optimizing to one metric without context, but that’s a post for another time.)
We’ll leave this here for now. Calculate your ROAS, MER, and aMER for your advertising channel of choice and see how they compare. And change over time. I’m sure we’ll be back on this topic (or one like it) soon.
The Superb Owl Revisited
You’ve probably heard all about Coinbase’s commercial masterstroke: bounce a QR code around the screen for a minute like an interactive screensaver. They paid $15 million for the privilege of running that spot. Early returns guess it netted them at least $1 billion. #winning (It even started a Twitter feud!)
This type of approach could be more rule than exception in the near future.
From 2PM:
Accenture Interactive’s reinvention turned the consulting firm into a creative agency and technology partner – a combination perfectly suited for the Web3 era. I would have loved to have been in the room for the decision to acquire a the television spot for $15 million and spend nearly nothing designing the actual creative for it. It’s a level of efficiency that has become a feature in the age of proximity payments, blockchain implementation, and subscription-commerce. The less thought, the better.
Are You DTC?
DTC companies going from online to physical is one of the big retail trends to watch right now. They are being heralded as the saviors for malls and, potentially, commercial real estate. So, where are they opening? (This is from a Modern Retail newsletter that doesn’t have browser versions so I can’t share a direct link.)
Georgetown neighborhood in DC
Austin
Abbott Kinney in LA
Nashville
Dallas
Miami
Atlanta
Houston
Customer acquisition is hot like Hansel right now. DTC brands are on the hunt for talent that can help them find customers in the post-iOS 14.5 world. The name of the game is experimentation (and aMER!).
Google Gossip
Just like attention spans, Google Merchant Center titles are getting shorter. Ok, that was a bit dramatic. They’ve added a second, shorter title field to be used in “browsy” experiences like Discover and Shopping ads. Seems like it could be the anti-Amazon product title play while providing a better ad experience without requiring a reworking of your product database / feed.
Does your shopping experience make the grade? If it does, Google will reward you with better rankings thanks to their new Shopping Experience Scorecard. Scores are based on delivery time, shipping cost, return cost, and return window.
Google isn’t done judging you and your business just yet though. The desktop version of page experience is rolling out now. This is basically Google telling you whether they think your site is garbage or not, from a technical UX perspective. Mobile page experience has been a staple of their transition to mobile-first indexing. Typically their “complaints” about a site are:
It loads too slow
Images aren’t optimized for the web
You have way too many scripts running from the get go
You have a pop-up
Slow load causes the page to shift and may get users clicking the wrong things (looking at you Bleacher Report)
Google has shared some more info on their post-cookie tracking proposal Topics. It would roll out with 350, with the intent that this limited topic list would make it very difficult to id individual users, a practice called fingerprinting. They also say it will make things easier to understand (like Facebook interests) and they will avoid sensitive topics.
Google rolled out a new offline conversion tracking feature that doesn’t require a CRM connection. It just requires manual labor and someone to remember to upload customer data somewhere down the line. Basically, when a user fills out a form after clicking a Google Ad you send them a hashed email. If/when that user becomes a customer you upload their email again and Google matches them up and marks the lead successful. Or something like that, I had a hard time paying attention after “upload…”
Google Data Studio gets more goodies:
They’ve added a nice heatmap visual using Google Maps. It has the interactivity I like from Data Studio and the information is more helpful than just a shaded map. But the default zoom is set by which geo level you filter your data at, which is kind of a bummer.
They’ve also added more data blending options. Now to figure out what they mean…
Server-side tagging in Google Tag Manager bypasses ad blockers.
Don’t worry, Google isn’t dropping boring old standard Shopping campaigns.
Google and Microsoft might be dumping the spammy ads in their systems to other search engines that leverage their platforms for revenue.
Step Aside Google
Microsoft has a new ad feature: dynamic descriptions. If you’ve set up a dynamic search ad on Google before you know that they generate the headline and landing page (based on the site or pages you give them) but you still have to write the description(s). Gates’s Gang decided that was too much work and will now generate the descriptions automagically as well.
The World According to Windows™ will now auto-apply campaign recommendations in Bing Microsoft Ads unless you opt-out. And, if I’m reading this right, that means making and launching ads for you.
Sundry Social
Not sure when to post? Post educational content in the morning and entertaining content in the afternoon. Even on weekends.
Interest targeting on Facebook is a pain, not because of the options but because of the interface. Well, there might be an easier way to find everything you want to target, including the “hidden interests” (which is more clickbaity than nefarious, unlike shadow profiles). You can query the Marketing API to return a list of all matching interests. (If you click this link, please tell me who they think you are in their dynamic banners. I am now known as JCPenney apparently.)
5 minute long video was so last week. TikTok is going for 10.
TikTok users are older than you (probably) think and the platform can work for SaaS and B2B growth. A good reminder that the headlines aren’t the platform and these networks evolve over time.
Some more details on the EU data transfer drama for Google and Facebook, new legislation is in process that will make it illegal to transfer EU data to non-EU governments.
A Different Rabbbit Hole to Dive Down
A 24-point plan to start your own social network. At least, I think that’s what this is.
How did I find this stuff? 2PM, Today in Digital Marketing, Stacked Marketer
cool stuff but when do you release the Chased Rabbbit Club NFT Collection?