‘Back to School’ with ROAST’s Paid Media Team: Tools, Tech and Trends across Google, Microsoft, Social, and Amazon
12 Feb 2021
On the 10th of February, our paid media team returned for the second ‘Back To School’ webinar, sharing the latest Tools, Tech and Trends across Google, Microsoft, Social and Amazon from Q4 2020 to date.
The webinar was led by Erika Mendes, Head of Biddable, Rebecca Bampton, and George Stolton, Paid Media Account Managers at ROAST and covered updates across the landscape which are summarised below:
Watch the session here:
Google Ads – Product updates
Broad match keywords suggestions will start surfacing in Recommendations
Pair Broad Match keywords with Smart bidding to reach more relevant queries that match your performance objectives.
This update aims to simplify PPC management for advertisers.
Changes to Phrase March and BMM
From mid-February BMM match type is being phased out and from July 2021, the creation of BMM will no longer be available. Google aims to simplify keywords and make it easier to reach relevant customers with this update.
This update doesn’t come as a surprise as Google was already encouraging advertisers to use Broad Match while phrase match will start including behaviours of broad match modifiers so both BMM and Phrase will have the same matching behaviours.
Drive more, high-quality leads with lead form extensions
Lead form extensions are now available across Search, YouTube and Discover campaigns. They are available in the ‘Extensions’ page of Google Ads, meaning you can now use the same lead form across different campaign types.
Advertisers can choose from over 50 available questions to customise lead forms. This comes as Google is adding more B2B options.
Google rolls out App campaign type to re-engage existing users
The retargeting ads can feature new offers or content to bring users back who may not have used the app for a while, have products in their cart, are likely to make in-app purchases, promote an event or sale, or installed but haven’t used the app yet. Like other Google Ads automated campaign types, you submit ad copy, images, videos, starting bid and a budget. The ads are served dynamically across properties.
YouTube gets into audio ads
YouTube’s 15-second audio ads are accompanied by an image or simple animation and include a link to the advertiser’s site. These ads are aimed at driving brand awareness and are available to advertisers in Google Ads and Display & Video 360 on a CPM basis.
Google is standardising conversion attribution across all video campaigns
Assessing the impact of video campaigns and conversions is hard when you can’t compare across video ad formats, this update seeks to help advertisers compare the impact of video ad campaigns across all skippable, in-stream and feed video formats measured through Google Ads conversion tracking.
Changes to your standalone Gmail campaign
From July 1st, Gmail ads will become read-only meaning you will not be able to create or edit existing standalone Gmail campaigns or Gmail ads.
If you want to continue serving ads on Gmail, you will need to create a discovery campaign which will also cover other surfaces such as YouTube and Discovery.
Google Ads Data Privacy Updates
How will advertisers be able to deliver results in a cookie-less world?
In a recent blog, Google discussed performance and targeting in a post-cookie world. Key features included changes to targeting, which will focus on clustering large groups of people with similar interests rather than the previous single-user focus.
Key advice from Erika: GTM is going to be more useful than ever as it can minimise disruption in website tagging during this transition period.
Preparing for Apple’s iOS 14 policy updates
The much-anticipated update from Apple, App Tracking Transparency (ATT) will require developers to gain permission to use certain information from other company’s apps and websites for advertising purposes, even if they already have user’s consent. As a result, ad publishers may see significant impact to their Google Ad revenue after Apple’s ATT policy takes effect.
Users will be given the ability to block the IDFA at the app level. This means that the iOS 14 update will require apps to ask for permission to collect and share their data.
Google Ads
Stay on top of trends with the Insights page
Explore trends further in your account with the new insights page under the recommendations tab.
This update allows you to take a deep dive into each trend to understand searches that are on the rise, and the locations where demand is growing fastest based on the keywords you have in your account. It can also help you identify new opportunities relevant to your business with suggested trends.
Google releases Google Ads Editor v1.5
Google have released version 1.5 of Google Ads Editor which features new tools to help advertisers improve ad strength, you can now check your ad strength in Google Ads Editor, making it easier to optimise responsive search ads at scale. Google have also provided support for additional recommendations and image extensions.
Explanations expands to Target CPA Campaign Search
Explanations gives advertisers an understanding of changes in your account and performance. Google have expanded this to include Target CPA’s in search campaigns. We hope to see this expand to include Display and other ad types in time.
New data exclusion controls for Smart Bidding
To help advertisers manage technical issues impacting Smart Bidding, Google is introducing data exclusions for Search, Shopping and Display campaigns.
Bid across accounts with portfolio bid strategy
Streamline and drive performance by setting cross-account bid strategies for both Search and standard Shopping strategies if they have the same conversion set-up.
Microsoft Ads
Target Impression automated bidding will be available on Microsoft Ads soon
Microsoft Ads have finally added Targeted Impression as an automated bidding strategy. This one is for you if you are running ads in a competitive landscape and aiming to get premium visibility. Using artificial intelligence to automatically set bids at auction time with the goal of showing your ad on absolute top of the page, top of the page or anywhere on the page.
Optimisation Score will also be available on Microsoft Ads
In the Recommendations page, you’ll soon be able to see your optimisation score, which is a score that ranges from 0% to 100% to help indicate how much your account is performing at its full potential
Increase products & Services engagement with Filter Link Extensions
With Filter Link Extensions advertisers can present many different features under categorised headers so that users can quickly navigate to their key products and offerings.
Manual CPC is being removed on Microsoft Ads
Microsoft will transition all Search, Shopping and Dynamic Search Ads campaign that do not have automated bidding strategies to Enhanced CPC (eCPC). Get ahead of this and retain control by making the necessary changes before April.
Social
Snapchat’s ‘First Commercial’ format hits
Snapchat’s non-skippable video takeover unit called First Commercial is now out of testing and available to US and UK advertisers in Ads Manager. The ad unit gets its name because it’s guaranteed to be the first ad a user sees that day on premium Shows. The ads run across all Shows for maximum audience reach.
Instagram’s built-in shopping cart is coming to IGTV and Reels
The much awaited shopping integration Checkout from IGTV has been rolled out by Instagram and will be testing it in Reels, the app’s short-form video product, later this year. Checkout enables users to buy products tagged in images and videos from within Instagram.
New Instagram Ads for Shopping Businesses
Ads with product tags are now officially launching on Instagram and will be testing soon on Facebook. Advertisers will be able to create brand new ads with product tags from scratch in Ads Manager, boost existing shopping video posts as ads and expand Custom Audiences and LAL to include additional actions so that advertisers can re-engage more shoppers.
TikTok announces a global integration with Shopify
TikTok’s advertising division TikTok for Business announced a global integration with Shopify that makes it easy for Shopify merchants to promote their products on the short-form video social network.
This marks the first major commerce integration for TikTok and opens up its ad business to Shopify’s 1 million-plus merchants. Merchants can manage their campaigns from their Shopify dashboards and TikTok is offering a $300 ad credit to eligible merchants.
Twitter enables frequency capping
Advertisers can now control the number of times ads are shown to users with campaign frequency caps, helping you to get your ads in front of new people.
The feature is available in ad group details for Reach, Engagement, Video Views, and Pre-Roll Views objectives by default.
Changes Facebook made to Attribution Settings on January 19
In early 2021, Apple will begin to enforce their App Tracking Transparency (ATT) prompt. Once Apple enforces the prompt and it’s shown on Facebook and Instagram, app advertisers and advertisers that optimize, target and report on web events, will be impacted by limitations on data sharing. As a result of the impact created by Apple’s policy requirements, Facebook are developing forthcoming updates to attribution settings.
Amazon Advertising
Sponsored Brands creative and reporting enhancements
New deal messaging options available for Sponsored Brands will now feature deal messaging and badges, without you having to create deal-specific headlines or campaigns.
Sponsored Brands search terms now available in campaign manager, these metrics were previously only available as downloadable reports. You can also access search term reports in the report centre or through the Amazon Advertising API.
Sponsored Display Customisation and new placement options
Headline and logo editing now available for Sponsored Display product targeting available across US, CA, the UK, FR, IT, ES, DE, JP and the UAE where advertisers can now edit the headline and logo of their Sponsored Display product-targeting creatives.
Sponsored Display advertisers in the US, the UK, DE, FR, IT, ES, CA and JP using creatives with customised headline and logo now have access to additional ad placements on desktop and mobile.
Manage Multiple Advertising Accounts in a single dashboard
Manager account is now available to sellers, vendors & agencies in the Amazon Advertising console. With manager account, advertisers and their agencies can link multiple advertising accounts so that they can manage users, handle billing and view account-level alerts, insights and performance metrics in a single dashboard.
Sponsored Ads and Stores launch in Brazil & The Netherlands
Eligible sellers and vendors can begin leveraging Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Stores. This suite of self-service solutions can help you increase product visibility, grow sales and reach a larger audience.
Extend your reach by advertising globally with an Amazon EU seller account. You will automatically be able to sell and advertise in the Netherlands, as well as through the rest of Europe.
New Sponsored Display audiences
Views remarketing is now available across Sponsored Display ads. This update enables you to re-engage audiences who have viewed specific product detail pages but haven’t purchased your advertised product(s) in the past 30 days.
Search trend impression rank and share report
You can now understand how your Sponsored Brands campaigns compare to other advertisers with the search term impression report, now available in the report centre.
The report shows account-wide ad impression count for each search term, how this compares to other advertisers, and the overall percentage of ad impressions that you receive compared to other advertisers over a selected time period.
Thank you for reading this wrap up of our Back to School event. To continue reading about Paid Media updates, check out the wrap up from our last event.
