Digital Marketing News 07/19/2022 – 07/25/2022

PPC

Google’s Ads Creative Studio Now Available Globally

With Google’s Ads Creative Studio platform, businesses now have a streamlined way to create various new ad content from existing assets.

Google initially launched Ads Creative Studio in beta mode last year, and now, the platform is globally available with more features that enable advertisers to create multiple customized versions of video and display ads.

With Ads Creative Studio, you can customize ads for different audiences, locations, languages, or contexts. You only need to indicate what element of the ad creative — like a product image, superimposed text or sound — you want to set as ‘swappable’ and provide different versions of that element based on a set of rules you create. The rules include the audiences you want to reach or contexts you want to match.

Google’s system will then put together customized versions of your ads based on the assets you uploaded, while add-on elements can be tailored for different purposes. They will provide these new ads in different formats, too.

Note that for now, these features are only available for video creatives, but they will soon be launching for display as well.

Google also created a set of new features to ensure that projects made in Ads Creative Studio can be seamlessly shared to all of their media platforms — Google Ads, Display and Video 360, and Campaign Manager 360.

First, you can now export images from the Ads Creative Studio asset library to the Google Ads asset library of any linked account. And second, you can now connect an Ads Creative Studio account to Campaign Manager 360. Ads Creative Studio was already available in beta to Display & Video 360 customers.

To learn how to get started, visit the Ads Creative Studio Help Center. You can also check out this Google resource page for the steps to create an Ads Creative Studio account.

Social

Instagram Tests Out The “Creator Marketplace” Platform

Instagram announced the launch and testing of the creator marketplace, making the tool available to select brands in the United States. 

A development that began last year, creator marketplace is a tool that allows brands to discover and reach out to creators directly. Currently, it’s offered on an invite-only basis to brands active in the United States.

Brands can use the desktop experience within Meta Business Suite to filter creators by gender, age, number of followers, and interests. You’ll also be able to find creators based on the demographics of their engaged audience using filters including gender, age, interests, country, and city; see creators who have expressed interest in working with you, have tagged or followed you; see similar creators to those you’ve already found through the filters; and add creators to saved lists.

After discovering potential creators for partnerships, you can use the creator marketplace to create campaigns and structured projects to share with creators. Specifically, you can outline your campaign overview, desired deliverables, compensation, and any additional information related to the creator project.

According to Instagram, any messages brands send creators will land in a newly created Partnerships Messages inbox. Creators can respond to brands and coordinate with them directly within the Instagram app.

Visit the Instagram website to learn more about how you can collaborate with creators.

Social

TikTok Launches The Inventory Filter for Brand Safety and Ad Suitability

TikTok offers ad placement assurance for advertisers with the new Inventory Filter feature, which allows more control over where promotions appear in the app.

In a bid to foster a safer community, TikTok has launched the Inventory Filter in 25 countries and in more than 15 languages. This new feature is an “innovative brand safety and suitability solution that provides advertisers with more control over the content that appears adjacent to their In-Feed Ads on the For You page.” It’s embedded directly in the TikTok Ads Manager.

As TikTok explained, the Inventory Filter helps advertisers effectively manage where their ads appear on the app: “For example, a family-oriented brand might not want to appear next to videos containing even mild or comedic violence, whereas an advertiser promoting an action movie could benefit from showing up in that environment.”

The TikTok Inventory Filter offers additional layers of content filtration to help brands achieve their own unique goals by choosing the type of UGC they'd like adjacent to their branded content.

Powered by advanced machine learning technology, the TikTok Inventory Filter gives advertisers access to three distinct tiers of video inventory — Full, Standard, and Limited. The desired tier can be selected within the Ads Manager when setting up a campaign.

TikTok’s Inventory Filter technology is able to learn in real time as well to further hone classification and evolve with emerging content trends.

Each tier in the Inventory Filter contains videos that have been evaluated based on these risk levels:

• Floor Content: Content that violates TikTok’s Community Guidelines, Terms of Service, and/or Intellectual Property Policy

• High Risk Content: Glamorization or gratuitous depiction of mature themes

• Medium Risk Content: Fictional or entertainment depiction of mature themes

• Low Risk Content: Educational depiction of mature themes

Considering these levels of content categorization, the TikTok Inventory Filter will then assess which videos to exclude from a given tier. As a result, the maturity of the themes present in each tier will vary accordingly as follows:

• Full Inventory: Excludes any "Floor" content that has been removed by robust moderation against TikTok's Community Guidelines and some "High Risk" content. In this tier, ads may appear next to some content featuring mature themes.

• Standard Inventory: Excludes "Floor" and "High Risk" content. Ads will appear next to content that is appropriate for most brands, but may contain some mature themes.

• Limited Inventory: Excludes all risk levels (from "Floor" to "Low Risk"). Ads will appear next to content that does not contain mature themes.

According to TikTok, “hundreds of major brands” have leveraged the Inventory Filter during the testing period, with every campaign seeing “exceptional results, to the tune of 95%-99%+ ‘safe delivery rates.’”

TikTok will be expanding this offering in the coming months, with the aim of bringing it to more markets and introducing additional campaign objectives.

Social

Meta Announces The New Instagram In-Chat Payment Offer

Payments in Chat on Instagram allows buyers and sellers to communicate, facilitate payment, and track orders in one platform.

Instagram’s newest offer, Payments in Chat, allows buyers to communicate with qualified small businesses within the platform and make purchases without leaving the chat. In their announcement, Meta also said that in that same chat thread, buyers will be able to track their order and ask the business any follow-up questions.

Businesses can collect payment using Meta Pay, making the checkout process easier for customers. Meta further assures that payments within the platform are securely processed and purchases are protected.

Using this new feature, small business owners will be able to:

• Chat with customers in real time to answer questions and confirm purchase details

• Create a payment request with item description and price

• Request and collect payment

Even with this new eCommerce development, buyers and sellers should still practice vigilance and due diligence when dealing with each other, as bad actors like hackers and fraudulent users can also use this feature to scam unwary customers and businesses.

PPC

Google’s Performance Max Campaigns Gets New Features

Google announced several new features that will help advertisers customize and improve their Performance Max campaigns.

Google is rolling out these six new features for Performance Max campaigns, which will allow advertisers to quickly and easily identify areas for improvement.

1. Optimization score This helps you find new ways to improve performance and it’s now fully launched for Performance Max campaigns. Using optimization score, you can see where your campaign has room to grow and find recommendations that help you take quick action to drive better results.

2. Seasonality adjustments These are now available to help you inform your Performance Max bid strategy of changes you’re anticipating in conversion rates for future events like promotions or sales. Google recommends advertisers to use seasonality adjustments for short periods and events, usually ranging from 1 to 7 days, such as a week-long promotion or sale. 

   

3. Data exclusions Use this to prevent unintended issues with conversion tracking from affecting your Performance Max bid strategy. This tool tells Smart Bidding to ignore data from dates where you encountered issues with your conversion tracking that impacted the accuracy of your reported conversions or conversion value, such as tagging issues or website outages. 

4. Advanced location targeting controls New advanced location options in Performance Max help you be more precise with your targeting. In your campaign settings under “Location options,” you’ll now find the ability to target based on physical “Presence” or “Presence or interest.”

   

5. Explanations Explanations are coming to all Performance Max campaigns in the coming weeks. They make it easier to identify performance fluctuations and diagnose issues. They can even provide recommendations to help you improve your performance going forward.  Google recommends using Explanations to “save time, better understand performance changes, and troubleshoot any challenges without having to spend hours manually cross-referencing reports and spreadsheets.”

6. Diagnostic insights These help advertisers quickly identify potential issues related to ad policy, billing, budget, and more. You’ll also get tailored recommendations to help you fix any issues that may come up.

To get more tips on how to optimize your Performance Max campaigns, check out Google’s best practices guide.

What you can do next:

• Use the Google Ads Creative Studio to cut down the time and costs involved in producing digital ads so you can focus on delivering timely and targeted ad messages to your audience.

• Work with influencers and content creators to reach niche audiences that can benefit from your product or service offers. Allow creators to be authentic in telling your brand story from their unique perspective so you can effectively connect with your market.

• Protect your brand’s image by ensuring that your ads don’t appear adjacent to content that violates your brand values. Use tools like TikTok’s Inventory Filter to take active steps in securing your brand reputation.

• Be extra cautious when using online payment facilities for your business and be wary of who you’re transacting with to avoid losing sales to bad actors.

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