Full Transcription

[Introduction] 0:00

Hey, everyone, welcome to Episode 77 of this Week in Marketing. I’m your host, Sajid Islam. And today I’ll be going over the notable news and updates in the digital marketing space from the week of October 4, 2021. 

[Update1/Microsoft Advertising Sunsetting ETAs Too & Auto-Generate Remarketing List]0:13

So first of all, we are going to start off with Microsoft. So what did they announce? 

Well, if you’ve been following our show and you kind of know how I’ve always talked about all these platforms are following each other this day and age and you know I remain correct.

Microsoft announced that starting June 30, 2022, they are retiring expanded text ads and they will be replacing that with responsive search ads. And why I say I’m correct is ’cause you know a couple or three weeks or about a month ago, I guess we announced in our show we covered the announcement of Google’s, Google ads that they have retired expanded text ads as well or they’re retiring expanded text ads as of 2022, June 2022 so Microsoft just followed that announcement. OK 

With that the other thing Microsoft announced this week is that they had automatically going to generate remarketing list for advertisers. The three types of auto-generated remarketing lists are: One is All Visitors List which will include all the users who visited the advertiser’s website in the last 30 days. A list called All Converters List which is a list of users who converted within the past 180 days. and #3 is a Smart Remarketing List, a list of users likely to convert powered by Microsoft’s advertisings audience intelligence and designed to deliver high conversion rate, right. 

If you ask me I will say that’s a great move because oftentimes small businesses they forget to create remarketing list. And if Microsoft is doing it for them then you know what? They can always go back and restart and do display campaigns.

That’s all for there is to for this update. 

[Update2/Pinterest Adds New Shopping Features, Including Brand Profile Details and Sponsored Idea Pins]2:07

Let’s move on to the next update which is Pinterest. So Pinterest has 3 major updates this week. Number one is they are basically adding a new slideshow for collections promotions option. Basically, it’s an Ads option, right. Which is allowing slideshow for collections, basically an ad you need to appear in-stream with relevant searches and then you know if searcher sees or a pinner sees something that they’re interested in they can tap into it tap on that ad unit and then they go focused more into it. So that’s all I mean again it says pretty much standard ad play right over here.

Next up, hold on just a second, ok. So next up Pinterest is also adding our new Merchant Details to Brand Profiles which will enable businesses to showcase their values in the app. This just provides another way to facilitate stronger brand connection specially among socially conscious younger shoppers who are increasingly looking to buy from brands that align with their value, right. Pinterest is also expanding their verified merchants program which highlights businesses that meet pinterest customer service and brand connection guidelines with the verified check mark in the app. Again, this is good. This is different from what Facebook verification is all about but I like what Pinterest is doing here and also FYI, I own Pinterest stock so I am a little biased towards Pinterest and I don’t own Facebook stocks directly but even if I do have stakes in Facebook through funds and ETF’s and index funds that I own or hold positions in, I’m not a big fan of Facebook. Just ’cause it’s just a rotten company to the core. Anyway coming back, so that’s what the verified merchants program is all about. 

And then finally Pinterest is also testing a new sponsored content option for idea pins which is basically Pinterest take on stories format sponsored idea pins are displayed with the profile image of the creator along with a paid partnership to tag to disclose the brand relationship. This is basically again helping creators make money through their own, through their paid sponsorships and things like that. Again nothing new over did but I just like how these platforms are really enabling creators to be able to go make money on their own and which allows them to make a living. OK 

[Update3/Snapchat Rolls Out Run for Office Mini]4:34

With that let’s move on to the next update and this is coming from Snapchat. Snapchat rolled out this thing we this we call run for office mini. This is just their way of encouraging younger generations to get involved in democracy as well as you know you know check out some of the options. It’s not really marketing update perse, but I do have to say I am covering it here just ’cause I figured you know this is such a cool thing that Snapchat is doing aside from you know if you compare Snapchat versus Instagram. 

Instagram is all about you know, their report came out this week, where you know how they have been very bad for the teens and they have contributed to all the social problems. Where Snapchat is actually participating more into civil engagements and prompting users, the younger generations to actually become politicians and directly influence political shifts. So overall great move from Snapchat please do check it out because I think you know it also provides information on how to fill out the forms, where to fill out the forms, and all sorts of things for local election offices. So at a local, micro level and then you can go off to national level. But anyway, that’s all for this update. 

[Update4/Snapchat Announces New Creator Monetization Tools as it Seeks to Maximize In-App Engagement]5:53

The next update is snapchats now announces new creator monetization tools as it seeks to maximize in-app engagement. Remember this is a spotlight challenge, again, spotlight challenges they came up with this challenge last year, where they were giving out about $1,000,000 per day and then obviously Snapchat realize Oh my God gosh this is so successful, people react using our platform and you know we’re paying so much then then you know that program took a hit. And then obviously you know and I’ve covered this in a show as well where we have shared that you know like sometimes these programs while it sounds great are metal-level at a high level, but when you dig deeper you realize that you know people like you and I, we never get to win because we’re not that you know that big influencer we’re not this big kahuna where we can create all sorts of things and years of experience. We get, we don’t get the encouragement to do it, discouraged, we get discouraged and as a result only the top earners are doing it. With this new program what they’re saying is that you know guys like you and I have a chance. That’s what it is all about. I’m not going to go too deep into it it’s just that you know from Snapchat from a platform perspective it’s making some moves which I think is going to pay dividends down the road in terms of in a user engagement more users things like that. So if Snapchat is a platform you’re considering then definitely you should look into this platform as well as you know look what Snapchat is going to do with this you know creator challenge. OK.

[Update5/Mailchimp Helps SMBs Optimize Email Campaigns]7:32

With that the next update for this week is from MailChimp. MailChimp is something we generally do not cover in our podcast. However, this is such an update that I think you know we I must cover it, right. Why is that? ‘Cause this podcast is all about helping the small SMB small medium-sized businesses be informed and be able to grow with the least amount of resource, right. That’s why I do this podcast.So Mailchimp basically the email marketing platform has announced new functional to help optimize email campaigns with their calling this, launching this thing called content optimizer that would recommend specific improvements to email campaigns based on AI driven comparison of the content with best content practices gleaned from mailchimp’s billions of marketing data sets. Right? So what will content optomizer do? It will make recommendations relating to readability, typography, call to action placements and compliance with brand standards. I don’t know about you, I’m sold. And by the way we use MailChimp for our email programs and I’m so glad we are using MailChimp. Maybe other platforms have it I haven’t heard about it but I don’t think no one anyone has this solution. Now you could say and argue that you know, Sajid, it’s artificial intelligence 100% not there, but you know small businesses like ours you know even if we get a 10% increase that’s a great increase for us, right. So I will take it any day over 0. 10 is better than zero is all I will tell you, right. So definitely check it out and if you’re in MailChimp you should be excited.

[Update6/Twitter Professional Profiles Available to More Businesses]9:15

Next up Twitter professionals are now available to more businesses. Initially it was rolled out to a small test group. Twitter professional profile is a free upgrade to standard profiles which is available as an option to those with professional accounts. You can use a professional profile to display information you are not able to show ’cause of a standard profiles such as you will be able to show your business location, hours of operation, method of contact, you can actually have enhanced features right now the only two enhanced features are there are like you know signing up for newsletter as well as shop modules. Twitter is saying they’re going to work on other features that are going to roll out in the coming days or in the near future. OK. So in terms of what you need to have a professional profile, is you need to have a physical location where you do business with clients or customers, be based in the US, and use Twitter in English. And if you think you have these two criterias nailed down, then you need to fill out a brief form and confirm your eligibility and then Twitter is going to take you away from take you step by step from there. By the way, before you can apply for a professional profile you need to convert your standard account into professional account and then you have to ask for all sorts of stuff. So I’m converting from let me see yeah, the standard account can be converted into professional account from the settings screen by selecting switch to professional. That’s the first step and then you need to fill out the form and then Twitter is going to do the verification and then you’re going to be approved you can go for it. OK. 

[Update7/Clubhouse Makes Clips Available for All iOS Users]10:53

With that, next up Clubhouse we covered clubhouse last week which is episode 76 and we said there’s this new feature from clubhouse called clips. And it was a better format wasn’t available to all users and then come this Monday clubhouse said hey you know what we have rolled it out to everyone on iOS. Yeah! Right? It’s coming soon on Android. So if you’re not sure what clip are, definitely check out episode 76 which was last week’s episode you’ll be glad you did.

[Update8/Instagram Combines IGTV, Feed Videos Into Single Format, Instagram Video]11:23

And with that let’s move on to the next update which is Instagram. Instagram came out well Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram came out and this is hey guess what we are we are combining IGTV and Feeds into this one thing called videos. Now last year if I remember correctly when release was announced I was telling like you know Instagram has gone crazy they have so many things people are going to be create confused. They have the feeds, they have the reels, they have the videos, they have IGTV and you know what it’s and then they have e-commerce functionality. And Instagram became this hodge-podge and I’m finally glad that Mosseri came out and he shared that Oh yeah you know it’s too much and we’re going to combine it all together and we’re going to basically give it one thing called videos. That’s great right. It allows because I do long videos and every time I want to do long videos in IGTV, I think about it men, no ones going to my IGTV tab. It’s not going to be in my feed. Now it’s combining it’s going to be looking good that’s one. Number two Mosseri came up and there’s all well we’re doing we announced we’re going to move away from we’re no longer photo-sharing app ’cause in our users has told like they love videos very much. Well I disagree Mr. Mosseri and I’ve told you why. Well, number one is because you pushed us like for example, us, we realize when we saw the data that you know how much what you know how much reach we get when we do publish reels versus just standard post we were like in what Instagram is pushing reels, let’s move with it. Now again they might be reporting views on reach on Reels in a very different way than what we do for standard post but again we go by the number you show us. And you’re showing us reels are getting higher reach. We’re doing reels mostly specially if you go to mktANDgrow on Instagram. M-K-T-A-N-D-G-R-O-W on instagram you will see we’ve been doing mostly reels it’s because of that. So I disagree with Mosseri because you know you kind of have given us more push on reels and videos, so we basically created more. Now if tomorrow, you come and tell us and say hey, post are gonna do more better, guess what? Everyone’s gonna do post. And by the way, I like a combination of two so I do not know why Mosseri came and did that. But you know how I feel about Instagram and Facebook as a whole because you kinda saw fiasco that happened this week where this whistleblower from Facebook went to Congress and they talked about everything that Mark Zuckerberg didn’t want you to know but we all knew. Anyway, so the other thing that you want to know here from here is the video previews in feed will now be 60 seconds long unless the video is eligible for ads in which case the preview will be 15 seconds and you know then finally they’re changing the name of this video ad instead of calling IGTV ads they’re going to call it Instagram in-stream video ads which is basically similar to YouTube in-stream video ads. But anyway I didn’t say that, you know they just you know they came up with this amazing name. OK.

[Update9/Google Shifts AdSense to First-Price Auction. How Will It Impact Google Ads?]14:31

Next up, this is directly not directly related to well this is marketing but this is Google AdSense. Google AdSense is shifting from our second price auction to first price auction. What is a second price auction? In the early days of online display advertising ad space was sold to advertisers in second price auction, with the final price paid by the winner was determined by the amount of the second highest bid. Overtime many ads… Ok, that’s what it is. I was reading the rest of the Google’s announcement but you don’t need to know that. Where this affects us right now is that if you are running display ads and you thought you are in a second price auction you are no longer second price auction. So previously if two brands are bidding $5 and $6 respectively for an Ad slot the winning bidder ended up paying $5.1 under a first price auction model however the winning bid would be the full top bids with advertiser would pay $6 for the impression. Yay! More money for Google and publishers. You and I are going to get to pay more so that’s one thing for Google display ads. The second thing is that Google probably may bring this to Google search ads in the near future. Just be forewarned. I hope and you can never say hey I didn’t know that OK. 

[Update10/Google Adds Search Console integration to Google Analytics, New Data Attribution Modeling]15:54

Next up we have Google’s, Google search console integration with Google Analytics and basically what Google is doing is that Google is realizing that because of apples ATT as well as all the privacy hoo-ha and the first party cookie going away. Excuse me. They’re incorporating more and more of this you know machine language artificial intelligence into Google Analytics so you could kind of see all in Google Analytics. So basically they want you to use Google Analytics 4, that’s all it is all about right. And also they’re using the putting data-driven attribution with no minimum threshold to Google Analytics. Google Analytics 4 by the way not 3,4. So basically again they want you to use Google Analytics 4, Google Analytics 3 is still have announced the like end of support of it but they Google is really pushing and adding this new features in Google Analytics 4. So if you ask me I would say start using both for marketANDgrow.com we use both on our website and we’re slowly phasing into Google Analytics 4 so and if you do not know about a much about data-driven attribution so definitely listen to our last week’s episode, episode 76. Where we cover data-driven attribution because you’ll be glad you did. OK.

And with that I think that’s all for from what Google is saying about search control console integration and data-driven attribution modeling in Google Analytics.

[Update11/YouTube Ads Available on Connected Television (CTV) Platforms]17:26

Lastly we have for this week is YouTube is looking to help advertisers tap into the rising consumption of YouTube content on home TV sets. With the expansion of video action campaigns to connected TV also known as CTV placements right or CTV placements. Video action campaigns now include CTV invented to help advertisers reach new customers and drive more online sales. What does that mean in layman’s term? Well, what it means is that now you and I the small fishes would be able to advertise our brands and things on big screen TV’s as if we are you know advertising on TV’s. That’s great! Now one thing I will tell you is that please do I mean you know be careful though, because I don’t think people really are watching TV they’re going to really jump onto your website in the middle of this show, but this is a very good brand building things right brand building top of mind exercise if you ask me because that’s how I think the old days TV’s worked. So that’s what it is. Other than that, nothing else from here from this announcement but if you want to read more obviously there is our show notes where I have all these details written up, how it works what it means, and things like that definitely check out a show knows.

[Closing]18:43

Okay, folks with that, that’s it for this week in Marketing. Now you know everything to be in the know. Make sure you’re you read our show page where you will find the links to the articles as well as some more additional details. Once again, this is your host Sajidl Islam signing off. Until next week.

1. Microsoft Advertising Sunsetting ETAs Too & Auto-Generate Remarketing List (0:13)  – Following Google Ads footsteps, Microsoft Advertising announced that beginning June 30, 2022, responsive search ads (RSAs) will be the only search ad type that can be created or edited in standard search campaigns. introducing a new product that can automatically generate remarketing lists for advertisers. The three types of auto-generated remarketing lists are:

  1. All Visitors list: A list of users who visited the advertiser’s website in the past 30 days.
  2. All Converters list: A list of users who converted within the past 180 days.
  3. Smart Remarketing list: A list of users likely to convert, powered by Microsoft Advertising’s audience intelligence and designed to deliver a higher conversion rate.

Advertisers can use one, two, or all three lists simultaneously, along with their existing remarketing and audience targeting lists. Universal Event Tracking and active conversion goals will need to be configured to leverage the All Converters and Smart Remarketing list options.

 

2. Pinterest Adds New Shopping Features, Including Brand Profile Details and Sponsored Idea Pins (2:07) – Andrew @ Socialmediatoday.com writes – Pinterest is adding a new ‘Slideshow for Collections’ promotion option, which will source products from your uploaded catalog “into an automatically generated, attention-grabbing collections ad”. The new Slideshow for Collections ad unit will appear in-stream in relevant searches, helping to reach people that have already shown interest in similar products. When tapped, the unit then expands into a more focused collection of your products, again, all automatically generated based on your inventory.

Pinterest is also adding new merchant details to brand profiles, which will enable businesses to showcase their values in the app. This provides another way to facilitate stronger brand connection, especially among more socially conscious, younger shoppers who are increasingly looking to buy from brands that align with their values.

Pinterest is also expanding its Verified Merchant Program, which highlights businesses that meet Pinterest’s customer service and brand connection guidelines with a verified checkmark in the app. Launched last year in the US, Pinterest’s Verified Merchant program ensures that more businesses are linking their product catalog into the app, while also adhering to Pinterest’s customer response standards.

And finally, Pinterest is also testing a new sponsored content option for Idea Pins, which is Pinterest’s take on the Stories format. Sponsored Idea Pins are displayed with a profile image of the creator, along with a “Paid Partnership” tag to disclose the brand relationship. Sponsored Idea Pins will also, importantly, provide Pinterest with another means to help creators earn money, and get paid for their efforts, which will ensure more, higher quality Idea Pins keep flowing.

 

3. Snapchat Rolls Out Run for Office Mini (4:34) – From SocialMediaToday, over the past few years, Snapchat has been working to get its young user base more involved in the political process, through voting awareness stickers, polling location tracking, voter registration pushes, Discover programming and more. And now, Snap’s looking to take the next step in civic engagement, by prompting its users to actually become politicians, and directly influence political shifts.

The ‘Run for Office’ mini provides a range of key insights into local political positions, as well as explainers on the steps that people need to take in order to nominate themselves for relevant local ballots and positions. The mini will also include info on filing deadlines and signature requirements, and provide contact information for local election offices.

Snapchatters in the US can access the new ‘Run for Office’ mini by opening Snapchat and swiping down on the camera screen to access Snap’s in-app games, where the mini will be listed, or you can search ‘Run for Office’ within Snapchat.

 

4. Snapchat Announces New Creator Monetization Tools as it Seeks to Maximize In-App Engagement (5:53) – From SocialMediaToday.com, Snapchat’s launching new ‘Spotlight Challenges’ (payment program for its TikTok-like Spotlight feed), which will provide cash prizes for users who post the best videos on a specific theme. The new Spotlight Challenges will outline the specifics of each trend, as well as the prizes on offer for the best performing clips in each category.

It’s a fairly straightforward process, and it could provide a means for Snapchat to fuel rising content trends, which is one of the key ways that users engage on TikTok. It could also provide a new revenue opportunity for the app, with brands eventually able to sponsor specific Spotlight trends relative to their promotions.

“The total prize amount for individual Spotlight Challenges will typically range from $1k to $25k, although occasionally we may make available a larger sum for a particular Challenge, and the minimum prize a Snapchatter can win in a Spotlight Challenge is $250.”

At launch, in November last year, Snapchat announced that it would pay out $1 million per day, to be shared among the top-performing Spotlight clips, as means to incentivize engagement, and kick-start the offering. Which worked – by the end of Q1, Spotlight had jumped to 125 million monthly active users (out of Snapchat’s 280m total actives), but by that stage, Snap had already paid out $90 million in creator payments, with more to come, and the cost-to-benefit ratio was starting to look a little out of whack.

Hindsight aside, with the costs continuing to mount up, in June, Snap announced an update to its Spotlight payment process, shifting from daily payments of $1 million for Spotlight clips to a more vague ‘millions per month’. That’s caused various problems for Snap creators, who had already raised concerns about delayed payments and other issues with the program. Maybe, then, this will be a more logical, and sustainable means of funding Spotlight clips, which could also entice a broader range of creators into the program, as opposed to the top creators taking the lion’s share of the funding.

 

5. Mailchimp Helps SMBs Optimize Email Campaigns (7:32) – Mailchimp, the email marketing platform, has announced new functionality to help optimize email campaigns. Content Optimizer will recommend specific improvements to email campaigns based on an AI-driven comparison of the content with best content practices gleaned from Mailchimp’s billions of marketing data-sets.

Content Optimizer will make recommendations relating to readability, typography, CTA placements, and compliance with brand standards.

This is Mailchimp’s latest attempt to level the playing field between small and larger businesses by providing affordable automation of an important marketing process.

 

6. Twitter Professional Profiles Available to More Businesses (9:15) – After an initial rollout to a small test group, Twitter is now opening up applications for professional profiles to all interested businesses. All businesses can now apply for a professional profile on Twitter, which grants access to exclusive features.

A professional profile is a free upgrade to standard profiles, which is available as an option to those with professional accounts. You can use a professional profile to display the information you’re not able to showcase on a standard profile.

Businesses, publishers, developers, and creators can display the following information on their upgraded profile page:

  1. Business Location: Listed directly in the profile and displayed visually on a small map. People can tap on the location map/listing to open Google Maps and get directions.
  2. Hours of operation (optional): Showcase the days and times people can reach your business at a physical location.
  3. Methods of contact: Enable options for customers to contact your business through any or all of the following methods:

In addition, a professional profile opens up access to enhanced features that aren’t available to businesses with a standard profile. A couple that can be added to a professional profile today includes Newsletter & Shop module.

In order to qualify for a professional profile, you must first have a professional Twitter account. A standard account can be converted into a professional account from the settings screen by selecting “Switch to Professional.” From there Twitter will guide you through the rest of the steps. Along with having a professional account, your business must meet the following criteria:

  1. Have a physical location where you do business with clients or customers.
  2. Be based in the United States and use Twitter in English.

Note that any business can submit an application, but Twitter is going to review every application that comes through to make sure the business qualifies. Businesses are asked to submit a brief form to confirm their eligibility for a professional profile.

 

7. Clubhouse Makes Clips Available for All iOS Users (10:53) – Last week in Episode 76, we covered the announcement about Clips. And this week, it was rolled out to all iOS users. Coming soon to Android.

 

8. Instagram Combines IGTV, Feed Videos Into Single Format, Instagram Video (11:23) – From Instagram:

Starting today, we’re combining IGTV and feed videos into one format – Instagram Video. We’re also introducing a new Video tab on your profile, where this combined video format will live, to make it easier for people to discover new video content.

The new video tab, signified by a play button icon, will now display all of your uploaded videos in one place. The merging of IGTV and general Instagram video will also provide new playback functionality, with viewers able to tap anywhere on the video to enter full-screen mode, while users will also be able to keep scrolling “to discover new video content from creators that may interest them”.

In addition, Instagram’s also adding new trimming tools and filters for all uploaded video clips, as well as location tagging in videos (previously not available for IGTV).

Video previews in the feed will now be 60 seconds long unless the video is eligible for ads – in which case, the preview will still be 15 seconds.” That means users will be able to view more of your content without having to tap through, which could help generate more interest, and will have impacts for those looking to maximize engagement with their in-stream previews.

And finally, Instagram’s also changing the name of its video ads: “With Instagram Video, IGTV Ads are now called Instagram In-Stream video ads. Eligible creators can still monetize their long-form content, and brands can reach audiences engaging with the long-form video. For businesses interested in boosting their videos to reach more people, videos must be no longer than 60 seconds in length.

 

9. Google Shifts AdSense to First-Price Auction. How Will It Impact Google Ads? (14:31) – Per Google: “In the early days of online display advertising, ad space was sold to advertisers in a second-price auction, where the final price paid by the winner was determined by the amount of the second-highest bid. Over time, many ad selling platforms in the display advertising ecosystem, including Google Ad Manager and Google AdMob, switched their auction to first-price. In a first-price auction, the final price reflects the winning bid.

For example, right now, in AdSense bidding, the final price of each ad is 0.01c higher than the second-place bid. So if two brands bid $5 and $6 respectively for an ad slot, the winning bidder ends up paying $5.01. Under a first-price auction model, however, the winning bid would be the full top bid – so the advertiser would pay $6 for the impression.

That will likely mean more revenue for publishers, and Google – though Google says that the actual impacts will be limited.

You can read more about the coming update here.

 

10. Google Adds Search Console integration to Google Analytics, New Data Attribution Modeling (15:54) – From Google: “Search Console provides detailed information about your website’s Organic Search performance, including the site’s rank in search results, queries that led to clicks, and post-click data, like engaged sessions and conversions. With the new Search Console integration, you’ll be able to understand the role that organic Search plays in driving traffic to, and engagement on your site, relative to other marketing channels like Search ads, email, or social.”

Analytics has always incorporated various search insights, and for many, those will be enough to provide a picture of how Google search is driving traffic to your site (or not). But for those looking to further optimize their SEO processes, the new Search Console integration will provide more specific data, which could help you develop a more all-encompassing, and engaging, SEO optimization process.

In addition to this, Google’s also adding data-driven attribution, with no minimum threshold requirements, to Google Analytics 4 properties. BTW, we cover a lot more about data-driven attribution in episode 76 of the TWIMshow where we shared how Google is moving away from last-click attribution wherever possible, as it’s not an accurate indicator of overall digital marketing performance.

“Google’s data-driven attribution models give you a better understanding of how all of your marketing activities collectively influence your conversions, so you don’t over or undervalue a single channel. Unlike last-click attribution, where 100% of the credit goes to the final interaction, data-driven attribution distributes credit to each marketing touchpoint based on how much impact the touchpoint had on driving a conversion.”

And finally, Google’s also looking to counter the loss of attribution data, amid the shift to more data privacy controls, by adding new modeling prediction capacity to Analytics.

“Using Google’s advanced modeling technology, the new Google Analytics allows you to fill gaps in your understanding of customer behavior when cookies and other identifiers aren’t available. It analyzes vast amounts of historical data, identifies correlations and trends between key data points, and uses those insights to make predictions about the customer journey.”

 

11. YouTube Ads Available on Connected Television (CTV) Platforms (17:26) – YouTube is looking to help advertisers tap into the rising consumption of YouTube content on home TV sets with the expansion of Video Action campaigns to Connected TV (CTV) placements. Video action campaigns now include CTV inventory to help advertisers reach new customers and drive more online sales.

Per Google, “If your goal is to drive online sales or generate leads, we recommend using Video Action campaigns. Video Action campaigns make it easy to find new customers efficiently in a single campaign by combining inventory from across YouTube and Google video partners – and now YouTube CTV. For the first time, performance advertisers can take advantage of YouTube on CTV to drive and measure conversions.”

Video Action campaigns display a URL at the bottom of the screen, prompting further action on the brand’s website. Which, given that people can’t click or tap on a URL link on their TV set, is one of the best ways to drive direct response – though it is less ‘direct’ than the normal definition of that term.

The expansion of Video Action campaigns is the latest advance on this, while YouTube also provides Masthead ads for CTV, and has improved its ad targeting options specifically for CTV campaigns.

It’s a good addition, which will be valuable for brands seeking traditional TV-like ad placement. And as CTV consumption continues to rise, TV-like ads are becoming more affordable, with better targeting and more specific audience options to better balance cost, and maximize efficiency.

You can find out more about YouTube’s Video Action campaigns here.

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