[Ep98] - Google Ads Launches Enhanced Conversions for Leads

In 14 minutes, get up to speed on the must-know Digital Marketing updates from the week of 28th February 2022.
1. 4 New Things in Microsoft Advertising:
  1. Smart Shopping campaigns and Target ROAS for Shopping Campaigns are now accessible in 29 new regions, including 7 new markets in Latin America (LATAM). Last month, Microsoft announced the launch of Shopping Campaigns in Latin America, but these new shopping features will be accessible soon! You'll be able to expand your shopping campaigns to the Microsoft Audience Network as well. 
  2. Business attributes from Marketing with Purpose will now be offered in all markets. There are currently 32 attributes available across four categories: Inclusion, Environmental, Community/social responsibility, and Accessibility. See the help page under Dynamic partner data upgrades for more information on all the business attributes and how to use them.
  3. Google Import improvements: Image extensions and Shopping Campaigns - you can now import your image extensions into search and audience campaigns through Google Import! These campaigns will automatically come over to the associated campaign, and you can find these images in your image library to use across other campaigns as well. Microsoft also allows you to import products from Google Merchant Center to Microsoft Merchant Center, streamlining the process of setting up an import and successfully running Microsoft Shopping Campaigns. For more information on all things, Google Import, see Import shopping campaigns from Google Ads (microsoft.com).
  4. Automated bidding seasonality adjustments are rolling out globally this month - This feature is supported for Search campaigns (including Search campaigns extended to the Microsoft Audience Network), Shopping campaigns, and Dynamic Search Ads campaigns. Through this feature, you can inform Microsoft automated bidding algorithms with more signals that specify when you expect performance changes, like when conversion rate (CVR) variance will occur during a seasonal event, promotion, or other variation for your business. This helps address anticipated short-term fluctuations without significant long-term impact on your algorithms' learning, as well as help maximize performance around critical times such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. 

You can create multiple adjustments targeting various campaigns or various time periods. If multiple adjustments target the same campaign, all adjustments will be applied. Lastly, keep in mind that seasonality adjustments should only be used for campaigns with stable performance with automated bidding and have already completed their learning period.


2. 10 Minutes TikTok Video Is A Reality - The maximum video duration on TikTok has been upped yet again, this time to ten minutes, according to the social media platform. This update, which will be implemented globally in the coming weeks, is the result of months of testing. TikTok videos were initially limited to 15 seconds. TikTok later doubled the maximum video duration to 60 seconds and then tripled it to 3 minutes in July of this year.

When it comes to advertising a business, product, or service, short-form material can be restrictive. In terms of monetization, it's all really limiting. This improvement allows viewers to stay on the platform for longer without having to watch several portions of a video series. TikTok is the third most popular social media platform (after Facebook and Instagram), and its user base continues to expand.


3. Instagram Will Shut Down IGTV App - Last week, we shared that Instagram is going all-in with Reels. Now Instagram has announced that it will soon shut down its separate IGTV app, while it's also removing its in-stream video ads option. This makes sense since Instagram retired the IGTV brand in October 2021 so it was inevitable that the IGTV app will be retired soon. While this may seem like a step back for creator monetization, Instagram's looking to replace this with sticker ads for Reels and other options.

Per Instagram, "As part of our efforts to make video as simple as possible to discover and create, we will no longer be supporting our standalone app for IGTV. Instead, we will focus on having all video on the main Instagram app. We believe that this makes it easier for people to have all of these features and abilities in the main app, and are excited to continue to simplify and improve video in the main Instagram app."

P.S: Short-form content is wonderful for engagement, but it's challenging to monetize because 30-second snippets don't allow for mid- or pre-roll commercials. That's why YouTube has been promoting its own short-form video format, 'Shorts,' as a supplemental channel to assist producers to expand their main content stream and TikTok just increased the video length to 10 minutes.


4. Instagram Rollsout Automated Captions for Feed Videos - Instagram has taken the next step with the addition of auto-generated captions in Instagram feed videos, following the launch of automatic captions for IGTV uploads in 2020 and the expansion of captions to Stories last year.

Auto captions will now be available for any Instagram feed post, giving users another way to consume content on the app. It will also assist creators in maximizing viewership in both sounds on and sounds off contexts, which is a huge plus. It's inconvenient to be in a public location or even on the couch with your lover and not be able to grasp the whole context of a clip because you can't turn on the sound without provoking the fury of others around you.

Instagram's auto-captions for feed posts will initially be available in 17 languages, with more to come soon.


5. Desktop Rollout For Google Page Experience Update Is Complete - Google has announced that the page experience update for desktop is now done rolling out. This update started to roll out on February 22nd, and now, 9-days later, it is now fully rolled out. 

This update will include all the current signals of the mobile version of the page experience update, outside of the page needing to be mobile-friendly. Google said all of the page experience factors for mobile will be included with the exception of the mobile-friendliness requirement, which is kind of obvious.


6. Per Google: Ranking Quotas Do Not Exist - Google's John Mueller reiterated that the company does not have a quota system in which a website can only rank for a certain number of keywords. There are no hard limits on how many pages they can show from a site, subdomain or not, according to him. It gets hard, he said, if you're attempting to compete against yourself for the same set of keywords. Why construct numerous pages to try to rank for the same term, after all? So, if you want five of your pages to appear on the same search results page, that method might not be the best. "Regardless, from a strategic point of view, if you're competing with your own content, you're going to have a harder time against stronger competitors."

There are endless opportunities for your site to rank for endless keywords. 


7. Per Google: We Will Verify Merchant Experience Scorecard Metrics - I recently reported on Google's new Shopping experience scorecard program, which is a collection of ranking indicators related to the Google Shopping tab. The fear was that merchants would be requested to submit these metrics to Google and would only feed positive scores, perhaps manipulating the metrics and thus their rankings.

After the concerns were raised two weeks ago, Google's Alan Kent eventually reacted, saying that Google has "mechanisms in place to validate the information merchants are supplying." So, somehow, Google is able to verify that the products are delivered on time, that the shipping cost displayed on the checkout page was accurate, that the return cost was accurate, and that if the client returns the product, it is accepted within a particular return window.

He did state, that "merchants attempting to provide false information will be excluded from the program as this creates a poor customer experience."


8. Google Ads Launches Enhanced Conversions for Leads - We live in a multi-touch and multi-influence world. Simply relying on last-click attribution is not the best thing for us. 

Understanding which leads convert to paying clients is crucial if you're a lead generation marketer. Importing your offline conversions can help: you can identify how campaigns are producing impact and optimize for important customers by measuring and reporting on your closed leads. However, in order for this method to succeed, it frequently necessitates time and developer resources. Google Ads has introduced enhanced conversions for leads, which allows you to track your offline leads using technologies comparable to enhanced conversions for the web.

Enhanced conversions is a Google Ads tool that you can use in conjunction with existing conversion tags to improve conversion measurement accuracy. Enhanced conversions make use of your existing Google Ads tag, which securely sends first-party conversion data to Google in a private and secure manner. First-party data includes:

  • Email address (preferred)
  • Name and home address
  • Phone number (this must be provided in addition to one of the other attributes)