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SMX Overtime: When to use PPC automation (and when not to)

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Aaron Levy1 SMX East

Account structures, cross channel attribution, smart bidding and automation reporting were among the many questions during SMX East’s roundtable, “How automation really works and when to use it.” I wanted to take the time to answer a few additional questions from attendees after the event.

I understand it depends on the business, but how do you go about structuring your accounts? How do you set up campaigns?

I wrote a post about three years ago about decision trees for SEM segmentation that, for the most part, still outlines how we structure our accounts.

For each major element (audience or keyword for search, different audience types for YouTube) ask yourself two simple questions. Will performance be materially different? Does messaging need to be materially different? If the answer to either is yes you can assume that segmenting targeting elements is a good idea.

What’s changed over the years is the priority. When the post above was written, there was no punishment for over-segmentation and no upside for campaign consolidation. In modern search, I recommend keeping as much data together as possible. Yes, you can still optimize a group of campaigns together using a portfolio, but it’s best to keep similar performing ad groups/keywords together unless there’s a notable case to be made for segmenting.

Addressing a few common questions. Yes, we do still segment campaigns by match types but have tested moving them together – the results were neutral. No, I don’t recommend SKAG’s – there’s no point anymore. Yes, segmentation by device is okay, but I wouldn’t call it a “default.” Generally speaking the controls in place to bid or message by device is sufficient to control budget.

How can you use smart bidding when your CPA/ROAS goals change frequently (biweekly/monthly)?

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First of all, I wouldn’t recommend see-sawing goals unless there’s an explicit reason. If there’s dramatic inventory swings or a lead at the end of the month worth more than one at the beginning, I’ll allow it. Otherwise, stay stable.

With that out of the way, it depends on how dramatic the goal shifts are and/or if they return to where they were. If the swings aren’t particularly dramatic (e.g. a CPA moves from $100 to $90) you should be totally fine nudging your bid targets without resetting the learning period. Usually, a shift of 5 to 10% won’t disrupt the system too much.

If you’re attacking big sale days, for example, seasonality adjustments will effectively “coach” the bidder and tell it to expect higher or lower swings.

How much time do you save with automation on a weekly basis? Are Supermetrics the go-to with automating reporting?

Tough to say as to how much time it saves since we inherently wind up “reinvesting” that time in our clients! You can look at it on a task-by-task basis to give you an idea of time savings:

  • My teams probably spent five to eight hours per month doing search queries. Since we’ve started (mostly) automating via n-gram scripts, that’s down to one or two hours.
  • Manual bidding? That’s AT LEAST an hour or two a week, now bid optimization or analysis is down to an hour a month.
  • The idea of pulling manual reports sends shivers down my spine. Even when we had a platform or “human automation,” the reports would still take about two hours per week per client. Now we’ve managed to automate QA (yep – it’s possible) which takes that time down to a half an hour or so.

With regard to reporting, it largely depends on your needs. We license Tableau for clients that warrant it which is a huge help to automate things like pacing etc. But, as the asker indicates, much, if not all, of that can be done via Supermetrics. We often use Supermetrics to parse additional data into Data Studio for cohesive reports. Just make sure to have an alerts system for when a query fails or times out.

How do you use cross channel attribution data for your bidding and optimization?

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There are a few options here. Bear in mind that attribution data usually has a somewhat significant delay, or at the very least isn’t real-time.

  • Use your cross channel data to build in a “discount” factor for bidding. Say Google reports 100 conversions a month, but your attribution tool indicates only 60 of them were incremental. Aim your goals to somewhere in the middle, perhaps lower your CPA target (or increase ROAS target) by ~20%.
  • Feed data back into UI’s as a separate column – I wouldn’t recommend using offline data for real-time bidding (too many things can go wrong), but having the data readily available can make decisions easier
  • Use Google Analytics conversions in lieu of the Google Ads pixel – there are tradeoffs here that I won’t go into, but it is a simple way to ensure that the broader marketing picture is considered in Ads

Can you go around the data limitation for smart bidding by adding micro-conversions along the purchasing funnel with fixed values?

Absolutely! Going higher in the funnel has worked well for a number of our clients. Similar to the attribution challenge noted above, use these micro-conversions as directional data. Check your assumptions often to ensure that you’re not putting too much weight in a certain area. Additionally, make sure whatever actions you choose are unique. Don’t add weight to both time on site and page views (they’re one and the same) and don’t double up on different information capture points.

Will we ever be automated out of our jobs?

No. Though I suppose it depends on your job.

Look at it this way, humans are tremendous thinkers and strategists, but horrible automatons and calculators. The parts of our jobs that will be automated away is highly manual. It’s my (and many others’) outspoken opinion that there’s no reason to bid manually under the guise of control. We’re romanticizing the past, looking back at times when we were hand-picking what we thought were the most important signals (keywords, bids, and copy) while tuning out human signals like demographics, behavior and technological capacity.

The future is showing a job shift rather than a job replacement. Our job won’t be to pull every knob and push every button – it will be making sure the machines are working right. A key trait in paid search success comes from looking under the hood, understanding how the automation works and how to use it to its full potential.

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Keywords are going to go away someday. I don’t know when that day is, but it will happen. Those who take the time to understand system quirks and features will win. Those who try to shoehorn their ways into the old way of thinking into the future will be automated out of a job.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About The Author

Aaron has been in the industry for the better part of a decade, leading paid media campaigns with clients ranging from Fortune 50 companies to startups and local businesses. He’s the Group Director of SEM at Tinuiti, a full-service digital agency with offices across the US. Aaron’s role is to support a growing SEM team across the US, looking years ahead so his team can look days ahead. In addition to his day to day, Aaron’s a frequent industry speaker and instructor at Drexel and University of Vermont, working to grow the next generation of great marketers. He moonlights as a brewer, hockey player, slow cyclist and claims to be the industry’s top chef.

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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More promotions and more layoffs

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More promotions and more layoffs

For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.

The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.

Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes

Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643. 

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Here are the median salaries by role:

  • Senior management $199,653
  • Director $157,776
  • Manager $99,510
  • Staff $89,126

Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.

One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%). 

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Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.

Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams

Employee turnover 

In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”

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Men and Women

Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540

This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.

In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.

Methodology

The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents. 

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Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.

Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.

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