Reddit Ads Manager has been updated to simplify the process of creating and tracking campaigns more efficiently.
The platform now offers six new automated features designed to provide advertisers with easy access to creative best practices.
Why we care. These updates offer advertisers simpler ways to build campaigns and receive creative support, which could be particularly beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with limited resources.
Smart headlines. This new tool automatically generates a variety of ad copy headlines tailored to Reddit’s unique audience. To utilize it, advertisers only need to input their website URL.
Creative asset cropper. This new tool enables advertisers to crop images to fit Reddit’s ad format specifications, making the upload process simpler.
Lowest cost automated bidding strategy. This new tool is designed to help advertisers maximize campaign results within their budgets by automatically setting an ad cost amount. Initially used by advertisers focusing on Traffic and Simple Create, it’s now available for those with Conversions and Installs objectives.
Average daily budgets. This update automates advertisers’ daily budgets to align with their total spend for the week, reducing the need for manual adjustments to accommodate spending fluctuations.
Updated campaign management. Reddit has enhanced its duplication and bulk edit functionalities to now allow advertisers to duplicate existing campaigns, ad groups, or ads, and use them as a blueprint for new ones. Additionally, the bulk edit tool features a new user interface, facilitating faster edits and optimizations for campaigns.
Reporting improvements to Reddit Dashboard. Reddit has updated its Dashboard UI to enhance clarity for advertisers tracking their campaign performance in real time. The updates offer improved usability, new graphs displaying performance metrics, and additional report filtering options for customized tracking.
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What Reddit is saying. Reddit’s EVP of Business Marketing and Growth, Jim Squires, said in a statement:
“Every campaign on Reddit is unique, and we’re focused on serving our advertisers’ needs while providing best practices on creative, strategy, and campaign management,”
“Through automation, our aim is to make it easy to create the best and most relevant ad experiences for advertisers and users alike. Smart Headlines, for example, is an intuitive tool that all Reddit advertisers can leverage to effectively connect with their audience.”
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Facebook and Instagram advertisers filed a class-action lawsuit against Meta for $7 billion in San Francisco.
They claim that the social media giant exaggerated ad viewership figures by up to 400%, leading them to pay inflated premiums for ad placements on its platforms.
Potential Reach metric. The advertisers suing Meta allege that the Potential Reach metric used by the company to determine advertising costs relies on the total number of social media accounts rather than individual users. They argue that this approach is problematic because it could include bot and fake accounts, resulting in advertisers paying more money for their ads to be served to bots.
What Meta is saying. Meta denied the allegations, explaining that the price advertisers are charged is based on performance metrics – not the Potential Reach metric as claimed in the lawsuit. A Meta spokesperson told AdWeek:
“These allegations are baseless, and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”
What the advertisers are saying. Geoffrey Graber, partner at Cohen Milstein and lead counsel representing the advertisers, said:
“We look forward to continuing to litigate this case on behalf of Meta’s advertising customers and to presenting the evidence to a jury that Meta knew about its inflated Potential Reach and refused to fix the issue due to revenue concerns.”
Why we care. The lawsuit represents millions of advertisers who may have overpaid to serve their ads on Instagram and Facebook. Should this case proceed to trial, more affected advertisers could potentially come forward to claim compensation.
Legal details. Former Meta advertisers DZ Reserve and Cain Maxwell initiated the case in 2018. Following the filing of the complaint, DZ Reserve ceased operations with Meta and it is not know if Maxwell’s business is still operational.. Fast-forward to 2024 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the company could pursue legal action against Meta for monetary damages.
Next steps. The case will either go to trial or will be resolved through a settlement involving financial compensation for the plaintiffs.
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Does it ever feel like your SEO recommendations and projects get lost in the shuffle or deprioritized by other teams?
If you work in-house, you’ve likely experienced the “fear of missing out” (FOMO) when it comes to getting your optimization work properly resourced and implemented.
The good news is that a project management methodology called “Agile” can help cross-functional teams self-organize and collaborate more effectively.
By understanding the agile ceremonies (meetings) and processes, you can better integrate with and influence the development cycles to ensure your SEO requirements don’t get overlooked.
In this article, we’ll cover the key aspects of the agile methodology, map out the various agile meetings you should aim to participate in and provide tips on how to write effective tickets and acceptance criteria so your SEO changes get prioritized and launched.
Say goodbye to FOMO and start getting your SEO work done through the power of agile processes.
How agile project management stops FOMO
An agile approach makes you part of the process with the teams that get things done.
AI may be trending, but I believe the agile framework is enduring. Unlike AI, which depends on artificial or software intelligence, agile relies on how teams naturally organize to accomplish tasks.
It prioritizes tangible features and improvements. Increasingly, major technology teams are embracing agile for its ability to enhance business value and efficiency in managing complex projects.
A quick overview of the agile methodology
Agile project management is a method of managing your project work in small, incremental segments that can be easily assigned, easily managed and completed within a short period of time called an iteration or sprint.
Traditionally, project management followed a waterfall-style approach. In this method, all the work is completed upfront and customer feedback is gathered afterward.
The process can take months to complete, which is not always ideal, especially when you want to release a product MVP to the market ahead of your competitor. (Sound familiar?)
The agile style is more iterative because work is designed to be completed in short cycles (sprints), where feedback and improvements (to both the product itself and the teams involved) are built into the process.
Agile has its roots in the software development world. The key elements are:
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
See that? When teams use agile, everyone along the way becomes part of the team that works on the actual work. Together, everyone accomplishes big things.
Agile principles are inherently about collaboration and continuous improvement. Any organization can use this approach to lean thinking and operating to deliver value to their customers.
In previous articles, I’ve referenced the agile methodology and how it’s executed using a scrum framework.
A scrum-based process is great for handling big or intricate solutions because it’s iterative and allows quick market entry. It enables teams to learn from customer feedback and incorporate on-the-go improvements.
On the other hand, Kanban and waterfall methodologies usually take a more step-by-step, linear approach.
Leads from supporting teams like engineering, user experience, QA and SMEs like SEO.
Within this structure, daily and weekly ceremonies (or meetings) help everyone align on the work and move things forward.
The work is designed to be completed in a time-boxed sprint, usually 1-2 weeks. All tickets in a given sprint should be finished in that time for the team to achieve their desired velocity.
Conceptually, this is about understanding the workflow of cross-functional teams using agile. Now, fellow SEO professional Aleyda Solis wrote:
“Aligning SEO with the aims and objectives of your web development, design and product teams helps keep everyone on the same page. This will enable you to identify the best way to prioritize SEO needs and create a plan of action with your counterparts from other teams that keeps everyone on track and moving in the same direction.
For example, if the web development team works in sprints, knowing how long each sprint is can help you coordinate reasonable goals for each one.”
In addition to knowing the sprint duration, understanding when and where to join key meetings is crucial. Business stakeholders participate at different points in the sprint. As such, grasping the broader agile scrum process will provide even more context.
Not taking the time to learn and familiarize yourself with the meeting rituals of teams using agile scrum can perpetuate the feeling of chaos. You don’t know where to be, what to do or how to get other teams to help you get work done.
The key is to spot the pattern.
I’ll guide you in recognizing this pattern so you can figure out who to collaborate with, when meetings happen and what you need to prepare.
Let’s begin with the individuals involved in the agile process.
Find the conductors
First, find the product manager.
If you’re a business stakeholder, you are largely outside of this daily process. This person is your touchpoint to helping you navigate the agile team’s meeting cadence and can advise you on where and how to submit a ticket.
Business owners are primarily brought in at the beginning (to define “the ask” to the team) and at the end (to validate the output).
The second person to find is the release train engineer (basically the lead engineer).
This person facilitates the agile release train execution, managing risks and dependencies along the way. This person will largely be able to guide the technical nuances of how your request gets implemented so that it can be successfully launched.
Tangentially, you’d do well also to identify the project manager. (This role can have different names from scrum master to delivery manager.)
Functionally, they support the product manager in terms of organizing the team’s current sprint and backlog (the lineup of tickets to be worked on) and they typically report to the broader organization as to the ongoing status of the work.
Once you identify these roles in your organization, they can help direct you to the various meetings to attend.
Agile project management ceremonies (meetings)
The second step is knowing what meetings to attend and how you help move the team forward.
In this section, I’ll map out where you as a business stakeholder need to plan to be, the meeting types, when they occur and who will be there. As an SEO product manager, I operate as both a partner in terms of being a subject matter expert and a business stakeholder.
Participating in these meetings that support the agile project management methodology helps me be in the know while partnering with cross-functional teams to get work done.
Since agile allows for teams to self-organize, below is an overview of general meeting terms and types one would see as part of this process.
Stand-up
This is often daily or every other day in a given week. These are typically 15-minute meetings where the agenda is a roundtable of team updates and/or any areas where they’re blocked with their work.
Business stakeholders don’t typically attend stand-ups but it can be helpful to attend a few, especially if it’s been brought to your attention that the team has questions about a ticket they’re working on for your team.
As a business stakeholder, the daily stand-ups are what you want to get invited to. It’s a forum to hear what everyone is working on, where they’re blocked, or if they have questions related to your ticket(s) you can help answer.
Note that standups are not the place to introduce new work. An appropriate time for that is sprint planning.
Grooming
This is typically an hour-long, bi-weekly or weekly meeting, depending upon the sprint cadence. This is where the product manager and project manager talk with the teams (engineering, design/user experience, etc.) about the work and the level of effort involved with each ticket before adding it into a sprint.
Once there’s a sense of the size and scope of each ticket, it gets added to the sprint.
This is a key meeting for business stakeholders to attend because they pitch their ticket to the team working on it, answer questions and provide any additional context like priority or severity. It’s important to come prepared, be brief, helpful and thorough.
In preparation for grooming, create your ticket by identifying the type of ticket you’re bringing to the team. In most cases, it’s either an issue or an enhancement and can be classified as the following:
A bug (i.e., something that worked once but doesn’t work now).
A new feature or functionality.
A regression (i.e., a previous functionality is no longer working as expected).
Tip: Use quantitative metrics in your acceptance criteria and provide the source for where the work is to be viewed and approved as complete. (For SEO, it’s often the source code. For other teams, it can be “customer experience will be X”)
As a business owner, when your request and pitch are crystal clear in your ticket, you’re more likely to get work done.
Refinement
These can be hour-long meetings and happen as needed because they can apply to the set of current tickets for a sprint or the tickets in the backlog.
Ongoing refinement meetings aim to bring the team together to align on requirements, adjust ticket level of effort (LOE), QA input, etc.
We all know technology changes quickly. This part of the agile process helps teams plan requirements and adapt based on existing market conditions.
Sprint planning
This is where the team plans the work that will be included in the upcoming sprint. Each sprint is usually time-boxed for 1-2 weeks, during which all tickets (slated work) are completed.
Effective sprint planning results in the entire team scoping the level of effort of each ticket and completing it in the sprint. Ideally, their KPI output of velocity trends up and to the right.
Being present during the sprint planning meeting will help you get a view of what the team will be working on and delivering in the short term.
Having that predictability factor of planned work allows the team to focus on chipping away at either tech debt or growth-related initiatives. Offering a nice balance of an offensive and defensive strategy towards holistic improvement.
Backlog refinement
This meeting can occur as needed when the team needs to organize and/or prioritize the backlog of tickets they have queued up. Typically, this meeting involves the product manager, project manager and an engineering lead.
A big part of the agile scrum methodology is always having a “healthy, groomed” backlog of work for teammates to pick up as capacity allows.
While business stakeholders don’t usually attend this meeting, it can be helpful to ask the project manager about the team backlog to better understand where there are needs or opportunities for the team to take on more work or large projects that can be broken down.
The operative words here are “broken down.” In agile, big projects are always broken down into individual tickets.
Demo/showcase
Occurs when the feature is functional and ready to demonstrate to stakeholders before going into production or a live environment.
The project manager schedules it when the engineering team is ready to share and showcase their progress to a wider audience. Stakeholder attendance is key here as this is a touchpoint where the team validates what is built meets expectations.
As mentioned above, if you did a thorough job of including quantifiable Acceptance Criteria in your ticket, by this point in the development process, it’ll be easy to confirm the ticket is done.
Retrospective (retro)
This meeting is organized by the project manager and occurs after the sprint is completed. Here, the entire team comes together to talk about what went well/what didn’t in the recent sprint and how they can improve for the future.
External stakeholders need to participate in this meeting, especially when their work was part of the sprint, because it’s a time to build camaraderie and help everyone improve.
A great way to do this is to come prepared with 1-2 tickets as examples and the tangible good or bad things that took place. Stick to the facts and highlight how things can be improved. Your feedback should come from a place of collective growth and improvement operating as a team.
The big takeaways here are: when you’re coming to an agile team with an ask for their time and effort, stakeholders should provide clear, concise information in the ticket regarding “what” is needed (not “how,” that’s for the agile team to determine). Be succinct in your replies to help the team decide so they can move forward in architecting a solution.
The FOMO is subsiding, yes? Because you’re becoming part of the solution.
No. More. Fear.
How can I get asked to work with the agile team again?
It’s kind of addictive, you know? Getting things done.
Once you get something implemented, you want more. The FOMO starts actually to subside because you’re collaborating.
You have all the calendar invites of the team’s meeting cadence. You know your POCs that facilitate interlocks and communication and when your ticket is ready to be reviewed and signed off on.
If you play your cards right, you might even get invited to their internal Slack channel!
The best way to ensure you get to work with these teams again is to help the team complete the work they’ve collectively committed to completing in the time-boxed sprint (alliteration is fun). You do this by being engaged and prepared.
“Verifying that SEO-related dev requests or tickets have been correctly implemented is a crucial step towards the desired outcome during SEO execution.”
Yes! And you do this by defining clear and quantifiable acceptance criteria (AC) in your ticket.
As a business owner, you can provide the AC to stipulate your expectation of how something functions and/or the desired customer experience.
The more quantifiable you can make it, the easier it is to validate and give the team the thumbs up that the work is done.
A quantifiable output is preferable to a qualitative one because the latter is subjective, and you may not get exactly what you’re looking for.
For example, as an SEO product manager, one of my frequent SEO-related ACs for links is that they are formatted as:
The <a href> must be in view:source.
The <a href> must be without parameters.
That criterion is an easy yes/no response when you see that in the code. It’s either there, in that format, or it’s not. Pass/fail QA.
So, the takeaway is to include quantifiable AC in the ticket. This will allow you to align with the team on the DoD (definition of done) and easily spot-check and verify its completion.
How do I know if my organization is using agile?
Literally, ask. Find someone with the title of product manager and ask them, “Hey, quick question: Are we using the agile method for project management? If so, can I get invited to the daily stand-up meetings to get up to speed with what the team has planned in the current sprint?”
When you get that invite. Show up on time (literally, because these meetings are short). Listen. Take notes. The more you attend the team’s ceremonial meetings, the more it will sink in.
That’s how you get things done
You now have the best-kept secret of how to get things done. I know this is a lot. It might be new or foreign to you. And it’s all in addition to your day-to-day goings on. But finding these teams is worth it. Plugging into the agile process is how you get things done with broader teams.
If you don’t believe me that this works, just continue operating as you have. Don’t engage; just watch as all your tickets get relegated to some team’s backlog. However, if you want to get big projects launched and create change, try it. Implement what I’ve outlined here, take ownership and operate this way. I promise you’ll get results. Agile is designed for output.
As an in-house SEO product manager, I can say firsthand that learning about and operating within the agile framework (and doing so at different companies) has taken a few years to acclimate to. And if I’m being honest, I’m still learning. But, like anything, the more you do it and engage and communicate with your teammates, the easier it gets.
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In this article, we’ll explore how schema markup, particularly the use of descriptive markup, linking entities and connecting to external data sources, can establish trust with Google and potentially reduce the chances of being deindexed.
Additionally, we’ll discuss the role of schema markup in increasing the likelihood of inclusion in Search Generative Experience (SGE) and boosting information gain scores, which can be crucial for visibility in conversational search environments.
How schema markup benefits Google and website owners
Google faces escalating costs with the rapid growth of spam and the impending adoption of generative AI in SERPs. Implementing SGE incurs significantly higher costs compared to current methods, potentially impacting ad revenue as searchers’ needs are met more quickly reducing the number of placement opportunities.
One approach to reducing costs I’ve observed is a more stringent policy for what gets included in Google’s index. Anecdotally, clients with complex business models using template pages are seeing more frequent deindexing, even for pages that have been stable for years.
In some cases, JavaScript is the culprit. However, Google has already figured out how to deal with sites with high amounts of injection. Google should identify these pages, add them to the render queue and crawl them after the data has been injected.
So why is this not happening? Could this be another resource that Google is struggling to manage efficiently with the growing amount of spam?
Being deindexed is a nightmare for website owners and SEO professionals. It’s like being taken out of the game entirely.
However, experience has taught me that aligning with Google’s initiatives can significantly benefit our clients’ sites.
The solution is straightforward: schema markup. Aside from aiding search engines in understanding content more efficiently, it can also provide a great cost-saving for Google.
Schema markup aids Google’s crawlers and machine learning algorithms in understanding web content more efficiently and cost-effectively.
It can play a role in reducing Google’s operational costs. The premise is that aiding Google in minimizing the resources needed for crawling, indexing and understanding your site will lead to improved visibility.
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Implementing detailed schema markup, utilizing @id to link entities and connecting these entities to external data through sameAs can establish trust and decrease the cost of data exchange between a business and Google.
Descriptive schema markup: Detailed and accurate schema markup that is not deceitful aids Google by lowering NLP costs, facilitated by defining the entities and their relationships on the page.
Linking entities: With @id, entities are interlinked, enhancing the description of their relationships.
Linking to external data: Using sameAs external data can be connected to entities on a webpage to increase the descriptiveness of the entity and prove its legitimacy.
While there’s a lot of information about writing detailed schema markup and linking entities, I think we’re not paying enough attention to connecting data from external sources.
Utilizing sameAs extends beyond just linking social media profiles to an organization’s schema; it’s pivotal for linking to external data. This has led many SEOs to connect to knowledge bases like Wikidata, Google’s Knowledge Graph and many more.
In the current SERP environment, creating trust is necessary and is one of the easiest ways to prove that you are not spam. This can be done by using the sameAs property to connect entities to trusted and verified data sources.
When thinking about organizations with complex business structures, the Better Business Bureau, City of Chambers Business Directories and EIN numbers are among a few opportunities that SEOs can leverage to prove legitimacy and gain trust.
Ultimately, the goal is to minimize ambiguity, allowing Google to easily verify and trust your content. In the era of generative AI, trust is built on verifiable information. If Google can’t verify it, it won’t trust it, which simply undermines our cost-reduction efforts.
Implementing schema for potential SGE inclusion
Natural language processing (NLP) has come a long way, especially with the addition of LLMs, yet still comprehending the web’s vast amount of information remains challenging for any search engine.
The more structured data that businesses provide Google, the more verified information they will have to train machine learning algorithms like LLMs effectively.
Boosting your chances of inclusion in SGE is a hot topic. However, my perspective is that visibility will increase as more information from a specific source is included in the training data.
Ultimately, simply helping Google understand information is not enough.
If you were compiling a library in your home with limited space, would you buy the same book again just because you found another copy? I certainly wouldn’t and I don’t think Google would either.
To be included in SGE, you must share something new, even if that is simply a new perspective.
This brings us to information gain, a concept used by Google to improve user experience across multiple searches, encouraging the discovery of new information with each query.
This score can be helpful in SGE as conversational search inherently creates a multi-search environment. A high information gain score could boost your content’s chances of being included in SGE results as there is less competition for that information’s inclusion in Google’s machine learning algorithms.
Combining fresh, unique content with schema markup aligns perfectly with Google’s aim to deploy SGE efficiently, which aims for a neutral or positive revenue impact while reducing operational costs.
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Google is piloting new product discovery elements designed to give users a more personalized shopping experience, including:
Style recommendations.
Brand preferences.
Generative AI for product search.
Virtual try-on technology.
Why we care. These features offer businesses new opportunities to showcase their products and engage with high-value consumers who are likely to be more inclined to make purchases, thanks to a personalized shopping experience tailored to their specific preferences.
Style recommendations. Google is testing Style Recommendations, now accessible to signed-in U.S. shoppers via mobile browsers and the Google app, aiming to deliver more personalized results. For instance, when users search for specific apparel like shoes, they’ll come across the Style Recommendations section. Here, they can offer ratings with thumbs up or thumbs down, or simply swipe right or left to immediately access personalized results.
How it works. If shoppers aren’t satisfied with their personalized results or would prefer to continue browsing, Google offers the option to rate more items and immediately view another set of results. Additionally, the search engine will remember preferences for future searches. For example, when searching for men’s polo shirts again, you’ll receive personalized style recommendations based on your past preferences and interactions with products.
Managing style recommendations. If you’ve rated items incorrectly or would prefer to not see personalized shopping results, you can manage your preferences. To do this, just tap the three dots next to the “Get style recommendations” section and explore personalization options in the “About this result” panel.
Brand preferences. U.S. shoppers searching for apparel, shoes, or accessories on mobile browsers, desktop, or the Google app can now personalize their shopping experience by selecting preferred brands. Once chosen, options from these brands will appear instantly. To manage preferences, tap the three dots next to the “Popular from your favorite brands” section, and access personalization options in the “About this result” panel.
Image generation. Google is piloting an AI image generation tool for shopping, which is now available to all U.S. users who have opted into Search Generative Experience (SGE) within Search Labs. If you’re searching for a specific item, like a “colorful quilted spring jacket,” simply tap “Generate images” after your search to see photorealistic options matching your preferences. Once you find one you like, click on it to explore shoppable options conveniently.
Virtual try on. Additionally, Google is testing a virtual try-on tool in the U.S. on desktop, mobile and the Google app. When you see the “try-on” icon in shopping results, simply click on it, and you can see what the product looks like on a diverse set of real models ranging in size from XXS-4XL.
What Google is saying. Sean Scott, Google’s VP/GM Consumer Shopping, said:
“People shop on Google more than a billion times a day. And thanks to the Shopping Graph, they see billions of products in their results that are constantly being refreshed. In fact, every hour, more than 2 billion listings are updated with the latest information, including pricing, in-stock availability and shipping details.”
“So whether you’re looking for a specialty notepad from Japan, a monogrammed handbag from Paris or just a hammer from your local hardware store, the Shopping Graph can help you find it in just a few clicks. With that many options, we’re focused on making it easy to find exactly what you like.”
“No two shoppers are alike, which is why we’re designing the shopping experience on Google so it’s tailored to you.”
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YouTube is expanding its audience retention analytics tools to offer creators deeper insights into viewer behavior.
This expansion will see audience segments added to the audience retention report within YouTube Studio video analytics this week.
Creators will be able to utilize this feature to compare viewer engagement among different audience groups, like new versus returning viewers, and subscribed versus non-subscribed viewers.
Why we care. The additional insights will enable creators to make data-led decisions to tailor their content strategy more effectively to specific audience preferences and improve audience retention.
Accessibility. In YouTube Studio analytics, audience segments will be accessible within the advanced mode of the audience retention report.
For You customization. Starting next week, YouTube will also begin giving creators full control over the For You section, transforming it into a customizable shelf on their channel page. This means viewers can now add, remove, and position the For You section according to their preferences, all within Studio Mode.
This shift could present both opportunities and challenges for brands. On the positive side, having more control over the For You section means that when your video appears there, it’s likely to reach a more engaged audience. However, there’s also the potential downside of increased competition for visibility.
Pre-check notifications. Additionally, YouTube announced a consolidation of all video pre-check notifications into the central notification settings in Studio Mobile. This means that monetizing creators who upload a video will receive a notification when their pre-check is complete. To enable this feature, simply navigate to Studio Mobile, tap your profile picture, then tap settings, followed by push notifications, and finally select the policy toggle button.
What YouTube is saying. Conor Kavanagh, YouTube monetization policy lead, said:
“Now you can step away, and when the pre-check process is complete, you will be notified via studio mobile.”
“If at any time you decide you do not want to receive pre-check notifications, you can easily opt-out. We’ll be rolling out this feature over the next few weeks.”
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While Google Ads has built-in bidding algorithms and optimization features, some PPC marketers and advertisers still rely on Google’s Search Ads 360 (SA360) for managing complex campaigns.
This article discusses three key best practices and integrations that can help maximize the value of using SA360:
Leveraging data integrations with Google Analytics and BigQuery.
Taking advantage of advanced bid optimization features like value-based bidding and custom variables.
Using templates and feed automation to streamline ad creation and management processes.
What is Search Ads 360 (SA360)?
Search Ads 360 is a Google-owned search management platform helping agencies and marketers manage large search marketing campaigns across multiple engines and media channels.
You can use Search Ads 360 to create, manage and report on search campaigns on:
Google Ads
Microsoft Ads
Yahoo! Japan Sponsored Products
Baidu
SA360 is for complex accounts and brands, especially retailers who have product feeds with ongoing inventory updates.
Below are best practices to help you get the maximum value from SA360.
1. Leverage data integrations with Google Analytics and BigQuery
Bidirectional data syncing ensures everything stays consistent. Using Google Analytics conversions to feed bid models establishes a single source of truth across platforms.
Feeding the data into BigQuery makes analysis more robust. A few use cases include:
Seasonal trend analysis
Brands can analyze historical SA360 data stored in BigQuery to identify seasonal trends in search queries and bookings. This insight can guide them in adjusting their ad spend and targeting strategies to capitalize on peak booking periods.
Cross-channel performance
By integrating data from SA360 and other advertising platforms into BigQuery, brands can understand the role of search ads in the broader context of their multi-channel marketing efforts, optimizing the mix for better ROI.
Lead quality analysis
A lead generation company can use BigQuery to analyze SA360 data combined with lead quality data from their CRM. This enables them to identify which search keywords and campaigns generate high-quality leads and adjust their bidding strategies accordingly.
2. Take advantage of advanced bid optimization features
Value-based bidding helps advertisers focus not just on one conversion event but also on a variety of events (email sign-up, conversion, finding a location, etc.).
Setting up the various values of each event helps the algorithm have a broader set of data and actions to optimize against. In addition, you can create weighting across these various conversion events in SA360 to help create the optimal mix of these events.
There is also the ability to set up custom variables through the floodlight tags. These include products, location, loyalty programs and other custom variables, which can be very important to businesses.
Variances that are isolated might not seem like they mean a lot, but when stacked up on top of one another, you can see meaningful differences.
Take, for example, the profit margin by product. Say you sell a $200 printer and a $200 digital camera. While revenue is $200 in both scenarios, the profit margin of the printer might be 30% and the digital camera only 10%. Therefore, the $200 for the printer is the preferred sale since it drove $60 of profit, while the digital camera only drove $20.
Other items that have meaningful businesses could be shipping costs that might vary based on the product’s weight or products that generate subscription revenue vs. one-time purchases. These are the types of sophisticated updates and rules you can help set in SA360 that can really make all the difference.
This includes getting sophisticated help for brand-new campaigns, referred to as a “cold start.” Such campaigns try to balance learning mode with not overreaching for a high position and wasteful spend.
While it still takes up to two weeks to get enough data out of this mode, this ‘cold start’ mode does a much better job of getting campaigns started.
Google specifically states that it overrides the bid strategy’s primary goal, such as CPA, ERS, ROAS, position and any monthly spend amount set for the bid strategy. However, it does not override minimum/maximum bids or campaign budgets.
3. Use templates and feed automation to streamline ad creation
There are many businesses beyond just retailers who have a variety of campaigns, products and variations that would save a lot of time and effort by being automated and converted into templates.
The below example for an airline helps show how these variations can be used to create dynamic ads for the consumer.
When setting these up, you can maximize their use by optimizing the feed. Remember, “garbage in, garbage out.” You must ensure the foundation is solid to fully utilize these automated features.
These templates can be found under the shared library in SA360. The below example shows how the feed should be set up.
Leveraging SA360 for advanced PPC campaigns
Search Ads 360 is a potent tool accessible only through a certified third-party seller. Skilled search marketers can leverage its advantages effectively.
However, like any tool, it requires expertise for maximum value.
Just as you wouldn’t buy a high-priced laptop solely for web browsing, you must understand your business deeply to utilize this tool effectively. Custom variables, templates and data integrations are crucial for success, particularly in competitive markets.
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Migrating a website is a complex undertaking, but when it involves transitioning global sites across multiple markets, the challenges are exponentially greater.
This article provides a comprehensive guide to maximizing success with global site migrations while protecting organic search traffic.
From the initial planning stages to post-launch monitoring, it covers key actions organizations should take to deeply integrate SEO best practices, preserve URL and content value and streamline the process across international markets.
Site migrations vs. global site migrations
Migration is any significant domain, content or URL changes that typically happen during a website rebuild, consolidation, domain change or move to a new content management system (CMS).
There is enough to go wrong with a single site migration, but it can be disastrous when implemented globally without careful consideration.
Often, multinational companies will deploy the new platform in a smaller single market or region to work out the bugs using beta users or allow a small percentage of users to access the website to stress and function test it.
Before the migration
Your actions during the initial discovery and planning phases can significantly impact the project. The more you can illuminate and integrate global search requirements into the process during this early phase, the less you will have to fix them later.
1. Consider the breadth and timing of deployment
Early on, you should size up how big of a deployment this will be. Will you deploy across all markets (common with a CMS “lift and shift” and simple branding), or will this be a major technology update and a complete architecture or content refresh?
Many experienced managers will deploy the new platform in a smaller single market or region to work out the bugs using beta users or a small percentage of users on the website to stress and function test it.
For a multimarket deployment, timing is very important. Ensure you review the holiday and other seasonal schedules in the impacted markets, as they may differ from the home market.
It is never wise to plan a launch close to yearend or during the summer as many employees have vacation or the entire office shuts down for a week or even a month, negatively impacting resource availability.
2. Ensure SEO best practices are integrated
Expect eye rolls and visible signs of anxiety from teams when SEO integration is mentioned in migration meetings.
Despite their frustration, emphasizing the benefits of integrating search-friendly factors during the design phase is much easier than adapting later on.
Instead of just sharing the latest SEO checklist or random articles with the team, provide specific tasks that need your expertise. This includes:
Template adjustments.
Significant content updates.
URL changes.
This way, your reviews and insights can be seamlessly integrated into the planning process.
We can’t assume developers will make the site fast and mobile-friendly. Even before mockups have been created, work to enforce code, performance and platform adaptability requirements and the requisite QA acceptance testing.
Not every market has super-fast internet or uses desktops, so this foundational performance must be required for the website.
Remind them that many local markets do not have the resources for reviews and functional tests. Hence, the more that can be integrated natively into the deployment, the more it can cascade easily into all markets.
This is the best time to make sure your wish list for new or modified content for each market is integrated into the workflow.
Share the output of your market-specific keyword research or entity mapping exercises that identified new content or adaptations so the localization and content teams can use them during their editing process.
During a “lift and shift,” when you move content to a new design, check if any content is too long or too short for the new layout. You might need to add more content or trim unnecessary parts accordingly.
If you need new functionality like hreflang or schema, you must make it known during the planning process so any necessary coding or template adjustments can be made.
4. Ensure internationalization readiness
Preparing the new site and templates for internationalization is vital, even though it’s not typically an SEO task. This ensures compatibility with localized content, covering issues like text fitting and handling special characters.
The inability to accommodate this critical set of actions will negatively impact user experience and SEO. The following are some of the key considerations to ensure internationalization:
Character encoding: Ensuring the entire infrastructure is Unicode (UTF-8) compliant is necessary to support the special characters found in many languages.
Layout and design: Both elements must be flexible enough to adjust for the expansion, contraction and direction of localized text. I’ve seen cases where, right before launch, there wasn’t enough space for German text or support for right-to-left Arabic. The layout should avoid incorrect breaks between Japanese and Chinese characters.
Entity-escaping XML sitemaps: This is one of the most overlooked requirements, especially for those launching in markets with special characters. XML sitemap protocol does not support Chinese, Russian or even French and German special characters, so they must be encoded to replace them with an escape code.
Date, time and number formats: When the primary focus is on the U.S. functionality, consideration may not be given to the different local conventions, including measurements and date formats.
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After developing the plan for the plan, the real work starts with the development of technology and content. During this time, the global search team will take a few key actions.
5. Document URLs and content
A common mistake during migration is removing or combining webpages and valuable content, which can hurt rankings and traffic. This often happens when streamlining content and workflows.
The SEO team needs to create a plan to minimize this impact:
Catalog URLs: Start with collecting all URLs for every market site and a set of performance attributes. You should use multiple sources to compile the list and data – an extract from the CMS, sitemaps, Google Search Console, GA4 and your diagnostic crawler.
URL decision status: As the content and tech teams work their magic, update your URL list with an outcome status. I typically use Keep/Update/Merge/Remove designations to indicate the action on the page. Any status other than keep will impact the performance of any content on the page.
Develop URL value scores: For each URL, generate a URL Value Score (UVS). This is a unique weighting for the URL and its content using multiple data points, including keyword rankings, backlinks, traffic, pageviews and sales. The UVS enables you to make data-driven decisions about the URLs and ensure high-value URLs and their content, are redirected or actioned correctly post-migration.
6. Develop an SEO preservation roadmap
Creating a detailed project roadmap for each language or market version is crucial.
Integrate these plans into the main roadmap so everyone understands how optimization fits their workflow. Document each action, including time, for verification.
The prelaunch review happens in the days leading up to the actual launch. Some companies call all hands on deck to review the entire site, which circles back to the resource issues we mentioned earlier.
In the local markets, there may only be time to spot check, requiring the teams to focus on areas with the greatest impact.
7. Check parent-child relationships
Even simple “lift and shift” migrations can break the parent-child relationships between the main site and localized pages.
This breakage or a delay in the localization process may prevent pages from being available. It also often creates pages that don’t exist or have not been localized, which will cause duplication or indexing problems in the markets.
This is why a detailed URL list and UVS are essential to prevent the loss of critical child-only pages.
8. Preserve and transfer authority and equity
This is a fancy way to ensure all the redirects are implemented correctly.
Most post-launch triages by SEOs identify incorrect or missing redirects as the main cause of traffic drops.
If you have built equity to a page over the years, it must be passed on to the new page for that content.
Post-launch monitoring
You would follow all the standard steps for post-launch checks, but they need to be done on all language and market websites, adding to both the workload and complexity of the verification process.
Despite exhaustive prelaunch checks, there is a high probability something changed during the launch, especially with localized versions of the website.
Often, templates, entire sections or language versions are changed in the hours before launch that need to be identified and fixed.
Below are key elements to monitor:
Open robots.txt: I have encountered far too many websites that have launched with a correct robots.txt file on the main U.S. website but all the market sites remained blocked. Item one on the checklist is to ensure every version of the website allows access. It is often helpful to share the expected settings to eliminate any confusion.
Validate hreflang: Especially with CMS changes or regional deployments, ensure your hreflang implementation is correct as it accelerates URL detection and reindexing. Google may consider new URLs as duplicates until it processes your hreflang, making this step important for those using hreflang tags. Most SEO diagnostic tools can validate your hreflang implementation while it is doing other post-launch diagnostic crawls.
SubmitXML sitemaps: Once the site is open for public use, remove any old XML sitemaps and submit new ones, especially if you have made major changes and changed CMS or domains. If you have consolidated or changed domains, you should submit a change of address notification for each old domain.
Update country/language selectors: Often overlooked in the refresh is the country or language selector either in the footer or on a dedicated page. Ensure any new or consolidated websites or URLs are updated.
Set up your global site migration for success
Global migration is never easy, especially for a resource-challenged organization.
If you can do nothing else, deeply integrating SEO into the workflow early into the process allows it to flow into other markets.
Monitoring redirects and reindexing high-value pages for all markets allows you to detect problems early so they can be fixed.
The preservation and enhancement of those elements that drive performance should be emphasized to align with development, content and localization teams.
Google’s 2023 Ads Safety Report revealed that it blocked or removed 12.7 million advertiser accounts last year – nearly double the previous 12 months.
Additionally, the search engine blocked or removed 5.5 billion ads for violating its policies – slightly up from the prior year.
Why we care. Cracking down on fraudulent accounts is critical for brand safety and also helps to ensure a safer space for consumers so that they can confidently make online transactions. However, there’s also a potential risk associated with AI, as it may mistakenly suspend genuine advertisers and ads.
The report findings. In the 2023 Google Ads Safety Report, Google found:
Google blocked or removed 206.5 million advertisements for violating our misrepresentation policy, which includes many scam tactics.
Google blocked or removed 273.4 million advertisements for violating our financial services policy.
Google blocked or removed over 1 billion advertisements for violating its policy against abusing the ad network, which includes promoting malware.
Google blocked or restricted ads from serving on more than 2.1 billion publisher pages.
Google took broader site-level enforcement action on more than 395,000 publisher sites, up markedly from 2022.
Updates. Google claimed that scams and fraud across all platforms were on the rise in 2023. To counter these threats, it deployed 31 updates to its Ads and Publisher policies, such as:
Updating its suitability controls to make it simpler and quicker for advertisers to exclude topics that they wish to avoid across YouTube and Display inventory.
Updating its misrepresentation policy to better enable Google to rapidly suspend the accounts of bad actors.
Launching its Limited Ads Serving policy, which is designed to protect users by limiting the reach of advertisers with whom Google is less familiar.
Launching the Ads Transparency Center – where users can easily search and find ads from verified advertisers across various platforms such as Search, YouTube, and Display.
AI. In the report, Google highlighted how AI is playing a crucial role in its efforts to combat bad actors. By using AI, Google claims it can identify and suspend fraudulent accounts before they even get onto its platforms, or remove them as soon as they’re detected.
Moving forward. Google did not share exact details on what future updates we can expect we move further into 2024, however, the search engine confirmed it would continue to investment in policy, detection and enforcement.
Appeals. If you disagree with Google’s decisions and do not believe your ad violated its policies, you can appeal any enforcement action. Google will review your appeal, and if it determines that it made an incorrect decision, it will use these instances to enhance its systems.
What Google is saying. Duncan Lennox, VP & GM of Ads Privacy and Safety, said in a statement:
“Our goal is to catch bad ads and suspend fraudulent accounts before they make it onto our platforms or remove them immediately once detected. AI is improving our enforcement on all fronts.”
“To put the impact of AI on this work into perspective: last year more than 90% of our publisher page level enforcement started with the use of machine learning models, including our latest LLMs.”
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Meridian, Google’s new open-source Marketing Mix Model (MMM), has entered the rapidly evolving market for advanced marketing analytics and forecasting tools.
This article explores Meridian’s key features, capabilities and limitations, comparing it with Meta’s MMM called Robyn.
It delves into how Meridian leverages advanced techniques like hierarchical geo-level modeling, Bayesian methods and scenario analysis to offer actionable insights for cross-channel budget optimization and marketing strategy development.
Understanding marketing mix models
The marketing mix model empowers marketers to analyze how various marketing strategies influence sales and forecast future results.
In essence, MMMs split the drivers of sales into factors (e.g., price, product attributes, distribution, promotional actions) and external issues (e.g., economic state or competitive moves).
By analyzing historical data, these models assign numerical values to each component of the marketing mix in relation to total sales, requiring statistical methods to assess individual marketing activities and external factors.
Consequently, this knowledge allows marketers to optimize strategies, allocate budgets more wisely and forecast how a change in one element will affect future sales.
MMMs employ regression analysis or similar statistical techniques on large quantities of data related to sales and marketing to identify patterns and causality relationships, among others.
This enables companies to make data-driven decisions, optimizing resource allocation across key activities like product pricing and improving brand loyalty through enhanced consumer understanding.
In navigating a complex market, the precision and insights marketing mix models provide are essential for strategic planning.
How does Meridian fit into the MMM landscape and what does it offer?
Meridian is an open-source MMM that aims to support teams in developing models that provide deeper insights into marketing outcomes and decision-making. It strongly emphasizes privacy, advanced measurement and accessibility for marketers.
Meridian brings forth innovations that offer more precise and actionable insights, according to Google. It includes features like calibration with incrementality experiments, incorporation of reach and frequency and specialized guidance on measuring search across all media channels.
What makes Meridian stand out is its transparency, allowing users to customize the code and parameters to meet their specific requirements. This makes it a highly effective tool for enhancing measurement strategies.
Additionally, it provides actionable data inputs and modeling guidance for optimizing cross-channel budgets. It also offers comprehensive educational resources and support for implementation.
As companies increasingly recognize the value of MMMs in achieving revenue goals, Meridian provides a solution that combines innovation, transparency and practicality.
Based on the press release, it seems Meridian does not differ from other MMM tools. Reputable MMM tools prioritize privacy, employ Bayesian methods and offer a wide selection of control variables and customizable settings.
The documentation reveals that Google’s Meridian employs a more advanced approach than other solutions.
While Google’s documentation is extensive, it’s essential not to underestimate the complexity of implementing and handling data. Technical and analytical support for modeling work is highly recommended.
Implementing MMMs can be challenging even without prior experience, as it requires selecting the right data, training the model and adjusting various parameters.
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Meridian is a powerful tool that takes your marketing data to the next level.
Unlike the traditional, national-level models, Meridian lets you zoom into your marketing efforts on a local or regional scale using hierarchical geo-level modeling.
This approach gives you more detailed insights and often results in more reliable figures on how effective your marketing strategies are, particularly in terms of ROI.
With Meridian, you’re not limited to just a few data points. It can handle over 50 geographical locations and 2-3 years of weekly data, making it a beast at crunching numbers.
Thanks to its use of advanced tech like Tensorflow Probability and the XLA compiler and the option to use GPU hardware through tools like Google Colab Pro+, Meridian works fast, keeping pace with your needs.
For those times when you don’t have local data, Meridian still supports the traditional national-level approach. However, one of its standout features is that it lets you bring what you already know into the equation.
Incorporating past knowledge for Bayesian modeling
Using Bayesian models, you can add your past knowledge about how your media performs into Meridian. This includes insights from previous experiments, other marketing mix models, industry know-how or benchmarks. This way, you’re not starting from scratch but building on what you already know.
Meridian intelligently models the waning effectiveness of marketing strategies over time and their spread of impact, enhancing prediction accuracy. Additionally, it delves into the influence of unique viewers and ad frequency on marketing, offering deeper insights into strategy effectiveness.
It doesn’t stop there.
Meridian is also about making wise decisions, especially with online channels like paid search, using data like Google Query Volume. This helps you see the real impact of your strategies.
When spending your marketing budget wisely, Meridian shines by helping you figure out the best way to spread your budget across different channels or suggesting the best total budget to meet your goals.
With Meridian, you can also play around with “what-if” scenarios to see how different strategies could have played out. Finally, it gives you a clear report on how well it fits your data, helping you decide which strategies work best.
Limitations in analyzing marketing performance
Meridian has significant limitations, notably its lack of upper vs. lower funnel support, a common issue with most MMMs.
This makes it challenging to separate and analyze these components independently. However, if Meridian had this feature, it could stand out more compared to competitors.
Another limitation is that Meridian doesn’t account for fluctuations in performance within the analyzed time frame.
In real-world marketing, events can significantly impact the performance of individual channels. As a result, Meridian’s failure to consider this could lead to inaccurate forecasts and analysis, particularly when dealing with longer timeframes.
Google’s Meridian vs. Meta’s Robyn
Meta’s MMM Robyn appears more advanced, putting pressure on Google to deliver a competitive tool as the leading global advertising platform.
Despite Robyn’s compact presentation, it shares many features with Google’s Meridian.
Meta has published case studies for Robyn, whereas Google is still in the process of building theirs, with limited access via application. Robyn is accessible to all via GitHub, fostering community support.
The effectiveness of Meridian and Robyn will be determined as more advertisers use them, revealing their strengths. These MMM tools also serve as crucial marketing opportunities for advertising platforms. Meridian may boost paid search traffic, while Robyn might favor impression-heavy ads on Meta’s platforms, though this will become clearer with continued usage.
As of now, Meridian is a nice early-access project to play around with. It will have to show if implementation and analysis with real data can benefit advertisers.
