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How to give access to an agency: Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a powerful tool where you can handle codes and scripts on your website.  It will allow you to easily update your codes on your website or on your mobile app. In other words, through this tool you will be able to collect data (thanks to specific tags and triggers) to understand how the users interact with your website.

It’s really important to give the right access to the right person and we know it’s not always easy to define what the relevant access is and how to grant it. 

In this blog post, we will explain how to properly give access to a new user but also how to modify and delete it.

Before going deeper, the first thing you need to discover is the “Admin” part of Google Tag Manager. This is the place where you will be able to give access to your account or your container.

How to add a user?

Once you are inside the admin settings, you can see the “User management” option for account and container level. It’s through this option that you can give different access levels to users. How exactly? That’s what you’re about to find out.

Add a user at the account level

By clicking on “User management” in the account column, a second window will open, you will see 2 options: “Add users” or “Add user groups”.

Click on “Add users” and fill in the email address of the user you need to add. Then, select the account permission: “Admin” or “User”. 

Admin: this access allows you to edit user management, account settings and account activity. Concretely, you can modify user permissions (on the account and containers level) and create new containers.

Users: in this case, you can only see the different settings but you can’t modify them.

In the account level, you will be able to select the permission level for the different containers as well.

For the second option, “Add user groups”, you need to link your account to Google Marketing Platform.

Adding a user at the container level

It’s also possible to add a user to only one of your containers. If you are handling several websites for your company, you can limit the access of the user to only one of your websites.

To give access, it’s exactly like for the account level. Click on “user management” in the container column, then “Add users”, fill in the email address and select the access level. This email address has to be linked to a Google account.

One last way to give access to a specific container, it’s through the “Zones” settings but this option is only available with Google Tag Manager 360.

“Zones” solves issues of scale and is useful if you have different restrictions for different pages, if you work with different teams or if you use different containers on different websites.

How does it work? It creates a second container on the same page where you will be able to create separate tags, triggers and variables but from the same data layer.

To be able to do that, you have to click on “Zones” in the left-hand navigation.

In this case, you can also give different user permissions.

The different access levels

Now that you know how to add a user, you have to decide which type of user access you will give:

Read: as said in the name, users can only view what is in the GTM account such as triggers, variables and tags but can’t modify them. Why is it useful ? If you don’t want other people to touch or modify things in your GTM when they do need to know what’s being tracked.

Edit: users will be able to add, modify or delete tags, triggers and variables.

Approve: this is the same as “edit” access but you can also approve modifications done by other users.

Publish: users will be able to add, modify, approve but also publish the content.

Admin: this is the same as “publish” access but you can also give access to users, so in other words, you are the Queen or the King of GTM world.

How to modify or delete user access?

Aside from adding a user, modifying their access level or deleting the user is also a possibility. Why would you do that? If someone leaves your company or if you decide to work with a new agency for example, you don’t want them to keep the GTM access.

In the list of users, you can click on the email address of the user, then you will be able to select or unselect a permission level and even click on “remove”.

Finally, sometimes you will also have to give access to Google Analytics at the same time. Discover how to give access in Google Analytics.

How to give access to an agency: Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the heart of your data-driven digital marketing. As an advertiser, you want to give enough access to your agency to be able to make the best use of the data (make decisions on optimizations, create audiences, share their data with you to be able to keep track of all campaigns, …) but you also want to protect your precious data.

Good governance and giving access (in the right way) to your Google Analytics is one of the things we see is not always done in the right way. A lot of clients just give full Admin access to everyone so they don’t have to worry about back and forth emails asking for a higher level of access.

On the other hand, there are the people that give too restricted access to be able to use the Google Analytics data to the fullest. This is why we created this guide to help you give access to Google Analytics.

Levels of access: Account > Property > View

Access to Google Analytics can be given on 3 levels: Account level, Property level, and View Level. Like all the different types of access, we need to keep in mind that the access given on the highest level carries down to the lower levels.

This means for example when access is given on Account level, that person automatically gets the same access to the properties and the views in that account. It also means that access given on a specific view only grants access to that view and nothing else.

To grant access we need to go in the “User Management” section of the level of access you want to give:

This will open an overlay on the right side of the screen. In this overlay, we need to click the big blue “+” sign.

To add a single user we need to select “Add Users” after clicking the “+” sign. For the “Add user groups” option you’ll need to add you Google Marketing Platform organization

Fill in an email address of the person you want to give access to. This email address needs to be linked to a Google Account.

Before we are able to finalize the access we need to make a decision on what Permission we will grant to the new user.

Permissions: Edit > Collaborate > Read & Analyze

As is the case for Access there are also 3 levels of Permissions: Edit, Collaborate and  Read & Analyze.

With Read & Analyze permission, you can see the data in the reports and make some basic manipulations of the data like add a segment, apply a filter in the report or add a secondary dimension. Read & Analyze is the lowest permission level.

When giving the Collaborate permission you give, besides all the permissions of Read & Analyze, the ability to make some personal assets (funnel settings, conversion segments, custom reports, dashboards, segments, …) and to also share those assets with the other users of the same Google Analytics. 

The people with the Edit permission get the extra permission (on top of the Collaborate permission) to perform a whole bunch of more administrative and report-related tasks like creating goals, editing the channel grouping, … On this level, there is one exception and that is the creation of filters. To create filters, that person needs to have account-level access with edit permission.

To be able to add, delete and edit users (permissions and access) there is extra permission needed: “Manage Users”. This permission does not include Edit or Collaborate permissions. The “Manage Users” permissions should be limited to only people that need it. Don’t give this to everyone that asks for it.

The right access in 4 questions

To help you with giving the right access to the right person, we have made a decision tree you can use. With only 4 questions you can figure out what type of access you should give:

1 Who is requesting access to analytics? An external party or someone internally?

2. Is he/she actively involved in the campaigns or does he/she want to follow the performance from a distance?

3. Does this person need to be able to create new goals?

4. Does he/she need to be able to access at least one of the following items: audience creation, Google Ads linking, Data Upload?

Chances are that you will also need to know how to give access to Google Tag Manager. You can read all about it in this article: how to give access in Google Tag Manager.

The CLICKTRUST monthly pick – March 2020

News and articles that allow us to stay on top of our game. You might want to read them too.

General: Data, Privacy & more

Reducing digital marketing due to COVID-19? Read this first

– Search Engine Land

“On the flip side, bids in many industries are lower than they’ve ever been. This is likely due to advertisers making fewer bids and cutting their budgets. But if your company is selling product/services that still have demand at this time, you should be looking to maximize your ad spend. Just make sure you keep a close eye on your ROAS.”

The new contextual ad targeting works, study says

– Search Engine Land

“Overall, the contextually relevant ads generated 43% more neural engagement and 2.2 times better ad recall, according to the study. They were also somewhat (10%) more engaging than the article content overall. Finally, the study concluded that the contextually relevant ads inspired a statistically significant increase in purchase intent.
The study was designed by GumGum, a contextual advertising company that uses computer vision and NLP to analyze the text, images and videos that appear on a web page (yes, it has skin in this game) and conducted by neuroanalytics company SPARK Neuro.”

COVID-Consumers: Pessimistic, but spending more online

– Search Engine Land

“Generally, the survey finds significant increases in at-home activities, particularly cooking at home, watching television, browsing social media and exercising at home.
In addition, the survey found that online spend is also on the rise, growing 10%-30% across grocery and non-grocery purchases.”

How B2B companies can be proactive about managing paid media during COVID-19

– Search Engine Land

“To navigate this changing landscape, make sure your brand continues to deliver value while building a pipeline for the future that isn’t tone deaf to the crisis.”

Safari Announces Full 3rd Party Cookie Blocking

– Search Engine Journal

“Apple announced that Safari is now fully blocking 3rd party cookies.
Apple didn’t provide guidance specific to Google Analytics. However, because Google Analytics is a third party that users haven’t opted into as a first party, presumably Google Analytics cookies may be blocked. This is something that will need to be tested.”

For Brands, Now Is Not The Time For Social Distancing

– AdExchanger

“For many brands, the immediate response to advertising during bad times is to retreat to avoid potential negative brand association. This is understandable, especially in an acute but temporary crisis. But in the current situation, which is protracted and unfolding before a captive global digital audience, strategic invisibility may be the wrong choice.”

Google: Organic, Ads & Analytics

Google turns on ‘mark a business temporarily closed’ for business owners on GMB

– Search Engine Land

“Google announced that Google Search and Maps will start showing whether a business is temporarily closed in response to the coronavirus crisis. This followed an earlier directive to local businesses to update hours and other relevant content in Google My Business.”

Google My Business: When should you use ‘special hours’ vs. ‘temporarily closed’?

– Search Engine Land

“If your business has adjusted hours or is temporarily closed for a short period of time (less than two weeks), you should use special hours. For longer extended closures, two weeks or more, you should use the temporarily closed status if you’re able to.”

Google: Marking a Business ‘Temporarily Closed’ Doesn’t Impact Rankings

– Search Engine Journal

“Google’s Danny Sullivan confirms that marking a Google My Business listing as temporarily closed will not harm rankings or visibility.”

Winners and losers: How COVID-19 is affecting search behavior

– Search Engine Land

“Social distancing has resulted in wild click behavior swings across sectors including grocers, productivity tools, restaurants and hotels.”

YouTube Ad Revenues, Creative Output May Grow During Coronavirus

– Search Engine Journal

“As digital media buyers and strategists navigate the unknown in the coming months, one possible platform winner may be emerging: YouTube.
There has been ongoing concern that a drop in CPMs would be the natural consequence of advertisers pulling back ad dollars until the situation is more under control and consumer confidence is restored.
However, there is speculation something positive is actually causing it: a drastic increase in user consumption, providing more ad revenue than there typically is.”

Are Google’s Featured Snippets Stealing Clicks? It’s Complicated

– Search Engine Journal

“While this number is based on mobile searches and includes content that would have usually never seen clicks in the first place, what remains is still a more than significant percentage of what most SEO professionals claim they deserve for all their efforts.”

Why Using Conversions Imported From Analytics to Google Ads Does Not Actually Make Sense

– Search Engine Journal

“It is OK if you use imported conversions as additional data (“not included in conversions”). But for optimization and bid strategies, you should instead use Google Ads conversion tracking.”

Social: Facebook, Instagram & others

FDA Decides It’s Time to Study Influencer Marketing — Is This a Good Thing?

– Adleaks

“At this point, nobody really knows to what extent these studies and newly crafted laws around the world will impact influencer marketing, but we can all expect more regulation in the future.”

Will Facebook’s massive usage increases (eventually) turn into revenue?

– Search Engine Land

“The usage growth from COVID-19 is unprecedented across the industry, and we are experiencing new records in usage almost every day. But it immediately qualified that statement. The increased usage wasn’t tied to a corresponding increase in ad revenue.”

The CLICKTRUST monthly pick – February 2020

News and articles that allow us to stay on top of our game. You might want to read them too.

General: Data, Privacy & more

Future-Proofing Audience Strategies As Cookies Crumble

– AdExchanger

“But that doesn’t mean it’s necessary to switch back to contextual targeting and last-click attribution. There are other cookieless use cases to consider as marketers are forced to take a new approach to first-party data.
That also does not mean all forms of audience planning and measurement are dead. Demographic, in-market and affinity data from the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Pinterest will still be available, because they are first-party by design, and unlike audiences, you buy from data providers, they are free of charge. Retargeting and look-alike strategies will also weather the storm, as long as they rely on cookieless signals and CRM onboarding.
View-through attribution and omnichannel measurement will not go away, but they will only come from walled garden-specific first-party data integration and clean rooms such as Google’s Ads Data Hub and the Amazon Marketing Cloud. “

Planning For Safari Can Prepare Advertisers For Chrome’s Future

– Think with Google

“Advertisers have a prime opportunity to test non-behavioral targeting strategies right now, thanks to Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP).
Successful Safari strategies will likely give the cookieless a central role in the targeting and buying strategy. While there’s no need to completely abandon cookies, at least not yet, adopting this kind of thinking in Safari can prepare advertisers for the coming large-scale changes.”

Google: Organic, Ads & Analytics

How to Structure a PPC Campaign in the Age of Automation

– Search Engine Journal

“Automation doesn’t require simpler account structures. We still need to run the structures that make sense for our business. If anything, we should devote more time to measuring conversions correctly rather than wrangling account structures into some weird shape we think will help the machines.”

Google mobile-first indexing to be applied to all sites within a year

– Search Engine Land

“Google is sending out notices via Google Search Console with “mobile-first indexing issues detected” alerts. In those emails it communicates the issues Google has when it comes to moving that site over to mobile-first indexing. It also says “Google expects to apply mobile-first indexing to all websites in the next six to twelve months. “ “

Google is Expanding Shopping Ads to Gmail

– Search Engine Journal

“In an email sent out to Google Ads advertisers, the company says Shopping ads will be eligible to appear on Gmail starting on the week of March 4, 2020. This includes both Product Shopping ads and Showcase Shopping ads. When Shopping ads are rolled out to Gmail, data will be reported under
the Google Display Network. Standard Shopping campaigns will be
automatically enabled to run on Gmail, as long as the campaigns are
opted into “YouTube, Gmail, and Discover.”

How to fight back against excessively deep pagination and regain rankings

– Search Engine Journal

“Use categories or tags to cross link so that you have a handful paginated pages per type, from where you link to the blog posts. Keep a good & balanced hierarchy, not too flat, not too deep.”

Optimization scores, recommendations and their impact on Google Partner agencies

– Search Engine Land

” “Over the years, we’ve all seen various automated scorecards used by aggressive SEO or PPC agencies when they audit a company’s marketing efforts. Typically these things are meant to find fault and to achieve a specific goal [that’s] not 100% aligned with the client’s objectives,” said Andrew Goodman, founder and president of digital marketing agency Page Zero Media, which has Google Premier Partner status. “Google’s scorecards are a highly sophisticated version of the same phenomenon. Recommendations as aids to busy / stretched account managers are certainly a good idea.” His concern comes in using them to judge account or agency performance. That “is jumping the gun, IMO,” said Goodman. “

Google Explains Gradual Declines in Ranking

– Search Engine Journal

“In a Webmaster Hangout Google’s John Mueller answered why a site might be gradually losing traffic. Once you know the reasons you’ll be better positioned to take action to reverse a traffic decline.”

Google’s new treatment of nofollow links has arrived

– Search Engine Land

“As of Sunday, Mar. 1, Google is treating the nofollow link attribute as a hint, rather than a directive, for crawling and indexing purposes. Google is already treating all link attributes (sponsored, UGC and nofollow) as hints for ranking purposes and has been doing so since it made the original announcement in September. “

Does Word Count Matter for SEO?

– Search Engine Journal

“Reaching a certain word count will not help a page rank better. Stay relevant to users. Relevance for Google is understanding what users mean when they type a keyword and matching that to a page that answers the question. Before writing a single word, check out the search results and try to understand what users mean when they type a search query.”

What happens if you stop doing SEO

– Search Engine Land

“The ugly truth is that it’s hard to reverse momentum once a website starts going in the wrong direction. I am a firm believer that all things online should be scaled as the business grows, SEO included.”

How a newly won partnership in France could signal Google’s broader TV ambitions

– Digiday

“Google has long pitched YouTube as an alternative to traditional TV advertising, but it’s never managed to make a move into the $170 billion global TV ad market itself. But as more linear TV viewing shifts to digital devices and platforms, Google is quietly making inroads on one of the few areas of digital advertising it doesn’t yet conquer.”

6 Reasons to Run Responsive Display Ads (& 2 Reasons Not To)

– Search Engine Journal

“Since 2018, responsive display ads have been the default ad type for the GDN. It might be time to take another look at them — for six good reasons. But at the same, there are two good reasons why you might not want to.”

Paid search marketers can find success with top of funnel campaigns

– Search Engine Land

“Paid search is often thought of as being really low funnel – and it absolutely can be! But it can also span up the funnel and, when done correctly, can even rival other top-of-funnel channels. Targeting informational queries, for instance, is a great way to engage folks that are beginning to look for solutions to their problems – which is a key piece of the Awareness stage. Equally, if not more important, is knowing how to handle the traffic that you receive from top-of-funnel campaigns. Since that traffic is cold, sending those visitors to the same low-funnel CTAs as your other campaigns will likely lead to high bounce rates and low conversion rates.”

Social: Facebook, Instagram & others

Changes to Web and In-Stream Placements

– Facebook

“Starting Apr 11 2020, Audience Network will no longer fill any ad requests to your web and in-stream placements.
We’ve made this decision based on where we see growing demand from our partners, which is in other formats across mobile apps. We also remain committed to moving our mobile app network into bidding.”

3 tips for optimizing paid social campaigns for seasonality

– Search Engine Land

“Planning your paid social campaigns well ahead of your peak periods — whether seasonal, holiday or promotional — help ensure you hit your goals.”

How to tackle rising Facebook CPAs

– Search Engine Land

“With more advertisers and bigger budgets crowding onto Facebook and Instagram, acquisition costs are climbing. Advertisers can make their social ad dollars go further by re-thinking campaign fundamentals. You need to make sure you’re scaling your available inventory for
click-through rates, mirroring your audience, and being dynamic.”

The CLICKTRUST monthly pick – January 2020

News and articles that allow us to stay on top of our game. You might want to read them too.

General: Data, Privacy & more

The Marketing Funnel Isn’t Dead, We Just Understand It Better

– Search Engine Journal

“As we consider the concept of the marketing funnel, it’s tempting for us in the midst of the mess we marketers try to track every day, to throw our hands up and exclaim “it’s all chaos!”
However, I would (and have) argued there to still be a purchase intent progression that takes place in the customer journey. “

Google Chrome Will Drop Third-Party Cookies In 2 Years

– AdExchanger

“Third-party cookies – the backbone of programmatic advertising – are not long for this world. Google’s Chrome browser will phase them out in two years.
Google Chrome is betting that its Privacy Sandbox – the privacy-preserving API first unveiled in August – will over the next two years build functionality that replaces third-party cookies.”

DMPs Aren’t Dead, But They Must Continue To Evolve

– AdExchanger

“The DMP is not dead – but the free-for-all days of non-consented, persistent identification and data promiscuity are. What must also die is the near-total disregard for consumer privacy and consent, which reigned supreme in the quest for one-to-one marketing and its associated riches.”

You don’t just need personalization — you need the right personalization

– Think with Google

“Over half of U.S. consumers say they are interested in seeing personalized content when shopping. And they say they are comfortable sharing their information as long as they feel like they’re getting value in return.
A study that we fielded with Ipsos found that shoppers value experiences that: Save them time, Offer value & Surface the right product or service assortment.”

How brands can merge online and offline experiences to drive growth

– Think with Google

“For today’s consumers, shopping doesn’t begin and end in the store. With so many options both in stores and online, digital and video play a huge role in getting people through the door. For example, 80% of people say they typically switch between online search and video when researching products to buy. It’s no wonder, then, that every brand with an online and offline presence is looking for better ways to connect the dots between the two.
The final step in the campaign was measuring its success. In the past, H&R Block connected digital campaigns to digital KPIs, optimizing for what it could squarely measure: online appointments. But this proxy didn’t capture the full picture.”

Top-Down. Always Top-Down!

– Avinash Kaushik

“Taking a top-down approach – Success Delivered, Budget Spent, Executive Affection – helps deliver clarity of purpose for any analysis you do. It reduces the time you and I spend sitting in our Email silo or Display silo or TV silo and thinking our work is God’s gift to the company and going on meaningless analytical journeys.
Big lesson: Just because you can analyze something, don’t. You are magnificent, your time is precious. Find the worthy.”

Google: Organic, Ads & Analytics

January Updates to Paid Advertising Platforms

– PPC Hero

“Google: Google implements black “Ad” label and brand icons on the desktop SERP
Google: What: Bid simulator now enabled for Target ROAS, while budget simulator is now available for Maximize Clicks and Maximize Conversions
Microsoft Advertising: Response Search Ads(RSAs) are now available worldwide
Microsoft Advertising: Microsoft sunsetting average position metric”

Google Ads Introduces Bid Simulator Support for Smart Bidding

– Search Engine Journal

“Google Ads is rolling out bid simulator support for the Target ROAS (return on ad spend) bid strategy, as well as a new budget simulator.
This marks the first time bid simulator support has been available for a smart bidding campaign. Previously, bid simulators have only been available for campaigns using manual bidding or Target CPA. “

Would Google’s own marketing team use Smart Shopping Campaigns? (Probably not.)

– Mike Ryan on Linkedin

“Google’s Smart Shopping Campaigns (SSC) have been at the center of tons of heated conversations in recent months. This is partly due to debates about the new campaign type’s pros and cons (increased reach and revenue in exchange for several settings and reports). It’s also due to a wide-scale sales push by Google reps to drive adoption – which has generated controversy among PPC managers. “

Google desktop favicon search results study

– Search Engine Land

“In 2019, Google introduced a new format in mobile search results which included a small “favicon” icon from the website, to the left of the snippet. This week, Google announced that a similar format was being launched in desktop results.”

Social: Facebook, Instagram & others

Now that Facebook lets users clear internet tracks, marketers lose another signal to target ads

– Adage

“Facebook finally rolled out a “clear history” button that lets people erase their online tracks, adding to the potential roadblocks advertisers face targeting consumers as more internet companies lockdown data.”

The CLICKTRUST monthly pick – December 2019

News and articles that allow us to stay on top of our game. You might want to read them too.

General: Data, Privacy & more

The Power of Impression-Based Campaigns to Grow Your Brand

– Search Engine Journal

The title of this article is horrible and cliche in a time when everyone is talking about measurable impact but don’t let that stop you from reading the article. Full of knowledge gems and some nice anecdotes on why creating silo’s between “performance” and “awareness” is just a bad idea. They should be an integrated approach.

“As advertisers, we have the best targeting we have ever had available to us in the history of mankind.
We can literally advertise to our exact persona.
Yet, we insist on trying to drive leads and interest before we ever build awareness. It’s like we all somehow forgot the first part of the funnel.”

Coming Soon: The Demise Of The Brand Vs. Performance Construct

– AdExchanger

“Cliches about marketers on both sides of the divide are unfortunately often true. Brand marketers get excited about brand integrations and seven-figure YouTube masthead buys that grab a lot of attention, while performance marketers are overly obsessed with measuring every dollar.
As we head into 2020, conditions that allowed the brand and performance divide to persist are finally shifting, and marketers can take action. “

DMP Market Entering Period Of Volatility, According To Advertiser Perceptions

– AdExchanger

“DMPs from Oracle, Salesforce and Adobe have always been the most-used platforms in previous Advertiser Perceptions reports, and they still are in the research firm’s latest report, released Wednesday.
But their favor with marketers is either falling or remaining flat, Advertiser Perceptions found.”

The Perfect Rose Bush Distraction

– Avinash Kaushik

“When data is presented in your org, the spotlight is on the beautiful rose bush in the front yard. How extraordinary the petals are, how perfect the shade of Mother of Pearl on your flowers, how amazing that YOUR WORK ensured that you had the first rose bush with its own Instagram feed. Everyone is looking, everyone is fawning, proud. Meanwhile, little attention directed to the fact that your entire house is going up in flames!

How important is this thing that I’ve been told relative to all other things I need to know?”

Oversold And Overpromised: Marketers Move Away From DMPs

– AdExchanger

“Marketers tell AdExchanger they have struggled to achieve ROI, often hiring consultants or in-house talent to manage their DMPs. Some went through disruptive rip-and-replace processes only to find that their new DMP providers also had poor match rates, bad integrations and weak connections into paid media.”

The 10 Game-Changing Ad Tech Exits Of The Decade

– AdExchanger

“AdExchanger looked at the acquisitions that made the biggest impact in the past decade. Impact can mean many things. Some of these startups flourished under their new owners, showing worth far more than their deal price. Others, purchased during their downfall, reflect the changing winds of ad tech and how companies that were once dominant can swiftly fall from grace.”

Google: Organic, Ads & Analytics

 

Google now showing ‘request quotes’ button above local pack on mobile

– Search Engine Land

“The request quotes functionality is consistent with Google’s broader effort to make GMB an “engagement” and transactions platform.”

Google now shows carousels of reviews on local business profiles

– Search Engine Land

“Google has been spotted displaying reviews in a carousel format, placed more prominently on local business profiles. Review excerpts on Google My Business-powered (GMB) listings are not new; however, this is the first time they are displayed in a scrollable carousel format that may promote viewing more reviews without the user having to click “see all reviews.”

Should Smart Shopping Include More Data? My Rebuttal to The Rebuttal – Part 6: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns

– ZATO Marketing

“I believe Google owes a certain amount of data to the ones paying for the ads. That is, I just want to make sure I have access to the data that I am able to make good decisions by for the good of my clients and business.
But this is the rub, and why we’re having this conversation: We’re all going to disagree on what data is necessary to do our jobs well.”

Pro Tip: Why you should stop using last-click attribution in Google Ads

– Search Engine Land

“Often, people are searching on multiple devices and do extensive browsing and research before making a purchase. Understanding the impact that higher-funnel keywords have on conversions can help better utilize spend, cut out waste and inform other digital marketing channels such as SEO and social media.”
** The article does mix up Google Ads & Google Analytics attribution. It talks about increases in the number of conversions after switching an attribution model which isn’t possible in Google Ads, the total number of conversions would always stay the same inside of Google Ads. For this example, they’re clearly talking about an increase in conversions attributed to Paid Search in Google Analytics. However, the general idea of the article is correct: different attribution models value different stages of the funnel over others.

The big list of 2019 Google search algorithm updates

– Search Engine Land

“2019 saw a number of publically disclosed core and other search algorithm updates. Among the many changes of 2019, Google established a naming convention for core updates and brought natural language understanding to search results.“

The CLICKTRUST monthly pick – November 2019

News and articles that allow us to stay on top of our game. You might want to read them too.

Data & Privacy

Digital advertising is not the dot com bubble, improper attribution is

– Marketing Land

“In other words, I am positing that paid search advertising itself has not failed, it’s that an understanding of how to use paid search advertising as part of an integrated marketing mix for individual companies has failed. Improper use of attribution has led to an obsession with directly tracked results that over time do not build a brand and incremental sales. They simply re-target (not necessarily remarketing, btw) the same users already in the sales cycle – ad nauseam.”

Apple’s data war could lower the value of ads, say these two major publishers

– AdAge

“Both executives say that they see a difference in the value of ads, depending on whether a reader comes to sites through Apple or Google browsers. Visitors through Apple browser, where cookie tracking is more limited, lead to cheaper ads.”

When Third Comes First

– Adexchanger

“Not all brands have first-party data, and in some advertising categories, first-party doesn’t help growth objectives at all because it reveals information about an existing customer, rather than potential customers where incremental opportunities reside.
Brands should seek a reliable and legitimate provider for the type of data they need, then apply a scientific, analytical approach to selecting the strong data signals they will use as a predictor to reach the right prospects.”

Is digital advertising a lot less effective than the ad industry believes?

– Econsultancy.com

“Put simply, companies are attributing to advertising what likely would have occurred anyway. Using an analogy from the article, there’s a person handing out coupons for discounted pizza in the restaurant itself and advertisers are crediting those coupons for sales even though it’s obvious this conclusion is flawed.”

Google: Organic, Ads & Analytics

Google search results eye candy: How users navigate search features and what it means for SEO

– Search Engine Land

“Because search-results pages are now so inconsistent from query to query, users are often forced to assess the page before digging in and making a selection,” according to the report. Any given query can surface numerous search features, ranging from rich answers to carousels and everything in between. This assortment of information plays a critical part in shifting the user’s attention across the page. “That means that the layout of a SERP can determine which links get visibility and clicks.”

Misquoted and misunderstood: Why many in the search community don’t believe the WSJ about Google search

– Search Engine Land

“Google aims to ensure that the most relevant and useful search results show up in the organic search results. While Google cannot open-source its search ranking algorithms due to (1) competitive and (2) manipulation reasons, Google does work hard to provide a trusted set of search results for its searchers.”

See the ‘top signals’ informing your Google Ads bidding strategies

– Search Engine Land

“Google’s smart bidding strategies use a host of signals to inform bids with each auction. Now, Google is starting to show which signals are driving performance to optimize bids for people more or less likely to convert.”

Social: Facebook & Instagram & others

Introducing New Brand Safety Controls for Advertisers

– Facebook

“While our Community Standards apply to everyone on Facebook, we also have additional policies to hold publishers, creators and advertisers accountable. At the same time, we know that not all businesses are the same and some may want additional controls for placements within publisher content, like in-stream and Instant Articles on Facebook or Audience Network. It’s why we are focused on giving advertisers more transparency and sophisticated tools to suit their brand. Today we are announcing strides in our brand safety controls.”

Social media ads are most effective for inspiring new product research

– Econsultancy.com

This is one part of Econsultancy’s “The best digital marketing stats we’ve seen this week” linked to above.
“The study assumes that the first action an online shopper will take to express interest in a product can be to click a link to learn more, type in the brand domain direct, or run a search for the product or brand. When it comes to inspiring product research, 23% of survey respondents cited social media ads as the number one most effective form of advertising – out of 11 different common advertising and promotional mediums offered.”

TikTok Is Testing A Self-Serve Ad Platform

– Adexchanger

Advertisers in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the United States can purchase TikTok ads with partially self-serve tech. A pitch deck obtained by Digiday outlines TikTok’s two self-serve business models. The first allows bidding based on cost per click. The second model is based on cost per acquisition, targeting users most likely to convert. Among the usual audience parameters – age, gender and location – advertisers can also target based on device price, interests like beauty or travel and with look-alike segments.

The CLICKTRUST monthly pick – October 2019

News and articles that allow us to stay on top of our game. You might want to read them too.

Data & Privacy

Four strong indicators that your marketing analytics programme will fail

– Econsultancy

“According to Gartner, so far marketers have leveraged only 61% of the functions available in their martech portfolio. The reason? Most organisations lack people, skills and a proper vision for their marketing analytics programme.
Ascend2 research further mirrors that sentiment indicating that 61% of companies originally invested in martech solutions to improve marketing efficiency and marketing ROI. Yet, post-adoption, 47% of respondents still struggle to capture that elusive ROI figure and 40% are far from being as productive as they’d like to be.”

Marketers Are Going Straight To Exchanges For Ultimate Data Transparency

– Adexchanger

“As marketers seek more transparency into their programmatic buys, they’re bypassing their demand-side platforms and going straight to exchanges and publishers to ask for log-level data about the bids they’ve won and lost. Advertisers are planning to use this data to power their buying strategies. Buyers could find pockets of undervalued inventory though log-level analysis and make more intelligent decisions than competitors who don’t have access to this data. Granular pricing information could inform negotiations in direct deals with publishers.

Data Platforms Enable First-Party Data Strategies – But Aren’t A Substitute For One

– Adexchanger

“The framework should provide for adding and removing online and offline data sources, easily integrating into multiple channels well beyond programmatic and setting up data partnerships to fill the data gaps and improve revenue, including the collection of additional data that the user may be willing to provide. It should be independent and not tightly tied to any specific technology partner or platform.”

Some Unsolicited Advice For Surviving The ‘Cookiepocolypse’

– Adexchanger

“The “death of cookies” may be second only to “year of mobile” as ad industry prediction fails. Both forecasts felt tired after too many false starts. The third-party cookie may not be dead just yet, but the increasingly scrutinized piece of code – one which for decades fueled audience buying across the digital landscape – is arguably now on life support.
If you were renting third-party data, you will likely need to build partnerships or some other means of working around the reduced efficacy of the third-party cookie. If you have strong customer (first-party) data, you will need to find partnerships that enable that data to work on third-party sites.”

Google: Organic, Ads & Analytics

Is Google’s new BERT technology another nail in traditional SEO’s coffin?

– Econsultancy

“As for optimizing content for BERT, Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz suggests that little can and should be done. He pointed to a tweet posted by Google’s Gary Illyes when RankBrain was launched, which stated “you optimize your content for users and thus for rankbrain. that hasn’t changed.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that there is nothing for search marketers to do. For one, some companies might soon find that as Google’s ability to better understand natural language grows, they have reason to update content that was originally developed for traditional SEO so that it’s better-suited for human consumption.”

Google Ads Rolls Out 2 New Tools for Responsive Search Ads

– Search Engine Journal

“The two new tools include:

• Performance column: Identify the exact creative assets that are driving results in high volume ad groups. Improve “Low” rated assets, keep “Good” performing assets, and emulate the “Best” performing assets.
• Ad variations: Google Ads’ ad variations now supports responsive search ads, which lets advertisers run their own ad copy tests.”

Google Ads is Testing New Lead Form Extensions

– Search Engine Journal

“Advertisers can customize lead forms with their own title and description, and indicate which pieces of information they want to ask customers for. ”

Google Ads now showing cart metrics for Shopping campaigns

– Search Engine Land

“Merchants capturing cart data with Google Ads conversion tracking will be able to see additional revenue and profitability data attributed down to the product level. The new metrics, currently in beta, take cross-device conversions into account.”

Google Chrome Will Block Mixed Content

– Search Engine Journal

“Google announced that Chrome browser will begin blocking web pages with mixed content beginning December 2019. Publishers are urged to check their websites to make sure there are no resources that are being loaded using the insecure HTTP protocol.
Mixed content is when a secure web page (loaded through HTTPS) also contains scripts, styles, images or other linked content that is served through the insecure HTTP protocol. This is called mixed content.”

Facebook & Instagram

Facebook is Changing How it Calculates Organic Impressions

– Search Engine Journal

“Facebook pages are likely to see organic impressions go down as a result of changes being made to how impressions are calculated. Facebook is specifically changing how repeat organic page impressions are calculated. Changes will affect the time frame in which organic impressions from the same person are calculated.”

HeroConf London 2019 – Key takeaways

…Why PPC marketers are pretty clueless about the future of digital marketing.

 

Data-driven, AI, automation, store-visits, privacy and user experience were the very topics on everyone’s mind and the same questions remain after these 2 very interesting days. Marketers have no clear idea on what to do or how to position themselves about the future of digital marketing. Let’s navigate the main takeaways:

 

Is AI/Automation going to push marketers out of their jobs?

 

Artificial intelligence and machine learning were obviously amongst the most followed topics during these 2 days and conferences about these subjects easily filled up the conference room. Let’s temper the expectations right away, there is no groundbreaking AI that’ll replace marketing teams nor awesome hacks to crack the code and master algorithms.

Like Frederick Valleys from Optimyzr had explained very well, AI is a tool and we need experts to add the final touch. This final touch is « context » that any algorithm will never be able to fully understand.

These automation solutions allow us the work « smarter » and more efficiently and we should totally look into it to streamline our processes, but we need experts to master them. Machine to machine marketing is not likely to be the answer. As mentioned by several speakers, algorithms have increased in quality and capabilities exponentially for the past 10 years, but this curve is plateauing and computers won’t get any much better.

The conclusion would be to find a soft spot between man and machine, keeping the final user in mind.

You can have the smartest bidding algorithm and the better attribution algorithm, if you provide bad user experience, you’ll fail.

Fun fact, a speaker asked, « Do you think chatbots are interesting and would you add it to your marketing mix ». 98% of the audience hands up. This was followed by a second question « As a customer, do you like and use chatbots? ».

2 hands up. It summarizes quite well the situation, technical tools are available but we need marketers to create a great experience.

 

Data and audiences in a cookie-free world and why Data-driven models suck.

 

« You have to leverage your 1st and 3rd party data to the moon. »

« You have to make the best out of audiences and uber complex customer journey. »

You could hear that in a lot of talks and see nice examples of how the data was mastered showing awesome results.

But very few dare to speak openly about the core issue and dodge the main question in the Q&A’s.

How to tackle GDPR, ITP, e-privacy, walled gardens challenges and overcome hurdles in an ecosystem where cookies are dying?

We know it’s happening, we know we should think about it, we know it’s not going any better anytime soon but no one is really taking the bull by the horns.

Blindly trusting data and data-driven model’s in a world where that very data is not going to get any better is not « smart ». Thinking that we can map complex customer journeys and provide a tailor-made solution at every touch-point based on biased data to skyrocket performances is a fantasy.

These questions remains big question marks and marketeers are clueless.

Few solutions were discussed, but are either very complicated/costly or not applicable in most cases. Also, everyone agreed these workarounds won’t probably work anymore in a few times. It’s a cat and mouse game.

 

UX Designers should be the best-paid guys in the building.

 

The opening talk featured Rory Sutherland, and we can say it, he rocked the party!

He gave a very smart (and fun) talk on why we should focus on user experience « in a world where we have to pretend that everything makes sense ».

He showed that video where they put Ed Sheran in a 2$ peep show with a creepy sales-guy on the driveway trying to get people in. Even though these people would very likely pay 100$ tickets to live the experience of an Ed Sheran’s show, they won’t enter for 2$ dollars private show since the user experience was terrible.

This analogy was very easy to understand in our digital marketing jobs. We have to make « people marketing » not « spreadsheet marketing ». We usually spend more time analyzing data and tweaking algorithm/automation rather than write new ad copies or create new banners right?

Very often, the most effective way to increase conversions is to increase conversion rates by providing a better user experience, not just throwing more budget in the machine.

 

Forget shiny objects. A « store-visit » story.

 

Agencies used to jump on last marketing shiny objects but tend to forget the incremental value. Don’t get us wrong, research and testing is a very important part of the process. As Rory Sutherland mentioned in his presentation, luck and irrationality matter too.

Store-visit is one of these stories. After a speech about bridging the gap between online marketing and offline behavior, the Q&A has been very interesting but the conclusions stayed the same :

• Revenue could be bad on a PPC or shopping campaign be could have a positive impact on store visits

• A very good ROI campaign won’t necessarily impact in-store traffic.

• In-store results are extrapolation.

• We can’t split organic and paid “go-to store”.

• Incrementality is very hard to measure.

« Trust the tech and let it be » was the final word.

We can’t really agree with that….

 

Conclusion: Where are PPC managers going in 2020?

 

As Fred Valleys mentioned, as digital marketers today, we are PPC doctors. Taking context into consideration to provide the best treatment. We are also PPC pilots, managing auto-pilot for 95% of the flight and putting hands on the bar for the most important moments or if something is going wrong.

The PPC manager role is evolving. We used to crunch numbers in spreadsheets and make manual changes in slow tools. The role is evolving towards settings goals/KPI’s, picking automation and monitor them, teaching the machines and troubleshooting as well as leveraging insights across platforms.

• We have to challenge tech and ad tech. Not blindly follow it to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies.

• We have to challenge ourselves as marketers. Cut the bullshit, place user experience in a central position, look at the big picture and think “incrementality”.

• We have to challenge our organizations. Stop working in silo’s, think about integrated marketing and open communication and reporting.

But most importantly, we have to use our common sense more than ever. As things are evolving so fast, there is no time for the status quo.

Thanks again to all the speakers and special shout out the staff for making this event possible. The app to interact with the speaker was great. Following these events allow us at Clicktrust to be on top of what’s going on and try to find answers to help our clients and partners to overcome the hurdles about their digital marketing journey in a world in constant evolution.

The CLICKTRUST monthly pick – September 2019

News and articles that allow us to stay on top of our game. You might want to read them too.

Data & Privacy

It’s Time For Consumer Choice In The Value Exchange For Content

– Adexchanger

“After 25 years of the commercial internet, two things are clear: People understand the internet, and publishers must be paid for the services they provide. The best path forward isn’t to infantilize the consumer by deciding for them in the name of protection. It’s to let consumers choose the value exchange that they prefer.”

The Demise Of Third-Party Cookies Means Brands And Publishers Must Get Closer To Consumers

– Adexchanger

“While the ramifications are quite serious for many stakeholders, these browser changes will hardly limit the practice of targeted advertising. They simply provide compelling new incentives for both publishers and marketers to move toward a targeting infrastructure built on first-party data acquired through a clear and transparent value exchange.

This is not a problem that can be solved by adding new layers of ad tech. The current landscape of identity solutions is fragmented and labyrinthine. If you name a supply-side platform or DSP, they’ve partnered with a different source to help fuel their ID business. While this new technological layer may seem to solve a short-term problem, it’s only creating a larger gap between the walled gardens and everyone else.”

Publishers Are Abandoning First-Gen DMPs

– Adexchanger

“The reasons are manifold: First-generation DMPs use cookies as their foundation, meaning publishers are seeing huge deteriorations in scale as more cookies are blocked or require consent. DMPs also failed to deliver on the promise to lure in data-hungry buyers, who weren’t interested or weren’t ready to incorporate publisher data. And the tech created more work than publishers were prepared for, meaning expensive DMP investments didn’t generate the promised ROI.”

There’s An Upside To Sharing Our Data

– Adexchanger

“Marketers want to stitch together a narrative about their brand’s performance using impression data from owned, earned and paid media. We desire access to common metrics across all data platforms. We want access to data – which resides within platforms and walled gardens, publishers and media companies and advertiser-owned digital properties – because this information will help reduce media waste and lead to better-informed business decisions.
What if there was a way to share standardized data – in a privacy-compliant way that protects valued customers and respects emerging regulations – while opening up a wealth of valuable data insights?”

Google: Organic, Ads & Analytics

Google’s Ad Business Undergoes Massive Reorganization

– Adexchanger

“As part of the reorg, he’s re-visualizing the company as four “concentric circles.” The innermost circle is Google’s owned-and-operated properties, including search and YouTube. The next circle outside of that is Google’s buy-side and sell-side businesses. The two outermost circles span the organization: measurement and privacy.
Google’s network business is in the strange position of being powerful externally but disempowered internally. Externally, it faces complaints from competitors who see it dominating the market – which Hsiao recently denied in a blog post. But internally, its overall revenue importance has slowly diminished. Back in 2010, the network business comprised 30% of Google’s revenue. In the latest earnings, it was just 14% of its revenue – and that’s before it paid out 70% of that revenue to its partners.“

Soapbox: ‘Intent’ should be every marketer’s #1 obsession

– Search Engine Land

“Google’s ranking algorithm might remain a mystery, but it’s always surprising to me that all marketers don’t rally around the same important concept as the most crucial of all: intent. By “intent,” I mean both user intent and what I call “creation intent.” That is, we should always be focused on what people are looking for and why we’re creating something because where those two elements meet is where the most successful content lies. Don’t get me wrong: There are other important elements, of course, like quality backlinks and keyword optimization, which can greatly boost your chance of ranking highly.”

Search query reports show a huge increase in Google close variant traffic

– Search Engine Land

“Close variant performance can vary by advertiser, campaign, keyword and specific close variant match. While most advertisers see these matches convert at meaningfully lower rates than true exact matches for non-brand keywords, some actually see higher conversion rate from close variants looking at this comparison account-wide. However, there’s likely no account where close variants are so relevant and tightly related to all the keywords being triggered that advertisers should simply allow them to take their course.”

September Updates to Paid Advertising Platforms

-PPC Hero

“Accelerated delivery to be removed in favor of Standard Delivery
Add store visit to Smart Bidding
Instagram testing Shopping Posts as Ads
Search Ads 360 introduces auction-time bidding for Google Search Campaigns”

Facebook & Instagram

The Rise of Social Commerce – and What it Means for Your Brand

– Social Media Today

“With more social platforms looking to integrate direct, on-platform selling tools, social commerce looks to be the next major retail shift.”

#SMTLive Recap: Facebook’s Recent Updates

– Social Media Today

“Even people outside the social media marketing sphere have heard about all the changes coming to Facebook over the past few weeks. From the Facebook news tab, to Instagram and Facebook removing total like counts, to the Instagram scheduling option on Creator Studio, to ad targeting restrictions, these massive updates have been kind of hard to miss.”