Saturday Bits & Bytes | 032324
Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Interpretation, Calvinist Thought, and Religion in America (Ep. 207)
On the continuing denigration of John Calvin:
The cure, of course, is to read Calvin, which no one does, and the reason no one does is because they think they know what they’ll find. It’s very self-perpetuating from that point of view when a negative reputation is established.
Once you get a reputation it is hard to shake. And you’re rarely in control of the reputation you get.
This is especially true if you’re challenging the status quo.
5 charts on how third-party cookie deprecation will change ad buys
AI will turbocharge contextual targeting of all kinds.
Demographics are dead (& generations are garbage).
Microsoft Buying Ads On Google Search To Drive More Searches On Bing
When you click on the ad in Google Search, you are taken to the Bing Search results for that query.
I kind of love this strategy.
TikTok’s algorithm has always been a black box. But researchers are finally figuring it out
According to the study’s findings, between 30% and 50% of the first 1,000 videos TikTok users encounter are exploiting their past interests. Recommended videos are driven by a number of factors, most importantly whether the user liked a similar video, as well as who they follow on the platform. Fewer seem to be driven by the percentage of the video a user watched.
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different users have very different experiences and/or are sort of treated differently by the algorithm
The algorithm is evolving. The importance of watch time may be diminishing as the pool of data deepens.
The one constant with any of the platform algorithms is that they change.
Spotify Is Launching New Ad Studio Product
Powered by a model which analyzes behavioral signals, Podcast Streams takes campaigns beyond standard targeting to reach engaged audiences who are more likely to listen to podcasts.
Limited to podcasts…for now?
I expect to see more targeting options like this across platforms as AI becomes further ingrained.
Post by @dsqtView on Threads
Friday Bits & Bytes | 032224
Evolving Google Analytics for more insightful measurement
To make it easier to compare these actions across platforms, we are aligning how conversions are defined across Google Ads and Analytics to give you a consistent view of your Google advertising performance. With that, we are introducing key events in Google Analytics that will replace what currently exists as conversions for behavioral analytics.
Say what? A “conversion” in GA4 was not measured the same as a “conversion” in Google Ads, which is…confusing.
Now (or soon, it’s still rolling out) in GA4, what had been called “conversions” are now “key events”. Conversions will appear in the Advertising reports section and match what is in Google Ads.
From Google:
- Event = measure specific interactions or occurrences on your website or app
- Key Event = measure an event that you mark as important to your business
- Conversion = measure performance of your ad campaigns and optimize bidding
If you want to know more, this video is the best resource on it I’ve seen from Google so far.
How to write a landing page that converts
Purchase Rate = Desire - (Labor + Confusion)
To increase the purchase rate, increase the visitor’s desire to purchase while decreasing their labor (effort) and confusion
translate features into the value they’ll get from using it. And proactively handle any objections they might have.
Provide no-brainer value and make it easy.
Copywriting Friday: What part of France are you from?
To increase conversions, we need to understand and remove the objections that are stopping qualified prospects.
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Look for these three types of objections: obvious, embarrassing, and assumed. Then use your best salespeople to help you craft the strongest counter-objections.
Think about your services or processes: Which of them might you combine into a named system that implies the work is being done for your customer?
I’m looking forward to using the “Objection/Counter-Objection” method in a project soon.
Concrete language boosts sales.
from the Nudge newsletter
Specific, tangible language significantly increases customer satisfaction and spending.
Use clear, concrete language.
Easy to understand. Hard to confuse.
February Marks a Turnaround for Existing Home Sales
Sick of waiting for the Federal Reserve to make a move, home buyers and sellers seem to be accepting the market for what it is.
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In February, contracts closed on roughly 4.4 million existing homes, an increase of 9.5% from the month prior
The median existing-home sales price elevated to $384,500, the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year price gains. However, the sales prices across all US homes jumped only 0.6% from January to February, which resembles pre-pandemic trends
Changes in the housing market can have far reaching ripples.
On Top Social Media Referral Traffic Sources
YouTube is a sleeping giant—it’s not just a TikTok competitor or a Netflix competitor or a search competitor or a Spotify competitor.
SEO as we know it is about the change dramatically. How do you keyword stuff for an LLM? How do you get discovered via chat but not give away all your content? How many search channels do you optimize for in a post-10 blue links world?
Just remember, don’t go out and try ramping up the top 4 or 6 or 10 right away. Find the channels that match your abilities, align with your brand approach, and are actually a place you want to invest your time.
Being everywhere rarely helps.
Being engaged where your audience is always helps.
see this post on LinkedIn
Tuesday Marketing Links | 031924
IN AN ERA OF COLLABORATION SATURATION, HOW DO BRANDS STAND OUT?
71% of people agree that the story you tell around a collaboration is just as important as the final product.
Every market is saturated now.
How’s your story?
When influencer overexcitement backfires
Overexcited language (e.g. “LOVE THIS!”) increases engagement for micro-influencers by 38% but reduces it for macro-influencers by 31%.
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Generally, we’re suspicious if it looks like someone’s trying to persuade us. When content is informative, rather than promotional, it builds trust and makes us less suspicious that it’s an attempt to persuade us.
People are advertising savvy these days, respect that.
Consumers spend more with digital wallets
Consumers who use digital wallets spend 31% more than non-users across a range of categories
The disparity in wallet use across income brackets suggests that—at least in part—larger digital wallet sales are the product of digital wallet users having more disposable income than non-users.
The more abstracted the transfer of money becomes, the easier it is to spend.
Facebook is reviving one of its earliest features after hiding it for years
Facebook is bringing back the Poke, and, apparently, Gen Z is loving it.
Maybe the biggest trend really is nostalgia for a slightly earlier time.
As technology advanced we became increasingly more like computers—adapting to their way of working, of interfacing.
The promise of AI is that could open up the path to allow us to become more human again.
It's A Metric!: First Time Impression Ratio
Today’s metric is one I just learned about: First Time Impression Ratio (FTIR)
According to Meta, FTIR is:
The percentage of your daily impressions that comes from people seeing your ad set for the first time.
FTIR = Reach / Impressions
The lower your FTIR, the higher your frequency.
This matters because you can’t survive on “moment of conversion” traffic alone. Such a small sliver of any platform’s user base is in-market for your given offer at any one moment that you should run campaigns to gain brand awareness (this is why you need both brand and performance marketing (and yes, smaller budgets can put these considerations on hold)).
Attention is gold.
A member of the Foxwell Digital community uncovered an interesting FTIR trend:
a dramatic decline from approximately 60-70% to 10-25% over the past 6-12 months [as of March 2024].
This drop suggests a saturation point where the same audiences are being reached repeatedly, leading to what can be termed as ‘audience fatigue,’ rather than just ad fatigue.
The root causes identified include a lack of creative differentiation, reduced influencer marketing budgets, and underinvestment in emerging platforms
A metric on its own isn’t very helpful, but First Time Impression Rate + Frequency could be a useful combo in your budget allocation and performance analysis arsenal when auditing your social accounts.
Disguised as a post about a Substack feature is a reminder that:
- Most new platform features are attempts at moat building
- You don’t have to use every bell & whistle
- You can treat social media as a public journal that you repurpose elsewhere later