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Google Ad Strength: Garbage or Nah?
PPC experts are saying Google’s Ad Strength metric is garbage.
Google says:
Ad Strength is at the centre of what we’re trying to do is because creative is going to be incredibly important, and Ad Strength is going to be the mechanism which we use to evaluate that both in Performance Max and channels like search.
Kraham went on to explain that Ad Strength assesses the breadth and depth of assets within a campaign before assigning a rating. According to Google, breadth and depth of assets is crucial for reaching users across various channels, including SERPs, video display, and other creative opportunities. Google prioritizes breadth and depth of assets as it ensures campaigns are well-equipped to engage users effectively across different platforms and formats.
Putting on my assumption hat (👒), the quality of your creative determines your results. The quantity (“breadth and depth”) determines your reach (amplification, as I like to think of it).
The easier you make it for Google to place your ad in all the placement options they have, the more likely they are to choose your ad in the auction (many other algorithmic signals being equal). That means maxing out the:
- 15 images
- 5 logos (5?!)
- 5 videos (make sure you have vertical!)
- 5 headlines
- 5 long headlines
- 1 short description
- 4 long descriptions
(ad specs if you need them)
Part of our job as digital marketers is to be algorithm wranglers, feeding the robots.
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No matter what you think about Ad Strength, heed this advice:
one of things you need to be aware of is Google’s recommendations are not necessarily the best things for your account
These recommendations are not personalized for your account. And are typically based on Very Large Accounts.
Zig vs. Zag
Lucky vs. Repeatable
It’s so important to know the difference between the two when attempting to learn from someone. You want to try to emulate skills that are repeatable. Attempting to copy the parts of someone’s success that aren’t repeatable is equivalent to a 56-year-old dressing like a teenager and expecting to be cool.
via Collab Fund
A common practice in marketing is to look at competitors and inspirational/aspirational brands to benchmark—harvest ideas, uncover keywords, see what’s working. But it’s hard to figure out what we can repeat-like trying to reverse engineer virality.
We’re only seeing the finished product. We don’t know the process. This is the “overnight success” myth. The success is only overnight to those that weren’t doing all the work to make it happen.
you have 20 years to write your first album and you have six months to write your second one.
The returns diminish with each additional mover.
The first movers do it, then everyone does it. When everyone does it, it doesn’t work as well.
via Marketing Against the Grain podcast (📼 / ~15:24)
Timing is luck. Virality is luck. Catching a person in the perfect moment for your message to resonate is luck.
Delivering value is repeatable. One core, consistent, coherent brand message is repeatable (that’s kind of the point). Being where your customers are is repeatable (and also kind of luck).
Coming up with the slogan “Red Bull gives you wings” is lucky. Sticking with it for decades is repeatable.
When benchmarking, spend less time focusing on what your gaps and more on theirs. What channels are underused? What tones of voice are avoided? What value adds or selling points are missing?
It’s easier to build a repeatable practice in a place with low competition than it is to get lucky in a place with high competition.
Or, trying zigging when others zag once in a while.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss which digital behaviors Hispanic Americans over-index on, how they get their news, and what advertisers should consider when trying to reach and market to these folks.
Recommended listen.
And a good reminder that many shorthands we use to aggregate groups of people aren’t helpful for much outside the census (like generations, which are garbage).
Shiny New Ad Toys
Walmart
it is opening up Walmart Connect to brands that have not traditionally sold their products in its stores, such as automotive and financial marketers – known as “no-endemic” marketers.
Another page from the Amazon ad playbook?
Plus:
- Brand search terms (yours or competitors)
- More offline sales tracking
- More self-serve options, including in-store placements like the TV wall
- Taking the partner program (Roku, TikTok) wider
Retail media could be a big winner of the cookiepocalypse if its reach can extend beyond classic retail use cases (like advertising a car to someone shopping for a car battery instead of just more parts sold via the retailer).
Microsoft
This month’s top story: Maximize conversion value bid strategy is now available for search and shopping search campaigns
Plus:
- Microsoft Click ID (is this really new?)
- something something AI
- A new hotel tool means the old hotel tool is getting the hook
via Microsoft
Advertisers can add CTV to their LinkedIn campaigns through a network of partners that includes Paramount, Roku and Samsung Ads.
In addition to LinkedIn’s self-service Campaign Manager, the company also has a managed offering, LinkedIn Premiere via its partnership with NBCUniversal
Ad surprise of the year so far? Benefits of being part of the Microsoft ecosystem.
via MarTech
Google is testing a new format for search ads, the ads go in a slider or carousel that let you swipe through various ads, instead of scrolling past them.
The carousel looks a lot like the new Arc Search look for links from summary pages. Imagine it’s top 1.5 slots or bust for clickthrough and performance with this layout.
Chase (?(!))
This week, JPMorgan Chase launched Chase Media Solutions, its new digital media business. It’s the first bank-led media platform, allowing advertisers to send relevant promotions to some 80 million financial customers.
Any aggregator with first-party data in the post-cookie world could become a media network, Chase’s performance may open the floodgates.
Chase’s advantage is transactional first-party data, which allows brands and agencies to target based on purchase history… Chase customers have purchase histories across retailers and other businesses they buy from.
The immediate winners will be those closest to purchase. With time this could become the new paradigm (along with AI-powered contextual advertising).
via MarTech
Finished reading: The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers 📚
AI and the Complexity of Loss - blog.rinesi.com
Highly recommended for anyone interested in the more technical side of AI.
And a quote that extends beyond AI:
not aggressive enough — you use tame optimization algorithms in contexts where you could learn radically new processes through wildly more creative ones with nothing more at risk that a short-term drop in a dashboard only you and your manager care about.
Doing things “the way they’ve always been done” or “the way everyone else is doing them” usually means results a little less than before or others.
Take (acceptable) risks.
Apple Car is dead, meet Apple Robot?
With robotics, Apple could gain a bigger foothold in consumers’ homes and capitalize on advances in artificial intelligence. But it’s not yet clear what approach it might take. Though the robotic smart display is much further along than the mobile bot, it has been added and removed from the company’s product road map over the years, according to the people.
This makes more sense than the car project. And suggests confidence in their AI progress and plan. But feels theoretical at this point.
via Bloomberg
March’s job numbers are in:
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 303,000 in March, and the unemployment rate changed little at 3.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, government, and construction.
via BLS
Sounds like Google is kicking the tires on an acquisition of HubSpot.
This is a really interesting listen on how it fits into their plans:
Audio. Always.
Podcasting deserves a larger role in media plans as opposed to “test and learn” experimental buys. 135 million Americans, 47% of persons 12+, are reached monthly.
…
Adopt agency media legend Arnie Semsky’s “5% solution” to podcasts: Allocate 5% of digital ad budgets to podcasts.
Why?
Among 18-34s, podcast reach is now as big as TV
&
Podcast 18-49 weekly reach is 80% of linear TV
&
Podcast female audience growth has been explosive
&
via Westwood One
retail media networks could be a driver for programmatic audio as the next essential advertising channel
…
A Million Ads global CRO Paul Kelly says audio enables retailers to deliver an audience-centric experience, focusing not just on who the audience is but also where they are in the life cycle of the purchase.
One of my rules for the year: audio always.
Anyone trying to garner attention these days is essentially a media entity. This means owned media channels are important (and I think will only become more important over the next few years).
One way to grow this capability is to Acquire media assets to grow your brand.
The marketing function of a company today demands the same or more of a media company.
Editorial blogs, professional-grade podcasts, YouTube channels, curated newsletters, pop culture social media.
Marketing today demands brand.
Build your brand on assets you control, distribute it via channels you don’t.
The AI search engine Perplexity is going to start testing ads
Related questions, which include links to sources, account for 40% of Perplexity’s queries. So Perplexity plans to add relevant, related brand-sponsored questions along with organic questions.
Since ads in AI engines hasn’t been cracked yet, it’ll be interesting to see how these fare. 🔮?
Plus it gives me an excuse to share this quote from the founder:
Ads are not evil. When ads are done right it’s amazing, and generative AI is going to help us build even better targeting.
Make better ads.
A Brand is Empty, then Full
A new brand is an empty vessel.
The meaning doesn’t come from the name or the logo, but from what you fill it up with.
Your drive. Your reason for existing. Your core belief. Your brand experience.
“Just Do It” means more than the strict definition those words when Nike is attached. Red Bull doesn’t literally give you wings. Buying an Apple doesn’t magically make you Think Different.
When we bring a brand to the world, it’s rare indeed that people are okay with it having nothing inside. The wrapper matters, but so does the experience within.
Your brand may be hollow when it lives only as a final design file, but it better not be when you launch. Just make sure to leave room for what your fans want to fill it with too.
The premise is that creators make content for a brand, but instead of living solely on social media channels, that content lives in 15- and 30-second spots on ad-supported streaming platforms.
Interesting concept. Creators scale up their reach, brands scale down their production.
Creators and AI (and their ethos) will increasingly become studios.
Ad meets word of mouth meets social proof meets celebrity endorsement.
And social media eats the world.
via Digiday
Social media is a major gatekeeper at this point—the other one is search—so if you’re building a strategy that would be reliant on social media, I would just ask that publisher “why?” given the fact that the rules of engagement can change on you immediately.
Don’t confuse channels of amplification and distribution for your foundation and infrastructure.
via The Daily podcast from eMarketer