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Media Ad Tips
Don’t Fear Bumping Cost Caps
Don’t let the fear of bumping up the cost for an ad keep you from doing it. Sometimes it’s not only about needing more creative but adding in some necessary costs.
Yasmin has encountered some nervousness about increasing caps in order to drive spend in an ad that’s not performing. We encouraged her to bump the cost cap if it was needed.
Product Specific Cost Caps
Arshiya was running a sku specific full-funnel campaign on cost caps, and it wasn’t spending. “I was going over my structure with Naveen, and my AOV for that product was much lower than the AOV for the full account. That’s why this campaign in particular was being disfavored versus the other products in the account”.
“Running on Auto”
Arshi had to explain that running campaigns on auto means running on the lowest cost. Don’t be afraid to ask your team questions when you don’t understand something.
Use Google Data Studio to Track and Share- Use Google Data studio to incorporate creative learning and reporting.
Crystal: I’ve been collaborating within team Gr8ful to share data and information with each other. We’re using Google data studio to report on top ads, and we’re building out better tracking methodology to share tests that we’ve been running.
Prospecting Vs Remarketing
Don’t expect to use the same ideas to get better results.
Naveen: In multiple meetings I encountered conversation related to running the same ad in prospecting and marketing. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Using the same ads for both sets of customers is missing an opportunity to target customers at a specific step in their journey
Test and Scale Copy
A little bit of copy can go a long way. Coming off of exercises with the buyers, Jarrett tested a set of very different copy and watched the DCT take off. Then he took the highest performer and put it into a static ad, which quickly took up 90% of spend and sent their revenue to record levels.
Evolve Through Experimentation
There are three new things we’ve tried this week:
- Paid Media Roadmap – Figuring out how we create more capacity on that team, and let the buyers do more of the big-picture strategic work. This us to try new things with contracting that are very promising.
- ADmission – Opening up ADmission for 14 days free has really paid off in recurring membership revenue.
- 4×400 Landing Page Funnel Efficiency – Doing this in ways that doesn’t necessarily require a dev has opened our eyes to how we can do this across CTC as well.
Boldly experiment, then double-down on what works (and let go what doesn’t).
Seize the Moment with Teamwork
Our expert paid search buyers fought tiny battles and as a result our conversation and google adds went up significantly. Teamwork across the company is necessary to keep this work firing on all cylinders
Our click volume in Google Ads is up 50%. Our conversion volume is up 30%. Both of those things are happening while maintaining ROAS and CPA. We’re leaning into this, buying our way into it, and capturing market share for our clients.
Organize Campaigns
Follow the guidance here to organize your campaigns:
- 4 Golden Rules for Buyers- Always Be Testing – when things are going well is a great time to test.
- If it’s Not Broke Don’t Fix It – if you’re currently crushing it, make small and iterative changes to improve, but don’t fundamentally change things.
- Don’t Be an Emotional Buyer – especially in tough times, don’t react emotionally to what’s going on in the market.
- Think About It, the Do It – have a plan and metrics for success before you make a change. Take a scientific approach to everything you’re doing.
Simplify Variables when Testing
As many of us have learned the hard way, the more variables that you’re testing the longer it takes to learn. If you’re starting an account for a newer product, have limited cash to spend, or need a quick turnaround on learning, then reduce the number of variables. That means fewer creative options, fewer ads, fewer ad-sets, fewer campaigns. Start small and simple, learn quickly, and build iteratively. Don’t try to boil the ocean with a ton of options from the outset.
Make the Map
Data derived from growth maps can help the team steer in a certain direction.
Aaron W, Taylor, Scott, Grant, and Iain have been spending a lot of time on Growth Maps. From the GGs and the Buyers: the statistics and the data that is coming off of these maps are important to every single department in figuring out the best direction to go in, what creatives to make, and how to manage spend. It’s going to impact every line of business that we have, so don’t sleep on Growth Maps.
Don’t let Terms Keep you Confused
Don’t know what something means? Ask!
The term “evergreen” is anything that is a non-sale ad that runs year-round without specific sale messaging.
Don’t always assume that everyone knows something you don’t. Ask the questions that everyone is wondering.
Shared by Arshiya Kherani.
Keep Perspective with Data
Keep tabs on the data!
Trent built a new Facebook report with all of our client spend. It shows that ROAS has held fairly consistent, costs and traffic have gone up a bit, but it’s not the dramatic situation that many people had predicted.
Don’t Let the Perfect Be the Enemy
There’s a lot going on in the paid media department, and Caitlin is learning to let go of the notion of perfection and figuring everything out up front. The key is to be OK with moving forward and solving for things as they come. Getting started with YouTube, outsourcing, and TikTok rather than waiting around for the perfect plan has been successful so far, and we’re looking forward to more.
TikTok contains a huge and growing audience, about 30-40% of which isn’t on Instagram or Facebook. LET’S GO!
Test and Scale Copy
A little bit of copy can go a long way. Coming off of exercises with the buyers, Jarrett tested a set of very different copy and watched the DCT take off. Then he took the highest performer and put it into a static ad, which quickly took up 90% of spend and sent their revenue to record levels.
Transparency
Financials:Currently pacing for 158k May net profit vs. 273k plan, so about 100k to go to plan. We have several contracts and acceleration opportunities out, so there’s a good chance to take a big chunk out of that this week.
Cross-Functional Projects are Challenging: without a centralized operations role, we need to continue to find ways to reach “across the aisle” and make processes work across departments.
Reasons for Optimism: Renewed and upgrade Alala, upgraded supply and pushed back the opt-out, added some landing page work, added Google to Crown and Paw, and added 4 expert Google clients. Creative funnel is generating leads, and we have around 300 people registered for our creative webinar.
Sell into Stimulus- Did the stimulus checks have an impact on spending? We tracked data across 20 accounts for one day.
For daily average revenue across the same 20 accounts, we’ve been tracking this whole time, it now looks like this …
- Sat (3/7)-Thurs (3/12): $138,619.75
- Sat (3/14)-Thurs (3/19): $137,011.64
- Sat (3/21)-Thurs (3/26): $162,928.89
- Sat (3/28)-Thurs (4/2): $228,212.55
- Sat (4/4)-Thurs (4/9): $227,807.61
- Sat (4/11)-Thurs (4/16): $320,053.35
This performance data is so insanely good it’s almost unbelievable. This is the cumulative impact of effort all across the company.
Follow the PMB Process in Asana
We’ve reworked the Asana process for PMBs to make operations simpler, smoother, and more efficient, including the client approval process. For more, check out the documentation:
Creatives ASANA Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12KQXrVd-9fpX5cWl7MwMFWQLFZpWZ4Qz1y-ssqFiJ8w/edit#
Client Facing ASANA Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mMrONcHlBOOQ7PHpqln1v3PvxoyYz1bXZc9L5w6B95o/edit#heading=h.tg5y5fa3hav1
Garbage In Garbage Out
Justin has been heavily using automated rules to try to drive bid behaviors. He unexpectedly discovered that the changes driven by the rules can push an ad set back into learning. So yes, make use of our robot overlords, but make sure you’re keeping careful tabs on them.