Why Google’s Predictive Audiences Feature Matters to Advertisers

Why Google’s Predictive Audiences Feature Matters to Advertisers

by Héctor Ariza Analytics

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is more than an upgrade to Universal Analytics (UA). GA4 is a whole new analytics solution available now. Businesses should switch from from Universal Analytics (UA) to GA4 now in order to capitalize on GA4’s many features such as Predictive Audiences in Google Ads campaigns. Predictive Audiences relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to drive better results than currently possible with UA.

What Is Predictive Audiences?

Predictive Audiences makes it possible to classify users who are likely to perform an action in the near future based on a predictive metric. For example, a business might build an audience for “likely 7-day purchasers” that includes users who are likely to make a purchase in the next 7 days; or “likely 7-day churning users” for purchasing users who are not likely to visit your website in the next 7 days, just to cite two examples.

Audience data

Predictive Audiences are automatically shared with any Google Ads accounts you have linked to your property.

AI is not new to Google Analytics. UA properties have Smart Lists, which are audiences Google automatically builds using machine learning. However, Smart Lists are much more limited than the new Predictive Audiences available in GA4. Whereas Smart Lists are not customizable by advertisers, Predictive Audiences can be built with custom traffic/activity filters, as well as a membership duration that is anywhere between 1 and 540 days.

What Are Some Applications of Predictive Audiences?

With Predictive Audiences, an advertiser can improve marketing campaigns to target users before they take an action, potentially increasing conversions. For instance:

  • As remarketing audiences. A shopper who is considering your product but not ready to become a customer is a hot lead. For example, someone who has added a product to a shopping cart but has not yet made a purchase might be ready to buy, but they also might be checking out the competition. It’s important that the merchant act on those leads – to strike while the iron is hot. GA4 uses machine learning to find deep patterns of behavior that are unique to your property and show that a user is likely to convert. A persuasive follow-up from you via a well-crafted remarketing campaign can provide that last nudge they need to complete the process.
  • In re-engagement campaigns. Shoppers who are likely to churn are signaling a waning interest in your business. But they have also previously demonstrated engagement with your business. Why give up on them? Predictive Audiences makes it possible to approach them again with reminders of the value you offer in terms of product variety, quality, and price, or convenient shipping and return options.

Analytics

Why Does Predictive Audiences Matter?

Predictive Audiences illustrates how Google is using machine learning to understand future actions of a user. This gives marketers more ways to reach potential customers and increase revenue. When a machine teaches itself with minimal programming needed, it can ingest vast sets of consumer data and use it to determine things such as the best times to send emails or to run an ad. Proponents say machine learning can identify the clients or customers that would be most receptive to given messages.

Google continues to invest in machine learning to make marketing more effective. However, we caution against simply automating advertising. Human judgment is needed to ensure that a marketing campaign is adaptable and flexible as the behavior of users changes.

How Does an Advertiser Get Started with Predictive Analytics?

Availability of Predictive Audiences depends on the underlying predictive metrics being eligible for use by meeting all prerequisites. If you have exported Predictive Audiences to linked product accounts, those audiences will not accumulate new users if the property becomes ineligible for the predictive metric and new predictions are not generated. Google shares more insight on how to use suggested audience templates to create your own audiences with conditions based on those predictions.

Getting started with Predictive Analytics is but one of many steps an advertiser will need take in order to make the transition to GA4. Don’t wait until July 2023 to get ready. Only by acting now will an advertiser prepare itself to capitalize on the new features available in GA4.

True Interactive can help you do that. Read more about GA4 in this blog post.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. We design and develop successful marketing and advertising campaigns and know how to track results, including the use of Google. Read about some of our client work here.

Photo by Hannah Wei on Unsplash

Consumer Behavior Underscores the Value of Analytics

Consumer Behavior Underscores the Value of Analytics

by Mark Smith Analytics

How does an advertiser reach consumers this summer?

On the one hand, consumers say they are living more frugally amid inflation. More than half of consumers surveyed by Numerator said that inflation and high gas prices are affecting how they celebrate major holidays such as July 4. Many are scaling back their spending. They say they’re eating out less, spending less money on decorations and fireworks, and spending less on food for holiday cookouts.

But on the other hand, consumers are opening up their pocketbooks on expensive choices such as summer travel. Airports are overwhelmed with people traveling all over the world. People have been so tired of being cooped up during the pandemic that “revenge travel” is a phenomenon in the summer of 2022, even as the cost of flying has increased.

In fact, as The Wall Street Journal reports, there’s been a surge in travel, concert going, and entertainment throughout the year as pandemic restrictions ease and people continue to get vaccinated, which makes them more confident to be in crowded spaces such as concerts.

A paradox has emerged: consumers are reluctant to spend money in some areas but are happy to do so in others.

Mind Your Analytics

For advertisers, the shifting sands of consumer behavior suggest that they need to pay very close attention to analytics. Data-driven decisions have never been more essential. For instance, search behavior is even more important than ever. Google Search has always been a barometer of consumer purchase intent, and it continues to be. For instance, in the days leading up to July 4 as I wrote this post, Google said that searches for inflatable tent houses and water balloon launchers were trending alongside affordable sports bras, suggesting an interest in affordable, at-home fun and fitness during the holidays.

In addition, your own mileage may vary depending on the type of consumer you are interested in. For example, the Numerator survey indicates that younger generations are more likely to spend more during holiday events, which makes sense: younger generations in general are more willing to spend money on experiences instead of material things.

Analytics do not exist in a vacuum. They need to be applied across a variety of formats – say, text-based ads versus video – and platforms (ranging from Google to Amazon to Pinterest) depending on where your customers spend their time and how they spend their time (e.g., doing searches with intent to buy versus more casual searches for ideas that may or may not be related to a purchase).

To cite one example: recently one of our clients experienced a challenge: its share of branded search was dropping. The client, a photo curating and sharing company, naturally wanted to improve. So, we launched a video-based awareness campaign that spanned display, YouTube, Google Display Network, connected TV, Yahoo Online Video, Facebook, and Yahoo Display. Our focus: mobile and connected TV. We also ensured that YouTube ads could target connected TV screens.

We tested different video ad formats with a large audience (women aged 25-54) with the purpose of hitting as many eyes as possible. That’s because the brand’s low levels of search volume told us that it lacked brand awareness more broadly. Targeting an audience would have been premature. Analytics helped us manage a successful campaign while keeping CPMs down. (Read more about that project here.)

We recommend advertisers take an agile approach with analytics, constantly testing and learning from consumer behaviors as they change quickly in response to important variables such as inflation. In addition, manage your analytics closely. As widely reported, by July 2023, Google Analytics 4 will replace the current version of the popular web analytics service, known as Universal Analytics (UA), and advertisers need to prepare now.

Contact True Interactive

At True Interactive, we manage our clients’ campaigns with a robust knowledge of analytics (as discussed here). We interpret the story that numbers tell. We happily work tirelessly to centralize, aggregate, segment and analyze your data, ultimately sharing insights with you in these ways. contact us to learn more.

Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/YNaSz-E7Qss

How Google Insights Helps Advertisers Make Better Decisions

How Google Insights Helps Advertisers Make Better Decisions

by Héctor Ariza Analytics

One of the many challenges businesses have faced in 2020 is customizing marketing campaigns for changing consumer behavior. Who could have predicted that during the pandemic we’d see a surge in people interested in puzzles and puppies, or that a Netflix miniseries would have inspired an intense interest in chess? For years, many businesses have relied on keyword search tools to anticipate consumer preferences based on their searches. But Google recently launched something better: the Google Insights Page.

The Insights page, in beta, makes it easier for a business to explore emerging trends based on Google trending topics. Google cites the example of how an outdoor retailer might see insights on the rising demand for tents during times when consumers gear up for more outdoor adventures. Over the same period, a vacation rental company might see a surge in demand for cabins.

This function might sound familiar to you if you use Google Trends to research trending topics that people are searching on Google. But Google Trends is a manual, standalone tool. Google Insights goes much further by offering more functionality to a business. As Google notes on its Help page, Google curates Insights for your business based on your account performance and searches across Google for the products and services you show ads for.

Insights update daily. A business can check back frequently for new insights that may appear. Per Google:

  • Get insights tailored to your business: the Insights page looks for trends across Google that are relevant to the products and services that you advertise.
  • Understand your performance: drill into each insight to more detailed information about your account’s performance and new areas of potential opportunity.
  • Act on recommendations: Insights are integrated with account Recommendations, making it easy to take action.

Search trend insights help you to understand the search interest for products and services relevant to your business. You can use search trends to respond to shifts in search demand by identifying potential growth opportunities for your business.

Insights not only tells you what is trending but it also tells you how those trends will affect your performance – such as how many clicks you can expect to get from your current keyword coverage. You cannot get that kind of reporting from search tools such as Moz or SEMRush.

At True Interactive, we’re already using Insights for our clients, such as in higher education, an industry that is rapidly changing during the pandemic. Here’s a screenshot that shows the level of detail in the reporting we get from the tool:

Google Trends dashboard

In the above example, I didn’t need to do a manual search to see what types of topics are trending in the education space. Insights told me. In addition, Google Insights suggested how we might want to adapt our keyword bid strategy accordingly.

Using Google Insights with Explanations

Insights can be especially useful when you combine it with other Google ad tools. For instance, consider how you might use Insights along with Explanations, which helps you understand changes in your ad performance based on variables such as your campaign settings and auction activity. Let’s say Explanations tells me that impressions are falling for a particular brand campaign. Digging deeper, I might realize I added some negative keywords that are excluding some searches. When I look at Insights, I might further see that they keyword I excluded is related to a trending search. This data is like a red flag telling me I need to re-evaluate my decision to exclude that keyword.

Insights should prove to be an even more valuable tool when Google rolls it out more widely. Responding to advertisers with this tool is especially helpful now because there are limitations on what we can do in a world of automated bid strategies. It’s nice to have more data to support human decision making.

For more information about insights, read this useful article from Search Engine Roundtable.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. We have the inside scoop on new ad tools such as Insights. Read about some of our client work here.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Amazon Gears Up for Holiday Advertising – and So Should You

Amazon Gears Up for Holiday Advertising – and So Should You

by Tim Colucci Analytics

Amazon is testing a new attribution tool as it ramps up its platform for holiday advertising. According to Digiday, Amazon has invited a select number of advertisers to test Amazon Attribution, which “lets advertisers compare whether ads on its sites are more effective than those on its rivals.” Amazon Attribution includes page views, purchase rate, and sales among the conversion metrics advertisers can select to understand the impact of their display, search, or video ads outside of Amazon.

As we have reported, Amazon’s advertising services are growing as more brands capitalize on Amazon’s popularity for search. As Marketing Dive notes, Amazon is positioning itself for an uptick in brand advertising for the 2018 holiday shopping season. Even if you are not one of the businesses using Amazon Attribution, I suggest you get a jump on the holidays by building awareness now inside and outside Amazon. You don’t need to do holiday advertising just yet – but you should prime the pump for the holidays by:

  • Building your name awareness on Amazon by using some of the advertising tools that Amazon has rolled out. Amazon has launched products such as display advertising designed to make it easier for merchants to reach its vast audience with paid media. Some of those products also help businesses advertise outside Amazon. Amazon’s advertising products were recently bundled under Amazon Advertising. For more insight, check out this Amazon page.
  • Step up digital advertising outside Amazon, too. Rolling out holiday ads in September is not the point – priming the pump by building general name awareness is.

You can measure the effectiveness of your pre-holiday campaign by expanding the conversion pixel of your display ads for a maximum of 90 days. Per Google, a conversion window is the period of time after a customer clicks your ad during which a conversion, such as a purchase, is recorded in Google Ads. The default window is 30 days.  But you can change the conversion window as often as you’d like. Doing so can makes it possible for you to track behavior all the way back to the click someone made on your display ad.

A Caveat

A caveat is in order: if you use the Google Ads conversion pixel as your primary source for tracking purchases, then it may not be the best idea to expand the pixel window to 90 days. Doing so can cause results to become inflated. If you are using another source as your true north (e.g. Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, or a third-party platform like Marin or Search Ads 360) then the inflated conversion totals aren’t as much of an issue.

How are you preparing for the holiday season? Contact True Interactive if you need help. We collaborate with brands on all aspects of digital marketing every day.

Putting Google Experiments to the Test

Putting Google Experiments to the Test

by Tim Colucci Analytics

I always found AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) to be a slightly cumbersome way to test different variables with online advertising campaigns. Reporting, particularly at the keyword level, took some effort, and the setup of the test itself could be time-consuming. So, when Google announced it was going to replace ACE with “campaign drafts and experiments,” I was rather giddy. Now that I’ve had some time to work with campaign drafts and experiments (aka Google experiments) option, I urge you to try it.

With experiments, Google allows advertisers to create a draft campaign (a replica) of a real campaign they are running. By doing so, the advertiser can make adjustments to advertising campaigns in a number of ways, such as changing keyword bids, ad group setup, ad copy, ad scheduling, and geo-targeting.

And how can an advertiser run the 50/50 split properly? Well, Google now asks advertisers how much traffic (budget) they want to spend on the new experiment campaign and how much they want to spend on the control (current) campaign. And with Google experiments, if an advertiser wants to run a test with 90 percent of traffic being piped through the control and 10 percent through the test, they can do so. Having the option to test traffic in this manner gives advertisers the capability to test even if they might be wary to spend more on a true 50/50 test.

Unfortunately (there’s always an unfortunately, amirite?) there are limits to what an advertiser can test, but those limits are not nearly the same as with ACE. For instance:

  • Some reporting isn’t available such as ad scheduling, auction insights, display placement reports.
  • The Dimensions tab is not available. Dimensions reports on search terms, by-day results, paid versus organic, and other deep-dive report.
  • Some automated bid strategies (e.g., “target search page location,” “target outranking share,” and “target return on ad spend) and ad customizers (e.g., “target campaign,” “target ad group”) are not available, either.

But, how many advertisers are looking to test these settings? Not many (other than me, that is). Rather, most advertisers will be using experiments for testing many of the basic questions, such as:

  • What messaging performs best in my ad copy?
  • Do increased keyword bids improve conversion rates?
  • What landing page leads to higher conversion rates?

For those with more advanced tests in mind, advertisers are able to dive deep into each campaign and try testing a number of variables, such as:

  • Excluding a search partner (e.g., another engine powered by Google, such as Ask.com) from the test campaign and keeping a search partner in the control campaign.
  • Targeting a city/state differently in the test campaign then in the control campaign.
  • Bidding differently on gender, age, device, or income.
  • Testing a different ad schedule.

The best new feature of the experiments is easier reporting. Instead of pulling segments, subtracting test totals from the overall totals, or having to run a crazy formula to confirm all of the test keywords were pulled correctly, Google breaks out campaign experiment results simply as “Experiment” and “Original” in the experiments tab. The totals are easy to see and couldn’t be easier to pull. Even better, these numbers are reported on in Analytics! The Analytics feature wasn’t possible through ACE.

After an advertiser does the tedious work of building out an account’s keywords, ad copy, and extensions, experiments allows the advertiser to test, and testing is the fun part of the job. Experiments allows us to get actionable data that can lead to better decision-making, not just for display or paid search, but in some cases across multiple tactics. Those results may give senior marketers another view of their marketing campaign effectiveness and rethink their approaches.

Knowing What to Look for to Improve Digital Marketing in Retail

by Mark Smith Analytics Retail Analytics Spotlights

The-Marketing-ScopeYou’ve created a new digital marketing campaign for one of your products, complete with several ads that are driving traffic to a spiffy new landing page. You need a strong conversion rate to boost this quarter’s sales.

Is it working? How can you tell? If it’s not performing as well as you hoped, do you know what elements to tweak? And since mobile devices are now driving more than half of online searches, what is the on-page experience that visitors encounter when they hit your new landing page? Do you need to make different changes for your mobile visitors than people viewing on desktop computers?

In the fast-paced, quarter-to-quarter world of retail, this is a very real scenario. Eric Vidal, Editor & Chief Content Officer of The Marketing Scope, joined me to talk about “Why Digital Marketing Analytics Is Important for Retail Sales.” This video is part of the “Marketing Mash” series produced by Vidal.

We talked about how to use analytics to spot when something is going right, or maybe when something is going wrong. Once you understand what to look for and how to use that information, you can take action to optimize your campaigns from end to end.

Understanding How Retailers Can Use Analytics to Optimize Their Digital Marketing

by Mark Smith Analytics Retail Analytics Spotlights

The-Marketing-ScopeIn 2016, global e-commerce sales are expected to eclipse $1.1 trillion, according to leading consulting firm A.T. Kearney, with annual growth of 15%-20%. When the money is that big, you can bet that competition for wallet share in digital marketing will be stiff.

A competitive advertising space can drive up costs rapidly, so retailers need to make sure they are using analytics fully to optimize their digital marketing campaigns. When you dive into any analytics package, even free ones such as Google Analytics, the options can get complicated and overwhelming quickly. However, understanding the basic key performance indicators (KPIs) and using them correctly can help you optimize your website and improve conversions, which in turn boosts your digital marketing ROI.

I sat down with Eric Vidal, Editor & Chief Content Officer of The Marketing Scope, to discuss “Why Digital Marketing Analytics Is Important for Retail Sales.” This video is part of the “Marketing Mash” series produced by Vidal. We talked about how to understand what you’re looking at when you open your analytics package then, more importantly, how to use the data to optimize your website and drive more conversions from your digital ads.