Weekly Digital Breakdown – 10.8.21
Weekly Digital Breakdown
Oct 08
Facebook’s Outage Is Causing Marketers to Re-evaluate
This week, Facebook and Instagram experienced an outage that lasted for hours for reasons that are still unknown. For marketers, the bigger story is what did it cost them in conversions. As a result of the down time, some agencies reported at least a 50% drop in conversions for what they typically expect.
Once the platforms were up and running, many noticed an acceleration in delivery, which is also not ideal. This could lead to wasteful spending or lack of consideration for the consumer journey, possibly costing more conversions and ultimately, money.
While the outage was troubling for many marketers who rely on Facebook, it magnified the need to diversify advertising efforts. Being so heavily reliant on any platform, especially one that continues to have its share of issues and controversy, can have negative long-term effects. Facebook did address the downtime but many are still left wondering if or when it’s going to happen again and how heavily it will impact their business.
https://www.adweek.com/media/facebooks-outage-shakes-up-conversion-and-ad-delivery-numbers/
YouTube Focuses On More Shoppable Ads for Connected TVs
YouTube continues to dominate the video space but what is changing is where users are watching the platform. Many are now looking to their TV screen with an estimated 113.1 million US YouTube viewers, 52.8% of total viewers, watched the platform’s content on connected TV (CTV) devices in 2020. Those numbers will increase to 130.8 million and 57.7% by 2022.
With this in mind, YouTube is expanding its offerings to make their ads more shoppable. The company is expanding its video action campaigns to connected televisions (CTV) to help advertisers drive more online sales and grow their businesses. This is done with the addition of a URL at the bottom of the screen to continue shopping on the brands website without interrupting the viewing experience.
As the TV continues to be an essential platform for engaging shoppers and driving incremental conversions with new audiences, it’s likely YouTube will adjust its focus. They will likely put more emphasis on what platforms viewers are utilizing and how marketers can get their messages in front of more eyeballs.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/04/youtube-making-ads-on-connected-tvs-more-shoppable/
Google Adds More Insights Analytics
Google continues to prepare for its cookieless future by integrating more machine learning into Google Analytics. Google announced new Google Analytics this week which will include additional capabilities such as improved search integration and smarter attribution.
They are starting by adding the new Search Console integration. Advertisers will have better visibility into the role that organic search plays in driving traffic to and engagement on a site in relation to other paid channels.
Google also continues to focus on its recent announcement of data-driven attribution available without a minimum threshold. This will be available in attribution reports in the coming weeks and will give more holistic insight into campaign performance to make smarter optimizations and ultimately, improve ROI.
The new Google Analytics will also use advanced modeling technology to help fill in the gaps of customer behaviors when cookies and other identifiers are no longer available. To do so, it analyzes extensive amounts of historical data, identifies correlations and trends between key data points, and uses those insights to make predictions about the customer journey.
Behavioral modeling will also be an addition to reporting. This will utilize rigorously tested and validated machine learning to fill gaps in behavioral data, like daily active users or average revenue per user. It will allow for a more granular look at how advertisers can improve and fine-tune their approach.
With Analytics being a key resource for many as they determine what’s working and where they should adjust, having these additional resources available will help many advertisers craft their digital strategy. It will be especially useful to examine better campaign alignment as changes to the landscape continue to come.
