Microsoft Advertising has announced the launch of Monetize Insights, a new analytics dashboard aimed at helping publishers monitor and optimize their advertising revenue streams more efficiently.
The dashboard is now available globally within Microsoft’s supply-side platform, Monetize.
Monetize Insights Features
Monetize Insights provides publishers with visual graphs and comparison charts for a quick, holistic view of their performance.
The dashboard allows you to filter data and drill down into specifics around revenue drivers, inventory metrics, and significant changes over time. This lets you quickly identify issues, trends, and opportunities to maximize yield.
“User-friendly data analytics can help publishers identify issues sooner, diagnose issues faster, and ensure revenue is not left on the table,” said Christopher Walmsley, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft. “With Monetize Insights, publishers can easily monitor key monetization metrics and efficiently dive into the details of revenue drivers.”
Two key features of the new dashboard are the Total Revenue and Bid Rejection tabs. The Total Revenue tab simplifies business performance tracking across channels, buyers, and brands. You can view trends in revenue, impressions, ad requests, fill rates, and more.
The Bid Rejection tabs provide transparency into blocks impacting revenue, such as ad quality settings, price floors, and demand issues. This helps you understand the monetary effect of your inventory settings and potentially adjust to unblock significant revenue.
Monetize Insights Benefits
Microsoft designed Monetize Insights to streamline publishers’ workflows. The guided navigation and configurable metrics aim to save you time configuring dashboards or running manual reporting.
The analytics dashboard is now live for all Monetize platform users globally.
Publishers interested in leveraging the new tool can sign into their Monetize accounts and activate Monetize Insights.
How This Can Help You
As a publisher, having clear visibility into your advertising performance data is essential for making smart optimization decisions.
With the launch of Monetize Insights, Microsoft Advertising is aiming to provide you with an efficient analytics hub to monitor and understand what’s driving your revenue.
If you’re looking to identify issues faster, reveal opportunities, and save time analyzing granular reports, this new dashboard may be worth exploring.
In a previous article, How To Make A Video Go Viral, I mentioned research that shows videos that evoked the emotion of hilarity, inspiration, astonishment, and exhilaration tended to be shared the most. People shared videos that elicited “high-arousal” or intense emotions twice as much as ones that elicited “low-arousal” or moderate emotions.”
For the past few months, I’ve been searching for a new way to categorize emotions and I stumbled across a post on LinkedIn that said, “Here it is! The DAIVID Field Guide to Emotions in Advertising with each of the DAIVID 39 emotions.”
The LinkedIn post said,
“As every good creative knows, make people feel something and it will have an effect on brand and sales.”
So, I downloaded their field guide and read all 56 pages in one sitting – like a whodunit. It even opens with a killer quotation by Jonathan Haidt,
“The rational mind thinks it’s the Oval Office when actually it’s the press office.”
The field guide draws from research conducted at the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia.
The field guide categorizes 39 emotions into 6 “emotional cohorts” and acknowledges,
“Emotions in advertising are nothing new. Intuitively, gifted storytellers have taken us through lows and highs to make us feel good and well disposed towards brands through the years.”
It explains, “What we have lacked up to this point though, is a clear codification. Whether something is ’emotional’ or not has often been decided subjectively and with the poor emotional lexicon that we humans have.”
And it concludes, “That’s why we have the DAIVID 39, which gives us a common language to communicate this through the advertising process and brief with feeling.”
So, here is the all-important language that digital marketers can use to define and, therefore, replicate advertising success through emotion.
39 Emotions Digital Marketer’s Can Use In Advertising
Empathy
According to the DAIVID Field Guide to Emotions in Advertising, there are 11 emotions in the Empathy cohort that digital marketers can put on their palette when creating a campaign:
Admiration: A feeling of profound respect or approval.
Calmness: To be free from agitation, excitement, or disturbance.
Empathetic pain: A specific variant of empathy that involves recognizing and understanding another person’s pain.
Gratitude: an expression of grateful thanks and appreciation for benefits received.
Hope: An audacious desire accompanied by the expectation of, or belief in, fulfilling it.
Pride: Complex with definitions such as self-esteem and satisfaction in oneself, pleasure that comes from an association, relationship, or achievement, or a feeling of solidarity.
Relief: The removal or alleviation of something oppressive, painful, or distressing.
Sadness: An expression of grief or unhappiness.
Satisfaction: The fulfillment of a strongly desired need or want.
Trust: The extent to which a person or thing is accurate, honest, safe, and dependable.
Warmth: The quality or state of being warm in feeling.
The field guide includes a link to a video, “seen in the wild,” for each emotion. And that will certainly help if digital marketers are unclear about the definition of an emotion.
But I looked for videos that I’d seen, which I could use to illustrate the creative effectiveness of “Empathy.” And I didn’t need binoculars.
In Google Analytics 4 Should Trigger Reorganizations & Agency Reviews, near the end of the article, I said digital marketers could use YouTube’s Director Mix to create customized videos at scale, swapping out different elements to tailor content to specific audiences.
As an example, I mentioned that Mondelēz India had designed its Not Just a Cadbury Ad Campaign Video employing YouTube Pin Code Targeting, YouTube Director’s Mix, and Google Maps API.
This enabled the brand to produce thousands of customized AI-generated ads for 270 pin codes across 8 cities. This hyper-localized campaign helped 1,800 local retailers grab business during Diwali in a global pandemic.
The campaign delivered incredible business results, including doubling the sales for the retailers featured in the ads and over 32% more business growth than they’d forecast.
What I didn’t mention back then was the name of Mondelēz International’s strategy: “Empathy at scale.”
So, “Empathy” made people feel something, which influenced branding and sales.
Approach
According to the field guide, there are 11 emotions in the Approach cohort:
Adoration: A state of deep love and respect.
Aesthetic appreciation: The enjoyment of something because of its beauty or some other factor associated with aesthetic preference.
Amusement: Something pleasantly entertaining or diverting.
Entrancement: The feeling of being carried away with delight, wonder, or rapture.
Craving: An intense, urgent, or abnormal desire or longing.
Inspiration: The state or power of moving the intellect or emotions.
Interest: A feeling that accompanies special attention to a person or thing. It engages attention and stimulates further observation.
Joy: To experience intense pleasure or delight evoked by well-being, good fortune, or by the prospect of owning what one desires.
Knowledge: The condition of knowing something gained through experience.
Nostalgia: A sentimental longing or wistful affection for some past period or irrecoverable condition.
Romance: A feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.
Yes, there’s a link to a video, “seen in the wild,” for each of these emotions.
However, I didn’t need a spotting scope to find examples of different approaches that have generated measurable outcomes. Let me highlight a recent one.
It was created for the second season of the World’s Coolest Winter campaign and entitled A Winter Through My Eyes.
The short documentary film asks, “Can a country be truly enjoyed by someone who cannot see?” It tells the story of Clara, an 11-year-old Lebanese girl who has been visually impaired since birth.
Now, this award-winning video got 8.9 million views, which is remarkable – because the World’s Coolest Winter is primarily a domestic tourism campaign, and the UAE has a population of about 10 million, which is equivalent to the population of Michigan.
But it’s worth noting that the campaign helped to:
Increase hotel revenues in the UAE to AED1.5 billion, a 50% upsurge over the previous year.
Boost the number of domestic tourists to 1.3 million, a 36% jump over the campaign’s first season.
Raise hotel occupancy rates to 73% in 2022, a 7% gain over 66% in 2021.
So, this “Approach” not only made people feel something, but it also influenced branding and sales.
Positive Adrenaline
According to the field guide, there are four emotions in the Positive Adrenaline cohort:
Awe: Variously combines dread, veneration, and wonder that authority, the sacred, or sublime inspires.
Excitement: A feeling of great enthusiasm, eagerness, or thrill.
Sexual Desire: A physical attraction and desire for physical intimacy.
Surprise: The response to an unexpected or astonishing event.
I haven’t written about the following case study before, but I’ve used it in the class I teach on “Engaging Audiences Through Content” at the New Media Academy in Dubai. It consists of two videos.
The second video is entitled We did it again | Emirates. This video takes a behind-the-scenes look at how Emirates took its A380 for a spin around the Burj Khalifa for the making of its new advertisement.
This video now has 13.9 million views and 211,000 engagements.
So, these videos made people feel something. But did they also influence branding and sales?
Well, Expo Dubai, the first event of its size and scale held since the start of the global pandemic, recorded over 24 million visits and was hailed as a tremendous success.
A couple of months after its videos went viral, Emirates Group announced that revenue increased by 86% over the previous year, with strong customer demand as worldwide travel restrictions eased.
Correlation or causation? You be the judge.
Negative Adrenaline, Primal Urges, And Rejection
Now, you may not want to put the last 13 emotions on your palette when creating a campaign, but you should be able to identify them if you see them in the wild:
Fear: An unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.
Horror: A painful and intense dread, fear, or repugnance.
Anger: A strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism.
Awkwardness: A feeling of discomfort or being out of place in response to a situation.
Disgust: A strong feeling of dislike aroused by something highly distasteful.
Embarrassment: A feeling of shame, self-consciousness, or awkwardness.
Guilt: A feeling of deserving blame for offenses committed by yourself or others.
Shame: An uncomfortable feeling of guilt because of your own or someone else’s immoral behavior.
Anxiety: An apprehensive uneasiness over an impending or anticipated harm.
Boredom: Being weary and restless through lack of interest.
Confusion: Uncertainty about what is happening, intended, or required.
Contempt: Despising someone or something.
Distrust: To doubt the honesty or reliability of a person or thing.
Yes, I know that Halloween has just been held again, and some people enjoy watching horror movies.
But you should think twice before using any of the negative emotions in these last three emotional cohorts.
Why? There are three key reasons:
The field guide says, “Generally, it’s advisable for … brands to leave us with a positive emotion.”
According to a recent article in Think with Google, 7 in 10 people say they try to be optimistic despite the latest political, ecological, and economic news.
As Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
So, there you have it: A digital marketer’s palette of 39 emotions to use – or avoid using – in advertising.
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Microsoft Advertising has announced a new partnership with Baidu Global, the international division of Chinese tech company Baidu.
The partnership will enable Microsoft to bring sponsored content recommendations powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to Baidu’s mobile keyboard app, Baidu Global Keyboard.
This is accomplished by integrating Microsoft’s Chat Ads API into the Chat AI feature of Baidu Global Keyboard, allowing advertisers on Microsoft’s platform to reach keyboard app users.
Keyboard App Offers Valuable New Channel for Brands
According to Microsoft, integration with Baidu Global Keyboard allows brands and advertisers to engage younger demographics, mainly Gen Z users.
Additionally, because Baidu Global Keyboard customizes features based on the app environment a user is in, brands can reach users with relevant ads across multiple platforms. This context can drive increased purchase intent and conversion rates.
AI Could Enable More Personalized Experiences
Microsoft hinted at the potential for richer ad personalization and relevance for desired audiences.
While not confirmed, the AI powering the ad recommendations may look at full context, like message content, user interests, location, and time of day.
This could allow for ads tailored to a user’s needs. For example, the AI might detect a user messaging about dining spots and serve a relevant restaurant ad.
However, the specifics of the AI capabilities and contextual factors it can leverage still need to be confirmed. If the integration enables real-time ad adjustment based on usage context, personalized ad delivery would be an advancement.
Launch Planned For Early 2024 In Key Markets
Microsoft expects the integration to roll out later this year, with an official launch in early 2024. The partnership will launch in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia.
For advertisers, Microsoft noted that they can take advantage of the opportunity by ensuring their Microsoft Advertising campaigns are set up to target the entire network and have positive mobile bid adjustments in place.
Microsoft Looks To AI to Transform Advertising
In its announcement, Microsoft positioned the deal as part of its broader vision for AI in advertising.
The Baidu Global Keyboard integration is the latest move to bring more engaging, personalized AI-powered ad experiences to new platforms and audiences.
The company plans to evolve conversational ad products based on advertiser feedback.
As internet browsers phase out third-party cookies, online advertisers seek new ways to target ads to customers without relying on current tracking methods.
Transitioning To “Era Of Prediction”
Google laid out its vision for a cookie-less future during a recent question-and-answer video from Radhika Mani, Google Display Ads’ Senior Product Manager.
The video comes as Google plans to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome. Cookies have enabled advertisers to track users across websites to serve targeted ads but raise privacy concerns.
According to Google’s research, 89% of internet users would trust brands more if they invest in privacy-safe technologies.
“In a future without third-party cookies, marketers will need to adopt more durable audience strategies,” said Mani.
She pointed to enhanced use of first-party data and integration with new privacy-preserving tools like the Privacy Sandbox‘s Protected Audience API.
The API introduces techniques like minimum thresholds for ad targeting and shorter duration for user data storage to limit constant tracking. Google says its ad platforms will integrate the API to maintain audience targeting while meeting strengthened privacy standards.
New First-Party Data Options
According to Mani, advertisers will still build audience lists like today. However, enhanced AI is expected to help fill gaps left by less expansive tracking—solutions like Smart Bidding and Optimized Targeting aim to boost ad relevance using internal algorithms.
Mani cited that optimized targeting increased conversions by 50% for some Google Display customers. Upgrading campaigns to Performance
Google is also expanding first-party data capabilities like Customer Match to allow personalized ad targeting based on advertisers’ customer data.
New options like PAIR allow this first-party data to be used on external publishing sites.
Google encourages advertisers to adopt these AI tools and first-party data capabilities to prepare for the cookie phase-out.
More Context On Privacy Concerns
The move from third-party cookies comes amid growing consumer calls for stronger data privacy protections.
Tech companies have faced increased scrutiny over handling user data, with practices like highly targeted behavioral advertising raising ethical questions.
Phasing out third-party cookies aims to curb the constant tracking of individuals across the internet.
Advertisers have mixed opinions regarding the end of third-party cookie targeting.
On one hand, it could impact digital ad revenues. On the other hand, alternative targeting and measurement approaches may fill the void.
In Summary
Though targeting precision may decrease after phasing out third-party cookies, advancements in first-party data use and AI optimization offer alternatives.
For online marketers, investing now in automated and consent-based solutions is key to navigating the evolving advertising landscape.
You might have heard “agile budgeting” referenced during the keynotes at Google Marketing Live this year.
I had several people ask me about what it means – and some were skeptical when I explained a bit about it.
Is this just another buzzy term, or is there real value to it? Let’s dig in.
You may already be familiar with the concept of Agile in project management to prioritize project speed and enable the flexibility needed to quickly adapt to change.
Similarly, the goal of agile budgeting is to allow you to respond quickly to shifts in demand and prioritize spend in the areas of greatest opportunity.
Think:
Proactive rather than reactive.
Real-time rather than retrospective.
Unified rather than siloed.
I know, I know…hasn’t one of the great benefits of digital marketing always been about agility and the ability to quickly shift budgets, test, and iterate?
Yes, but the reality has also been that channels have typically been managed in silos, and budgets have often been planned over fixed time periods.
And, of course, there are AI advancements now enabling much faster responses to market shifts. This is causing many marketers to rethink what agility really looks like.
When you’re budget agile, you can respond much faster to market and business dynamics versus being constrained by fixed budgeting that’s based on a strict timeline, specific channel silos, and other constraints.
That’s a fundamental shift for many businesses and agencies – particularly for teams and individuals accustomed to working and budgeting by channel.
As with any new approach, agile budgeting requires re-thinking, re-organizing, and re-prioritizing.
Specifically, it requires tight coordination across marketing, sales, and operations – with marketing and finance, in particular, working closely together.
OK, But Is It Worth It?
Changing how your business plans, allocates, and optimizes digital budgets may sound daunting (small organizations are often at an advantage here!). Still, research shows that companies don’t have to make dramatic changes to become more budget-agile.
You can probably think of a few ways you can fairly easily tweak and improve certain behaviors in how you, your teams, and your agency work.
In fact, you may already be starting to practice agile budgeting even if you don’t have a formal process yet.
Agile budgeting is the concept behind AI-powered cross-channel campaigns such as Performance Max.
Instead of allocating a certain amount to each specific channel, your budget is applied dynamically wherever there is demonstrated customer demand.
The goal is to find incremental conversions or conversion value at your target regardless of channel.
In the study, marketers who adjust budgets across digital channels on a weekly or more frequent basis are considered behaviorally budget agile.
(You can see why close cross-functional coordination is important!)
Nearly a quarter of those surveyed met that standard.*
Some Quick Findings From The Survey
31% of budget agile marketers engage in formal marketing planning to align on strategy and digital media budget allocations every month, versus 18% of non-agile marketers.
For 59% of budget agile marketers, digital budget changes of 20% or more take a week or longer for approval.
31% of budget agile marketers say it’s “very easy” to get additional budget to start new tests that weren’t included in the initial media budget, compared to just 9% of non-agile marketers.
48% of budget agile marketers state that their marketing performance exceeded internal expectations and marketing KPIs, compared to 33% of marketers who are not budget agile.
Budget agile marketers are twice as likely to call their marketing across channels “very tightly integrated.”
42% of budget agile marketers say their agency partners greatly influence adjustments they make after initial budget planning, compared to only 31% of non-agile marketers.
Key Takeaways To Become More Budget Agile
AI advancements are opening up all types of new digital marketing opportunities, including multichannel campaigns, and with that, we see many organizations and agencies reevaluating their approaches to maximize ROI.
Here are the areas of focus identified from the survey that can set marketers on the path to greater agility:
Flexible, Frequent Planning
Agile budgeting doesn’t mean you throw your planning process out. It means you plan and prepare for change, providing space to adapt and shift as conditions change.
And it likely means increasing the frequency with which you revisit and adjust your plans.
Common Goals & Measurement
Align on the marketing goals that make sense for the business, such as sales revenue, profit margins, lifetime value, etc.
Then, implement consistent measurement and metrics across marketing and cross-functional teams to be able to assess and adjust together.
More Collaboration Across Teams
Being budget agile also doesn’t mean you need to move away from having in-house or agency teams and individuals focused on specific channels.
But breaking down organizational barriers to ensure those teams and individuals are collaborating, meeting, and sharing more regularly together is key. This takes commitment and effort but can start paying off quickly.
Strong Finance Partnership
Establishing trust, understanding, and close partnership with your CFO and finance teams is also key to being able to move toward budget agility.
Operational Alignment
As you can see from the data above – if not from your own experience – a big stumbling block to being budget agile is getting timely budget allocation or reallocation approvals.
Nearly 60% of budget agile marketers said digital budget changes of 20% or more take a week or longer for approval.
Getting a sizable budget approval in less than a week may sound Herculean, but consider if your competitors are among the 40% that can do so and seize on new opportunities to drive incremental value or experiment faster.
Experimentation Baked In
As digital marketers, we’re accustomed to running tests and experiments on an ongoing, regular basis.
But there’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to launch a new test or scale a promising one and running up against fixed budget constraints.
Nearly one-third of budget agile marketers said it’s “very easy” to get incremental budget to kick off new tests, versus less than 10% of non-agile marketers.
Again, this points to the value of aligning across the organization on goals, measurement, and an operational framework that will allow you to move faster.
Bringing flexible planning and budgeting processes into your digital advertising efforts will allow you to laser focus on driving growth by allowing you to readjust your forecasts and invest where opportunities crop up with greater speed and coordination.
The payoff can be worth the effort to get there.
More resources:
Featured Image: fizkes/Shutterstock
*Google/Kantar, Budget Agility and Channel Desiloing research, AU, BR, CA, DE, IN, JP, U.K., U.S., advertiser: digital display n=1,747, social media n=1,936, search n=1,513, online video n=1,538, mobile-only formats (e.g., in-app advertising) n=907, streaming/connected TV n=230, other digital n=2,093, March 2022–June 2022.
It can be a long process, with only a small percentage of ad clickers actually converting.
While you might be getting a lot of new incoming web traffic, you may not see those numbers translate to sales quickly. And few become a sale the first time they land on your webpage.
It’s easy to forget the true role of marketing:
To win people over long before they make the decision to choose your product or company over others.
Often, the best people to target are those who have visited your site more than once or have already digitally interacted with you.
Retargeting and remarketing both give the opportunity to reach these customers. They are also more likely to purchase rather than first-time visitors.
This can be an extremely important strategy in your marketing efforts.
Now let’s explore remarketing and retargeting individually so that the differences become clear to you.
It most often refers to online ad placement or display ads targeting users who have interacted with your site in specific ways without purchasing.
Once a visitor enters your website, clicks on a product, or takes a certain action that you want them to take, a cookie is set in their browser.
You can then use this information to “retarget” them with ads based on their interactions once they leave your site.
These ads are placed by third parties, such as the Google Display Network or Facebook. They allow your ads to trigger on other sites that your visitors go to.
Typically, retargeting can be categorized into two themes: “on-site” and “off-site” events.
Each has different strategies you can take depending on the kind of interactions you want to target.
Let’s look at these a little closer.
Targeting “On-Site” Interactions
This is the category often associated with retargeting. It involves targeting individuals who have already visited your site.
They have interacted with your products and services before – or they have taken some other action but may not have completed the sale.
Retargeting to those who have had on-site interactions can certainly increase conversions.
It can also help retain those who have already expressed interest in your brand but aren’t quite ready to purchase yet.
There are a bunch of ways to retarget potential customers.
Some of the ways you can target individuals who have had onsite interactions include:
Target based on a product that they interacted with but didn’t buy.
Target based on how they found your site (social media, a search, or other inbound events).
Those on your email list who have expressed interest in your brand but have not yet converted to a sale.
These parameters can be set up within different platforms, such as:
Google Ads.
Google Analytics.
Meta (Facebook) Ads.
And many others.
Retargeting campaigns almost always show higher engagement and conversions than non-retargeting campaigns do.
This goes back to the fact that it is much easier and more efficient to market and advertise to those who have expressed interest in your brand or industry.
Targeting “Off-Site” Interactions
Retargeting used to be pretty limited to on-website behavior.
That changed, though, as users spent more time on social media.
Product and brand information delivery was no longer housed in one place.
Instead, it started to disseminate across other areas.
This meant audience interactions now existed in several places that weren’t owned by the brand anymore.
Social media giants like Meta recognized this and started to make engagement targeting a possibility.
In other words, brands could make retargeting pushes based on what a user did on the platform as it related to their Page, Events, and other Facebook-controlled items that a brand participates in.
Retargeting could now include “users who interacted with your Page” and other similar options.
In practice, targeting these users was still retargeting because they had not yet converted to customers.
This became the brave new world of “off-site” interaction targeting.
Screenshot from Facebook Ads, September 2023
What Is Remarketing?
This is where it gets a little confusing, and there is some overlap in the industry.
Sometimes retargeting is referred to as “remarketing” (even though it actually is remarketing).
An example of this is Google’s Remarketing Tools – they are all retargeting tools in the classic sense, really.
While this may be a little confusing, just remember that remarketing and retargeting do share goals and that the terminology is not as important as the associated strategy.
So, what’s the biggest difference?
Retargeting is about moving not-yet customers down the purchase path.
Remarketing is about re-engaging existing customers through media platforms like email or even paid ads.
Tactics like emailing a customer to renew a service or upsell an accessory are traditional examples of remarketing.
It can also take the form of a brand “reminding” a user to act, using information about their purchase history.
This frequently happens in email marketing but also takes the form of paid ads targeted toward current customer segments.
The Blurry Line Between Remarketing & Retargeting
These two tactics used to exist in silos: email was its own island, and paid media was limited to top-of-funnel targeting and retargeting based on website actions.
However, these two have become somewhat interchangeable in recent years.
Why?
Well, platforms like Google Ads and Meta Ads added the capability to target on-platform using email customer lists years ago.
Email no longer exists as a separate silo of information from the paid media part of the world.
Here is the Facebook Ads version:
Screenshot from Facebook Ads, September 2023
Here is Google Ads’ version:
Screenshot from Google Ads, September 2023
When an email list is uploaded, the platform will then work to match those email addresses with user logins.
That matched list is used to show ads to (assuming it meets the minimum threshold of audience size, which varies by platform).
Or, that matched list is used to as an exclusion in campaigns, so they are not shown ads, which means the goal is still focused on new user acquisition.
So now you have that blurry line of targeting your email users, perhaps with the same message you’re sending in emails, but doing it with a paid advertisement.
Or, you’re using the same list of email users but sending them a different message based on how you’re using those lists.
When To Use Retargeting Vs. Remarketing
Deciding when to use retargeting or remarketing ultimately comes down to this: strategy.
Incorporating both tactics into your marketing strategy is a great way to incrementally increase conversions. It doesn’t have to be an “either/or” game.
On one hand, you’d be targeting ‘net new’ customers by retargeting interested customers via paid platforms like Google or Meta Ads.
On the other hand, you’d be remarketing to existing customers for the chance they become repeat customers.
Since both methods target interested customers, the cost efficiency is usually greater than non-targeted ads.
Now, let’s take a look at some examples of when you’d use one over the other.
Prioritizing Retargeting As A Strategy
As mentioned above, retargeting is all about reaching potential customers who’ve interacted with your brand in some way.
A sound retargeting strategy should be incorporated if:
Your main goal is gaining new customers.
Your brand has a product/service that is typically a one-time purchase.
You’re spending a decent amount already on paid ads for awareness building.
The most important one to address is if you’re already running brand awareness campaigns – and spending money on them.
If you’re spending those hard-earned marketing dollars trying to attract new users, you need to do due diligence with retargeting campaigns.
Most users won’t buy something the first time they’ve heard of a brand or the product/service.
That doesn’t mean brand awareness dollars aren’t worth it, though!
Nurturing those users down the funnel with retargeting efforts is where you’ll start to see those incremental conversions come in.
Prioritizing Remarketing As A Strategy
As a quick refresher, remarketing is all about re-engaging existing customers who’ve already purchased from your brand.
You should consider incorporating a remarketing strategy if:
Your brand has a product/service that is typically a repeat purchase.
You want to upsell customers with additional products that may fit their needs.
You don’t have a big marketing budget.
Remarketing options have come a long way throughout the years, which is great for marketers.
Utilizing ‘free’ channels such as email marketing or SMS messaging is a great way to re-engage current customers. Especially if your marketing budget is constrained.
It’s a chance to remind them that they need your product. Or, it’s an opportunity to introduce them to additional products that they might like.
Nurturing existing customers even after they’ve purchased allows for long-term customer relationships to form.
And typically, customers are truly a brand’s best advocates. And word-of-mouth marketing is something that’s extremely underrated.
Retargeting Vs. Remarketing: The Takeaway
When comparing retargeting and remarketing, the overlap and differences have become less clear over the years.
But that has also been true for digital marketing, in general.
Their shared goal, though, is to increase conversions from those most likely to buy from your brand; the difference really being the associated strategy.
Retargeting is really focused on targeting users who have interacted with your brand but have not yet purchased via paid ads (and can take a variety of forms and target a broad range of individuals).
Remarketing focuses on re-engaging existing customers, primarily through email campaigns or paid ads, and reaching out to those who have already had interactions, allowing for more specific upselling and messaging.
This merging of retargeting and remarketing is really indicative of what we see in digital marketing as a whole:
Attribution is not a clearly defined thing.
It used to feel like it was, once upon a time, but it was mostly due to platforms not integrating all the elements marketers had access to.
As these platforms continue to cross-reference one another, the questions become less about what defines a tactic and more about which blend of them yields the best results.
Online ad giant Alphabet is set to report Q3 earnings today at 4:30 PM Eastern time. Highlights from the earnings report published earlier today reveal strong growth driven by Search and YouTube.
Key takeaways from Alphabet’s Q3 2023 earnings report include:
Revenue grew 11% year-over-year to $76.7 billion, topping analyst forecasts.
Search and YouTube ad sales drive strong growth despite economic uncertainty.
Google ad revenues rose to nearly $60 billion, up 9% vs last year. Search ads were up 18%. YouTube ad revenue grew 15%.
Ruth Porat, CFO, cited “meaningful growth in Search and YouTube,” showing ongoing ad spend by marketers.
Cloud revenue grew 23% year-over-year to $8.4 billion. Traction with retail, healthcare, and financial services customers noted.
Operating income rose 25% to $21.3 billion, aided by AI-driven product innovations. The margin expanded from 25% to 28%.
Stay tuned as we live blog key earnings insights for digital marketing professionals. Google’s ad machine drives the market – its results matter. Follow along on the live stream.
YouTube announced the launch of new artificial intelligence (AI) powered advertising products designed to help brands connect with relevant audiences and optimize campaign performance on the platform.
The video-sharing platform unveiled tools like Spotlight Moments, which utilizes AI to identify trending content around major events for brand sponsorship opportunities.
YouTube also revealed the expanded availability of Video Reach and Video View campaigns, which leverage AI to enhance ad targeting and efficiency.
The announcements signal YouTube’s increased emphasis on AI innovation within its ad offerings as it looks to provide brands more options for engaging the platform’s two billion-plus monthly users.
Spotlight Moments
One of the new ad offerings is Spotlight Moments, which utilizes AI to identify the most popular and relevant YouTube videos around major cultural events like Halloween or the World Cup.
Advertisers can sponsor a branded YouTube channel to feature their ads alongside this automatically curated event-related content.
YouTube states in a blog post:
“Spotlight Moments gives brands a high share of voice across video content surrounding the world’s biggest cultural moments.”
YouTube explained that AI technology can detect rising trends and engagements around key events, allowing brands to capitalize on these “noisy moments” when viewer attention is high.
Expansion Of Video Reach & View Campaigns
YouTube also announced the expanded availability of two other AI-enhanced ad products: Video Reach and Video View campaigns.
The company said tests of these new formats delivered substantially better results for advertisers than standard video ad placements.
Video Reach campaigns use AI to distribute ads across YouTube’s multiple video ad options – including in-stream, in-feed, and Shorts – to maximize reach. In trials, advertisers saw 54% more reach at a 42% lower cost by utilizing this cross-format approach.
Meanwhile, Video View campaigns employ AI optimization to obtain more cost-efficient video views to drive brand consideration. YouTube said these campaigns achieved 40% more views at a 30% lower cost-per-view than regular in-stream ads in testing.
In Summary
YouTube’s launch of AI-powered ad products gives brands new ways to reach and engage users.
By leveraging AI to identify trends and optimize campaigns, advertisers can now better target relevant audiences on YouTube.
