With the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris officially opening today, DAIVID used its advanced content testing platform to see which ads from the global sporting event have elicited the most intense positive emotions of all time.
Procter & Gamble (P&G) dominates DAIVID’s chart, with five of the top seven ads – including the top three positions.
So, the rest of the search and marketing community will want to figure out what the American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio has understood for more than a dozen years.
A P&G 2014 Winter Olympics campaign honoring the crucial support mothers provide to athletes is the most emotionally engaging Olympic ad ever.
This accolade comes from DAIVID, a creative effectiveness platform, which found that the “Pick Them Back Up” campaign evoked the strongest positive emotions among viewers.
“P&G Thank You, Mom | Pick Them Back Up | Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games” led the chart with 59.6% of viewers responding with intense positive emotions. As the video’s description says, “For teaching us that falling only makes us stronger. For giving us the encouragement to try again. Thank you, Mom.”
Following the (emotional) success from 2014, Thank You, Mom – The Winter Olympics (2018) was close behind in second place with a score of 59.5%.
This video guides the viewer through moms supporting their kids with their dreams and through their circumstances – whether it be bias over color, religion, disability, or sexual orientation.
P&G’s ad from the London 2012 Olympics took third place, with 58.4% of viewers responding with intense positive emotions.
In this 2012 edition of Procter & Gamble’s ad campaign, supportive mothers take their children to practices and help the kids deal with setbacks on their way to becoming successful Olympic athletes.
4. National Lottery Funded Athletes – TV Extended Version
The UK’s National Lottery ad, ” National Lottery funded athletes – TV advert Extended Version,” took fourth place with a score of 56.9%.
It was inspired by the story of 800-meter runner Jenny Meadows’ mother and showcased how National Lottery funding supports British athletes in achieving their dreams.
Another from P&G’s Thank You, Mom series for the Rio 2016 Olympics was placed fifth, with 55.9% of viewers responding with intense positive emotions.
In this two-minute commercial, P&G features supportive mothers helping their children persevere through difficult circumstances on their way to becoming Olympic champions.
The brand positions itself as the “Proud sponsor of Moms” and uses the tagline: “It takes someone strong to make someone strong. Thank you, Mom.”
6. We’re The Superhumans – Rio Paralympics 2016
Channel 4, a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel, took sixth place with its “Superhumans” trailer for the Rio Paralympics 2016. The 3-minute video ad got a score of 55.7%.
7. Procter & Gamble – Your Goodness Is Your Greatness
Your Goodness is Your Greatness from P&G took seventh place, with 55.5% of viewers responding with intense positive emotions.
Now, P&G was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. Do you think this gave them a head start on the rest of the field?
DAIVID CEO’s Insights
In a press release, Ian Forrester, CEO and founder of DAIVID, said:
“When it comes to emotional Olympic campaigns, no brand has ever gone faster, higher or stronger than P&G.
The company’s incredible tributes to the role mums play in helping to put future Olympic champions on the path to Games glory really tug at the emotional heartstrings and are capable of turning even the most cynical viewers into emotional wrecks.
‘Pick Them Back Up’ is a worthy gold winner, generating some of the most intense feelings of positivity we’ve ever seen for an ad.”
He added, “It’s also great to see Channel 4’s sensational campaign, ‘We’re The Superhumans’ in the top 6. Generating incredibly intense feelings of inspiration, the ad has played a crucial role in putting the Paralympics firmly in the hearts and minds of viewers all around the world.”
What can I add?
I’ve known Forrester since September 2012, when he joined the Unruly Group as global insight lead. And I talked with him several times over the next six years about Unruly’s Viral Spiral charts, which showed which video ads were among the most shared.
But if you want to figure out what P&G already understands, then it’s worth spending a few moments learning more about DAIVID’s methodology.
Check Out DAIVID’s Methodology
Based in London, DAIVID leverages technologies like facial coding, eye tracking, and computer vision to help advertisers enhance the emotional and business impact of their campaigns.
Their platform allows marketers to assess and improve ad effectiveness on a large scale using advanced data analysis methods.
DAIVID’s study of the most emotionally engaging Olympics ads utilized its Self-Serve solution, trained on millions of consumer data points, to predict the emotional reactions and attention levels ads would generate, along with their potential brand and business impacts.
The analysis involved 56 Olympic ads, excluding those from the current Paris Olympics.
Watch For Yourself To See Why These Videos Trigger Emotion
So, watch the seven ads above and see for yourself what kind of video content triggers intense positive emotions in viewers. You may see something that I might have missed.
But the next time you want to know if your ad creative is working, test it. I know, talking about testing social videos the way that Madison Avenue once tested TV commercials seems like pie in the sky.
But with AI as your co-pilot, making creative testing affordable, you can fix problems and identify solutions faster and easier than it could back in the old days.
Okay, this may not bring tears to your eyes – like “Pick Them Back Up” probably will – but it can help you catch up with P&G, which already has a 12-year head start.
If you’ve been paying attention to the chatter in the SEO space recently, you might have noticed that “brand marketing” has become cool again.
Due to the Google “leaks,” many SEO pros have come to the conclusion that building a strong digital presence will yield SEO results.
Also, water … is wet.
Leaks, floods, and drips aside, there are better reasons why you should be focused on brand marketing right now.
Allow me to explain. [Warning: This post contains excessive amounts of snark.]
Building The Case For Brand Marketing
I’m not going to do the whole “5 reasons why you should focus on brand in 2024.” It would be off-brand for me.
What I would like to do, if you’ll indulge me, is first build up the case by looking at where the ecosystem we call the web is currently at.
I’m less focused on “the benefits” of the brand and more concerned about why the ecosystem itself demands a focus on this type of marketing.
It’s less a matter of “you’ll get X, Y, and Z” by focusing on the brand and more a matter of why you’ll be out of sync with your potential audience as a whole.
The Web Is Moving To Be More Conversational
The internet has become more conversational, and it’s only going to get more conversational.
One of my soapbox points is that content is one of the most quickly changing things on the planet. What we consume, how we consume it, and what we expect out of it are rapidly and constantly changing, and the consequences are often underappreciated.
My classic example of this was the first televised US presidential debate, which took place in 1960 and pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon.
If you listened to the debate on the radio, you tended to think Nixon won. Those who watched on TV tended to think JFK won.
Why? Well, Richard Nixon comes off as Richard Nixon, and JFK, well looks like JFK. I’m being a bit facetious, but it is true. Nixon famously looked pale, had a five o’clock shadow, and didn’t look directly at the camera.
The evolution of content has extremely understated consequences.
Like in 1960, we are at one of those pivotal moments in the history of content.
Think of the internet like TV commercials. Over time, what once resonated becomes campy and sem, if not downright, spammy.
Could you imagine Coca-Cola running and trying to sell its product using its 1980s Max Headroom “Catch the Wave” commercial?
Try selling my kids a sugar-infused breakfast cereal using a TV commercial from the 1950s. Good luck.
It’s not because those commercials are “bad.” It’s because the language and tone that resonates changes over time.
It’s a simple enough point … unless we’re talking about web content. For some reason, we feel web content and its consumption trends should eternally stay the same.
We write the same kind of content in pretty much the same way and balk at any changes.
But that doesn’t change the reality.
The content we create doesn’t speak to users. It’s not positioned correctly. The tone is off. The goals that support the creation of content, to begin with, are distorted. And more. There are a lot of problems – and to me, they all begin with content not being conversational.
In fact, I will go so far as to say Google should stop saying, “Write for your users,” and should start saying, “Have conversations with your users.”
We all think we’re “writing for our users” – I mean, who else are we trying to lure and convert?
It’s very easy to fool yourself into thinking you are “writing for your users.” It’s harder to convince yourself you are having some sort of dialogue with your users – which is what I think Google really means anyway.
All this said, what do I mean by content not being conversational and how do I know it’s even a problem?
What I Mean By Content Not Being Conversational
It’s not hard to see that we are not engaging our users in a conversation or dialogue.
All you need to do is head over to your nearest landing page and have a look at the language.
How much of it is just the company throwing out jargon or borderline nonsense?
Here’s what I came across in literally less than five minutes of digging around:
Screenshot from author, July 2024
Is it really without limits? Can I literally do whatever I want without any limitations whatsoever? I don’t get it – are we talking about God or graphic design software?
Is the below really a new way to run high-velocity sales? Does it literally refine the entire process like no one else is doing or has done before? Or is the company just saying this and spitting out whatever they think will drive conversions?
Screenshot from author, July 2024
You see this all the time in PPC ads:
Screenshot from search for [buy accounting software], Google, July 2024
No nuance. It is the best accounting software, and I should trust that it is without any form of qualification.
This kind of copy, while it may have worked in the past, doesn’t (and if it does now, it won’t in the relatively near future).
This kind doesn’t actually talk to users in a real way. It actually treats the user like an idiot.
The average web user is far more savvy than they once were, far more mature, and far more skeptical.
Not taking a more genuine approach is starting to catch up with brands.
How Do I Know Not Being Conversational Is Even A Problem?
Greenwashing.
It’s when a company claims to be more environmentally conscious than it is. It’s spin and PR nonsense.
Companies thought they could pull a fast one on unsuspecting users. However, folks are now savvier and are catching on to brands positioning themselves as being “green” when, in reality, they might not be (or at least to the extent advertised).
You cannot get away with it anymore (and you never should have tried). The only thing that works is being genuine.
If your product is not actually “the best,” then don’t say it is – or, in fact, realize there is no “best” or “ultimate” or “fastest” or whatever. There is only what meets the needs of users in what way. That’s fancy talk for “pain points.”
Being genuine means talking to your audience and not at your audience. It’s having a dialogue with them.
Going the “traditional” route with your language is the equivalent of marketing language greenwashing … and it applies to your informational content, too.
Perhaps nothing epitomizes this more than the falling stock of influencer marketing. Study after study shows that younger users are far less likely to purchase something because an influencer is associated with it.
Influencer marketing, as we mostly know it, is a facade pretending it’s not a facade. Do you think Patrick Mahomes really eats Chicken McNuggets or has a strong preference to use State Farm for his insurance needs?
All influencer marketing is just a digital marketing version of a celebrity in a TV commercial.
Do you think whatever TikTok influencer really prefers Capital One or even knows that it’s not a geographical reference?
While the idea of “influencers” seemed like a viable idea at the onset it’s fundamentally not sustainable because it’s fundamentally fraudulent. (For the record, “community” marketing is something else entirely. While it might rely on “influencers” within a community, it is far more genuine.)
It seems that folks have caught on to the idea that maybe this influencer being paid to say or do whatever is not actually an accurate reflection of reality (much like social media influencers themselves, to be honest).
A 2023 Drum article quotes one study as saying upwards of 80% of users say a brand’s use of influencers does not impact them one way or the other.
For the record, there are other studies that indicate that influencer marketing is a viable option. I agree, but I think it needs to be qualified. Just paying an influencer to say good things about your brand is not authentic.
There are authentic ways to work with communities and influential folks within them. That tends to happen more with micro or nano influencers.
Again, it’s rocket science. Everyone knows the influencer is only saying the things they are saying because they’re being paid to. It’s relatively meaningless in a vast majority of cases.
It shows how much savvier the current web user is relative to the past, and it’s supported by where folks are heading and what they are trusting … themselves (DTA, am I right?).
A seemingly endless number of studies show users looking toward user-generated content. CNBC was quoted as saying, “61% of Gen Z prefer user-generated content.”
Image from CNBC, July 2024
Which brings me to my next point.
Informational Content Is Just As Bad & Reddit On The SERP Proves It
Up until this point, I’ve been focused on the nature of commercial content and the demand for conversational content.
The same concept applies to informational content, just for a slightly different reason.
Informational content on the web might not be as opaque as commercial content, but it is entirely sterile and stoic.
By sterile and stoic I mean content that doesn’t actually speak to the user. It takes a topic, breaks the topic down into various subtopics, and simply presents the information, and does so without ever discussing the context of the readers themselves.
No one has more data on emerging content consumption trends than Google and its ability to analyze user behavior in a variety of ways. And what has Google done for informational and commercial queries alike? Plastered the search engine results page with user-generated content.
The proliferation of Reddit on the SERP should tell you everything you need to know about the state of informational content and beyond.
All you need to do is head to the Google SERP and take a look at all of the Reddit results strewn all over the place, from different SERP features to the organic results themselves.
And while SEO pros may be upset about the abundance of Reddit (and rightfully so in my opinion), we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Do you really think Google wants to rank Reddit here, there, and everywhere? I personally don’t. I think Google would much rather have a diverse set of experience-based content to rank.
Regardless of your feelings about Reddit on the SERP, users’ inclination to prefer content created by other users tells you one thing: People are looking to move past all the facades and want something transparent that speaks to them—not at them.
Think about content like dress codes in the office. In the 1950s (at least in the US), it would be unheard of to show up to the office with anything but a suit and tie or a dress.
Just like professional dress codes have become less formal, so has content become “less formal” too.
And it’s a relatively recent development on both fronts. In fact, I would actually argue that office dress codes are a good representation of “where we are at” in terms of how and what we consume in terms of content via-a-vis formality.
While more traditional marketing language might have been acceptable and effective just a few years ago – it’s not any longer (at least not to the extent). We are less formal as a people, which means speaking to each other is also less formal. That has to spill over to web content at some point, and it has.
The AI Of It All
The rise of AI-written content accentuates all of this. When everything starts to sound the same having an actual voice comes more into focus. As AI conversion evolves, users are going to want to know that what they are consuming is “real.”
Much like a paid influencer, AI-written content doesn’t offer an authentic experience. And if we can see one theme in what users are looking for, it is an authentic experience.
I know someone is reading and thinking, “But AI is conversational!”
I would not confuse the fact that AI can reply back to you in an informal way as being an actual conversation or dialogue with another actual lifeform.
I have many relatives who will chew my ear off for hours on end as I nod away – that is not (much to their surprise) a conversation. Inputting prompts in reply back to an LLM and then having that LLM respond is not a conversation. (I feel like it’s insane that I have to say that.)
A real dialogue has to be based on empathy and the coming together of two distinct entities. This is what I mean by conversational. The dialogue has to be based on understanding the user’s pain points and meeting them.
AI not only doesn’t do that – but it dilutes that very concept. AI is content creation inherently devoid of understanding the “other.”
AI-generated content is the exact opposite of empathetic content. It is no wonder that it will drive a greater demand for something that is more connective (i.e., conversational content).
The rise of AI-generated content will inevitably lead to a greater demand for more conversational content simply because it is human nature to yearn for connection and existentially disdain void.
When you couple together the growing impatience with stale and stoic content aligned with the facade of much of the web’s commercial content with the rise of AI, it’s the perfect storm for a shirt in user demand.
A More Conversational Internet Is More Autonomous Internet
What’s this got to do with brand marketing? We’re getting there. One more step.
Users looking for more authentic web experiences point to people not wanting to be sold to. Skepticism and distrust are triggered by being urged to make a purchase.
Rather than being induced to click by some clever headline or urged to make a purchase by some influencer, people want to make their own decisions.
They’re looking for real advice. They’re looking for real information to have real needs met. And then they’re looking to be left alone to use that information to their liking.
It’s not an accident that Google added an “E” to E-E-A-T for “experience.” It wants quality raters to evaluate a page from an experience perspective because it has determined this is what users are looking for.
When your entire modus operandi is to seek out authentic information and experiences, the last thing you’re looking for is to be coerced. The last thing you want is to feel pushed into something.
The quest for authenticity in experience-based information is entirely about being able to make a well-informed, autonomous decision.
Urging users to click and convert with all sorts of marketing language and over-emphasis is antithetical to this mindset. Using language that feels slightly manipulative is antithetical to this mindset.
Trying to create spin and putting up a marketing facade (such as with classic influencer marketing) is antithetical to this mindset.
You can’t have Michael Jordan jumping over Spike Lee in a commercial to sell shoes anymore. It’s not real, and it’s not authentic. It’s fantastical. It’s fake.
You also can’t “drive” conversions by telling users you’ve developed a “new,” “revolutionary,” or “ultimate” solution for them. It’s not real, and it’s not authentic. It’s fantastical. It’s fake.
You have to create an environment where the user feels empowered and uncoerced.
How do you then go about targeting growth and revenue, all while allowing the user to feel autonomous and unsolicited?
Brand marketing.
Brand Is Your Best Friend In An Autonomous Web Scenario
I know there is going to be a tremendous amount of resistance to what I am about to say.
In fact, most companies will balk at my conception of things. For SaaS, it’s probably borderline heretical (I think startup SaaS brands often lag behind consumer trends more than anyone).
If user autonomy is the fundamental brick on the house the ecosystem is built on, then being top of mind is the cement that holds your marketing efficacy together.
What’s the opposite of pushing for clicks and conversions? Allowing the user to come to you at their own time and at their own speed.
Being top of mind is more important than it ever was because it aligns with the underlying psychological profile driving web experiences.
There is a direct equation between the consumer demand for autonomy in the buying journey and brand marketing. Creating the right associations and developing the right positioning with genuine differentiation is of the utmost importance if you want to align with how users think – and, more importantly, feel about the web.
If I had to put in a more “performance-focused” mindset, direct traffic is the future of the web. Get them to come to you on their own terms.
It works for both parties. You’re less susceptible to relying on whatever platform’s funky algorithm (whether it be social or search, it all kind of feels like a mess right now). At the same time, your users don’t feel like you’re overselling, pushing clicks, and otherwise nudging them to convert.
They’re coming to you because they found out about you, liked what they saw or heard, and decided to pursue the possibility of buying from you at their own pace.
Moreover, the brand allows you to connect. Again, in an AI world, the drive for connection will only increase. Brand is the intersection of your identity and your audience’s.
It is an associative connection, and it allows your audience to understand that there is a “you” behind the product or service you are offering.
This is the power of branding in the modern web.
What Kind Of Brand Marketing?
What kind of branding creates autonomy? Education-focused brand marketing.
Brand marketing can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. Often, on the digital stage, it means pushing the value of your product across the web.
I am not saying that this doesn’t have value or that it shouldn’t be done, etc. I am saying this is product marketing disguised as brand marketing.
90% of your brand marketing should hardly (if at all) push your product (beyond maybe a mention or something subtle of that ilk).
Brand marketing is about fostering an identity (either of a product, service, or the company as a whole) and using that identity to create messaging that positions the said product, service, or company in a certain way, thereby establishing a connection with your target audience.
The associations you build and the sentiment towards your brand that you establish should, hopefully, result in your audience seeing you as a relevant solution. But this is associative, and that’s important to remember.
The kind of branding I am talking about is focused on adding value to your audience’s life. Note that I didn’t say offering value via your product or service to their lives. First comes the value, and then comes the value from your product.
You can’t push the product in what might be called “branding” without first establishing a brand that showcases concern for the user and their life context independent of any “ask” (such as making a purchase).
You wouldn’t ask your neighbor for a cup of sugar before saying, “Hi, good morning. How are you?”
You shouldn’t ask your consumers to open their wallets and fork over money before establishing a real connection.
Yet, this is pretty much the internet as we know it.
A Note On Performance Marketing
I am not advocating you should not use performance-based marketing tactics to increase your reach and sales and whatnot. Performance-based marketing can be a powerful force for growth and revenue expansion.
What I am advocating for is performance sitting within a broader branding context. There has to be a balance between the two (and I don’t think it is an even balance).
With that cliffhanger, perhaps I’ll explore the balance between brand and performance at another time.
A recent study of 121 B2B CMOs and marketing leaders has uncovered current marketing industry challenges.
The study by Bospar, CMO Huddles, and Redpoint examines the concept of an “underground recession” in marketing departments and its implications for professionals in the field.
Key findings include:
Budget constraints and their impact on marketing strategies
Changing deal cycles and their effects on revenue
Staffing challenges and increased pressure on marketing teams
Evolving CMO roles and job market trends
Read on for a data-driven exploration of the current state of B2B marketing.
Marketing Industry In A “Hidden” Recession
Despite positive macroeconomic indicators, including a 9.34% increase in the S&P 500 since the beginning of 2024, marketing departments are experiencing a different reality.
The survey found that 69% of respondents believe their industry is in a recession, while 61% feel that the overall unemployment rate doesn’t accurately reflect the situation in their sector.
Key Challenges Facing CMOs
The study identified four main trends making the job of marketing leaders increasingly difficult:
Budget Cuts & Revenue Declines: 77% of marketing leaders reported flat or reduced budgets, with 38% experiencing cuts of at least 3%.
Longer Deal Cycles: 54% of respondents noted extended sales cycles, impacting revenue timing and marketing budgets.
Staffing Cuts & Layoffs: Half of the surveyed companies experienced layoffs, with 41% seeing cuts within their marketing departments.
Pressure to Deliver More with Less: 69% of marketing leaders were asked to do more with reduced budgets in the past year.
Personal & Professional Toll on CMOs
The pressures of the current economic environment are reportedly taking a toll on marketing leaders.
67% of respondents reported that the past year’s challenges have impacted their overall well-being.
Many experienced adverse effects, including reduced exercise (80%), less time off (70%), and weight gain (40%).
Declining Job Prospects For CMOs
The study also highlighted a concerning trend in the job market for CMOs.
LinkedIn data shows a 62% decrease in CMO job postings in the United States from February 2023 to February 2024.
This decline is partly attributed to companies consolidating marketing responsibilities under other C-suite roles.
Adapting To The New Reality
Despite these challenges, industry experts emphasize the need for CMOs to adapt and evolve their strategies.
MarTech entrepreneur Jon Miller suggests that “the old playbooks just aren’t working anymore, and it’s time for a new playbook (and new technology) that aligns with modern buyers.”
Drew Neisser of CMO Huddles recommends four key areas for CMOs to focus on:
Role expansion beyond traditional marketing duties
Metrics expansion to demonstrate marketing’s full value
Idea concentration to maximize impact with limited resources
AI implementation to drive innovation and efficiency
Why Does This Matter?
This study shows what’s happening in marketing beyond the rosy economic headlines.
It matters because:
It explains why your job might feel harder lately.
It shows we need to get creative with our strategies.
It highlights why proving marketing’s value is so important right now.
What Does This Mean For You?
Here’s what you should keep in mind:
Learn skills that clearly show your worth, like data analysis.
Get ready to do more with less – focus on what really matters.
Look for ways to expand your role in the company.
Network more – it could help you find new opportunities.
Keep learning about new trends and tools.
Take care of yourself – everyone’s feeling the pressure, not just you.
Since August 2007, when YouTube started offering video advertising, brands, and their agencies have always prioritized reach and frequency.
However, business outcomes have now become the primary success metrics. Despite this sea change, measurement still faces significant challenges, according to Cintia Gabilan, IAB’s VP of the Media Center.
In a press release, Cabilan said:
“The industry has bought, transacted, and measured against reach since the beginning of time.”
She added:
“But now business outcomes are the most important metrics to assess success, with reach and frequency coming in second. However, measurement is not yet where it needs to be. Two-thirds of buyers cite issues across nine key areas of measurement.”
The 2024 IAB Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report Provides Essential Insights
Released at the IAB Video Leadership Summit (VLS), the second part of the report provides essential insights:
Three-Quarters Of CTV Buying Is Programmatic
CTV activation is almost evenly split among real-time bidding (RTB)/open exchanges (36%), private marketplaces/preferred deals/programmatic guaranteed (34%), and ad networks (30%).
Increased Spend Across All Video Channels And Content Types
The first part of the report predicted increased spending in 2024 on major digital video channels. Part 2 reveals investments across all video types, including short-form (69%) and vertical-format (68%), which dominate buyer preferences.
Business outcomes such as sales, site visits, and leads are now top KPIs for buyers across all channels – social video (64%), online video (58%), and connected TV/CTV (54%).
Two-thirds of buyers face measurement issues, particularly smaller advertisers targeting niche audiences, who report problems with viewability, standardized targets, currency, and sell-side data. Streaming networks must improve these areas to gain buyer confidence.
Widespread Use of Alternative Measurement Methods
The industry is moving beyond traditional panel-based ratings, with 89% of advertisers engaging with alternative measurement vendors. Buyers prioritize multi-screen attribution (45%) and real-time reporting (43%), and 28% already use alternative currencies.
In the press release, David Cohen, IAB’s CEO, said:
“As the saying goes, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’.”
He added:
“With the continued impressive growth of digital video comes demands for better measurement, viewability, standardized data, and placement transparency. The video ecosystem must fully commit to innovation, especially in measurement.”
The IAB collaborated with Guideline, utilizing ad billing data, market estimates, and an IAB-commissioned Advertiser Perceptions survey of TV/digital video ad spend decision-makers to compile the report.
The complete “2024 IAB Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report” is available here [gated].
Measurement Challenges: Co-Viewing
Many brands and their agencies will be tempted to start reading Section 1 of the report titled “Ad Spend Projections, content formats, and programmatic.”
Some media buyers will jump straight to Section 2 titled “Buyer Selection Criteria: Channels, Platforms and Ad Partners.”
But I began by analyzing and evaluating Section 3: “Measurement Challenges and Mitigation Tactics.”
Why start here?
Well, as I mentioned in a previous article, I’m a big fan of Yogi Berra, who once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” Besides, I wanted to know more about the nine key areas of measurement that were creating issues.
And the top issue was a major surprise: co-viewing.
“When multiple people watch YouTube on a connected TV (CTV) device together and view an ad at the same time, it could lead to more impressions and reach for your campaign.” Google adds, “Panels show that multiple people are watching YouTube together on TV screens, a consumer behavior characteristic of linear television viewership as well.”
According to the report, co-viewing ranks ahead of placement transparency, brand safety/suitability, viewability, ads served on Made for Advertising (MFA) websites, ads served on TVs turned off, getting sell-side data, using multiple currencies, and standard sell-side targets.
The report quotes an unnamed director at an agency, who said, “Measuring co-viewing behaviors is particularly important because it directly affects our understanding of audience engagement and audience reach.
Without accurately capturing who is watching content together, we risk misinterpreting viewership data and making false assumptions about the preferences and behavior of our target audience.”
Measurement Issues Differ Greatly Depending On The Channel
Part 2 of the “2024 IAB Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report” also finds that measurement issues differ greatly depending on the channel, especially with online video and CTV.
Online video encounters difficulties due to varying measurement frameworks at the publisher level, which complicates buyers’ understanding of placement, viewability, and guarantees.
Similarly, Connected TV (CTV) experiences challenges due to the absence of shared show-level data and inconsistent measurement methods.
In addition, small spenders report higher levels of concern regarding issues like viewability and brand safety compared to larger competitors. They tend to focus on targeting specific audiences rather than achieving mass reach, necessitating precise measurement.
However, they often lack the resources to hire measurement partners and encounter limited transparency from social platforms. Streaming networks aiming to attract more small spenders will need to build trust in these areas.
The report quotes an agency director, saying:
“Brand safety is most concerning because it is the brand’s image which is at stake. We want to control where our ads should be shown, whom to be shown to, what audiences to target, etc.”
Brands report higher levels of concern about issues like viewability and standardized targets compared to agencies.
Key factors include small- to mid-tier agencies lacking resources to hire measurement partners, having less measurement expertise, and being less involved in performance evaluation, which is usually managed by the agencies.
The report quotes the manager of a B2B brand, saying:
“A brand that can demonstrate that its visible impression is positive, professional and attractive is more likely to stand out in a competitive marketplace.”
With the rise of privacy-by-design, buyers increasingly use measurement tools that depend less on data signals. AI, data-driven optimization, multi-touch attribution (MTA), and marketing mix modeling (MMM) help buyers assess performance using modeled data as the available data pool shrinks.
In addition to supporting these tools, AI is also employed for measuring brand safety, suitability, and fraud (41%), as well as for predicting outcomes (32%).
The Use And Interest In Alternative Currencies
The report also found the use and interest in alternative currencies have become widespread. Currently, 89% of advertisers are engaged with alternative currencies in some capacity, whether through transactions, testing, or discussions with vendors.
Almost 30% of TV and video buyers are already using alternative currencies for transactions. On average, buyers are currently transacting or testing three different alternative currencies and expect this number to increase to four by 2025.
The primary reasons for using alternative currencies are multi-screen attribution and real-time reporting. Small spenders are more inclined to use alternative currencies for creative effectiveness (57%), conversion analytics (51%), and second-by-second reporting (51%).
The report quotes a department head of a B2B brand, who says:
“Real-time audience measurement metrics that capture cross-platform viewership, engagement, and demographic data are needed to adapt to evolving viewing habits and technologies.”
While alternative currencies offer potential advantages, widespread use is hindered by various challenges. These include the costs associated with implementing them, the complexities involved in their systems, and the need for cooperation across different industries.
The report quotes a department head at an agency, who says:
“Currency reconciliation can be challenging since different currencies may use different valuation techniques and exchange rates.”
Report Recommendations
Brands and agencies should read the section on “Measurement Challenges and Mitigation Tactics” before they tackle the last section of the report: “Recommendations.”
Why? Well, as Yogi may have said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” However, he might have said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might not get there.”
Either way, you’ll need to overcome nine measurement challenges if the top KPIs of your video ad campaign are now business outcomes like store/site visits, leads, and sales.
This excerpt is from The Digital Marketing Success Plan, the new book from SEJ VIP Contributor Corey Morris.
In what is the most distracted and disrupted era in digital marketing–especially SEO–history, we’re testing and trying things out faster than ever. While change is coming at us fast, it is critically important to still have a documented, actionable, and accountable plan for your digital marketing efforts.
In his new book, Corey Morris, details a five-step START Planning process to help brands arrive at their own digital marketing success plans to ensure ROI and business outcomes are at the heart of every effort while allowing plenty of room and agility for the rapid changes we’re experiencing in digital and search marketing.
Search Engine Journal has an exclusive feature of the first step in the START Planning process–”S for Strategy”–unpacking the four steps in this first and most critical phase.
Chapter 3: S For Strategy
The Strategy Phase is the most comprehensive part of the START planning process. The subsequent phases are all dependent on the work done and defined in this phase.
Strategy works through profiling, auditing, research, and goal setting. Knowing what marketing has been done in the past, where things stand currently, and—most importantly—where you want to go is critical at this juncture and overall for any digital marketing success plan.
The strategy phase has four steps, the first of which is profile. This could be considered a simple step, as we’re just gathering information and definitions.
However, it could also be misinterpreted, and it is challenging because it requires an expert to ask the right questions. That includes detailing the team involved in the effort and defining the product (services) we must sell, the brand, and the target audiences.
In short, we’re putting the details on the table about who we are, our resources, and our capabilities. We are identifying what we’re selling, what value it has, how we deliver it, and the pricing model. We also must know what our brand is in terms of positioning, differentiation, and equity that it holds.
And, as important as anything, we must know who our target audience personas are, their customer behaviors, and the funnels or journeys they take to buy.
Anyone can ramble off some demographics or targets. But, as companies grow, having a mutually agreed understanding of what the business sells, who it sells to, and the money it costs to do so is extremely hard.
I say all of this in hopes that you don’t get stuck here on some of the hard details, and also knowing that if it is easy, you might want to challenge some things and see if you can go deeper and ensure that you truly have the agreement and buy-in that you seem to.
The second step in the strategy phase is audit. We need to know what we’ve done in the past and are currently doing so we have a full picture of what has worked, what hasn’t, and why. Audits are important at this juncture, and this step might be one of the most time-consuming in the entire digital marketing success plan development journey.
As you obtain or create documentation of historical activities, you’ll need access to all the past and present networks and platforms. Then, you can deep dive into audits, including technical paid search, technical SEO, content SEO, web systems, email marketing systems, and more, based on what has been done in the past and what is available for you at this juncture.
The third step in the strategy phase is research. So far, the focus has been on who we are and what we’ve done leading up to where we currently stand with our efforts. This phase is where we get perspectives beyond our own data and understanding.
This is where we seek out internal perspectives from marketing, sales, ops, product, and other relevant teams and stakeholders—as well as from our customers or clients. Additionally, we’re doing external research to learn new insights or validate what we think when it comes to competitors, target audiences, and what the future opportunity forecasts or models out for us.
The final step in strategy is goals. With a thorough picture of who we are, where we stand, and what opportunities are out there for us, we can workshop to arrive at a realistic set of goals. Maybe we came into the process with our own goals, or maybe at this point, we’re starting from scratch.
Regardless, this step is critical to the rest of the process and arriving at a plan that can drive success. This is where we look at business goals and how marketing can affect them and ensure we set proper expectations before we move the strategy from ideas to action.
“WE HAVE A PROBLEM” Premium Roofing Manufacturer Story
A high-end roofing manufacturing company came to us with a unique problem. Marcy, their marketing manager, had a lot of past success with SEO, their website and email marketing, and extensive campaigns driving traffic to their websites for homeowners and contractors alike–fueling their sales operations.
Marcy had gone through several different agencies over the past few years. She had varying experiences with them, had a great one for a while, and then had a couple that didn’t value or know as much about SEO. She didn’t realize that, at the time, it was a line item to some of those agencies. It was getting done, and rankings and traffic were fine. Nothing was sticking out of the ordinary.
One day, Marcy noticed a problem in Google Analytics. Traffic is starting to drop overall. She dives in and, as she is very familiar with the reports and channels and diagnoses this as an SEO problem within a minute. SEO traffic is dropping, but she can’t tell why.
The agency says everything looks good on their end. Marcy can’t find any errors on the site. However, there’s this mysterious drop where she can see they’re not where they used to be in the Google rankings. Subsequent drops in traffic, conversions, and form submissions going through to their sales team validate it.
She remembered her work with me a few years prior at a different agency and reached out. She thought of me as someone she could trust to fix any SEO problem, which I take as high praise. I was at a conference in Silicon Valley, getting ready to take the stage to speak about SEO troubleshooting.
And so that was the ironic part of it to me. I gave my speech and immediately after had a longer conversation with Marcy over the phone. I could dive in and see the same things she saw, and I knew that we needed to do a full audit very quickly and understand what was going on.
I brought the rest of my team back home into the challenge. Within two days, we had diagnosed two very acute issues that were hidden and that most people wouldn’t see. We wouldn’t have found them unless we had gone through our analysis auditing process to get that deep.
We presented those findings to Marcy and her CEO, who both knew how big of a negative impact this would have on their business if they didn’t get this corrected.
We presented three options. One was to fix the issues technically within their current site. Still, being forward-thinking and ROI-driven, we didn’t want just to offer to patch the holes and wait for the next problem to come. So, we presented two other plans. They included a midrange plan and a long-range plan to build a new website and not only fix the issues but also strategically amplify some other things.
They opted to invest in the new website, and that turned into an ongoing relationship with us to monitor and amplify their SEO and take it to new heights, not just reclaiming what they had lost but making new ground. And I’m excited that we saw that all the way through. It played out exactly as we had projected and was validated by growth for them.
The company eventually sold for a record amount and won awards from our peers for that work. The moral of the story is not just to accept the status quo but to realize that not all professionals who have SEO in their title have an equal set of skills. Auditing is an important tool in getting to the root cause, not just for fixing an immediate problem but even more critically for long-term success.
“WE HAVE TO GET THIS RIGHT” Continuing Care Retirement Community Story
Jamaal found us through Google. He was the director of admissions and marketing for a high-end retirement facility that serves as a continuing care community. They had everything: independent living, dining in chef-inspired restaurants, activities, a pub, and anything that active senior living would want through the continuum of care, including assisted living and skilled nursing.
They have an excellent reputation in their city and are well known; however, that’s with the community at large. They needed help to reach their target audience, who could be potential residents or adult child influencers in their lives—the next generation down.
When something happens, and it’s time to look for this type of living situation, the people at that important step are less aware and less prepared for the conversations they must have with their loved ones in a critical phase of life. These people were supposed to be moving into research and action toward admission.
Also, while it was a wealthy, high-end property, it was nonprofit, very benevolent, and gave back so much. The margins were tight, and there wasn’t a large marketing budget, but they knew they needed to do something.
Jamaal’s challenge when he came to us was, “I know you can do everything. I know I probably need all the things under the digital marketing umbrella. I even need a new website, but I don’t have the budget.”
We said, “That’s not a problem. We start small with many of our clients and find the areas where we can have the greatest ROI and impact. Then, we build from there and create budgets, opening up dollars for investment in other opportunities.”
So, we came into the situation, and we analyzed their audience. They had a wealth of data. They knew their business inside and out, and it was fantastic for us to see that. Still, they needed help understanding digital marketing and couldn’t connect the dots.
They had talked to three or four other providers who gave them high-ticket products or service offerings and didn’t want to work with them to find the right solution or where they should get the most bang for their buck.
We returned to them and recommended, “You should start with SEO.”
Jamaal laughed because he said that was the opposite recommendation that several of the other agencies had made. They had said, “No, you should start with $100,000 a month in Google Ads.”
I said, “You should start on SEO at a fraction of that,” even though we knew the challenges were there with being unable to build a new website. We’d have to navigate their antiquated website and optimize what they had.
We knew that telling the story, getting the content right, and even optimizing a lousy website would get us further along in the long-term journey of driving new leads to the website. We knew we only needed a handful of people to find the site to understand what they did at the right moment, get the right story, and come through the doors and experience this wonderful place.
After building momentum, one lead at a time, we could start talking about a new website, activate additional marketing channels, and layer in aspects of the digital marketing success plan to see success in the long term.
Ultimately, they grew as a business and their marketing investment grew respectively. Eventually, they were acquired by a large hospital system, where everyone could flourish and get the mission and the word out.
The moral of the story is it’s always better to do something rather than nothing.
But if you’re on a limited budget, understand that the obvious answers or the expensive ones aren’t necessarily the best ones. Be willing to dig into the data, do the hard work, and see the opportunity to create new budgets.
By seeing small successes, one at a time, you can build toward bigger things.
To learn more about why digital marketing planning is so important, Corey’s START Planning process, and how to implement which he details in the full book (including more real stories and “how to” sections for each phase of the process), download the book now on Amazon.
For a limited time through July 17, the Kindle version is only 99 cents.
You can also find out more information and free resources at https://thedmsp.com
A value-adding affiliate program is among the highest-value, lowest-risk, and most reliable revenue channels. This three-part series will teach you how to launch, manage, and grow a value-adding affiliate program.
First, we should define “value-adding.” For this guide, value-adding is traffic that does not intercept your own efforts. If you lose SEO rankings, get banned on social media, or your email and SMS lists are destroyed, your affiliates will continue to be able to send you the same volume of customers and sales, helping you stay afloat.
But there are risks to the channel, and it is a heavy labor marketing strategy. Unless you are a major brand, there is no massive group of people who want to promote your product or service and drive sales to you. This is why having a proper plan to launch, manage, and grow your affiliate program is vital, and these three guides teache you how to do that.
Over the last 20+/- years, I’ve helped companies of all sizes and across the world launch, manage, and close down affiliate programs. I’m a two-time winner of the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award, which at the time required nominations from the international affiliate community and voting on by their board of directors.
I currently manage affiliate programs, coach companies, and in-house managers. I also managed an affiliate CPA network for a year in the past. I’ve been on all sides of the equation.
This guide is based on my experience and is intended to help you launch, grow, or remove stagnation from your affiliate program. It’s packed with pro tips to help you with attribution and answer your questions when something feels off, and you’re not getting explanations that sit right, like “It’s part of the customer journey or lifecycle.”
So, let’s start with a definition of an affiliate program because there is a lot of confusion between programs and networks. Then, we will go into the rest of part 1. Each part of the series gets more advanced, so if this is too easy, keep reading.
What Is An Affiliate Program?
An affiliate program is a marketing channel in which a company pays a third party on a revenue-sharing basis to promote its products, services, or offers.
The affiliate program is tracked via a software solution known as an affiliate or CPA network or through an analytics platform.
Now that we have a definition of what an affiliate program is, let’s get into the post.
This topic is split into three parts. Use the jump links below to navigate this post, and watch out for part 2!
Definitions
The jargon with affiliate programs can get confusing, the following is how we define each in this guide. Please note the wording can change based on the country and language.
For example, we say “affiliate program” in the USA, but in the UK, you may hear “affiliate scheme.” It’s the same thing.
Affiliate (also known as a publisher) – The person, company, or entity that promotes a brand, service, or product on a performance basis.
Affiliate network – A tracking platform that traditionally hosts ecommerce stores with multiple products, single or multiple lead forms for SAAS, service providers, aggregators, or services, and earns their money through override fees on transactions and annual software usage fees.
Affiliate program (also known as scheme) – A store, service provider, or company and aggregator that pays other people, companies, or groups to promote their offering on a revenue-sharing or mixed payment model.
CPA network – Similar to an affiliate network, but does single offers or multiple private offers for a long-form, lead form, or landing page type of deal. Instead of ecommerce stores and sites, you may find subscriptions, bundles, and other types of “deals” or “offers” vs. selling individual products or shopping experiences.
Offer – Normally found on CPA networks, not affiliate networks, an offer is a commissionable service, bundle, or lead gen that pays a fee for a specific action, including downloads, form fills, and completed purchases.
OPM (also known as affiliate management company, consultant, or affiliate marketing agency) – Stands for outsourced program management.
Intent to purchase or convert – Commonly used to define where the person is in their customer journey. It is often confused with value-adding, they are not equal or one-in-the same. “High-intent to purchase” or “relevant traffic” can often be used to disguise financially damaging behaviors to the company if allowed in the affiliate program.
FTC disclosures – These are advertising, endorsement, and relationship disclosures the FTC requires when promoting a product, service, brand, or app in order to receive some form of compensation. Click here and here to learn more.
Value add – The level of influence an affiliate click or interaction has on the decision to purchase:
High value – Partners that introduce new users to the brand and have their own traffic. Without this partner, the brand would not gain exposure to the audience or have sales.
Mid value – This touch point can be a review that helps convince a customer to convert or brings a customer back who either did not know the brand offered the product or service or forgot the brand existed.
Low value – An interaction that likely would have occurred without the partner, but there was at least some level of influence. This could be reviews, some end-of-sale touchpoints, or mid-shopping interceptions.
No value – When an affiliate has a touch point that does not influence the decision but takes a commission. This includes coupon codes that leak from influencers or partnerships, some end-of-sale and mid-sale touch points via browser extensions, and websites (including mass media) showing up for “your brand + coupons” in Google.
Now that you have the jargon, let’s jump into the guide.
Setting Goals And Expectations
The first step in launching or rebuilding an affiliate program is to set clear goals and expectations. Some companies do not care if their partners add value; they just need to show that there is a program and sales occur in it.
This is most common with large brands, inexperienced affiliate managers, and agencies that use a “set it and forget it” or “automated” strategy.
Other brands want customer acquisition, brand exposure, and new traffic sources so they can increase revenue and win back previous customers. It is up to you to define the goals for your company and program.
Side note: I’ve heard from C-level and marketing executives who say they do not care if the affiliates add value or not; they just want to keep the board or the C-suite happy. Other times, they need to spend their budget to keep their budget, so they turn their heads the other way, knowing their company is taking a loss. The network reps tell me similar things, and that is why low—and no-value partners will continue to thrive.
Based on the goals you set, you’ll be able to define what is needed in a platform and how to locate and recruit partners that meet your goals and see success with the channel. Proper affiliate platform selection is vital.
Not all platforms offer video creative or advanced HTML/JavaScript for advanced tools. Some have a great reputation in your niche but only do offers vs. ecommerce sales, so you won’t be able to grow or scale if you work with them and want traditional affiliates.
If compliance is important, not all networks give you direct access to the partners in your affiliate program, and some block referring URLs. This means you don’t know if your partners are making false claims, including medical claims, not following brand guidelines, or using advertising disclosures.
To pick a tracking platform for your affiliate program, ask yourself these questions:
Do I want new customers or not?
Will I be ok with revenue losses if AOV (average order value) increases, and can I do a controlled test before I launch?
This is a common talking point by voucher/coupon and loyalty browser extensions to get into programs. They will say allowing them to interact with customers already in the shopping process increases conversions or AOV.
You must have an unbiased third party, which means no affiliate networks, affiliate managers, or affiliate agencies running the test. None of these groups is unbiased, as all are incentivized to allow these touchpoints.
What types of creatives will I need to provide in order to achieve my goals?
Am I okay with not being able to forecast profitability, as the entire channel is out of my control?
Knowing this is a labor-intensive channel, can I dedicate the resources and take the financial loss during the first year or two to test its viability? Or will my time and money be better focused on PPC, social media, SEO, win-backs, co-marketing, offline advertising, etc…? If I don’t have the time, can I afford to take a loss on an agency for a year while they try it for me?
What is the potential market opportunity, and have I tested the conversions from it? This refers to how much traffic is out there that you cannot reach on your own if your goal is a value-adding affiliate program.
Pro tip: Launching multiple networks because access to all affiliates is a bad idea 99.99% of the time. You’ll need to add custom logic code to your shopping cart to prevent paying out to multiple networks and to track all affiliate network clicks with a custom internal attribution system.
If you don’t have custom click attribution, the wrong network will get credit for the sale when two are involved, and you’ll end up choosing the wrong one to stick with. Don’t make this mistake as so many do.
Forecasting If An Affiliate Program Makes Sense Or Can Be Profitable
If all your affiliates are doing is intercepting your own traffic through browser extensions or by showing up in Google or Bing for your brand + coupons, you can forecast affiliate sales based on total site conversions.
These partners grow and fall as your own efforts grow and fall as your traffic falls because they are intercepting your own customers on your own website.
The more customers you have, the more they can intercept and the more they make. The less you have, the less they have to intercept and the less they make.
With that said, you can make a forecast for high-value affiliates that bring sales you would not have had on your own. This involves using data points from other channels. I’ll use non-review and non-coupon SEO affiliates for the example.
Start by using Google’s Keyword Planner or a keyword estimator from your favorite SEO tool to find estimated search volumes.
Combine the volume with your own data points for conversions. (For example, if you have a 5% conversion rate from PPC for the phrase “best blue tshirts” and there are 10,000 people searching each month, having affiliates show up for this phrase in SEO lets you forecast potential revenue if they send you the traffic.)
Combine this with your other data points for a more complete opportunity, including social media influencers, YouTube, and co-marketing.
Here’s A Formula To Use For A Basic Affiliate Program Profitability Forecast
2,000 visitors at 5% conversions with an AOV of $50 = $5,000.
With a 10% commission, 20% network fee, and operating cost of $2 per order, your profit is $4,200 (there is a net cost of $800 in the example above).
Last, add in anything you pay your affiliate manager including bonuses and design costs for banners, etc…
If you pay your affiliate manager $2,000 per month, your revenue will be $2,200 per month or $26,400 per year. The customer acquisition cost (CAC) is amazing!
Bonus tip: Look at how many customers come back and purchase again. If you are not paying on the second or third sale but keep the touchpoint in your records, then each additional sale from this acquisition counts as revenue with a higher ROAS (return on ad spend).
In the situation above you may find that this affiliate traffic leads to a large LTV (lifetime value) customer, so maybe you take a loss on the first sale for the partners with a higher PLTV (predicted lifetime value).
You may lose on the first sale, but you don’t have to pay for that same customer multiple times, and the affiliate continues to send you more like them because your affiliates are being paid fairly.
Move On To Part Two: Types Of Affiliates & Onboarding
Now that you know what the terminology means, how to forecast profitability, and can set goals and expectations for your affiliate program, let’s look at the types of affiliates, the tools they’ll need, ways to activate them, and communications strategies in part two.
It’s been a year of considerable disruptions in digital marketing so far.
Right now, the industry is dealing with the integration of generative AI and the impact this is going to have on user behaviour and how people search. Alongside the relentless updates that Google keeps throwing at us.
SEO is changing and the industry is trying to adapt whilst accepting the uncertainty.
But, it’s not all catastrophic, there is a lot of opportunity ahead for those that can evolve to embrace the new.
To help marketers and brands thrive amidst uncertainty, I’ve outlined trends to focus on, guided by strategic insights and Yogi Berra’s timeless wisdom,
“Predictions are hard, especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra
Digital marketers can no doubt relate to Yogi’s sentiment, acknowledging the challenge of what lies ahead.
These, then, are the top 10 digital marketing trends for 2024:
1. Strategy: “If You Don’t Know Where You Are Going, You Might Wind Up Someplace Else.”
Why is “strategy” this year’s top trend instead of the latest technology?
Well, as Yogi once observed, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”
According to Spencer Stuart’s 2024 CMO Tenure Study, the average tenure of chief marketing officers (CMOs) at Fortune 500 companies in 2023 was 4.2 years.
The study also found the average tenure of CMOs at B2B companies was 4.5 years. It was 4.0 years for CMOs at B2C companies. And it was just 3.1 years at the consumer-heavy top 100 advertisers.
So, developing a digital marketing strategy that will generate above-average results within a couple of years is the key to keeping your job as the CMO of a big brand.
And if you don’t master the art and science of creating a digital marketing strategy that generates business outcomes, then you won’t land one of the CMO jobs that turn over each year.
In other words, learning to use the latest technology is necessary, but it won’t get digital marketing leaders and executives where they want to go.
2. Generative AI: “Predictions Are Hard, Especially About The Future.”
Yogi also said, “Predictions are hard, especially about the future.” So, it’s tempting to ask generative AI tools to predict their own future.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT 3.5 says:
“AI and machine learning have been transforming digital marketing for years, but 2024 is poised to see these technologies become even more integral. From chatbots and predictive analytics to personalized content and ad targeting, AI will enhance customer experiences and drive efficiency. Brands leveraging AI can expect to see improved ROI and deeper customer insights.”
Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) says:
“It ain’t science fiction anymore. Artificial intelligence (AI) is taking center stage, from crafting personalized chatbots that convert like crazy to optimizing campaigns with laser precision. Don’t fear the robot takeover, embrace it!”
And Anthropic’s Claude 3 says:
“Artificial intelligence writing assistants like Claude have been making waves, and in 2024 we’ll see these tools become ubiquitous in content marketing. They’ll help scale content creation while maintaining quality.”
But AI can’t see the big picture for your organization. It can’t empathize with people. And it can’t be creative like you. So, AI needs you in the driver’s seat to make it work effectively.
3. SEO: “It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over.”
Some pundits think SEO is dead. But as Yogi declared, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
Now, Rand Fishkin and Mike King were the first to report on the leaked documents. Although Google has officially acknowledged that these internal documents are authentic, it has also cautioned against jumping to conclusions based on the leaked files alone.
So, I’m going to follow Fishkin’s recommendations, including:
Hire writers with established reputational authority that Google already associates with quality content.
Supplement link-building with public relations to increase branded search demand. (I’ll say more on this below.)
“Think about SEO as being more geographically specific than you think it is even for web search results.”
Move beyond parsing Google’s public statements and embrace experimentation and testing to uncover what produces results.
4. Link Building: “Always Go To Other People’s Funerals; Otherwise, They Won’t Go To Yours.”
I spotted this trend a long time ago, and I spoke about it at SES London 2009 in a session titled, “Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Mentions Online.”
Back then, I said link bait tactics can be effective “if you focus on the underlying quality as well as ingenuity needed to get other websites to link to you.”
I also provided a couple of case studies that showed British SEO professionals how to “approach journalists, bloggers, and other authoritative sources to enhance your company’s online reputation, whether or not you get links.”
But getting authoritative mentions without links didn’t translate. People on the other side of the pond thought I was saying something unintentionally funny like, “Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t go to yours.”
As he clearly explained at MozCon, “If you get a whole bunch of links in one day and nothing else, guess what? You manipulated the link graph. If you’re really a big brand, people should be talking about you.”
5. Paid Media: “It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again.”
Everyone knows that Google, Meta, and other paid media are adding AI to their advertising platforms faster than the speed of sound. So, this might be mistaken as background noise.
But I’ve spotted the signal in the noise. Today’s frenzy to provide AI solutions is remarkably like the frenzy to provide programmatic solutions a decade ago. As Yogi said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
This means that digital marketers – and their agencies – can quickly refresh their “programmatic” workflow and turn it into “AI” best practices.
For example, Google touted a five-step programmatic workflow five years ago.
It consisted of:
Organize audience insights.
Design compelling creative.
Execute with integrated technology.
Reach audiences across screens.
Measure the impact.
Why is today’s process of buying and selling digital media in an automated fashion so similar? Because AI is just fulfilling the early promise of programmatic to engage with consumers in the moments that matter most.
But there’s one significant difference between then and now.
As you’ll read below, it’s the improved ability to integrate your advertising platforms with your analytics platform to measure the impact of campaigns on brand awareness and lead generation.
6. Analytics: “You Can Observe A Lot By Watching.”
But brand marketers rarely focused on their analytics data because “brand awareness” was something they measured when consumers initially saw their display ads or watched their video ads.
A funny thing happened after Google Analytics 4 rolled out last summer. A “Business objectives” collection replaced the “Life cycle” collection of reports and one business objective you can now track is “Raise brand awareness.”
For example, brand marketers can now use traffic acquisition, demographic details, user acquisition, as well as which pages and screens users visit to measure brand awareness in places that are less vulnerable to ad fraud.
Another business objective you can now track is “Generate leads.”
So, digital marketers can measure any user action that’s valuable to their organization, including:
Scrolling to 90% or more of their blog post.
Downloading a whitepaper.
Subscribing to their newsletter.
Playing at least 50% of a product video.
Completing a tutorial.
Submitting a registration form.
And as Yogi noted, “You can observe a lot by watching.”
7. Content Marketing: “When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It.”
In the summer of 2020, the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs fielded their annual survey and found that “Content marketers are resilient. Most have met the challenges of the pandemic head-on.”
In response to the pandemic, B2B and B2C marketers:
But content marketers now know exactly what to do. As Yogi directed, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
8. Video Creation: “If You Can’t Imitate Him, Don’t Copy Him.”
I teach an online class at the New Media Academy in Dubai on “Influencer Marketing and AI.” This may seem like an odd combination of topics, but they’re related to another class I teach on “Engaging Audiences through Content.”
I tell my students that creating great content is hard. That’s why marketers start using influencers or AI to create video content that their audience will find valuable and engaging. Then, they learn that there’s more to learn.
For example, AI can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions. But AI can’t be creative like humans. So, the heart of every great video is still innovative, surprising, human-led creativity.
I show them “OpenAI Sora’s first short film – ‘Air Head,’ created by shy kids,” a Toronto-based production company.
Then, I ask them to apply what they have learned by using Synthesia, Runway, or invideo AI to generate a short video for their capstone project.
Invariably, they report that AI video generators can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions but aren’t creative like shy kids.
Or, as Yogi put it, “If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.”
9. Influencer Marketing: “Nobody Goes There Anymore. It’s Too Crowded.”
The Influencer Marketing Hub says, “Most marketers believe that finding and selecting the best, most relevant influencers to be the most difficult part of influencer marketing.”
That’s ironic because HypeAuditor offers an influencer discovery platform that enables marketers to search through a database of 137.5 million influencers on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and Twitch.
It also enables marketers to apply filters to discover the perfect partners for their brand.
This apparent contradiction reminds me of Yogi’s comment, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
But it also indicates that most marketers are looking at influencer identification through the wrong end of the telescope. What should they do instead?
Well, I show the students in my “Influencer Marketing and AI” class how to use SparkToro to get a free report on the audience that searches for “Dubai.”
Image from SparkToro, June 2024
SparkToro estimates that 446,000 to 654,000 people search for “Dubai” monthly. And it uncovers the websites they visit, the keywords they search for, and their gender demographics.
Image from SparkToro, June 2024
SparkToro also identifies the sources of influence for this audience, including high-affinity accounts and hidden gems, so marketers can invest in the right ones.
10. Social Media: “The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be.”
I’m a big believer in “the rule of three.”
So, I wasn’t startled when I received an email from Jennifer Radke inviting me to attend “an exciting webinar focused on a high-level look into using ChatGPT for social media!”
But I was shocked when Katie Delahaye Paine shared a link to new research by Asana’s Work Innovation Lab and Meltwater, which found that “only 28% of marketing professionals have received training on how to use AI tools effectively.”
I was also horrified when I read a column by Mark Ritson in MarketingWeek that argued, “AI’s strength is automating high-volume, short-term marketing activity, which means social media could become a cesspool of synthetic content.”
Hey, I was having lunch with Chris Shipley in 2004 when she coined the term “social media.” So, I remember when social media still had a promising future.
But, as Yogi once declared, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
So, social media marketing has three options:
They can get upskilled to use AI tools more effectively.
They can get reskilled to identify the right influencers.
They can update their resumes and look for new jobs.
Picking Digital Marketing Trends Is Like Playing Moneyball
Some skeptics may question this counter-intuitive lineup of the top 10 digital marketing trends for 2024. Some of my selections seem to throw out conventional wisdom.
I recently watched the movie Moneyball (2011) for a second time. I was reminded that the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s general manager, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), and assistant general manager, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), used sabermetrics to analyze players.
This produced an epiphany: Picking digital marketing trends is like playing Moneyball. If you want to win against competitors with bigger budgets, then you need to find strategic insights, critical data, tactical advice, and digital marketing trends that conventional wisdom has overlooked.
And where did I come up with the whimsical idea of matching each trend with one of Yogi’s memorable quotes? Was it inspiration or hallucination?
I recently watched the documentary It Ain’t Over (2022) for the first time. It’s about New York Yankee Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra. And it supported Yogi’s claim, “I really didn’t say everything I said.”
But sportswriters kept attributing these Yogi-isms to the catcher because these “distilled bits of wisdom … like good country songs … get to the truth in a hurry,” as Allan Barra, the author of a book on Yogi, has explained.
And that strategic insight produced this year’s update – by a human – as opposed to last year’s top 10 digital marketing trends by ChatGPT.
I have an extremely confidential piece of information on a particular sheet of paper. This A4-sized paper contains a list of Christmas presents I plan to give to my family members.
To make sure that no one gets access to this information, I have hidden it in my home office, in the cupboard next to my desk. There you find a chunky English dictionary.
When you open the page where “Christmas” is listed, you will find my precious list, carefully folded into two.
But what if my children or my other half comes to look something up in an analogue dictionary? Arguably, the risk is small, but I am not taking any chances. I have a secret language called Japanese.
My family might find that piece of paper, but all they will see will be タータンチェックの野球帽 and 腕時計, which are basically hieroglyphs to them.
Thanks to this, my family enjoys wonderful moments exchanging gifts every Christmas. Just writing about this makes me grin, imagining the surprised faces and a burst of laughter, surrounded by the green scent of the Christmas tree and the obligatory mulled wine.
This motivates me to conceal this highly sensitive information even more!
We will discuss how companies and their marketing department can protect their secrets, and their data, so that they, too, can bring a smile to their customers’ faces.
Understanding Information Security
In some games, you have this “get out of jail card.” With these cards, you can avoid missing out on a round of games. What if I said GDPR has something similar?
It is called data security.
The GDPR provisions for data security are in line with the risk-based approach embedded in law, where risk is minimized, and more flexibility is given to controllers.
If it was encrypted, you do not need to inform your customers that there was a data breach. Not having to inform your customers saves the brand image your marketing department has been building for years.
That is one reason why data security is such an important discipline. Many organizations have a separate security department and a chief information security officer who heads the functional areas.
Those marketers who had security incidents published by news outlets must know how life-saving security colleagues can be in times of need.
Definition Of Information Strategy
The word data security is not found in Article 4 of GDPR, the article where definitions are listed. Instead, the word “security” appears in Article 5, where the basic premises of the data protection law are described.
In other words, data security is one of the main principles of the GDPR, “integrity and confidentiality.”
GDPR expects organizations to ensure the prevention of unauthorized or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction, or damage of data as one of the starting points for protecting personal data.
TOMs must be implemented to this end so that the integrity and confidentiality of the data are protected (Article 5(f) GDPR) (legislation.gov.uk, 2016).
Outside Of GDPR, Information Security Is Defined As Follows
Information security is the safeguarding of information and information systems against deliberate and unintentional unauthorized access, disruption, modification, and destruction by external or internal actors. (Gartner, Inc., 2023)
Information security is the technologies, policies, and practices you choose to help you keep data secure. (gov.uk, 2018)
Information security: The protection of information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction in order to provide confidentiality, integrity, and availability. (NIST, 2023)
Approach To Information Security
Just as marketing professionals created strategic frameworks – 4Ps, 7Ps, 4Cs, and so on – so the school of information security strategy has come up with frameworks: the CIA triad and the Parkerian Hexad.
CIA stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.
Donn Parker, a security consultant, later expanded this framework with three more elements, namely Utility, Authenticity, and Possession.
Below is a brief description of the six aspects of the Parkerian Hexad (Bosworth et al, 2009).
Availability
Availability refers to the ability of the organization to access data. When, for instance, there is a loss of power and your marketers cannot access customer data, it is considered an availability problem.
The file is there, so it is not stolen. However, the marketer is temporarily unable to access the particular data.
Utility
Utility of the Parkerian Hexad relates to the problem of losing the usefulness of the data. For instance, if a campaign manager loses the encryption key to the data, the data is still there, and it can be accessed.
However, the data cannot be used because the emails needed for carrying out an email campaign are encrypted so they are useless.
Integrity
Maintaining integrity refers to preventing unauthorized changes to the data.
For instance, if an intern of the marketing department accidentally deletes the field “purchased more than two items” within the dataset, this is an integrity-related security incident.
If the manager of the intern can undo the deletion of the field, then the integrity of the data is intact.
Typically, integrity is maintained by assigning different access rights, such as read-only access for interns and read-and-write access for the marketing manager.
Authenticity
Authenticity relates to the attribution of data or information to the rightful owner or the creator of that data or information.
Imagine a situation where your advertising agency, acting as your data service provider, receives a fake email which instructs them to delete all your customer data.
The agency might think that it is a genuine instruction from your company, and executes the command. This is then an authenticity problem.
Confidentiality
When someone unauthorized gets access to a particular marketing analytic file, confidentiality is being breached.
Possession
The Parkerian Hexad uses the term possession to describe situations where data or information is stolen.
For instance, a malevolent employee of the marketing department downloads all the sales contact information to a mobile device and then deletes them from the network. This is a possession problem.
Risk Management
In addition to understanding the problems you are facing, using the Parkerian Hexad, your organization must know the potential security risks for the business.
Andress suggests a useful and generic five-step risk management process, for a variety of situations (Andress, 2019).
Step 1: Identify Assets
Before your organization can start managing your marketing department’s risks, you need to map out all data assets belonging to your marketing department.
In doing so, all data, some distributed in different systems or entrusted to service providers, must be accounted for.
Once this exercise is completed, your marketing department can determine which data files are the most critical. RoPA, with all processes of personal data mapped out, can be leveraged for this exercise.
Step 2: Identify Threats
For all data files and processes identified in the previous step, potential threats are determined. This may mean holding a brainstorming session with marketers and security and data protection departments to go through the data and processes one by one.
The Parkerian Hexad from the previous section can be a great help in guiding through such sessions. It will also be helpful to identify the most critical data and processes during this exercise.
Step 3: Assess Vulnerabilities
In this step, for each data-use surfaced in Step 2, relevant threats are identified.
In doing so, the context of your organization’s operation, products and services sold, vendor relations as well as the physical location of the company premises are considered.
Step 4: Assess Vulnerabilities
In this step, the threats and vulnerabilities for each data and process are compared and assigned risk levels.
Vulnerabilities with no corresponding threats or threats with no associated vulnerabilities will be seen as not having any risk.
Step 5: Mitigate Risks
For the risks that surfaced in Step 4, measures necessary to prevent them from occurring will be determined during this stage.
Andress identifies three types of controls that can be used for this purpose. The first type of control, logical control, protects the IT environment for processing your customer data, such as password protection and the placing of firewalls.
The second type of control is administrative control, which is usually deployed in the form of corporate security policy, which the organization can enforce. The last type of control is physical control.
As the name suggests, this type of control protects the business premises and makes use of tools such as CCTV, keycard-operated doors, fire alarms, and backup power generators.
With the time, risks may change.
For instance, your marketing department may be physically relocated to a new building, changing the physical security needs, or your company might decide to migrate from a physical server to a cloud-based hosting service, which means your customer data will have to move, too.
Both such situations necessitate a new round of the risk management process to kick off.
In general, it is advisable to revisit the risk management process on a regular interval, say annually, to keep your company on top of all risks your marketing department, and beyond, carry.
Approaching Risk Management With Three Lines Of Defence
Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) established a risk management model called Three Lines of Defence.
The model requires three internal roles: (1) the governing body, with oversight of the organization, (2) senior management, which takes risk management actions and reports to the governing body, and (3) internal audit, which provides independent assurance, to work together and act as robust protections to the organization (IIA, 2020).
The elements of the Three Lines of Defence are (IIA, 2020):
First Line Of Defence
Manage risks associated with day-to-day operational activities. Senior management has the primary responsibility, and emphasis is put on people and culture.
Marketing managers’ task here is to make sure that their department is aware of data protection risks, including security risks, and are following relevant corporate policies.
Second Line Of Defence
Identify risks in the daily business operation of the business. Security, data protection, and risk management teams carry out monitoring activities.
Senior management, including the CMO, is ultimately accountable for this line of defence. A well-functioning second line of defence requires good cooperation between marketing and security, data protection, and risk management teams.
Practically, it would mean understanding the importance of operational-level auditing and providing input to the security team, even when there are other pressing deadlines and business issues.
Third Line Of Defence
Provide independent assurance on risk management by assessing the first and second lines of defence. Independent corporate internal audit teams usually have this role.
Here, too, the marketing department will be asked to cooperate during audits. Assurance results reported to the governance body inform the strategic business actions for the senior management team.
References
Andress, J (2019) Foundations of information security, No Starch Press, October 2019.
Bosworth, S, Whyne, E and Kabay, M E (2009) Computer Security Handbook, 5th edn, Wiley, chapter 3: Toward a new framework for information security, Donn B Parker
Gartner, Inc. (2023) Information technology: Gartner glossary, www.gartner.com/ en/information-technology/glossary/information-security (archived at https:// perma.cc/JP27-6CAN)
IIA (2020) The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), The IIA”s Three Lines model, an update of the Three Lines of Defense, July 2020, www.theiia.org/globalassets/documents/resources/the-iias-three-lines-model-an-update-of-the-three-lines-ofdefense-july-2020/three-lines-model-updated-english.pdf (archived at https://perma.cc/9HX7-AU4H)
legislation.gov.uk (2016) Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council, 27 April 2016, www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2016/679/ contents (archived at https://perma.cc/NVG6-PXBQ)
NIST (2023) National Institute of Standards and Technology, US Department of Commerce, Computer Security Resource Centre, Information Technology Laboratory, Glossary, updated 28 May 2023, https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/ information_security (archived at https://perma.cc/TE3Z-LN94); https://csrc. nist.gov/glossary/term/non_repudiation (archived at https://perma.cc/DJ4A- 44N2)
To read the full book, SEJ readers have an exclusive 25% discount code and free shipping to the US and UK. Use promo code SEJ25 at koganpage.com here.
More resources:
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
Let me start by saying that I know you’re successful and probably wonder what you can learn from me as an agency owner, leader, or staffer.
I will humbly admit that I can and do continue to learn from you; I have some great relationships with other agency owners and always learn something when I’m in the room with them – even if it sometimes feels more like a therapy session than one where we solve all of our problems.
Whether we’re talking about advertising, digital, PR, or other niches and specializations, we’re in a hard industry. We care deeply about people – our own and those who are our clients – as well as the missions and causes that factor into the reasons we’re in our current gigs.
I’m here today to share the 8 things I’ve learned over my nearly 20 years in agencies – mostly from the mistakes I have made – so if there’s anything you haven’t experienced, you don’t have to go through it yourself.
1. Know What You Want Or Need
This seems blunt, and I apologize if so. But it probably should be.
If you don’t fully push clients to share their goals or help define what success looks like for your partnership and their investment in an agency (or any resources), you’ll risk wasted dollars and time (for both sides) in getting to their ROI goals and risk churn or attrition of the client relationship.
For some clients, it is a process to figure out what they want and many agencies (including mine) have a robust planning and strategy process to help get to the definition and strategy mapping stage.
However, if you don’t work to elicit objectives and truths for their ROI math and measures that show if something is profitable or not, they might not be ready to go down the path of evaluating an agency partnership and, unfortunately, may sign on with you, but not last long.
2. Be Clear On Communication
I often emphasize to prospects and clients that I want them to be bold and honest and to share with us the details of when and how they want to be communicated with.
That is definitely not a one-way street.
Whether you have highly defined communication processes and cadences or typically adapt them to the client, I want to encourage you to be clear early in the relationship about what works best for your agency.
Be open to sharing how you like to communicate. That could be through email, Slack, text, phone calls, scheduled meetings, tickets, or messages in a project management system. Whatever it is, when it is, and what the response times they can expect, you are definitely best served in sharing about your communication parameters.
We never want clients guessing or our staff being caught up in out-of-cycle, off-hour messages or misaligned response windows.
Despite the constant change in subject matter (that we have to contend with), algorithms, and attribution, one of the biggest reasons prospects and clients still reach out to me is that they weren’t getting the communication they expected from their previous agency.
I know this is a two-way problem, and in many cases, the agency would probably acknowledge communication was an issue, too – or wish that they knew, as it is something that is, in many cases, easy to correct compared to the other challenges we face in meeting performance goals in an ever-changing marketplace.
3. Remember The Scope
My companion article mentions scope, and I want to make sure it isn’t lost or forgotten on the agency side as well. I’m as guilty as anyone of wanting to add value (aka over-service) to clients to show them love in the relationship.
Despite the goodwill built and the potential for growing lifetime value with a client, we have to make sure that our teams understand the scope.
If you have tailored scope documents to different clients, then maybe your team is really dedicated to scope management. However, regardless of what your scope management looks like, if you aren’t tracking utilization, efficiency, and profitability in your agency – down to the client level – then you’re likely operating without all of the information you need.
It is really easy for an owner, salesperson, or anyone to get a scope approved in a contract, SOW, MSA, or other document and then for the team to take over and not look back at it.
Be diligent about what is in scope and what is out of scope, and have dedicated processes to monitor and implement the proper change orders and management techniques to stay on budget in a professional manner.
4. Be Invested
This is a weird one. We all say that we are invested and excited about any client who comes through our doors and chooses to work with us—and that we choose to work with. However, I have seen a lot of strange things in my career.
Again, no judgment here, and I can’t say that my team has been fully engaged or invested in every single relationship. Naturally, there are clients and brands in some less-than-sexy industries.
There are clients who are not the easiest to connect with on a personal level. There are clients who are not themselves invested in the work. Or, there are clients who are not pleasant to interact with, and for any number of reasons, you can’t fire them at this moment.
In any situation, it shows when we aren’t invested in the client. Maybe they were the first to show it, or maybe we were. They could be quiet quitting on us.
Whatever it is, we need to show our commitment to not just the day-to-day but to being the idea-bringing, problem-solving, solution-seeking, and proactive communicating member of their team that we can be. We must show our commitment and do all that we can to be fully invested in the relationship.
5. Share Your Expectations
Understanding and managing client expectations is important in the agency/client relationship. It has been talked about forever and will continue to be.
Expectations, however, are a two-way street. We want to know what our clients expect and to help shape those expectations to be realistic based on the scope, our expertise, or the scale of the services we’re offering.
However, what if we also stated what we expect of our clients? I’m not saying it is a perfect process, as the party who is paying the bill typically wants to feel catered to and have their expectations met.
At the same time, as I think back on some of my team’s biggest challenges, they often stem from some type of asset, approval, deliverable, or step that a client hasn’t followed through on or done in a timely manner.
Did we do our best to clearly state our expectations on what we expected from the client? Did they know the consequences of not delivering?
Whether it is a balanced, mutual client agreement, a manifesto, bill of rights, or some other expectation-setting tool or document, I believe that agencies (including mine) should do a better job of stating our expectations while also trying to understand, manage, and set those of the client.
6. Be Patient, Yet Expect Accountability
This one is hard – sometimes really hard.
Accountability can be intimidating and something that is hard for agencies to accept as we typically, by default, don’t have control of client branding decisions, sales teams, ultimate marketing approvals, product roadmaps, or financial performance.
Yes, we often can get transparent ROI math, access to CRM, and possibly a seat at the marketing table.
The difficulty of accountability is that when we don’t have full control, we often can’t be fully accountable for results and actions. In relationships with little digital agency accountability, it is easy to stay on the search or marketing side of the table. That means doing what we can from the outside or a couple of levels deep.
We can report marketing metrics and KPIs and collaborate, but ultimately, it is up to the client to judge the effort’s ROI and connect all the dots.
On the other hand, to get to the depth we need in order to fully prove our ROI, we might not agree with or like the decisions being made and still have to settle for a certain level of accountability that isn’t totally fair to us.
In any situation, we must find a balance between being patient as we navigate getting as deep as possible with our clients versus pushing too hard or being walled off from information.
7. Provide A Clear Escalation Path
Most people in the business world are respectful and professional and want to maintain a positive reputation.
This leads to cordial relationships and often great camaraderie between people on the client and agency sides of the relationship.
However, if the day-to-day person on the agency side is close to the work or close to the client contact, chances are that the client contact may not feel super comfortable providing negative feedback.
Feedback is a great tool in general, as getting it early and often in a relationship allows for minor adjustments to strategy, communication, or other factors in the relationship. However, if someone doesn’t know where to give objective feedback or doesn’t feel they can do it without hurting feelings or being confrontational, then that is a problem.
I mentioned quiet quitting earlier.
I have observed a lot of quiet quitting of clients in agency relationships over the past couple of years. While I don’t know that having an escalation path is the biggest factor, I can definitely recommend making it clear and comfortable for the client to know how to give direct feedback, anonymous feedback, and feedback to others in the chain of command in a way that will be handled professionally so they aren’t shy about giving it.
8. Celebrate
This is possibly the most overlooked aspect of any agency relationship. It might be easy to keep the client at arms distance or even to assume they are celebrating their own wins separate from yours.
Assuming they have real wins in their company that have any attribution to or opportunity to bring in your agency for, then encourage it!
Good agencies care about their clients and their success. Companies who see that success and feel like their agency is a partner, not a vendor, should naturally want to celebrate together.
If you have a partnership that isn’t at arms length, please share your successes with the client and push them to share data and reasons to celebrate with you as well.
With how many years I’ve been doing this, I know our type. I know that we’re agency people who know how to properly party and celebrate things and love to hear about wins and share them.
Chances are, if we are good at sharing wins and cultivating a culture for our clients to share wins with us, we’ll be able to properly party with our clients and be one team instead of two in the relationship.
It might not seem like a big deal, but believe me – in the post-COVID era and in a decade with a lot of burnout, we need to celebrate wins more than ever.
Have Honest, Clear, and Difficult Conversations Earlier
While some of what I talked about might feel like tough love, please know that I will be the first to say that I’m not perfect, nor is my team.
Everything I have shared is what I believe in and is also something I want to be accountable for.
Whether it is setting expectations, making sure the fit with the client is right for both sides, being open to honest feedback, managing scope, or any number of other things that you can do to enhance the client experience and have smooth client relationships, I want to challenge you to test these things out and see how they improve retention, performance, and efficiency in your agency.
This post was sponsored by DebugBear. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.
Keeping your website fast is important for user experience and SEO.
The Core Web Vitals initiative by Google provides a set of metrics to help you understand the performance of your website.
The three Core Web Vitals metrics are:
This post focuses on the recently introduced INP metric and what you can do to improve it.
How Is Interaction To Next Paint Measured?
INP measures how quickly your website responds to user interactions – for example, a click on a button. More specifically, INP measures the time in milliseconds between the user input and when the browser has finished processing the interaction and is ready to display any visual updates on the page.
Your website needs to complete this process in under 200 milliseconds to get a “Good” score. Values over half a second are considered “Poor”. A poor score in a Core Web Vitals metric can negatively impact your search engine rankings.
Google collects INP data from real visitors on your website as part of the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). This CrUX data is what ultimately impacts rankings.
Image created by DebugBear, May 2024
How To Identify & Fix Slow INP Times
The factors causing poor Interaction to Next Paint can often be complex and hard to figure out. Follow this step-by-step guide to understand slow interactions on your website and find potential optimizations.
1. How To Identify A Page With Slow INP Times
Different pages on your website will have different Core Web Vitals scores. So you need to identify a slow page and then investigate what’s causing it to be slow.
By default, page URLs are grouped into URL groups that cover many different pages. Be careful here – not all pages might have the problem that Google is reporting. Instead, click on each URL group to see if URL-specific data is available for some pages and then focus on those.
Screenshot of Google Search Console, May 2024
Using A Real-User Monitoring (RUM) Service
Google won’t report Core Web Vitals data for every page on your website, and it only provides the raw measurements without any details to help you understand and fix the issues. To get that you can use a real-user monitoring tool like DebugBear.
Real-user monitoring works by installing an analytics snippet on your website that measures how fast your website is for your visitors. Once that’s set up you’ll have access to an Interaction to Next Paint dashboard like this:
Screenshot of the DebugBear Interaction to Next Paint dashboard, May 2024
You can identify pages you want to optimize in the list, hover over the URL, and click the funnel icon to look at data for that specific page only.
Image created by DebugBear, May 2024
2. Figure Out What Element Interactions Are Slow
Different visitors on the same page will have different experiences. A lot of that depends on how they interact with the page: if they click on a background image there’s no risk of the page suddenly freezing, but if they click on a button that starts some heavy processing then that’s more likely. And users in that second scenario will experience much higher INP.
To help with that, RUM data provides a breakdown of what page elements users interacted with and how big the interaction delays were.
Screenshot of the DebugBear INP Elements view, May 2024
The screenshot above shows different INP interactions sorted by how frequent these user interactions are. To make optimizations as easy as possible you’ll want to focus on a slow interaction that affects many users.
In DebugBear, you can click on the page element to add it to your filters and continue your investigation.
3. Identify What INP Component Contributes The Most To Slow Interactions
Input Delay: Background code that blocks the interaction from being processed.
Processing Time: The time spent directly handling the interaction.
Presentation Delay: Displaying the visual updates to the screen.
You should focus on which INP component is the biggest contributor to the slow INP time, and ensure you keep that in mind during your investigation.
Screenshot of the DebugBear INP Components, May 2024
In this scenario, Processing Time is the biggest contributor to the slow INP time for the set of pages you’re looking at, but you need to dig deeper to understand why.
High processing time indicates that there is code intercepting the user interaction and running slow performing code. If instead you saw a high input delay, that suggests that there are background tasks blocking the interaction from being processed, for example due to third-party scripts.
4. Check Which Scripts Are Contributing To Slow INP
Sometimes browsers report specific scripts that are contributing to a slow interaction. Your website likely contains both first-party and third-party scripts, both of which can contribute to slow INP times.
A RUM tool like DebugBear can collect and surface this data. The main thing you want to look at is whether you mostly see your own website code or code from third parties.
Screenshot of the INP Primary Script Domain Grouping in DebugBear, May 2024
Tip: When you see a script, or source code function marked as “N/A”, this can indicate that the script comes from a different origin and has additional security restrictions that prevent RUM tools from capturing more detailed information.
This now begins to tell a story: it appears that analytics/third-party scripts are the biggest contributors to the slow INP times.
5. Identify Why Those Scripts Are Running
At this point, you now have a strong suspicion that most of the INP delay, at least on the pages and elements you’re looking at, is due to third-party scripts. But how can you tell whether those are general tracking scripts or if they actually have a role in handling the interaction?
DebugBear offers a breakdown that helps see why the code is running, called the INP Primary Script Invoker breakdown. That’s a bit of a mouthful – multiple different scripts can be involved in slowing down an interaction, and here you just see the biggest contributor. The “Invoker” is just a value that the browser reports about what caused this code to run.
Screenshot of the INP Primary Script Invoker Grouping in DebugBear, May 2024
The following invoker names are examples of page-wide event handlers:
onclick
onmousedown
onpointerup
You can see those a lot in the screenshot above, which tells you that the analytics script is tracking clicks anywhere on the page.
In contrast, if you saw invoker names like these that would indicate event handlers for a specific element on the page:
.load_more.onclick
#logo.onclick
6. Review Specific Page Views
A lot of the data you’ve seen so far is aggregated. It’s now time to look at the individual INP events, to form a definitive conclusion about what’s causing slow INP in this example.
Real user monitoring tools like DebugBear generally offer a way to review specific user experiences. For example, you can see what browser they used, how big their screen is, and what element led to the slowest interaction.
Screenshot of a Page View in DebugBear Real User Monitoring, May 2024
As mentioned before, multiple scripts can contribute to overall slow INP. The INP Scripts section shows you the scripts that were run during the INP interaction:
Screenshot of the DebugBear INP script breakdown, May 2024
You can review each of these scripts in more detail to understand why they run and what’s causing them to take longer to finish.
7. Use The DevTools Profiler For More Information
Real user monitoring tools have access to a lot of data, but for performance and security reasons they can access nowhere near all the available data. That’s why it’s a good idea to also use Chrome DevTools to measure your page performance.
To debug INP in DevTools you can measure how the browser processes one of the slow interactions you’ve identified before. DevTools then shows you exactly how the browser is spending its time handling the interaction.
Screenshot of a performance profile in Chrome DevTools, May 2024
How You Might Resolve This Issue
In this example, you or your development team could resolve this issue by:
Working with the third-party script provider to optimize their script.
Removing the script if it is not essential to the website, or finding an alternative provider.
Adjusting how your own code interacts with the script
How To Investigate High Input Delay
In the previous example most of the INP time was spent running code in response to the interaction. But often the browser is already busy running other code when a user interaction happens. When investigating the INP components you’ll then see a high input delay value.
This can happen for various reasons, for example:
The user interacted with the website while it was still loading.
A scheduled task is running on the page, for example an ongoing animation.
The page is loading and rendering new content.
To understand what’s happening, you can review the invoker name and the INP scripts section of individual user experiences.
Screenshot of the INP Component breakdown within DebugBear, May 2024
In this screenshot, you can see that a timer is running code that coincides with the start of a user interaction.
The script can be opened to reveal the exact code that is run:
Screenshot of INP script details in DebugBear, May 2024
The source code shown in the previous screenshot comes from a third-party user tracking script that is running on the page.
At this stage, you and your development team can continue with the INP workflow presented earlier in this article. For example, debugging with browser DevTools or contacting the third-party provider for support.
How To Investigate High Presentation Delay
Presentation delay tends to be more difficult to debug than input delay or processing time. Often it’s caused by browser behavior rather than a specific script. But as before, you still start by identifying a specific page and a specific interaction.
You can see an example interaction with high presentation delay here:
Screenshot of the an interaction with high presentation delay, May 2024
You see that this happens when the user enters text into a form field. In this example, many visitors pasted large amounts of text that the browser had to process.
Here the fix was to delay the processing, show a “Waiting…” message to the user, and then complete the processing later on. You can see how the INP score improves from May 3:
Screenshot of an Interaction to Next Paint timeline in DebugBear, May 2024
Get The Data You Need To Improve Interaction To Next Paint
Screenshot of the DebugBear Core Web Vitals dashboard, May 2024
Google’s CrUX data is aggregated over a 28-day period, which means that it’ll take a while before you notice a regression. With real-user monitoring you can see the impact of website changes right away and get alerted automatically when there’s a big change.
DebugBear monitors lab data, CrUX data, and real user data. That way you have all the data you need to optimize your Core Web Vitals in one place.
This article has been sponsored by DebugBear, and the views presented herein represent the sponsor’s perspective.
Ready to start optimizing your website? Sign up for DebugBear and get the data you need to deliver great user experiences.
