Digital Marketing News 06/28/2022 – 07/04/2022

Social

TikTok Enables Flexible Attribution Windows Through ‘Attribution Manager’

TikTok introduced its new Attribution Manager tool, which lets advertisers set custom attribution windows for TikTok campaigns.

Marketers use attribution to understand the actions that users take after an ad is clicked or viewed over a certain period of time. For advertisers, the attribution window is the number of days between when a person viewed or clicked an ad and subsequently took action.

According to TikTok, “Flexible attribution windows are important for businesses since they have different customer conversion journeys.” This also helps marketers optimize toward better campaign performance.

With the new TikTok Attribution Manager, marketers can customize their attribution windows on TikTok Ads Manager. Using the Attribution Manager for web and app campaigns allows marketers to select a specific time period to measure success: the click-through attribution (CTA) window can range from one day to 28 days, while view-through attribution (VTA) window options range from off to up to seven days.

Within Attribution Manager, TikTok Pixel and Web Event API advertisers will be defaulted to 7-day click and 1-day view. This means that for ad clicks, users have 7 days to convert in order for it to be shown in TikTok Ads Manager; similarly, for views, users have 24 hours to convert from the time when the ad is viewed.

The following time frame options are also available:

• Click-through (CTA): 1, 7, 14, 28 day

• View-through (VTA): off, 1 and 7 day 

On TikTok Ads Manager, you can find Attribution Manager under the Assets menu. This tool will be available for advertisers who run web campaigns using the TikTok Pixel or Events API. For app promotion campaigns, Attribution Manager will be enabled when TikTok Ads Manager moves to a self-attributing model.

Social

Twitter’s ‘Branded Likes’ Now Available to More Advertisers 

Advertisers now have another tool to increase their engagement on Twitter with the expansion of the Branded Likes ad option. 

The Twitter Communications team has announced in a tweet that they will make the Branded Likes ad option available to all advertisers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan starting in the last week of June. 

Branded Likes are custom animations of Twitter’s ‘Like’ button which brands can use to help improve engagement in the app. Here’s an example of a Branded Like ad that was used to promote the “Scream” movie. 

However, while a Branded Like might increase the number of people interacting with your brand, it doesn’t seem to have its own metric as of now, so you’ll have no way of tracking this activity within your campaign stats. Currently, Twitter tracks regular ‘Likes’ and tweet engagement, which refers to clicks anywhere on the Tweet, including Retweets, replies, follows, links, cards, hashtags, embedded media, username, profile photo, or Tweet expansion. 

On the plus side, Branded Likes can turn tweet promotions into something interactive, which may help improve brand recall and messaging resonance. 

While Twitter hasn’t yet disclosed the cost of Branded Likes, prepare for a hefty price tag. After all, they’ve been known to charge $1 million for Hashflags (branded emojis) during the Super Bowl.

Social

Twitter Launches New Forecasting Tool ‘Campaign Planner’ 

After a six-month testing period, Twitter announces the official launch of its new forecasting tool called Campaign Planner. 

The Campaign Planner is designed to help advertisers make informed media investments on Twitter, as the tool allows them to forecast estimated results before they launch the campaign.  

Campaign Planner is available to all managed advertisers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan. With this tool, advertisers can: 

• Forecast reach, impressions, average frequency, and CPM against a specific audience, campaign duration, frequency setting, and placement

• Budget for auction-based campaigns

• Start and save a draft campaign directly from the tool 

By giving advertisers the ability to forecast their ad campaigns, Twitter hopes to empower their partners to better understand the size and cost of reaching a target audience during the planning process. 

Eligible advertisers can access the Campaign Planner from their Twitter Ads account. To begin building a forecast, you’ll be prompted to enter your plan details. 

Campaign Planner also allows you to start draft campaigns, which makes it easier to copy overall plan settings into an actionable campaign. 

Throughout the coming months, Twitter will be expanding the Campaign Planner to support more objectives and in more markets. They’re also looking to enable plan comparison to help advertisers evaluate the best campaign settings for their goals.

Social

Twitter Partners with Shopify to Boost eCommerce Capabilities

 Twitter takes a step towards streamlined in-app commerce with their new Shopify integration.

To help merchants reach shoppers on Twitter, the social networking site partnered with Shopify for a seamless eCommerce experience. The Twitter sales channel app is now available in Shopify’s App Store and through the Shopify admin. When a merchant integrates the Twitter sales channel app, they can: 

• Onboard to Twitter Shopping Manager, the entry point to a suite of Twitter Shopping tools.

• Automatically sync their inventory. As a merchant’s Shopify catalog changes, so does the catalog in their Twitter Shopping Manager.

• Highlight their products. Merchants can showcase their products on their Twitter profile with the Shop Spotlight or Twitter Shops, all for free.

Twitter is also expanding beyond the beta testing phase for Shop Spotlight and Twitter Shops, and they’re making both features available to all merchants in the United States.

Twitter’s new Shopify integration is initially available to all US Shopify merchants.

PPC

Microsoft Introduces Cash Back Promotions for Product Ads 

Microsoft Advertising will start offering Cash back promotions to help retailers drive incremental sales and grow conversions. 

Microsoft’s Cash back promotions is a program that’s currently available to US-based product ads, but it will soon be offered for text ads as well. The goal of the program is to drive incremental sales and return on ad spend (ROAS) growth.

This cash back program is an AI-based optimization managed entirely by Microsoft. When cash backs are given to users, they come from Microsoft Cash back, giving retailers the ability to grow their sales without having to worry about attribution, optimization, and user inquiries.

The Cash back promotions aim to: 

• Grow sales efficiently by incentivizing users with the right value of savings to drive conversions.

• Optimize savings to users' needs by showing them deals for products they care about, thereby increasing efficiency.

• Require no effort on the advertiser’s part as Microsoft uses your existing campaign setup. They also handle all optimizations and post-purchase inquiries. 

Here’s how Microsoft’s Cash back promotions work: 

When a user clicks on an ad served with a Cash back promotion, they have 24 hours after the click to complete their purchase. Microsoft will automatically attribute the purchase to the click and process their cash back. Cash backs are managed entirely by Microsoft, and users can redeem them through the Microsoft Cash backs dashboard. 

Cash back promotions are served for eligible campaigns and users when Microsoft’s AI determines they’ll bring incremental value. It’s worth noting that the cost per click (CPC) charge will increase nominally to accommodate the cost of optimizing the program.

Microsoft assures that “the increased performance will outweigh the costs of this program.” If they cannot deliver on performance, their AI optimization will not serve Cash back promotions. Microsoft Advertising will optimize the amount and frequency of Cash back promotions while focusing on increasing your campaign's incremental conversions and ROAS.

Microsoft says there is no additional setup required to serve Cash back promotions and they will handle all the optimization, payout, and user inquiries. However, advertisers must meet certain campaign eligibility requirements to qualify for Cash back promotions. 

 Your campaign must have purchase conversions set up, as well as a bid strategy that’s optimized for growing conversions and conversion values. It also needs a good number of clicks, click-through rate (CTR), conversions, and healthy ROAS. Finally, Microsoft requires the campaign budget to have the headroom to accommodate any increase in volume.

 If your campaign meets these requirements, it’ll automatically serve Cash back promotions. All your campaign settings including targeting, bid strategy, and budget will stay the same as before.

What you can do next:

• Use forecasting tools such as Twitter’s Campaign Planner to better understand the size and cost of reaching a target audience during the planning process so you can make an informed ad investment.

• Always optimize your ads to improve your campaign performance and maximize results.

• Use advertising tactics that drive relevance and value to consumers to help improve brand recall and messaging resonance, and grow conversions.

• Integrate your professional Twitter account with your Shopify store to increase your reach and market.

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