Who doesn’t want to use their marketing budget to its fullest potential? We all want to reach as many relevant consumers as possible with every ad dollar spent, right? When Google announced it was ending Accelerated Ad Delivery many people’s first thought was, “No problem. I’m using Standard Delivery.  I’m not impacted.” BUT are there potentially unforeseen implications to this change for the CPC ad model and market?  

Accelerated Ad Delivery has front loaded the priority of auction style bidding toward the early part of the day or campaign schedule. This made since for some business models… Like that guy who ran the little lunch joint around the corner, who’s restaurant is too small for family dinners, who needed morning ad performance in order to fill his tables for lunch. Or the lube shop manager who needed to keep the bays full in the morning to ensure he’s profitable every day.

This increased competition in the early hours of the day, which does make since for a few businesses, lead to increased morning CPCs, and a faster overall spend of their ad budget.

Google will switch a multitude of Accelerated Delivery campaigns to Standard Delivery in October.  Standard Delivery is a much more prevalent strategy for bidding for relevant ad space, and it aims to evenly spend an ad budget throughout the day. This typically returns a more efficient overall CPC and uses marketers’ budgets to their fullest potential.

That improved overall ROI for most campaigns would be a win, right?  That is exactly why Google is hitting the brakes on Accelerated Ad Delivery at the end of this month (Oct. 1^st). It’s a trade of morning priority for overall effectiveness.

Google warns that the change from Accelerated delivery to Standard delivery may result in an underspend of your budget if you were previously using Accelerated Delivery. But, consider what happens to the number of bids throughout the rest of the day. If Google takes the “morning rush” and spreads it throughout the day, will that be a significant amount of bid pressure? Will Advertisers be impacted by this leading to higher average CPCs across the entire day?

Google is the Goliath in the CPC bidding, and swinging even a small portion of their customers into another delivery strategy could carry significant weight and affect ROI for the larger portion of advertisers and marketers bidding for ad space every day. Could this little change, this removal of a customer option for the improvement of their own ROI, ultimately result in decreased ROI and effectiveness for most of the campaigns that were already running standard delivery ads?

Only time, and analytics reporting will tell… Maybe, I’m right and forward thinking, or maybe I’m just a little paranoid because I’m always looking out for my customers’ ad dollars like they’re my own… If you are looking for advice on how to best set up your Google campaign for optimal performance, contact Brand Ranch Media, and we will treat your ad dollars just as we would our own.

Source: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2404248?hl=en

Targeting and communicating with your best consumers digitally is essential to achieving many companies’ goals.  The tools and techniques available to identify relevant consumers are continuously becoming more refined.  Which targeting strategy is the right one to maximize your campaign’s effectiveness and minimize waste? Well, that deserves some serious thought, and maybe a conversation about your goals and target consumers.

Let’s start with some pros and cons for two commonly used digital targeting tools; IP based, and Cookie based targeting…. 

IP based targeting is based on the idea that each online device has an IP address, which is in turn tied to a physical location…

There are some pros and cons with this type of location-based targeting:

Pros:

• If you know a user’s location, you can also cross reference lots of other data about them and refine your targeting…
  • Personal information becomes available…
    • Things like Household Income
    • Children in the home
    • Education levels

There is a multitude of consumer demographic data available based on physical location in most developed countries. This compilation of data allows marketers to customize ads to consumers based on that available data, which can be used for both online & offline media and communication.

Cons:    

• Physical locations often have more than one device, and each device can have more than one user, and multiple users often can’t be separately identified through IP address alone
• Offices often share one IP address for all company devices…
  • These devices may also route through a corporate IT central hub, which may be in a completely different city or country.
• User data may be encrypted or shielded for a “wee bit of anonymity,” but with enough attention to detail and additional data sources, there are valid concerns for individual privacy.

Cookies… you’ve probably seen those little notifications and consent forms pop up on your phone or device informing you that a site uses cookies… but how exactly do we use them? Well there are many types of cookies, with different functions, but they are basically lines of code to collect user data from an online device.

Pros:

• Cookies functionally improve the online experience for consumers in many ways.
  • They help recognize users from site visit to visit
  • They store user form fill data
  • They keep track of what you put in your shopping carts
  • They personalize offers which can be beneficial too, as those abandoned items in your cart often come back to you with a discount. 😉
• The data collected by cookies can be used to categorize a user and their interests for behavioral targeting, which allows more relevant ads and content and an improved overall online experience.
• Knowing consumers’ historical interests, and the timing of those interests, can drive efficiency in digital ad targeting and lead to a higher return on each marketing dollar spent.

Cons:

• The data starts as device specific, and multiple users on family computers or devices may share cookie data. Which may muddy the water on a user’s interests and behavior and lead to irrelevant content and offers.
• Cookies expire, or can be cleaned out based on user preferences and settings, which may eliminate relevant, actionable targeting data
• Some cookies slow page load times and reduce the quality of a web experience
• Again, there are concerns for user privacy (hence the request for consent to cookie use appearing on many sites you use and visit)

Given the right circumstances, both of these targeting strategies can greatly improve the performance of a marketing campaign. Properly executed, both tactics can help you to reach or exceed your campaign goals. The real key is in the art of knowing when and how to use them. If you would like to talk strategy or need help ensuring you are reaching and influencing your target consumers effectively, on the right devices, at the right time, with the right message… please contact Brand Ranch Media and we can ensure you’re using the correct strategy to get the best return on your marketing investment.

1. https://www.herosmyth.com/article/who-took-cookie-science-behind-targeted-advertising
2. https://www.vicimediainc.com/ip-targeting-direct-mail-internet/
3. https://ppcmasterminds.com/b/cookie-based-vs-ip-based-remarketing-methods/
4. https://www.signal.co/blog/cookie-based-marketing-not-relevant-impactful/