Google has announced that at the beginning of 2024, the Search Ads 360 (SA360) interface that we all know (one of the most popular tools of the Google Marketing Platform [GMP] marketing suite) will cease to exist for good and be replaced by a new SA360 interface. Google created the new interface to improve the experience for advertisers and to help achieve better results with better management of search campaigns across multiple channels.

While it may seem straightforward, not migrating to the new interface can negatively affect advertisers. Keep reading to find out how to avoid potential conflicts.

What conflicts can arise from not migrating to the new SA360 interface?

If advertisers do not migrate, there are several issues that will arise:

• Disconnection of the SA360 API with reporting platforms
• The loss of custom columns
• Misconfiguration of conversion goals and Smart Bidding
• Involuntary synchronization issues with search engines

What are the differences between the current and new SA360 interface?

With a modern infrastructure, the new Search Ads 360 offers better support across multiple advertising channels and search engines, including third-party partners. This means advertisers can access more features from other search engines.

• Current Search Ads 360 has limited search engine functionality, conversion goal setting at the bid strategy level, and automatic daily search engine synchronization with manual forcing for instant updating.
• The new Search Ads 360 interface offers expanded coverage of other search engine features, campaign/account level conversion targeting and actions, and the ability to create rules to adjust the value of conversions. In addition, it will allow us to differentiate between campaign conversion targeting, bidding strategies, and budgeting strategies and automatically synchronize real-time changes to search engines.

Additionally, there are new user roles in SA360, allowing for more granular control of access.

When should you migrate to the new interface?

Before you consider this migration, we recommend that you take a look at Google’s timeline:

• Up until January 2024, we recommend scheduling the migration of your bidding and budget management strategies to the new Search Ads 360 experience.
• During February 2024, we recommend to proceed with the migration to ensure continuity of service.
• Between February and April 2024, the old Search Ads 360 interface will no longer be available to all users. Google will notify all advertisers at least 60 days in advance.

Ready to move forward?

Making Science is uniquely poised to assist you in planning your migration to the new SA360 interface. As a Google Marketing Platform partner, we’ve helped over 100 companies across a variety of industries with GMP-related projects. Don’t hesitate to reach out! Or, click here for additional details about the change.

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The countdown to one of the season’s largest shopping holidays and the biggest sale of the year, Black Friday 2023 and “Black Week” has officially begun. In 2023, Black Friday falls on Friday, November 24, and Black Week extends over the 7-day period leading up to this date. The holiday marks the start of the Christmas shopping season and is an opportunity for people to shop digitally as well as in physical stores at favorable prices.

While Black Friday may seem a way off, now is the perfect time to begin your Black Friday digital marketing strategy and start optimizing your website. To see timely results, it’s crucial to focus on your digital marketing and SEO strategy early, aiming to enhance performance and maximize Black Friday sales. With heightened competition during the Black Friday sales period, SEO becomes paramount in improving visibility. If SEO isn’t yet part of your long-term plan, consider integrating it soon. It’s not just a quick solution but a strategic tool that consistently attracts quality traffic.

Make 2023 your Black Friday year with the help of Making Science’s top 5 tips! Let’s start with the basics:

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is a method that uses technical measures and content optimization to increase organic traffic and rank higher on the results page of search engines such as Google, Bing, and more.

How should I use SEO to prepare my Black Friday digital marketing strategy?

Review Website Performance

During Black Friday, customers are inundated with ads from numerous merchants. To excel, it’s not enough to offer great deals; your website must be fast and glitch-free. Poor website performance, whether on mobile or desktop, risks losing potential customers, especially during this peak shopping season. Ensure your website performs optimally by checking its performance in advance and making necessary technical adjustments. SEO isn’t just about text and keywords; technical SEO is crucial for higher search rankings. Typically, SEO professionals collaborate with developers to achieve this.

Optimize Landing Pages

For better visibility during Black Friday and Black Week, create optimized landing pages tailored for the occasion. Start early, as search engines require time to crawl and index. Landing pages for Black Friday, Black Week, and Cyber Monday can be reused yearly. Ensure they remain “evergreen,” meaning they stay relevant. Refresh and optimize existing landing pages on the topic. Update elements like Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions, H1 titles, and image tags. For instance, an electric toothbrush company might optimize their site as follows:

• URL: company.com/black-friday
• Meta Title: 40+ Black Friday Electric Toothbrush Deals 2023! Best in test & Black Week prices!
• Meta Description: Black Week & Black Friday electric toothbrush deals 2023! Discount on electric toothbrushes online, big savings. Rechargeable, efficient & affordable!
• H1 Title: Best Black Week & Black Friday Electric Toothbrush deals 2023.

Write text for humans – and for robots

SEO, when integrated into routines, becomes second nature for website content creation. The key is to structure text clearly, accurately, and with relevant keywords. While writing for search bots can boost organic traffic, it’s crucial to cater to human readers, who ultimately decide to make purchases. Balance SEO-friendly writing that appeals to both bots and your target audience. This approach is vital not just for Black Friday, but year-round.

Collect positive reviews

Search engines prioritize pages with high authority, which can be built in several ways. Product reviews, whether positive or negative, are seen by search engines as signals that can impact organic rankings. While it’s uncertain how many positive reviews directly affect your rankings, remember that manual graders will assess the Search Engine Result Pages to determine which results are most relevant and should be prioritized. Beyond search engine preferences, reviews can sway hesitant customers to finalize their purchases. Prioritizing reviews and customer satisfaction is vital year-round, but especially so for Black Friday and Black Week 2023 by integrating them into your pages.

Keyword strategy for Black Friday

A strategic keyword approach is essential from beginning to end, especially for Black Friday SEO. Emphasizing long-tail keywords, which combine two or more crucial keywords, helps guide customers to what they seek. “Black Friday” and “Black Week” are key terms to optimize. Combining them with terms like “Deal,” “Offer 2023,” or “savings” and product-related words yields targeted search results. See the examples below:

• Black Friday Electric Toothbrush Deal
• Black Friday Offer Airpods
• Black Friday savings Trainers

Cyber Monday

Black Friday, set for November 24th, 2023, always follows Thanksgiving. But don’t forget about Cyber Monday, which is on November 27th. While Cyber Monday originally catered to online shoppers, Black Friday deals are now widely available online too. When optimizing for Cyber Monday, it’s crucial to target specific keywords and phrases. Even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday are days apart, their search behaviors might differ. If unsure, tools like Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, or SEMrush can help analyze search patterns and pinpoint key terms.

Black Friday is an incredible opportunity for all e-commerce businesses to boost their sales. Investing in SEO for the holiday season is a simple, cost-effective measure that continues to deliver results. 

Making Science is a full-service media agency with extensive experience in SEO optimization on different platforms. Contact us if you want to know more about how you can create a strategy to improve your Black Friday 2023 SEO!

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With Black Friday and Cyber Monday quickly approaching, retail brands are looking for the best strategies to connect with the most relevant audiences that will drive revenue during this holiday season. 

CPMs continue to explode around the holidays, with spending returning to the more typical and predictable pre-pandemic levels of growth. Last year, Black Friday US retail sales (excluding auto) increased 12% YoY. Retail e-commerce sales grew by 14% YoY and interestingly, in-store traffic increased by 2.9%–more than it has in years–resulting in 12% YoY in-store sales growth. A surprising 67% of consumers planned to participate in Black Friday via brick-and-mortar shops last year (Insider Intelligence, 2022). This momentum will likely continue through this year’s holiday season, meaning it’s as important as ever for retailers to establish (or iterate on) effective audience strategies that connect them with their target consumers both online and, when applicable, in-store.

One effective and accessible way to leverage both online and offline customer data is via Google’s Customer Match. Customer Match (available within Google Ads) helps you to deepen existing customer relationships—or build new ones—across all of Google’s properties in a privacy-safe way by joining online marketing data with offline user-consented data (i.e. CRM). It will enhance your marketing strategies by allowing you to directly target individuals who have already interacted with your business, making your campaigns more relevant and likely to drive conversions. 

Recommended uses of Customer Match this Black Friday

Re-engage online with customers who shop in-store before (and during) Black Friday and share their contact information (e.g. email) at checkout. Additionally, any new and returning online users who consent to sharing their contact information while making a purchase, creating an account, signing up for your newsletter, or joining your loyalty program can also be uploaded via an audience list and targeted through Customer Match. A unique advantage to Customer Match is the ability to combine this user-provided contact information with the powerful consumer behavior data available via Google. Using Customer Match you can retarget users across each of Google’s properties (Search, YouTube, Shopping, Display, and Gmail) based on their interactions with your ads (via Google Ads) and website (via Google Analytics). 

• Create personalized Gmail campaigns for your customers who share their Gmail email addresses with you. 
• Reach your customers with relevant Black Friday promotions on YouTube to drive in-store and online sales. 
• Show up higher in Search results for customers with the highest conversion likeliness.
• Remarket to existing customers with Black Friday deals based on their previous purchase history.
• Retarget users who have maybe not yet converted but continue to show high intent and have a high likelihood of conversion but require a reminder or two to bring them over the finish line.

Notable changes to Customer Match (2023)

In the current privacy-centric consumer environment, we know reaching the right audiences at the right time has become more of a challenge and has shifted focus more toward first-party data audience strategies, like Customer Match. With this year’s expected increase in online and offline Black Friday traffic and sales, it’ll be crucial for marketers to tap into these resources to target relevant customers with tailored promotions, with the goal of higher engagement and increased sales. Leveraging this first-party data via Customer Match will enable you to personalize marketing, allocate resources efficiently, and enhance customer experiences. 

With privacy in mind, there have been some recent changes to Customer Match to make it a more durable, privacy-safe solution. The main takeaway from the updates is that Customer Match targeting is transitioning to an entirely automated solution. This means that Customer Match is no longer available for manual bidding (i.e. campaigns not using Smart Bidding). Additionally, Similar Segments (formerly Similar Audiences) for Customer Match, and all audiences, has been completely automated as well.

It’s no longer possible to manually apply Similar Audience lists, however, ​​Smart Bidding-enabled campaigns now automatically include all Customer Match lists to boost ad campaign performance for your goals, like conversions. As long as the account is opted in, uploading Customer Match audience lists, and using Smart Bidding, Google AI will automatically target users similar to the users in the lists you upload via Customer Match while optimizing overall campaign performance. Ultimately, these updates mean really leaning into Google’s AI and automation in order to get the most out of your customer data on relevant Google-owned properties, such as Google Shopping, for this coming Black Friday. 

You can review the latest updates to Customer Match in the Google Ads Help Center here.

In Conclusion

Maximize the 2023 Black Friday by leveraging the renewed and enhanced Google Customer Match. Embrace the integration of AI and automation for a superior, targeted, and efficient marketing campaign, ensuring you reach the right audiences at the right time. Not sure how to get started? Our team would be happy to help!

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There’s no doubt that social distancing and isolation, caused by the most recent pandemic, made e-commerce one of the most dynamic sectors during 2020. This continues to be true today.

This exponential growth affected mass consumer products such as food, clothing, cosmetics, home equipment, electronics, and even cleaning products. It also had a significant impact on industries such as healthcare.

Healthcare e-commerce is relatively new compared to other goods like the ones mentioned above. However, online sales of pharmaceutical products or medical consultations and treatments are now a reality. In 2020, the business volume increased by over 60% compared to the previous year, according to the Spanish National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC).

With that said, in this article, we aim to show how e-commerce in healthcare settings has been a growing trend, both in public and private sectors; the keys to successfully implementing it; and its main challenges and implications.

Why has healthcare e-commerce become a trend?

One of the first aspects we must mention in response to this question is the unstoppable digitization of physical stores. Medical specialists, medical centers, and even pharmaceutical companies have discovered the potential of digital marketing and e-commerce to not only reach a broader audience but also to manage demand for services and products more efficiently.

Added to this, online purchases of health-related services and products became more accessible thanks to new channels and improvements in logistics processes.

Another reason why healthcare e-commerce has become a trend is the increase in the number of web and mobile applications in this sector. These apps range from tracking body weight and heart rate to more complex ones offering comprehensive digital care, such as chatbots or virtual health professional assistance.

The incorporation of chatbots and virtual assistance is currently one of the most popular options to provide more support to consumers even outside business hours or to check symptoms with just one click.

Challenges of healthcare e-commerce

• Trust and security: Despite the expectation that healthcare e-commerce will continue to strengthen, there are challenges, with trust and security for customers being some of the most important. This is because users of this particular trade seek very explicit answers to specific health issues.
• Adaptation: The healthcare e-commerce sector must not only adapt health services to users but also adjust digital technology companies to health services.
• Investment and business model change: Among the challenges included here is the significant investment that transitioning to a digital system implies, as well as the changes in traditional practices.
• Increased demand: Consumption volume increases since there’s more access to online consultations, and many health centers or private consultations get overwhelmed quickly, resulting in a greater need for medical staff. The significant challenge for healthcare e-commerce is improving customer care on digital platforms, as we’re discussing an industry where closeness, empathy, and understanding play a fundamental role.

Strategies for your healthcare e-commerce

• Content is key: More and more users are searching for health information online. Therefore, it’s vital to create a content strategy for your e-commerce website, blog, and even social media to keep the user informed and generate more trust.
• Multi-channel strategies: Maintaining various online communication channels and creating personalized messages for your customers will help you achieve better positioning.
• Effective and intuitive design: Always implement a good healthcare e-commerce design to facilitate navigation. Ensure the buying process is clear, avoid ambiguities, and make it completely intuitive.
• Attention at all times: Telemedicine increasingly demands that attention channels be not only personalized but also swift, ensuring effective communication. Remember that as you establish a good online reputation, you’ll be able to boost your sales.

Savia, the digital health services platform

A success story within healthcare e-commerce in Spain is Savia, MAPFRE’s digital health services platform, which offers a wide range of tests, consultations, and medical treatments.

Although Savia also provides face-to-face consultation services in specialties like gynecology, cardiology, physiotherapy, or psychology, the platform’s most demanded services are online, such as video consultations, 24-hour medical chat, and symptom evaluation.

Among the most notable advantages of this platform is that customers have access to a vast array of medical professionals and centers, as well as over 50 specialties and their medical history through a private area where they can also control their purchases, medical appointments, results, and prescriptions.

Savia users can make medical consultations quickly, as easily as from their mobile phone. Also, the process of acquiring products and services online is straightforward, and they can choose from various payment methods, either per contracted service or through subscription plans.

Savia and Making Science

The launch of Savia represented a strategic move for MAPFRE. Launching this health services platform aimed to bolster one of the insurer’s areas with the most growth potential. For this reason, there was a need for planning, grounding, and defining the idea’s key factors.

In this regard, MAPFRE, in collaboration with Making Science, defined their strategy, implemented and developed it using the Google Cloud Platform technology, focusing on data, a valuable asset for Savia.

MAPFRE and Making Science have worked together on the conceptualization of the microservices architecture that Savia offers, relying on both technological capital and, above all, human capital.

Moreover, Savia trusts Making Science for maintenance, support, and the development of projects for the platform’s continuous improvement, according to business objectives and needs.

“Savia’s e-commerce platform offers agile and transparent solutions to the waiting list issues of Spanish Healthcare and is one of the most valued services by our customers. Successfully developing and integrating it into Savia’s value proposition was crucial to count on the experience and commitment of the Making Science team, our strategic partner.” 

Pedro Díaz Yuste, General Director, Savia (MAPFRE)

We can conclude that it’s a critical moment for health e-commerce. However, it’s essential for companies to understand that demands in this sector are very high. They must adapt and comprehend the importance of their digital presence.

Every day, the healthcare sector attracts many users looking for information, products, and drugs. Responding effectively to their concerns, with quality information, precise professional availability, and products that suit their needs, will be vital for this business model’s success.

With the growing use of mobile apps and increased web traffic, attribution and tracking have become crucial factors for businesses.

Here, we explore how to address common web-app tracking and attribution discrepancies in Google Analytics 4 and Firebase using tools like Adjust, Appflyers, Singular, and Branch.

What types of discrepancies are most common?

• Different attribution models: Google Analytics 4 and Firebase use different default attribution models, which can cause data discrepancies.
• Incorrect tracking setup: Event and conversion tracking may not be correctly set up on Google Analytics 4 and/or Firebase, leading to data discrepancies.
• Different user identifiers: Using different user identifiers on the app and web can make it challenging to match data across channels, causing attribution data discrepancies.
• Varying processing times: Google Analytics 4 and Firebase process data differently and at different speeds, which can lead to discrepancies if compared at different times.
• Data synchronization issues: If app and web data aren’t properly synced, it can cause attribution data discrepancies.

When should you use Adjust, Appflyers, Singular, and Branch to improve your app and website performance?

These third-party attribution tools help with:

• Multichannel attribution tracking: They can track and correctly attribute app installs and conversions from various channels, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
• Precise user identification: They can help address issues related to identifying unique users on mobile apps and websites, allowing for more accurate performance measurement.
• Custom event and conversion tracking: They provide more flexibility in tracking custom events and conversions, useful for monitoring specific events on websites and mobile apps.

In conclusion, external attribution tools like Adjust, AppFlyer, Singular, and Branch offer greater flexibility and accuracy in conversion and event attribution, as well as advanced analytics and data security features. Depending on a business’s specific needs, incorporating these tools can improve ad campaign effectiveness and data-driven decision-making.

Have you noticed web-app tracking and attribution discrepancies? Our team of experts can help. Don’t hesitate to write to us, we’re waiting for you!

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A lack of attention has superseded a lack of information as the bottleneck of our human capacity. What is called the “attention economy” has long been the centerpiece in the development of digital media, and rightfully so. But what lessons can marketers take going into 2023? And how does the attention economy manifest itself in the upcoming year?

Information today is abundant, even oversaturated. A Google search for “sewing on a button” yields 57,000,000 sites, when, in the past, our parents called grandparents for such advice. Meanwhile, our world is filled with ads, all featuring bright colors and lively animations. According to Red Crow Marketing, it is estimated that a person is exposed to approximately 4,000 to 10,000 ads every day. However, few remember even a fraction of them. That’s because, although our access to information has increased exponentially in the digital age, our capacity to process this information has remained unchanged. In essence, all content in the digital sphere is competing for the one scarce good left: our time and attention. 

So why should this worry digital marketers? Simply put, an ad not seen is a message not received. And that is money thrown out the window. So in a world where clients demand increased transparency and value for their money, and customers increasingly value their digital integrity and privacy, attention should be in every marketer’s toolbox, ready to be employed.

Consumers are reclaiming their time

It seems as though humans are at a pivotal moment in their internet journey. Daily online screen time has decreased by 13 minutes in 2022 to pre-pandemic levels, according to GWI (2023). That is over 3 full days a year of less online time. Apps that are designed to be non-addictive (and maybe more crucial, ad-free), such as Wordle and BeReal, have seen incredible popularity in 2022 (Bloomberg, 2022). Audio formats are loved for their screenless form of entertainment, and a mostly lockdown-free world means people can enjoy each other’s company in real-life again (Dagens Media, 2022). All these signs point towards a customer that is more aware of their online behavior and actively takes steps towards balance and well-being.

To make matters worse for advertisers, people are great at avoiding ads and distractions when on the internet. Whether it is physical avoidance by leaving the TV for the ad break or mentally blocking out anything resembling a banner on a website, these are just two of many techniques that many use to avoid spending time watching ads. In short, advertisers find themselves now in the perfect storm of these trends coming together at the same time in 2023. Marketers need a data-driven approach to effective advertising to create ads that people want to give their attention to.

Care for your customer and make your customer care

It is easier said than done. But, the most important factor to get customers’ attention is to get them to care about what the ad has to say. This requires a customer-first approach to identify a benefit that the customer can obtain from interacting with your ad. By utilizing contextual and native advertising, marketers can ensure that the content is relevant, usable, and correctly targeted to their target audience. Research suggests that contextual advertising drives interest and information-sharing more so than interest-based or demographic-based advertising. Perhaps more importantly, respondents feel less annoyed when seeing the ad (Seedtag, 2023). 

And annoyance is precisely the feeling you do not want customers to link to your brand. Your products or services have already been designed to alleviate a customer pain point, so why should your advertisement not do the same? Furthermore, the unavoidable cookieless world makes a great case for contextual and native advertising and provides a future-proof way of reaching your target audience with great ads. In short, contextual and native advertising is a great way to capture your customer’s attention and deliver value through advertising. 

Make AI your #1 companion

AI has been a hot topic for a while. Recent months have shown that advancements can come fast and from unexpected corners. New tools like chatbot ChatGPT and image-generator Dall.E have proven the immense value of AI-based technologies and the wide-reaching consequences that these can have on all types of businesses. Anyone who thinks that human attention is not predictable by AI is sorely mistaken.

In the field of attention-based advertising, eye-tracking measurements of ads have become increasingly precise in tracking human attention. Thus, they have become a popular way to quantify attention to data-driven actions. The downside is that they require an extensive setup, a panel of customers to sit in front of a computer, and they take a long time to complete. However, AI-based eye-tracking models have proven to show up to 95% accuracy in predicting where customers will look at any given ad, whether it is digital ads, out-of-home, or videos (Neurons, 2023).

AI-based eye-tracking delivers the advantages of real-life eye-tracking at reduced cost and time. This enables companies to make rapid, informed, and data-driven decisions on creative materials pre-, mid-, or post-campaign. The technology will surely evolve, but it already yields impressive results, helping marketers invest in attention directed to the right place.

What to take with you this year

The field of advertising has grown more competitive, but marketers can still capitalize on human attention to create impactful ads. By employing contextual and native advertising, companies can deliver genuine value. Artificial Intelligence, a powerful tool for predicting attention, enables swift ad optimization to grab customers’ focus. Though attention is challenging to quantify, Making Science’s team provides exceptional expertise and experience, optimizing your campaigns and ads for success in 2023.

At Making Science we have worked extensively with AI-based eye tracking solutions to efficiently obtain data-driven recommendations on creative materials. Get in touch with us to learn more!

Converting your e-commerce visitors into customers can be challenging. You need to apply the right strategy, as well as implement the right tools and technology to ensure that the visitor has the best possible user experience to trigger sales and conversions. Let’s not forget that these days, consumers are more demanding than ever. They demand personalized experiences that are adapted to their needs.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) can help you elevate your strategy through A/B testing or web customization. But, what are A/B testing and web personalization? In this article, we tell you the most notable differences between the two, their benefits, and how to activate them.

A/B testing and web personalization: driving sales and conversions with CRO

At first, it may seem that A/B testing and web personalization are the same. Really, they are quite different. And, used together, they can help us build a winning strategy.

Before attempting to carry out any testing or customization action, we first have to understand our users better: 

• Learn about their interests. 
• Figure out where on the web they spend the most time (either by preference or necessity). 
• Discover their pain points, etc.

Then, we can use all this data to make better decisions about what we should do on our site to improve the chances that someone will convert during a page visit. A/B testing and personalization are two ways to activate our data to incrementally improve each step of the customer journey.

• A/B testing: A/B testing refers to the various experiments that we can perform to demonstrate, empirically, what our users want and what works best.
• Web personalization: with personalization, we seek to make each message and experience relevant for our users. Consider how you feel when you receive the same offer from the same footwear brand 34,567 times (even though you already bought something from them). We can avoid situations like this by personalizing the user experience. We should do the same for banners, featured website sections, and related articles. If these are adapted to the tastes and/or needs of the user each time they enter the site, the chances of sales and conversion will increase.

A/B Testing: test, test, and test… until you find the key

Before beginning a test, we must define the hypothesis, the conversion objectives, and the different tests to be carried out. The art of testing consists, as we said before, of launching different versions of a landing page or a product, but including changes in each iteration that help us detect user preferences. These variants can take into account user interactions with the key elements in the different tests (buttons, colors, CTAs…). The ‘interaction,’ as it’s commonly known, is measured and the behavior is analyzed in order to draw conclusions that determine which test has won. From there, we can determine which changes we should finally apply to the site or product.

Web personalization: how to get the most value out of your user data

We all want to feel special, especially when we buy something. We feel we deserve it and thus we demand more personalized experiences from brands that share relevant content which meets our needs and tastes at the right time through the right channel.

Would you sell the same computer to a web designer and a gamer? They have different needs and therefore need different products. The same happens in messages, websites, and communications of any kind that we make with users, and all of them must be personalized. How? Based on the data we receive from them every day: clicks, pages, product modules, messages… Make the user feel that each element has been designed by and for him! Why? To convince him to buy from you!

Do you want to know more about CRO and testing and what it can bring to your online business? Our team of experts will be happy to attend to your specific case. Get in touch today!

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This year Qatar was selected to host the 2022 World Cup. Because of their intense Summer heat, this World Cup will be held from 21st November to 18th December – making it the first time this event has been held outside of May, June, or July. The new time of year for this event brings additional challenges for advertisers: advertising alongside what are already landmark events in the marketing calendar – including Black Friday weekend, Cyber Monday, and the ramp-up to Christmas. 

Black Friday has always been a notorious period in marketing, requiring increased forethought when gathering a media plan. This has, in recent times, expanded out to a whole weekend event when including Cyber Monday.

For weeks before Black Friday, customers start holding off on new purchases, eager to see what a company will offer them over the weekend. And when it arrives, customers flock to the internet to browse the offers in the market. 

Although Black Friday is exceptionally competitive in eCommerce, its impact can be felt throughout the entire digital advertising landscape. Generally, higher competition with more – and more aggressive – advertisers on all advertising channels over the weekend results in higher advertising costs for everyone. In today’s digital advertising world, where we’re encouraged to go broad with targeting and rely on algorithmic optimizations to find the best users, overlap in targeting across brands and verticals is especially significant. An event like Black Friday has impact on any advertiser hoping to buy ads over that period.

Draw insights from previous years

Last year we saw Black Friday weekend CPMs rise anywhere up to 90%, on the comparative figure for the whole of Q4. For a vast number of verticals, there is no weekend like it, year-round, where we see the same percentage increase in CPMs.

The additional challenge comes as potential users enter the market with higher expectations – on Black Friday, more than ever, consumers sit in the driver’s seat, considering the best of several offers and discounts and converting only through the one with the best offering. A brand that can’t or won’t provide such an incentive will likely see click-through and conversion rates plummet.

The result is that Black Friday is now almost unbound by vertical. With such high demand, it’s an opportunity that seems too good for an advertiser to miss (and probably is), but if not approached with an appropriate strategy could cost you dearly in efficiency metrics like CPA and ROAS – or even brand image – a result of devaluation from over-discounting. 

During the UEFA Euros 2020, we saw CPMs increase, up an average of 3% to 8%. Sport-related companies CPMs raised further, around 17% for the period of 11th June – 11th July, and another 3% on top of this on the day of the final between England and Italy at Wembley.

How to plan for Black Friday and the World Cup?

This year Black Friday weekend falls from 25th through to the 28th of November, coinciding with the World Cup, with four games running per day over this period. The rest of this article discusses how an advertiser can effectively navigate the tricky Q4 period, which this year feels like a minefield of competition-increasing events.

• Budget planning. Consider phasing to ramp up and down for defined periods of the next few months in response to supply and demand. Fluid budget planning could aid more agile responses – move from monthly to quarterly targets and budgets. Black Friday does require a certain spending commitment should you wish to succeed in remaining competitive.
• Your offer. Fore-plan your offerings and discounts and produce creative to match. Even if you can’t afford a particularly competitive bid, we can often frame positively through creative and copy so that it can still be used to motivate action. Play on exclusivity, “the power of free”, and “scarcity bias”.
• Broader audiences will go some way to offset rising CPMs (but not all the way); the payback here, however, can be a lower conversion rate – work to find the sweet spot between the two to drive your goals.
• Consider your goal. Black Friday and Cyber Monday might be revenue-driving periods for you. Still, perhaps the post-Christmas, pre-new year period is better suited to driving awareness in preparation for the following January sales. Dynamic and intelligent adjustment of your goals over the quarter will allow you to maximize the unique opportunity that presents itself. Consider the best KPI for each chosen goal and activity, be that AOV (Average Order Value), ROI (Return on Investment), CPA (Cost per Action), or Cost per Engagement, etc.
• Pre-booking traffic before costs explode. If your goal is awareness, consider pre-booking your Reach & Frequency Traffic well in advance through Meta to secure a known, comfortable CPM in advance – now is the perfect time to do so ready for the remainder of Q4.
• Consider additional channels. Meta and Google can sometimes become overcrowded marketplaces during these highly competitive periods. This is fine if you have the budget to compete, but could you find the same users in a different, cheaper environment? Channels like Snapchat, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, and Pinterest might be better options. Or perhaps the best choice would be a combination of both – it does depend on your business plan and goals. Although these channels will undoubtedly experience rising costs, they will likely not be similar.

It’s challenging to predict exactly how the marketing landscape will change from November to December, as this is a historical first, but what we can do is prepare our campaigns accordingly. Get in touch with our Making Science experts to learn more about how you can be best prepared for the upcoming season.

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Marketplaces – A driving force for growth

The pandemic has altered the way we shop, and the strategies used by businesses to market their products and services have changed. To handle the surge of consumers that have moved online, more places to sell have emerged. Data shows that 47% of digital purchases worldwide happened via online marketplace platforms. The digitalization of our shopping culture has allowed products and services to be sold anywhere, hence the growth of sales. 

These online platforms that sell a range of products are great for businesses to reach their customers and demands. Selling your products on your e-commerce channel and via a marketplace is a great strategy to drive sales. Building a consistent online presence on multiple channels will expose your brand further than your own website.

Marketplaces are open online spaces where customers can look for various products in one location. These marketplaces offer variety, price comparison, and an easier shopping experience. From quicker customer service responses to customizable shipping, marketplaces provided benefits for both the user and the business. 

Why do brands choose to sell on marketplaces?

• Brand exposure
• Marketplaces provide an additional channel to market and sell products and services
• Selling on an open platform builds trust with customers who view impartial reviews

Survey data showed that those who sell products on a marketplace make 38% more ROI than those who just use their own website. Also, those who sell on two marketplaces increase revenue by 120%.  What you are selling and the availability of your products is also an important factor that determines a good e-commerce strategy. E-Marketers can increase their sales by using a platform that creates, optimizes, and distributes the feed to their main channels.

An e-commerce site may appear to be a requirement for a brand that sells online. However, existing e-commerce has risen above sites. Many vendors depend only on outer marketplaces, for example, Amazon or eBay. The choice of whether to utilize an external site relies to a great extent upon the kind of products and services that you’re selling, as well as your objectives.

Volume Considerations

Few brands have enough digital and logistical capacity to face the demand of customers. So, the option of associating with a marketplace appears as the best solution. It’s also less expensive than preparing a website and hiring all the services, tools, and maintenance of an e-commerce platform.

If volume is sufficiently high, marketplaces can be substantially more productive than putting the time and capital into setting up your own e-commerce site.

Additionally, a marketplace is an interesting option if your business is small, has just started and wants to test and study the type of customers, gathering information and benefits while preparing a larger and more personal web launch. 

Furthermore, establishing your brand in a marketplace can lead to international opportunities by distributing your products in front of an international market. The insights provided by a marketplace can help you determine whether there is a demand for your product. Then, you can work on developing your own e-commerce website in the near future. 

Conclusion

Whether you’ve already decided to build out your own e-commerce site, or need help building a marketplace on an existing one, Making Science can help. Visit www.makingscience.com/contact to get in touch with our team today.

Overcoming the cookieless challenge in E-commerce marketing

It’s the end of the road for third-party cookies. The final death knell will ring when Google stops supporting third-party cookies on its Chrome browser in 2022. Given that over 85% of online browsing is carried out on these browsers – and that cookies are the foundational blocks of tracking, targeting, and measurement in digital marketing – significant change is to surely come.

The breadth and depth of the implications will be felt across the industry. But how will the impact be felt specifically by E-commerce marketers?

The current state of E-commerce marketing

In the last decade, E-commerce has boomed. Low barriers to entry in operations and marketing have given rise to a never-ending collection of smaller brands. These brands look to capitalize on the abilities of Facebook and Google to find valuable audiences. Larger brands, eager to broaden their reach and play a larger part in the customer journey, have also refocused efforts to maximize their E-commerce presence.

Highly targeted and personalized advertising has delivered enormous customer acquisition cost (CAC) efficiency. But E-commerce marketers have been given more than a glimpse of what is to come if they cannot figure out how to adapt to the imminent demise of the cookie.

Earlier this year, Apple enhanced privacy rules for advertisers with iOS 14.5. The result has been smaller addressable audiences, increased media costs, and greater CAC. Without a solution for web browsing, the time of efficient customer acquisition is over. 

So E-commerce marketers need to act now. But what should be done?

Cookies are out, first-party data is in

It will be harder for E-commerce marketers to identify people as they navigate their digital buying journeys. But it won’t be impossible. Rather than relying on third-party cookies, marketers should look to develop a first-party data strategy. 

Give your audience a significant reason to opt-in to your marketing and start to build ongoing ‘relationships’ with them. Work to improve your user experience on your owned and earned assets, and test your messaging when asking for consent on your website or app. For one client, we have been able to increase the ‘consent conversion rate’ by 20% through testing different approaches.

You will likely need to build a sophisticated data tech stack. Your brand probably has a decent CRM function, but you should fill it with more than just customer sales data. Incorporate all sources of first-party data, and understand the full breadth of outputs that a CRM tool can offer. 

Customer Data Platforms

Using a Customer Data Platform (CDP), you can augment your powerful first-party data to create a holistic view of your customer. In the past, 2nd and 3rd party data played a huge role in this. Recent privacy changes have hit these types of data hard, so their efficacy is diminished. But there is still value in bringing these datasets into a CDP to complement your valuable 1st party data. 

CDPs help businesses get a 360 view of their customers. It brings together all sources of data and uses that information for better targeting, optimization, and reporting of your marketing communications. They are reactive – updating customer profiles continuously as people alter their behavior and engage in different ways. This allows for comprehensive segmenting of your customers, enabling you to personalize your marketing communications to increase relevance:

• Product recommendations based on previous purchase behavior and web browsing history
• Customer intelligence for support teams
• Increasing retention by spotting common challenges per segment
• Acquiring new customers based on a holistic understanding of your buyers.

Diversify your sales channels

By looking beyond just your owned sales channels you can grow sales in a way that bypasses the need for cookies entirely – although this often comes at the expense of insight. Steps are being made in marketers’ ability to tie together offline purchases with online marketing activity. 

Additionally, most of the main social media channels are building in features that let their audience buy products from brands on their platforms. The benefits here are:

• A simple user experience
• The seamless journey from comms to purchase makes cross-site tracking irrelevant and improves the ability of the platforms’ algorithms to learn and improve. 

But E-commerce businesses are exposed to the risks of losing control of the user experience (such as less ability to upsell) and losing transparency of behavioral data.

Technical challenges lie ahead

However you look at it, the days of ‘easy E-commerce’ are numbered. Marketers need to plan an approach to use data and technology so they still create aligned, personalized customer experiences.