Facebook: The Land of the Make-Believe ROAS

Don't break out the gin just yet — those sales you're seeing are a figment of Facebook's imagination... Snapchat doubles down on augmented reality... Twitter's new monetization feature launches...

August 27, 2021

Special note: Some of you have told us that our daily newsletters are sometimes too long and spill past Gmail’s character limit. Thus, we’ll be dropping the header images from each story to try to accommodate more text. Thanks, and please keep the feedback coming!

FRIDAY QUIZ:How Often Does Google Update Its Index?

Every so often, you'll hear about a big change to Google search's  algorithm — updating to combat link spam, or make the engine smarter. They call those core updates and there are usually one or two a year.

Google also makes lots of little changes throughout the year — from user interface changes to ranking changes, most of which they don't announce or confirm.

But how many, exactly?

The Friday quiz: How many changes did Google make to its search engine last calendar year?

  1. 30

  2. 365

  3. 1,200

  4. 4,500

The answer, later in the issue.

E-COMMERCE: Those Sales You Made Weren't Real. Happy Friday!

So you started work today, you popped open your Facebook ads manager to check on that campaign and — whoa! Good news! Purchase conversion value is up... ROAS is up...

This is great!

Or, it would be, if it were real.

This morning, Facebook cranked up the dial even further on its conversion modelling.

Here's a statement they put out:

As part of our continuous efforts to improve our conversion modeling solutions, starting August 27... we will be expanding modeled reporting for Website Purchases Conversion Value.

With this update, statistical modeling will be used to estimate associated values of additional modeled conversions where events cannot be observed directly (for example, where conversion data may be partial or missing due to data transmission limitations). 

As a result, you may see an increase in reported conversion values and other associated metrics like ROAS.

To be clear, this update only applies to the Purchase standard event for non-Value Optimization campaigns.

Honestly, I wish Facebook would take a page from Microsoft's ads manager which splits out the conversions it guarantees from the ones it estimates and puts them in two separate columns.

Facebook's approach so far has been to lump all conversions — real and estimated — into the same bucket, meaning that column can't really be trusted at all.

SNAPCHAT: Will Scan be the Next Big Thing?

Snapchat is doubling down on its moves in the augmented reality space, announcing they'll be making the Scan function more prominent — right on the main Camera screen of the app.

This scan lets people take a photo of things like food, plants, clothing, and so on — and Snapchat will offer a variety of experiences, like showing a list of similar fashion items available for purchase.

Like most social platforms, Snapchat has slowly been moving into eCommerce, and facilitating more direct buying options in the app. Snap has made AR a focus in this respect, with advanced Try-On tools and digital sizing options, while it’s also looking to integrate more digital clothing options, like products for your Bitmoji characters.

The new Scan shopping elements are being rolled out in stages across both iOS and Android from today, with Shopping from Memories planned for the coming months.

TWITTER: Ticketed Spaces Launches

Twitter announced today that some accounts will now be able to sell access to one of their hosted live audio events, which they call Spaces.

The monetized version is called Ticketed Spaces — applications opened a couple of months ago and they've approved a handful.

As for attending one of these paid events, anyone on iOS can now pay for a ticket and attend.

Twitter says it will only take a 3% cut of the price — which sounds great at first, until you also subtract Apple's ridiculous 30% cut, meaning a creator will only see 67% of each ticket sale.

And if you do well, the minute you exceed $50,000 in revenue, Twitter's cut jumps to 20%.

FRIDAY QUIZ ANSWER

How many changes did Google make to its search engine last calendar year?

The answer: 4,500. 

When you do the math, that's more than 12 updates every single day.

That's about 30% more than 2019.

Sponsor the Friday quiz for a whole month for less than $100. Visit TodayInDigital.com/ads.

FUNNY ADS: Pixel Campaign is Hilarious

If you've ever watched an Apple news conference, you might remember the over-the-top, breathless descriptions of their products — usually narrated by their then head of design, Jony Ive. 

Here's a sample:

Yesterday, Google released its new Pixel 5A smartphone — notable mostly because it has a headphone jack, something Apple dropped from its phones a while ago, much to the chagrin of everyone who isn't an Apple executive.

Which might be why Google hired a Jony Ivy soundalike voice actor to make this absolutely brilliant ad:

Hey, if it takes shaming Apple to get a headphone jack back, I'm all for it.

Today in Digital Marketing is produced on beautiful Vancouver Island by engageQ digital. Production support and fact checking by Sarah Guild. Theme composer Mark Blevis is that third cup of coffee you sometimes really need. Podcast music licensing by Source Audio.

Reply

or to participate.