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This week’s most important Marketing News

​FACEBOOK RELEASES NEW TARGETING AUTOMATION, TESTS 2 NEW AD FORMATS, AND MORE​

Look at all the FB stuff going on:

A new targeting automation, Advantage custom audience.
​Meta said, “This is similar to Lookalike audiences…except that [it] goes beyond the 1%, 5% or 10% similarity ranges you are used to.”

A new lead gen ad format sends a customer either to Messenger or a form…
​“…depending on which one the customer is most likely to interact with.” So some customers seeing your ad will go to Messenger when they convert and some will go to a form.

Free songs can be added to Carousel Ads on Reels.
​You can choose one or you can let them match one based on your add content.

Testing 4-10 second video ads that play after a reel.

Testing horizontally-scrollable ads with 2-10 images at the bottom of FB Reels.

Click to Messenger ads can now be targeted to people most likely to make a purchase
​(as opposed to the default, which targets people who are most likely to start a conversation with a business on a messaging app).

​REDDIT ADDS MORE TARGETABLE COMMUNITIES AND IMPROVES AD TOOLS​

They’ve added “over 1000 new targetable communities to the Reddit Ads Manager.” Plus, they:

Released Audience Manager so you can create, edit, and reuse audiences

Added a Post Library so you can store and reuse creatives

Improved their Estimates tool

Released a live chat on Ads Manager, so you can talk to a real person if you run into questions

Created a Pixel Helper tool, to make sure you can measure ad performance

​META’S NEW ACCOUNTS CENTER MAKES IT EASIER TO SWITCH BETWEEN FB AND INSTA PROFILES​

If you add all your profiles to the same Account Center, then you’ll be able to see all your accounts in one place. You can see your Instagram accounts when you’re on Facebook and vice versa.

​YOU CAN APPLY GOOGLE AD RECOMMENDATIONS THROUGH THE EXPERIMENT PAGE​

Google heard that advertisers wanted an easier way to see and track the effects of applying the suggestions they provide in the Recommendations section. So, Google streamlined applying recommendations on their Experiments page—their testing feature for ads.

​GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE HAS A DATA LOGGING ISSUE FOR SEPT 21ST​

It’s possible that your Search Console data for Sept. 21st isn’t accurate. Google is working to restore the data and update GSC.

​GOOGLE ADDED A TAG COVERAGE SUMMARY AND SIMPLIFIED TAG CREATION​

Google released a single sitewide tag in August, so you didn’t need to adjust your site’s code so often. (A tag like this allows Google to track conversions on your site, so they can measure the performance of your ads.)

Their new feature, the Tag coverage summary, checks if the tag is implemented everywhere it needs to be. It shows each page on your site and the tag’s status. This summary is accessible through Google Ads, Analytics, and Google Tag Manager.

They’ve also made it easier to set up tags by integrating instructions into Google Ad and Analytics account setup.

USEFUL LINKS

​HOW INFLATION WORKS​

To my dismay, being a good marketer involves understanding money and the economy (at least a bit). Inflation is a complicated topic, and this article explains it in a straightforward-but-not-too-superficial way. I feel smarter for reading it.

​THE FLOW STATE​

I sometimes spend too much time setting up my work environment before digging in for the day. This Flow State newsletter recommends two hours of music for working every weekday morning, and it’s nice to not waste time picking out a playlist or going down the music rabbit hole. Plus, good focus music can be a big factor to my productivity.

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AN EXERCISE IN UNLOCKING MARKETING DIMENSIONS

Check out this picture. 👇 What do you see? Not much, huh. But ultimately, it’s a…
​LINE

But then you take a step back. It’s a…

SQUARE

But wait—now you realize that the object has even more to it. It’s a…

CUBE

I know, a white cube on a white background. Kinda hard to discern. But trust me, it is—really—a cube. And if we lived in a 4D world, we could go on to add dimensions to our cube and create a tesseract. But anyway…

There’s a noncanonical term for what we just did:

DIMENSIONALIZE
​Di-men-sion-a-lize
​Verb

1. To provide with dimensions

It’s intriguing what happens when you add dimensions to something or when you discover that something has more dimensions than you realized. Like how our simple line became a cube.

There’s more than one kind of dimension.

 

We’ve been talking about mathematical dimensions, the kind that build cubes and tesseracts. I want to make connections between that kind of dimension and another kind.

The not-mathematical dimension:
​di-men-sion ​
noun

An aspect or feature of a situation, problem, or thing.
​“Sun-dried tomatoes add a new dimension to this sauce.”

Similar: aspect, feature, element, facet, side

Discovering and understanding dimensions will make you a better marketer.

Here’s what dimensionalizing might look like when you’re doing something like writing an ad or landing page or planning a campaign.

First: find the one-dimensional customer 😶
​What’s the obvious trait of your ideal customer?

Examples: managers, balding men, or maybe parents

Next: dimensionalize the customer 😃😭🤪

• Realistically consider how they’ll interact with what you’re creating (the ad, page, campaign, etc.).
• Think of moments when your product would make them feel a strong, positive emotion.
• Imagine what could be happening in the customer’s life right now, even things that at first glance wouldn’t be connected to your product.

Then, find the one-dimensional product 📈
What’s the obvious benefit or feature of the product?

Example: helps you clean small crevices in your ear (can you guess what product we’re thinking of here)

After: dimensionalize the product 🧊 ​
How does it provide that main benefit? Why were the founders passionate enough about this to start the company? What do people mention in reviews that they love about the product?

Finally, discover dimensions of the relationship 👭

Your audience and product have a relationship. You’ve probably already considered certain aspects of it in the exercises above. But take a few moments to exclusively focus on it.

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There are tons of times it’s helpful to discover and explore dimensions. Best of luck finding them.
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INTERESTING STUFF

🙅‍♀️ WHY TEAMS DON’T WORK — Harvard Business Review

This interview points out the (often ignored) flaws in teamwork. It’s an argument for considering solo work more often.

✍️ ALAN RICKMAN DIARIES — The Guardian

This was so fascinating to me. Alan Rickman’s diary entries are being published, and quite a few are shared in this article. The way he writes is so clipped and he doesn’t give any justifications. I don’t know—I spent way too long reading random entries.

📆 AMAZON PUTS A SECOND PRIME DAY SALE ON THE CALENDAR — CNN

The only thing I could decide about this info is that you all needed to know it too.

👨‍💻 A LOOK AT THE FOUR-DAY WORK WEEK, WHY IT’S A GOOD FIT FOR DIGITAL MARKETING, AND WHAT TO CONSIDER BEFORE TRYING IT OUT — Search Engine Land

With this idea being tossed around, I found it interesting to hear someone from our industry discuss how it worked for them.

📽 GOOGLE SHOWED OFF IMAGEN, THEIR AI SYSTEM FOR GENERATING SHORT VIDEO CLIPS FROM TEXT PROMPTS — TechCrunch

Facebook showed off their AI video-generating stuff. So Google was like, “Well check us out.” It’s fascinating stuff though.

🐦 MUSK OFFERS TO PROCEED WITH TWITTER DEAL​

The story is: Elon tried to strong arm Twitter into selling to him. Then he didn’t want Twitter, and now he goes back and forth between wanting and fighting the deal. But it’s kinda a joke because he’s pretty legally obligated to move forward with it now.