Am I the only one who missed the Budweiser Clydesdales? It’s clear that they weren’t the only thing absent from yesterday’s TV spots—many ads were also missing meaning. Why was that?

Super Bowl spots are usually quite entertaining (hat tip to Tide)—and notoriously expensive. So, they naturally invite industry commentary and speculation. But, this year’s event struck me as uniquely peculiar compared to previous years, and perhaps a harbinger of things to come. In today’s blog post we unpack what we observed and what it means for online advertising.

TV Embraces Clickbait

Our investigation begins with a qualitative analysis of the content in the ads themselves. Overall, there was a stark pivot towards ads that were equal parts engrossing and bizarre, with the product reveal typically a holdout until the very last shot.

This speaks to a larger reordering of the media landscape, with digital channels usurping TV in the competition for high-quality attention from both viewers and advertisers.

Context

Attention Level

Strategy

Search and In-stream Ads

High

Persuasion + Information

Mobile Multi-tasking

Medium

Compete for attention—entertain on one screen, inform on another

TV

Low

Pure entertainment to capture attention

Are Internet Ads the New TV Ad?

Website builder Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) made waves in January by opting out of its Super Bowl spot altogether. This was noteworthy because they moved that budget online.

Granted, NBC executives weren’t about to take this affront lying down, and reportedly came to Wix at the last minute with a "great offer" to buy a spot in the Super Bowl (that’s code for “massive discount”).

You might wonder how Wix was able to produce a commercial that fast. The answer: they recycled a previously recorded ad featuring two YouTube stars, Rhett and Link.

This turn of events inadvertently showcased how divergent today’s internet ads and TV ads have become. If you missed it, go ahead and watch Wix’s Internet ad that aired on TV and contrast that to one of the made-for-TV Super Bowl ads—such as one of Tide’s commercials.

See the difference? The made-for-internet ad is heavy on information and persuasion, while the TV ad is just ... funny(?).

Source: HBR, “When People Pay Attention to TV Ads, and Why”

What About CPMs?

Despite this role reversal, TV CPMs still dominate. If my math is right, Super Bowl eCPMs were about $220 this year.

Let that sink in for a minute. $200+ for 1000 impressions.

In this context, Wix’s decision to yank its Super Bowl spot and invest it on the web makes more sense.

A quick look at Marin Software’s Global Advertising index reveals that video CPMs on channels like Facebook average $5-10, depending on industry and targeting.

That means Super Bowl ads cost up to 44 times more than video ads on Facebook--video ads that are being delivered in a high-attention context to a low-friction audience.

By low-friction, I mean: If my video ad suits your fancy, you can just click and buy. On the other hand, with Super Bowl ads, there isn’t a click to buy option. In fact, in today’s environment, one might argue Super Bowl ads are a lot like Tom Brady’s game-ending Hail Mary.

For TV’s sake, and the Clydesdales, we hope there’s a happier ending.

Every morning I read the WSJ (print edition!) and enjoy a cup of coffee. It’s typically a low-key affair.

But today was no ordinary day.

I was taken aback when I read this headline: “Google Plans Ad-Blocking Feature in Popular Chrome Browser.”

“What the heck?!” was my split-second reaction, followed by, “This is madness!! What are they thinking?? How will they make any money if they block all the ads??”

It was early. The coffee hadn’t fully kicked in yet.

If you’re familiar with Daniel Kahneman’s famous book—Thinking, Fast and Slow—this is a great example where thinking slow is a good idea.

After some reflection, some more reading, and another cup of coffee, I decided this move could be brilliant. Heck, it might just save the free web!

The Internet Commons

Advertisers spend money to capture our attention and attempt to persuade us to take some sort of action. But, no single advertiser can “own” our collective attention—that’s the commons in this story. Instead, they all compete for a small slice of it.

This has created an arms race that helps explain why ads are getting brighter, noisier, and more pervasive. In fact, they’ve become so bad that many people have installed ad blockers to try and weed them out.

A German company called Eyeo is the largest independent ad blocking company. They market a “free” product called AdBlocker+.

You may have noticed, I put free in quotes. That’s because Eyeo earns around $160M per year from AdBlocker+.

You may also be wondering, how do they pull off that magic trick?

Well, they hold their users as ransom. Big companies—like Google—can pay to be ‘white listed’ and have their ads shown despite AdBlocker+ being installed.

The Google Wager

Here are my hunches to explain why Google wants consumers to use their ad blocker instead of AdBlocker+:

Hunch #1: Google wants to send a message to future entrepreneurs that ad blocking will not remain lucrative, perhaps to folks like this: Princeton’s Ad-Blocking Superweapon May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race.

Hunch #2: Google would become both judge and jury. They alone would decide which ads are “good” and which are “bad.” For publishers, this may create an incentive to stick with Google’s ad network and not branch out.

Hunch #3: By being able to set and enforce advertising rules, Google could stomp out bad actors running ads through non-Google networks. This sort of unified regulation of marketers could help keep the Internet open, free, and unregulated. And that’s something we should all celebrate.

Hunch #4: Google has a need for speed. Particularly on mobile, where seconds and milliseconds matter. Bad actors run ads that chew up bandwidth and slow down website and app performance. By removing these, Google will speed up everyone’s online experience.

We all benefit from a free and open Internet. I'm encouraged by the changes taking place to make sure it remains free and open for the long-term. At the same time, I’m cautious about the consolidation of power. This is a topic we all have a vested interest in keeping an eye on. I’ll continue doing my part, reading the morning newspaper headlines over a hot cup of coffee.

Search marketing is not unlike fishing. If keywords are the bait, then match types are the technique.

Google, then, is the world’s largest ocean. Millions of marketers trust it to provide lots of customers, at cost low enough to turn a profit. So, any change to this ecosystem is heavily scrutinized, and sometimes criticized, when marketers perceive the change as a
net-loss.

Let’s review the change Google made to exact match keywords last week. The goal of our analysis will be to determine if this is a net-positive (or, net-negative) change.

What Changed?

Last week, Google announced a change to the way it treats exact match keywords.

In 2014, Google introduced ‘close variants’ to exact match. This allowed Google to serve ads to plurals of exact match keywords. This was a major change in its own right because exact had historically meant “exact.”

As of last week, the scope of ‘close variants’ expanded, a lot. Function words —in, for, to, the— are ignored and the order of the words is no longer a factor. For example:

Your exact keyword: “mens running shoe”...

• Will serve for traditional exact match, like: “mens running shoe”
• Will serve for a permutation, like: “running shoe men”
• Will serve for a permutation, like: “running men shoe”

There’s some nuance to these changes, of course. For example, if the function word changes the intent of the query, it will not be ignored (e.g., “flight from LA to NYC”). In this example, the function word “to” changes the meaning of the query.

How’s Google able to understand the intent?

As you may recall, Sundar Pichai described Google as an AI-first company in last year’s Founder’s Letter. This update is an example of Google applying its new skills to a commercial application.

If you’d like to read about the nuances of this change we recommend you start with AdWords’ blog.

The net-net is that your exact match keywords will serve against more queries than before.

Netflix Controversy, Circa 2013

In 2013, Netflix ignited customer furor when it announced the forthcoming removal of 1,800 unpopular titles to make room for 500 new popular titles. The perceived loss felt unfair even though most people would never watch, or have even noticed, those 1,800 titles.

This is a human quirk that Nobel Laureate, Professor Daniel Kahneman, developed into a behavioral economics theory called “loss aversion.” The loss of something (say $5) is more painful than an equal gain (like winning $5). In fact, it can be more painful than even a two ($10) or three-fold gain ($15).

I share this story and corresponding economic theory because Google’s change to ‘exact match’ keywords has, in some instances, provoked ire in the marketing community. The perceived loss in this instance is “control” over when and where exact match keywords will serve.

We’d argue that, from a purely mathematical perspective, this change has more upside than downside—not unlike the 500 popular videos replacing 1,800 unpopular ones.

Evolution

Here’s why we’d make that argument.

Today, Google fields queries from a variety of devices. Due to emerging technologies, consumer behavior is rapidly changing. We no longer live in the static backdrop environment, which was the norm just a few years ago, where 100% of Google’s search queries came from one source: desktop computers.

Instead, there’s now a very different SEM reality:

• 5%: the compounding growth of Google query length
• 10%: the percentage of consumers who exclusively use desktop computers
• 20%: voice search on Google (estimated to reach 50% by 2020)
• 55%: mobile search traffic on Google (Google rebranded as a mobile-first company)
• 80%: users shopping using multiple devices

Not only are consumers using different methods to ask questions—they’re asking different questions altogether.

Out of the three billion queries Google fields every day, around
16-20% are brand new. That’s the opportunity for the enterprising marketer—discovering profitable greenfield queries. And, Google’s change is designed to help you find these new, profitable queries—and, in turn, netting new customers.

Tools of the Trade

To my surprise, Wikipedia lists over two dozen types of fishing techniques. Who knew there are so many ways to catch a fish!

In the online marketing domain, “keywords” have emerged as the best targeting criterion, ever.

The match type applied to each keyword dictates the strategy, much like different fishing techniques are employed depending on the type or quantity of fish you want to catch.

• Broad match = drift nets
• Phrase match = long-line fishing
• Exact match = spear fishing

Even with this expansion of ‘close variants,’ exact match remains a spear fishing activity. There’s just going to be more fish for you to choose from, so it’ll be important to be discerning where you expend energy.

Evolve Fast

It’s been said that evolution favors those who adapt the fastest. As marketers, we’re no exception to the rule. Beyond the obvious habits (or, automation) you’ll want to implement to search query mining, we also recommend that you evaluate the effectiveness of each of your fishing methods. You just might find that your new spear fishing method is more productive than you expected.

We’re proud to announce immediate support for Bing Expanded Text Ads. Bing “Upgraded URLs” is a prerequisite to leveraging Bing’s Expanded Text Ads, and we’re offering full support for that, too.

Last, but not least, we’ve enhanced SmartSync to be compatible with both Bing and Google Expanded Text Ads. All Marin Search customers have access to SmartSync, which provides a 1-click migration to Bing Expanded Text Ads. We think this is the easiest (and fastest) method for savvy marketers to explore this opportunity.

What’s Changing?

“Bigger is better” is the key mantra behind the move to Expanded Text Ads, a move expressly designed to help advertisers succeed in a mobile-first world. Our empirical observations tend to refute the argument that Expanded Text Ads is a smart investment of resources, with well-constructed and thought-out ads yielding better increases in both click-through and conversion rates.

Before and After

How Marin Software Customers Can Get Started

With the deadline to migrate comfortably in the future, it may be tempting to put this task off. We encourage our advertisers to resist the temptation and try out Bing Expanded Text Ads now. Our recommendation is based on our observations, as described above.

The following is a brief list of the methods available for Marin customers to quickly get their ads launched:

Activate SmartSync: Execute your migration to Bing Expanded Text Ads with just one click. SmartSync takes care of the heavy lifting by automatically porting your Google Expanded Text Ads to Bing. And, best of all, your Google Expanded Text Ads can remain permanently synced to Bing Expanded Text Ads as long as you like, which means you can make a single ad change within Marin and have it applied to both of your key search engine partners.

Follow the Marin Guide to Expanded Text Ads: Avoid confusion by following our migration guides for Bing Upgraded URLs and Bing Expanded Text Ads. We walk you through the nuanced details of what’s changed, how to take advantage of these changes, and how to get up and running quickly.

Hire Boost Media to rewrite your Bing Expanded Text Ads: Tap into Boost Media’s network of professional copywriters to build brand new text ads from scratch. Marin Software has negotiated preferred pricing on behalf of our customers. To get started just contact your client services team.

In today’s blog post, we’re focused on three topics: sharing results from early Expanded Text Ad users, discussing support for Expanded Text Ads in the Adwords API and a brief discussion of automated transition options to get you on Expanded Text Ads quickly and profitably. If you're unclear what Expanded Text Ads are, read our full coverage here and then come back to read our in-depth coverage in this post.

Case Study - Expanded Text Ads

As the largest partner in the Adwords ecosystem, Marin was fortunate to be in a position to help many of the advertisers invited into the early beta program for Expanded Text Ads. In today’s blog post, we’d like to share with you a few of the insights we’ve learned from our early exposure.

How will Expanded Text Ads impact my performance?

Google’s introduction of dual headlines, both with longer character limits than its predecessor, creates a problem that some marketers will find easier to solve than others. We all know how important well written copy is to connect with your target audience, and ultimately run a profitable campaign. From our early exposure to Expanded Text Ads, choosing the right strategy for the new dual headline format will separate the winners from the losers.

Performance Gains Aided by Creativity

In one instance, we observed a customer who fully embraced the dual headline capabilities by not only rewriting their ad copy, but fully changing their message to better suit the additional characters now at their disposal. This customer realized a tremendous engagement lift that exceeded our expectations (+50%). An increase in engagement can be unprofitable if conversions do not also increase at a similar cadence. We were impressed (and relieved) when we observed that conversions increased in lockstep (+70%).

There’s no doubt that the increased engagement was due in part to the enlarged footprint of the Expanded Text Ads format. But, based on other observations, it’s clear to us that the larger footprint does not account for all of this improvement. We believe that this customer's decision to not only rewrite, but fully rework their creative was the key to their above average results. We applaud their savvy embrace of Expanded Text Ads and would be happy to speak with anyone who is struggling with how to get started, or looking for an experienced team to help guide their transition planning. Please contact us here for more information.

API Timings

As expected, this landmark change in Adwords has created a beehive of stories, speculation, and misinformation. One point of contention in the Adwords Partner Ecosystem is timing to support Expanded Text Ads. We’d like to touch on this topic for a moment.

Our Heritage - Partner in your Success

Marin Software recently celebrated it’s 10 year anniversary, and I’ve personally been a member of the team for 8 of them. During our time in business, we’ve prided ourselves on being a true partner to our customers. And as a partner, we’ve always been transparent on our timeline to support new API features. We’d like to remind our readers that, unfortunately, the same can not be said for all software partners that operate in the Adwords ecosystem.

For example, anyone who claimed to offer immediate Expanded Text Ad support on the day of Google’s announcement (5/24/16) was not telling you the full truth. We know this because Google just released support in the Adwords API for Expanded Text Ads today (5/27/16). Three days after the original feature announcement. We’ve been discussing this change with Google for over a month, and Google did not give preferential treatment to any partners.

Now that the API has been upgraded to support Expanded Text Ads, we’ll continue executing our plan to incorporate them into Marin Software's platform. We’ve been advised that our timeline ranks amongst the fastest to support Expanded Text Ads in the partner ecosystem.

Automated Transition Options for Expanded Text Ads

Given the promising results from early testing of Expanded Text Ads, Marin is encouraging our customers to actively plan their transition to reap the rewards. As a partner in our customer’s success we’ve designed two ways to help you get up and running on Expanded Text Ads quickly and profitably.

Option 1 - Ad Rewrite

For advertisers who would like help rewriting their ads, Marin Software has an exclusive partnership with Boost Media. By tapping into Boost Media’s network, you’ll get access to hundreds of professional writers who will create new, optimized creative for the Expanded Text Ads format. We believe the ROI of working with Boost will yield tremendous results for all of our advertisers. If you would like to learn more, please contact us here.

Option 2 - Transition Planning

For advertisers who would like strategic help, Marin’s Center of Excellence is staffed with experts ready to run a marginal analysis on your accounts and create a roadmap of the most profitable path for your program as you begin the transition to Expanded Text Ads. The demand for this service has been overwhelming, we encourage you to contact us to get started today.

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Exciting times! Stay tuned for continuing coverage on Expanded Text Ads and the other announcements from the Google Performance Summit.

Google has made a historic change to its creative format with the introduction of a mobile optimized format called “Expanded Text Ads” (ETA). In this post, we provide information to help you understand what’s changing, why it’s a positive thing, and how to automatically make your existing ads ETA-compatible. (Pro tip: Skip to the end of this article if that last point is what you’re after.)

What Are Expanded Text Ads?

Expanded Text Ads are a mobile-optimized ad-format designed to maximize an advertiser's performance in mobile search results. This is accomplished by providing the advertiser significantly more ad copy to highlight their product or service. Expanded Text Ads also apply to desktop search results.

This change is a big deal because it’s a fundamental shift away from the legacy AdWords text ad format that’s existed for well over a decade. As such, this change will require every AdWords advertiser to rewrite their ads to be ETA-compatible. To learn how to automatically do this, skip ahead to the end of this post.

What’s Changing, Exactly?

Advertisers now have two headlines instead of one, and these headlines are joined with a hyphen. The good news – this copy expansion allows ads to occupy 50% more space on the search results page. Early results indicate that this increased presence improves CTR, which makes sense when you compare the old format (left) to the new format (right):

Here are the nitty-gritty details:

• Headline 1 and headline 2 are 30 characters each. This is a 240% increase over legacy text ads, which historically had just one headline and a 25-character maximum.
• For the description line, the character count is also increasing. Instead of two 35-character description lines, there’s just one that’s 80 characters.
• The display URL will now be automatically extracted from your destination URL. You can set up to two path fields like “golf” and “shoes”.

As marketers, we’re excited by all of these updates, and think that the addition of a new headline is only going to help performance, especially in a mobile world.

A Positive Change, for Multiple Reasons

Why is this change a net-positive for advertisers?

• You gain a new, second headline.
• More characters for longer messaging increase the odds of connecting with your target audience.
• We’re seeing better overall performance in our early results.

Why is Google Making This Change?

A couple of obvious questions are: Why is Google making this change? And why now?

The short answer: Consumers have shifted to mobile as their primary method of accessing the Internet. And, advertising dollars are following in rapid succession. eMarketer estimates that in 2016, over 60% of all digital advertising spend will go to mobile. It’s also expected that mobile will continue to gobble up market share through 2020.

Google is staying ahead of this trend by shifting to mobile-optimized ads, which is consistent with the elimination of right-hand ads back in February. In the next 12-24 months, we should see more mobile-centric changes from all major publishers, as they train their attention on perfecting mobile monetization.

How Can I Automatically Make My Ads ETA-Compatible?

Stay tuned for more details, insights, and data as we continue to report on Expanded Text Ads.

Howdy, Pard!

Saddle up your computer and get ready for the wildest quiz of your life. We’re pleased to announce the launch of the 8th annual Biggest Search Geek competition. Test your skills against thousands of SEM cowboys and cowgirls around the world.

We reckon this quiz is our hardest yet. Some of the questions are guaranteed to get you hoppin’ mad. One of you city slickers will be our winner and boy are you a lucky son of a gun, 'cause this year’s bounty is a trip to SMX Advanced in Seattle.

But wait, there’s more! You’ll also get to pick from an Apple Watch, Amazon Echo, or Microsoft Surface Pro 4.

Good luck, y’all! Oh, and just a friendly reminder - never squat with your spurs on!

What are you waiting for? Giddy up: http://biggestsearchgeek.com/

When homebuyers bemoan the high prices commanded by desirable locations, real estate agents often reply, “location, location, location!” With Google’s recent confirmation that they’ll be serving fewer ads per desktop search result, we expect search marketers to become more acutely aware of "location, location, location."

More Predictions

Less inventory and constant demand could create an uptick in average CPCs for high demand queries (if you’re curious about locking in top ad spots, check out PositionLock).

While this update (and our prediction) may be distressing for some advertisers, we anticipate this change will be net-positive for the industry.

From a user perspective, “less is more.” As we’ve observed with Google mobile ads, which this update emulates, a clean user experience free of distraction creates high click-through rates for top position ads.

Furthermore, if higher CPCs do come to pass, it could stomp out competitors bidding in auctions where they’ve historically had weak product-market fit. With fewer distractions, we expect advertisers will have an easier time connecting with current and future customers. We’ll be keeping a watchful eye on the performance and user experience.

Shopping Ads

We anticipate this update to be the most meaningful for ecommerce advertisers. Since Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are exempt from the right-rail exclusion, retail advertisers will be the only tenants on this coveted real estate which moves PLAs into Park Place territory.

If you’re an ecommerce advertiser, it’s paramount that your feed be optimized and that your bids are on target (if you need help, check out Marin Shopping). As both users and marketers on Google, we’re excited for this change - we’re happy to speak with any marketers seeking bidding, PLA, or general best practice advice.