🏔️ The Rise of Ecommerce

The web is no longer about clicks. What to measure and how to measure it!

April 15, 2024

MEASURE FIRST

The first generation of online ad metrics was all about measuring the impact of the ad itself: click-through rate, app installs, video views and the like tied to a standard CPM.

Those metrics were an attempt to prove that online ads aren’t just little billboards sprinkled across the internet that we all disregard.

But as ecommerce adoption has grown, measurement has shifted away from proxies and become connected to business results, including sales and other metrics to quantify profitable growth.

Retail media ad spend surpassed $50 billion in 2023, and Amazon claimed roughly $47 billion of that. Amazon’s baseline ad metric is called ACOS (advertising as a cost of sales). Represented as a formula, it’s: ACOS = Ad Spend / Paid Media Revenue X 100.

ACOS doesn’t measure organic sales. But if a business spends $10,000 on Amazon ads and Amazon attributes $40,000 in sales to those ads, then that campaign had an ACOS of 25%.

It makes sense that Amazon is pushing new ecommerce metrics. But these metrics are also coming for the search and social platforms, even though they aren’t shopping hubs – yet.

So, what’s the takeaway?

The web is no longer about clicks, visits and other measures of ad traffic. Now, it’s about foot-traffic in physical stores and the data that shows up in a brand’s CRM, not in its ad server.

MEASURE HEADLINES

A full-funnel PPC marketing strategy is incredibly important. But do you understand how to implement this strategy in your accounts? Take a look at this step-by-step guide to the marketing funnel to get tactical recommendations.

PPC is not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing strategy. As marketers, we should always be A/B testing something to see if we can improve our performance. Whether it be ad creating, landing pages, or targeting, there is no shortage of levers to pull to try and improve your campaigns. Optimize your campaigns based on the data you’re seeing so that you continue to improve ad targeting and performance over time.

Google issued a reminder that it will be discontinuing all Universal Analytics (UA) services and APIs on July 1, 2024. With Google Analytics 4 (GA4) properties fully replacing UA, access to UA properties through the Google Analytics front-end and APIs will no longer be available starting in July. 

Google is urging those who have not yet fully migrated to Google Analytics 4 to do so as soon as possible to prevent potential data loss. If you do not download or export your data before UA sunsets, it will be permanently deleted by Google and, unfortunately, not recoverable, which could impact campaign performance.

The Protected Audience API (PA API) represents a significant innovation in digital marketing, particularly in the context of privacy-based advertising strategies. As third-party cookies become a thing of the past, digital ads need new solutions that respect users’ privacy while allowing for effective targeting and personalization of ads. 

The PA API is one such solution, offering a framework for remarketing that preserves privacy without compromising the relevance of ads to audiences. By enabling targeted advertising in a way that respects users’ privacy, the PA API is poised to play a key role in shaping the future of digital marketing strategies.

MEASURE THREADS

MEASURE DEEP DIVE

Connected TV may have sparked interest among advertisers as they see audiences flee broadcast television, but a new study says a more effective way to use those billions of ad dollars being freed up is podcasting. 

The report, from the digital audio consultancy Sounds Profitable, finds podcast ads delivered stronger results on metrics including purchase intent, brand awareness, and favorability as listeners pay greater attention to the audio ads than viewers of either CTV or YouTube.

The study — a follow-up to one released last year stacking podcasts up against radio and broadcast TV — asked adults about their receptiveness, attentiveness, and overall attitude about advertising across a range of ad-supported media to compare how podcasts perform versus CTV and YouTube. 

It continues to show podcast listeners are generally more open to ads on the shows they consume. 

The data shows 71% of podcast listeners are willing to learn more about the brands that advertise on podcasts — higher than any other medium — and just ahead of TikTok.

MEASURE VIDEOS