📰 Meta's Free Brand Lift Studies

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✔ Farewell To Sheryl

✔ A Google Ads Update

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Hello everyone, and thanks for joining another edition of The Marketer’s Playbook! These are exciting times, as TMP is getting a facelift soon, so stick around for that.

Lastly, I am going to be reintroducing more long-form content into the mix. For those who have been around for a while, you might remember that this is where TMP started, so we’re just getting back to our roots.

With this out of the way, enjoy today’s edition!

Be well,
Cory Dobbin

FREE BRAND LIFT STUDIES ON META

I know what you’re thinking - these have been around for a while, no? Well, yes. I mean, no. Not really? Meta recently updated their platform to include Free ongoing brand lift monitoring. This is different from what already existed in the Experiments tab in that those were campaign-based, with a fixed start and end date. These new brand lift studies run in perpetuity, running in the background and reporting every month or quarter. Brand lift studies are incredibly important in understanding the true impact of your campaigns, so this is a huge win for every account. I highly recommend checking out Barry Hott’s post below about this for all of the details.

GOOGLE’S CAMPAIGN-LEVEL AD COPY

In a LinkedIn post made just this past week, Boris Beceric wrote up a breakdown of a new Google Ads feature that many may have missed: Campaign-level Headlines and Descriptions. This is pretty interesting, as it can help save time creating and duplicating ads, as these can be scheduled to be used at certain times, such as during a sale. He also noted later in the thread that pinned text takes priority, so pin with caution. Check out Boris’ full breakdown here for all the juicy details.

LINKEDIN’S NEW SPONSORED ARTICLES

LinkedIn recently shared an update on their new ad type, and it’s not what you think: Promoted Articles. When a company publishes an article, it now gets the option to promote it, running it as an ad. The best part is that you can run it with a CTA, such as ‘unlock this article,’ having users sign up to see the entire article. This is great because, unlike most other ads, this is an in-app experience and can feel more authentic while not risking losing people post-click. Check out SearchEngineLand’s coverage on this for more details below.

SHERYL SANDBERG STEPS DOWN

Sheryl Sandberg, the previous COO of FB and Board Member of Meta, announced in a Facebook post that she is stepping down from her role on the board after 12 years. While this might seem like a small change to some, her contributions to Meta can not be understated - she was the lead behind the company’s push for an ad platform monetization strategy. Side note: I had the privilege of hearing her speak at Meta HQ in Menlo Park, and she was easily one of the smartest and most capable people I’ve ever heard on a stage. No doubt she will be missed at Meta. What’s next? Well, she announced that she will take the role of an advisor to the company, but aside from that, we will have to wait and see. Check out the link below for her farewell message to the world.

• 📅 NOTION CALENDAR: Notion, the beautiful and avant-garde database software, announced its own standalone calendar app, and it’s free!

• 🧵 THREADS SAVING: You can now save threads on… Threads! Yay!

• 😡 TEMU’S MEDIA RAMPAGE: Temu, as you may have seen already, has been on a spending spree that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. But is it coming at the consumer’s cost?

• ❌ GOOGLE UNSUBSCRIBES: Google adds a floating ‘unsubscribe’ button in your inbox on Gmail so you can unsubscribe without having to open emails. Please don’t use this one on me.

• 🧪 YOUTUBE’S A/B TESTING: YouTube just launched the first stage of their new thumbnail A/B testing tool, and it looks pretty good!

• 👩‍🏫 LANDING PAGE MASTERCLASS: Ryan McKenzie, the Co-Founder of Tru Earth, breaks down his ‘bulletproof’ method for creating high-converting landing pages.

• 💻 MAKE ADS THAT CONVERT: Want to learn more about a framework for creative converting ads? Check out this post from James Kelly on X!

GET CREATIVE

I recently published this post on X, where I go more in-depth on this topic, but I just wanted to remind everyone that it’s completely okay to get creative with your ads. Yes, you should still use best practices, such as responding to hesitations or positioning as a solution to a problem, but we can do this with anecdotes, analogies, or whatever mechanism we need to tie a more creative element into it. This is a simple reminder to all marketers that we don’t need to go entirely down the path of plain, boring ads because they tend to perform well on average - if you take a risk, it can do amazing things for your brand.

One more great example for good measure:

KITKAT — HAVE A BRRR

Agency: VML UK

As part of a new campaign for KitKat, VML UK produced this ad that was ideated and approved in an unbelievable 36 hours and sent live this past week. Not to immediately put the agency here on blast, but I really, really do not like this ad. I think this is a great example of ignoring all the things we’ve learned as advertisers about making effective ads. Yes, I am a firm believer in getting creative with your ads (see above). However, I think this just misses the mark. The campaign was, apparently, intended to imply that “We wanted to entice people to take a brrr…eak with KitKat [from the cold]”, as said by VML’s creative director, however I am unsure how this ad communicates that. In what way, exactly, does eating a KitKat alleviate you of being cold outside? What does having a break for a KitKat address the entire concept of the ad? Am I missing something here? Instead of addressing the needs of the consumer by selling a solution in some way, we just breeze past all best practices and go straight for ‘brand,’ but at what cost?

While you’re here, let us know how you enjoyed this week’s edition, and consider leaving additional context once you submit your response so we know how to continue improving the newsletter:

Have a great week,
Cory