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#ReelTalk: If You're Not Advertising on Reels, You're Missing Out

Ad Creative is the Key to Strong Targeting

Gone are the days of 3rd-party event-based ad targeting. The loss of third-party cookies and shifting consumer behaviors have required Meta to deploy a content-first algorithm, which means that ad creative is more important than ever when it comes to campaign optimization. Here’s a quick recap of how the creative growth narrative has changed over the last several years:

Meta’s new algorithm leverages AI to understand what content resonates with a given consumer and uses these learnings to deliver hyper-relevant ads. The benefit to advertisers on the platform is that they are empowered to cater to their target audience and reach new, high-potential consumers - and ad creative is the key.

This is where Reels come into the picture. In our latest webinar, Supercharge Your Ads with Reels, New Engen leaders, joined by Meta, laid out the mechanisms that make Reels the most valuable ad format on the platform right now. Plus, New Engen VP of Creative, Nora Bafus, shared her tips for cracking the creative code on Reels.

Why Reels Are So Valuable to Advertisers Right Now

Meta has reported impressive findings from advertisers leveraging Native Reels as a cornerstone of their ad creative, to the tune of +29% CVR, + 13% ROAS, and +3% in Reach. “At New Engen, we want to be a little bit critical of the numbers we get from Meta and cross-reference it with our owned data,” says DJ Sutton, Director of Media Services at New Engen. To validate Meta’s claims, we surveyed the New Engen client portfolio and found that Reels are driving a +40% Watch-Through Rate than Feed and Story Video Ads, and they’re doing it at -75% Cost per Reach. Simply put, consumers are engaging with Reels more than any other ad placement, and there is a surplus of ad inventory available to advertisers if they choose to use it.

The way Kevin Goodwin, New Engen VP of Media & Strategy, sees it, “[Reels] are a little bit of a layup right now which is a rarity in the digital space.” Marketers have had to navigate ever-growing rates of competition, but Reels can offer a breath of fresh air in an otherwise saturated digital landscape. To put this into context, we compared the investment return of two New Engen clients, based on the share of ad spend each was allocating to Native Reels Ads. Client 1 was investing 25% of ad spend into Reels, while Client 2 was investing a majority 98% - in terms of return, Client 2 was indisputably seeing better results, to the tune of a 25% lift in ROAS.

How to Create Winning Reels Ads

If there’s one thing you take away from this article, it’s that there’s no creative hurdle too great to prevent you from testing into Reels. Nora Bafus, VP of Creative at New Engen, puts it simply, “Don’t wait and overthink it - get after it, the results will show it’s worth it.” The rules that used to govern ad creative no longer apply, as consumer preferences shift away from the perfection of high-polish and high end-production, and toward authenticity and or low-fi creator content.

When building out Reels creative or auditing existing ads, check that they align with the following:

What’s Hot

Creative that engages and provokes immediately.

Simple, straightforward messaging. For example, explainer videos are most effective when they are short, focused and get to a core message quickly.

Strong visual cues including text or captions + audio.

What’s Not

Vertical video. “Reels is not the same as vertical video. I know they look the same, and to someone who doesn’t nerd out as much as we do about these things you might group them into the same category, but Reels are really specific,” explains Nora.

Heavy-handed Direct Response (DR).

Pushy messaging to drive sales. You need to entertain not just advertise.

"Finally, remember that the medium for Reels is a part of your message, so what you do and how you build these ads should be very intentional for your placement," adds DJ Sutton. This sentiment should guide your creative strategy on Reels.

Scaling UGC Volume

User Generated Content (UGC) and Creator Content are an advertiser’s “bread and butter,” and the winning content type on Reels, but procuring UGC at scale is a common pain point for many brands. However, Nora Bafus believes that there are many ways to solve this UGC problem. For starters, larger-production assets can be remixed, or “scuffed up,” with elements like text overlay stickers, which are easily recognizable visual cues that Meta estimates are used in 65% of Reels.

Next, don’t worry about finding creators with huge followings or established audiences. Be willing to get scrappy and leverage Meta’s Partner Directory or even look internally for employees who are interested in getting involved. Brands have found success this way because many employees are already fans and frequent users of the product or service.

Finally, avoid quality missteps by embracing the power of the creative brief. “Don’t be afraid to be heavy-handed in laying out creative direction, requirements, and deliverables. Outline these expectations in contracts to mitigate miscommunication downstream. Many creators will appreciate the extra guidance and use it as a sandbox to play in,” Nora explains.

We don’t want to belabor the point, but it bears repeating: the impressions on Reels are so much more valuable, and the reach so much cheaper than anywhere else on the platform, that it’s worth it to test into the format. Period.

Creative Hot Takes

Whether you’re already on Team Reels or just starting to explore the format (or hesitant to test into it at all), Nora’s creative hot takes are ones to live by:

Don’t overthink it - get after it, the results will show it’s worth it. The cost of waiting is too great.

Nano is the new micro. Don’t fret over landing creators with large following count to start. “Beyonce is a pie-in-the-sky goal,” says Nora, but it’s okay to start with creators who have fewer than 5,000 followers or even leverage employees who are willing to create UGC to start your engine.

Remember the basics. Vertical video does not a Reel make - Reels are highly specific, should always have sound on, text overlay, and framed within the safe zones.

Think outside the box. There’s no shortage of ways to get creative - rizz up your Reels with anything from quizzes to Zodiac signs or red flags. Pull the audience in to participate and engage.

Play to slay. Keep it engaging, keep it surprising, and keep it fun - that’s the whole point of Reels.

So, What’s Next?

If it isn’t already clear, we at New Engen really believe in Reels as a transformational tool for brands advertising on Meta right now. This is why we launched Confetti, an always-on, cost-effective UGC-sourcing product from New Engen. Confetti enables us to secure micro-influencer engagements for our clients, with a focus on in-kind partnerships as these have proven to be a strong unlock for brands looking to get started on the format. To learn more about Confetti or our agency guidance on Reels and Reels ad creative more broadly, please reach out to us at info@newengen.com. And of course, stay up to date on all things digital marketing by subscribing to our newsletter and following us on LinkedIn.

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Get Your Black Friday & Holiday Pages SEO-Ready for 2023

If you want to push the needle to attract new in-market customers, create an engaging onsite experience for holiday shoppers, and maximize your ROI, it’s critical to make sure that your onsite holiday content is up to speed with current best practices. The holiday season is fast approaching, and this year, the most successful marketing strategies will be the ones that are supported by a strong organic foundation.

Over the past year, there have been major shifts in search engine functionality and consumer shopping behaviors. So ensuring that your content is in line with the current best practices can offer numerous benefits for your website and business that will only compound over time. Check out our tips and insights below to make sure that you’re competitive within the organic space this holiday season.

1. Repurpose your page from prior years. If you have an established page that you leveraged last year for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and holiday gifting content, you should refresh it with current content and make it visible on your site for Q4. Why? Because these pages already have a history with Google, and most likely have valuable links and social shares - all good things that help send more user-driven signals to Google that indicate that these are trusted and relevant to holiday shopping.

2. Optimize your page for how users are shopping in 2023. In Holiday 2023 Guide Part 1: H2 Economic Snapshot, we explored the economic factors that are driving consumers to be more price-conscious when making decisions around gifting. Google trend data over the last five years validates this by showing that more users are looking for gifts at lower price points.

Marketers should leverage this data by organizing holiday gift guides by price rather than by recipient alone. This strategy is easy to implement - simply build product categories for gifting around price buckets, and communicate this messaging across marketing channels, from email to social media.

3. Build a seamless, content-driven customer journey. Over the past year, we have noticed that more and more users are looking for reviews and feedback before they buy a product or invest in a service. To get these consumers to convert this holiday season, create informative content on your holiday gifting pages with the specific goal of answering frequently asked questions.

To find which questions are most pertinent to your audience:

Look within site search, search term reports within Google ads, and search query reports within the Google search console.

Sift through these reports for any question-based search terms.

Additionally, look within the Search Engine Results Page itself. Analyzing frequently asked questions for specific products will give a brand insight into what is currently top of mind for its customers. This information can be used to inform the FAQ content deployed on gifting and holiday pages.

4. Use data-driven insights to name your gifting categories. Are you planning to have a category called “Gifts for Her” or “Gifts for Him”? Well, it turns out that this might not be the best strategy for naming gifting categories. Instead, marketers should leverage search volume data to determine which phrases and themes are most relevant to their brand. This method for naming gifting categories ensures relevance for audiences while sending better signals to search engines around the content on a brand’s site.

5. Leverage this year’s holiday pages for long-term success. When the holidays are over, don’t delete your gifting pages. Rather, update the language to reflect that the sale or promotion has ended, and prompt users with an email subscription or to follow along on social. And by the time the holidays roll around next year, brands will be one step ahead with site pages that already have a strong foundation for organic search to leverage.

These best practices are simple and effective ways to help marketers improve their site visibility on Google (and other search engines) this holiday season. What’s more, they will facilitate an inherently better experience for online users, regardless of which channel they come through. So even if you’re just in the beginning stages of your Holiday 2023 planning, don’t wait to take advantage of these easy wins and set yourself up for success this holiday season. Find more holiday marketing insights from New Engen at the links below, and stay in the know by subscribing to our newsletter and following us on LinkedIn.

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Update: On July 25th, UPS avoided a workers' strike by reaching a labor deal with the Teamsters Union.

Background

Negotiations between UPS and Teamsters-represented workers have stalled, with both sides accusing each other of abandoning talks. If the current contract expires on July 31st without a new agreement, a strike involving 340,000 unionized UPS workers is highly likely. This potential 10-day strike is projected to be one of the costliest in a century, with estimated losses of $4 billion for UPS customers, according to the Anderson Economic Group. The last UPS Teamsters strike occurred in 1997 and had significant economic consequences. Since then, package shipment volume has surged, with an average of 59 million daily packages sent in the US in 2021. With a 24% market share, a walkout by UPS workers could cause substantial delays affecting millions of shipments. Competitors like FedEx are urging UPS customers to switch, but experts doubt their capacity to handle the resulting backlog. Although UPS has started training its nonunion workforce (around 100,000 employees in the US) to manage operations during a strike, it remains inadequate for handling UPS's entire volume.

What Does It Mean for Brands?

A strike will cause significant disruptions for businesses relying on UPS for inbound shipping and order fulfillment. While there is some indication that consumers are becoming less fixated on fast shipping and prioritizing factors like Free Shipping and Easy/Free Returns, it's important to note that nearly all customers (91%) still expect their orders to arrive within 7 days. Furthermore, 70% of customers expressed discontent if their orders failed to arrive on time. In situations of fulfillment disruptions, effective communication is crucial.

Businesses affected by the strike should consider the following actions:

Explore alternative shipping providers, giving preference to regional or local options to avoid overwhelming major competitors who may experience a surge in volume. Recognize that 58% of consumers prefer retailers offering flexible delivery options (such as varied shipping speeds, in-store pickup, curbside delivery, etc.). Thus, even in the absence of a strike, providing multiple options will remain important.

Plan for appropriate messaging on order checkout and shipping pages, such as informing customers that their orders may be impacted by labor disruptions. If multiple shipping options are available, consider highlighting non-UPS fulfillment options on the order page.

Develop a strategy for handling return windows if customers attempt to return products during the strike.

For Marketing Teams:

If you anticipate being unable to fulfill orders, consider pausing or reallocating marketing budgets. Focus on upper-funnel activities such as audience growth and engagement to generate momentum for lower-funnel spending once normal operations resume.

Narrow your targeting to markets where you have physical stores and emphasize options like BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store) or in-store shopping. Monitor and analyze changes in sales volume across offline channels during this period.

Similar to high-volume sales periods or holidays, closely monitor inventory levels. Keep a close eye on out-of-stock items and be prepared to prioritize products that are available, adjusting your creative to feature them. Collaborate with your agency or internal team to develop playbooks for how to respond to out-of-stock products.

If you sell wholesale and your retail partners are capable of fulfilling orders faster than your direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce business, consider prioritizing retail media spending.

Prepare email campaigns for affected customers, maintaining transparency about the status of their orders and keeping them informed about any additional delays. Consider sending proactive email campaigns specifically for loyal customers, addressing the potential for delayed shipping. This is particularly important for brands offering auto-replenish or subscription-based products that may be impacted.

Temporarily adjust loyalty incentives for customers willing to tolerate delays, expressing gratitude for their patience and loyalty with a message like "Thanks for riding with us."

This is a developing story. Stay on top of the news by following us on LinkedIn and subscribing to our newsletter.

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Quick Threads Update

It has been three weeks since Threads landed in the app stores, and early reports show that users are welcoming the Twitter alternative with open arms.

A recent Morning Consult study surveyed users of Twitter and Threads (“bi-platform users”) and found that 23% of respondents claim to use Threads more, and 38% use both equally. Furthermore, those surveyed shared positive sentiments around the content and discourse on Threads in contrast to Twitter.

Black Twitter Finds a New Home on the Spill App

Before Threads dropped, other apps were already making gains in the market. One Twitter competitor in particular, Spill, was #1 in the iOS App Store the week before Threads came on the scene. Spill, a Black-owned social media app, was created by two former Twitter employees looking to facilitate a safe space online for diverse communities - the “culture drivers,” as co-founder Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell calls them.

In order to explain the early success of Spill, it’s important to understand the history of Black Twitter and how it shaped the platform. Anna Otieno, Head of Research & Strategy at New Engen, explains, “Black Twitter became one of the few spaces where people could participate live in a shared experience, no matter where they were in the world. Whether looking for connection after social unrest or discourse during a Beyonce album drop, Black Twitter created a space for these interactions to safely exist on the platform.” But when Elon Musk took over Twitter and hate speech on the app skyrocketed, “These safe space communities are no longer safe, and a platform like Spill is appealing not just because it’s an alternative to Twitter, but because it’s an extension of Black Twitter. The modern Twitter that existed before Elon took over was shaped by Black Twitter, and now, those users are turning to Spill and other apps where they are appreciated and celebrated.”

Time will tell what type of staying power Spill will have, but in the meantime, the mass exodus from Twitter (and widespread embrace of new platforms) validates the emergence of safety-oriented, community-based online discourse spaces.

TikTok Introduces Text Posts

On Monday, TikTok announced a new content format on its platform. You guessed it: text posts. The company said in a press release, “With text posts, we're expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we've seen in comments, captions, and videos a dedicated space to shine.”

It’s unclear whether this feature will appeal to the masses on TikTok, but according to Anna, “TikTok text posts could be a foray into a niche space within a mainstream platform.” She gives the example of an Instagram user who primarily posts text-only Instagram Stories. “This type of user, who may not be comfortable sharing photos or videos of themselves, now has more space to authentically engage on TikTok.”

Given that the heart and soul of TikTok is short-form video, we are curious to see how text posts are received by users, and whether or not they can gain traction on the app.

Bye Bye Birdie: Twitter Rebrands to X

Elon Musk’s latest attempt at salvaging Twitter, or rather, what’s left of Twitter, is a rebrand. Where once existed an iconic blue bird, now lives an “X.” This, apparently, is phase one of a total brand overhaul that Musk claims will transform the platform into an “everything app.”

In a Tweet, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino elaborated by saying, “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.”

This type of language may sound enticing at face value, but it’s necessary to consider whether this version of Twitter is what consumers actually want, and if brands and advertisers would find value in it. To put this in perspective, Anna explains, “People use Twitter in part because it offers a level of anonymity that isn’t found on an app like Facebook, for example. On Facebook, a user’s profile is a reflection of their true identity and their network includes friends, family, colleagues, classmates, etc.” This is significant because if Twitter really does become an everything app, where users are more easily identifiable and their financial information is linked to their profile, it would likely put off users who want more control over their security and privacy.

Of course, Twitter’s pursuit of an “everything brand” isn’t happening in a vacuum. Anna explains that “Platforms are evolving into things that they weren’t before. Instagram is turning into TikTok, TikTok is turning into Twitter and Twitter is turning into X (whatever that may be). Sure, they are trying to come up with differentiated content touchpoints, but they are also trying to harness each other’s capabilities in order to stay competitive and engaging.”

The Fate of X

If you think that X feels nebulous in both brand and concept, then you’re not alone. While the letter X may make sense for Musk personally, as a symbol he has employed across his other ventures, it doesn’t seem to make sense financially or logistically. X is a ubiquitous character across the tech sector and, in fact, Meta already has a trademark for an “X” logo. As such, the new brand is primed to be met with legal challenges, and many, including Anna, expect Twitter to be sued.

“X may be something that Elon thought about in terms of his personal brand, but it doesn’t make sense on a global scale because there are so many others that have used or trademarked the letter X. Musk owned the domain X.com over 20 years ago, but had to buy it back in 2017 from then-owner PayPal.”

If Twitter is able to turn itself around, it won’t be because of a new name and logo. It will be because it was able to regain the confidence of users and brands. When Elon Musk took over and allowed hate speech to run rampant on the platform, when he disbanded privacy and security councils within the company and laid off 80% of his workforce, he cost Twitter 50% of its ad investment from U.S. advertisers alone.

Anna believes that in order to meaningfully move the needle “[X] will have to reinstate councils to make sure users and brands are safe on the site. It will need to monitor and prohibit bigoted rhetoric and misinformation while reinforcing protections for users.”

And if Twitter can’t pull this off? Anna predicts that,

If Twitter fails to do these things, it will be successful primarily within niche, volatile audiences. Which is somewhat where we are at today. That’s audiences that brands and advertisers will not want to engage with or market to.

Where Do We (and Twitter) Go From Here?

The general consensus among New Engen leaders is that Twitter’s brand evolution is, at best, a risky move that will need to be corrected down the line. At worst, it’s a futile attempt at distracting from the true problems at hand.

According to New Engen VP of Performance Marketing Kevin Goodwin, there are parallels between what’s going on at Twitter and what happened when Facebook rebranded to Meta. “After the Meta rebrand, there seemed to be less focus on ad tools and in-app experiences and advertisers responded by shifting their dollars elsewhere. Eventually, the monetary pressure caught up with Meta and it was forced to prioritize its advertising tools once again.” An important distinction, however, is that Elon Musk has been largely unsuccessful at navigating Twitter’s challenges so far, and Kevin says that, “on a personal level, I have less faith that Elon will be as adaptive to the market as Meta was. It could be a long time before Twitter delivers a compelling ad product if it’s able to deliver one at all.”

This skepticism is shared by Adam Telian, New Engen VP of Performance Marketing, who says, “There are systemic problems at Twitter that can’t be fixed with a new logo. Ad revenue and user engagement are falling, and toxic discourse is trending up. Even though Twitter is trying to woo back advertisers with discounted video ad prices, I don’t see this tactic generating the investment needed to meaningfully impact the ad business.”

Given how many twists and turns there have already been in the Twitter story, it’s impossible to predict what comes next. Kevin’s main takeaway is this:

Even if you aren’t hyper-reliant on Twitter for driving revenue, this is a reminder to marketers that it’s critical to take a diversified approach to media buying. The same message was true back in March when TikTok was the one making headlines. As an agency, we recommend mitigating idiosyncratic risks, like over-indexing on a single channel, by maintaining a balanced media mix and being prepared for unforeseen circumstances by having a contingency plan for your next marketing dollar.

Whatever move Elon makes next, we’ll cover it here. Stay in the know by subscribing to our newsletter and following us on LinkedIn.

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Holiday 2023 Outlook for Consumers and Marketers

Inflation has been on the decline for over a year, and in June it fell to 3% - the lowest rate recorded since March 2021. Coupled with this is a steady rise in consumer confidence, which in June hit a high not seen since early 2022. And even though these trends are a step in the right direction, economic uncertainty is still expected to play a large role in the purchasing decisions being made this holiday season. Price-conscious consumers will look to cut costs by shopping the sale section, using coupons, downsizing holiday celebrations, and simply buying fewer items. With so many brands competing for share of wallet, it won’t be enough to differentiate on price alone. Instead, brands should make a concerted effort to secure share of mind right now so that they are top of mind during the holidays and beyond.

At a high level, the best way to accomplish this is twofold. First, it’s critical to embrace an audience-first, channel-agnostic mindset so that you are reaching the right audience at the right time. Once you’ve found your audience, it’s important to meet them with strong messaging that is centered on brand value. In this article, we make the case for programmatic channels as effective marketing avenues for expanding brand reach and, ultimately, nurturing long-term brand favorability (i.e., when the holidays roll around).

Changing the Narrative on Programmatic Advertising

Let’s start with some housekeeping - when we talk about programmatic, we’re referring to a method for buying ads on specific channels, including Display, Video, Audio, and Digital Out of Home. Within each channel, there are myriad ways to target audiences based on interests, behaviors, device, location, and demographics.

“When you bring up programmatic to a performance marketer, you might see their eyes glaze over - they’re imagining annoying banner ads placed on low-quality inventory that don’t drive results,” says Erin Morningstar, Director of Strategy at New Engen. This attitude is pervasive and, according to Erin, informs the two primary reasons that brands are wary of investing in programmatic advertising: concerns about brand safety and equity, and limitations of measurement. These reservations are understandable, especially if you believe that programmatic is strictly used for generating brand awareness. But Erin explains that "programmatic is more than banner ads or dynamic product retargeting - it’s the turnkey option for accessing the wealth of ad inventory outside of walled gardens and paid search."

Teka Phan, Associate Director at New Engen, adds:

It’s important to understand that programmatic buying is performance buying. It powers actionable insights into how this media drives actions and conversions across the entire marketing funnel.

The reality of digital marketing in 2023 is that brands can’t successfully grow on the Meta-Google duopoly alone (the aforementioned walled gardens). Instead, it’s essential to meet your customers, both existing and prospective, where they are. This begs the question - where are they?

Media Consumption is Changing (Rapidly)

The channel landscape is more diverse than ever, and consumers are increasingly discovering brands through podcasts, in-app ads, and music streaming services. eMarketer predicts that, by 2024, 20% of all time spent consuming digital media will come from audio. What’s more, CTV already constitutes more than 25% of the time consumers spend with digital media, yet accounts for less than 10% of digital ad spending in the US. To put this in context, Meta receives roughly 20% of ad investment despite representing just 7.6% of all digital media consumption.

This is precisely why we, as an agency, believe that brands can win on channels like digital audio, CTV, and yes, even display. It’s true that direct-buying channels are often part of a mature media mix for many brands. But the benefit of embracing a programmatic-first approach is that it allows marketers to keep an eye on performance at scale while maintaining a direct buy approach for branding-first initiatives.

The Benefits of Investing in Programmatic

Thought leaders at New Engen have identified four primary benefits to investing in programmatic:

Control: Despite some preconceived notions, programmatic ad buying affords marketers tighter control over targeting, placements, and optimization. This level of control enables measurement testing in the form of geo holdouts, known audience split tests, and platform lift tools. Such exercises are critical to proving the value of channels outside of last-click.

Flexibility: Budgets can be seamlessly moved around across channels and publishers on a daily or even hourly basis. In contrast, brands buying directly from multiple publishers are beholden to more rigidity driven by campaign minimums and contract terms.

Value at Scale: Not only are CPMs generally cheaper when buying programmatically, but DSPs often provide access to a variety of inventory types, formats, and audiences - in turn, this variation powers the development of diverse, mature programs. The inventory is virtually endless and continuing to grow as more platforms and publishers open their inventory to exchanges.

Actionable Insights: By investing in programmatic activations, brands can quickly gather learnings about what kind of inventory and formats are driving performance. While this may not be a unique function of programmatic channels, it’s differentiated by actionability - “Many people see programmatic as an upper funnel, impression-buy only. The value is that we can measure action (conversions, traffic, etc.) and then act on it in real-time,” Teka explains.

How New Engen Clients Have Found Success With Programmatic

Programmatic buying has driven strong results for New Engen clients, with brands finding synergy between their programmatic programs and other marketing channels, including Paid Search and Social. Below are two New Engen case studies that exemplify the benefits of incorporating programmatic into your marketing mix.

Unlocking Incremental Site Traffic Through CTV

In Q4 of 2022, our client, an outdoor apparel brand, tasked us with driving incremental site traffic through new channels. We first identified CTV as their target audience's top digital destination, then we built three rich consumer segments: in-market for outdoor apparel gear, recent competitor site and store visitors, and recent outdoor equipment purchasers. Ads were served across a variety of CTV platforms like Roku, Hulu, Pluto TV, and the Discovery Channel, and optimized based on insights from real-time incrementality studies.

Under this approach, our exposed audience was 2.5X more likely to visit the brand’s site than our non-exposed audience. What’s more, we achieved a 1.9X lift in checkouts. In other words, the brand was able to reach and capitalize on a more qualified audience through its CTV initiative. To top it all off, we identified a previously under-served audience as a standout performer - a learning that is pivotal to refining the program downstream.

Proving the Revenue Impact of West Marine’s Digital Video Awareness Media

In order to validate the direct revenue impact of digital video awareness media, we designed an audience holdout test for our client, West Marine. We activated precision media buys across CTV and YouTube in Florida, a key growth market for the brand. The audience segments included prospecting, retargeting, and lapsed customers, and were compared against national performance.

By the end of the two-week period, the target audience delivered a 1.7X lift in online lapsed user transactions and a 4.6X lift in in-store transactions. Omnichannel ROAS also improved, and West Marine measured a 1.4X increase in year-over-year omnichannel revenue from new-to-file customers.

Programmatic Advertising Best Practices for Holiday 2023

Whether you're bought into programmatic after reading this or just curious to learn more, we want to leave you with our recommendation for what to do next. Here's what New Engen leaders say are the most important steps to successfully incorporate programmatic into your Holiday 2023 strategy:

First and foremost, set clear objectives

→ Identifying what you want to accomplish and learn from your programmatic initiative is the most important step, as this will inform how to design your program. Before you can drive awareness with a new segment or increase AOV within an existing one, you’ll need to understand your audience - then, you can tailor your channels, targeting, and creative parameters to their specific needs. Once you’re aligned on the plan, stick to it.

Set expectations with your team

→ Know that every channel should have its own goals and benchmarks. Don’t track your programmatic performance against your Paid Search campaigns, because these are inherently different channels and so are their outcomes. Performance will even vary across, Podcast, CTV, and Display given their different mediums.

For example, a consumer who searches for “shoes” is more likely to make an immediate purchase because they are actively searching for the product. Programmatic channels, on the other hand, expose audiences to products before they are ready to purchase. So if that same consumer sees a CTV ad for a pair of shoes before they start their search, there’s a likelihood that they will have been influenced before their final purchase decision.

Launch early

→ We anticipate that the holiday season will stretch across Q4, and consumers will start their holiday planning and shopping early - you want to be there when they’re in the consideration stage. As a rule of thumb, you should be in market at least 4 weeks prior to your peak shopping period.

Anticipate different scenarios

→ As an agency practice, we create decision playbooks with our clients going into critical peak periods that allow our teams to move quickly when optimizing campaigns.

If you’re interested in chatting more about your programmatic strategy for the holidays or beyond, reach out to us at programmaticleadership@newengen.com. For more holiday insights and digital marketing news, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn.

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To Ban, or Not to Ban: Our Take on How Marketers Should Be Thinking About TikTok

The Latest TikTok News

Tensions between TikTok and the U.S. government came to a head this month after the Biden administration threatened to ban the app should the company refuse to divest from its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance. The escalation comes amidst warnings from U.S. lawmakers that China’s investment in TikTok poses a threat to national security and opens the door for the Chinese government to influence content moderation on the platform.

To top it all off, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faced Congress last Thursday and attempted to reassure U.S. lawmakers that the company has implemented measures to address their concerns. Central to Chew’s defense was TikTok’s plan to roll out what it calls “Project Texas” - a $1.5 billion project to migrate American user data to Texas-based Oracle. In another key moment, Chew rebutted accusations that TikTok’s algorithm has adverse effects on kids by pointing to steps the company has taken to protect its younger users.

A Marketing Perspective

Apart from the political drama, TikTok also made headlines this month after its announcement that 150 million American users are on the platform. The app’s popularity and influence are undeniable, and marketers are uniquely aware of this: there’s an appetite for short-form video that won’t be curbed by a TikTok ban. An eMarketer survey from November 2022 found that 63% of TikTok users would move to another platform, with Instagram being the favored alternative. And these platforms are already evolving their video capabilities to meet consumer demand - Instagram introduced 90-second videos last year, and Meta recently followed suit.

So, What Does TikTok Have to Say About All of This?

In response to last Thursday’s hearing, TikTok circulated a Myth vs. Fact Sheet, which counters what the company calls inaccuracies surrounding its ownership, content moderation, and data security. A few notable examples, transcribed directly from the document, include:

“Myth: TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd., is Chinese-owned.*

Fact: TikTok’s parent company ByteDance Ltd. was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, but today, roughly sixty percent of the company is beneficially owned by global institutional investors such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group. An additional twenty percent of the company is owned by ByteDance employees around the world, including nearly seven thousand Americans. The remaining twenty percent is owned by the company's founder, who is a private individual and is not part of any state or government entity.”

*Despite TikTok’s attempt at myth-busting ByteDance’s association with the Chinese government, it has been reported that "golden shares" give the Chinese government the ability to appoint a seat on the company's board.

“Myth: TikTok manipulates content in a way that benefits the Chinese government or harms American interests.

Fact: TikTok is an entertainment app. The content on TikTok is generated by our community. TikTok does not permit any government to influence or change its recommendation model.

Myth: TikTok collects a significant amount of sensitive data on its users.

Fact: TikTok's privacy policy fully describes the data the company collects. There have been many inaccurate claims about our policies and practices that have gone unaddressed by the media. To be clear, the current versions of the TikTok app do NOT:

*Monitor keystrokes or content of what people type when they use our in-app browser on third-party websites;

Collect precise or approximate GPS location in the U.S.;

Use face or voice prints to identify individuals.

In line with industry practices and as explained in our privacy policy, we collect information to help the app function, operate securely, and improve the user experience. We constantly update our app and encourage users to download the most current version of TikTok.”

*This talking point conveniently omits what happens off the app via TikTok browser trackers, or “pixels.” But more on that in a minute.

Formalities aside, TikTok knows that the best way to reach an audience is, well, through TikTok. Ahead of his testimony on March 23rd, Chew appeared on TikTok’s verified account to address his upcoming congressional hearing and remind users of what’s at stake - that a ban could “take TikTok away” from 150 million users, 5 million business accounts, and 7,000 U.S.-based TikTok employees.

Creators Sounding the Alarm

TikTok has found support from its creators, who have taken to the platform to sound the alarm about what a ban, in the form of the S. 686 RESTRICT Act, would mean. One example comes from creator @sayheyjames, who recently published a video that generated 12.2 million video views and 2 million likes in the span of a week. In this video, he calls out elements of the bill that he says will “fundamentally change” how we use the internet, like the proposed legal consequences of using VPNs to access banned apps and the ban on hardware manufactured by “foreign adversaries” (including China, Russia, and Iran).

There are countless examples of this type of content, with trending hashtags like #tiktokban accumulating 2 billion views. Given how much creators have to lose in this debate, it’s no surprise that they’re leveraging the platform to create a sense of urgency around the issue.

Making Sense of it All

It’s near impossible to predict what happens next because there’s no playbook on how to best navigate the aftermath of a ban on a platform like TikTok. Kevin Goodwin, VP of Performance Marketing at New Engen, offers some perspective:

“Precedent matters. We have zero precedent for a nationwide ban of such a popular technology and entertainment platform. Since we’ve never seen it happen before, all marketers are skeptical that TikTok will be the first to pay the price. Take Meta and Google for example - they consistently face legislative pressure for specific products and ways of working (albeit on a smaller scale), yet have never been materially impacted in their ability to provide products to users and advertisers.”

On top of the legal and political complexities of a theoretical TikTok ban, the cultural and economic implications are massive. New Engen VP of Performance Marketing, Adam Telian, puts it plainly,

TikTok has done an amazing job of creating demand for a specific type of content which, it seems, a good portion of the world can’t get enough of. Our position is that, even if TikTok gets banned, the format and the attention it demands isn’t going anywhere.

Another key piece of the equation is TikTok creators, who help differentiate the platform from other major social media players. This is why New Engen leaders are asking, “what will happen with creators?” Many creators are already operating cross-platform, but those with an outsized presence on TikTok are at risk of losing potency in their existing brand partnerships. It will be incumbent on brands to diversify their influencer partnerships and plan accordingly for a creator migration to Reels, Shorts, and Triller (or maybe a resurrected Vine) in the wake of a TikTok ban.

“Once we figure out where the creators are moving,” Adam Telian says, “it will be up to the platform to prove they can retain user attention, and deliver the same results and consistent innovation we've seen from TikTok.”

Actions for Marketers (Whether You’re on TikTok Yet or Not)

For the time being, there are several actions marketers can take to leverage TikTok as it exists today.

New Engen Clients Operating on TikTok

These clients are embracing a business-as-usual approach to their TikTok strategy, but they’re also prepared to be agile and flexible as the situation unfolds. Kevin Goodwin explains, “We continue to recommend brands take a diversified channel strategy and approach to short-form video to hedge any extreme risk. We want to avoid the rare scenario where the government bans TikTok and one of our clients suddenly has 50%+ of their revenue at risk.”

In practice, this means incorporating Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts into short-form video strategies, and, as mentioned above, ensuring that content creator programs aren’t over-dependent on the TikTok app and its toolset.

New Engen Clients Not Yet on TikTok

We are advising clients who are not yet on TikTok to move forward with their investment. “Even if TikTok does get banned,” Adam Telian explains, “clients can be using this time to refine their creative approach and learn how to unlock meaningful performance that should translate to whichever platform fills the vacuum created by a ban. And if it doesn’t get banned, then they’re ahead of where they would be if they chose to wait for the dust to settle."

New Engen Clients Concerned About Data Privacy

Anna Otieno, Head of Research & Insights at New Engen, reminds us, “Privacy and security are the top concerns right now, particularly for companies and government institutions. As we head into a world of cookie-less advertising and first-party data, control is key.” She notes that, regarding TikTok, “It’s been confirmed that the app - like Google and Meta - gathers information about people as they move around the internet. TikTok partners with companies that embed tiny website trackers “pixels” to better measure and target ads - usually without user notification.”

With this in mind, some New Engen clients have chosen to refrain from implementing TikTok’s tracking pixel. This allows brands to maintain their presence on the platform without compromising their first-party data.

It’s important to note, however, that creators tend to have a difference of opinion on this front. Anna Otieno tells us that, "While privacy and security are important to TikTok users, content creators are less concerned given the tradeoff. In fact, most social media users know that their data is tracked and shared to make sure ‘the algorithm is working.’ TikTok’s remixed creator fund, known as the Creativity Program Beta, aims to help creators “generate higher revenue potential.” What’s the price of opportunity and revenue? Data."

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Influencer Marketing in the New Age of Generative AI

The implications of AI are all anyone is talking about these days — and for good reason. It could impact jobs, production, scalability, and create any number of potential innovations and abominations. While Acorn Influence, a New Engen company, is embracing and exploring many aspects of generative AI, we must do our due diligence to prepare for what AI-generated creators would mean for our industry and operations—specifically, concerns surrounding the legal ramifications of what is defined as proprietary in the world of influence, and whether AI “influencers” will become the norm.

Regarding the legal aspects, we've already seen rumblings of this with artists suing AI tech for "learning" from their specific artistic styles. But who's to say that the AI wouldn't be "learning" from the influencers who are top performers on social media? What, if anything, is proprietary about how they gained their influence, and how will the creators protect their brands?

In social media, the issue of attribution is one daily fought. We often see the appropriation of style, jokes, music, and dance across TikTok and Instagram, most notably with creators of color who are not credited when white influencers perform their viral dances. It’s a real paradox. The purpose of viral content is to be shared, re-shared, manipulated, and imitated across the Internet. That’s how you reach success, which is all well and good until someone else starts to profit from it. As we speak, Jerry Media is suing seven brands for using photoshopped versions of content produced by their popular meme account @dudewithsign. As AI continues to fuel controversy, the future fate of who owns the rights to “influence” new artistic creations will most likely be decided in court, but the opacity of what defines sampling versus stealing will be difficult to enforce.

This isn’t the first time these ethical conundrums have been raised. CGI or "virtual" influencers have been around since at least 2016, even earlier if you consider anime and video game characters that have crossed into mainstream content. But, because these AI influencers are rooted in technology that borrows from real life, they have also faced backlash. For instance, AI rap influencer FN Meka was lambasted as "digital blackface," not only because his creators were two white men but because they used his character to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Or take the incredibly cringeworthy case of virtual influencer Lil Miquela, who, in an attempt to seem more human, posted a vlog in which she described being sexually assaulted in a rideshare - a video that was both shortsighted and wildly offensive. Brands should take heed that even with fictional people — the creators behind the levers will still be under scrutiny.

Companies will likely continue experimenting with AI “influencers,” but what differentiates this AI-generated content from any other branded content made in a production studio? This is where we see the real division — we can certainly see the cost-savings involved with AI-generated clothing models and brand ads, but the holy grail for any influencer agency is to broker deals between brands and people who are real brand advocates. While AI can certainly create content that looks real and imitates human behaviors, these outputs are fundamentally at odds with the ethos of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is grounded in its authenticity and the connections people feel to the creator as a real person. That's when the secret sauce, so to speak, is made. While the bastardization of influencer marketing is a constant struggle for creators looking to give an honest review rather than make a quick buck, we at Acorn will continue to champion authenticity as long as there remains a desire for it. And judging by the size of the creator economy and the investments in the industry, this is not a phase - but we wouldn't be surprised if AI influencers were.

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Here’s Your Cheat Sheet for the Upcoming GA4 Deadline

Getting Up to Speed

Believe it or not, Google introduced Google Analytics 4 (GA4) way back in July 2019, as a solution for the “cookie-less future” that is now upon us. While Universal Analytics relies on cookies to track and measure user data, GA4 leverages additional signals like marketer-provided user IDs and unique Google signals from users who opt-in to ad personalization. On top of that, GA4 combines website and app properties to provide customer-centric measurement across devices and platforms.

So now, four years and four lifetimes later, we’re finally preparing to say goodbye to Universal Analytics and hello to GA4. Or are we? Because despite the rapidly approaching July 1st deadline, many brands have yet to take a few basic (but critical) steps to support their move over to GA4.

With that in mind, we asked New Engen experts to hit us with the most important things marketers and brands should be doing right now to ensure their smooth and successful transition to GA4.

Your GA4 Checklist

Beginning in March, Google automatically created GA4 properties for any advertisers who hadn’t yet done so, barring those who opted out. However, it is incumbent upon advertisers to ensure they are set up correctly within their GA4 property, which will vary from brand to brand depending on its unique marketing needs.

Whether you haven’t yet tackled GA4, or simply want to double check that it has been set up in alignment with your brand, this checklist is for you.

Before we get started, be sure to set up a GA4 property alongside your Universal Analytics property (using GA4 Setup Assistant wizard) if you haven’t already. This connection allows you to easily port over existing settings from UA to GA4. In most cases, Google Analytics can use an existing Google tag that is already on your website.

1. Enable Data Stream

Ensure data collection setting is enabled.

2. Setup Conversion Events

Easily import from Universal Analytics using the Goals Migration Tool. UA Goals are now GA4 Conversion Events (note: some goal types cannot be migrated and will therefore need to be recreated within GA4).

Validate conversion volume and revenue against UA once conversion event data has been collected through your GA4 property for a few days. Google recommends checking every two weeks, but it’s best to check in more frequently in case there are large discrepancies in your numbers or events that would necessitate their being reworked or recreated.

3. Link GA4 property to Google Ads

Keep the default option of Enable Personalized Advertising to make Audience application easier.

4. Audience Application

Once audiences have been recreated in GA4, they will become available in your Google Ads account shared library (once linked).

Apply your audiences to campaigns or ad groups where it makes sense to start collecting audience data (remember: apply as “observation” to avoid limiting reach).

5. Download UA data

UA data will be available for 6 months after data stops being processed, but it’s never too early to start exporting historical reports and data!

GA4 in the Long-Term

Before we know it, the looming GA4 deadline will have come and gone. At the outset, the transition will be relatively simple and many brands will be able to move forward with little to no developer support. However, if it has been years since you last audited your Google Analytics setup, now is a great time to bring stakeholders together to redefine events and audiences that matter for your brand.

This is the first major overhaul of Google Analytics so it will take some getting used to. But the benefits of GA4 are clear:

Privacy-safe

Data modeling

Better reporting

A user-friendly interface

Early predictive capabilities (including customer churn probability, conversion probability, and predicted revenue).

As the customer journey becomes more complex, with less visibility than ever before, GA4 serves as another tool to help brands understand and measure the efficacy of their marketing efforts across the funnel.

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Marketing in the New Age of Generative AI

Generative AI Pulse Check

Over the last year, the public discourse has been flooded with conversations about generative AI - what it is, how it should be used, and to what extent it will (or won’t) change us as a society. Because the implications are widespread, stretching from the tech sector to the education system, we believe it’s important to address some potential impacts on marketers and how we, as an agency, are thinking about generative AI.

Getting Up to Speed

Last summer, a handful of AI image generators were made publicly available, giving the masses a taste of what generative AI tools can do. The technology quickly entered the American lexicon, with shows like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver shining a spotlight on Midjourney and DALL-E. Then, in November 2022, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT: a pre-trained, generative chat tool that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP), drawing from textbooks, websites, and articles available on the internet in order to model its own language in its responses. ChatGPT can give natural answers to questions in a conversational tone, and can generate stories, poems, debug code, recommend chords and lyrics, and more. In early February, New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose reported that ChatGPT had 30 million users and 5 million daily visits, just two months post-launch.

Since its release, ChatGPT has escalated the national conversation around artificial intelligence; a February survey published by YouGov found that 46% of Americans have heard about ChatGPT, but their feelings about the technology are mixed at best. 46% of respondents believe that AI will negatively impact jobs (17% disagree), and 36% say it will be “bad for society“ (13% disagree).

And as far as businesses and institutions go? They’re starting to tackle big questions about AI best practices, protocols, and use cases. Bloomberg recently introduced a financial tool called BloombergGPT, Universities are adding Generative AI FAQs to their websites, and the White House published a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, detailing principles that “should guide the design, use, and deployment of automated systems to protect the American public in the age of artificial intelligence.”

The list goes on, but let’s turn now to marketing. In this piece, we’re going to explore ways in which generative AI stands to impact marketers, use cases for the technology offered by New Engen leaders, and our agency mindset as we enter this next technological frontier.

Publishers Are All In

Publishers have been building AI into their ad platforms for some time now. In late 2021, Google introduced Performance Max - an automated tool that serves ads across Google’s ad inventory from within a single campaign. Shortly after, in August 2022, Meta unveiled its Advantage+ shopping campaigns, which use AI to streamline the process of ad creation and optimization. Basically, “Our highly automated marketing future has arrived,” says Kevin Goodwin, VP of Performance Marketing at New Engen.

And now, just a few months later, these same publishers are racing to incorporate generative AI tools into their product offerings. Microsoft launched “the new Bing,” an AI-powered search engine that the company believes will improve audience targeting and investment returns for brands. Last month, New Engen was invited to attend a Microsoft webinar called “Introducing the New Bing,” which highlighted how AI can enhance and complement traditional search (but not supplant it, according to the webinar’s host). Microsoft says that, for now, no changes will be made to the ad auction and ads for the new Bing will be automatically created within existing campaigns. The most significant difference, they claim, will be in improved relevancy, with more qualified consumers discovering a brand’s content and ads.

In light of Bing’s AI evolution, Google has been hard-pressed to advance its own search engine and, in March, released a chatbot the company is calling Bard. The technology is still in beta, and time will tell what impacts it might have on the platform's advertisers.

Zooming Out: Marketers Can Relax About Chatbots & the SERP

"A lot of people are worried that these chatbots will lead to singular query results that will reduce the opportunity for ads, completely alter the way the search engine results page (SERP) appears, or both. But it should give marketers peace of mind to remember that Google and Meta are incentivized to create great ad products that generate revenue for their shareholders. Search was 56% of Google's revenue in Q4 2022 - it benefits them to use AI in a way that allows advertisers to spend more. What we can expect to see is greater curation, enabled by chatbots in the SERP. An early tactical indication of the shift in search is the evolution of match types. Google has already done away with broad match modified and is pushing broad match harder than ever. As we move to more voice-based and long-form queries, the ability to build an effective and scalable keyword strategy with tools like exact match becomes near impossible. I would expect match types, or at least any but broad, to be almost completely obsolete within the next 3-5 years if not sooner." - Kevin Goodwin, VP of Performance Marketing

Meta has, of course, also thrown its hat into the ring. In a recent interview with Nikkei Asia, Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth remarked that the company was developing a generative AI solution for ad creation that it plans to launch by the end of this year. Bosworth explained that the technology would be able to generate ad creative tailored to different audiences across Facebook and Instagram, simplifying the advertising process and making it more widely accessible.

New Engen leaders anticipate that the first iteration of Meta’s generative AI tool will level up its existing dynamic creative and automated ad formats, like Slideshows. Kevin Goodwin shares his predictions:

Prediction 1: Meta Will Focus on Feeds

“Meta is likely to focus on feeds in the near term, given the number of ad dollars invested in feed-based products. What this might look like is a tool in which advertisers provide their brand colors, input images, and a set of rules, and in turn, Meta will produce automated feed manipulations like backgrounds and overlays using AI.”

Prediction 2: Recommended Videos & Images Aren’t Far Off

“I believe very quickly we'll see Meta attempt to create 'recommended ads' that splice together top-performing products and assets already within your account. Imagine you have an ad featuring a shoe on a textured background that is performing well. You can click a button that says 'Generate Optimized Variation,' and Meta manipulates your image - maybe changes the background texture, maybe includes some text on the image, maybe puts AI-generated 'people' in your ad, etc."

Brands Are Trying to Capitalize on Generative AI

The internet is having a field day with AI-generated content. AI images of figures like the Pope and Donald Trump have stirred the pot in recent weeks, and college professors are trolling their colleagues with academic papers produced by chatbots. But politics and pop culture aside, some major retailers have made recent headlines for their use of AI-produced marketing collateral.

On March 20th, Coca-Cola launched the “Create Real Magic” marketing campaign to promote its new AI platform, developed by OpenAI and Bain & Company. In a press release, artists were encouraged to visit the platform’s site and generate AI artwork using “iconic creative assets from the Coca-Cola archives” for the chance to be featured on Coke’s digital billboards in New York and London. Two days later, Levi Strauss & Co. announced it would be partnering with Lalaland.ai to build “customized AI-generated models.” As in fashion models, not language models.

Retailers are also jumping on AI to differentiate their gifting experiences, says Anna Otieno, New Engen’s Head of Research. She explains, “Brands are increasingly incorporating generative AI to optimize the customer experience – from search to delivery. Being understood is a top value for consumer interest and engagement. AI-powered gifting generators, for example, are popping up more but are in the development stages of personalization. A tool that helps customers find the perfect gift – and links directly to hyper-personalized products – is already steps ahead of current options. It’s like a personal shopper that goes beyond the usual ‘recommended for you’ features.”

New Engen Creatives Offer Some Perspective

AI and machine learning continue to stir up the industry, and several applications have the potential to deliver serious, positive impacts at scale: AI-powered ad optimization, smart tagging, templatization, video cutting, image generation and editing, automatic cropping, and text generation, to name a few. What’s more, creative professionals are already using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and RunwayML in their work. But all that being said, the potential benefits of these tools are counterbalanced by reasonable concerns surrounding content quality, security, and liability.

Test & Learn

For the past several years, New Engen Creative Director Jen Thomas has been working with internal analytics and media teams to assess possible use cases for AI. She tells us,

"I’ve approached AI like I would any other tool in my line of work - by embracing it, but also attempting to fairly evaluate its strengths, weaknesses, ethical considerations, and potential near-term evolutions."

Jen and other New Engen creatives have found that quality concerns surrounding AI tend to limit the success of content creation. “In research and discovery with images and editing, AI hasn’t led to significantly better speed, volume, or quality of output than a person working manually, at least so far,” Jen explains. She adds that, over time, an undesirable “stock” quality can become apparent in AI-generated content. Ultimately, the level of tailoring required to achieve specific outputs is still inaccessible to many, and the QA and editing processes continue to require a trained eye.

ChatGPT and Copywriting

With thoughtful prompting, ChatGPT has shown intriguing strengths, like a facility for loose, engaging, brand-focused language. However, it has also revealed weaknesses, like basic inaccuracies and stiffness in the kind of product-specific, feature-focused language that digital advertising often requires. Certain industries like nutrition and wellness may encounter additional challenges and require an even greater need for human handling - due to the natural language sound of the responses, QA testers must know products at an individual level to be certain any health claims are accurate enough to publish.

This demand for skilled prompters has created a job market for Prompt Engineers, and prompt-sharing is becoming something of a sport for people seeking the right language to describe the output they want.

What to Look Out For

New Engen leaders believe that, right now, the most compelling use case for AI is creative analysis and insights. Machine learning options, like smart tagging and image classification, are where Jen and others see the most potential in a paid media environment. And regarding ChatGPT specifically? Anna Otieno puts it this way,

At an estimated 100 million monthly users, it’s no question that ChatGPT will impact (and has already impacted) how people search, learn, interact, create, work and access information. As an agency, it’s an active learning process, where brands will test and discover organizational uses and consumer-facing tools. The rise of ChatGPT will also call for research and policy around privacy, bias and ethical use. The sooner brands get ahead of that, the safer the adoption for all parties.

Now What?

The topic of generative AI is so massive, has so many angles and applications, that we can only attempt to scratch the surface with this piece. At New Engen, our approach to AI is the same as it has been with any new technology - welcome it, test into it, and find the best use cases for our clients. And we'll go step further by applying this framework equally to third-party technologies and those we are incubating in-house (but more on that later). Right now, we see the greatest short-term potential for AI to expand our creative analysis and insights, and help evolve media productivity and output.

Let’s end with some perspective from Kevin Goodwin, who offered his thoughts in a recent AiThority article,

"Hyper-automation is an opportunity to refocus our industry toward producing truly inspiring creative, and the technology that enables it. The machines, platforms, and algorithms can handle optimization and measurement—and marketers can return to a time when advertising and media conversation was about creative that truly moves people."

Keep an eye out for more AI news and stay in the know by subscribing to our newsletter and following us on LinkedIn.

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1st Party Data Made Easy: Leveraging the Meta Conversions API Gateway

The End of 3rd-Party Cookies Is Here

The “cookieless future” narrative has dominated the marketing world over the last few years, as consumers and regulators continue to demand more from tech companies and how they handle data privacy. Things started to heat up in 2018, from news overseas that the European Union had enacted The General Data Protection Regulation, to headlines at home surrounding the California Consumer Privacy Act.

As legislation began to catch up with tech companies, Google announced that it would deprecate third-party cookies and Apple rolled out new privacy features that came to fruition in the launch of iOS14.5. We probably don’t need to explain why or how these shifts have rocked the advertising world, but New Engen VP of Performance Marketing, Adam Telian, summed it up nicely in a recent Advertising Week article:

"For the better part of the last 20 years, the work of a performance marketer was to find hyper-specific audiences that could convert to sales. The era of privacy and signal loss brings with it a sobering thought to performance marketers everywhere – the days of riding audiences, powered by the likes of Google and Facebook, are over."

Meta Conversions API: How the Loss of 3rd-Party Tracking Lead to Innovation

Change is hard, but the downfall of 3rd-party tracking has spurred innovations that directly address the everyday needs of brands and marketers. We’ve witnessed net-new innovation of closed-loop advertising and e-commerce platforms from Amazon and Walmart. The revival of randomized controlled trials like marketing mix modeling (MMM) and conversion lift studies has enabled marketers to make data-driven decisions about budget allocation, a capability that is especially pertinent in the current economic climate. And key innovations in enhanced signal for in-platform optimization, like Meta’s Conversion API (CAPI), provide critical 1st-party data measurement solutions for a post-signal world.

Meta developed CAPI as a means for safely capturing the marketing data from a brand’s website, app, or server, and connecting it to Meta’s advertising platform. During a recent webinar, New Engen & Meta: 1st Party Data Made Easy, New Engen Director of Performance Marketing, DJ Sutton, kicked off the CAPI conversation with a caveat, “If you’re a marketer, there has probably been some point in your career where you’ve been just a little bit skeptical of Meta-reported conversions.” For this reason, a team of New Engen leaders sought to validate the Conversions API internally, rather than relying on a Meta-commissioned study.

The results were undeniable. After launching CAPI for one of our clients, a leading outdoor apparel brand, we saw sustained revenue growth and a 57% increase in ROAS. We measured campaign performance using Google Analytics in order to validate the results under a third-party, Meta-agnostic attribution system. This was not an isolated incident, and success stories continue to pile up across the New Engen portfolio.

Spell It Out for Me: What Makes CAPI So Effective?

In the same webinar, DJ likened CAPI to a flywheel, with benefits like accurate measurement, improved learnings, enhanced delivery, and business growth all compounding on one another. Let’s break these down one at a time:

Accurate Measurement: CAPI integration allows Meta to track valuable website events that can no longer be captured by pixels.

Improved Learnings: With better visibility into campaign performance, marketers are better equipped to decide which factors drive success - from ad creative to audiences and bid strategies.

Enhanced Delivery: CAPI provides a richer conversion signal for delivery optimization, which allows Meta to serve more targeted impressions to users with high conversion potential, all while delivering results more efficiently and at scale.

Business Growth: These benefits (better measurement, learnings, and delivery) culminate in the heightened efficacy of Meta programs - resulting in significant business impact.

If you look at it by the numbers, Meta reports that CAPI adoption leads, on average, to a 13% improvement in Cost per Result and a 19% increase in conversions for advertisers who set up the Conversions API in addition to their Meta Pixel. And if that doesn’t convince you, perhaps the 97% adoption rate among New Engen clients will change your mind.

Setting Up the Conversions API

There are a handful of ways to integrate with CAPI, from direct integrations to partnering with a third party, but these methods can be labor-intensive and require weeks to execute. To mitigate such headaches, Meta developed the Conversions API Gateway, which allows advertisers to integrate CAPI without any developer resources. Under a single account, self-service configuration option, advertisers can configure the integration without developer resources, but they are still responsible for spinning up an Amazon Web Services account, establishing the gateway on their own, and assuming any related costs. In order to simplify the integration process even further, we partnered with Meta to establish a New Engen CAPI Gateway, which allows us to onboard our clients in a matter of minutes and at no additional cost.

Truth be told, when Meta proposed building a New Engen CAPI Gateway for added ease and efficiency, we weren’t wholly convinced. However, the immediate results and consistently smooth adoption we achieved for our clients assuaged any initial doubts we may have had about the potency of the CAPI Gateway.

Don’t Just Survive, Thrive

As we enter the new frontier of performance marketing, we have the opportunity to both innovate and embrace new technologies - ones that facilitate better relationships with customers by meeting them where they are while honoring their data privacy needs, and ones that power measurable, unequivocal value for the business. At New Engen, we’re committed to being at the forefront of performance marketing solutions like Meta’s Conversions API, and we’re proud to be able to drive growth for our clients through our brand-new New Engen CAPI Gateway.

In his closing remarks during this month’s co-hosted webinar, New Engen VP of Performance Marketing Kevin Goodwin left the audience with this,

"I think the message is hopefully pretty clear today: CAPI is extremely valuable. DJ and I are not paid actors, this is not an infomercial. We just see it work for our clients and our brands, and it makes our lives easier as marketers."

To learn more about CAPI, reach out to us at info@newengen.com. To stay in the know on all things performance marketing, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn.