Performance Marketing Reboot - 10.3.24
A Marketing Newsletter for Performance Marketers Converting to Marketers™
Happy October, one of my favorite months of the year in my corner of the world (Seattle, WA). Welcome to many new subscribers, I hope I’m able to exceed your expectations and if I don’t you can file a complaint with my assistant (aka me).
Let’s dive in.
Highlights:
Another deep dive into Age group costs on Meta, this time from a macro POV
“Attention” is critical for brand lift - some quick thoughts on how to measure attention without a 3rd party tool
Are you getting influencer wrong? + Why it matters (Gen Z still loves influencers)
Is a cow chewing grass more interesting than your ads? There’s a 50% chance the answer is yes!
Meta Bid Multiplier Update:
Our team continues to obsess a bit about age group performance and delivery in Meta. We have found “discrepancies” in nearly every account we have analyzed. On average, we’re finding we can re-route or better optimize ~20% of total spend through bid multiplier. And this is just looking at age.
This week, I wanted to zoom out from a brand/client specific view and look at our portfolio as a whole. A few questions I wanted to answer:
On average, how much more expensive is it to reach older demos?
Do seasonality/events, like the election build-up, impact groups differently?
How do age trends look YoY? Are they consistent across age buckets?
On average, how much more expensive is it to reach older demos?
Short answer is a LOT. Our data shows the 65+ age group is 2x more expensive than the 18-24 bracket and 80% more expensive than the 25-34 bracket. Why? Likely driven by the fact that 1) This group is highly engaged, especially as “clickers”, on social and 2) This group holds a massive amount of wealth and buying power. It’s an auction after all, and this CPM is reflective of some function of “value”.
Do seasonality/events, like the election build-up, impact groups differently?
Seasonality yes, but its not clear that this election is having a major impact on Meta specifically. Looking at 2023 vs. 2024 (see tables below), CPM increases from July to end of September were actually greater in 2023 (higher across ALL but one age group). The 18-24 group has seen the greatest seasonal increase in CPM’s this year, but it’s hard to directly attach that to the election.
Side note 1 - geo is one place to look more closely for election effects. We did see a higher share of swing states in the top quartile of seasonal CPM increases, but there is still variability. It’s worth looking into this for your account specifically.
Side note 2 - end of quarter (last 2-3 days) is always a GREAT time to push into your campaigns since most brands are pulling back to hit their quarterly budgets (see CPM cliff @ end of September below)
How do age trends look YoY? Are they consistent across age buckets?
This is where things get interesting. While 55+ CPM’s are starkly higher than for younger audiences, the cost to reach younger audiences is growing at a more rapid clip. What does this mean for your strategy? I take this to mean NOW is the time to accelerate your investment into younger demos, while these cost advantages still hold. These age groups are growing their wealth and influence and can already be considered high value audiences. The CPM trend suggest advertisers (or meta) are figuring this out and spending more into these groups.
What does this all mean? What can you do?
Divest from 55+ Audiences!! Maybe, maybe not. If your brand is well positioned to drive value from these segments, don’t overthink it. But if you’re dealing with limited media dollars, fighting for profitability, struggling to grow etc…here’s what I think:
Higher CPM’s impact reach which impacts long term growth - I’d recommend looking at CPM, frequency and Cost per 1000 reached side by side, for these age groups. Are you getting the reach you need to grow your brand?
Build strategies that allow you to reach and speak to younger demos - there are clearly algorithmic factors at play that may be skewing your delivery to older age groups. Unless you are marketing retirement homes, use age targeting and more importantly, creative, to specifically go after younger demos. Without deliberate intervention, its very possible Meta will push your ads to older demos.
Measure (and optimize) beyond the click - I hope this is self-explanatory by now.
Post I like:
“It’s time to pay attention to attention”
A lot of talk of CPM’s and reach above, but none of it matters much without attention and emotional connection. For my “performance” marketers out there, it’s important to look at hook rates and watch times for videos. TikTok has great tools to analyze this and build your own attention analysis.
Macro Observations:
By now, most brands have at least a nascent influencer strategy. But I continue to see too many brands get influencer wrong, usually in one of the below ways:
They micro-manage the brief - I can undertsand this temptation, but the entire purpose of working with a creator/influencer is to tap into their voice and their ability to connect with a niche audience. The more restrictions you put on them, the less likely you are to reap those benefits.
- calls this “Deep Nichification” and defines that as “We’re moving away from social media as reach and breadth and instead moving towards using it for niches and depth; seeking out deep vertical communities with whom we can share our obsessions, obscure knowledge and weirdness, to be understood and to connect over the stuff we love”. Any attempts to over-manage creators completely negate this key benefit.
They check the box and nothing more - this is most common, and usually comes with the excuse of “we don’t have time/resources”. Working with 2-3 influencers every 6 months is not going to move the needle for your brand. You need to be building a constant pipeline of content and working to diversify your mix across nano, micro, macro and non-influencer UGC. If budget is a true constraint, focus on nano/UGC and use paid media to amplify that content.
They fail to build an integrated strategy - this is often a result of siloed teams (social/content/brand vs. marketing or paid media). Influencer is most impactful when integrated across merch/product, content and paid media. Do you have the rights and means to house this content on your site? Do you have the rights and means to allowlist on social? Do you have the rights to edit and splice the content? Can you run the content in ads indefinitely? Can you measure it online & offline?
The data continues to prove that influencer is incredibly powerful, especially for younger generations. Gen Z is 50% more likely to seek information on fashion and beauty from influencers than the general population. I strongly believe influencer is no longer a choice for most brands, and the cost of NOT taking part in this “deep nichification” is too significant to ingore.
Source: Morning Consult, Influencers Aren’t Going Anywhere, and Their Power Is Expanding, Oct 2024.
Reading:
Stores are Small Now: this is a smart move imo, but what is interesting is its more brand building/marketing than distribution so the ROI should be looked at a bit differently. As the author points out, these stores are/need to be well setup to bring you into the system by getting your email/phone number or interestingly, get you to the website so you can be retargeted.
Yelp is Suing Google: specifically for their attempts to “trap” users in the google ecosystem (maps, LSA, gmail etc). Google is under a lot of pressure right now, and for good reason. It’s hard to envision any major change without a change to the software partnerships (i.e. safari default search engine), but it’s possible we’ll see some micro shifts in how Google prioritizes their own apps.
You Need more than Data To Understand Your Customers: I love this POV, especially as a marketer trained as “data driven”. “Today’s marketers have mistaken information for intimacy” captures the core thesis of this piece, which argues that real human interaction & observation is important in understanding consumers (big duh when you say it like that). I catch myself often projecting a niche community or personal experience POV on a broad audience - don’t do this, and instead get out in the real world and find out for yourself.
The cost of “dull” ads is higher than you think: further proof on the true cost of running dull ads (they define what makes ads dull) and the importance of evoking emotion and being interesting in ads. To beat this, the author’s of the study advise thinking like a “challenger brand”. That is good advice, and I would add using content creators (and not over-briefing them!) and even your own team/staff that aren’t normally apart of the creative process.
Thanks for reading.
-Kevin