Ever wondered how small advertisers navigate the labyrinth that is Google Ads? We dive into the thick of this challenge with Collin Slattery, founder of Taikun Digital, as we address the growing complexities of mid-funnel marketing. From Google's demand-gen campaigns and YouTube Shorts to the rise of Google's automation - we scrutinize it all.
Discover the ins and outs of Google's automation platform, its pros and cons, and how it's changing the landscape for advertisers both big and small. Colin, a veteran in the industry, brings his unique insights to the table, as we explore the diminishing transparency and control stemming from increasing automation. We'll compare Google's demand-gen campaigns with Meta's and Facebook's ad-to-cart optimization, pitting the tech giants against one another.
In the final leg, we zoom out to the larger picture, examining the impact of VC-backed brands overspending on acquisition and the influx of Chinese investments. Brands like Allbirds and shopee are under the microscope as we assess their aggressive marketing strategies. As we round off, we'll also touch on the recovery of Facebook's attribution data through modeling, and the current attitudes towards Google and Facebook. So why wait? Tune in for an episode packed with insights from the ever-evolving world of digital marketing.
Ever wondered how small advertisers navigate the labyrinth that is Google Ads? We dive into the thick of this challenge with Collin Slattery, founder of Taikun Digital, as we address the growing complexities of mid-funnel marketing. From Google's demand-gen campaigns and YouTube Shorts to the rise of Google's automation - we scrutinize it all.
Discover the ins and outs of Google's automation platform, its pros and cons, and how it's changing the landscape for advertisers both big and small. Colin, a veteran in the industry, brings his unique insights to the table, as we explore the diminishing transparency and control stemming from increasing automation. We'll compare Google's demand-gen campaigns with Meta's and Facebook's ad-to-cart optimization, pitting the tech giants against one another.
In the final leg, we zoom out to the larger picture, examining the impact of VC-backed brands overspending on acquisition and the influx of Chinese investments. Brands like Allbirds and shopee are under the microscope as we assess their aggressive marketing strategies. As we round off, we'll also touch on the recovery of Facebook's attribution data through modeling, and the current attitudes towards Google and Facebook. So why wait? Tune in for an episode packed with insights from the ever-evolving world of digital marketing.
Welcome to Growing Ecommerce. I'm your host, mike Ryan of Smarter Ecommerce, also known as SMIC. Today I'm joined by Colin Slattery, founder of Tycoon Digital, and we talk all things mid-funnel. We discuss what's going on with Google's new demand-gen campaigns, what to think about YouTube shorts and how Meta often compares favorably to Google these days. Colin also shares his take on Google automation, whether it's a net positive or net negative. Alright, let's get into it Cool. So, colin, thank you for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having me, absolutely. Before we get into it, I just want to ask you, or tell us, where are you joining us from today?
Speaker 2:I'm in sunny and very, very hot Barcelona.
Speaker 1:Spain, yeah, cool. I mean, I'm always glad when someone from the PPC chat crowd people I know from Twitter are visiting Europe, because it's cool, it's easier to stay in touch with them, and stuff like that. What brings you to Barcelona, by the way.
Speaker 2:So I love Barcelona. I usually do an international trip every year like an extended day, so sometimes I think Europe, sometimes it's in South America. Last year I was in Istanbul for two months and love Spain, love Barcelona, and my girlfriend was able to come on this trip too and she loves Barcelona. So we said, why not? It's a beautiful city and much more affordable than New York. So it felt like a good spot to go and I speak a tiny little bit of Spanish, which can help. But yeah, now just my international trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, that's really cool. Yeah, I mean I was in Barcelona for like a long weekend once, but it was. Yeah, I was right before the pandemic happened and I don't know we were kind of using as a we're preparing to travel with our young son to the US, so that was like sort of a practice trip and then the last one's happened. So anyway, but yeah, let's get into it, colin. So could you guys start with a quick introduction? What are your? What are your skills? What themes interest you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, colin, I run Tycoon Digital and you know like my skills are pretty broad because I taught all of this myself. So you know, core definitely a Google and Facebook ads kind of guy, skewing towards the data and analytics. They used to be like a poker player. I'm a super nerd, so the the math and analytics definitely appeals to me. But you know I've done a little bit of everything from the digital side so you know I can, I can update a CSS file in addition to, you know, launching Google ads and Facebook ads and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, cool. I mean, I think the data side definitely speaks to me as well. It's something so interesting about this space and and yeah, then you know you, you've also self taught, like entrepreneurship as well. There's a lot of I guess in running your own agency is a lot that you've got to learn and master there. Yeah, or try to master, try to master Good, good qualifier. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about your kind of like your, your origin story then, like I mean, agencies these days they're just flush with with college grads. You know that same same bias. We recruit straight out of uni a lot, but that's, that's not your background. You know, and I don't really know that, I know, I, I know that there's a story, but I don't know the story. So could you post on your earlier life and how you got here?
Speaker 2:I mean, where do we want to start and how much time do we have? I guess this is the question. I was fully independent by 18. So I didn't get the luxury of going to college and New York's an expensive city, so it's an expensive city to be an independent high school graduate at 18.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean, the internet really provided an opportunity to make money and try to make money without any sort of degree, right, this was back in 2007,. Very new, right? I don't know if you remember the days where, like, you could do affiliate pharmacies online, like and Google was okay with that guy could like 2006, 2007. So it was really a wild west where, like, you could just like do almost anything and there was no totally, completely unregulated. I mean, you know a 17 year old running. You know an affiliate pharmacy for some sketchy Canadian pharmacy, like that was okay.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean I just kind of had to hustle into it and digital was a wide open space, and so I ended up doing a lot of different stuff over the years. You know I started the company as, like a web host in December 2009,. The company was, like formalized in August 2010. But you know, like web hosting, seo, email marketing and kind of just learning it all because not having a college degree and the great recession, which was not great for for incomes, really kind of had to to hustle. If you've seen the movie rounders, I played underground poker in New York. That's a whole, nother long story. But yeah, this is a little bit, a little bit of everything and just scrapping away to make it work, and then eventually you get a little traction and now I'm in Barcelona.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's a cool story. I mean, yeah, great recession, recession hit me, so I had, I I flamed out of like a PhD program and right in like 2009,. And I had no plan B. And then, yeah, I mean, I was scraping together. I was working like evening shifts cashiering at a liquor store, in the morning I was unloading trucks and driving a forklift, and so that was. You know, it was a wild time anyway, but I don't think that I faced the adversity that you faced as a, you know, very young, independent guy in New York City. It's a totally different experience than what I had.
Speaker 2:I mean, you understand the scrappiness, though you had to do it yourself.
Speaker 1:So it was an adjustment and but you know, that's what got me into retail, which got me into ecommerce, which brought me here, you know at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny how you can see the dots connected with looking backwards or at the time you're like isn't going to go anywhere, and then in hindsight it does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, it's like, it's like a Plinko board, you know where the address, dropping that ball or that chip down it's, and it's bouncing around and afterwards you see this, you see the path that it traveled, yeah for sure. But yeah, and so I mean I'm wondering if that, like if you think that background kind of shapes your view today differently than than others. I mean, I think it must somehow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I think one of the big things is definitely persistence and especially trying to grow a company. Like there's going to be bad times right, and we haven't seen a recession in a long time, at least in the US but like it's going to happen and there are bad quarters or bad years, like you know, just pack up and stop. Or, you know, even with campaigns and things like that, you know, like always trying to find a way to make things work, like persistently trying to improve and not really giving up, my, my superpower is stubbornness and an unwillingness to stop, and that can definitely come in handy. And you know, building something is not, it's not easy, it's not friendly. It's definitely a full contact sport. You're going to get knocked on your ass and just got to keep keep marching, so it helps to have learned that early.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean well, I think that must give you kind of a lot of empathy and firsthand experience when you're working with with smaller businesses, because you are like tell me about, about who you're working with. I understand it's more on the SMB side and I have a follow on question to that, but tell me about who you're working with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so most of our clients are spending less than 100,000 a month. A lot of them are spending less than done a lot of work with like fresh upstart, like hey, we launched our Shopify website, like let's get going. And you know, I definitely appreciate the you know sort of fortitude and the courage that it takes to be like I'm gonna build something, I'm gonna start something, I'm gonna put my stuff out there for the market to judge, right, yeah, I mean, I always like immensely respect all the people who are willing to do that, because it's scary, it's hard, it's humbling, right, like what if people don't buy my product? What if people don't like my product? You know, there's always anyone can talk themselves out of starting something or launching something, and so, you know, always tons of credit to people who are actually in the arena, right, yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:I mean I think you know you'll see kind of a darling brand that ends up, you know, suddenly say sort of emperor, has no clothes, situation or brand collapses or has to shut down, wind down, and there are sometimes people savoring that and I think it doesn't have a lot of respect for you know what the reality on the ground and how hard that is. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, well, it's funny. It's funny because, yeah, like 50K, 100k monthly spend is not that small here in Europe, but you know it's a much more fragmented market. So there, I think that's a reflection of that. But I want to ask you, like, when you're talking about some of the companies on the smaller side, imagine like kind of a startup brand or something like that Sure, has paid search become a rich man's sport, like, do you just have to have the wallet and have to spend big? Or what are the challenges faced by smaller advertisers that a larger advertiser wouldn't have to worry about?
Speaker 2:There's so many, so I do think it is more of a rich man's sport today than it used to be. Obviously, costs go up as it becomes more mature right, it's a fully mature platform at this point, but one of the things that we always used to do was like start narrow and expand out. On Google, right, you could do like a couple of keywords, exact match where you like, really dialed in to exactly who your customer is, get those working and then start to expand out, and that is really a much less effective strategy these days, especially with all of the machine learning that you have to lean on. The days of manual CBC, with maybe that ECBC checkbox clicked, are long since over for the most part, and there's a lot of data locks now too, which is a challenge for small advertisers.
Speaker 2:I've ranted about the search query report many times, but you've got 80% of your spend hidden. You don't even know what's working and what's not, because it's all hidden, right, and that's a real concern. I think when you're just starting out, you're trying to figure out what works and you have no idea If you're big. Is it really that necessary for you to see all of your conversions? No, because you're getting thousands of them, tens of thousands of them, right. But when you're like, okay, my first few conversions are got five conversions so far in the last couple of weeks and all five of them are hidden, you're like, well, what do I take from this right? What can I learn? What can I apply? So it's definitely a more challenging environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally. I really appreciate that. Like, this idea of kind of using a niche strategy is less feasible than it used to be and it's harder to get that level of dialed in control that used to be able to get. And even it just reminds me of a story like at a client. I mean you can still do like a nowadays considered old school query funneling type build in Google Shopping where you're just for those not as deep into it. It's just a way of helping control what kind of search queries you're actually gonna be visible for more generic ones or more product specific ones, et cetera and we had advertisers who were using that to specifically avoid or reduce their overlap with Amazon and get into other kinds of auctions and you don't necessarily have that level of control anymore. It's definitely.
Speaker 1:I feel like ads used to be a place that allowed anybody to stand shoulder to shoulder at eye level with a big player, and now it does feel like it's a force that's allowing the big to get bigger and just keep concentrating demand. It's definitely a different kind of feeling than it was years back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to think and say right, like you could start with a couple thousand dollars a month and like, expand out from that. Right Cause, like you could go really narrow, you could find stuff that's working, you could be getting dollars coming in and start to expand out from that. And now generally I'm like what you had going there's gonna be so much signal loss, it just it doesn't work the way it did. And you know it's a $10,000 a month is a lot Like that's not pocket change, for you know someone who's starting a new brand or something.
Speaker 1:For sure. So when we look at, like this trend toward automation that you've mentioned, like with these newer campaign types, do you think that overall big picture, like, is it serving advertisers better in net terms, considering the? We talked about some trade-offs, loss of transparency, a loss of control, but you know they're offering to kind of offload manual work for us do things that humans, like a level of computation or tasks that humans wouldn't be able to achieve manually. I mean, where do you, where do you stand on this in net terms?
Speaker 2:Is it a net benefit? No, I think it's overall in that negative, and this is a pretty strongly held belief of mine. And it makes sense from Google standpoint. Right Cause the other thing, google is public traded company. They're there to make money. Right, their goal is to maximize the amount of money that we're spending on their ads.
Speaker 2:And the push towards automation, in my view, from you know, things like performance max and all of this automation is to for advertising performance, right Cause, if you think about it, like historically, you know, the top 1% of advertisers in terms of like skills are making tons and tons and tons of money, and then a huge percentage of just using money and that profit is those like hyper elite advertisers are making is viewed as a problem by Google, right, they want to distribute that down and flatten the curves, ideally to the point where I have this term, you know minimal acceptable return, right, where every advertiser is essentially getting this minimal acceptable return to keep them advertising, so they keep spending money on Google. So I think you know it's probably good for the bottom half of advertisers, but I think it's definitely worse for, you know, the top half of advertisers and certainly the people who are being managed by. You know people like ourselves right. You know it's not necessarily helpful for them in particular.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hear you. I think that there's definitely been yeah this word I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:There's been like sort of a democratization or something like that, which it feels a little buzzwordy. It also has this inherently kind of positive connotation because we think, oh yeah, democratize, that's great. But you know, to your point it's kind of like grating on a curve or this idea of like cutting the tall poppies or something like that, and I don't know, I mean it's hard for me to, it's tricky because I feel like the, from a value proposition standpoint, the people who would be who benefit most from this would be like would be smaller and medium businesses. They're under resourced and they don't have necessarily that knowledge level, skill that you mentioned. We're talking about how it's becoming a more expensive channel, but I think that the reality is it doesn't necessarily serve them that much better, because you need a lot of data to make the stuff work and in the end, the people with the most data benefit and they already more likely had access to skilled in-house people or a high quality agency or whatever the case might be. I don't know where exactly I land on that, because I think if we think in net terms and it's lifting up this bottom 50%, then in net terms maybe that's good.
Speaker 1:Hard for me to say, but I definitely that's kind of premise of, like Frederick Ville's book, leveling the playing field, because it's definitely leveling the playing field, that's the perfect way to phrase it. And I guess the thing is that this is not like if we're all having these self-driving cars or something that's great, but Google forgets that this is not commute to work or something like that. This is a competitive race. We don't want to all drive the same self-driving cars or something else. We want to win a race. And the question is like how do you differentiate, how do you all compete in that kind of a scenario? It's more challenging than it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, because again we're all using this same fitting algorithms, we're losing the targeting rights of Google. The on-platform differentiation is kind of going away and who can get the most data and who's the most optimized off-channel on website and retention and the rest of it. So I think Google's doing what they can to maximize their profit margins, as they should right Publicly traded company. That's what they exist for to make money for their shareholders. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's not like bad behavior on their part, that's just. I mean, that's their job actually. So yeah, I get it totally. Yeah, this is capitalism, right. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think the complaints come when a company is of a certain size and a certain kind of market position and influence, where yeah. I mean, then you can start to be concerned about that.
Speaker 2:But I think there's a big difference between Google and Facebook too, and this is something that I thought a lot about and I feel like not a lot of other people have really discussed and I find the relationship with Google to be much more adversarial than with Facebook, and I think the reason behind that is, from a search standpoint, which is Google's bread and butter, right, like they really don't have control over the amount of inventory that exists, like there's, like people are going to search, basically the amount that they're going to search, right, and Google doesn't have a lot of of capability to increase that inventory.
Speaker 2:So in order for them to make more money, they need to more aggressively monetize that inventory, like get people to pay more for low quality inventory that they weren't bidding on, increasing the cost of the bids for the competitive inventory that exists. You know, getting agencies out of the equation so that that 10 or so percent can go into the bids on search. And you know Facebook, they have much more control over their inventory. They can get people to scroll more and spend more time on the apps, giving, you know, essentially more mileage to serve ads against right. So Facebook has much more capacity to control their inventory than Google does, and so I think that's one of the reasons why the relationships are kind of different, and I also think that's one of the big reasons why Google is leaning hard into their own properties, you know, with things like demand, and that's coming out right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and Christine, you bring up there, and I remember back like we saw kind of a I don't know if it was similar in the US, in North America, but we had kind of like a CPC recession during the pandemic, at least the first half of it, let's say. And you know my hypothesis about what was going on there is that just there was so much more search volume and it was quite natural People were searching online. This increased amount of inventory and it caused a reduction in unit price. If that, you know, if that inventory would be more constrained, if there'd be less inventory and all this ad dollars competing for it, then then the unit costs would go up. But you're right, google, this is a bit like the weather for them.
Speaker 1:You know, they can try to identify commercial queries better and make sure that ads are being served. They can, they can. There are things that they can do, for sure, but ultimately it is. It is a bit like the weather for them, that search volume. And then this causes them. I mean, this used to be called surfaces and I don't know if they really replaced that term. I think they're not really using the term surfaces anymore, but they look at more like where else can they create space? And some of it is like organic, some of it or there are free clicks and some of it is monetized. But you just said the word demand gen, so, and we were just talking about these automated campaign types. So, like what can you tell us about the demand gen?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's kind of like discover on steroids, right Well sorry, let's discover then for somebody.
Speaker 1:I mean just not we don't have to get too much into it, but quickly what's discover and what's demand gen.
Speaker 2:So discover ads, discovery ads, essentially serving across specific Google properties. So you know they're in Gmail, right, they're in like. They're discover YouTube some placements, right, not video placements, this is home search and like watch next, things like that, and it's kind of like middle of the funnel ads. So they're the visual images, product beams, things like that serving on some of these Google properties and in between kind of the the. Again, you know, top of the funnel YouTube like traditional, what I consider traditional YouTube display definitely, and then obviously search towards the bottom of the funnel. So it's the closest Google's got really gotten to date before demand gen, right, in terms of like having a sort of Facebook analog and yeah, and I interrupted you earlier.
Speaker 1:So you said that demand gen is then like discover on on steroids. So we just covered discover. So take us then further into demand gen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so demand gen, just adding more, really, I guess, like what you could call, like the rest of Google's owned properties that aren't search, right, so it's YouTube, it's short, it's in stream, you're getting video access. They're adding, you know, additional audience types, right literally like lookalikes he's heard of those from the social side of things. Yeah, so you just, I guess, like expanding it out to the whole network of owned properties that are search.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that's an interesting placement category there Google owned and operated and like that's. You know that was a big part of what performance max was, or what performance max is was just taking these shopping campaigns, making sure that I mean, yeah, there's also a display component, but also making sure that they're going to be putting those ad dollars towards Google owned and operated properties. And the man gen is kind of like just plucking out that geo and oh, google owned and operated segment and really addressing that. I mean you you before mentioned a couple of times like this is the closest that they've had or most comfortable they've had to the paid social. They're taking terms like lookalike audiences and it seems like they're taking trying to take some of the propositions of paid social and speak to those. How credible do you find a comparison between demand gen and, say, a meta campaign?
Speaker 2:So I think it's higher up the funnel for sure, but I think the comparison is somewhat valid for sure. I also think, like Google would love to get their hands on a social media company like Snap, pinterest, like if it weren't for Antitrust scrutiny. They would like love to add that the overall portfolio. But I think it's like pretty close right, it's not. You know, if I were to kind of like compare it specifically to something on Facebook, right, it would be maybe not like a purchase optimization, but maybe like an ad to cart optimization, because you know Facebook has, you know, different events that you can optimize for right, really will put you in different spots of the funnel, like Facebook knows if you're a buyer, like really well.
Speaker 2:And so I don't think, you know, demand gen is going to have that level of down the funnel capacity to drive purchases at the efficiency that Facebook does. But I think, you know, pretty, pretty comparable. And you know, I think it'll also be able to leverage the assets that people are already using on social, which is going to make a pretty easy uptake. And that's, I think, always been one of the challenges is that all of these advertisers who are Facebook first, they're like a great, you know, let's add Google to the mix and they're like oh wait, we can't like none of this is relevant, none of this is useful. We've got, to like, completely start from scratch and it's always been a little well, and I think this is going to help lower the barrier to entry pretty significantly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with that, and I think that you know they're leaning pretty hard on YouTube here and that's probably the closest thing that they've got to like a proper social platform. I guess a couple questions I have. Like I'm wondering, like you know, the headspace that people are in when they're on YouTube compared to the headspace that they're in when they're browsing a like a content feed on Facebook or Instagram. I feel like in that sense, youtube is maybe pretty close, but like the Gmail part sticks out like a sore thumb, Like that's just in there. In my opinion, it doesn't really fit.
Speaker 1:To Dimanjen, I would say, but I mean, yeah, I would see that as a better place to serve some remarketing, inventory or something like that. And this makes me wonder too like Dimanjen you really the idea implicit in that name is that you're going to be waking up cold traffic and waking up demand and awareness and people who didn't have that before, like you know, somewhere a little below an awareness campaign, let's say. But and I'm just I'm wondering, I just feel like Google's algorithms and probably has to do with our audience graph and some of the technologies they've built, but they're really good at the warm traffic and at that demand capture, and I'm wondering how well they'll perform here and actually bringing us some more kind of cold traffic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's an open question. Right, facebook has been amazing at it, but it's also been their entire business and Google for the majority of its existence and the majority of its revenue. Right is demand capture, so it's a completely different animal and I guess we'll see. Right, yeah, I think they do well with some stuff so far, but yeah, we'll definitely. We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:I love how transparently the campaign type is named, just DemandGen.
Speaker 1:Like yeah it's so well branded whatsoever. It's just it would be. It's like if they would call Pmax, like I don't know, apturmax, it's like placement soup, placement soup, yeah, yeah then. Hey, you know what? We're closer to the fall than we are to summer at this point. I'm looking forward to some warm placements to you. Yeah, so we mentioned that YouTube is a core component at least DemandGen campaigns and YouTube shorts in particular. That's one of the big iterations here compared to Discover campaigns is that it's going to have the short inventory in there. What do you think about YouTube shorts so far? And like have you what's working with not, have you? Do you have a lot of experience with it?
Speaker 2:I have a decent amount of experience. We run YouTube shorts for most clients that are also running on social and I honestly find it to be pretty, pretty strong it's. It definitely punches above its weight. I mean, the great thing about shorts is that you can essentially take assets that work well on Facebook. You know vertical video, very native feeling, you kind of like TikTok text overlays all of the you know UGC content that you see people posting about on Twitter. Right, you can take that, drop it right into shorts and it's got to perform pretty well and sometimes like very well. So it's something that we've found as well is that, while the direct attribution is maybe not amazing, like it could be pretty good.
Speaker 2:You know the, the post purchase and I always cite post purchase data with like a gigantic grain of salt because I don't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday. So you know, are people really going to know where? You know they originally saw this product? But it gets a lot of credit for for purchase in the post purchase survey. So you know I'm just a specific client. I'm thinking about where you know one and a half percent of the spend is going to shorts. I mean they're spending a lot of money. So it's a not an insignificant amount of money and 4.9% of the post purchase attribution is going to shorts.
Speaker 2:Now, I don't believe that that is the actual number. I mean the direct attribution is significantly lower than that, but still like we're happy with it, right. So I think it's. I think it's generally a great placement. I mean, it's a lot of inventory. It just matches how people are interacting, right. Like I sit on TikTok a lot like Instagram reels, like it's kind of. I feel like the way that media consumption is going and YouTube's the biggest media platform there is. I like shorts. I recommend it to every you know paid social client as like something to to test, like throw some budget in there, see how it does. And yeah, I'm, I'm excited, excited about it. In demand, jen too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm quite curious about it and I mean, I think the interesting thing about this short form video is like so, by the way, I'm not, I'm a old man, I'm not on TikTok, I don't.
Speaker 1:I haven't really checked out YouTube Shorts out much myself, so my exposure here is like to is to reels on Instagram and but what I find about my behavior there, like if you think about like a view rate, I either have like a 2% view rate or like a 1000% view rate, because I ended up rewatching the thing like 10 times because they're so short and yeah, and if they're really good, then they're really good.
Speaker 1:So I think that's it's an interesting form of engagement and I think what, what sounds cool in in the demand gen context, they're going to have these brand lift studies which we know from YouTube and say what you will about them. I'm actually kind of more interested in the in the search lift studies, because you'll hear that like from folks who are advertising on both meta and Google. It's like if you that you know, if there's a reduction in their spend on meta or they're, they're turning off meta or something, then they see their search volume on Google can drop as well, and so I'm wondering you know what kind of effects they. I do I really believe in search lift as a phenomenon and I'm curious what the studies will show.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about that because I've seen this so many times with paid social right and it was like it's one of the ways that we can also we can't like directly track it, but it's one of the things that we also look at. You know, when we're working with clients, it's like to get a more complete picture of performance right, and I think you know TikTok in particular. We see this a lot where, like the, the direct attribution on TikTok will be terrible, but you know, we start running ads on TikTok and Amazon sales will surge in relation to the. You know the TikTok. Yeah, I think it'll be really exciting to see what it is. I definitely believe the phenomenon is there as well.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the premise of demand gen you can generate the demand over here and then go ahead and capture it through the search channels over there. And yeah, I don't know what that was. Let's see how it's going to work out though. Oh yeah, because I remember what I was saying. That's sort of the promise of PMAX already is that these properties are in there and that Google is going to like kind of magically serve the right ad at the right moment to the right user and so on, and create something more than the sum of those placements. But I don't, I kind of don't believe that that's actually what happens in PMAX. I feel like they just they just go shopping and if there's extra budget, then they throw some display in or something. I don't really feel like it's this synergetic magical formula, and I think demand gen plus PMAX or demand gen plus any kind of search or shopping could work pretty well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my, my, my. I feel like my, my feelings are actually pretty well, well known. My, the like Google people are in my DMs all the time like trying to tell me I'm wrong. But I generally view PMAX as like remnant inventory, like sales, Like that's what it is, yeah, and so I think I'm much more optimistic about demand gen than PMAX.
Speaker 1:So I would say that's a very positive, positive buzz at the moment. So, before I'm just looking at the clock here I've got you a bit longer I want to ask you just we were we were talking about paid social. You are managing, you are managing meta ad spending in addition to Google, and I'm just wondering how is the situation different than like 18 months ago? Cause I hear things are improving, signs are positive. Is that what you're seeing too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it feels like a lot it's, it feels like a much better platform and you, tim Cook, definitely like took Apple out there, took the meta out to the woodshed with iOS 14, which is now two, two, or is it two or three, I don't know. Two or three years old at this point, that's a while ago now.
Speaker 1:That's a while ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but it took. It took meta a long time to get their attribution back in form and like it's still, there's still. It's still like a buggy platform and there's stuff in there, but I think it's in a much better place Now. Advantage plus the new campaign type that has ruled out over the last year or so tends to work really well. I mean, I'm incredibly bullish on meta. I've invested a lot of money in meta stock over the last year or so, which has turned out to be a great decision, but I think it's in a much better place.
Speaker 2:I think advertisers are in a better place on meta, too. Both. I think advertisers are just getting better about knowing what works and what doesn't, but I also think the advertising ecosystem is getting better in the sense that a lot of the way, full players are leaving, and what I mean by that is all of these VC back brands who could, like you know, acquisition costs like well above the life hack value, just like burning money for our customers. That's pretty much worked its way out of the system at this point. Right, and we've we've seen it with, like all birds and all of these other you know publicly traded, you know VC back, like e-commerce companies, essentially, yeah, so I think brands like all birds and other you know big VC back companies that could overspend on acquisition well beyond what they would be able to get back.
Speaker 2:Like a lot of that money has made its way through the system and it was a lot of money, when you like, add it all up. So I just think it's a you know, not only in the platform better in terms of like ASC advantage, plus getting their attribution data back, mostly through modeling Right, but it was a big problem for them and I'm sure they invested billions to make it work and then just lots of free money that has worked its way out of the system. So I actually think it's in a great spot. I'm genuinely very happy with it, except for their, you know, flaky moderation decisions and how stuff gets disapproved by machines.
Speaker 1:Well, same as I mean, the disapprovals on Google are out of control as well, so let's face it. Yeah, but so I've got one remark and one one question. Yeah, you mentioned the VC burning through, and I think that's true. I guess, then, what Maya is on now is that there's this wave of Chinese money coming in, and the situation might be a bit different than in the US, than here in Europe, but you know, there, rather than selling it to the US, selling through retailers or then selling directly through Amazon Now, a lot of are there some, some players stepping up out of China and Southeast Asia who are just trying to just sell directly to the consumers and they're spending money like crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean, tmoo comes to mind, but there's also Shopee has made some plays in this area. There's one. I don't know if you see these guys in the US at all, but we're seeing them a lot here in Europe, light in the box, they're out of Singapore and they're just throwing money at the wall. So there, it seems like there's always got to be some some big shot walking around, spending way beyond any kind of realistic customer acquisition payback window. But yeah, it's definitely.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's a cycle that will always repeat itself. It feels less on on Facebook now, so we'll enjoy those waters while we have them before we go back into the crazy upcycle again.
Speaker 1:And one, one more thing. So you know you were just talking about how Facebook has recovered a lot of their attribution through modeling and you're talking about advantage shopping campaigns in a pretty positive sense, and this is like I feel, like I often hear hear it this way, or people seem to have a lot of love or willingness to accept something like advantage plus and accepting the, the modeled attribution and stuff like that. And then, if it would be Google, on the other hand, like their equivalent is performance max, and you know they're also working on model conversions and we're going to hear a lot more of that after they sunset cookies next year. And I'm just wondering why? What's the difference? Why? Why are people hard on Google on some of these topics and not so hard on meta? Is the product just structured better? Is it just about the performance? What is it?
Speaker 2:That is a great question and it's one that I've thought about too, because I used to be like I've done a full 180. I used to be like very like pro Google and like pro Google and a like I think they're operating ethically and like Facebook, or like the, the unethical actors, and I've done a complete 180 on that. I think some of it is probably that you know, facebook has always been like a different animal, right, like you're, you're you're not targeting like specific queries, you're targeting people and and and demographics, right, and you know, I think from an advertising standpoint, they haven't really taken too much away. And also there's the fact that it's an owned platform, or owned platforms, right Like audience network, which is like display. Right, it's like Facebook's display, it's like a very, very small percentage of their whole platform and everything else is owned inventory for them. And then, like Google has over the years and some of it, I'm sure, like PR, right, like they've continued to go out of their way to take things away and the way they've taken them away has been poorly communicated.
Speaker 2:Or like outright, you know BS, like the, the whole like search query report thing, like that they're like oh yeah, we did it for privacy, but like you still have like single impression, zero click, like queries showing up in there all the time and then you've got tons of stuff with conversions that just isn't there. You know we've also seen that like hidden, the cost per click escalation and hidden queries has gone up faster than like visible queries, right. So you know, I think it's been a trend of behavior on Google's part where I'm like, oh, I don't trust you guys and yeah, I don't like because you're right, if, if, if we'll key max was kind of like that. But you're like I would definitely trust meta more than and Google in terms of like they're sort of Nebulance towards advertisers on the platform. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just, I'm just curious because I it's it's pretty common common thing that I observe and I think too, with the advantage Plus, I mean, I think, big beef that people have with performance max, you know, these topics like brand versus non-brand, which is starting to get under control, like what is remarketing and what is actually Acquisition, kind of cold acquisition, this this is a kind of open question and I think you you've got more control in meta over that. So that's one thing and, just as you said, google has, they've really Changed the identity of the platform and they've they've like things that were so core to their value proposition at the start Are things that they've taken away or reduced, and so it's it's probably just had some reputational damage.
Speaker 2:Right Love, you mentioned the brand on brand, because I loved the the Ben and Kirk Archi on brand on brand and I like having it a p-max.
Speaker 2:But like that's one of the things where, like you know the data you can see, you're like well, why should we trust you? Right, because my experience with performance max, when you leave brand in performance max, is that it'll use that to like hit a target that you probably didn't set aggressively enough and then Waste budget on like remnant display inventory to bring you down to your target. And so you know all of your conversions are essentially being driven by brands, which is a small percentage of the overall spends and the rest of the spend is essentially just lighting money on fire on low quality inventory. And like we can see that right like not as clearly as we should because they're like here these like you know query groupings Right with like you can still see that, and so you know like I'm sure there's probably it's like you had visibility and now you don't, and the stuff that you can see doesn't look good, whereas on Facebook it's just that we've spent.
Speaker 1:You know Different well, I think we're just about the end of our time box here, so before I let you go, I mean, is there anything that I didn't ask you that should have? Are there any trends you're watching or anything that you feels hyped under hyped?
Speaker 2:So this is, I guess, like mostly us specific, but and I don't know how much you follow us politics the less you follow us politics, the better your mental health. So the essentially there's like a no student loan repayments, and those are restarting in October. So there's the you know, a huge swap of people who are gonna have to start paying money back against loans, and it's estimated to be between like 70 and 200 billion dollars, of which has mostly been discretionary income for kind of like the core demo, right. You know younger adult and Just losing lots of money. So you know, that's something I'm watching to see how that'll impact.
Speaker 2:You know, spending on e-commerce, right, particularly as it like happens right before the holiday season, kind of just like one one thing I'm looking at. And then your your hypes, over hyped, under hypes. I'm gonna Say that that is generative AI. It is both over and under hypes. I'm just gonna drop, drop that there. I think you know the everyone's like, oh, it's gonna change the world right now and you know it's gonna replace all of us. For you know, bow, before our AI overlords. I think we're a little ways away from that. But you know, the potential applications are definitely massive and probably larger than most of us even realize.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a good way to describe it. There's that like, oh, I can't quote this is exactly as I as I should, but there's that Bill Gates quote we're like we, we kind of overestimate the amount of change that's gonna happen in the next three years and we underestimate the amount of change that's gonna happen the next ten years, and it's probably something like that. Yeah, thanks for mentioning that. About the student loans repayment, I think that's Huge and I won't comment on too much more because I have a terrible habit of ending Episodes on a super low note and I'm not gonna do that, but I think I think, unfortunately, that is I don't have a nice way to phrase it that's, that's, that's something to definitely keep an eye on. It's not good timing at all, but To put it, to put it is or that they can't. So thanks again for for sharing all these Ideas and experiences with us. Any any shout outs or where can we find you online?
Speaker 2:Well, appreciate you having me, mike, this is a lot of fun. You can find me on Twitter at DJ slattery and you can just look me up on LinkedIn as well. Colin slattery, you know lots, lots of hot takes to be found. I do Make it into the take of the week competition on a fellow podcast pretty frequently. So if you want some marketing hot takes, fun, I promise you it won't be a boring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's marketing o'clock. So definitely check out the marketing o'clock great podcast. I might have gotten a hot take on there once or twice to, but it's, it's, I love, I love that podcast. It's always a lot of fun. Yeah, so that was Colin slattery. Thanks again for joining us, colin. Thanks for having me, mike.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening to growing e-commerce and if you enjoyed this podcast, please consider sharing it with co-workers, friends or within your professional network. We really appreciate it. This podcast is produced by a smarter e-commerce also known as mech. To learn more, visit Smarter-e-commercecom.