EP261 - Beyond Google & Facebook - Finding Success on Other Platforms

0:00 Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the PPC chat roundup. In today's episode, we have Julie taking us on in the Slack conversation, a topic about beyond Google and Facebook. So yeah, it comes to PPC. You can find success on other platforms like Quora, Reddit, many more than even Bing and the likes. And you know, well, Twitter XI don't know they're pissing me off right now considering they've taken Tweet Deck down. Well, they've made Tweet Deck now only available for premium users and people who pay a monthly subscription to X. So just trying to keep calm around that for you guys, the next half hour, half hour or so, as we talk about ways that we can be successful beyond Google and Facebook, because it's all about an integrated strategy.

0:48 It's all about ensuring that you are where your customers are and you're doing that audience research and you know where they want to see you as well. So yeah, I hope you get a lot of learnings from this, a lot of takeaways from this Slack chat. So yeah, hope you sit back and enjoy. Hello and a warm welcome to this episode of the PPC Chat Roundup, a podcast where I round up the Slack discussion that happens on Tuesdays at 5:00 PM GMT. I'm your host annual and I'm recording from my studio here in London UK and I use this platform to share not just expert but also my ideas and considered best practices about paid media and the direction that the digital industry is going in.

1:37 So if you want to keep up to date with my tips and tricks in the industry and get the latest on the podcast that has been called your go to. If you don't like, if you don't make it to the PPC chat live discussions and even if you do then like follow share repost on yeah on still my Twitter slash X handle which is the marketing annu, you can also find me on that handle on threads. You can find me on LinkedIn with my name. Oh yeah you can find our LinkedIn group which is the PPC chat roundup. Or if you're on Instagram why don't you check us out at PPC chat under score roundup to get quotes and snippets from previous episodes. So we have Julie taking this chat. I feel more and more and more consistently now to Slack. So this is our now our Slack conversation that happens and today's topic we have beyond Google and Facebook finding success on other platforms.

2:30 So yeah, it'll be nice to hear whether you're finding success on other platforms as well and what are those platforms are and whether they're anything unusual that you feel like you're the you're you're being the first of your kind to do it, first of your kind, first of the PPC kind to do it. But yeah, she usually says, she says how we doing. So we have Heather Cox that joins us today as well as Melissa, Dave Gallegos, Julia, Vice I think joins us for a little while. So let's get into our questions for the we actually have also have Tiago Gong claims joining the chat as well and he asked where do we have the chat. You know Tiago, we like Tiago right here. We're having the chat right here right now.

3:10 So yes, this is happening in the PPC Chat Slack. This is happening on the PPC chat channel as well. So within the PPC chat, there's different channels, there's analytics, conferences, Facebook, ad, freelances. There's also a PPC chat channel. So if you go into the PPC chat channel, you'll find past questions and responses to our chats. But yeah, let's get into it. Let's get into question one. And Julie asks what percentage of the advertising budget that you manage are spent on Google and or Facebook and for what industries are you managing advertising? So we have started us off. Yeah. Julie herself says my clients are very heavily Google ads right now, probably 85% or more.

3:52 Julia Vice goes, due to recent major issues in Canada, we are investing much less in meta. We're Omni. So depending on clients, a pretty big chunk of our dollars go to Google, including YouTube, Pmax, etc. But things are shifting, Melissa goes. We are about 50 to 75% Google, up to 25% social. So that's LinkedIn or Facebook and the rest Bing or other channels like Reddit. Oh, I like the the the Reddit shout out there. So yeah, we've got also yeah, Julia mentions a news article here. Seeing how meta is blocking has begin to block news in Canada. And that's come in, in response to a new law in Canada that requires tech companies to pay news outlets for using their content. Oh, I don't know who side I'm on on that one. That sounds confusing.

4:38 Well, after this, after I record this, I will. I'll pay attention more to that article to see what that's all about. Dave Kalig was as well, says about 80% plus on Google. Metaspend Edit Currently in healthcare, Heather Cox goes, yeah, 70% consumer goods, 30% Facebook across, sorry, 70% Google. She actually says 30% Facebook across B to B, home services, telecom, insurance, etcetera. Robert Brady goes for higher education, about 75% is Google or meta. For e-commerce it's more like 50% Google or meta. Travis goes approximately 70% meta, 20% Google. Oh a lot more meta than Google, 10% other doing.

5:18 Brown goes 70% of our clients budgets. So that's that goes to Google. Then you got Microsoft and Amazon ads plus some TikTok. Julie goes, yeah, interesting not seeing LinkedIn here as a place people are actively advertising I think. Yeah, Melissa McKee, yeah, they should said that some of their budget is going well, 25% is going towards LinkedIn. Ashton Cargo is heavily allocating towards Google ads, probably 75% across all clients who are mostly in the B2B or lead Gen. space. The other 25% depends on the client and is mainly focused on LinkedIn or Microsoft ads. 0% going to meta right now, Melissa goes. Not really, LOL.

5:59 We're just testing it and so far it's not really performing well for B to B. Oh, what was it? So that's in response to Heather Cox going, Mel, are you seen a lot of success on Reddit? Melissa goes, yeah, we're doing way more LinkedIn than Facebook. It works way better for B to B, Jonathan Kagan says. Naturally, I completely forgot about this since it moved to Slack. I love it. And yeah, he responded to this an hour, about 65% goes to this duopoly in healthcare ecom CPG and that's what I love about this. So John has answered this, like today we've learned this chat actually check technically happened yesterday. So yeah, yesterday I wasn't feeling like feeling up to myself. So I recorded this today and you'll be getting it out today as well.

6:45 So lucky guys. So yes, we get John's answer there as well. Before we go now into question 2, Julie asks what ad platforms other than Google or Facebook have you used for your accounts on which have you found success. I think we've already had some answers to that. LinkedIn has been mentioned, Reddit has been mentioned. Doing brand also gives us Microsoft and Amazon Ads are great for ecom, DTC and retail brands. The Gallegos goes Microsoft. So search for LinkedIn and and Stack Adapt for programmatic pulled back on X. Yeah we're all pulling back on X and Twitter. Travis Travis responds saying TikTok was the popular new frontier for the past year. And product or spend dependent it can rival metaphor top of funnel performance.

7:30 Its performance at scale is the limiting factor. I still maintain that Pinterest organic is a sleeper. It's ad platform has come a long way over the last decade but it remains a junior ad platform. Others I've been eager to explore further our Quora and Reddit. Julia, Vice Goes, Microsoft, Amazon, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Snap have been great. And of course we do CTV, TV, and radio for bigger campaigns. Melissa goes yeah, Bing and LinkedIn. Bing is great for our clients, performs better than Google in many cases, and LinkedIn is better than Facebook for B2B. As mentioned in the other thread, Robert Brady goes I second what Dwayne is saying about about Amazon for e-commerce for B2B and higher Ed.

8:14 We have a healthy LinkedIn budget, Julie goes. Yeah, historically I have used Microsoft ads, LinkedIn, Twitter and Quora. Success has varied on the platforms Microsoft is such an easy ad on if you're already doing Google ads. And despite clients complaining about the cost of LinkedIn, it's literally the only place where you can actually get the targeting bTB once. So Justin Clarke and goods goes Microsoft is great because of the ability to import campaigns from other platforms and the spend is typically much lower, as well as lower CPA and higher Rowas. LinkedIn is the other main platform. Our clients are on varying levels of success here though. Julia goes, Yeah, sometimes high Cpm's mean quality. Mean quality, interesting.

9:01 Julie goes as well. I really like Quora. I blame JD Prater for getting me onto that platform. If your strategy involves trying to create brand evangelists to get your clients into the short list for consideration, Quora and Reddit are great for that type of reach. Julia Vice goes flag that they are not great for regional campaigns, the frequency caps are nonexistent, and your ad will be a meme. I've heard a meme. Interesting. Jonathan Kagan was loaded question, but Bing Pinterest and Trade desk. Okay, interesting Trade Desk. I'm not seeing that as a recommendation before. And we go on to question three and Julie asked, have you advertised on a platform that really surprised you either by how well or how poor the ads performed on it? Any ideas as to why it worked or did not work for your accounts? Please answer in this thread.

9:53 Julia Vicego's biggest surprise and in a few presentations tender Tinder. So yeah, that'll be a surprise. That's a surprise to me as well. It really. Yeah, it went really well for a campus targeted safety campaign. It's become a staple for us. Wow, Melissa goes. It surprises me how often Facebook does poorly for B to B4 to five years ago that was not the case. But LinkedIn is just eating Facebook's lunch now. Julian Phillips says wasn't expecting to see Tinder in the responses. And I don't think. I don't think anyone was Julie goes yeah, it continues to amaze me that essentially 0 effort is being made by any platform besides link LinkedIn to build anything that would be desirable to B to B advertisers. There is so much money there to be had to someone who even put out an OK option.

10:42 Yeah Julie, Melissa Mckey goes, couldn't agree more with Julie. With Julie, even Google constantly leaves B to B dollars on the table. Yeah. And yeah. And Julie responds, yeah, you know, it's on my GML bingo card every single year saying something like we have a brand new B to B offering. Just kidding. Like, yeah, never actually a usable B to B offering. Julia Vice goes maybe one or few of us should start a B to B specific platform. Interesting. Dan Brown goes, say I just had to read what you're saying and then Travis gives a very a very detailed response here. So you know hold on to your hats, he says. I think the elephant in the room is Amazon. There is search based ads, sponsored placements and off Amazon display.

11:27 So the pros are advertising not publicly disclosed but verified boosts organic exposure and success still controllable with keyword level bids. So you can control for the cost of traffic to an extent and if you can afford to slowly scale. And also a third RO is fluid, comfortable, reliable UX for shoppers. Always. The cons though are tends to gravitate towards branded search so that's easy wins. But paying for existing awareness two non brand search can become an arms race far more extreme than we see on Google. From a CPC perspective success often means you cannibalize on site performance unless you implement A skew holdout. On the AM Z side display is well a money pit unless you have bookoo bucks to invest.

12:17 Jane Brown goes yeah Amazon did like $50 billion dollars in ads last year so if you know, you know so yeah and green continues. It's not 220 billion Google or $100 billion Metabo. It's nothing to sneeze at. So yeah 50 billion. It might not be as much as 220 billion or 100 billion but yeah anything in the billions is also definitely worth worth investing in when Brown continues. Now how I can steal more business away from Amazon only agencies. Right. Right. John Kagan is all response to this question saying LinkedIn always a disappointment in terms of a surprise as platforms that are surprising us here.

12:58 Then we then go on to question four and Julie asked, is there a platform you've been thinking about testing but have not yet. Which ones? Why have you not done yet, Cora? For me, and I think it's just a timing issue and I'll be, I feel like I should be able to test anything as I'll be now going into the whole fantastic and fun world of freelancing and seeing, you know, trying to propose different platforms that'll be useful for my clients. Julie Vice goes, I have access to a lot. So I'll say I'd like to try out Disney Plus when their platform opens up. We were first for Netflix and did not and it did not go well. Wow. Ben Brown goes, picked a few clients on Target plus Amazon like Add Marketplace.

13:38 Julie goes, I have not done anything on TikTok main hurdles is video assets such as familiar refrain. And then, yeah, there's a post, Julia, Julie puts here saying up from like a link saying this post might be of interest to you. And that's in terms of, yeah, interested interest to Julia. Vice specifically when she talked about Disney Plus and being able to get access to access to Netflix, saying advertising popular with streamers and consumers, and that's from DCN. So that's digital content. Next. The blurb goes, it is becoming increasingly clear that advertising will play a significant role in the streaming ecosystem. Your customers prefer options. Yeah. And Julia, Vice goes, yeah.

14:19 Ooh, see if there's a tech talk creator your client can partner with. If there's a comfy rapport, they will make great content for you. And it's a fairly safe way to test. Julie goes, yeah, I'm always amazed by the paid ads showing up when I'm looking for stuff on Target. Walmart has been making a giant push to get part of the particular of that particular pie lately, too. Travis Biershal wrote as well. Say it's it's been a long while since I've dipped my feet into the CTV streaming platforms. I used to prefer Hulu for its ability to offer sponsored programs, where advertisers put forth an ad option for people to elect to view after viewing on Skippable, the next 30 to 60 minutes of viewing was ad free.

15:02 Beyond that, I've simply not had advertisers willing to invest in less trackable ad platforms. It's a tough sell, but it can be successful if treated like an investment that delivers a return echo and return echo in time. Well, Travis, as well of as all of the traditionally more trackable ad platforms and platforms get less and less trackable. Maybe it will open up some easier discussions about these types of options, Melissa goes. Since you mentioned it, Julie, I'd like to try Quora. And Julia Weiss as well says that there's really good data on YouTube on connected TV. Why not give that a whirl and use the tractableness from a controlled YouTube test to inform a Hulu on Netflix or D Plus test?

15:48 That's good advice, Julie goes. It does not have a ton of traffic, but if your audience is there, it can produce some nice results, and that's to Mel. And that's talking about Quora. And then yeah, reminds me to mention a great tip from doing Brown to put pixels for platforms you aren't advertising on yet on your web properties and start gathering audience data. I really, really, really need to do that for PPC Live UK, Travis goes. Yeah, I like that idea a lot. YouTube is emerging as a popular proving ground for video centric buys. Agreed that this is most likely in Road. And yeah, John Kagan says he'd love to try out Reddit. And yeah, that's question four. And we're going on to question 5, which will be our last question of the chat.

16:33 But there are few more resources in there that were shared, which I will share as well. And so yeah, we asked for question 5. Is there a segment that you think is not well covered by existing digital ad platforms? Where would you like to see this segment covered? B2B LinkedIn, I think that's an obvious one. And so yeah, Drangos. Those of us who want to go back to an analog world. Analog world. Julia Weiss goes, cracks knuckles. There is a major difference between a 66 year old and an 88 year old. The needs, wants, incentives, shopping behaviors, and basically entire lifestyle are unique. There is no reason for our age targeting to end at 65. I agree.

17:14 Better retirement, lifestyle style, health needs, home life needs, targeting is long overdue. Yeah, and Julie agrees with that. Julie as well. Say is 1 demo that is hard to reach our caregivers of people 65 plus and that is a huge market that will only continue growing. Travis goes. I think the question plus honest answer even via ads model is eroding with Google's Pivots this year. That's why I'm bullish on Cora and Reddit. Both platforms leave functionality. Frequency capping has been mentioned, but they preserve that Q&A format, which is helpful above all else. There is also something to be said for the review space. Those that cannot be gained, I'd love to see Yelp graduate their ad options.

17:58 It's not enough to pay for engagements when those can be profile views, menu views, etc. Which traffic, which traffic and calls are desired by restaurants and venues, Melissa goes. I would say, I could just say BTV for my answer here. We have to employ a lot of workarounds, no matter the platform, just to get halfway decent results. Julie goes, yes, Mel. And honestly lead Gen. in general has to monkey around with functionalities. And as I said, that was the last question. But before we go, we also have like an update in the industry which is might be slightly up topic, but yeah, Discovery Campaigns is really going to be now kind of subsumed into demand Gen. ads and demand gens you know ads campaign in the Google ads ecosystem. So Discovery Ads isn't going to be a standalone campaign type anymore.

18:50 I think in before the end of the year some discovery campaigns are going to be auto upgraded into demand Gen. campaign type, so lookout for that. I will put the links in the in the show notes for this chat. So you can see the link to the Twitter announcement that that that Jenny Marvin gave or adds liaison as she is on Twitter on X. She's also in the PVC chat community, so you should check that out. So yeah, Melissa finds that news a very interesting and on the whole looks like an upgrade. Still needs to dig in further, Travis goes. I've always liked discovery ads, intrinsic viewability, high impact format data, confidence with Android users signed into Google accounts, but I'm less optimistic about another forced blending of Gmail and YouTube inventory.

19:39 The optimistic, the optimist in me wants it to work stimulating, demanding, viewable, high impact hot ad placements. The pessimist sees this as another way to liquidate inventory that advertisers have not gravitated towards, often for good reason. And yeah, Melissa goes, you may be right, Julie goes. We are steadily marching towards P Max as the only campaign type where we will take a certain amount of forced crappy inventory to get the good stuff we actually want. And Julian Phillips goes at P Max. Only future sounds bleak. And that won't work for a lot of people that do you need, you know, yeah, they they need what's this this kind of what's the word like laws and and they need approval of everything that's going to be showing for the kind of keywords that you're going to be showing against for ad copy that can be seen for all the wordings that needs to be in ad copy.

20:32 And I guess what kind of context is going to show next to as well. So yeah, I'm not sure whether that's a good, good play by Google. I think Google still should allow some level. I know AI is taking a love over a lot of things. I'm going to work better on our landing pages help with work closely with Cro's the conversion rate optimization. Boris Beckerick who we're going to be having an AMA session with on Friday in our PLU chat WhatsApp group join us on there I'll I'll give you the link a little bit later. But yeah, Boris mentioned showed a case study on his LinkedIn profile about how he didn't do anything for space of time. It was a week or two weeks and performance improved.

21:14 Why? Because he spoke with a CRO colleague or friend of his that was a freelance and asked for some tips on what to change at the landing page. And those tips directly affected how well paid search was working. So all of that is just to say that we really need to move into a way of working towards improving landing page, improving the holistic view. It's not just I'm going to be about keywords and intent anymore and you're going to have to do broad because as as like in the poll said in our last PPC Live UK event you know the way people are searching is very different. People are going to give a lot more long tail.

21:55 You know make a lot do a lot more long tail search queries through voice, even voice search is going to really make a comeback through a I and and and a I trying to get the best result for that person. You know, if you want your ad to show doing that in those answers and those results are going to be given, you need to be able to do broad because you can't really stop bidding on whole sentences and whole queries because No2 queries, hardly ever 2 queries are going to be in the same order, but you want to be able to show for the most relevant for yours. So yeah, consider broad, consider P Max. Start testing it, seeing what works, seeing how best you can improve your landing page to ensure that you can stay on top of doing to the way the automation and AI is going to work towards.

22:43 I think that's very important for all of us. So I hope you've taken some great takeovers there. I hope you've been inspired to not just try Quora and Reddit, but even maybe Tinder. I don't know. Yeah, was it tender that Julia Vice mentioned? That's very interesting. And also things like, you know, CTV, so and yeah, other other means of, you know, streaming services, Netflix, Disney Plus. So yeah, it's very, very interesting time in terms of our landscape of advertising. So yeah, stick around guys. Your our jobs are not becoming made redundant, I promise you. So yeah, I hope you have a useful, hope you find that time useful. And if you want to have more thoughts, more comments on this and would like a voice chat, I think we are now moving the voice chats away from Twitter Spaces.

23:28 We're moving that Discord, So join our Discord group, the PVC chat, Discord group, go on Twitter, go on Twitter. At the moment, ask Neptune Moon, that's Julie Bichini what the link is and she'll be able to get that to you. And you can join us on on Thursday at 5:00 PM GMT and that's 12:00 PM Eastern Time. For any feedback about this podcast or give any corrections on anything that has been shared, please get You can still get to me on Twitter slash X. I'm still on there, no matter how annoying I find it so far. As long as our community is there, I will be on there. Just not using Tweetdeck anymore or find me on LinkedIn. We have the PVC chat roundup group.

24:08 So yeah, if you want to join me and ask any questions, let me know. It'll be great for longstanding and brand new listeners to give this podcast a review. It would be great for the great strategy strategy of the podcast. And yeah, you can do so on Spotify or Apple. Just go to linktree.com/ppc chat, under score roundup and you'll get all the links to leave a review. And I'll leave you actually not actually add, you know, mention our PPC event that is happening on October the 26th, but mention something that is happening on Friday. So in two days time, if you're listening to this on Wednesday, tomorrow, if you're listening this on Thursday, today, if you're listening to this on a Friday, yeah, we're having an AMA session that's Ask Me Anything session with Boris Beckerick.

24:52 He actually applied for a job with Teleprompt. No, not Teleperformance. And they are the company that Google outsourced their sales, you know their sales activities too. So if it was just want like you know someone to help you know sell Google ads and his products, you know they outsource it to this company and that company they recruit. Obviously bars applied for a job to just see what the process is like he got through he went through three interview processes and he got the job and he yeah, he got went through the interview process and everything. Of course he denied. He declined a role, the job offer for him because, yeah, he was definitely. He's good enough because he's an amazing PPC professional. He was, he was offered a role, but he said no to it. So I'll be asking him some questions around that. I'll be asking him some questions about his his time in the paid search industry and how he's finds it. And yeah, if you have any questions that you want to, you know, ask us, please join us on Friday, 5:00 PM, GMT, 12:00 PM Eastern Time.

25:53 And I say the Eastern Time because everywhere everybody is welcome, everybody's welcome to join. And I'll be out, I'll be just you know what's happened him some questions because yes, we're going to have it on our PLU chat WhatsApp group to join that just go to BIT dot LY forward slash PLU WhatsApp. So that's BITL dot LY forward slash PLU WhatsApp and just yeah, request you join so that you can join this very lively one hour chat with Boris on Friday 5:00 PM GMT. On that note, I hope you enjoy the rest of the evening. Remember, for your campaigns and businesses to glide smoothly, there's a lot of hard work needed beneath the surface, so keep your Swans kicking.

26:35 Bye and speak to you next week.