Videos

Is the Meta pixel about to die? Jon Morgenstern of Vayner Media shared an illuminating video on Wednesday. You can watch that video here: https://www.tiktok.com/@j0nnym0/video/7257657839047413034 He was told by his ad rep that the pixel will die in three months. Here are my thoughts... First, this is inevitable eventually. Meta…

Let’s talk about Quality vs. Quantity. I know, you think you know where this is going. But I’m telling you, we have this all wrong. I keep seeing marketers say this about content creation: QUALITY OVER QUANTITY. But their framing of it is completely misleading. They frame it as two…

This would be a pretty cool feature if it worked. Here's what you do... 1. Create a campaign with the Leads objective. 2. Use Website as your conversion location. 3. Set your conversion event to something related to quality engagement if you can. I have a custom event for a…

Here’s what I think about Engaged-View Attribution... (If you don’t know what this is, watch my last video) Engaged-View Attribution is a step in a new direction when it comes to counting and optimizing for conversions. It puts greater value on someone who is deeply engaged with a video before…

Here’s how Engaged-View Attribution works... If the conversion location is your website and the performance goal is conversions, check the attribution setting. You may now have the option for Engaged-View Window (For Video Only). Here's what it is: “Engaged-View conversions are counted when a skippable video ad is played for…

There’s been an addition to ads attribution... In Ads Manager, go to Compare Attribution Settings. There you’ll see “Additional Reporting Options.” You may even see “Engaged-View Attribution,” but that’s for another video. Expand this and you’ll see VIEW and CLICK from Apple’s SKAdNetwork. If you don’t know what this is,…

There’s a new way to contact a Meta ads rep... Advertisers often complain about an inability to get help when they need it. I spotted something new that might help, assuming you have it. In Ads Manager, see if you have this icon on the bottom right. It’s a phone,…

When are ads coming to Threads? Meta launched Threads and it exploded to over 100 Million users in under a week. Advertisers immediately started asking, "When can we take advantage of this?" When Threads is turned on as an ads placement, it will be HUGE. If the growth and popularity…

This is the key to consistent and prolific content creation... I’ve published at least one video each day (about 200) and two blog posts each week (about 60) in 2023. I've done this while not always having a lot of time to create content. How have I maintained that focus?…

Your “DO THIS OR ELSE” hooks are killing your videos... You can’t use the same sense of urgency to open every video you create. I’m sure you know the hooks I’m talking about. I even kinda did it to open this video. Every video you create treats the content that’s…

Here’s the metric that matters most for short-form videos... It’s not views or likes or saves or comments. It’s not that these things don’t matter, but you can’t chase virality. Going viral isn’t necessarily even helpful. You can create a video that appeals to a lot of people, goes viral,…

Small sample sizes can be worse than no sample at all... Too many advertisers overreact to small sample size results. A great start or a bad start? A good day or a bad day? A campaign that ran for two weeks on a $20 per day budget. “This doesn’t work!”…

Why aren't event totals matching up between Events Manager, custom conversions mapped to those events, and Ads Manager? There's a good reason... If you dig into your event data, you are likely to notice that the totals for standard and custom events in Data Sources of Events Manager are higher…

There’s a new feature to control your audience targeting for Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. Within Ad Account Setup (which is found in Ad Account Settings), there’s a new section for Account Controls and a feature within it called Audience Controls. Click it! These controls apply account-wide to new and existing Advantage+…

Threads is here and this is my 60-second hot take... You’re going to hear all about what Instagram’s Twitter competitor doesn’t have: No DMs. No chronological feed. No follow feed. No lists. No basic search. No hashtags. No gifs. No editing. But you know what? It’s a pretty great first…

Here’s how to figure out CPM by country across your ad account... You can’t do this in the main Ads Manager interface. You can go to the final row of your results to get an overall CPM, but breaking down by Country there will give you the country CPM by…

These are the Meta ads bid strategies you should use and when... If you stick with the defaults, you’re using the Highest Volume bid strategy. Meta will try to get you the most optimized actions at the lowest cost. Use this in most cases unless you know what you’re doing.…

An underrated advertising skill is the ability to name your assets. Here’s how to name your campaigns, ad sets, and ads... It’s so simple, yet so many fail at it. Your naming convention needs to be easy for you to understand so that you immediately know what’s happening within that…

Learn from my mistakes! Do not obsess over surface-level metrics... Back in 2011 I had just launched my website and was trying to find my footing. I wrote a post about Facebook hoaxes that exploded. My first taste of big traffic. My reaction was to write another post about Facebook…

Should you target all countries when optimizing for a purchase? Don’t scream at me, I’m mainly challenging our assumptions here. The more I’ve asked myself this question, the more I want to experiment with it. It’s generally advised you don’t target all countries when optimizing for leads or any type…

Today marks my 181st day in a row publishing a video. Not technically halfway, but six months down toward my goal. Truthfully, this has been my most difficult time. It’s not because I’m burned out or losing inspiration. I was worried about running out of things to talk about, but…

Should you use Tailored Leads campaigns? Meta’s been testing Tailored Leads since at least last November. The rollout has been slow, but you may have it now. Is there anything special about Tailored Leads compared to manual campaigns? The process looks a lot like Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. But unlike Advantage+…

Here’s how to distribute your budget by country, for global brands when optimizing for leads... First, collect information about where your paying customers live. I did this by running a report in Infusionsoft/Keap. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you get leads or traffic from a country. If people in a…

What is this?? I stumbled on this little alert by the Attribution Setting in an ad set: "Engaged-View attribution offers a new way to measure the effectiveness of your video ads.” When I clicked to edit the Attribution Setting, nothing was there for "Engaged-View." So, I have the alert, but…