Attendees
Andrea Atzori – Director at Ambire
Nital Shah – COO at Mavlers
Transcript
[00:00:00] Nital: If you can help us go a little deep into Performance Max campaign, how marketers should leverage it in the best optimal way.
[00:00:08] Andrea: The success that you’re gonna see is as good as the effort. There’s been a lot of criticism for P Max, which was justified, but there is also been a lot of criticism because people have tried it and failed.
[00:00:22] Nital: Where do you see the marketing landscape is Heading,
[00:00:26] Andrea: there’s gonna be a point of convergence between branding and performance.
[00:00:32] Nital: What are your takes on predictive analytics tools?
[00:00:36] Andrea: Analytics used to be observation of the data, but nowadays, analytics now is all about modeling
[00:00:42] Nital: what sort of simple AI tools.
[00:00:44] Nital: To streamline day-to-day operations and improve overall campaign performances.
[00:00:50] Andrea: My initial writing was about using Google Sheets and XPath to actually scrape website and extrapolate text and data.[00:01:00]
[00:01:02] Nital: Welcome, Andrea. welcome to the series. We really appreciate your time. let me quickly have an introduction. Andrea, I know you from what last, 15, 17 years you have been in the industry more than. 24, 25 years. oh.
[00:01:23] Andrea: Let’s, let’s not talk about that. That makes me really old.
[00:01:27] Nital: No, but amazing. Yeah. It’s been a long time.
[00:01:29] Nital: Yeah. Yeah. No, the amazing, the way you have been, crafting your path, have great level of extensive experience and exposure. Serving a lot of brands in London, in Australia now, and you still serve a lot of global brands. I was fortunate enough to work with you in person as part of your team as well for a few years.
[00:01:52] Nital: So very, very much, impressed with your deep knowledge and most importantly, your passion, [00:02:00] right? It gets highlighted very well when we see your contribution on search engine, and many other platforms, right? The way you contribute that your passion gets, it’s loud and clear. so yeah, welcome to the series.
[00:02:17] Nital: Thank you, and look forward to our interaction today.
[00:02:21] Andrea: Yeah, thanks. Look, I’m really excited to be, speaking with you today. as you say, we know we’ve known each other for a long time and it, you know, it is fair to say that we kind of grew together because, you know, we had similar parts. So it’s nice to, you know, reconnect whenever we got the chance and the opportunity, you know, we live in places that are quite far apart, but it’s always nice to be able to catch up with you and, and I’m looking forward to our chat today.
[00:02:50] Nital: Great. Great, great. Okay. So without further delay, let’s deep dive. We are just gonna have series of questions on various topics and would [00:03:00] love to have your inputs, based on your exposure and, extensive experience you hold. so let me deep dive to start with, let’s start with kind of audience targeting and hyper-personalized.
[00:03:15] Nital: Approach, which everyone talks about, right?
[00:03:18] Andrea: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:18] Nital: So would love to know Andrea with, push off hyper-personalized marketing. Many marketers are, doing and dive deep diving into data, but still not hitting the mark of how and what specific audience targeting practices they should follow. Would you mind sharing few suggestions?
[00:03:41] Nital: Or best practices on how you navigate that?
[00:03:44] Andrea: It’s a very interesting question and I think, there is lots of nuances in that and and I think there is lots of answers too. Look, it is not secret that audience targeting has become more and more important. You know, we’ve seen how things have evolved in the last few [00:04:00] years and, you know, if we take an example of paid search and Google ads, you know.
[00:04:04] Andrea: Originally it was all based on keyword targeting. The keyword was telling you what the user is trying to do. So you have an intent when you’re looking at keyword. But the reality is that in the last few years we’ve seen an evolvement or, or an evolution of, of, of this where the keyword is one of the signals and the audience targeting has become more and more important is also true to think about the fact that, these changes have been pushed by obviously, you know, Facebook and Meta on which.
[00:04:33] Andrea: You know, interest targeting, audience targeting as are really the key criteria for which you can, you can, you can reach and engage with people, but the other thing that is also true nowadays is that audiences in a way seem to be becoming also less, I guess less defining. And it is an interesting development because I picked that up from my latest trip in Europe from some of the industry conferences that I was [00:05:00] attending to.
[00:05:01] Andrea: Where some people are doing some experiments.
[00:05:04] Nital: Mm-hmm. And
[00:05:04] Andrea: looking at how the platforms are evolving in terms of audience targeting. There is a, a, a, a very, you know, popular guide that works on, on the meta platform, which is, and it’s called John Luer. And he did some tests and he was talking about how.
[00:05:20] Andrea: In these experiments, the audience signals are becoming less important. So what that means is that basically when it was trying to validate whether audience signals and audience targeting were still effective, the results were actually kind of negating that. And that’s something that also picked up from other conversation with other experts, whereas, for example, is a very similar thing.
[00:05:43] Andrea: In, in, in, in, in, in the way the Google platform is also working nowadays because if you think about Pmax, for example, you can input audience targeting, you can input theme keywords or theme of keywords, but it is just more of a [00:06:00] suggestion. It’s not a targeting. So let me just explain this. So perhaps we moving away from.
[00:06:05] Andrea: Audience targeting to audience suggestions. Mm-hmm. So the platform then is gonna use that to refine the, the, the people that it’s gonna reach by still gonna keep that freedom and liberty to actually expand and say, okay, that’s a signal, that’s what I’m gonna use to inform my decisions, but. That’s just a signal and I’m gonna try to use it as a signal.
[00:06:25] Andrea: So that’s something that I picked up that I thought is quite of an interesting development. Now, that’s one part of the story. The other part of the story is that obviously audience targeting is still important in the sense of that you know, is still important that you obviously segment and choose. The segment of, of, of audience that you wanna, you wanna reach, you need to do some, you know, you need to specify which audience you, you, you, you wanna target and segment it because obviously of, you know, being able to be relevant, being able to reach the, the, the target in the, you aim [00:07:00] info.
[00:07:00] Andrea: But as I say, perhaps the real evolution is the fact that as opposed to targeting, we should be using that as a signal. We should see the audience targeting as a signal.
[00:07:10] Nital: Interesting. Interesting. And that lead me to the. Second question, which is about, first party cookies and privacy regularization.
[00:07:22] Nital: Right. as I’m sure, especially coming from your Europe trip recently and attending conferences there and, and now rest of the world is. Taking that up as well, that everyone is getting super conscious on that, first party and cookie data and stuff like that. Right. What’s your observation That with privacy regularization being tightening up mm-hmm.
[00:07:46] Nital: And all the cookies, are facing out. Mm-hmm. How a marketer should successfully transition that first party data towards ensuring they are leveraging [00:08:00] that for personalized. Marketing effort because now you don’t get to see all, all the data points, right. So, mm-hmm. Yeah. Even that creates limitation with your audience targeting because a lot of things due to regularization is being restricted.
[00:08:15] Nital: Exactly. So any tips and suggestions on how a marketers should still capitalize on personalized campaigns?
[00:08:21] Andrea: Yeah, and I think that’s, that’s a very good question and a good segue from what we were talking about in regards to the audience targeting. I think as you pointed out, all the privacy concerns, all the privacy regulations that we see, especially in, in, in Europe and, and in the us.
[00:08:39] Andrea: Have brought attention to the fact that, you know, obviously, you know, we need a consent first and all that is creating issues in terms of obviously tracking and being able to obviously have reliable data. Now, what that means is that, as you pointed out, the third particles have become less and less reliable since the launch of [00:09:00] iOS 14.
[00:09:00] Andrea: We’ve seen how that has impacted us as marketers and advertisers, but the reality is actually the. What is promoting is something that in a way is actually a, a positive change because, as opposed to being able to target people based on third party cookies, and therefore what people used to do before, which was more of a spray and pray approach.
[00:09:20] Andrea: So kind of like, you know, mass reach. What we see now is that there is the reevaluation of first party data. Mm-hmm. And, with that reevaluation, there is also the need. To nurture, engagement with your own customers. So basically create your customer lists as opposed to obviously, you know, buy audiences from somewhere else.
[00:09:41] Andrea: so nurturing those and those, those lists means also creating value, because the reality is that nowadays users. Are very aware of privacy. They really value their time. They really value their, you know, their, I guess their efforts as a, as a customer and their, [00:10:00] their time, as I say is, is, is really important to them.
[00:10:02] Andrea: So therefore, if you really wanna engage with an audience, you really need to add value. So in a way, we, going back to the. Marketing basics mm-hmm. Where it’s about creating value that is seen as valuable and therefore, enriching the user experience. And in that regards, what that promotes is basically engagement and, and, and, and a meaningful conversation, with, with your audience.
[00:10:28] Andrea: So really the, the, the, the suggestion for me is to, is to. Move towards that engagement with your own customers, with your own, create your own list, curate your own CRM, you know, have all those touch points that are making something that is valuable, not just for you, but also for your customer. And I think that’s really is the future of targeting, because it’s more about, as I say, you know, adding and delivering value.
[00:10:55] Nital: Very interesting. Very interesting. And, and the. Entire marketing [00:11:00] landscape has evolved over the last decade. Right now it’s, hmm. Now, it’s not about that omnichannel. Everything is getting omnichannel, and as you mentioned, it’s not just about how you get customers in, it’s about how you even nurture them within your CRM, what your touch points are and stuff like that.
[00:11:19] Andrea: Is that right? With
[00:11:20] Nital: all these transitions and markets are tough. Overall holistic holistically with global economic situations, right? And, everyone is, needing more for less. And the reliance of, various channels has increased as well. Like now it’s not just about performance and acquisition channels.
[00:11:39] Nital: Equally important is your nurture and your CRM and your marketing automation channels as well.
[00:11:46] Andrea: Yeah.
[00:11:47] Nital: How, how crucial the performance marketer roles is now. Right. And what are, what are the top three suggestions you have for any performance [00:12:00] marketer today? To get the best performance for. Their Google ads or programmatic or any sort of paid media they’re managing?
[00:12:10] Andrea: Yeah, look, I think the thing is, like you say, you know, is really a, not necessarily, you know, that we can be omni-channel, but it’s certainly a multi-channel. I. Advertisement that nowadays become more and more important because users obviously don’t follow a linear path. You know, there is interactions across multiple platforms, multiple touch points as you correctly said.
[00:12:33] Andrea: Also, and because of the fact that users are more. Conscious and aware the user journey is becoming longer. There has been some recent studies that have been published that show how, this was the one that I’m thinking of is more relevant maybe for the, for the, for the European market, but is a global trend.
[00:12:51] Andrea: The fact that users are taking longer to make decisions, especially if you’re thinking about, you know, consider decisions, purchase decisions. So what that [00:13:00] means is that you have to engage with your audience. Across multiple touch points and multiple platforms, and, and therefore what that entails as well is that it is very important that you create your message.
[00:13:12] Andrea: The message is consistent. The message is consistent, not not only across one channel, but across multiple channels. And, and, and, and therefore, we see that is becoming more and more important. That you also curate your creative and the messaging because it’s about creating something that, again, as I said before, adds value and engage with, with your, with your audience.
[00:13:35] Andrea: So for example, we’ve seen, you know, advertisers using more things like storytelling, or, uh. Messages, they are delivering a sequence, for example. Mm-hmm. so all that is becoming really, really important. Another thing they also picked up from the, from the, from a latest strip was, when I, as, when I went to a speech from Run Fishkin.
[00:13:59] Andrea: Mm-hmm. And it talks a [00:14:00] lot about zero click marketing. And it’s quite fascinating because it’s putting the emphasis on the fact that we as marketers, and especially. Performance marketers focus a lot on clicks, but we often forget the power of branding and create a brand. And the reality is that if you think about measuring clicks with all the challenges we face, such as, for example, privacy regulations.
[00:14:25] Andrea: Cookies and all that kinda stuff. It’s very difficult, but we still focus on the clicks and we forget where we can still make an impact and where people are actually spending most of the times. most of the time, the example it was providing was if we think about clicks, we think about Google mostly.
[00:14:44] Andrea: But if we look at where people are spending time, then social is where people spend most of the time. So it’s about thinking, not necessarily. How clicks are delivering for your campaigns. But think about also how do you create an [00:15:00] impact to actually create a brand and therefore it’s really important that you start thinking in a way that’s more holistic.
[00:15:07] Andrea: Like you say, for example, you know, we need to think about multi-channel and therefore you need to think about how that is gonna play across multiple platform platforms, multiple channels, and so on and so forth.
[00:15:18] Nital: Interesting, interesting. Zero click marketing. Yeah.
[00:15:22] Andrea: Yeah. It’s very interesting and I think it makes really good points because at the end of the day, it is also a trend.
[00:15:30] Andrea: If you think about it, the, the, what he was saying is that, you know, look at the way the search engines are evolving. There is less and less. Traffic that gets sent out to websites because of the fat, fatigue, stretch stretcher snippets, for example, you got now AI overviews. You have, people also ask and all that kind of stuff that is basically trying to provide an answer already within the platform.
[00:15:56] Andrea: Same thing happens with all platforms like Facebook and [00:16:00] TikTok. All those platforms are also trying to retain the user on their own assets and not send them to the. To their website. So therefore, if you rely on clicks, you are missing all that part. So therefore sign, don’t focus just on the clicks focus also what’s happening within those platforms.
[00:16:18] Andrea: And now those interactions that don’t drive clicks are still meaningful for you to, to create a brand. Because essentially what will happen is that people will obviously, you know. Recognize you as an authority, as a as, as a brand, and then come back to Google and search for you.
[00:16:36] Nital: Interesting.
[00:16:36] Nital: Interesting. And providing, ROI or showing return on ad spend has always been a challenge. Right. And, with, um. With these behavioral changes coming through, what are, what are your suggestions and tips how a marketer should [00:17:00] improve conversion or show better return to the business? Because now everything is distributed and though your focus as a marketer is always towards that last mile conversion.
[00:17:12] Nital: Mm-hmm. Either it’s a revenue or it’s a lead, but how, how marketers should show that. Value of their activities of either it’s been driven visibility on social media, or even if it’s been driven traffic, how do they connect these dots to the revenue?
[00:17:33] Andrea: Yeah, interesting question and I got two answer for that.
[00:17:37] Andrea: so the first thing you can think of is following on from what we just discussed, is that, actually what I, I, when I was away for, my, trip to Europe, I actually, was speaking at one of the conferences and my speech was about, how to scale meta campaigns in 2025. And one of the key things I, I liked in [00:18:00] my speech was that.
[00:18:01] Andrea: We need to go past ROI because the problem with ROI is that yes, it’s a valuable metric, but without the context, it doesn’t really give you a lot of information. I can give you an example. You could have an ROI of 10 to one, but if your costs are nine, out of that 10, you might still not make. Enough money to actually even break even.
[00:18:25] Andrea: So the reality is that what you need to look at, you need to look at the actual investment and the return from the. Investment across all the marketing channels, and therefore that’s the reason why we talk about me. So marketing efficiency ratio. So in that case, what you’re measuring is the, is the revenue proportionate to what you invest in as a marketing activity, but overall, so in that case, you can really measure if the impact is positive or not.
[00:18:54] Andrea: So that is the first thing that I would say in regards to ROI. That ROI, yes is an important metric, [00:19:00] but. To look at just ROI. It can be also a little bit misleading. Now going back to your question in terms of obviously, you know, looking at how can we improve the performance of our campaigns, how can we improve that?
[00:19:13] Andrea: For example, I think, the reality today is that we obviously lean a lot on, automation and and algorithms. you know, if you think about platforms like Google Ads, meta, they all obviously use a lot of, smart bidding algorithms and, and, and automation. But the reality is the machine learning is as good as the information that you provide.
[00:19:37] Andrea: To the machine. So for that, it’s really important that you provide the right, A, you provide data, and B, you provide the right data. So there is a saying, this is success, breed success. And what that means is that if you wanna really make. Your campaigns perform, you need to provide valuable data. [00:20:00] So what that means is that if you want to get, conversions that are valuable, you need to actually input conversion data.
[00:20:06] Andrea: So for example, offline conversions, enhanced conversions, and all of that. Obviously, on top of that, providing all the senior signals, like we said at the beginning, like for example, audience signals and all of that can also really help to inform the decision that the machine is gonna make without that.
[00:20:24] Andrea: The best you can info is possibly average. ’cause at the end of the day, if you think about the way, for example, Google Ads works nowadays is that it’s is a platform that is really, level the field. I. And that’s because it’s very much all working on auto automation nowadays. Smart biding, whether it’s TCPA, whether it’s ros, you name it.
[00:20:48] Andrea: But ultimately everyone can basically do the same if they do the basics. But if you go. And you start inputting data and helping the [00:21:00] machine to make better decisions, that’s really what is gonna give you an advantage. The other thing is obviously, like I say, using those features of the platforms that perhaps users, certain users are less used to.
[00:21:11] Andrea: Like for example, there are nowadays more and more features that get a little bit hidden in the settings. Like if you think meta is always. Keeps hiding things and makes it very difficult for advertisers. And, most of the times nowadays you have to opt out, to remove those default settings. And the other thing is also using other, other, other tools such as, for example, scripts, API, anything that allows you to use features that are not necessarily available on the platform itself.
[00:21:44] Nital: Interesting. And while we are on that topic, if you can help us go a little deep into. performance Max campaign, what, what have been your observations and how, marketers should leverage it [00:22:00] in the best optimal way?
[00:22:01] Andrea: Yeah, I’m just, smiling because, I think, everyone talks about P max nowadays.
[00:22:07] Andrea: That that is the topic. You know, P max, P max, P max, every, everywhere you go there is always gonna be talks about AI and P max. look, the, the, the thing is P max, is. It’s obviously, I guess, you know, the, the first thing I would say is that, is that is there, is there to stay, you know, is lots of criticism since its in section in 2021, but it’s also true there is evolved a lot and, and I think really is where the platforms see the future of advertising in a, in a way that is trying to help advertisers.
[00:22:44] Andrea: To, to get across lots of different types of platforms and networks or, or even, you know, just creating assets. Mm-hmm. So basically it’s just lowering all those barriers that before were a very big [00:23:00] challenge for advertisers. If you think about it. Even just thinking back five years ago, it was really difficult for small advertisers, small businesses, to do display campaigns, to do video campaigns.
[00:23:13] Andrea: And the reason why is because they didn’t have the assets. But nowadays, generative AI and integration of generative AI within this platforms, it’s really helping. Eh, lowering those barriers and it’s really helping pretty much all advertisers to be able to, to embrace and be able to advertise in, you know, Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, you name it.
[00:23:38] Andrea: The, you know, talking about PP Max specifically, as I say, is. Improved a lot in the last couple of years. And I think, credit to Google, they’ve been listening to the feedback because they got a lot of feedback. And you know, if you think about the changes they introduced, you know, now it was only a few days ago, they introduced the segmentation.
[00:23:59] Andrea: [00:24:00] so you are able to segment the performance of your asset groups. That was just a few days ago. no longer they introduced, campaign level. Negative lists. So they keep improving and they keep listening to the feedback, which is very positive, but really it’s showing you that the trend is there and is there to stay, which is obviously, you know, generative AI is becoming more and more of a part of our campaigns set up implementation and optimization and, and yeah.
[00:24:28] Andrea: You know, that’s, that’s, that’s there to say, as I said at the beginning.
[00:24:32] Nital: Okay. Okay. Interesting, interesting. No, thanks for sharing that. And yeah, that leads me
[00:24:39] Andrea: the other, the other thing, sorry, the other thing that I would add to that as well is, sorry, just to reconnect with what we said before. Again, though, remember the success that you’re gonna see is as good as the effort and the input that you put.
[00:24:52] Andrea: ’cause is fair to say as well that, you know, there’s been a lot of criticism for P max, which was justified because of the fact that initially it [00:25:00] was very much of a black box. But, there has also been a lot of criticism because people have tried it and failed thinking, oh, I just put a few headlines, couple of images, a couple of keywords, and, I’m expecting success.
[00:25:18] Andrea: The reality is, as I say, with generative ai, with the automation, with machine learning, the efforts are gonna be, is so important to get. Meaningful outcomes. You know that saying, you know, garbage in, garbage out. Mm-hmm. If you don’t put the effort, you can’t really expect. Great results. That is really important to note.
[00:25:40] Andrea: So
[00:25:40] Nital: yeah, that leads me to more towards questions on AI reporting and data. In your experience, right, with a lot of focus towards data driven marketing, and campaign optimization. Mm-hmm. What are your takes on predictive analytics tools? [00:26:00] Like how reliable have you found them or if you have any specific suggestions or recommendation for the audience.
[00:26:08] Nital: On, which tools would you recommend and if you have seen any pitfalls or if you have seen some strengths with any predictive analytics tools?
[00:26:18] Andrea: That’s a good question and, I think, you know, this recommends to what we were saying before about obviously, you know, the challenges that we facing in regards to tracking.
[00:26:28] Andrea: You know, analytics used to be observation of the data. You know, if you think about the old. Ga, it was pretty much, you know, what you see is what, what you’re getting. You know, you never questions them, you never question the numbers. But nowadays the numbers that you see are modeling, you know, analytics now is all about modeling and obviously the next big step is the fact that obviously, you know, is being used to do predictive modeling as well.
[00:26:55] Andrea: So I think in that regards, it’s very exciting because, as opposed [00:27:00] to just use it to interpret the data. And use that data for insights that might be more or less actionable. The predictive part is quite exciting because it should, once obviously, you know, things are in, in place and this is the, if things are in place in the right way, it should help you to actually proactively think about the changes or, or the way you wanna optimize the campaign, because you should be able to see what.
[00:27:28] Andrea: You can expect if you, you know, make some changes or if you change some variables. So the predictive part, the really exciting part. Now obviously there is still a lot of work I think needs to be done in terms of being able to really leverage on, on, on these tools, addressed in terms of, you know, mass adoption.
[00:27:48] Andrea: I think, at the moment, there’s lots of, you know, challenges, one of which is obviously skills. Knowledge. I mean, if you think about, for example, GA four [00:28:00] is a very, very powerful platform and I think, again, it’s getting a lot of backlash because people found it very challenging. I. Because they’ve been used to using, you know, the likes of Universal Analytics, which as we say was a very different tool because it was more based on observation of the data.
[00:28:20] Andrea: GA four is very, very powerful, but it also means that you really need, skilled people, at least at this stage to be able to make the most of it because it is a very. Complex and powerful tool. The setup alone can be quite challenging. you know, the old concept is being flipped. You know, before we used to track and focus on actions.
[00:28:40] Andrea: So if you think about the way Universal Analytics used to work, it was focused on things like sessions, for example. Nowadays is still got sessions, but the focus is more on the user and the interaction of the user. And that’s the reason why, for example, we track events. NG four. So I think, you know, in, in a [00:29:00] nutshell, really is about how is this is gonna evolve and how much we are gonna progress in.
[00:29:06] Andrea: Adopting this to leverage, the tool at its best. ’cause I think at the moment the challenge is that we look at GA four and people look at the numbers and feel like, you know, you just get a bit of insights, but you’re not really using the tool and it’s not really giving you what. It should. So what I think it will also happen, it’s probably opening up for you know, more skilled people, people that will be more specialized, you know, I dunno if you remember, but back in the days we used to have lots of people that specialized in things like Omni Adobe Analytics and all that kind of stuff.
[00:29:42] Andrea: And it is because it was difficult, it was complex. So you need a specialist. And I think analytics has become more and more of a specialist. Skill. You know, I certainly can’t say that I can use GA four the way I used to use analytics, for example. And, and that’s, that’s an opportunity because I think, [00:30:00] again, you know, for those people that will be able to leverage analytics and you know how powerful it is, it will make a big, big advantage.
[00:30:09] Andrea: The other thing that obviously will involve as well is other opportunities. Like, you know, the amount of data that we go think about, again, you know. GA four and the fact that we’re tracking every single interaction, every single event, it means obviously being able to leverage on that data using other tools like, BigQuery and visualization, like Power bi, Tableau and all that, those things are becoming more important because of the fact that we have much more data.
[00:30:39] Andrea: That’s the other challenge that we got. And that’s the reason why it is important that we, we, we, we, we know that things are much more complex, but there is a lot more opportunities as well.
[00:30:51] Nital: Interesting, interesting, interesting. And, um. While we are on analytics and you sharing all those details, [00:31:00] would love to know your suggestions for marketers on how they should optimize their reporting framework with consent mode, remodeling, and things like that coming in play.
[00:31:12] Nital: Any suggestions on how to. Optimize and enhance their reporting framework.
[00:31:17] Andrea: Yeah, I think, reporting again is about purpose, so I think it’s about defining what your objective is and what you’re trying to get from the reports. I think sometimes we see reports just for the sake of just putting numbers on a, on a spreadsheet, but I think it’s about, you know, really going back to what do you do the report for?
[00:31:36] Andrea: What, what do you try? To achieve what, what you, what you’re trying to communicate. So for me is about, you know, understanding what you’re trying to get from the data and therefore build reports that are actually meaningful because of the fact that, as I said before, we are overwhelmed with that. With data.
[00:31:51] Andrea: We have plenty of data, but I. The, the reality is what do you wanna get from that? Like for example, you know, if it’s reporting in terms of providing a [00:32:00] dashboard where you got the performance for last week, or for example, week on week or last month, then obviously, you know, is as simple as just creating a template, a framework that provides the information.
[00:32:12] Andrea: But really there is not much value if you’re just providing the data and numbers. Really, it’s about how do we start using things like generative ai. Analysis of the data through, you know, automation and you know, the likes of Judge GPT or Gemini, for example, to actually surface the insights and the recommendations.
[00:32:33] Andrea: That is really where we need to put emphasis and focus. And the other thing is obviously, you know, as you said, because we creating predictive modeling and because of the fact that we know that the data can be a little bit sketchy and we have gaps in the data, is also not necessarily always focusing on.
[00:32:49] Andrea: Fixating with the numbers, but use the data as a way to understand trends and anticipate and anticipate what. [00:33:00] Could be the possible scenarios that you are facing ahead. I think that’s really important because if you’re looking at the absolute numbers, you’re kind of missing the point. You’re focusing on the small detail and you’re forgetting the bigger picture.
[00:33:13] Andrea: it, if for example, we look at, you know, oh, we had a a thousand clicks last week. Well, it doesn’t matter if it’s a thousand or if it’s, you know, 950. What you really wanna focus is how did. That number change compared to the previous week and what that means. Mm-hmm. So it’s really about focusing on, on what the numbers.
[00:33:36] Andrea: The data is telling us. And that’s the reason also why I think visualization is becoming more and more important because visualization unlocks insights that are very difficult to extrapolate and surface when we’re looking at tables of data. So again, you know, that for me is really where things will, will evolve more and more.
[00:33:56] Andrea: And I think, yeah, the visualization will be a key. [00:34:00] Part of the, of the reporting and dashboards.
[00:34:02] Nital: Okay, great. Andrea, you touch AI and, chat. GPT and that’s the buzzword everywhere we go around these days. Right? we, I also noticed you recently published an article on Search engine Journal about web scraping and using AI and chat GPT for Google Sheets and many other areas.
[00:34:24] Nital: Any suggestions? What sort of simple AI tools? Techniques or quick hats you recommend for marketers, which they can use to streamline their day-to-day operations and improve their overall campaign performances?
[00:34:42] Andrea: Yeah, that’s a good question and thanks for referring to the article. That was a very popular article that I wrote two years ago.
[00:34:48] Andrea: I got that published two years ago on a search engine journal. And it is very popular because, I got. About 200,000 reads for the article and more than a hundred shares. [00:35:00] So, very popular to the point that last year they asked me to revisit it and refresh it. So initially, my initial take was, my initial writing was about using Google Sheets and XPath to actually scrape, website and extrapolate text and data essentially.
[00:35:17] Andrea: But when I refreshed the article last year, it was more about how can we use. AI, and specifically in my case was charge GBT to actually improve that process. And the thing is that, you know, nowadays you less need even less knowledge because what you can do is you can leverage, you know, the likes of, of charge GBT to actually give you the prompts to be able to do those tasks.
[00:35:45] Andrea: What I faced when I did my, you know, experiments was that. The technology sometimes still fails. You still can face some issues. but it’s still a, a very important, I guess, [00:36:00] aspect in the way, you know, we can improve things nowadays. What I mean with that is that, you know, when I think about AI and where we are at today is that AI is a great.
[00:36:11] Andrea: Enabler to improve your, performance and efficiency, if you like. So, but I think about AI as pa as a tool, part of a wider array of tools at the moment. Mm-hmm. And, it’s more about improving your processes and workflows, least this is where I see AI at the moment. So what I mean is that yes, you can automate some tasks.
[00:36:35] Andrea: From end to end, so from beginning to the end, but the reality is that you’re more likely at this point to use it as part of your processes. If you think about it, there’s so many examples we can think of that we already use. In most of us we use. Nowadays. Mm-hmm. But we don’t even think about that much.
[00:36:52] Andrea: Oh, I’m using ai. But, you know, you use it to ask questions. You know, only last week OpenAI released, [00:37:00] the search functionality of charge GPT in, in Australia we use AI for, you know, keyword research to validate data. So you use it within your processes and that is really creating efficiencies. So that is really where I think we are at.
[00:37:16] Andrea: Today, but this is what is today. I think the future looks much brighter and much more interesting because again, you know, something that I got from my trip and from the conferences I attended is that there is a general consensus that really what is gonna be exciting is the next phase of generative ai where.
[00:37:35] Andrea: It seems like some, quite a few people agree on the fact that, for example, in a couple of years time, we wouldn’t even have landing pages. We won’t be talking about landing pages anymore, but there will be AI agents, which will be basically the way you interact. With a brand or with a website. So what that means is that we will have unique and very much [00:38:00] customized experiences that are relevant to you and that are unique to you, and not necessarily what someone else is gonna experience.
[00:38:07] Andrea: So that for me is where it gets very exciting and very interesting. But yeah, I, I guess we had a. Probably a few years, away from that. But obviously, you know, lots of developments and things happen very, very fast. So it’s definitely, you know, a, space to watch. And obviously if you are not using AI at the moment, I think then obviously, you know, that is probably a bit of a problem.
[00:38:31] Nital: Okay. Okay. And you also, contributed to PPC Trend 2024 ebook for search Engine Journal 2025. So now it’s the time. Yeah. well, what do you see, what are the emerging trends which marketers should focus for 2025?
[00:38:52] Andrea: Yeah, look, I think, it is a good question. yeah, I would encourage an a, anyone in the audience [00:39:00] to go and check that.
[00:39:01] Andrea: Ebook, because I contributed to that. But there is also take a take from other, authors that are, you know, really big names in the, in the PPC, I guess, industry. So I would encourage people to go and check it out, download it, and read it and enjoy it. My take in terms of, you know, some of the biggest trends will be, you know, as we said at the beginning, I think it is really about the fact that we need to think about and, and put at the front the users.
[00:39:30] Andrea: Really it is about, you know, not necessarily thinking about just, you know, like I say, third parties, first party, but it’s really thinking about how do we engage with the users in a meaningful way that’s gonna benefit both them and us as a brand in order to achieve our own objectives. Because of that, I think.
[00:39:51] Andrea: I dunno how many people are talking about this, but I do really think that one of the biggest things we’ll see is really more and more emphasis [00:40:00] on the creative, you know, I thinking about that from a, from a Google Ads perspective, and if you think about, you know, the fact that we used to create ads.
[00:40:12] Andrea: And not really think too much of it. And still to this day, I still see that kind of approach and attitude a lot because when you look at Google Ads. Creatives, I see a lot of ads. They are basically just repeating the same concept, just repeating the same usps, and that’s a bad use of responses ads, for example.
[00:40:35] Andrea: But I think that we will see more and more of an emphasis on the creative itself. And that’s not just for the text ads, but also for display and video. And if you think about it, I think it will be a transferable concept that we see moving from. Social media to, Google ads or, you know, PPC for example, because of the fact that that, that the creative is becoming [00:41:00] more and more important.
[00:41:01] Andrea: As we said before, you know, users are spending more time doing research using, are spending more time before they make a decision, and, you know. Arches. So therefore the creative and the way we get, you know, to communicate with people will be more and more important. Therefore, the quality of the creative is gonna be more and more important.
[00:41:20] Andrea: And I think that’s also what we can see happening also in the, in the platforms themselves. Because for example, Google is started looking at or introducing brand guidelines. For example, you know, with responsive ads, one of the challenges we had before is Al is always been the fact that. The ads looked pretty ugly.
[00:41:41] Andrea: You know, you got Google just, you know, choosing a background color, you got fonts you can choose, and then sticking an image to it, and you can say, yeah, they’re pretty ugly. But the reality is that I. In a nowadays market, the expectation is that the ads should [00:42:00] reflect something a bit more, of a much better quality.
[00:42:04] Andrea: So that’s what we’re gonna see, and I think it’s gonna be exciting because that, I think, will put an emphasis on responsive ads. So ads that are created automatically or programmatically, but also in terms of rediscovering the importance of creating good creative, you know, good design. Good assets and not only for the display and video, but also for the text, whereas, you know, it is not good enough anymore to say, you know, um.
[00:42:29] Andrea: Best hotels in Sydney, Sydney best hotels. And repeat that 20, 20 times on on your ads.
[00:42:36] Nital: Yeah, yeah. No, true, true. Well, thanks for sharing that, Andrea, and I think great, great insight throughout the session. I. I would love to end, with one last question. Mm-hmm. it’s a little holistic and not specific to performance marketing, right.
[00:42:53] Nital: You, you have been working with some leading global brands like Nike [00:43:00] PlayStations in your journey, and you currently also work with a lot of global brands. Where do you see the marketing landscape is heading? Where these brands are focusing for, let’s say, look at next two years of horizon, if you are to kind of draw a picture that how the marketing landscape would be two years down the line, what are your thoughts?
[00:43:22] Andrea: Look, I think it’s an interesting question and I think is a, is a. Half answer. But I think, you know, in terms of global market, I think, obviously as I say, you know, there’s gonna be a point of convergence between branding and performance. Okay. I think, you know, we often looked at the two things, the separate things.
[00:43:44] Andrea: We often have different teams that they’re looking about looking after branding. People that are looking after performance. The reality is, again, is a, is an artificial split that we make. But the reality is that we see more and more convergence between the two. [00:44:00] And, and I think, you know, brand nowadays as a performance elements, as.
[00:44:06] Andrea: Performance elements attached to it. And likewise, we cannot do performance without branding. So I think it’s really about the convergence of the two. Mm-hmm. And that is a positive thing because again, it is about putting the emphasis on the user as opposed to think about, okay, I do this campaign to generate awareness, but this campaign is just running silo and you know, it’s driving maybe top of mind, but it’s not really.
[00:44:33] Andrea: Connected with the rest of the activity that we’re doing. The other thing is that with that, that being said as well, the other pressure that we see is the fact that, obviously, you know, we are in a tough market from an. Economy standpoint, you know, things are not easy because we know there is a lot of people that are under pressure from a economic standpoint, but that’s also true in terms of marketing as well, in the sense that I think we will see more and more emphasis put [00:45:00] on creating sustainable campaigns.
[00:45:03] Andrea: You know, I don’t think we can’t afford anymore to create campaigns and, you know, spend big chunks of money just. To create brand awareness, you know? Yeah. Everything needs to be created and you know, and have a strong purpose attached to it, but also needs to be done, needs to be done in a sustainable way.
[00:45:23] Andrea: Like for example, if we create assets, we need to make sure that those assets are creating a sustainable way so that. It’s not just done for a one-off, but they can be repurposed, reused. So I think that sustainability as well will be an important factor as well. Mm-hmm. That we’ll see. The other thing that I think is important is that, although, you know, I talk about convergence, I think there is also an element of we going back in circle in.
[00:45:50] Andrea: The sense that we see more and more, the reemergence or reevaluation of specialism? I think, you know, if you [00:46:00] think about it, our job, because of multiple reasons is becoming more and more challenging because, you know, yes we have machine learnings and systems that are helping us to, to do our job, but at the same time to really be.
[00:46:13] Andrea: Able to drive the best performance. We need to be the specialist that know all the tips and tricks and know which levers and all the aid and features that we can leverage. And it’s about, you know, knowing how to use your data, knowing how to find your insights, knowing, how to leverage data and, you know, predicting future behaviors and trends.
[00:46:34] Andrea: And for that, I think also some specialism is quite important. So we see a little bit of a, of a reemergence of, of specialism and, and specialist agencies as well.
[00:46:44] Nital: Interesting. Interesting. Great. Great. Andrea, thanks. Thanks for, having an amazing, insightful session and, a lot of intel. A lot of intel.
[00:46:54] Nital: I’m sure a lot of people who go through these. A video or go through this information would [00:47:00] be able to learn a lot, and I’m sure it’ll help them in their journey ahead.
[00:47:03] Andrea: That’s good. Thanks. you know, thanks for the feedback is, is very flattering.
[00:47:07] Nital: Yeah. Right.