Recently, Meta integrated the Manus AI with its Meta Ads Manager to help advertisers in Reporting, Audience Research, Creative Optimization and running regular tasks.

Today, I have tested the Manus AI by integrating it with my own ad manager to check its functionalities in real time. Here, I share my first-hand review of the Manus AI with you. I always encourage you to add your experience in the comment section.

In this blog, I’ll explain:

• How to integrate Manus AI with Meta Ads Manager
• How to use it for reporting
• My real-world test results
• Credit usage breakdown
• Whether the free plan is practical for marketers

If you’re a business owner, freelancer, or agency handling Meta ads, this will help you decide whether Manus AI is worth it.

What is Manus AI?

Manus AI is an agent designed to perform complex real-world tasks with minimum human intervention. In this way, this AI agent connects with Meta Ads Manager and helps generate reports, insights, and performance summaries automatically.

Instead of manually analyzing data inside Ads Manager, you can simply ask Manus AI questions and get structured insights.

How to Integrate and Use Manus AI in Meta Ads Manager?

Most advertisers received a pop-up notification to explore Manus AI in the Meta Ads Manager. You can click there and proceed with the account creation setup, or else you can directly go to their website and proceed with the account creation setup.

Step 1: Create a Manus AI Account

First, I visited the Manus AI website and created an account using Gmail.

The signup process was straightforward:

No technical setup required.

Step 2: Connect Meta Ads Manager Using Connector

After logging in, I used the Connector feature available inside Manus AI.

Here’s how the integration works:

1. Go to Connector section
2. Select Meta
3. Log in to your Facebook account
4. Choose the Ad Account you want to connect
5. Grant necessary permissions

Within a few minutes, my Meta Ads account was successfully connected.

The integration process was smooth and beginner-friendly.

Step 3: Testing a Real Reporting Task

Now came the actual test.

Instead of exploring randomly, I gave Manus AI a practical performance marketing task:

“Create a platform-wise report and identify the best and worst performing platforms for this ad account.”

What I expected:

• Facebook vs Instagram performance comparison
• Identification of best performing platform
• Identification of worst performing platform
• Clear summary insights

Result:

Manus AI successfully generated:

• Platform-wise breakdown
• Performance comparison
• Clear statement on best and poor performing platforms
• Summary insights

From my manual cross-check inside Meta Ads Manager, the data interpretation was accurate.

This means for quick reporting and client summaries, it can save time.

The Important Part: Credit Usage

Now let’s talk about the limitation.

Manus AI free plan provides:

• 300 credits per day
• Credits refresh every 24 hours

Sounds reasonable initially.

However, for just one platform-wise reporting task, it used:

126 credits

That means:

• Two similar queries = almost full daily limit
• Limited scope for multiple analyses
• Not suitable for deep exploration

For agencies handling multiple accounts, 300 credits per day feels restrictive.

Is the Free Plan Enough for Marketers?

Based on my experience:

Free Plan is Suitable If:

• You are testing the tool
• You manage one small ad account
• You use it occasionally for summaries

Free Plan is Not Suitable If:

• You run multiple client accounts
• You perform daily performance analysis
• You require multiple breakdowns and comparisons
• You depend heavily on AI-based insights

In practical terms, 300 credits per day is limited for serious performance marketing work.

Should You Use Manus AI for Meta Ads?

My honest opinion:

Manus AI has strong potential, especially for automated reporting and summarizing insights.

But the free plan feels more like a trial experience rather than a long-term solution.

If you:

• Are a freelancer or small business owner → Test with free plan
• Are an agency managing multiple ad accounts → Paid plan may be necessary

Before depending fully on it, test real-world tasks and monitor credit usage carefully.

Final Thoughts

AI tools are definitely shaping the future of digital advertising. Manus AI is a promising tool that can reduce reporting time and simplify data analysis.

However, as marketers, we must always evaluate:

• Cost vs Value
• Credit usage vs Workload
• Time saved vs Subscription fee

If you’re planning to integrate Manus AI with Meta Ads Manager, start small, test properly, and then scale usage based on your needs.

The post How to Integrate and Use Manus AI in Meta Ads Manager (Step-by-Step Guide + Honest Review) first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Amazon DSP is fueled by the strongest retail first-party data ecosystem in the world

What is DSP?

DSP stands for “Demand Side Platform”—actually, it’s a software platform that allows advertisers to buy ads across millions of websites, apps, OTT and video platforms, etc., automatically. 

Here are a few DSPs for your reference. 

• DV360
• The Trade Desk
• Amazon DSP
• Criteo
• Adform
• Stack Adapt

FREE PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISTING COURSE AVAILABLE HERE

The unique capability of DSP?

Once upon a time, advertisers wanted to connect with the websites/apps directly to show their ads. It’s a painful and time-consuming job. Through the single DSP platform, advertisers can buy the ad space across the below inventories—no need to work with each publisher separately.

• Websites
• Mobile apps
• Video platforms
• YouTube inventory (via DV360)
• OTT/CTV (Connected TV)
• DOOH (digital billboards)
• Audio streaming
• In-game ads
• Native ads

What makes Amazon DSP so powerful?

In this digital world, those who own quality data win the race. Through Amazon DSP, advertisers can access the most powerful first-party e-commerce data to deliver their ads to the right people at the right time. 

Showing ads to the higher purchase intent audience is very important to increase sales. That is why many advertisers spend their huge money on the Google search ad platform. Similarly, the purchase intent for the Amazon platform visitor is also very high. So, delivering ads to them is very useful from a sales perspective. 

For example, you are searching “Smart TV under 50K” “55 inch tv” on the Amazon e-commerce platform. In that case, your purchase intent is so high. Even after you leave the Amazon e-commerce platform, TV company advertisers can display ads on some news websites you visit or apps you use throughthe Amazon DSP platform. 

Other DSPs partnered with many data providers to find the audiences who are likely to purchase a smart tv. Those data providers are associated with different publishers to collect that data. So, the data accuracy is a big question?

But Amazon DSP uses its very own first-party data to deliver the ads. So, advertisers can deliver their ads immediately and effectively.  That’s why Amazon DSP is considered the most powerful demand-side platform.

Amazon’s Strong Data Capability

The below is not just traffic. This is high-intent, logged-in, purchase-intent behaviour user data. 

2.4B+ monthly visitors

310M+ active customers

200M+ Prime members

Most demand-side platforms rely on browsing data. Amazon relies on shopping data. That makes Amazon DSP so strong in this space.

What about other e-commerce platforms?

In the US, Amazon accounts for 37.6% of all e-commerce spending in 2024. In India, 32% of e-commerce spending happens through Amazon. 

Globally, we can tell that two e-commerce platforms only have their own DSP. One is Amazon, the Second is Walmart. 

The leading e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, eBay, Rakuten, Flipkart (India), Meesho (India), and others have an ad platform, but those are internal ad platforms.

Where Advertisers Can Deliver Ads Using Amazon DSP?

Amazon DSP provides one of the widest inventory accesses in digital advertising — combining Amazon-owned properties + third-party supply + premium CTV partners.

Below is the complete coverage,

Conclusion

Amazon DSP is powerful because it understands real people — their searches, habits, and the tiny decisions they make before buying. It connects these human moments with smart targeting and trusted identity, making ads feel more relevant and less intrusive.

Advertisers gain clarity, not guesswork, with visibility into how every impression leads to real sales. In a world moving beyond cookies, Amazon DSP offers reliability and confidence.

Ultimately, it wins because it reflects how people genuinely shop — and that makes all the difference.

The post What Makes Amazon DSP So Powerful in the AdTech Industry? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

In this post, I have shared some notable data to understand the importance of carbon footprint in digital advertising. Please read this post fully and take action to reduce the carbon emissions from your digital ad campaigns.

What is Carbon Footprint?

It is the amount of carbon emitted into the environment due to an action by an individual, organization, product, or event. 

For example, Carbon emissions by the petrol car, carbon emissions by an industry

What is the carbon footprint in digital advertising?

It is the amount of carbon emitted into the environment for running digital advertising campaigns. 

Including me, many people do not even think about the carbon emissions of digital advertising. We strongly believe that vehicles, the aviation sector, industries, and natural disasters are the main sources of higher carbon emissions. 

This is not completely true. 

As per the data available on emeritus.org, the aviation sector’s contribution to climate change is roughly 3.5%, whereas the internet and digital technologies contribution is about 4%. If we start using the AI tools in the full phase, this percentage will increase to 8%. 

As per the data available on statista.com, on average, every digital advertising campaign generates 5.4 tons of CO2, whereas one person generates 4 tons of CO2 per year.

How did carbon emissions happen in digital advertising?

As you already know, many parties play together to show digital ads to their audiences. Many companies are available to provide these services to businesses to reach their audiences. 

Below, power-consuming technologies should be needed to deliver the digital ads.

Servers and Data Center: Ads, Campaign Details, and Audience Data are stored and retrieved from here. Many data centers are still using fossil fuels to generate power. 

Programmatic Ad Transactions: Many ad exchanges, demand-side platforms, and supply-side platforms participated in the real-time bidding auction. Each auction handles a huge number of requests, which consumes more power.  

Data Providers, Tracking, and Analytics: In digital advertising, third-party data providers share valuable audience data with the ad platforms. They have a continuous connection with the platforms. Similarly, tracking and analytics platforms also have a continuous connection with the platforms and websites to provide valuable insights and reports. They consume a huge amount of power to run. 

The above are just an example of understanding the carbon footprint contributors of digital advertising. 

As per the data shared by martech consultancy, campaigns with social, video, display and search ads approximately produce 323 tons of carbon dioxide. Creative designing, content views, auction process, data storage are the key sources.

Why does measuring and reducing carbon footprints matter?

Every nation and every industry started to work on carbon emission reduction. Carbon emission reduction is very important for controlling climate change. As a part of it, digital advertising industry also took some initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint.

Ad Net Zero and IAB Europe’s Sustainability Standards Committee are the two key initiatives to control the carbon footprint in digital advertising. 

You can checkout the 5 action plans of Ad Net Zero in their website [https://adnetzero.com/]

The first step for reducing the carbon footprint is to analyze and understand the level of emissions your organization is currently responsible for. Then only you can make a plan and work towards reducing the carbon footprint.

How do you measure the carbon footprint in digital advertising?

You cannot directly measure the carbon emissions from your ad campaign. You should use third-party providers help to measure it. Many demand-side platforms have partnered with those data providers to provide carbon footprint reduction solutions. 

Sharethrough’s Carbon Emissions Estimator tool helps to get approximate carbon emissions by providing impressions, creative type, location, and some more details. 

Scope3 : Scope3 has partnered with many demand-side platforms to provide comprehensive data on carbon emissions to the advertisers. By using the Scope3 service, you can get the detailed carbon emission report for each of your campaigns. 

Based on the report, you can manually/automatically exclude the high carbon emission websites and apps. 

Integral Ad Science : IAS also offers end-to-end carbon emission tracking capability for digital ad campaigns. Using its data, marketers can understand about the carbon footprint of their campaigns. 

Reference Articles : 

https://scope3.com/news/scope3-report-programmatic-advertising-generates-215-000-metric-tons-of-carbon-emissions-each-month-across-five-major-global-economies

https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/making-sustainable-digital-advertising-a-reality/en-gb/6591

https://emeritus.org/blog/carbon-footprint-of-digital-advertising

https://resources.eyeo.com/how-sustainable-digital-advertising-today

Conclusion

As digital advertising continues to grow, it impacts the environment by carbon footprint. The carbon footprint of online ads comes from data centers, real-time bidding processes, data transmission, and tracking mechanisms. Measuring and reducing these emissions is crucial for creating a more sustainable advertising ecosystem.

Companies like Scope3, Sharethrough, Integral Ad Science, AdGreen, and Hiili offer innovative tools to track and minimize the carbon footprint of ad campaigns. By adopting green supply path initiatives, optimizing ad delivery, and using carbon tracking technologies, advertisers can significantly cut emissions while maintaining effective marketing strategies.

The post Carbon Footprint in Digital Advertising: Why Measuring and Reducing It Matter first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Every brand knows the importance of running Google Search Paid Ad Campaigns to reach potential customers when they search the related query on Google Search Engine. Usually, brands spend huge amount on Google Search Ad campaigns due to its potential. So, the competition on Google search is high.

To win all your competitors on Google Search, you should use the following competitor metrics to understand your campaign’s current performance. Based on these metrics, start to optimize your campaign targeting, ad copies, etc.

Competitive Metrics in Google Ads

The following competitive metrics are available for your Google search campaign. Usually, these metrics are not included in your campaigns.

Click the Columns > Modify Columns > Scroll to “Competitive Metrics” > Include all the metrics > Apply

All the above fields are very useful to understand your campaign performance. But, the following metrics are very important to check.

Search Impression Share Explained

The first metric you should check is “Search Impression Share”. This metric will tell you the percentage of your ad displayed out of total eligible impressions.

For example, your targeted keyword is “Best Washing Machine”. Including this keyword and other targeting criteria, your ad could potentially appear on 10,000 times on Google Search. But, your ad only visible 5000 times.

When this percentage is low you should focus on two fields, daily budget and ad rank. Sometimes, your daily budget restrict the ad appearance. In that case, increase the daily budget. Also, check the ad rank and take actions to improve it.

Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) Explained

When you have a confusion on search impression lost reason, you can use this field. If the Search Lost Impression Share (Rank) percentage is high, then this should the be main reason for Impression Lost.

As per the help document, the following three fields are considered to find rank.

• Bid Amount
• Quality of the ad
• Ad extensions

To improve the rank, you should focus on your landing page, ad relevance, keyword optimization, right bid price, using ad extensions, target high intent audiences.

Landing page : Your landing page speed should be high and mobile friendly. Also, the content available on the landing page should match with the ad copies.

Ad extensions : Use sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, and call extensions to increase the CTR.

Keyword Optimization : Use negative keywords to exclude the unwanted keywords.

Search Lost Impression Share (Budget) Explained

This field indicates the percentage your campaign loose due to budget constraints. In this case, you should increase the daily budget to show your ads in all eligible impressions. When this percentage is higher, you should focus on this and fix. Otherwise, your ads will not be displayed on all hours of the day.

• Increase your campaign budget
• Pause the low performing keywords to save your budget
• Use longtail keywords
• To avoid budget wastage, use ad schedule

Click Share Explained

This field indicates how your campaign compete for clicks. The potential possibility of click is 1000 and your campaign just received 500 clicks. In that case, the click share will be 50%. So, you should optimize your campaign targeting and ad copies to acquire more clicks.

Below are the common reason for low click share,

• Low ad rank
• Low quality ads
• Strong competitors with strong ads

Concentrate on the following things to increase the click share,

• Check your ad copies and use more compelling and relevant ad copies to the users.
• Focus on sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets
• Increase bid for your potential keywords
• Refine keywords

Conclusion

Google Search Ad Campaigns are very important for many businesses to reach their potential customers who search the related query on google search engine. Like you many businesses using the same strategy to reach their customers. So, competition is very high on getting positions on google search results.

You can easily outrank your competitors by using the above Competitive Metrics on google ads platform. Using those fields, you can easily identify the weakness of your google search ad campaign and where you need to focus on improving your results.

I’m planning to write more articles related to google ads and meta ads moving forward. Regularly checkout my website to get the latest post that will always help you to improve your strategy on digital advertising.

In this blog, i have written many articles about Programmatic Advertising. Any beginners can understand and become an expert in this filed by reading my free course here : Programmatic Advertising Course

Also, I’m sharing valuable updates on LinkedIn. Below is my profile link, if you need “follow me”

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sridaran-baskaran-b5573519

Thank you!

The post How to Use Google Ads “Competitive Metrics” to Outrank Your Competitors first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Bid Multiplier is a useful feature to achieve the campaign goals. But, you should understand it very well before implementing it into your campaigns. Otherwise, you may lose your ad spend. 

If you are completely not aware of this feature or have not used this feature due to minimum knowledge, No worries, This post is for you!

In this post, I explain all about the bid multiplier feature and how it works in campaigns. Finally, I share important facts you keep in mind when you use this feature in your ad campaigns.

Topics :

What is Bid Multiplier?

How does it work?

Important factors to consider while using bid multiplier

Advantages of Bid Multiplier Function

Conclusion

What is Bid Multiplier?

Bid Multiplier is an advanced feature available in most ad platforms that helps to increase or decrease the bid prices for specific campaign targeting based on its performance. Such as,

• Audience Segments 
• Placements/Websites/Apps
• Ads
• Inventories
• Demographics 
• User Lists, more

Usually, we set bid CPM prices at the line item level. To use the bid multiplier, we have to set the multiplication factor at any of the above levels to increase or decrease the bid price. 

The default bid multiplication factor for all the criteria is 1. 

The huge advantage of this feature is that within a single line item you can adjust the bid prices for different criteria. 

For example, 

The CPM price of a line item is $5 and you kept the bid multiplication factor as 2 for the inventory source C. In that case, this line item bid for a maximum $10 [$5 X 2] to the bids coming from the inventory source C. For the remaining bids this line item bid for a maximum $5 [$5 X1].

How does it work?

To understand the functionality of the bid multiplier, here I have shared a few examples. 

Suppose, you have a line item “XYZ T-Shirts” and include 10 inventory exchanges and assign 6 different size creatives. After running this campaign for one or two weeks, you can identify the best or worst-performing inventories, websites, creative sizes, etc. 

Usually, campaign managers exclude or remove the poor-performing targetings to improve the performance further. But instead of removing them completely, we can use a bid multiplier to increase the bid price for good-performing criteria and reduce the bid for low-performing criteria. 

Example 1: Inventory Level 

Here, we have performance data from inventory sources. Based on this report, we identified the best and worst-performing Inventory Sources. If you decide to increase the bid prices two times for good-performing inventories and reduce half for worst-performing inventories, you can implement it as below. 

Edit your line item and go to the inventory targeting. There you can see the bid multiplier column and it usually states “1” by default. 

For good-performing inventory sources change it to “2”

For worst-performing inventory sources change it to “0.5”

If the line item bid price is $5 then the bid price is calculated as below, 

For good-performing inventory sources: $5 X 2 = $10

For worst-performing inventory sources: $5 X 0.5 = $2.5 

Example 2: Creative Size 

Similarly, you can adjust the bid prices for best-performing sizes and low-performing sizes. 

Let’s take it, you want to increase the bid price for a good-performing size two times and reduce the bid price by half for low low-performing size. 

For good performing creative sizes: $5 X 2 = $10

For worst performing creative sizes: $5 X 0.5 = $2.5 

Important Note : 

When you are applying a bid multiplier, you should be aware that the bid multiplier factor is applied at all levels considered to calculate the final bid price. 

In the above line item, we have applied the bid multiplication factor at the inventory sources level and creative sizes level. So, both should be considered in the final bid price calculation.

Example 1 : 

Good performing Inventory Source A bid price is increased by two times. 

Good performing creative size 300×250 bid price is increased by two times. 

In that case, when a bid request comes from inventory source A for the creative size 300×250 will be calculated as below,

$5 X 2 X 2 = $20 

Example 2 : 

Good performing Inventory Source A bid price is increased by two times. 

The worst performing creative size 320×50 bid price is reduced by half. 

In that case, the bid price is calculated as below. 

$5 X 2 X 0.5 = $5 

The above two examples provided a clear picture of the bid calculation when using a bid multiplier.

Important factors to consider while using bid multiplier

• I do not recommend using bid multipliers at various levels. Because it is very difficult to understand the final bid calculation. So, implement a bid multiplier at a minimum level and see the performance improvement. 
• When using a bid multiplier, the final bid price will rise drastically. So, always set “Maximum Bid Price” to avoid such situations. 
• Using the bid multiplier function, you can effectively do cost optimization without creating multiple line items. So, start using it.

Advantages of Bid Multiplier Function

• You can effectively optimize your campaign at various levels without creating separate line items for each. 
• Without excluding poor-performing criteria completely, you can increase or decrease the priority by adjusting the bid multiplier factor. 
• By doing cost optimization using a bid multiplier, you can improve your ROI. 
• Using a bid multiplier, you can set different bid prices for a combination of targeting criteria. 

Conclusion

Bid multiplier is a powerful feature that is helpful in campaign optimization. Many campaign managers do not use this feature because they think that the bid calculation is a bit complicated while using it. It is difficult when you apply a bid multiplier for more targetings. But, it is very simple when you use it for one or two targetings. 

In this post, I explained this feature with various examples to increase your confidence in the bid multiplier. Hope, now you have better clarity about this feature. 

If this post is really helpful please leave your thoughts in the comment section.

Read More : DV360 Campaigns Optimization Guide

The post What is Bid Multiplier? How does it work? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Reasons for the Google Antitrust Case

As you all know, Google controls 91% of the search engine market. Every year, Google generates billions of dollars from its various products. From Google Search and its associated businesses alone, Google makes around 175 billion dollars.

The superior quality and capability of the Google Search Engine compared to others in this market is one significant reason for this market share and revenue.

Google Search is the default search engine on devices using the Android operating system because Google owns it. However, the primary reason for this antitrust case is that Google has paid other companies to make Google Search the default search engine on their products.

Approximately, Google has paid around 10 billion dollars to Apple to make Google Search the default on iPhones and Mac devices. Similarly, Google has paid certain amounts to the Firefox browser and a few other companies as well.

Due to this business strategy, new or smaller companies cannot enter this market, allowing Google Search to automatically maintain a dominant market share.

What is the judgment?

The court found that Google holds a monopoly in the search market by providing exclusive deals to device manufacturing companies like Apple. As a result, Google is required to stop such activities, according to this judgment. Additionally, it suggests adding quick options on the browser screen to switch search engines.

However, Google has appealed the lower court’s decision to a higher court, so the current judgment cannot be fully implemented yet.

How Will This Judgment Impact the Search Market?

Even though this matter is now in the upper court, this judgment has valid reasons. Many experts believe that this judgment will not be overturned by the upper court. If upheld, this judgment could create a major impact on the search market.

• Google-Apple Contract: As per this judgment, Google can not make any direct deals with device manufacturing companies to set Google Search as the default. As a result, Google will lose this opportunity, and Apple will lose this additional income.
• Open Auction: Companies like Apple may conduct open auctions for the default search engine position. So, new companies can compete for these opportunities.
• Search Advertisement: If new companies gain a share of the search market, it will directly impact Google’s search ads revenue and its associated businesses.
• Technology Advancement: When competition is high and transparent, it fosters industry development. By removing direct deals, competitors will have the opportunity to enter this market and bring new technology.

Conclusion

Google Search Engine holds a major market share and has the full capability to maintain that position. Additionally, Google has made direct deals with browsers and device companies to make Google Search the default. As a big company, Google has the financial resources to make such agreements, but other companies in the market cannot make similar deals. The lower court identified that Google holds a monopoly in the search market and ruled that this should be stopped. This judgment has been appealed to the top court, but it has some valid points and may be upheld.

According to this judgment, Google will no longer be allowed to make direct deals or offers with other companies to set its tool as the default. As a result, many new players will enter this market. With new minds entering, the industry will expand, and users will benefit from additional options.

Do you have any thoughts? Add them in the comment section.

The post Google was a Monopolist : Google Antitrust Case Explained first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

As per the Google blog post, they once again delayed the removal of third party cookies due to a delay in CMA’s approval and industry concerns over the alternative solution. Per their new schedule, they planned to remove the cookies by Q1, 2025.

As marketing people, we need to understand a few topics related to this issue. For example, 

Why does Google delay removing third party cookies again?

What is CMA? What kind of investigation do they conduct? 

Is there any reliable solution for third party cookieless advertising? 

Will google remove third party cookies in Chrome by Q1, 2025? 

Conclusion

Why Does Google delay removing third party cookies again?

As per the latest statistics report by [https://gs.statcounter.com/], Google Chrome shares 65% of the browser’s market share. So, every action taken by Google Chrome affects the digital advertising industry. This could be the common reason for delaying third party cookie removal plans.

Delay in finding alternatives

In short, third party cookies are very helpful in digital advertising to reach users based on their interests by tracking their online activities. So, this is very important for running performance based digital advertising campaigns. Without third party cookies, we can’t track user’s behavior online. So, companies involved in digital advertising are actively working to find alternatives. 

Many proposals are available for third party cookieless advertising. Already, I have written a detailed article about the alternatives for the cookieless world. But the fact is, none of them work 100% in real world. That is the main problem. That is the main reason for delaying third party cookie removal.

CMA Investigation and Approval Delay

The UK-based Competition and Markets Authority [CMA] is investigating Google’s dominance in digital advertising. Especially, they worried about the dominance of Google in digital advertising, if it controls the current system [third party cookies], and the alternative proposal [Privacy Sandbox].

What is CMA? What kind of investigation do they conduct?

CMA [Competition and Markets Authority] is a UK-based company that investigates anti-competitive practices, reviews company mergers and acquisitions and also, conducts market studies, and provides solutions. 

Almost, all ad tech companies rely on third party cookies for digital advertising. If Google eliminates the third party cookie from its Chrome browser, then those ad tech companies will suffer. Google’s action will weaken its competitors if they do not have replacement technology for third party cookies. 

One of the popular proposals for third party cookies is “Google’s Privacy Sandbox”. If it becomes the dominant alternative, google can control the ad targeting process.

CMA is currently investigating the above two issues. It asks Google and its competitors to submit various documents and data for review. This reviewing process took more time than they expected. So, they delayed giving clearance. 

This is one of the major reasons for Google’s delays in removing third party cookies from the Chrome browser.

Is there any reliable solution for third party cookieless advertising?

Many proposals are available in the market for cookieless advertising. ID5 and Lotame’s Panorama ID are some alternatives ready to test in the cookieless world. But, integration and partnership between platforms will take more time. To my knowledge, there were no solid alternative solutions available for cookieless advertising. 

If Google stops supporting third-party cookies by the end of 2024, almost all ad tech platforms will suffer in reaching users effectively.

Will Google remove third party cookies from Chrome by Q1, 2025?

Google postponed its decision to remove third party cookies many times due to various reasons. Now, they postponed their expected duration for blocking third party cookies from Q4,2024 to Q1, 2025. But, it’s not sure. 

The CMA will approve if it finds Google will not dominate cookieless advertising with its privacy sandbox solution. It depends on the documents and data provided by its competitors.

Also, Google can’t postpone its timeline to remove the third party cookie. So, it will end this game by Q1, 2025.

Conclusion

As many experts predicted, Google postponed its timeline to remove the third party cookies from Q4, 2024 to Q1, 2025. Technical challenges in finding alternatives, and delays in getting approval from CMA are the main reasons for this postponement. I believe, Google never postpones its decision on removing third party cookies from its Chrome browser. 

If you are a digital marketer, reach out to your ad platform and ask them for a cookieless alternative solution. If it has any solutions, then start to use them. 

Have you started to use or test any alternative solutions for third party cookies? If so, share your experience in the comment section.

The post Google Delays Third-Party Cookie Phase Out To 2025, WHY? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Why should we check the legitimacy of a website?

After generative AI and keyword research tools became more popular, many people or groups created websites that looked like premium websites. Their ultimate aim is to make money by showing ads on their website.

They use the AdSense loading method, the cookie loading method, and click intention ad placement to make more money. In this way, they try to cheat the demand side platforms to show ads on their websites.

Maybe your campaign gets a higher CTR from these websites. But, all these clicks are not useful for you.

By excluding these websites, you can deliver your ads on legitimate websites and receive a good CTR that has a high chance to convert. So, finding and excluding these fake websites is very important for campaign success.

But how do you check the legitimacy of a website?

1. Prepare a list of websites

First, run a detailed domain level performance report on your ad platform and identify the websites that have a high CTR but a low conversion rate. In my experience, we can pull this report in 5 to 10 minutes.

List down the top 10 or 20 websites based on their volume. Then start to validate the domain.

2. Website content and design

The first step is to check the website’s content, design, and navigation. As a digital marketer, we visited many websites. So, it can be very easy to identify fake websites.

But you can’t conclude the legitimacy of a website at this stage. If that website passes this step, move on to the next step.

3. Domain rank and age

Many online sources are available to check the age and domain rank of a website. For example, you can check these details on GoDaddy, WHOIS, ahrefs, etc.

If the website’s age is new, then it shouldn’t be legitimate.

4. Check contact info

Usually, legitimate websites share their contact address, phone number, and other details on their website. If they aren’t, then they won’t share the correct addresses, other details.

If the addresses are fake, then you have to consider excluding them.

5. Check ad placement

The illegitimate websites stuff more ads to generate more accidental clicks. This way, they generate more income from the ads.

Three ads per page are usual. If they stuffed more ads, then you have to consider excluding them.

6. Expert Opinion

If you have old campaigns, you can check the historical performance of a website. Also, you can get an expert opinion to determine the legitimacy of a website. Based on their recommendations, you can take action.

Conclusion

In my 11 years of experience, I faced high CTR and low conversion issues many times. I implemented many optimization strategies to fix this problem. One of the important solutions is to analyze the legitimacy of a website that generates more clicks.

It’s very easy to identify illegitimate websites by following the above steps. Some experts may identify the illegitimate websites at first sight. So, it’s always good to hear the experts opinions.

High CTR and low conversion are common problems in programmatic advertising. In that situation, identifying and excluding illegitimate websites are very important to save ad spend and acquire more conversions.

The post How To Check Legitimacy Of High CTR Websites? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

Why should you optimize a CPA campaign?

You should optimize a CPA campaign to use your ad spend effectively. When your campaign’s CPA is low means your conversion is high. I will give you an example to understand this, 

Your campaign’s overall spend is $1000 and your campaign has received 100 conversions. In that case, your campaign’s CPA is $10. That means your campaign has spent $10 on average to acquire one conversion. 

CPA = Total Spend/Total Conversion 

Let’s take it, you optimized and reduced the CPA for this campaign to $5. In that situation, how many conversions you received? 200 conversions. 

Total Conversion = Total Spend/CPA 

So, when you reduce your campaign’s CPA your campaign will get more conversions. So only you need to optimize your campaign to reduce the CPA.

How to reduce the CPA of your DV360 campaign?

In the digital advertising industry, most job vacancies are available for DV360. So, this answer will help you to answer in the DV360 Interview. Note that you can apply a similar strategy to any DSP.

Some DV360 campaign managers set a very low CPA goal in their campaign at the start. This is not the correct way. When you set a very low CPA at the start, your campaign will aim to reach that CPA goal. So, it will restrict the delivery and aim to acquire the conversions. Mostly, this kind of campaign ends up with under-delivery with low performance. 

Whenever you start a performance campaign, you must set a reasonable goal (CPA). Once started, wait for one or two weeks to run. Suppose, your campaign is performing as you expected, you can slowly optimize your campaign to boost the performance. 

If not, it’s very important to analyze the campaign performance and make the necessary optimizations to improve the performance.

Bid Optimization

Let’s take it, initially, you kept the CPA goal as $15 and your campaign’s current CPA is about $15 or more. Also, this campaign delivered more impressions than we required. 

In that situation, your campaign has more opportunity for delivery. So, you can reduce the CPA goal slightly. For example, $12. When we change the CPA goal, it affects the current delivery pattern. So, suddenly do not reduce the more.

Creative Optimization

Many campaign managers ignore the creative part in their optimization. But, creatives play an important role in campaign performance. Creatives with compelling images and messages should help to bring more conversions. 

In DV360, you can use the A/B testing feature to test and optimize the creative performance. 

So, always focus on identifying and running the best creative that resonates best with your audience and brings more conversions.

Landing Page Optimization

Ad platform and all your strategies will help to bring audiences to the landing page. You have to optimize the landing pages to improve the conversion rate. For example, easy to navigate, places forms in the direct landing page, has less conversion journey, has good landing page speed, etc.

Site Optimization

To gain more conversions, you have to bring more users to your landing page. So, you have to improve the CTR. In your optimization part, run the site or app-level performance report and exclude the sites that have received low CTR.

I always start with site optimization when I tried to improve my campaigns performance.

Additional Optimization Tips

When you optimize your campaign, give time for optimizing. Then do the next optimization. Also, create more line items with different goals and targetings to identify the best targeting. 

Use different creative variations and continue to run the best performing creative sets.

Conclusion

To reduce CPA for your campaign, you have to optimize your campaign at various levels. By implementing the above strategies and closely monitoring the campaign performance, you can reduce the CPA of your campaign from $50 to $10.

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The post Your current CPA is $50, What are the possible ways to optimize towards a $10 CPA? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.

As a programmatic advertising manager, I have one common question. I hope you are all having the same question in your mind. 

Can we use conversion API for programmatic advertising in the cookieless environment? 

You will get the answer at the end of this article. In this article, I have answered the following common questions about Conversion API. So, you will get a complete clarification about Conversion API. 

• History of Conversion API
• What is Conversion API? How does it work?
• What are the ad platforms currently support Conversion API?
• Advantages of Conversion API
• Can we use Conversion API for programmatic advertising in a cookieless environment? 
• Conclusion

History of Conversion API

Over the years, major improvements continuously happened in online privacy, browser policies, and regulations. A few years back, Safari and Firefox completely stopped third-party cookie tracking capabilities. As of now, the major browser Chrome disabled third-party cookie capability for its 1% of users, and it promises to remove it for the remaining users soon. 

Tracking user data on the client’s website is very important for running a performance-based campaign. Based on the tracking data only, platforms can understand and target the users more effectively to acquire more conversions. 

After Safari and Firefox stopped third-party cookie tracking, one of the major advertising platforms Facebook struggled to track the user’s data from the advertisers website. So, Facebook decided to find a new solution for collecting user’s data even though the browser does not support third-party cookies. 

Any cookie or pixel code different than the original domain is considered a third-party cookie. So, Facebook pixel codes are automatically blocked as third-party cookies in both Safari and Firefox. 

To my knowledge, Facebook introduced the Conversion API [Server Side API] in 2018 to address privacy concerns and browser restrictions. Later many ad platforms including Google, TikTok, and more introduced their own Conversion APIs for their platforms. 

When you search about the Conversion API on the internet, all the articles are related to Facebook Conversion API. Facebook introduced this solution first and mostly, all of them are similar to the Facebook’s Conversion API. This could be the reason.

What is Conversion API? How does it work?

Conversion API or Server Side API is a tool that allows advertisers to send user data [user ID, user interaction data] directly from their Website Server to the Ad Platform Server such as Facebook Server.

In the traditional pixel method, we create a pixel in the Facebook platform and ask the client to paste the code on their website. Whenever people browse the client’s website, the Facebook pixel code fires and sends data to the Facebook Server.

Due to restrictions or other reasons on the browser, Facebook pixel is not able to collect and send data to Facebook Ads Platform. Below are the common challenges of tracking user data in this method,

• The browser plays a crucial part in firing the pixel code. If the browser does not support third-party cookies then Facebook can not track user data. 
• Ad blockers have trouble tracking user data 
• Brower latency issues trouble tracking user data 

In all the above situations, the website stores the user’s data in the website server. So, Facebook finds an API to get the data from the website server to its server.

Instead of relying on browser functionalities, the conversion API allows the data transfer from website server to Facebook server. 

When users interact with the website, always the data information is sent to the website server. From here, all the user data is directly sent to the Facebook Ad server using this API. Here, the browser’s functionalities and other blocking will not affect Facebook’s tracking.  

Facebook collects conversion data from both the pixel method and conversion API method. Later, it removes the duplicate conversion data.

What are the ad platforms currently support Conversion API?

You can not use Conversion API capability for all ad platforms. If your ad platform has the Conversion API then you can use it. Here are the major ad platforms that support conversion APIs. 

• Facebook Ads Manager
• Google Ads 
• TikTok Ads
• Snapchat Ads
• Pinterest Ads
• X Ads
• OpenX
• Adform
• The Trade Desk

Introducing Conversion API is a needed functionality to track conversions on all environments, including the cookielss environment.

Advantages of Conversion API

Conversion API has many advantages over traditional pixel tracking methods. Here are a few advantages of conversion API for your reference. 

• Ad platforms can track user’s data in the cookieless environment. Ad blockers and browser latency will not affect Conversion API.   
• Ad platforms track the conversion events from the client’s website server without loss. It includes shopping, ad-to-cart, website interactions, and more. 
• Using this data, ad platforms can optimize campaigns to run the ad campaigns more effectively. 
• Clients can segment this data and target the users back. For example, they can re-target users who leave without completing a purchase. 
• Ad platforms can do ad personalization and real-time optimization through this data.

Can we use Conversion API for programmatic advertising in a cookieless environment?

As a programmatic advertising manager, it’s very important to know the capability of conversion API for doing programmatic advertising. The main purpose of introducing the Conversion API is to collect user’s activities in all circumstances. Also, this Conversion API is more suitable for social media advertising. 

The conversion API is not a perfect solution for programmatic advertising in the cookieless environment. Using conversion API, the programmatic ad platform can collect users data directly from the advertiser’s website server to their server.

Tracking user behaviour on the third party website is very important for showing interest based advertisements. Using the conversion API, the ad platform can’t track the user behaviour on the third party website. So, it’s not possible.

To do the programmatic advertising in the cookieless environment, centric ID solutions should be needed. It may be ID5, Panorama ID, etc. 

These third-party solution providers have partnered with large publishers around the world to collect user data in the cookieless environment. Based on the visitor’s email id or phone number and from the soft signals they allocate an ID for each user. 

By partnering with those third party solution providers, you can create IDs for your visitors. By matching those IDs you can retarget them on the third party website.

If your programmatic ad platform has partnered with these third-party solution providers, they provide services to create segments. Using those segments you can target people in the cookieless environment. 

Each ID solution has different coverage and capabilities. So, you have to be very careful when choosing the ID solutions. 

Already, I have written a detailed article that explains the functionality of Trade Desks UID 2.0. Similarly, all other ID solutions are working. So, check out this article for a better understanding of ID solutions.

Conclusion

Many digital marketers looking for an alternative way to do similar advertising in the cookieless environment. Many proposals are available including Conversion API. As per my findings, conversion API is a alternative solution for Social Media Advertising, and it’s not suitable for programmatic advertising.

If you are using any social media advertising, then check with your ad platforms and implement conversion API as soon as possible. I have mentioned the ad platforms that support conversion API above. 

To do the programmatic advertising in the cookieless environment, you must contract with ID solutions like ID5, Lotame, etc. Many DSPs started associating with this kind of ID solution to support the advertisers. 

Check with your current DSP about the cookieless advertising alternatives and start to test their effectiveness before Chrome eliminates third-party cookie functionality for remaining users.

If you are using or trying any cookieless solutions, mention the details in the comment section.

Checkout the following articles :

How does trade desk UID 2.0 work?

Alternative solutions available for the Cookieless Advertising

The post What is Conversion API? Is it an alternative to Cookieless Advertising? first appeared on Marketing Strategy.