Hey friends, in today's email we will be discussing:

The click is a lie: Why we should stop looking at click data when determining the success of display advertising.

The key to success: With the new year coming up, it's a good time to plan for next year. Let's plan to improve our image and performance.

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The Click is a Lie!

When I worked as a display marketer, I had my manager share an article with me, called “The Click is a Lie”. At first, I thought this was a joke, but after reading I believed that this was the only way. The article can be found here, but it’s from 2015, so be mindful of that.

Today I want to talk about why I still believe that the click is a lie.

We just had Black Friday and today is Cyber Monday. Out of curiosity, how many people here are using display ads to sell their service and or product? How many are using Meta Ads and optimizing towards a brand awareness strategy? And how many of you who are using these tactics, are looking at Google Analytics to determine its success?

Look, I get it. Using Google Analytics is a blessing! I mean, we can look at the performance of all of our campaigns. It’s great. It can tell you exactly how many people have come from each channel. But haven’t you noticed that the Direct Default Channel Grouping in Google Analytics is always performing greatly? While some of your Meta and Display ads might perform terribly?

Meta is an easy example. Say you set up a new campaign. You’ll be asked what your objective will be for the campaign. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll create 2 campaigns. 1 campaign will optimize to website traffic (clicks) and one will optimize towards purchases. We’ll be using the same audience and ads, so no other differences.

By having these 2 campaigns, Meta will be looking at different people within your audience. Technically the audience is the same, however, Meta will target people differently based on their behaviour. For clicks, the system will start looking for people who are more likely to click on an ad. For the system, it doesn’t matter what they do next. We just need clicks.

If we then go have a look at Google Analytics, we will see an increase in clicks, however, we won’t see anything else. They simply won’t take any actions, they just click. The conversion rate will look terrible, but technically Meta did what we asked it to do.

Now when we look at a campaign that is optimizing towards purchases, we tell Meta to find people who are more likely to make a purchase. With this, the system doesn’t try to find people who simply click on an ad, no it’s looking for people that would take an action on the website.

What the system will do, is see if there is anyone who would be willing to go to the website after seeing an ad on the platform. Regardless if people do this by clicking on the ad, or getting to the website differently. They might open their browser start searching for your brand and click on your Google Branded ad to enter your website. They would then make a purchase, which will also be recorded by Meta.

Well guess what, now Meta shows that it got a purchase, but in Google Analytics it’ll show that Google Ads generate the sale. If we would just look at Google Analytics when determining the performance of our Meta Ad that is optimizing towards purchases, we would say it’s a terrible campaign!

In the end, it’s quite simple. Google Analytics does everything based on click data. But what if you run a display campaign with Google and optimize for brand awareness? You’d have the same issue. Think about it, when was the last time you clicked on a banner on a website that wasn’t a missclick?

With Google Display you might be able to work with viewthrough conversions, however, with Meta you’re kind of screwed. Meta determines its performance based on impression data and click data. Google Analytics doesn’t have the impression data, so you get a part of the story.

I hope that one day we can have impression data from Meta in Google, but as long as we don’t, we should not determine Meta’s success based on metrics we find in Google Analytics.

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Beyond Performance: The Key to Career Success

If you’ve been here for a while, you know I am a huge believer in the PIE model by Harvey J Coleman. To be successful in your career you don’t just want to put your head down and do your work. No, instead, you want to make sure the right people are aware of your work and you work on your brand.

As a reminder, PIE stands for:

Performance: which is all about your work. The day-to-day tasks you’re working on and the quality you deliver.

Image: This is what other people think of you. It’s your personal brand. How are you being seen by others? Are you being seen as a positive person? Do you lead with solutions instead of problems?

Exposure: Who knows about you and the work that you’re doing? Does your manager know what you are working on and what you do? Do other people in your department know what you’re doing?

You might think that working hard at your performance is all you should do. This should be the focus, no? That’s maybe what your manager would say. However, according to Harvey J Coleman’s study, only 10% of your performance counts towards your success. 30% of your success is allocated to your image, and a whopping 60% is attributed to your exposure.

What does that all mean? Well, you might have been so focused on your performance, that you forgot to focus on your image and exposure.

Look, I have been there myself. I used to just focus on the performance. I tried to know everything about Meta and fully understand its platforms. I would say, I am a specialist, I’m not good at communication and it’s not important. Well, guess what, it is! I even got angry when I didn’t get a promotion, even though I thought I deserved it. Hence I even thought that the people who would constantly share what they were doing, were full of shit.

I always thought it was a waste of time to tell everybody what they were doing. Why aren’t they focused on their work as a specialist instead?

Years later I came to understand how important it is to focus on my image and my exposure. I started to make sure that people internally (wherever I would work), knew me as someone who could solve issues. Someone who is data-driven. Someone who you can have a brainstorming session with.

For my exposure, I started sharing weekly and monthly updates internally. All to make sure that people are aware of the work that I am doing. I don’t want them to guess what I am doing, I want them to know what I am doing.

With that refresher, I am curious about what you’re working on. We are approaching a new year, which is always a good time to reflect on last year and think about what we want to focus on next.

Instead of just thinking about the tactics and campaigns you might be creating, I would ask you to see where your tactics would fit. If it’s all performance-based, I would ask you to think about work that would improve your image and exposure. Performance is always the easiest to work on, as it’s just your work. But instead of just doing your work, what will you be doing to improve the other two?

Here are some initial ideas you can try to improve your image and exposure.

Let’s start with the image. To determine what you need to work on, figure out how people see you right now. Maybe even ask your manager or peers for some feedback. How do they see you? And what is your ideal image? Do you want to be seen as a problem solver? Maybe you want to be known as the expert on a specific aspect of marketing (for example you want to be known as the technical marketer). Maybe you are someone who can organize things in the team. Use your strengths to improve your image. Again, it’s 30% of your work.

The other one is exposure. And this one is a little more scary, as you need to share things with others. People might judge you (which no one likes). However, this part impacts your success by 60%! Meaning that it’s really important. Trust me, everyone has trouble with this component. But we have to do it. You can start making it easy for yourself by sharing your work with your manager. Don’t ask them if you’re doing well. No, tell them what you’ve done and what your next focus is. It’s more of an FYI than anything else. After you’ve done that for a while, share a short update with the department every week.

This is how I started sharing insights with my colleagues as well. Every week on Friday I share the 3 key highlights of my work. Every highlight is 1 sentence. Which could be anything. For example, last Friday I shared that I set up all the Cyber Monday ads on the platforms that we’re using. It’s that simple. But it also makes sure that everyone in my department knows that the ads are ready to go live on Cyber Monday. And that is my goal!

So in December, think about improving your image and exposure, instead of only your performance. Write it down. If you need ideas, feel free to reply to this email. Next year you’ll be even better than you are right now! It’s all about progress.

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Podcast episode(s) you'd love

• ​Think Fast, Talk Smart: Don't Sweat the Small Talk. I always felt that small talk was kind of dull and could be seen as boring and a waste of time. But instead in this podcast, Matt talks about how small talk can build great relationships. Instead of being interesting, you should be interested.

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Found any interesting articles yourself? Please share it with me, as I am always interested in learning something new.

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