Some Personal News

#35 (D)OOH Deep Dive - backlinks worth building - re-thinking attribution

Apr 16, 2023

Happy Sunday. A longer newsletter today - a result of spending a rejuvenating week away from the day job. To those I spoke to or spent time with in-person - thank you. A very warm welcome to all the new subscribers. I’m thrilled to have you as readers and truly appreciate your feedback and support.

Let’s dig in.

Ad Tech + Attribution Models

Google shared this week that it’s culling several of its Attribution Models. 4 no less.

This is a big deal. No more First-Click, Linear, Time-Decay, or Position-Based.

As of 6/1 this year, all we’ll be left with is Data-Driven and Last Click models. The link above pairs even better with this article, which explains that “Last Click” isn't always just the last click in Google’s eyes – it’s the “Google Ads Last Click.” Triple check that you’re not using “Ads Preferred Last Click” … it sounds the same but isn’t.

It's no secret the walled gardens have been removing control from marketers ever since User Privacy became a hot topic and data accuracy became scarce. Google and Facebook both have been raising those walls with Modeled Conversions, deletion of User IDs, and AI-driven campaigns. And now, this - further ensuring that only Google can tell you which campaigns work or don't work.

Without wading into a philosophical debate, what can be done right now – besides switching tools?

Make sure you don’t use Ads Preferred Last Click and use the “normal” one instead.
Between now and 6/1, switch attribution model settings in Google Ads if you use Linear, Time Decay, or other to-be-deprecated models in your top-funnel campaigns. It will buy you time until 9/1.
While data is still there, compare the performance you see under your current preferred attribution model versus GA4 DDA (assuming you have GA4 already implemented – if you don’t, now’s the time!) to understand the impact.
Consider splitting your donor lifecycle into more steps (Cash prospect, Cash Donation, Monthly prospect, Monthly Donation, and others I’ve mentioned before) and report on those using Last Click to get full visibility.
Shout if you need help or a neutral perspective in convo’s you’re having about this.

In other Ad-related discoveries this week, the IAB and PWC concluded that advertising grew in 2022, but at a slower pace - up 11% versus a rise of 35% seen in 2021. The rise in 2020 was 12% so you could argue this is more normalization. The study noted a shift in money to retail media and newTV.

5 Types of Backlinks Worth Building

Not all backlinks are created equal.

I’ve built better off-page SEO by focusing on the following:

1. Editorial links - the most valuable. Other sites citing you as a source is the gold standard. Apart from earning them organically, you can get these via HARO or the more obvious - connecting with journalists directly.

2. Guest posts: These are best to do on authoritative sites where your target audience is spending time. I wouldn’t trust ChatGPT to write this just yet - this needs to be really good.

3. Relationship-based links: Say you’ve received a link from a reputable site. If you reach out to the site owner with an offer to contribute more info it could lead to more links in the future. The point isn’t to negotiate for links but to become a reliable source for journalists and writers.

4. Public speaking: Taking part as a guest on podcasts, webinars, online courses, and conferences not only creates natural linking opportunities - it also underlines expertise (important since Google’s algorithm looks for EEAT).

5. Reverse backlinks: Instead of reaching out about backlinks, create content that people can't help but link to. Original research is the big lever here - you’re sitting on masses on fantastic data - other articles will cite your findings.

And avoid:

• Posting on forums without meaningfully adding to the discussion.

• Paying for links (against Google's ToS).

• Sites that add "nofollow" tags to their external links. No real point since it won't count!

Focus on quality.

Crush it with OOH -la-la

The warm weather of this past week in NYC got me dreaming about being “Out of Home”, so let’s go there -

Think physical and digital billboards, subway ads, posters, signs that are being spun on the corner pointing to a car wash, wrapping a car, bus, or delivery truck with your brand, planes that fly with a flag behind them…

Until recently, OOH advertising used to be mostly analog, but with the innovation of companies like Clear Channel, OUTFRONT, and Intersection there’s a new category of digital OOH (or “DOOH”) which unlocks not only more revenue for the owners of the digital inventory, but also more capabilities for non-profits as well.

If you’re in New York City, you’ll see these along the sidewalk, at bus stops, or even above the taxi’s (the irony is that the digital ads on top of taxi’s are powered by Uber’s OOH platform).

Historically, OOH has always been best used for brand awareness. But it’s hard to track, the estimated people who view a billboard is quite literally a guess, and there’s no way someone can “click” a billboard to get to your landing page. So, how can you use OOH effectively as a non-profit that’s focused on driving a return with every marketing dollar spent? I’ll focus on the performance side first, and then suggest some unique use cases of how else to use it.

What data is available, and how/when should you use OOH?

First off, when running an OOH campaign, you don’t have much “data” available to leverage. When you run Facebook ads, you can actually see that someone watched a video for 9.17 seconds, then clicked the ad, then landed on the donation page using a Chrome browser from an iPhone etc.

With OOH, the only piece of data you might get, is mobile device ID data. How do you get that? You don’t. But 15% of people are opted-in to sharing their mobile device location data, whether or not they know it. It’s usually derived from your “free” apps that you have on your phone - it might be weather, a game, a streaming service, or something else. But when you’re getting something for free (whether it’s a game or a table at a club) YOU are the product.

In this case, because you have some game on your phone, I can see by using AdQuick that you walked past my billboard, and then see if your same mobile device came to make a donation on my website. AdQuick can understand the percentage of people who are “opted-in”, which is usually about 15%, and then build an attribution model around the incremental lift driven from your OOH campaign.

This is similar to how Adgile works with their product, Polygon. When you go into Target or Walmart, Polygon can detect that your mobile device ID walked into Target, and then as a brand, I can buy an audience of customers who visit Target, Walmart or really any geographic location, and load it into any digital ads platform.

Take Sephora, for example - whose loyalty marketing I think is sublime. If I sold a lip-balm exclusively in Sephora, I can pay for that audience, load it into FB, and run ads to you, knowing you visit Sephora 2-3x per quarter. This technology is how Adgile’s truckside billboards are direct response. They can upload the routes of the truck into Polygon, get the anonymized list of people who saw the truck in passing, and then you, as the brand, can retarget people who saw your truck.

That’s probably the main way to leverage OOH as a direct-response channel. Does it sound sort of creepy? Maybe… but don’t forget you have an Alexa, Google Home, and 57 pixels on every website you visit. The good news is that all this data is anonymized .

What about other use cases for OOH to be effective?

Brand awareness is an easy one. Seeding an annual fundraising campaign? Launching a new market or celebrating a seasonal brand collab? OOH could make perfect sense to run alongside your other channels.

Some non-profit sell products. Others do collabs with big brands. When we launched UNICEF Kid Power in collaboration with the StarWars franchise (a “wearable for good” similar to a FitBit but for kids) we wanted to show Target that we were as invested in driving sell-through as they were. We did this through leveraging our organic social, our email list, our paid social. Nothing gets retail buyers more excited than seeing your brand telling people that they can walk into their store and buy the product. To them, it shows that you’re committed to spending money and building the partnership, and it drives more foot traffic. Buyers want more people coming into the store and they want people buying more items per visit. If you’re contributing to that goal, you’re the golden child in their eyes. I also think it’s incredible social proof and credibility for your own brand to say that you’re now sold in a nationally-recognized retailer.

Lastly, using OOH similar to how you would build out media plans for your promotions is another way to think of it. Zillow does a great job of this - when they launch a new campaign across digital, you see that reflected in New York City subway stations or behind home plate at a baseball game. The Economist do this very well too. OOH is just another media channel to get your message out there, and drive awareness for whatever your current campaign is.

In any case, it’s important to include your logo prominently, and maybe a QR code or an easy URL to visit. You’re not going to get a ton of scans or URL visits (for the most part), so don’t be thinking you’re going to be able to back the media buy into a reasonable CPC.

Cost and how to buy inventory?

You want to be smart and focused with your experiments to better gauge ROI. Start with small tests using remnant or last-minute inventory. You can test OOH, effectively, with about $25-50k. You don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to see a positive return.

With OOH, research companies like: Adgile, Outfront Media, Kinetic Worldwide, Clear Channel Outdoor. The problem is that the placement is just one piece of it - just like the FB ads platform is one piece of the online customer journey.

There are also online platforms like AdQuick that exist where you can browse and book billboards - just like you would an Airbnb - however you’ll need to pay a membership to get into their catalog. Then you can buy billboards across the country with just a few clicks. The downside here is you might not understand the culture and the local context of a billboard when buying this way.

Like any other ad buy, you need to search for the inventory, evaluate their placement, who it’s targeting, what the creative is, the KPI you’re tracking against, pricing and the end results. If you feel confident that you’ll hit the things you need, then you can make that buy with confidence.

It’s easy to spend a ton of money with OOH ads that’s not efficient, which is why I like partnering with a single agency to help evaluate everything from the placement to the audience and the creative. Then you also don’t need to worry about if the billboard went up, if the posters stuck to the sides of buildings were pasted over and hidden etc. They take care of all that for you (at least the good ones do!).

How to make an OOH ad stand out?

The biggest variable for success in OOH advertising is your creative execution. OOH is not a channel where you want to “play it safe.” Typically, you want to create and run eye-catching creative that will make people literally stop in their tracks (obviously far easier said than done).

Bright colors, bold CTAs, powerful copy, and creative imagery is what you should be going for here. You need to think outside of the box and push your creative boundaries to get this done.

A few of my favorite OOH campaigns include:

Airbnb - "Live There" - featured billboards in major cities around the world - the message of the campaign was when you stay in an Airbnb, you don't just visit a city, you live there.
Netflix - "Narcos" - Netflix launched the campaign to promote its original series. The campaign featured billboards and bus shelters in LA that looked like they’d been vandalized with bullet holes and graffiti. Controversial, maybe - but it got people talking about the show.
Apple - "Shot on iPhone" - need I say more? Super memorable. Great execution.

Memorable moments and repurposing:

The point is that these brands flexed their creative muscles and pushed hard to create what Google calls “memorable moments” for their brands that they could reference and repurpose for a long time.

If you’re smart about using OOH, it’s not just the installation. It’s also about the videos, images, donor generated content, press coverage and other earned media that you can get from creative and memorable OOH campaigns.

It’s all about being smart and knowing exactly how to leverage and repurpose your OOH activations to drive the most impact that you can.

That was a lot, what are the key takeaways?

OOH is a relevant channel when you’ve have found success on traditional digital channels and want to find other smart places to invest in building your org’s awareness.
Buying OOH is easier than you think. Find an agency who can take care of you end-to-end, and let them guide you through making the best investment.
Focus on “memorable moments” and producing eye-catching creative that can stop people in their tracks to notice your org.
Get smart about how and where you can reuse and repurpose your OOH campaigns.
Spend with ROI in mind. Like anything else in marketing and digital fundraising, you should test and learn to see what works and then double down on the campaigns that perform for your org. OOH is the same. Use it as a tool, and have some fun!