The Daily Carnage

The savvy marketer's hub for industry news, insights, resources, and culture.

Today’s Issue

Elbow Grease 💪

How to clean your lists.

Issues

View All

The “WTF Does That Mean” Podcast Glossary

OCTOBER 3, 2021

pod·cast | noun – /ˈpädˌkast/

a digital audio file made available on the internet, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically.

So you wanna advertise on podcasts, huh? It can be one of the best channels for reaching audiences at their full attention and with specific targeting. But planning, assessing creative, tracking, and measurement for advertising on podcasts comes with its own set of rules and jargon.

SXM Media made the “podcabulary” glossary to give you all the industry essentials and pro vocab.

Back to basics. Types of podcast ads:

Host-read ad – When a host talks about an ad in this native podcast ad experience using talking points from a brand.
Announcer-read ad – An “announcer” voice is cast to fit the podcast to create an ad to run seamlessly across multiple networks and/or shows.
Client-provided ad – A brand can provide their own podcast ad based on a platforms parameters.
PE (personal experience) – When a host uses a product or service and shares their personal experience.
Types of ad breaks – pre-roll ad, mid-roll ad, post-roll ad

Here are some of the specific terms to know for podcast advertising:

Cross-platform packaging – This is a plan to distribute an ad across audio-based platforms like streaming music or satellite radio.
Dynamically inserted ad – Inserting ads, either client-provided, announcer-read, or host-read, at the time of download. So different listeners would be hearing different ads as opposed to baked-in ads.
Vignettes – This combines a host read ad with storytelling. These 2 to 3-minute produced spots are dynamically inserted and run in the mid-roll position.
Transcription targeting – Ad technology that transcribes audio from episodes into text, then sorts them into categories. This means you can target (or anti-target) content at the episode-level.

Check out the full glossary from SXM Media for more podcast pro lingo!

Have You Heard?

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

Listen up! If you aren’t advertising on streaming platforms by now…why not? They’re engaged and targeted and full of options. Today, the Carney team wants to break down the two main types of Spotify ads for ya.

Read it and weep:

2021 stats for the major streaming platforms:

Like what you see? Grab the cheat sheet for yourself!

Download it or share it with: bit.ly/carneyaudioads

NFTs and What They Mean for Marketers

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

Non-fungible tokens…Heard of ‘em? They’re kind of all over the place right now, but what the heck are they? Well, let’s give ya the crash course from Medium.

What are NFTs?

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a type of cryptographic token that represents a unique digital asset. It is based on blockchain technology, like cryptocurrencies. Basically, while both are are blockchain-verified, cryptocurrency is treated like dollar bills (non-unique), and NFTs are treated like pieces of art (one of a kind). NFTs, though, are not mutually interchangeable.

Who Cares?

Well, there have been some crazy NFT sales out there that have the attention of investors piqued. For brand marketers, the rise of NFTs brings a whole world of new marketing possibilities. Let’s get into some of the big NFT marketing ideas:

Creating Scarcity: DLC for video games and in-app purchases are familiar examples. NFTs make that DLC more exclusive or collectible. We’re seeing this on a commercial scale with the console wars and system-exclusive games. Creating digital goods to be rare is where NFTs come to play.
Rethinking Monetization: Today, most digital content is being monetized via platforms, like Facebook, podcasts, or Hulu, as ad middleman. NFTs shift the ownership back to creators. As Apple continues to shake up traditional digital advertising, NFTs might be the new remedy.
Tokenizing Access: Gated content, experiences, and services can all be individually made NFTs. For brands, that means a new way to think about access management, again without third parties.

What’s Next?

Dunno! There are several industries like retail and entertainment most interested in NFTs. Experimentation and new media models are happening now, but one of the biggest roadblocks is going to be that NFTs are in a wild West as far as regulations.

Check out Medium’s full piece for examples of brands already breaking into NFTs!

Understanding Keyword Matches for Your Google Ads Strategy

SEPTEMBER 26, 2021

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! The world of advertising with Google is always changing. Ready to play some catch-up? Here’s your Google advice straight from the horse’s mouth: Use broad match paired with Smart Bidding. This strategy makes you more likely to hit relevant searches as well as higher conversions.

But let’s get into why that is a good strategy. Here are three things to know about matching keywords for your Google Ads strategy:

What are your intentions? Much of Google’s updates in the past few years have all been about user intent. Now, can we read minds? No. Can models and algorithms come close to it? You betcha. But sometimes long or complex searches can have hard-to-translate intentions. Broad match keywords can match to a variety of queries and relate keywords to each other for results that are more relevant to a user’s intent.
Matchy matchy keywords. Now Google doesn’t always give up the secret formula, but they do give us ingredients here and there. The Google ranking truth to know here is that an exact match keyword that is identical to a query is now always preferred as long as it’s eligible to match. That goes for both phrase and broad match keywords as well!
Group Mentality. Now, this isn’t so much about keyword matches, but an organizational reminder. For the sake of tracking and improving your ads, Google reminds advertisers that grouping your ads thematically, then breaking down a group depending on how it performed is your best starting point for optimizing keywords.

In general, Google has also simplified the keyword matching process when building ads. But, Google always suggests experimenting in your Recommendations Page with drafts and exploring Smart Bidding keyword suggestions.

Check out Google’s full keyword announcement for specific cases and examples of keyword matches.

Four Ways To Amplify Your Team’s Creativity

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

While there is no single formula for creativity, there are a lot of ways to get a team’s creativity flowing. Fostering an open place for ideas to be heard is the best way to make it happen, but how can leaders help?

Here are some ways you can boost your team’s creativity so they’re ready to take on any challenge or bring new ideas to the table.

1. Autonomy: It’s no surprise that trusted employees are more likely to be engaged and have better performance. One way to show some trust is by providing flexibility and autonomy so employees can work at their natural energy levels.
2. Retreats: This is all within budgetary constraints, but your team might be in dire need of a change of scenery or a change of pace. Give them a break! A retreat can come in all shapes, sizes, and durations. Even just a few hours away from the daily grind could do wonders. The trick is not to dangle a step away from work just to overwork your team after it’s over.
3. Diversity: Variety is the spice of life. Diversity is vital for bringing different perspectives. A more diverse team offers more voices, experiences, and solutions. A variety of backgrounds and skills working together is going to end up with much more creative problem solving overall.
4. Rethinking: There’s a lot of power to be found in processes. Unfortunately, tight processes can crush creativity. On occasion, you need to review, break, and rebuild systems to see where you could find more innovative thinking. Since everything is constantly changing, being actively open to defying the same old same old is your way to unlocking creative solutions.

Are you already doing this as a leader? Pat yourself on the back. If not, maybe it’s time to look at ways you can support the creativity and innovation of your team. Check out the full Forbes article for examples of how to do that.

Google Changes to Know for 2022

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

It’s no secret that Google switches it up on us every now and then (even though sometimes those changes are a secret to us). Keywords will always matter, but here are the big six changes to be aware of for your SEO and ranking on Google.

No. 1: It’s the MUM Era – Google had previously launched BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) which understands intent from search queries. Well now there’s MUM. MUM (Multitask United Mode) is Google’s new interpretation model that uses more conversational queries, analyzes video content, and has a higher language count.

No. 2: A Little More Conversation – Google unveiled LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a machine-learning model designed for dialogue. LaMDA wants to have a conversation and provide results based on what users feed it.

No. 3: Shopping is Serious Business – The Shopping search engine has found new life. Google’s Shopping Graph, Linked Loyalty Programs, discount searching, and more cart reminders are among some new shopping features.

No. 4: Just Rank an Excerpt – Can’t rank your page? Just rank for a part of it, then. “Passage indexing” or “passage ranking” allows a page to rank for a specific part instead of ranking for the whole page.

No. 5: Key Moments from Video – Googled will launch two new video structured data types that can give users content for a “Suggested Clips” tab from your videos. Clip markup and Seek markup let you pull out key moments from your videos.

No. 6: Core Web Vitals – Page experience is going to play a larger role in ranking. This is based off of Google’s Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics that measure a page’s load speed from a user experience perspective.

Check out Single Grain’s full piece for more deets on Google’s technical specs, retail examples, and Core Web Vitals.

Your Guide to Content Syndication

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

Sometimes you wanna get your content to the masses, right? You need some content syndication in your life. Content syndication is publishing your online content on a third-party platform. The big benefits are to grow your traffic, grow your brand awareness, and generate more leads.

It’s a marketing quid pro quo. The third-party site gets your sick content to plug with your byline, and your content gets a whole new set of eyeballs on it. Content syndication can mean:

Republishing a piece entirely
Publishing a shorter version of the piece
Posting an excerpt or summary from the original piece

It’s as simple as a copy and paste situation, though. It takes a strategy, so let’s get into it.

The content has to be link-worthy. Ensure that the content you make is relevant, high quality stuff that other sites would want to post.

The platforms should be a right fit. What sites would your target audience read? Then what would those platforms publish?

The content has to be tagged properly. The method of tagging helps tell search engines the content isn’t plagiarized. Use a rel=canonical tag, a meta no index tag, or regular backlinks.

The performance needs to be tracked. Engagement, qualified leads, conversion rate, and win rate are the biggies to keep up with from your syndicated content.
The strategy should evolve. Try different methods and platforms, or reuse them as needed.

So we said it takes some finessing. Sometimes syndication could actually work against you. We advise to screen sites ahead of time and be wary of the risk that your syndicated content could outrank your original content SEO-wise.

We can’t fit everything about syndication, but G2 can! Their Learn Hub piece is chock full of examples and specifics, so check it out!

6 Tips for Your Gamification Strategy

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

What is a gamification strategy? A gamification strategy is using gaming techniques to incentivize something. It’s especially prevalent in online communities, workforces, and software participation.

How can you use it in your business model? Here are some tips before you get started with a gamification strategy:

It’s for the long haul: One of the chief things to avoid when it comes to gamification in the workplace is going too deep too early but treating it like a one-and-done program. Think through gamification in ongoing, longer terms, and how it could benefit an individual user.
Chill on just rewards: People love prizes, but they’re all about the engagement, too. If you focus too heavily on the rewards aspect, gamification isn’t sustainable.
Make sure it’s open to all: Help every user that comes across your gamification understand how the game works, what the goals are, and how to succeed. Keep it accessible to anyone who wants to interact with it.
It’s not all about the top dogs: We’re not advocating a whole bunch of participation awards, but you have to reward engagement. Granted, winners have a huge influence on usage, but all users make the dream work.
Give creative rewards: Back on the topic of prizes, Get creative with them. Prizes don’t have to be physical when you can also offer things like small shout-outs.
Track and report: As with any strategy, time to analyze the performance. How does gamification perform against your brand goals?

Is a gamification strategy or program right for your business? Read more on the strategy with EveryoneSocial’s piece about it.

The Case for Ugly Design

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? After all, ugly is a pretty subjective term. But when it comes to design, there are standards, and sometimes rules. What happens if you break them? Sometimes: eye sores. Other times: magic.

That’s when you can make a case for “ugly” design and when breaking the rules is a good move. Here are some reasons designers are doing that:

It’s a Philosophy: Beautiful is boring! The idea is that shedding the tradition away from your design will leave you with genuine, interesting, “smarter” results. It’s that “down with the man” fire in designers’ bellies that drives them.

It’s Progressive: This is where the philosophy can get a little deeper than design, but beauty standards, filters, and edited photos get into a new layer of editorial design that is starting to become out of touch. Be real! Be raw!

It Defies “The Grid”: Non-traditional layouts break you out of the same editorial boxes that many designers find themselves repeating.

It’s a Whole Typeface Movement: Reject the standards! Fonts can mark whole movements in time. There’s a resurgence in experimentation and the blending of serifs and sans serif type faces.

Fun Fact on “Grotesque” (a.k.a. Grotesk, Gothic) – Generally, grotesque is used as a synonym for sans serif fonts. It all started with an 1815 set of sans serif fonts that were affectionately referred to as “grotesque” because they were thought to be ugly for publishing.

It’s Freeing: Just give the people what they want. People are complex. And weird. And distracted. Free your design, and you may just capture their attention.

Check out Fast Company’s piece for visual examples and a deeper dive into the uggo philosophies.

Stay creative out there, creatives.