We already explained in previous articles how to improve conversion tracking with Google Enhanced Conversions. In this article, we’ll explain how to implement it manually, using Google Tag Manager and a dataLayer variable.

Before you begin

Make sure you have Google Ads conversion tracking set up using Google Tag Manager.

• Know the conversion page URL where the conversion tag fires (e.g. the confirmation page URL) and the conversion event trigger (for example, a button click, a page view or an event).
• Make sure there is first party customer data available (email, full name and home address, and/or phone number) on the page where your conversion tracking tag fires.
• This implementation requires knowledge of how conversion tracking is set up on your website and some code changes, so make sure you are able to speak with the client’s development team as needed.
• Ensure that you’ve reviewed the customer data policies and agree to the enhanced conversion terms of service and policies in Google Ads.

Enable Enhanced Conversions in Google Ads

1) First, go to the conversion settings of your Google Ads Account

Tools and settings > Measurement > Conversions.

2) Then, select your main Purchase tag and open it

3) You will find below it the “Enhanced Conversions” section where you will have to toggle on “Turn on enhanced conversions”

4) You will be asked to select either the Global site tag or Google Tag Manager, or API. Select the first option

5) You will have to check the URL of your website to make sure the tag is correctly setup on the website

6) This is done!

Setup Enhanced Conversions manually using Google Tag Manager

Now that you have enabled Enhanced Conversions in Google Ads, you will have to adapt your Google Ads conversion tag in GTM. Know that you sometimes have to wait up to 5 days to be able to properly adapt it.

There are several ways of implementing Enhanced Conversions:

1. Using Automatic collection (if available)
2. “Manual Configuration” with CSS Selectors or existing data layer variables
3. Using the “Code” method to send all data in a single data object

In this article, we will tackle point n°2.

Follow the following steps:

1) First, go to your GTM container and select your Google Ads conversion tag

2) Make sure this is the correct tag. Conversion ID and Conversions Label should match between Google Ads and GTM

3) Within this tag, you should see the option “Include user-provided data from your website”. This is when magic happens and you can include the user data you want (for example: email address) so that Google can first hash it and then send it to Google Ads. Select this option

4) Click the “Select user-provided data variable” dropdown, and then click New Variable.

5) Select Manual configuration

6) For all the relevant user data fields that you would like to provide via enhanced conversion, click on the dropdown menu and select New Variable

Note: If you already have unhashed user-provided data variables in your data layer (whether using CSS selectors or other variable types), you can select those instead of creating new variables. If you aren’t sure, continue through the instructions. You can choose between selecting DOM Element or Data Layer Variable.

By selecting Data Layer Variable

• You can ask the developers to push this piece of code in the data layer:

! Make sure to adapt the values ‘OrderComplete’, ‘order_value’, ‘order_id’ with the right naming that you use.

• In the “Variable Configuration” screen, select Choose a variable type to begin setup. In the “Choose Variable Type” screen, select Data Layer Variable.

• Back on the “Variable Configuration” screen, if you used the piece of code mentioned above, this is what you should have as a Data Layer Variable Name:

! If you put just “email” it won’t work. You need to put “enhanced_conversion_data.email”.

Give your variable a title and voilà! Everything should be properly set up.

How to debug your setup

In this article we explain how to verify your Google Enhanced Conversions implementation in Google Ads and using the Tag Assistant.

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Working in the leading digital marketing agency

Semetis was born in Brussels in March 2009, created by two Googlers Gabriel Goldberg and Nicolas Debray. Their vision was to build the best in-class data-driven marketing agency, by understanding the evolution of technology and putting data at the centre of everything to better serve the advertiser. Today Semetis is the Belgian leading digital media agency.

This important position on the digital market chessboard offers many opportunities for those walking through the doors of our office. As eBusiness Analyst or Junior Digital Marketeer, you will take part in campaign creation for a wide range of clients. You will have a client's portfolio that comes from a lot of different industries and ranges from start-up to big advertisers and renowned companies. This allows you to learn how to master different advertising campaigns depending on the client’s needs and discover different ways of working.

In your job, you will plan, manage, optimise and analyse digital advertising campaigns on a variety of advertising platforms (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Youtube, Spotify, Instagram, Snapchat, Waze …). You will take care of proposing new features and of course, advising your clients on new market trends, services and any other digital opportunities. No day is like another!

“Semetis clearly changed my life, today it gave me the opportunity to meet amazing people and among those, the three co-founders with whom I created my company. So I’m very thankful for everything that Semetis offered me.” - Julien De Visscher, Semetis Alumni.

Arriving as a Newmetis

When you arrive at Semetis, you will be welcomed by your team manager and also by a person who will be your "shepherd star": your Buddy. The role of the buddy was created to provide you with general information, to introduce you to the company culture and to facilitate your integration into the team. Your buddy is usually part of your work team, so they will be able to guide you through your Semetis journey.

“I already knew that the team was very young with vibrant talents, and I knew this was going to be a nice team that I would fit in. I spoke to almost everyone within the first week and they were very welcoming, everyone really tries to help you along. If you have a question, you can literally ask anyone. It is really easy to feel integrated into the group, and personally, I felt 100% welcome.” - Lynn Luyckx, eBusiness Analyst.

On your first day, you’ll receive a “Welcome package” composed of your new work laptop and some great branded goodies to adopt the SEMETIS swag from day 1. You will then be able to represent your company everywhere just by carrying your laptop or sipping your coffee!

At Semetis, we really like to work all together so we created a big cosy and welcoming open space in our office. The idea behind the “free desk policy” is to encourage collaboration and facilitate the introduction between the Semetissians, across teams and roles. In addition, it allows you to move places depending on the work you have to do: you can start your day on a desk close to your colleagues, go on our big organic table for a meeting and finish it on a swing to read your emails. To offer even more possibilities for those movements during the day, we have recently moved into a WeWork coworking space that is more reflective of our team spirit and our growth.

Joining a Digital Business Program

Many of the Semetissians, as well as the Semetis alumni will tell you: Semetis is the business school when it comes to digital marketing. While you are at Semetis, you will learn everyday how to do your job but also how to push your own boundaries to grow yourself as a professional and as an individual.

In your first weeks, you will attend- with other Newmetis - “bootcamp” sessions on various subjects: emails best practices, Google Ads basics, time & crisis management, etc. Bootcamps are intensive training sessions that have been designed and created by Semetissians for Semetissians. In parallel, you will be hunting for “shadow” sessions, a moment when you will join a colleague at their desk and watch them do a task. You will then also experiment reverse shadows: this time you are the one performing a task while a colleague is sitting next to you and providing you feedback on the spot: an amazing way to grow your skills in a record time.

Sharing knowledge is a key pillar in our company: we regularly organise what we call “Internal Knowledge” sessions where members share their expertise on a specific topic to the rest of the team but also “Lunch & Learn” where we invite external speakers to share their knowledge and broaden our comprehension of the digital and media industry.

Becoming a Semetissian

Something that is really part of our team culture is the numerous events and team buildings that will punctuate your Semetis’ life. On top of afterworks, aperos and other gatherings, the event team organises three main events: a three-day trip abroad, a summer team building event and a Christmas dinner. These activities are major milestones in every Semetissian’s journey:

• The Semetis Trip, that is usually held in March, is the occasion to focus on two main objectives: get to know each other and reflect on Semetis’ future, strategy and vision.
• Over the summer we all take part in a big team-building activity: it can be something adventurous, sporty, creative, any activity that brings everyone together and creates a strong team spirit.
• Finally, the Christmas dinner celebrates Christmas, obviously, but also the people: it is a way to thank everyone’s involvement and mark the end of the year all together. During that night, we take the time to do a Secret Santa and vote for our next destination for the Semetis Trip!

At Semetis, we strongly believe that our members are ambassadors of our brand values and are standing for them in their day-to-day job. These values are the compass that guides our brand story, actions, behaviours, and decision-making process. Semetis has four important pillars: growth, to give everyone the opportunity to develop while reaching their full potential, both personally and as a team, exploration, to bring business growth to our clients and drive innovation in a suitable and sustainable fashion, energy, to energise, engage and inspire our colleagues and our clients, involvement, to embrace challenges, feel responsible and take ownership of projects.

“I believe that you should really have for yourself a clear direction of your own path and you should not be afraid to express it. Your environment will support you and before you know it, you will have a red carpet right in front of you that you can just walk on and success will just come your way. For me, Semetis is really about jumping off the cliff and learning how to fly on your way down.” - Dhan Claes, Managing Director.

2022 is the people’s year at Semetis: we are doing everything that is in our power to put the accent on the Semetissians. And part of this process is to recruit new colleagues to reinforce our ranks and build an even stronger agency. If you feel that this could be you, don’t hesitate to look at this website and apply as of today. We are very impatient to meet you!

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When Facebook rebranded its company to “Meta” in 2021, it announced at the same time that the metaverse would be one of its core focuses in the years to come. Since then, the metaverse has been the internet's favourite buzzword. And more and more brands want to be associated with it, as they see a big opportunity. But what is the metaverse ? And what could it mean for Advertisers?

What is the metaverse?

The metaverse is a virtual environment in which users can immerse themselves using virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) devices. You could really compare it to a parallel online world in which you can create your own avatar, a bit like an online video game.

And with a vast number of possibilities at play, the metaverse is quickly becoming an influential platform for creativity, socialisation, business, gaming, music, and many more. This is why Advertisers are becoming more interested as well, as they see the number of metaverse users grow exponentially.

An opportunity for Advertisers

With virtual worlds on their way to become the new advertising frontier, there are some key concepts about the metaverse that an advertiser will want to leverage:

• Scalability : Billions of avatars (users) will be able to coexist in the metaverse
• Accessibility: The metaverse can be accessed by anyone, regardless of their age, background or location
• Cooperativity: Interactive content generated by the users themselves
• Sociability: Possibilities to connect and interact with each other will be endless

And more importantly, the bridge between physical and digital will be blurred, allowing people to interact with experiences, products and services in more engaging ways.

(Future) ways to advertise in the Metaverse

Let’s look at some of the advertising possibilities in the metaverse that we’ll soon be able to or can already do.

Ad placements

This is the most obvious application of metaverse advertising. You can imagine having the same placements as for OOH (out-of-home), such as billboards, signage or posters on Buses, except in the metaverse. This is actually already done in video games such as FIFA, GTA or NBA2K where in-game advertising has long been in place already.

Virtual Experiences

We can expect more & more examples of companies creating virtual experiences in the metaverse to advertise their brand. For example, skateboard brand Vans has created a virtual skatepark in collaboration with Roblox where users can practice their virtual skateboarding skills as well as buy Vans products in their virtual shop.

Virtual Events

The metaverse is already quite known for having hosted the biggest concert ever of Lil Nas X, bringing over 33 million people together, from the comfort of their own homes.

NFT’s

Finally, Brands are also exploring digital products such as NFT’s (non-fungible tokens) that can be purchased, in the metaverse, through crypto exchanges. For example, Nike has recently purchased RTFKT Studios, specialised in creating NFT collectibles. This was already a huge success since they managed to sell 600 shoes of the Nike collaboration in less than 6 minutes for a total of $3.1 Million.

To conclude, we are still in the very early stages (especially in Belgium) of what the Metaverse can offer but we are quite excited about the possibilities for digital advertising. At Semetis we thrive on exploring new ways to bring results for our clients through digital solutions. Let’s make it happen together!

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In today’s world, automation is at the centre of every digital advance. In the digital marketing world, algorithms and marketing automation tools are becoming more and more powerful and essential for online advertising. With this in mind, comes the need for data: the more data you can feed the algorithm, the better performances you will get. And this is where Google puts its foot in the door with Performance Max campaigns. The main goal of this feature is to gather a maximum of data to generate better results and maximise the performances, as stated in its name. Unfortunately, this means for us to have less of a view on what and how the algorithm actually works, and it becomes a black blox for the users of this channel.

So what is Performance Max?

To make it short, Performance Max campaign is a gathering of all other types of campaigns that Google offers: Display, Youtube, Shopping, Search, Discovery and Local campaigns. They are thus eligible to run on all placements of Google’s inventory. Whilst other Google’s are usually built like this: campaign > ad groups > ads, Performance max campaigns are not built that way, as ad groups and ads have been removed from that structure. Instead, asset groups were added, and they are assembling all of the different assets needed to run the campaign such as images, videos, headlines or descriptions. In this article, you can find the details to start setting up the campaign.

Although increasingly used, Performance Max campaigns are still a big black box. Google does not share most of the insights we used to have for other types of campaigns. Which creatives are performing the best? Which placement are we appearing the most on, Display or Search? What audience is converting the most? Those are all questions that you cannot have an answer to anymore, and it is likely that some of those will stay unanswered. Nonetheless, it is important to empower this black box, and give it sufficient signal to be able to perform. In this article, you can find more information about how to empower and nourish the algorithm.

Targeting has grown to another level

Another feature that appeared with Performance max are Audience Signals. As mentioned before, automation is becoming the norm, and with that comes automated targeting. Audience signals are not an audience target, but they could be defined more as a suggestion from the advertiser to Google, to indicate who could be the right target. The algorithm will then take this into account when looking for the best fitted viewers.

How to use them? Google suggests regrouping your audience signal into the same asset group, but as mentioned above, little to no insight is given for those campaigns. If you want to be able to analyse which audience signal is performing the best, it is suggested to divide them into separate asset groups.

What are the pro’s and con’s of Pmax campaigns?

Pro’s

• The pros of using Performance Max, as stated in the naming, is mainly to increase the performance of our campaign.
• Google states that by switching to Pmax campaigns, impressive results and an increase in conversion value can be achieved. That is, if the campaign is set-up properly.
• It is also very easy to use for novice users.

Con’s

There is one main one, and it is that the control we have over the campaign, as well as the insights are really limited. Although the control can be understandable, as letting the algorithm run without interfering is the main point of this new type of campaign, the lack of insights has been quite criticised. Google has stated that they have heard the feedback of the advertisers and that this will be ameliorate. It has already improved and we see new features appearing, but in the meantime it is still quite narrow.

What insight do we have?

• Reporting is available at campaign level, but not at asset group or assets level.
• In the “Insight” level of your campaign, you can see different observations that are shared such as some search terms or the performances of some targeting groups.
• For the search terms, we currently have a view on the search volume, as well as the conversion value.
• For the targeting group, we have a view on the share of conversions.

Important to know that those observations are only available for the last 7 or 28 days, it is thus not possible to look back at them more than 28 days after the campaign has ended.

Should you use Performance Max?

After knowing a bit more about what Performance Max campaigns are, the pros, the cons and what it entails, should you test this new type of campaign? We believe that yes, you should, but use it properly, to benefit from the pros and don’t let the algorithm dictate everything, to minimise the cons. Although not yet officially stated, we are heading towards a unification of types of campaigns. There’s a possibility that we will soon only have one type of campaign, that would be regrouping all of the different types of ads and placement, and we won’t have the choice to run only Search or Video campaigns for example. So our advice would be to jump on the wagon sooner than later, to get familiar with those.

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