A Festivus For The Rest Of Us (PPC Professionals)

The content you are about to read is satire, and as with every good piece of satire, is grounded in real life experiences. It is not meant to offend – we love our platform partners and hold web developers and designers in the highest of regards (Lord knows I certainly am not capable of doing a better job than those trained professionals) – but is instead meant for entertainment purposes only.

Every December, many people throughout the world get excited for the holiday season. The holidays are about tradition. They are about family, and friends, and celebrating a communal joy during these dark times (seriously, have you seen how early the sun sets lately?). And while everyone celebrates differently, whether you are Christian, Jewish, or whatever; everyone the world over can all agree* on the most important holiday, the true reason for the season…

(*No research was conducted to form this conclusion)

Festivus

From the unadorned aluminum pole, to the traditional meal of meatloaf on lettuce, Festivus has endeared itself in peoples of every culture, from Manhattan to Queens and back again. Festivus is about miracles! Festivus is about bringing people closer together, eschewing the commercialism that runs rampant in some of the more mainstream holidays of the season. And, as we all know, the tradition of Festivus begins with the Airing of Grievances. 

I got a lotta problems with you people! And now you’re going to hear about it!

• You, Google, for limiting the number of search terms visible in the Search Query Reports. You say limiting the queries shown to only include terms that were searched by a significant number of users protects user privacy, but considering advertisers are paying for these clicks, it hampers our ability to save money on unwanted ad clicks (especially when paired with the forced inclusion of “close variants” match typing), but it feels like a money grab to us.

• You, Apple, for requiring users to opt into allowing third party tracking across other apps and websites starting with iOS 14! Reddit user aLeakyAbstraction does a good job of summarizing advertisers’ list of fears from this update, including reduced audience sizes and reductions in reporting granularity. Advertisers need the confidence that they are reaching the right audience, and need the right data to give them the feedback that their ads are working. Though I’ll admit, this update does leave me asking myself “Am I the bad guy for advocating against more user privacy?”

• You, Facebook, for making such a big, over-sized stink out of Apple’s announcement of enhanced user privacy with updates coming in iOS 14. Change is scary for all of us, but an innovative tech company such as yourself should be able to adapt and find new, creative means for sustaining your main source of capital: advertising. And no, I don’t have anything productive to contribute to that conversation. I’m just airing my grievances over here!

• You, iframes, for making it challenging, or often simply impossible, to track conversions on websites! I don’t care if iframes can make a web developer’s life easier – it makes my life harder, and really, isn’t that what’s most important? Is it too much to ask that every business have the capability to create customized web apps on their website, that live on their website, so the entire conversion path occurs on one domain, one that is easy for me to track? …It is? Well, I don’t care. Down with iframes!

• You, websites that ask if you can send me push notifications! That’s not how this works! I will come to you if I want something. You don’t reach out to me unsolicited! This goes double for websites I’ve never visited before today.

• You, Microsoft Ads, for never remembering my login email and always asking to “Keep me signed in” but NEVER KEEPING ME SIGNED IN!
  
  

  Do you even have a purpose, checkbox?!

   

• You, Google Ads UI, for putting way too many metrics in the Conversions section of the line graph drop-down selector. I can never click on “Conversions,” you know, the main metric anyone would want to choose in the “Conversions” category of metrics! I have to use the search bar and, ugh, type out “conversions” to plot this on the line graph.
  

• You, LinkedIn Campaign Manager, for not having a copy/paste feature when editing ads, or really any way to make large scale changes quickly! Running ten campaigns each with four ads and need to update the URL? Looks like you’re spending the next hour of your life doing menial labor better suited for a pimply-faced intern. And while I’m at it, just one ad format per campaign? Do you like making it more difficult for advertisers to run ads with you?

• You, Facebook Business Manager, for confusing user access levels for Pages, Ad Accounts, Pixels, etc., etc., etc. Too often I’ve had to tell new clients things like “well, you did grant us access to your Facebook Ad Account, but we also need access to your Facebook Page.” And don’t think you’re getting off easy here LinkedIn Campaign Manager! If I already have access to Campaign Manager and want to create an ad in your most popular ad format, Sponsored Content, why must I need special permission levels set within the company’s LinkedIn Page? It makes no sense! It is a Festivus Miracle that intelligent, handsome PPC professionals write how-to guides like this one and this other one to help others navigate this muddled setup.

I have said my piece, and will now open the floor to the rest of you. Do you have grievances with my grievances? Don’t be shy! Share with us your digital grievances of 2020.

And now – The Feats of Strength!

Happy Festivus everyone!