Arcane’s Trevor Carter Recognized by Google for Automation Excellence
Google’s Performance Honours Stars Program recognizes digital marketers across North America who deliver results for their clients through the adoption of best practices.
Arcane was invited to participate in this program as one of Google’s top-performing agencies – we joined as an opportunity to garner enthusiasm among our digital advertising team and to celebrate the work they’re doing. In February 2020, Trevor Carter, our Senior Manager, Digital Marketing, was recognized for having the highest performance score for the category of Automation.
Carter won the award for his work on Grand & Toy. By leveraging different types of automation in Google Ads, Trevor increased their bid automation score by 80%. He was able to increase revenue year-over-year by 140% in search and shopping by finding the right mixture of smart bidding automations, including target CPA, target ROAS, target impression share, and maximized conversion value.
For Carter, it was all about bringing an account that we inherited from another agency up to speed and leveraging machine learning to do quicker, better work: “I’m a big believer in the fact that machine learning is not just the future of advertising, but way smarter and more agile than people can be,” he expressed.
How Do You Help Arcane Stay at the Leading Edge of the Industry?
You can read blogs and talk to other people in the industry all day long and I think you’ll have a good idea of where the industry’s heading, but leveraging our partnership with Google and seeing where they’ve set their sights is one of the most helpful things. Whether it’s going to Performance Insider events, or working on betas, or attending Google Marketing Live, keeping that close relationship with our Google partners helps us know what’s coming next.
Going to the Performance Honours event in New York and hearing how much emphasis they’re putting on something like voice search — I’ve never really thought about that, but now it’s all I think about. People are just out living their lives, needing to solve little problems, and each of our clients represents the solution. So, how do we get in front of users in those moments? Knowing what’s coming next helps us be more strategic in planning for our clients.
How Should Brands Be Reacting to the COVID-19 Pandemic?
There’s a lot of demand online right now and a lot of opportunity to reach new customers. Ecommerce brands should continue to invest in marketing as they were before, assuming they have no problems with supply chain or order processing. Brands that are not able to process leads or take on new customers at this time should consider investing their marketing budget in projects they may have had on the backburner, like comprehensive SEO audits and website improvements or producing video and creative assets for advertising when business resumes.
What Makes You an Expert in Your Field? Why Do You Think You Were Chosen for This Award?
A lot of marketers are really averse to change or to trying things. There’s an old way of doing things that we’re moving away from, and I think it’s been hard for people. But, embracing automation to its fullest capacity is going to get our clients the performance that they need. We have to suppress our ego a bit and say: “yeah, let’s automate this.” Let’s step back and not tinker with bids all day long and, instead, let a machine learning system that uses thousands of data points in real-time do this stuff for us. Then, we can sit back and have conversations with our clients about what to do next.
So, what makes me an expert is just being fully on board with that. I think it makes some people uncomfortable. People want control. They want to feel that there’s value in their time. If a client is paying for 10 hours a month, we should be working 10 hours — but I think how you define that work is important to reevaluate. I’d rather spend less time looking through keyword lists and more time looking at the big picture and the impact of results for clients.
How Do You Think Automation Has Helped You in These Unpredictable Times?
This has been a very volatile time in the competitive landscape, especially in search advertising. With large competitors backing out, CPCs were left to fall across the board and smaller competitors swooped in to take advantage of that opportunity. Using automation allows advertisers to have the right bid at the right time, despite the unpredictability of the market at the moment.
What Does Winning This Award Mean for You and Arcane?
The winners of this award are the best at delivering results through Google’s best practices. In the words of Nancy McConnell, Director, Agency Team Canada at Google, it’s all about “mastery” and “influence”. My job is not only to master Google Ads but to influence the culture of innovation at Arcane and inspire our team to aim for and achieve results for our clients.
After many years of managing Google Ads campaigns and obsessing over performance and perfect campaign set-ups, I now manage a team and it’s my objective to pass that expertise on to them. I try to inspire our team to achieve the best and to set them up with as much knowledge as possible for executing in Google Ads. I hope winning this honour helps with that, and demonstrates that Arcane is truly best-in-class.
What’s Your Best Advice for Other Digital Marketers at This Time?
Continue to think beyond Last Click. Customers are spending more time online than they were before, which means the path-to-purchase is longer and more complicated than ever. Make sure you assess the performance of your campaigns based on a multi-touch attribution model in addition to your typical Google Analytics last-click analysis. You might find more value in your Display and Video campaigns than you expected!