This year has been one of our best in marketing, primarily due to the challenges we've experienced, overcome, and learned from alongside our clients. 2023 marked a period of significant evolution and breakthroughs in the field, including the rise of AI technologies, the impact of online inflation, shifts in automation practices, and a notable increase in click fraud.

This report will explore the key aspects that have shaped digital marketing this year. We'll provide insights on our results and discuss the advanced strategies implemented at MRKT360 to transform these challenges into growth and success opportunities for our clients.

Report Breakdown

• Click Fraud Surge and Solutions: The dramatic increase in click fraud posed a significant threat to digital marketing integrity. MRKT360 developed groundbreaking solutions to protect our clients, saving them millions and ensuring the security of their campaigns for those who adopted our strategy.
• AI’s Transformative Role: AI has changed the game in almost every aspect of digital marketing. MRKT360 has embraced these changes to enhance our clients' marketing strategies.
• Combatting Forced Automation: In a landscape where automation was excessively pushed, particularly in Google Ads, we discovered ways to optimize it for our clients' benefit. We will discuss how we turned a potential drawback into a strategic advantage.
• The Shift to Google Analytics 4 (GA4): The transition to GA4 was a challenge, even for Google, and an opportunity that MRKT360 capitalized on. We navigated the changes and found unique solutions for our clients within GA4 by being early adopters.
• Countering Inflation's Impact on Bids: At the beginning of 2023, inflation dramatically increased bid costs. MRKT360 developed strategies to minimize these effects on our clients’ accounts, ensuring more efficient use of their marketing budgets.
• Diversifying Services and Platforms: We expanded our range of services and platforms to find better lead sources for our clients.
• Recap & New Services 2024: This section provides a concise recap of the above, coupled with an introduction to our new services for 2024. These offerings are specifically designed based on our hands-on experience in successfully navigating clients through the digital marketing challenges of the past year.

Here is a clear example of click fraud data from one of our larger accounts. Using Google’s own analytics tools, the graph above shows thousands of Google ads users from OFAC-sanctioned countries like Iran and Russia.

We never targeted OFAC-sanctioned countries for this campaign, and it’s not even allowed by Google because they are sanctioned! This begs the question, why are our clients paying for it? Our solutions were to apply for refunds, tighten targeting, and create automated tools to mitigate such obvious attacks.

Google offers a method to request a refund, which you can find here. However, after submitting these forms for clients for years, we have noticed a significant drop in reimbursements for fraudulent clicks despite seeing no improvement from Google trying to stop invalid clicks.

MRKT360’s Response to Click Fraud

Our response was multifaceted and tailored to the severity and nature of click fraud experienced by each client. We developed and implemented innovative solutions to detect and eliminate fraudulent activities, safeguarding our clients' investments.

MRKT360's Approach to AI Integration

Balancing AI with Human Creativity and Insight

MRKT360's Proactive Approach to GA4

• Early Adoption for Competitive Advantage: We didn't just adapt to GA4; we embraced it early on and worked with Google to improve it based on frequently requested features by our clients. This proactive approach allowed us to explore GA4's potential while others were still adjusting, giving our clients a significant edge in analytics capabilities. Surprisingly, properly connecting Google Analytics to Google ads continues to be problematic after switching to GA4. Since 2022, we have properly configured hundreds of GA4 accounts to keep our clients on the road to success. The green checkmark above is “earned, and not given by Google” for connecting a Google tag with GA4 and Google ads. We like to tell our account managers this because not even senior marketers will get it on the first try despite following the right steps.
• Uncovering Hidden Opportunities in GA4: As we delved into GA4, we discovered features and insights unavailable in Universal Analytics. These newfound capabilities offered our clients enhanced data analysis and more informed decision-making.
• Seamless Transition and Data Optimization: Transitioning to GA4 involved more than just adopting a new tool. Our team ensured this transition was seamless for our clients, minimizing disruptions and maximizing GA4's potential.

Combating Challenges in the New Analytics Environment

The Outcome: Advanced Analytics for Strategic Success

Under MRKT360's guidance, the shift to GA4 has resulted in more sophisticated analytics and strategic insights for our clients. These advancements have translated into more effective marketing strategies, optimized ad spend, and a stronger ROI.

MRKT360’s Strategies for Minimizing Inflation Impact

Most marketing agencies focus on reach, clicks, and impressions, while we focus on results and the value our clients put on them. We trained our systems to find conversions that measure actual revenue and are optimized to maximize conversions by lowering ad costs. We not only measure results, but we find the results that fund our clients’ business growth.

• Cost-Effective Bidding Tactics: Our systems are trained to find conversions that measure actual revenue and are optimized to maximize conversions by lowering ad costs.
• Smart Tagging Solutions: Many clients have come to us for custom tagging solutions, not just for GA4 but for Microsoft Ads, Facebook Ads, and TikTok ads. Our mastery of Google's tag manager has allowed us to integrate multiple systems and optimize our tagging strategy to avoid slowing down client websites. By default, Facebook only allows one conversion per campaign and does not allow shared budgets. However, most clients need to optimize campaigns for multiple goals. Our solution decreased the cost per conversion and trained our PPC models to find the exact leads our client was looking for.
• Innovative Lead Generation Approaches: Understanding that inflation affected different industries differently, we tailored our lead generation strategies to each client’s specific needs, ensuring the most cost-effective methods were employed.
• Automated Fraud Prevention: Our continued efforts in combating click fraud played a significant role in cost management. By reducing fraudulent clicks, we ensured our clients' budgets were spent on genuine, valuable user interactions, mitigating inflation's impact.

The Outcome: Effective Marketing in an Inflated Economy

Through our strategic approach to handling inflation and its impact on digital marketing, MRKT360 successfully navigated these challenges in 2023. Our clients benefited from optimized bid strategies, effective use of analytics, and a holistic approach to campaign management, ensuring their marketing efforts remained fruitful even in an inflated market.

Mrkt360’s Approach to Platform Diversification

• Prioritizing Multiple Platforms: We responded to the market's shift towards platforms like Microsoft, Facebook, and TikTok, where we noticed a significant improvement in the quality of leads and cost per conversion. This diversification allowed our clients to tap into different audiences and leverage each platform's strengths. Microsoft has built its own version of Google ads for Bing called Microsoft Ads, which features tools that make it easier for existing PPC users to migrate their existing campaigns to it. We have found that it must be configured properly to avoid redundant verifications on Microsoft Ads. We also found their customer service to be the best in the industry. We foresee them becoming a major search marketing player after their $10 billion investment in Open AI.
  Facebook Ads worked very well for certain industries, and we have seen much improvement in their platform over the years. It is still much less user-friendly and “ban-happy” compared to Google Ads. We have developed the right tools to deal with Facebook and have the right contacts as Meta Partners.
• Customized Strategies for Each Platform: Recognizing that each platform has its own set of rules and audience behaviours, we developed tailored strategies that maximized effectiveness and ROI on each platform.
• Addressing Platform-Specific Challenges: We helped our clients navigate the complexities of setting up and managing accounts on platforms like Microsoft, ensuring they could capitalize on these opportunities without the hassle.

The Result: A More Robust and Resilient Marketing Approach

By expanding our services across multiple platforms, Mrkt360 provided our clients a more robust and resilient marketing approach. This diversification allowed them to reach a wider audience and protected them from the volatility of relying on a single platform.

Navigating Taxation and Budget Management

In 2023, every major marketing platform in Canada started to charge HST with new tax policies, which we found unjustified and unnecessary. These policies led to additional charges for advertisers, impacting their budgets.

We informed clients about these tax changes and their potential impact on advertising expenses. The solution involved adding our clients’ tax IDs to their accounts, as shown below, which helped avoid unwarranted charges under the new tax policies.

You can access Google’s VAT ID walkthrough here.

Step 1: Go to Billing Settings and click on Payer Details.

Step 2: Click on “Canada tax info.”

Step 3: Click “Manage tax info” and add tax ID.

Summarizing Our Approach and Achievements

• Combating Click Fraud: Our advanced techniques saved clients millions of dollars by eliminating fraud clicks, reinforcing the value of vigilant and proactive account management.
• Leveraging AI and Analytics: We harnessed the power of AI and the advanced capabilities of GA4, offering our clients enhanced insights and more effective marketing strategies.
• Optimizing Automation: By strategically managing automation in platforms like Google Ads, we prevented inefficiencies and controlled costs, ensuring automation worked in our clients’ favour.
• Diversifying Platforms: Expanding our focus to include platforms like Microsoft, Facebook, and TikTok, we tapped into new sources of quality leads and more cost-effective marketing opportunities.
• Agency Expertise in a Complex Landscape: As a knowledgeable agency, our role became essential in 2023. We provided crucial guidance to clients on navigating automated systems, adapting to new taxation policies, and understanding the complexities of contemporary digital marketing.

Introducing the New 2024 Account Management Packages

Tailored for the upcoming year’s unique challenges, these packages offer custom-made strategies and solutions for dynamic and effective account management.