There’s a lot going down in the world today. For many companies, marketing spend was the first item to be thrown out the window. Google and Facebook are going to come to the party. Both have announced a range of initiatives to help advertisers stay in touch with customers over the coming months and years. Unfortunately, these aren't live yet in NZ. If you’ve got any immediate questions, or need advice today, the Insight team is also here to help you right now.
Google Ads credits - $340m to SMEs worldwide
Google has promised a total of $340 million in advertising credits to SME advertisers via the Google Ads platform. It’s still early days, and limited information has been disclosed on the specifics. Here’s what we know at this stage:
Only existing advertisers will be eligible - advertisers will need to have an “active account since the beginning of 2019”. So eligible ad accounts will likely need to have been created prior to January 2019. We expect Google will also require a history of ad spend, possibly over a range of months in 2019
Ad credits will be eligible on all Google networks - advertisers will be able to utilise ad credits across Search, Display, YouTube, and Shopping campaigns.
Ad credits are available for use in 2020 only - ad credits must be redeemed this year, with unused credits expiring from 1 January 2021.
Which leaves us with a few more questions:
How will advertisers be qualified as an SME? Google is a worldwide platform. With ad credits available internationally, there may be debate around how and which advertisers will be classified as an SME in different countries.
How many ad credits will each advertiser get? Will ad credits be issued proportionate to advertisers’ historical spend? We have seen SME budgets range anywhere from $500 to $10,000. However Google chooses to allocate the $340m, we don’t expect they’ll be taking a nuanced case-to-case review across thousands of advertisers.
How and when ad credits they be rolled out? Logistically, we expect the ad credits will be redeemable via the billing section of Google Ads (similar to the $100 ad credit Google offers to first time advertisers). In terms of timelines, we can only sit tight and see what happens in the coming months.
Facebook is introducing a new grants programme, with a total of $100m in cash grants and ad credits announced to support small businesses. Currently, only the United States has been confirmed; $40m will go towards 10,000 SMEs in the US. That leaves $60m for the rest of the world. Upon investigating Facebook’s information page, we’re told that they are “working through eligibility details for New Zealand advertisers”.
Details of the programme are almost equally ambiguous. We do know that a range of stipulations - many are actually quite similar to Google’s - will apply:
Facebook considers businesses to be SMEs if they are between 2 - 50 employees. Great that Facebook is providing clarity on this upfront.
SMEs will need to have been in business for over a year. In the context of Facebook Ads, we’re not sure whether this in regards to when a company’s Ad Account was first created.
Have experienced challenges from COVID-19. Okay, so this is every party on the planet. It will be interesting to see when detailed qualifiers emerge in the near future.
Be in or near a location where Facebook operates. Officially, Facebook has an office in Auckland, New Zealand. Realistically speaking, when we compare and contrast to major locations such as Singapore or New York, we're hoping but aren’t expecting NZ to get much of the pie.
That’s everything we know right now. Hopefully, some of our clients will be able to benefit from these new initiatives. Keep checking our blog as we’ll be providing updates as soon as they come in. In the meantime, stay home, and stay safe.
