One of our favorite Google Ads (and more broadly, programmatic ad) tools out there is Managed Placements. Yes, we’re not objective at all in regards to them, but all the praise they get is well-deserved.
And the team has asked us to tell the world–or at least our readers–about a new feature of theirs: their concierge service.
In short, Managed Placements was conceived and born as a solution to a problem that every PPC running display campaigns has had, since time immemorial: finding placements to white list to help target your campaigns.
Their software, now in beta, helps users do precisely that. As a regular user, I have seen each 2-week iteration of their algorithm get better and better regularly. Soon, their software will be ready for prime time (or perhaps it already is?).
To to make their service a bit better, they’re now announcing a concierge program. In short, they’ll use the software for you, to help you find the right placement lists!
Why would a concierge program be needed?
For a few reasons. Let’s articulate them.
One reason is, like any search process, using their software requires a few loops. Like when you search for something in Google: you rarely get the perfect response after the first search, right? So you do a second and a third, and a fourth, and usually on about the ninth or eleventh search you find what you need. Now imagine there was a time delay for each search–it would then take some time to find the perfect result.
While they’re working on technical solutions, their non-technical solution is to do it for you and save you time.
Said differently: while it is under 5 minutes of app usage to get your list — the app still needs a few hours here and there to do some list generation and searching and number crunching. So rather than have you leave the app and come back a few hours later, why not have them do it for you?
The second reason is, they want to get to know their customers better. And what better way to know your customers than do the work for them? I think there’s no better way to know and understand your customer other than getting your hands dirty working side by side with him, helping him do his dirty work. That’s the only way you truly understand them
The third reason is they are experimenting with a premium service as well. While the concierge service is currently free–as is the entire service, during the length of the beta program–it is a test to see if people want it so that eventually it could be something that people pay for.
All in all, this is a welcome development. New tools tend to have confusing user interfaces and experiences and require a lot of hand-holding. Too many developers complain about the hand-holding–but why not turn the bug into the feature?
On top of all that, generating lists of managed placements takes love and care–TLC (“tender love & care”) indeed. Like any other aspect of marketing, PPC, software development, or growth, you need someone really focusing on each detail. And that’s what the concierge does. To generate a list of managed placements, you have to search a love, review a lot, tweak a lot, eliminate a lot, find a lot more–and so forth. Most people will do “just the basics” and that will get you 80% the way there. But what if you want to go 100% the way there?
In conclusion, if you’re interested in managed placements, solving your problem of how do you find sites to advertise on or good placements for Google Ads / Adwords, or any programmatic platform–why not give them a shout and try it out (hey, that rhymes!). And the concierge service while you’re at it. And that it’s free makes it even better. You can’t argue with that price!
