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In this newsletter, you’ll find:
⚔️ Licensed UGC on your page vs. partnership ads on someone else’s handle
📊 Google Search Console sees fake traffic spikes as Google Ads conversion tracking issues emerge
👨💻 Tweet of the day
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⚔️ Licensed UGC on your page vs partnership ads on someone else’s handle
You paid for the video. Now decide where it runs from. Option A: license it and post it as an ad from your own brand page. Option B: run it as a partnership ad, where the creator’s or publisher’s handle appears on the ad alongside yours. Same file, different delivery. Five rounds.
Round 1: New reach
Meta’s October 7 white paper looked at 684 ad sets from 10 advertisers. 63% of the people reached by partnership ads had no exposure to the brand’s usual ads in the same ad set, audience and period.
Winner: partnership ads, clearly.
Round 2: Cost
Meta reports partnership ads deliver 19% lower CPA and 13% higher CTR on average than standard formats. Across 20 EMEA lift studies, campaigns where over 30% of assets were partnership ads saw a 45% lower median cost per incremental purchase.
Winner: partnership ads.
Round 3: Control
Your own page needs no one’s permission. Partnership ads need the partner’s permission on each post, often shared as an ad code, per Meta’s rules. Lose the relationship and you can lose the ad.
Winner: your page.
Round 4: Offer-heavy ads
A Black Friday ad that’s 80% price and 20% product reads strangely from a creator’s handle. Hard offers to warm audiences belong on your page. That’s my judgment.
Winner: your page, for retargeting.
Round 5: Scale
One creator can only carry so many posts before their handle wears out. Publisher handles built around a niche, like pets or parenting, can carry many creators’ content under one identity.
Winner: partnership ads, through publisher handles.
The verdict
Split by job. Prospecting runs on partnership ads, aiming for at least 30% of assets. Retargeting and hard-offer ads run from your page. Before Black Friday, take your five best-performing UGC videos and relaunch each as a partnership ad in the same ad sets as the originals. Compare cost per new customer after one conversion cycle, and keep whichever wins.
Getting partner handles without the admin
Grapevine, now part of New Engen, runs whitelisted ads through its own publisher handles across beauty, wellness, men’s, parenting, finance and pets. It sources creators, writes briefs, pays them and posts distinct statics and UGC, while you keep control of spend. Just Food for Dogs raised Grapevine’s share of its paid media from 15% to 45% in six months. Kick off by November 30 and your first campaign is free, with 8 statics and 1 article worth a combined $1,500. You can book your free demo
Pick your five videos today.
📊 Google Search Console sees fake traffic spikes as Google Ads conversion tracking issues emerge
New reports have identified unusual click spikes in Google Search Console and potential inaccuracies in Google Ads offline conversion tracking, raising concerns about the reliability of performance data used by marketers.
The Breakdown:
Google Search Console recorded click spikes of 2x to 6.5x between October 31 and November 2, despite stable impressions and rankings, suggesting bot activity or reporting errors.
Some lower-ranking pages saw unusually high click-through rates of 45% to 100%, with analysts recommending URL, country, and device filters to identify suspicious traffic.
Google Ads may count offline conversions in accounts that didn’t generate the original clicks, particularly when multiple accounts share identical conversion action names.
Successful offline conversion uploads don’t guarantee conversions were counted, making it important to compare uploaded records with actual conversion reports.
Both issues show why marketers shouldn’t rely on dashboard numbers without checking what’s behind them. Search Console’s sudden traffic spikes may not represent real visitors, while Google Ads can report conversions incorrectly or fail to count successful uploads. Regularly checking traffic patterns and reconciling conversion data can help prevent misleading performance reports.
🗝️ Tweet of the Day
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