Why is Semetis so different?

Let me briefly explain how Semetis operates. 

Typical Semetissians arrive, either straight from school, or after an internship, or with 1-2 years of experience. They directly have access to intense training to gain as much digital marketing knowledge as possible, as fast as possible.  

For each Digital Business Analyst, we have an extremely clear growth plan with responsibilities for each role: from Junior to Senior, to Manager and ultimately to Director. 

T-shaped marketer

What is unique about Semetissians is their broad digital marketing knowledge. They are not experts in one digital solution, they have a strong knowledge in a lot of domains which help them provide adequate solutions to their clients’ business needs. Next to their broad knowledge, they also have a deeper knowledge in some specific areas. 

In order to build that knowledge, we bring training to the next level: 

• A rigorous onboarding process, covering all the basics, accompanied by a “Buddy”. 
• Internal training that we call “bootcamps”.
• Tailored external training with experts.
• Regular presentations on new trends by our partners (Google, Meta, TikTok, etc.)
• Lunch with entrepreneurs sharing their journey and experiences. We call it “lunch & learns”. They are usually eye openers and very popular. 
• As you can assess, we grow our people internally. We make everything in our power to bring the Semetissians to the next step of their career and guide them the best way. 

This, obviously, means that all Managers or Directors have been in the junior role one day. And thanks to that precise organisation, they can be mentors for the generation(s) after them. That is the magic of Semetis. 

How to turn recruitment into fun

“Employer Branding”. It’s everywhere nowadays, right? 

However, I’m pretty sure that you’ve never seen anything like our Semetis Game. 

Here’s the deal: 

1. Register to the Semetis Game through this link. 
2. Crack the code. 
3. Get invited to a secret location (be ready, it’s gonna be crazy) to perform games that can ultimately lead to a permanent contract at Semetis. 

If you want to hear the experience from last year’s Semetis Game’s winner, have a look here. 

What you get out of Semetis

Opportunities to shine

Semetissians are pushed in the spotlight in multiple ways. 

First of all, they are in direct contact with their clients, which means that by working together on a day-to-day basis, they build a relationship based on trust very early on. 

They also get the chance to be speakers at guest lectures in top universities such as ICHEC, EMS, VUB, KUL, The Skillsfactory, etc.  

A little bit later in their career, Semetissians get the opportunity to present their own cases at the AMMA Awards ceremony. 

And finally, Semetissians are frequently participating in big events which gives opportunities to learn, shine and build a great network. 

A solid basis to fly away from the nest

Due to its organic evolution, Semetis is not a place where you stay 25 years. That’s a fact. 

However, it is an excellent career accelerator. As mentioned above, the opportunities are endless for motivated Semetissians. We love people who are challenging the status quo, speaking their minds and bringing new ideas on the table. 

“Semetis is not only a school, it is the school of excellence. Every subject is mastered. Newness and learning (together) are never a barrier. The Service Level Agreement that forms the core of how Semetis serves each customer is certainly not innocent to the fact that so many historical customers are still partners today.” from Doriane Magnus, Semetis alumni. 

If you want to know more about the start of a Semetis’ journey, have a look at this article that our Office Manager, Louise, has written. 

Hopefully now you feel intrigued, or even better, you feel like it could be a match for you too! So don’t hesitate to drop me a message on LinkedIn or to contact the recruitment team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Attention is a booming concept within the advertising industry. This article explains more about what exactly "attention" means.

There are two major ways to measure attention: camera-based attention and advanced viewability.

1. Camera-based attention

Camera-based attention is based on studies with panels of consumers where their eye movements are measured, facial expressions are observed....

An advantage of this is that consumers' effective eye movements are measured, so you don't need approximations. This also allows you to better understand consumers' subconscious behaviors. In addition, this can also lead to interesting learnings regarding creative.

The big disadvantage of this, is that this data is not available in real-time and the data that is available is also more difficult to translate into media metrics. Finally, the method or panel size may differ from provider to provider, making it more difficult to compare. To start generalizing or quantifying this data to, say, "attentive" CPM, one must work with assumptions that again leave room for interpretation.

Examples of providers include Lumen, Amplified Intelligence, Playground XYZ....
Some players such as Teads or GumGum will actively use these partners from 2023 for campaigns that will run through their platform. For example, GumGum is partnering with Playground XYZ, which will allow us to not only measure attention for campaigns that would run through GumGum, but also optimize the campaigns accordingly.
Meta is also experimenting with this technology. The VR glasses deployed to enter the Metaverse will likely also be used to track users' eye movements, and that will undoubtedly make its impact on ads as well.

2. Advanced viewability

Given that camera-based attention data is not obtainable in real time and can also be costly studies, people are also trying to approach attention with media metrics.

These proxies can be very variable: player size, time on screen, audibility, video view rate... These too can be translated into "attentive CPM" in this way.
The advantage of this, is that many of these metrics are already automatically available in the advertising platforms and can therefore also be easily compared across platforms.
The obvious disadvantage of this is that there is still a lot of room for interpretation for how much attention has effectively taken place. Chasing pure view time as the primary measure of ad effectiveness is definitely not advisable. Therefore, use these approximate metrics in combination with other metrics and with a necessary critical eye.

Publishers and sales houses are coming up with their own approaches for this. For example, the "Estimated ad recall" exists on Meta, which extrapolates through studies by Meta on the relationship of interaction on ads and recall of certain ads, estimating whether a user would remember your ad. Another example is Ads & Data Brand Studio, which created the KPI "Quality read" for native campaigns. Advertisers who choose the "Quality Read" pay only per reader who reads the story for at least 15 seconds and has read 100% of the page, or leaves the site again via a click on the call-to-action button.

Which way of attention measurement is the best way?

Each has its pros and cons, but there is no one best way to measure attention. Above all, a marketer must be aware of these advantages and disadvantages and also value the KPI in this way.

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When a user searches for information online using Google’s Search Engine, different advertisers battle it out to show their Ads on Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). But, given the limited advertising space, how does Google decide which advertisers’ ads to show on the page?

Google Search Ads represent a significant part of the digital advertising landscape. And brands today understand more and more the importance of being present in the SERPs when users look for information online. According to Statista, the total Ad Spend in the Search Advertising segment is projected to reach US$260.00bn by the end 2022 and is expected to grow annually by 10.85% to US$435.20bn worldwide by 2027.

It is clearly important for digital marketers to understand how Google Ads and its Ad Rank system works to effectively manage Google Search campaigns and to be critical of the information around them.

So, how does it all work with Google Ads?

Google Search Ads relies upon an auction system where each advertiser bids money to show their advert for specific searches each time a relevant search is made by a user triggering specific keywords. Each time a user makes a search, a new auction among advertisers is initiated.

However, unlike a traditional auction system, it is not strictly the highest bidder that wins the auction and is shown first in the page’s results.

While the monetary bid of an advertiser has its part to play in the auction, Google considers other quality-related factors too in order to determine which advertisers will show up for a user's search.

This is done to ensure that the most relevant ads are shown to the user (and not just the advertisers willing to pay the most money). And this is where Ad Rank comes in.

During each auction, Google looks at multiple factors to determine the advertisers that will be shown on the Search Engine Results Page. Among these factors are:

• The Advertiser’s Maximum Bid
• The Quality of the Advertiser’s Ad
• The Expected Impact of an Advertisers Ad Extensions / Formats

Based on these several factors, each advertiser receives a total score (called their Ad Rank) that determines if their ad will be shown in the user’s Search results or not.

In other words, Ad Rank is essentially the final score that each advertiser receives at the end of the auction based on their Bid, their Quality Score and their use of Ad Extensions in their Ads and the other factors that Google takes into consideration during each auction.

The advertiser with the highest Ad Rank score will have their ads shown highest up in the search results page. Advertisers with lower scores will have their ads shown lower down on the page or not at all.

Let’s look at the different factors in more detail.

The Advertiser’s Maximum Bid

A first factor that Google Ads looks at is the maximum amount of money that a user is willing to pay (or bid) for a user to click on their ad.

For each user’s search, the Ad auction takes place and each advertiser puts forward their maximum bid that they are willing to pay (say for example, 1.20€) to show their ad for the user's search query.

The maximum bid can be set manually by the advertiser with manual bid strategies where the advertiser indicates the maximum amount they are willing to pay for a click. Alternatively, maximum bids can be set automatically for the advertiser by Google for each auction using Automated Bid Strategies. If Automated Bid Strategies are selected, Google's Algorithm will select the most appropriate bid for each auction using vast amounts of data that it has at its disposal to optimise the advertisers bid at each different auction to get the best results.

The Quality of an Advertiser’s Ad (Quality Score)

Google Ads also attributes a Quality Score to each advertiser during the auction to score the estimated usefulness of each Advertiser’s ad to the user. Quality Score is made up of three factors:

• Ad Relevance: how well the advertiser’s advert text matches the users search keyword.
• Expected Clickthrough Rate: how often an advertiser’s ad will be clicked by the user when shown, based on historical search data that Google has.
• Landing Page Experience: how well the advertiser’s landing page will help users find what they are looking for. This considers the landing pages ease of navigability, page loading time, and the relevance and originality of the page’s content.

Quality Score is represented on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. You can find your Quality Score at keyword-level inside your Google Ads campaign. This is because your Ad and landing page are triggered by a specific keyword that you are bidding on based on the user’s search.

The Expected Impact of an Advertisers Ad Extensions / Formats

Advertisers are also able to add additional information to their Ads, called ad extensions, such as, for example, links to other useful pages on their website, a company phone number and information about unique offers. These ad extensions increase the visibility of an advertiser's ad and provide additional relevant information to the user. Google Ads also considers the expected impact of the Advertisers extensions and ad formats to determine the advertiser’s Ad Rank.

Calculating Ad Rank

So, we know more about some of the factors make up an Advertisers Ad Rank. But how is Ad Rank actually calculated?

All of the exact factors making up Ad Rank are not disclosed by Google. However, the Advertiser’s Maximum Bid and their Quality Score, as well as several other factors which Google has access to are used in combination with each other to determine an advertiser’s Ad Rank. For example, if Ad Extensions are also being used, Google’s auction Algorithm will also consider the impact of the Ad Extensions to determine the advertiser’s Ad Rank. Ultimately, the Advertiser with the highest Ad Rank will be shown in first position.

Below is a simplified example, explaining how Ad Rank is calculated for different advertisers (taking into account only Maximum Bid and Quality Score, and not the various other factors which also impact Ad Rank, in this simplified case).

Advertiser 1 has a Maximum bid of €2.00 and a Quality Score of 10/10. Hence, Advertiser 1’s Ad Rank will be 20. This is the highest Ad Rank among all the advertisers in the auction and so the Ads of Advertiser 1 will be shown in first position at the top of the Search Engine’s Results Page.

Conversely, Advertiser 4, has a Maximum bid of €8.00 and a Quality Score of 1/10. This is the lowest Ad Rank among all the advertisers in the auction and their Ads will not be shown at all in the Search Engine’s Results Page due to the limited available Ad Space on the page.

Notice how Advertiser 4 has the highest maximum bid out of all the advertisers in the auction. This example clearly shows how having the highest bids does not guarantee that an advertiser’s ads will be shown first. And higher Quality Scores generally lead to lower cost and improved ad positions to motivate advertisers to create high quality ads.

Wrapping Up

We covered how the Google Ads Auction works and which factors affect an Advertiser’s Ad Rank. We also looked at the specific details of several factors affecting Ad Rank and how Ad Rank is calculated. Improving the Ad Rank of your ads is a continuous process that tests your copywriting skills, your choice of keywords, your budget and bids and the performance of your website. But understanding how the Google Ads auction system works will help you make more informed decisions and ultimately, help you achieve better results for your Google Search campaigns.

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Revising our KPIs in the war for attention

We are overloaded with ads. According to Teads and Lumen, we consume an average of 299 minutes of media per day, of which consumers are exposed to ads for 84 minutes. How many minutes of that are spent paying attention to ads? Frankly, that's very little. Consumers spend only 9 minutes attentively watching media, according to those same figures.

So needless to say, advertisers are thus increasingly having to fight for a potential customer's attention. How do you stand out as a brand among the proliferation of advertisers? And can that attention be measured?

The remainder of this article is a summary of sources written by different researchers. These different players are both publishers and more neutral research instances, we want to be critical of the sources and therefore highlight different angles from different players.

Viewability vs. visibility vs. attention

Today, the success of an awareness campaign is often determined by the reach or number of impressions achieved. If one wants to go a step further, this then becomes looking at viewable impressions. However, this in itself says very little about the success of the campaign. 

An impression is measured when the ad is loaded on the landing page.

A viewable impression is measured when at least 50% of the ad appears on the screen for at least 1 second (IAB).

However, this does not mean that a user has seen the ad, and indeed, that it will be remembered.

Today, there are already many ways to measure the impact of a campaign. YouTube has the brand elevator studies, DPG the brand fact studies, Meta measures the Ad Recall of awareness campaigns, Ask Locala the uplift studies... In addition, there are numerous independent agencies that can question whether the user can remember an ad.

Ad recall is related to the attention users pay to an ad. And attention is more specifically defined today as being "attentive views" or "attentive seconds." Indeed, the longer a person has looked at an ad, the more likely that person will remember the ad. Studies show that attention has an 180% stronger correlation with ROI than viewability (Nielsen) and that attention to ads can predict the outcome of a campaign 3x better than viewability. These seem like logical numbers: what is the point of investing in a campaign that is seen a lot but not viewed?

So it's important to invest in ads that get attention in this world where consumers are hugely distracted by thousands of impressions a day. An important note here: it is not only important to pay attention to the ad itself, but also to the visibility of the brand. Suppose you put a very nice ad in a conspicuous place so that everyone can remember the ad, but the brand is not sufficiently in view? Users will not associate that nice ad they saw with your brand. 

For this reason, it is important to not only focus on formats and placements that catch the user's attention, but also to ensure that your brand is seen. This can mean that you strive for maximum visibility of the ad, and that, for example, 100% of the banner must be shown.

Many creative agencies will not like to hear it, but the logo and/or branding should be a crucial and eye-catching part of the ad. This will help users more quickly make the connection between ad and advertiser. 

Conclusion

With the cookieless world on the horizon, the challenge of measuring the impact of ads will become ever greater. Optimizing campaigns for attention rather than visible impressions may be a way to make those campaigns more impactful. To know more about how attention gets measured, you can read this article.

In this regard, attention seems to be the holy grail for a successful awareness campaign. Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, not all attention-oriented ads lead to a sale. For one thing, much depends on the user's purchase intent. But above all, many ads fail to establish a link with the brand. Attention to an ad or brand recall is not the same thing. Proper use of branding assets such as logos and colours is crucial for this. Here you can find 10 tips to make your ads stand out more.

The effect of COVID is still reverberating: people are massively online. Let's use this moment to experiment with new metrics, channels and ad formats to capture the attention of these users.

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