Welcome to our sixth episode of our “Fortnightly Digital Marketing News Roundups”.
We know it can be difficult to keep up with all the changes in the Digital Marketing industry. Many of us work in busy offices, sometimes barely having time to grab a sandwich or a coffee. So, we wanted to make it easier for all of you to know what’s going on.
Learn about the changes coming to LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger, Microsoft Adverting and more…
On the move? You can also listen as a podcast on our Spotify and Apple Music channels…
Transcript
Martin: Hi Everyone. We know how hard it is to stay up to date with the sheer number of changes across all the platforms that form todays digital marketing channel strategy.
But don’t worry you are in the right place. We have rounded up the most important stories and distilled them into the concentrated goodness that you’re about to hear. Hi, I’m Martin and I am the founder here at Blue Thirst & welcome to episode 6.
Lucy: Improve Your Business Page Visibility With Services On Linkedin
Emily: Create A New More Natural Facebook Messenger Ad
Martin: There is an A/B testing tool coming to Microsoft Ads
Emily: Latest Version of AdWords Editor Makes Creating Image Ads Easier
Martin: Google Ads Phrase Match & Broad Match Have Got Even Broader
Katy: Google App ads can now show on Youtube and within the Google Discover Feed
Lucy: New Snapchat Tool released that massively speeds up Ad Creation
Martin: Google’s Featured Snippet Algorithm has Updated
Katy: Microsoft acquires e-commerce advertising vendor PromoteIQ
Lucy: Improve Your Business Page Visibility With Services On Linkedin
Small Businesses can now highlight their available services directly on their profile pages. By adding a service to their individual profile, they will become eligible to show up in relevant search results for the services. Currently only available to Premium Business subscribers. They can go to their profile page, to see if the feature has been activated.
Users should see a box underneath their profile image and a headline, that says “Add Services”. According to LinkedIn reports, they have more than 10 million small business leaders in the U.S. using their platform. By adding service lists directly on their profiles, it could help them to promote what they do. This adds additional exposure for smaller businesses. A bonus for those companies without the resources to build out a full social media marketing presence.
Emily: Create A New More Natural Facebook Messenger Ad
Facebook is changing the design of its messenger inbox ads. The new design is made with different campaign objectives in mind, such as conversions and messages. This change has already come into place in Facebook Business Manager and will affect all campaigns that include Facebook Messenger as a platform to show ads. The new design feels more natural in the messenger format, this may help with the authenticity of the ads and may result in more conversions.
Martin: There is an A/B testing tool coming to Microsoft Ads
Soon, if not already, there will be a new tab in your Microsoft Advertising account. The experiments feature is rolling out worldwide. Advertisers will now be able to test ad copy, landing pages, bid strategies and even modifiers. This new tool is very similar to the Google Ads tool, Drafts & Experiments. To use this tool you need to go to the new experiments tab, and then you can create a name for your test. Followed by setting a start and end date. Then the percentage of your traffic that you want to test.
Emily: Latest Version of AdWords Editor Makes Creating Image Ads Easier
The version of Google Ads Editor, 1.1, has new features including: ‘Dark Mode’ which simply makes the appearance of the editor darker (compared to its current lighter theme), ‘IP Exclusions’ which means you can now update, add or copy IP exclusions, ‘Image Picker’ which allows you to choose images that you have previously used on Editor and ‘Exact Search’ which as suggests means when searching only exact matches will appear. Editor 1.1 is already available, if you open Editor a message will appear telling you that there is a new version available and asks whether you would like to update. These features all help with the ease of Editor, creating and updating multiple ads before they go live.
Martin: Google Ads Phrase Match & Broad Match Have Got Even Broader
So, Google have announced that its phrase match and broad match modifier keywords will match to a wider list of relevant search keywords. The example they gave us was the BMM keyword ‘+lawn +mowing +service’ will now match to the term ‘grass cutting and gardening services’.
This update is automatically live in accounts, and nothing is needed to implement this. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Google states that 15% of searches each day are unique, therefore by allowing keyword matches more scope to match to search queries deemed relevant, advertisers can potentially reach a larger but yet still relevant audience. So have a look at your negative keywords and build out your negative keyword lists.
Katy: Google App ads can now show on Youtube and within the Google Discover Feed
Google has announced that their App ads will now appear on a wider selection of placements, including the Discover feed and YouTube. Currently running in the USA, App ads will start showing in the Google Discover feed on interest-based targeting. On YouTube, App ads will now be eligible to show at the top of the search results when using the mobile app. It is likely that Google has rolled out this update to placements to expand their network. They have said it ’gives you new ways to earn revenue while creating a good user experience’.
Lucy: New Snapchat Tool released that massively speeds up Ad Creation
Snapchat have released their new Instant Create tool. This will allow advertisers to quickly build ads.
All you need to do is choose an ad objective, enter the business URL and decide on targeting filters. Instant create with pull images from your chosen URL and size them accordingly, or you can upload your images manually. This tool has been created for those who have low budgets or lack the time and resources. Designed to be easy-to-use, quick and with minimal creative requirement this will majorly benefit small businesses. It will allow users who haven’t used the platform before to try out the advertising platform with minimal investment.
Martin: Google’s Featured Snippet Algorithm Updated
This announcement from Google details an update which will make Featured Snippets understand which content needs to be updated or changed. Google’s examples of content that may need to be updated or changed is: current events, information that changes with time and information that is updated regularly. The algorithm deems which content can stay static over time or that which becomes less relevant over time. This means Google can prioritise the most up-to-date and relevant content, meaning content creators will be ‘rewarded’ with the most relevant and useful information of the moment. The only issue with structured snippets is they sometimes now don’t have links to the landing page, so you might be losing site traffic by showing up for particular keywords, so just be careful with those.
Katy: Microsoft acquires e-commerce advertising vendor PromoteIQ
On 5th August, Microsoft announced that they have acquired PromoteIQ, which is an automated eCommerce platform allowing brands to run ads on participating retail sites. PromoteIQ refer to themselves as a ‘premium marketing channel for brands’. Microsoft is aiming to pair its AI technology with PromoteIQ’s placement capabilities. Although PromoteIQ will keep their own branding, this will now become a sub-product of Microsoft Advertising.
Martin: Well that’s it, another fortnight is done. We are all two weeks closer to retirement. We hope you enjoyed the update and don’t forget to subscribe or follow us so you will never miss an episode and an important digital marketing change. Before I go, I’m going to leave you with this. What do you call a travel agency’s landing page? A destination URL! See you all in 14 days time!