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    Lucy: Welcome to this weeks digital marketing news round up. This weeks updates and new features come from: YouTube, Pinterest, Google My Business and Google Keyword Planner.

    Katy: YouTube creates new ‘edgy’ adult content ad category for brands. This week, YouTube have announced that they are testing running ads on ‘edgy’ videos. This follows the ongoing issue of brands not having complete control of where their ads are showing, not to mention the demonetisation that channels are getting for having adult content in their videos. Previously, YouTube were just de-monetising channels with inappropriate content, such as swearing or sensitive topics so ads would not run on those videos. This new structure lets brands control if they want their ads on adult-only content on YouTube. This allows brands to match their ads with age appropriate content and reduce the number of demonitised creators. I think this is a step in the right direction for giving brands control over where they want their ads to show and definitely more fair to the creators, but I also get the impression that YouTube just doesn’t have enough control on the content uploaded and the pairing of ads with content.

    Lucy: Pinterest launch Pinterest Shop. Pinterest has launched ‘Pinterest Shop’. A new board that showcases the products of small businesses in a similar way to Etsy. This board is curated by Pinterest and currently includes 17 small businesses that have uploaded their product catalogues. The small business environment across social channels is expanding rapidly. The likes of Pinterest, Etsy and Instagram are giving small business owners the opportunity to be found by users. The new Pinterest shop could really help to drive sales over the holiday period for these smaller brands.

    Katy: Changes to YouTube in January May Impact Creator Revenue. YouTube are rolling out new policy changes in January 2020 and creators are concerned their revenue will be affected. The changes are addressing concerns from the US Federal Trade Commission about YouTube’s compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. YouTube will now stop serving personalised ads on content that is deemed to be “made for children”. YouTubers can indicate that their content is made for children, but machine-learning can also label this content. Unfortunately, once this content is labelled this way, there’s no appeal process to challenge this. The only suggested action is to seek legal counsel if content is labelled incorrectly. YouTube have been scrutinised by the US Federal Trade Commission for not adequately protecting children. This change is an effort to comply with this. However, creator revenue could take a hit and there’s no way to appeal the label if it’s incorrect.

    Emily: Businesses Can Now Add a List of Services to Their Google My Business Profiles. Service-based businesses can now add a list of the services they provide to their Google My Business Page. This includes a selection to choose from by Google and the option to input custom services. To create custom services users can open the relevant location, choose ‘info’ in the menu option and in the ‘services’ section choose ‘edit’. This is currently only available for service businesses in the US. Google states these service lists can result in more relevant leads. From the perspective of the customer a service list will allow users to understand if a business provides the service they require and will make searching for this a lot easier.

    Emily: Share Keyword Plans from Google Keyword Planner. Now on Google Keyword planner it is possible to share keyword plans from the tool itself. This feature is available in Google Ads keyword planner for anyone to use. The keyword plan will be automatically created when using the planner tool and can be renamed and shared to others. Sharing of keyword plans used to be a cumbersome process however with this new tool it should be very easy to share plans. Additionally, I think as the plans are automatically saved it will be really beneficial for advertisers who may need to refer back to old plans.

    Lucy: Thank you for watching! If you want to get daily updates of all the digital marketing news then follow us on our social channels.