This curated list includes important updates and insights from the month of April. To stay updated on the latest updates from the digital landscape, read our Digital Marketing Apple Page.
Digital Advertisement
1. Bing Ads is now Microsoft Advertising. Rolls out Sponsored Products. The announcement read
You'll see the change start today as BingAds.com becomes MicrosoftAdvertising.com Opens in new window. Our partner program is evolving too, becoming the Microsoft Advertising Partner Program. Over the coming months, all of our experiences and materials will be updated to reflect Microsoft Advertising.
For marketers, our new Sponsored Products Opens in new window (available in US only) enable manufacturers to boost visibility and drive more traffic for their top products in shopping campaigns. With this new capability, our clients can achieve better alignment of marketing efforts between manufacturers and retailers.
2. Google Assistant shows ads in some answers. Read more here
For some questions, the most helpful response might be showing you links to a variety of sources from across the web to learn more. In these cases, you’ll see the full set of search results from the web. When relevant, these results may include the existing ads that you’d see on Search today.
3. Facebook generated $14.9 billion in ad revenue during the first quarter of the year, with 93% coming from mobile ads. Also, 3 million advertisers use Stories Ads. Read more here
4. Facebook improves Ads Manager and Business Manager. The announcement read
We're also updating the campaign creation experience with a copy and paste functionality that will offer more flexibility when building ads. And we're adding an auto-naming feature that will make it faster for businesses to customize their campaign, ad set and ad names. We also plan to roll out more intuitive ad-level creative and placement editing tools. These updates to Ads Manager are expected to be available to all advertisers by next year.
5. Parallel tracking goes live for Google Ads display campaigns starting May 1. The announcement read
We’re postponing parallel tracking for Video campaigns until later this year to give you more time to prepare. We’ll provide an update once we’ve finalized a new date.
6. Now marketers can easily manage their Pinterest and Quora Pixels via Google’s platform. Here are the instructions to add Pinterest tag to Google Tag Manager. And here are the ones for Quora.
7. Facebook dynamic ad campaigns and Snapchat Story Ads will both be available through Shopify. Read more here
8. Snapchat rolls out Snap Select which allows brands to buy and reserve six-second commercials during the most premium and popular shows without using an auction. Read more here
9. Price competitiveness and seasonality will each soon be factors for Google Shopping campaigns. Plus more signals to be taken into account. Read more here
10. Pinterest rolls out new conversion features for Promoted Pins and Videos. The announcement read
Conversion optimization is a new campaign type that optimizes Promoted Pins for specific consumer actions, rather than just clicks. For the first time, advertisers can choose conversions as a campaign objective and inspire people to take specific actions like online checkouts, increased signups or stronger leads.
We’re also expanding our Promoted Video offering to serve advertisers who have traffic or conversion goals. Promoted Video for ‘conversions’ goals will click into a landing page that houses the advertiser’s website, as well as a closeup of the video. Promoted Video has proven to be a powerful format to drive these objectives as it uses sight, sound and motion to demonstrate product features and benefits.
11. Facebook introduces brand safety inventory filters for Audience Network, Instant Articles and in-stream videos ads. The announcement read
Advertisers will now be able to choose from these three options:
Limited inventory offers maximum protection, similar to the opt-in category exclusions available today
Standard inventory provides moderate protection and is the default choice when placing ads. This is the same as no category exclusions today.
Full inventory selects minimal protection and ads may be delivered to all eligible content.
12. Twitter allows marketers to set an end date for promotions and sponsorships composed within Twitter Media Studio. Check the details here
13. Advertisers will increase spending on video content by 25% in 2019: IAB. Read more here
Search
1. Google may decide to charge for Google My Business listings. The report says Google is asking some local businesses to fill in a survey form to check whether they would pay for some features they are currently getting for free.
2. Google starts showing more images in web search results. As per a report by SEOClarity, images in the Top 10 leapt from an approximately 24% occurrence to a 34% occurrence.
3. Google My Business rolls out a feature to let businesses create a short name and short URL. Read more here
4. Google Posts can now highlight customer testimonials in some countries. Check the details here
5. 4% of the Google index hit by de-indexing bug : Moz data. Check the details here
Social Media
1. Snap rolls out new Augmented Reality & Camera Search Experiences. The announcement read
Scan is Snap’s camera search experience. Today, Snapchatters can “press and hold” on the Snapchat camera screen to Scan and unlock relevant experiences based on what is in the viewfinder or environment. Scan a Snapcode to unlock special Filters and Lenses, a physical product or barcode to surface search results on Amazon, or while listening to music to learn more about what’s playing through an integration with Shazam.
For the first time, Lens Studio will include templates for Snap’s all-new Landmarker Lens experiences. These Lenses enable augmented reality experiences that can transform the world's most iconic landmarks in real-time. Templates for five locations are available to creators today, including: Buckingham Palace (London), United States Capitol Building (Washington, D.C.), Eiffel Tower (Paris), Flatiron Building (New York City), and the TCL Chinese Theater (Los Angeles), with more to follow.
AR Bar” and “Scan” will begin rolling out soon to Snapchatters. AR Bar is designed to make it easier than ever before for Snapchatters to discover and navigate Lenses and camera search experiences on Snapchat. With AR Bar, for the very first time, Snapchatters will be able to Create, Scan, Browse, and Explore all in one place.
2. LinkedIn introduces Reactions. Check the details here
3. Instagram rolls out the option for users to shop from Creators. The announcement read
With the ability to tag products in their posts, creators can make it easy for people to shop their favorite styles on the spot.