TechShu Marketing Digest: February 2020

This curated list includes important digital marketing updates and insights from the month of February. To stay updated on the latest updates from the digital landscape, read our Digital Marketing Apple Page.

Digital Advertising 

  • Google adds a feature that lets you easily share remarketing lists across your manager and sub-accounts. Read more here
  • Google makes it easier to see how campaign changes impact ads performance in Google Ads. Read more here
  • Yelp rolls out  “video-centric” ad format, called Showcase Ads plus in-store attribution: Yelp Store Visits (YSV). The announcement read

Yelp Showcase Ads provides a canvas for brands to promote offerings to potential customers who are looking for a business like theirs. Yelp Store Visits gives clients the confidence that Yelp’s advertising products are delivering real in-store value.

  • Google expands Shopping Ads to Gmail. 
  • Amazon’s ad business grew by 40% in 2019. Amazon quarterly ad revenues surpassed $4 billion for the first time in the fourth quarter. Read more here
  • Microsoft announces new Shopping Campaign functionalities — improved Product Groups within the campaign user interface and Product Group management using Microsoft Advertising Scripts. Read more here
  • A new Google Partners program will be rolled out later this year. The announcement read

By end of June 2020, we’ll be updating the requirements needed to be considered for Partner badge status. You can review the changes in the table below. Additionally, this change will also include the way your certifications count toward badge and company specialization status. Stay tuned for more updates.

  • Research: Prices for Amazon's Sponsored Product ads are continuing to go up. Read more here

  • Snapchat rolls out Swipe Up to Call or Text. The announcement read 

Businesses of all sizes rely on phone calls or texts to source new clients, and meet their marketing objectives. This is why we’re introducing Swipe Up to Call or Text. Available today in Ads Manager, Swipe Up to Call or Swipe Up to Text is a new Snapchat ad format specifically built to deliver leads, conversions, and sales. In addition to being able to swipe up to different actions such as visiting a website or downloading an app, Snapchatters can swipe up on an ad to directly call or text a business from their mobile phone.

Search 

  • Google Search to introduce public profile cards for all. Read more here
  • Google sends out notices via Google Search Console saying “Google expects to apply mobile-first indexing to all websites in the next six to twelve months.” Read more here
  • Bing rolls out new Bing Webmaster Tools. The announcement read 

In the first iteration, the new portal will have 3 key features,
Backlinks - The Inbound Links report in the current portal is integrated with the Disavow links tool to become the new Backlinks report in the refreshed portal.
Search Performance - Page Traffic and Search Keywords reports are also integrated as one and are a part of the new Search Performance report.
Sitemaps - The Sitemaps page is the refreshed Sitemaps page of the current portal

  • Google rolls out a new structured data element for image license metadata. The technical details read 

To tell Google which images are licensable, add metadata to each licensable image on your site. If you have the same image on multiple pages, add metadata for each image on each page that it appears.

There are two ways that you can add metadata. You only need to provide Google with one form of metadata to be eligible for the Licensable badge, and any of the following methods is sufficient:

Structured data: Structured data is an association between the image and the page where it appears with the mark up. You need to add structured data for every instance an image is used, even if it's the same image.
IPTC photo metadata: IPTC photo metadata is embedded into the image itself, and the image and metadata can move from page to page while still staying intact. You only need to embed IPTC photo metadata once per image.

  • Research: Category page optimization key area to focus on to improve your organic search rankings and traffic. Find the report here
  • Google updates on using (relevant) keywords in your Google My Business description. Read more here
  • Warner Bros renames the movie name Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey for better SEO. Read more here
  • Research: Meta descriptions remain a crucial SEO element. When asked which factor has the most significant impact on their decision to click a result, 62.9% responded it was the description. Find the report here
  • Google announces support for review snippets in Google Search Console. The announcement read

To help site owners make the most of their reviews, a new review snippet report is now available in Search Console for sites that have implemented reviews or ratings structured data. The report allows you to see errors, warnings, and valid pages for markup implemented on your site.
In addition, if you fix an issue, you can use the report to validate it, which will trigger a process where Google recrawls your affected pages. The report is covering all the content types currently supported as review snippets. Learn more about the Rich result status reports.

  • Google updates its guidelines for the use of FAQ structured data

 

Social Media 

So, we’re currently testing LinkedIn Stories internally, and we can’t wait to test it with our members in the coming months. We’ve learned so much already about the unique possibilities of Stories in a professional context. For example, the sequencing of the Stories format is great for sharing key moments from work events, the full-screen narrative style makes it easy to share tips and tricks that help us work smarter, and the way Stories opens up new messaging threads makes it easier for someone to say, “and by the way… I noticed you know Linda, could you introduce me?” 

  • TikTok tests website links in profiles. Read more here
  • Facebook updates best practices for designing great messaging experiences on Messenger. Read more here
  • Twitter shares advice with businesses on how to write better tweets.
  • Facebook lets users turn any 2D photo into 3D. Read more here
  • In 2021, TikTok is projected to reach 52.2 million users in the US. Read the eMarketer report here
  • Creators and publishers across the world get access to the new Creator Studio app from Facebook. The announcement read 

The Creator Studio app is designed to work together with Creator Studio desktop, so creators and publishers can easily access:
Rich insights: Data and engagement metrics about how content is performing, such as "1-minute views" and "Avg. minutes viewed"
Post-uploading edits and fixes: Ability to edit video titles and descriptions, delete and expire posts, publish drafted posts and reschedule scheduled posts, enabling easy content adjustments
Connect with audiences: Reach fans and followers in real time, from anywhere with the ability to read and respond to Facebook messages and comments using Inbox directly in the app
Multi-account support: Manage multiple Pages on Facebook and toggle between them from the same app in the same session – no need to log out of one to log in to another to access multiple Pages
Notifications: Immediate in-app notifications for key milestones

 

Category
Digital Marketing