This curated list includes important updates and insights from the month of September. To stay updated on the latest updates from the digital landscape, read our Digital Marketing Apple Page.
Digital Advertisement
- Facebook rolls out new Flight Ads that will let advertisers target users searching for flights on travel sites, apps. Read More
- Facebook renames Canvas ads ‘Instant Experience’ ads, gives them new pixel capabilities to measure engagement and re-engage with customers. The announcement read
The Facebook pixel will now be automatically added to Instant Experiences for any advertiser using the Facebook pixel on their website.This will enable businesses to re-engage with customers who interacted with their Instant Experience.
Advertisers will also be able to embed third-party pixels into an Instant Experience to track engagement and compare the performance of Instant Experiences to other campaigns using their analytics or insight tools of choice.
- Google rolls out Responsive Display Ads. The announcement read
These ads combine your creativity with the power of Google’s machine learning to deliver relevant, valuable ads across the web, at scale. Just provide a few simple inputs about your business－up to 15 images, 5 headlines, 5 descriptions, and 5 logos. Google uses machine learning to test different combinations and show the ads that work best.
- LinkedIn rolls out Dynamic Ads into Campaign Manager platform. The announcement read
With LinkedIn Dynamic Ads, you can:
Get closer with your audience
The eye-catching native format delivers a new level of personalization you can only find on LinkedIn. Because the creative is automatically personalized with each member’s profile info, such as their photo, first name, company, and job title, you can capture your audience’s attention in a way that standard display ads can’t.Personalize creative at scale
Personalization is now simpler than ever. Build your creative and write your ad copy once, and LinkedIn takes care of the rest by automatically personalizing your campaign for each person you target. You can add macros — data mapping tools — for even greater customization capabilities. Dynamic Ads also include pre-built templates to streamline your creative, and auto-translation to engage your prospects, no matter what language they speak.Achieve full funnel marketing objectives
Dynamic Ads work for every stage of the buyer’s journey with different formats to achieve your goals. To drive brand awareness, “follower ads” promote your Company or Showcase page to help you build a community. If you want to drive traffic and website conversions, use “spotlight ads” to highlight a product, service or event. What’s more, for the first time, you can see how your campaigns are performing and leverage A/B testing to optimize your Dynamic Ads campaigns directly in Campaign Manager.
- Facebook introduces new visibility into ad placements on Instant Articles, in-stream, and Audience Network. Read the full announcement here
- Google Ads roll out video in Showcase Shopping Ads. Read more here
- Instagram introduces shopping in stories globally, launches shopping channel in Explore. Read more here
- Google adds Smart Bidding for search partners. Read more here
- Google rolls out the new image search design for desktop. Read the full announcement here
- Quora rolls out Broad Targeting; says audience has hit 300 million monthly users. Read more here
- Twitter tests Timeline Ads on publisher sites. Read more here
- YouTube drops the number of required subscribers for access to Channel Memberships to 50,000 from the 100,000 threshold. Read more here
- Facebook launches ad breaks in 21 new countries, with support for English and five new languages: French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai. Read more here
- Facebook Stories Ads now available to all advertisers. Read more here
- Google rolls out new capabilities in Display & Video 360 for measuring viewability, reach, and brand lift across media sources and properties. Read more here
Social Media
- Facebook expands fact-checking to photos and videos. Read more here
- Twitter brings back the reverse chronological timeline. Read more here
Search
- Google rolls out new ‘family-led’ attribute to Google My Business profile. Read more here
- Google makes a number of updates to Google Images. The announcement read
Now we’re beginning to use AI to intelligently construct AMP stories and surface this content in Search. We’re starting today with stories about notable people—like celebrities and athletes—providing a glimpse into facts and important moments from their lives in a rich, visual format. This format lets you easily tap to the articles for more information and provides a new way to discover content from the web.
Using computer vision, we’re now able to deeply understand the content of a video and help you quickly find the most useful information in a new experience called featured videos.
In the coming weeks, we’ll bring Lens to Google Images to help you explore and learn more about visual content you find during your searches.
- Google Feed becomes Discover. Read more here
With this new name comes a fresh design that makes exploring your interests easier than ever. New topic headers explain why you’re seeing a particular card in Discover, and whenever a topic catches your eye, you can dive deeper to explore more on that topic. Next to each topic name is a Discover icon, which you’ll also start to see in Search for an ever-growing set of topics. You can tap “Follow” to start seeing more about that topic in your experience.
- Google rolls out new Activity Cards that will save your previous searches. Read more about the updates here
Now, with an improved Collections experience, you can add your content from an activity card directly to Collections. This makes it even easier to keep track of and organize the content you want to revisit. We’ve also added content suggestions to help you explore topics further, based on the other content you’ve saved and things you’ve searched for. We’ll start rolling out this new Collections experience later this fall.
We’re introducing a new way of dynamically organizing search results that helps you more easily determine what information to explore next.
- Snapchat tests a new way to search for products on Amazon right from the Snapchat camera. Read more here