TechShu Marketing Digest: September 2020

This curated list includes important digital marketing 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.

Social 

  • Facebook rolls out Facebook Business Suite - a single place across mobile and desktop for businesses to access the tools they need to thrive across Facebook and Instagram. Read more here
  • Facebook Ads is removing its 20% text rule. Read more here
  • Pinterest rolls out Story Pins. Read more here
  • Snapchat in partnership with Kantar that analyzed how people of different ages develop and change their brand preferences. Read more here

  • Instagram announces an update to Instagram DMs by introducing a new Messenger experience on the app. Read more here
  • Instagram will now allow users to create Reels of up to 30 seconds. Read more here
  • Automatic captions rolls out on IGTV. Read more here
  • Audio tweets are available to more iOS users. 
  • LinkedIn announces the global rollout of LinkedIn Stories. Read more here
  • YouTube launches its TikTok-like 'Shorts' option to users in India. Read more here
  • Facebook lets users to host video watch parties, via video call or Messenger Rooms, with up to 50 friends in the app.

Digital Advertisement 

  • Google brings bidding to Local Services Ads. Read more here
  • Product innovations by Google to help the local businesses connect with their customers. The key details from the announcement are 

Retail and restaurant advertisers will soon be able to use Smart Bidding for store sales to optimize for in-store transactions, not just visits. For example, advertisers can upload their first-party, privacy-safe transaction data to inform ongoing optimization—all with the goal of driving additional sales at the store level. Reach out to your Google team to learn more.

“Pickup later” for local inventory ads gives you the option to promote products that may not be available in store now, but can be available for pickup within a few days. Reach out to your Google team to learn more.

  • Microsoft Advertising is now integrated with IAS to protect advertiser brand equity and spend from unnecessary risk. Read more here
  • Facebook Ads is removing its 28-day attribution option. Read more here
  • Google announces that by the end of the year they will make engaged-view conversions a standard way of measuring conversions for TrueView skippable in-stream ads, Local campaigns and App campaigns. Read more here
  • Facebook to start limiting the number of ads a page can run at once. The announcement read

When an advertiser runs too many ads at once, each ad delivers less often. This means that fewer ads exit the learning phase, and more budget is spent before the delivery system can optimize performance.

We discovered that four in ten running ads fail to exit the learning phase, and many of these ads come from advertisers running too many ads at the same time.

For this reason, we’re implementing a limit on the number of ads each Page can run at once

  • Pinterest announces new global shopping and ad features ahead of holiday season. Read more here
  • Reddit announces the launch of Inventory Types, a new feature that offers advertisers three tiers of inventory to choose from, based on their individual campaign objectives, brand safety requirements, and targeting goals. Read more here

Search 

  • Google expands Google Shopping listings for free globally. Read more here
  • Anatomy of a powerful content marketing funnel (SEMrush Survey Stats). The key findings from the study include:

(87%) of marketers create content for different customer journey stages, the top of the funnel remains the most popular one – 95% of marketers create TOFU content.

72% of the survey participants described “How-to” guides as an absolute leader at the top of the marketing funnel. 

MOFU content success is measured by conversion rate (75%) and the number of leads (54%). 

  • How Google delivers reliable information in Search? The announcement read 

A simple way to think about it is that there are three key elements to our approach to information quality:

First, we fundamentally design our ranking systems to identify information that people are likely to find useful and reliable. 

To complement those efforts, we also have developed a number of Search features that not only help you make sense of all the information you’re seeing online, but that also provide direct access to information from authorities—like health organizations or government entities. 

Finally, we have policies for what can appear in Search features to make sure that we’re showing high quality and helpful content.

  • Google summarizes its investments in information quality in Search and News. Read more here
  • Google lists down the ways they've improved Shopping results on Google Search. The announcement read 

Whatever you’re looking for, whether it’s a new laptop for working from home, a baby jacket for fall or a grill for backyard barbeques, Google makes it easy for you to see what’s available locally. Simply tap the Shopping tab, and select the Nearby filter at the top of the page or add “near me” to your search to view product options available from stores located near you.  

It’s now easier to see what’s in stores near you before committing to going in person, with a map view and list of stores in the area. You can check each business’s opening and closing hours, as well as how far each store is from you. You’ll also get a preview of the items they sell that match what you searched for, with a carousel you can scroll through to see pictures and prices of the available products. 

  • Bing applies natural language generation models to improve its autosuggest and People Also Ask (PAA) features. Read more here
  • How often does Google rewrite meta descriptions? (New Data Study). The key findings from the study include: 

25.02% of top-ranking pages don’t have a meta description.

Google rewrites meta descriptions 62.78% of the time.

Google is slightly less likely to rewrite meta descriptions that truncate.

 

 

Category
Digital Marketing