Small but significant changes were made across nearly all social media platforms this month, including new video features on Pinterest and a new ad creation tool in Snapchat. On top of those updates, Uber made a surprising announcement and Google My Business has added a very valuable feature to business listings in search results.
Keep reading to find out more about some of July’s top digital and digital marketing headlines in this month’s round-up.
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Snapchat introduces Instant Create
Snapchat is excited to introduce Instant Create, an easy way for advertisers to create ads in three simple steps. Just select your objective (increase web visits, app installs, or app visits), enter your business website and finalize your targeting. Then you’re ready to publish! Instant Create provides advertisers with limited resources a way to quickly get started in reaching a highly engaged audience to grow their business with Snapchat.
When creating a campaign, you have the option to choose Instant Create or Advanced Create. While Advanced Create is a great way to create multiple Ad Sets, Instant Create is a simplified way to create a campaign with a single Ad.
Facebook is making it easier to manage your assets and collaborate in the updated Business Manager
Earlier this year, Facebook announced improvements to Ads Manager and Business Manager that empower advertisers to build ads, analyze reports and manage Facebook assets in less time. They’re always working to improve our advertising solutions and business tools, and as part of this effort, they’re introducing a new design and navigation in Business Manager that will make it easier and faster to manage assets and permissions across our platforms. This new design features a shortcut tool that delivers suggestions based on past activity and an ads creation tool which takes you directly into Ads Manager to build ads.
Facebook is letting more Advertisers place ads in search results
More advertisers can now place ads in Facebook’s search results, a placement that has been in testing since last year. Facebook’s search ads were first rolled out to a select number of businesses in the US in December.
Now, it appears a greater number of advertisers are seeing ‘Facebook search’ show up as a placement option when setting up ad campaigns.
More ways to shop your favorite brands on Pinterest
Pinterest is rolling out new ways to dive into your favorite brands from personalized ideas at the top of home feed and browsable catalogs alongside Pins.
In addition to personalized shopping hubs at the top of your home feed, an updated shopping section is rolling out below Pins, making it easy to browse into the catalogs of brands of all sizes like Target, Birdies Slippers, Joybird, The Tie Bar, and Parachute.
More ways to discover inspiring video on Pinterest
Pinterest is introducing new video features for creators and businesses to reach their audiences including an improved uploader, video tab, lifetime analytics, and Pin scheduling.
An updated video uploader enables businesses and creators to seamlessly upload video directly to Pinterest to engage with new and existing audiences, and access the latest metrics.
A new video tab on business profiles makes it possible for brands to feature all their videos in one place for added discovery.
On Pinterest, videos surface and resurface over time and don’t disappear with a feed, meaning the lifespan of a video is evergreen. We’re introducing new video analytics for businesses to view lifetime views, so they can get insights into the performance of their video over time.
Businesses and creators can now also schedule video content in advance through the Pin Scheduler tool.
Introducing Pinterest Ads on the Go
In the last year, Pinterest has added a suite of self-serve tools to make it easier for businesses of all sizes to reach Pinners and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Now, with the ease of Mobile Ad Tools, businesses get simplified ad creation with consolidated targeting options, taking the guesswork out of setting up Promoted Pins.
Using Mobile Ad Tools, companies can build brand awareness and drive performance while reaching new customers without going over budget.
Help clients discover your services with a new feature on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is rolling out the ability for you to share what services you provide right on your profile. This is a great way to quickly indicate to members that you are “open for business.” So you provide marketing services? Share this on your profile so other members can reach out to learn more about your work and available services.
Live from VidCon: Creating new opportunities for YouTube creators
In honor of Vidcon’s 10th anniversary, YouTube has announced how they are going to continue to support and spark new opportunities for creators, including:
- Super Stickers: This new feature will allow fans to purchase animated stickers during live streams and Premieres to show their favorite creators just how much they enjoy their content. Stickers will come in a variety of designs across different languages and categories, such as gaming, fashion and beauty, sports, music, food, and more.
- Channel Membership Levels: With levels, creators can now set up to five different price points for channel memberships, each with varying perks.
- Merch Shelf: YouTube is adding 5 new partners, so eligible creators merchandising with Crowdmade, DFTBA, Fanjoy, Represent, and Rooster Teeth can also use the Merch shelf.
Uber plans to cut one-third of its Marketing department
Uber Technologies Inc. said it’s cutting a third of its marketing department globally, as the chief executive officer seeks to address concerns that the business is slowing down.
The ride-hailing company will dismiss about 400 employees. Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO, told employees of the changes in an email Monday.
Google to display customer photos in Shopping Ads
Google is rolling out a feature that will allow retailers to display customer photos in Google Shopping ads.
A customer’s photo may be shown when the shopping ad includes a review left by the customer. Customers will have the opportunity to upload a photo when leaving a review after receiving a product they ordered. This will allow customers to show other shoppers what the product looks like in a real-life, non-promotional photo.In turn, the photos may benefit retailers by encouraging more shoppers to buy the product. At the very least, the photos should help draw more attention to the ad.
Google Ads Editor version 1.1 has been released, which contains updates to improve on design and usability.
Here are the new features in the latest version of Google Ads Editor:
- Image Picker: Browse and select from previously used images, in addition to selecting images from your desktop. Warnings and error checks are shown in the thumbnail before the image is selected.
- Dark Mode: Activate dark mode by clicking the moon icon in the bottom right-hand corner. Revert back to light mode by selecting the sun icon.
- IP Exclusions: Add and update IP exclusions, ensuring that your IP exclusion settings are consistent when copying and pasting campaigns.
- Accounts Manager: Managing multiple accounts is now easier with checkboxes in the accounts manager that allow users to select and open multiple accounts.
A new way to unify app and website measurement in Google Analytics
Currently, many businesses measure app engagement with Google Analytics for Firebase and website engagement with Google Analytics. While each of these products separately offer powerful insights, getting a more unified picture of engagement across your app and website can be a manual and painstaking process.
To make this simpler, Google is announcing a new way to measure apps and websites together for the first time in Google Analytics.
Google Keyword Planner updated to show the most relevant keyword ideas
Google has updated its Keyword Planner tool with the ability to show the most relevant keyword ideas based on the seed keyword.
This update is designed to help users prioritize which keywords to add to their Google Ads account. Along with this update, two other features have been added to Keyword Planner:
- Website filtering: Filter keyword ideas to only show keywords most closely related to your business (based on your website).
- Brand exclusions: Exclude keyword ideas that include brand terms.
Google adds “Request a Quote” button to business listings in search results
Google is automatically adding a large “Request a Quote” button to eligible business listings in search results. The button also appears in mobile search results when the business name is searched for.
Specifically, businesses that have opted into the Google My Business messaging feature will have the “request a quote” button added to their listing
Microsoft expands Dynamic Search Ads
Microsoft Advertising is pleased to announce that Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) now include support for an additional description field and longer dynamically generated ad titles. This new expanded format is available in all markets where Dynamic Search Ad campaigns are supported: the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Improve Microsoft ad effectiveness with ad customizers
Ad customizers help reduce setup time and improve ad quality by allowing you to create hundreds of different ad variations with just one ad copy. Ad customizers are parameters within the ad copy which get replaced by dynamic text when the ad is displayed for the user. The text values are provided in the feed file and they are selected based on the targeting defined in the feed. The parameters in the ad copy follow this format: {=FeedName.AttributeName: Default}. If your feed name is “Deals” and you want to reference the custom attribute “Product (text)”, the parameter would be {=Deals.Product}
Thanks for checking out July’s Digital Marketing Round-up.
We’ll see you next month!
Photo Source: Jp Valery on Unsplash
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