Have you been wondering about Google’s new BERT algorithm, or about advertising over the holiday season? There was a ton of content in November about these topics, in addition to updates across Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat and more.

To find out more about these top headlines, keep reading this month’s digital marketing round-up.

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BERT explained: What You Need to Know about Google’s new algorithm

Google’s newest algorithmic update, BERT, helps Google understand natural language better, particularly in conversational search.

BERT will impact around 10% of queries. It will also impact organic rankings and featured snippets. So this is no small change!

But did you know that BERT is not just any algorithmic update, but also a research paper and machine learning natural language processing framework?

WhatsApp Business App introduces Catalogs for Small Businesses

Catalogs are a mobile storefront for businesses to showcase and share their goods so people can easily browse and discover something they would like to buy. Previously businesses had to send product photos one at a time and repeatedly provide information — now customers can see their full catalog right within WhatsApp. This makes business owners look more professional and keeps customers engaged in the chat without having to visit a website.

Simplifying Payments with Facebook Pay

People already use payments across Facebook’s apps to shop, donate to causes and send money to each other. Facebook Pay will make these transactions easier while continuing to ensure your payment information is secure and protected, and provide people with a convenient, secure and consistent payment experience across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.

YouTube introduces Shopping Ads

If you’re a retailer, you can use Shopping campaigns to promote your online and local inventory, boost traffic to your website or local store, and find better qualified leads. To get started, you’ll send us your product data with Merchant Center and create a campaign in Google Ads. Then we’ll use your campaign to create ads on Google and around the web where potential customers can see what you’re selling. We call these placements Shopping ads, because they’re more than a text ad–they show users a photo of your product, plus a title, price, store name, and more. These ads give users a strong sense of the product you’re selling before they click the ad, which gives you more qualified leads.

Google expands Shopping Ads to over 50 new markets, adds new features

Google is expanding shopping ads and introducing new features to help advertisers target shoppers worldwide.

Shopping ads are now available in over 50 new markets, and 95 markets in total. In order to take advantage of the greater availability, Google Ads is rolling out the following features.

Deliver consistent site experiences with Google Optimize

Consumers expect connected shopping experiences from research to purchase. But their journeys aren’t linear; they move around, visiting—and revisiting—multiple sites and apps, multiple times a day.  This makes it challenging for businesses to deliver a coordinated site experience, especially if they are running an experiment or personalization on their site. How do they make sure that the version of their site someone saw in the morning is the same version they see in the afternoon?

Google Optimize can now understand when a customer has returned to a site they visited before and deliver a consistent site experience.

Google lets businesses add a custom list of services to GMB listings

An update to Google My Business will allow service-based businesses to specify the types of services they offer to customers.

Google My Business will provide a selection of suggested types of services to choose from, for example, plumbers may see “Install faucet” or “Repair toilet” as services to add.

Google believes having standardized job types will make it easier for customers to find the services they need. On the business side, Google says adding a list of service types will generate more relevant leads for those services.

Google Maps is adding local recommendations in ‘For You’ tab

Google Maps is piloting a new feature which sees its Local Guides providing recommendations to users. Users in select cities will see local recommendations will appear in the ‘For You’ tab.

Local Guides are regular people who avidly contribute reviews, photos, and other information to Google Maps. There are now over 100 millions Local Guides across tens of thousands of cities.

Create your own maps and stories in Google Earth

With creation tools in Google Earth, you can draw your own placemarks, lines and shapes, then attach your own custom text, images, and videos to these locations. You can organize your story into a narrative and collaborate with others. And when you’ve finished your story, you can share it with others. By clicking the new “Present” button, your audience will be able to fly from place to place in your custom-made Google Earth narrative.

Balance your spend across YouTube and TV with Reach Planner

YouTube is focused on helping brands reach their audiences and drive business impact. That’s why we launched Reach Planner in April 2018 to give advertisers a better way to plan their YouTube and video media. To help make it even easier for users to for users to discover the optimal mix of TV and YouTube to maximize the reach of a video based media plan, today we’re launching Nielsen TV Data in Reach Planner. Now you can see how different distributions of spend on TV and YouTube can affect your reach.

Using this together with Nielsen Total Ad Ratings (TAR), you can compare YouTube and TV reach from the planning stages through to post campaign reporting.

Twitter introduces Topics

In the coming months, you’ll be able to follow conversations about a topic similar to how you’d follow an account with one single tap. Topic suggestions will appear in your timeline and in search based on what you tend to look for and already follow on Twitter.

Twitter offers more control over your conversations: now available globally

Currently, repliers can shift the topic or tone of a discussion and derail what you and your audience want to talk about. To give you more control over the conversations you start, we tested the option for you to hide replies to your Tweets. We learned that the feature is a useful new way to manage your conversations. Today, we’re making this available to everyone globally.

Pinterest gets a new look

We hear from Pinners they want an easy way to get inspired and browse ideas they love. Our updated look for iOS and Android makes Pinterest even more visual, with personalized recommendations front and center in your home feed and reduced space around Pins to celebrate the content.

Updates to Microsoft Advertising Editor

We’ve redesigned the look and feel of Microsoft Advertising Editor for Windows and Mac. Aligning with the principles of Microsoft fluent, you’ll find that our visual refresh is simple, clean, and modern, while matching up with other Microsoft products. In addition, we’ve added 5 recommendations for you to implement. You’ll notice a helpful light bulb icon, a new notification we’ve introduced for this purpose to highlight actions you could take to make your serving campaigns perform better, such as improving bids or adding new and more effective keywords to your ad groups.

Snapchat introduces extended play commercials

Snapchatters may start seeing longer non-skippable commercials on the messaging application with Monday’s introduction of new ad option extended play commercials, which enables brands to go as long as three minutes.

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Thanks for checking out November’s Digital Marketing Round-up.

We’ll see you next month!

Photo Source: Pro Church Media on Unsplash