How to keep a Digital Marketing Expert happy? Based on our (not-very-scientific) research, you need to provide them with strong coffee, an upbeat playlist and an ice-cream on a hot, summer day. Everything else – flexible working hours, great central location and exciting clients to work with – are an added bonus.
Taking advantage of the good weather, we have been enjoying our lunch breaks at Merrion Square – so if you fancy joining our PPC or SEO Teams, take a look at our Careers page!
And while school may be out for the summer, we never stop learning at VROOM Digital. Here’s an overview of the recent updates and digital marketing news.
Shopping Campaign Landing Pages Report
No marketer can deny the importance of a well-optimised landing page. For this reason, Google Ads introduced a new report on landing page performance from shopping campaigns. Data can be found in the “Landing pages” page and will include:
- Clicks
- Impressions
- CTR
- Average CPC
- Cost
- Conversion rate
- Conversions
The new report will allow you to see which landing page from your Shopping campaigns perform best and which ones need to be reviewed.
New & Improved Features in the Google Ads mobile app
Google has added some new features to the Google Ads Mobile App. You can now create and edit responsive search ads directly from the app. Make last minute changes, or quick improvements to your campaigns when on the move. In the past, app functionality was limited to pausing and enabling ads. Another update is the ability to review, add & edit negative keywords directly from the search query results. Overall, these updates can help you quickly improve account performance even when you’re away from your desk.
Google Roll Out Monthly Campaign Budgets
We noticed a number of our client accounts now have the ability to choose between setting an average daily campaign budget or a monthly campaign budget. This could be a useful feature for some accounts, however as mentioned it only seems to be available on a selected few.
Google June 2019 Core Algorithm Update Earthquake
What a challenging way to start the month for search engine marketers: on June the 3rd, Google released its June Core Algorithm Update and, since then, a speculation earthquake shook up the SEO community about its potential impact on search results and website rankings.
Nobody saw any tangible aftereffects until June 8th, when the Update finished rolling out. From what we could see and what we have read, there are websites that were not affected at all (congrats) and websites that really suffered from this release. Google confirmed their updates may have varying effects on websites and as “with any update, some sites might not perform as well as in the past, while other sites might perform better.”
We have come across the CCN case, a major cryptocurrency news site, where the traffic drastically dropped by more than 70% overnight and the whole business was basically shut down, blaming the Core Update’s impact. Following up, CCN raised their voice about Google practices and proposed an open call expressing a few demands such as “Give a three months’ notice to all webmasters, let alone news organizations, of any major Google Core Update and elaborate what it might affect”. As John Muller tweeted afterward, they “will try to announce the bigger ones & the ones that are actionable” in advance. Now, that’s some good piece of news!
As if the June Core Algorithm Update wasn’t enough, Google issued a second update on June 7th titled Domain Diversity Update, which aims at not showing more than two URLs from the same domain in search results for a particular query.
After all the June Updates, let’s enjoy summer with no additional dramas, shall we?
New Maps & Search SOS Alerts
Google has updated the SOS Alerts in Search & Maps, which will inform you about any upcoming natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc. This improved feature will provide essential information about a natural event, surface the relevant news and connect with Twitter news. It will show all the emergency numbers and safety tips for a particular area and will navigate you through the safest exits on the Crisis Navigation feature on Google Maps. Read more about this handy feature, which will be appreciated by many during these times of crazy weather changes!
LinkedIn’s Brand Refresh & Innovations
June has been a very busy month for LinkedIn, which has gone through a substantial change of look and has rolled out some interesting new features in the past couple of weeks.
LinkedIn’s brand refresh includes a slightly different logo, a custom font, some explanatory illustrations and a new color palette. The updated branding is aimed at conveying their “brand’s warmth, humanity, and community.” It seems like the Mountain View social network is seriously working on making its design “accessible and inclusive to all our members and customers.”
LinkedIn also announced a couple of new initiatives to help marketers reach their goals on the social media platform. The first one is LinkedIn Ad Review, a monthly publication of “a top-performing piece of LinkedIn Sponsored Content.” This piece of content will consist of an analysis of the ad’s headline, visual and copy, an explanation of why they performed well plus a few general tips for advertisers.
The second innovation is the ‘Research and Insights’ program, a weekly publication of stats and tips on “how and why people buy, who those buyers are on LinkedIn and more”.
Last but not least, LinkedIn unveiled new tools to help job seekers prepare for interviews. The first one will “give you a head start on your prep by identifying commonly asked interview questions.” Job seekers, who spend a lot of time practicing answering interview questions, will be able to watch short videos on how to approach these questions, record themselves and improve their answers. Premium members will also have access to sample interview answers approved by professional recruiters.
Over the past few months, LinkedIn has been working hard on developing new content features and advertising solutions, on top of improving their offering to recruiters and job-hunters alike. There are now over 2,000,000 Irish members on LinkedIn and around the globe every eight seconds someone gets a job using LinkedIn. Is it time to review your LinkedIn strategy? Talk to us!
Facebook New Cryptocurrency
We think we can all agree that this month’s groundbreaking piece of news, June’s bee’s knees, the cherry on top of the digital Sacher Torte is undoubtedly Libra, Facebook newly launched cryptocurrency.
The project, unveiled by Mark Zuckerberg, will be operational in 2020 and could revolutionise the way millions of people exchange money and shop online. Facebook will be able to count on its users, around 2.4 billion people worldwide, to promote the rapid spread of Libra. The objective is precisely to expand the use of social media as a market platform, competing with Amazon and e-commerce in general.
A specific team led by the former PayPal president David Marcus has been working on the architecture of this blockchain system of which Facebook is only one of the actors. In fact, it will be governed by the Libra Association, formed by 28 global leaders in finance, e-commerce and technology, such as Mastercard, Uber, PayPal and Visa, who invested a minimum of $10 million to join, gain one vote in the council and be entitled to a share.
Why is Libra such a big deal? Here are just a few reasons:
- Powered by blockchain technology, Libra will have an open-source developer platform with its own Move programming language;
- It is practically free. It will let its users buy things or send money with almost zero fees;
- It’s centralised. Unlike the existing cryptocurrencies, which have no central authority, all decisions will be taken by the 28 founding members roundtable;
- It’s set to be global. Even if it will be first launched in the US and in Europe, Libra will be made available in as many countries as possible. It’s specifically calling out to the “unbanked”, the 1.7 billion people who have no access to financial infrastructure;
- It’s stable. Backed by a reserve composed of international currencies and debt securities, Libra is meant to stay largely stable and to be a reliable medium of exchange.
- It’s fast. A cross-border money transfer takes 3 to 5 working days to reach its recipient, with Libra ti will be a matter of seconds.
- Users can pay both fiat currencies and existing cryptocurrencies to receive Libra.
So how can you actually buy and sell goods with Libra? Through Facebook’s own Libra Wallet, Calibra, or other third-parties wallets, probably built by the council’s founding members like PayPal but open to anybody. The idea behind it is to make sending money or paying for something as easy as sending a message and creating “more access to better, cheaper, and open financial services — no matter who you are, where you live, what you do, or how much you have.”
Spotify Introduced Podcast-based Targeting
Spotify rolled out a new targeting option enabling advertisers to reach users according to what category of podcast they’re listening. The podcast categories include Comedy, Lifestyle & Health and Business & Technology.
The new targeting is now being tested in 10 global markets by selected advertisers, such as Samsung, the official sponsor of the Spotify Original podcast Dope Labs.
This is just one of the series of investments Spotify has made in the effort to position itself as the go-to platform for podcasts. The Swedish based company believes podcasts are the future of audio, estimating that by 2022 podcasts could account for 4.5% of global audio ad spend. According to Edison Research, 51% of U.S. consumers have listened to podcasts at least once, and 62 million people listen to it weekly. On Spotify, podcast consumption hours grew by 250% YoY in 2018, of which 49% were millennials.
If you’re interested in advertising on Spotify, talk to us!
Pinterest ‘Complete The Look’
According to a June report from eMarketer, Pinterest is the leading platform for new products discovery and it’s planning to outperform its competitors with the latest feature, Complete the Look. This new recommendation system identifies the context in a scene and suggests relevant products to complete your outfit or home design.
Pinterest’s visual search system “takes context like an outfit, body type, season, indoors vs. outdoors, various pieces of furniture, and the overall aesthetics of a room to power taste-based recommendations across visual search technology.”
New Ranking Factors for Post Comments
In an effort to show its users relevant and quality post comments, Facebook updated the factors determining how comments are ranked on public posts. The main signals they tend to take into account are authenticity, survey results, interactions and what the poster controls.
Facebook will also show comments on public posts more prominently when the comments have interactions from the Page or person who originally posted, or the comments or reactions are from friends of the person who posted. Moreover, it will continue taking other signals into consideration to avoid showing low-quality comments even if they are from the person who made the original post, or their friends.
Things may be slowing down for the summer, but the big tech giants never sleep and we are sure to be surprised and inspired by new advertising solutions, innovative ad formats and quirky digital ideas. Are you and your business staying on top of all innovations? Follow VROOM Digital on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for your regular updates and digital marketing tips!
