COMING AT YOU THE WEEK OF 10.25.22
This week’s most important Marketing News
ADVERTISING
GOOGLE ANNOUNCES PERSONALIZED AD OPTION USING PUBLISHER FIRST-PARTY COOKIES
Starting November, these personalized ads can appear on publisher’s sites with first-party cookies.
“Here’s how it works. When a publisher allows, Google uses publisher first-party cookies to improve ad relevance on that specific publisher’s website by using information from ad interactions users took on the same site.”
YOUTUBE ANNOUNCES THREE NEW AD FEATURES, INCLUDING AUDIO ADS
Moment Blast. “Moment Blast gives advertisers prime positioning on YouTube Select content on connected TVs (CTV) and other devices, plus a Branded Title Card and optional Masthead placement.”
Audio ads. These YouTube ads are meant to connect with audiences who are using YouTube for listening-first content (podcasts, music, lectures, etc.). But they’re more like audio-first ads. They do show some visuals while the audio runs.
Product feeds to Discovery ads. “Today, we’re making it easier for people to shop what they love on YouTube. Advertisers can already use product feeds on YouTube, which turns ads into a virtual storefront…We’re now expanding product feeds to Discovery ads.” Discovery ads are part of the Discovery tab on the Google search mobile app.
GOOGLE ADS REPORT GETS THREE NEW COLUMNS
These are the new columns.
Results. “Shows the number of conversions received across your primary conversion actions for each of the standard goals in your account.”
Results value. “Shows the calculated conversion values you’ve received across your primary conversion actions for each of the standard goals in your account.”
Conversion goals. “Goals listed in your campaign-level settings that drive performance.”
GOOGLE ADS HAS A NEW CONTENT SUITABILITY CENTER
Suitability settings are controls over the content your ad appears on, specifically the content’s sensitivity. These settings used to exist across different Google platforms, but now they have this one, updated location.
Now you can choose one of three Inventory modes to give parameters to how much profanity, violence, etc. can appear in the content your ads show on.
GOOGLE ROLLING OUT ‘MY AD CENTER’ FOR USERS
In My Ad Center, users can “choose to see more of the brands and topics you like and less of the ones you don’t.” Users can like, block, and report ads through their Center as well.
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GOOGLE’S RESPONSE TO NUMBER OF FAKE LEADS COMING FROM LEAD GEN ADS
Advertisers have noticed an increase in fake leads through Performance Max lead gen ads. Google’s Ads Liaison said they’re “actively working to address concerns about invalid leads and are increasing investment in preventable measures.” Then suggested some measures to help, like server-side validation, double opt-in, and recaptcha.
NEW SEASONALLY-THEMED VIDEO AD TEMPLATES ARE AVAILABLE IN GOOGLE ADS
“The templates have designs and music tracks that reference…holidays and moments.” They’re customizable.
APPLE HAS TWO NEW APP-RELATED AD PLACEMENTS
Apple announced that “app-related ads will begin appearing in the App Store’s main Today tab and in a “You Might Also Like” section at the bottom of individual app listings starting Tuesday, October 25.”
SEARCH
A GOOGLE SPAM UPDATE STARTED AND FINISHED ROLLING OUT
The search update rolled out from Oct 19-21. Google says, “While Google’s automated systems to detect search spam are constantly operating, we occasionally make notable improvements to how they work. When we do, we refer to this as a spam update.”
A ‘TRENDING NOW’ BOX APPEARS FOR CERTAIN SHOPPING AND PRODUCT QUERIES
Google announced this a bit ago at their Search On event, and now it’s “slowly rolling out.”
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GOOGLE’S SHOPPING GRAPH WILL MAKE DESKTOP SEARCH MORE VISUAL
Mobile Search has gotten more and more visual, but they haven’t made those updates to desktop as regularly. They now have a Shopping Graph that “understands more than 35 billion product listings and can quickly organize shopping information online — making it much easier and more intuitive to find what you’re looking for.”
SOCIAL MEDIA
TIKTOK ANNOUNCED NEW CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVE AND MORE AT TIKTOK WORLD
This was their second TikTok World event. They announced:
Focused View, a new campaign objective option for TikTok ads. You’ll only pay for an ad if the viewer watched it for more than 6 seconds or interacted with it within 6 seconds.
Shopping Ads, which come in three different formats—Video Shopping Ads, Catalog Listing Ads, and LIVE Shopping Ads.
Smart Performance Campaigns, which is their first ad solution to be completely automated.
Improvements to the TikTok Creator Marketplace (TTCM). Some highlights:
- improved search capabilities for brands’ campaign insights
- TTCM Match, an automatic generator for a list of creators to match your brief
- new branded content metrics including audience overlap, audience interest distribution, Spark Ads campaign dates, and more
REELS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN FACEBOOK GROUPS AND YOU CAN SHARE FB EVENTS ON INSTAGRAM
These are the highlights from Facebook’s latest community-is-what-we’ve-got-going-for-us updates.
BRANDS CAN REGISTER TO JOIN INSTAGRAM’S CREATOR MARKETPLACE
Instagram’s been testing the creator marketplace since July, but it isn’t available to most brands yet. The platform facilitates discovering creators, and collaborating and negotiating with them. For instance, brands can create discoverable projects that appear to creators who match their criteria.
USEFUL LINKS
Writing naturally is a powerful tool for marketers. These are straightforward tips with useful examples.
HOW TO USE DATAWRAPPER TO MAKE FAST—AND FREE—VISUALIZATIONS
Datawrapper is an easy, gatefree way to visualize data. You don’t even have to create an account to use it.
GOOGLE PENALTIES, MANUAL ACTIONS AND NOTIFICATIONS: A COMPLETE GUIDE
You don’t need to know this stuff until the day you really, really do. Let bookmark do its job.
LIFE CHANGING CONCEPTS NEWSLETTER
I’m a sucker for a good mental model. So I like getting Ozan’s emails in my inbox.
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MY FAVORITE CURE TO THE LONELY ISLAND OF REMOTE WORK
Feeling connected to my coworkers is more likely to boost my energy and fun at work than any other factor. And we know a tight team is more creative and gets better results.
Well my team found a killer, very easy way to make our we-never-see-each-other-in-person team feel more connected. We answer the three questions below each week.
WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE FAILED AT THIS WEEK?
We like this question because:
- Analyzing and agonizing over failure is isolating. Sharing our failures is connecting and freeing.
- You learn about your coworkers’ perceptions of failure. You see what they want from themselves, what they believe the expectations of their job to be, etc.
- Sharing puts our failures through a filter. Wait, was that really a failure? Or was it just a tough situation?
IF YOU COULD MAGICALLY CHANGE SOMETHING, WHAT WOULD IT BE? This question essentially says, “Even if it’s an impossible thing to change, just share what you wish was different.”
This is valuable because:
- It gives everyone a chance to voice challenges and issues without having a good solution. We’ve heard that the best employees bring solutions, not problems to the table. But makes some people on our team (err, me) hide all problems away until they know how to fix them.
- It illuminates the struggles and provides space for understanding and camaraderie. Knowing people’s day-to-day struggles isn’t obvious for some teams. This makes it easier to help each other or to bond over shared annoyances.
WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU’RE PROUD OF FROM THIS WEEK?
This question is valuable because:
- It’s a great time to learn from one another. The answer to this question often goes, “There was this difficult thing I didn’t know how to do, but I figured it out. Here’s how...” And that “how” is often a lesson we all benefit from.
- You learn about your coworkers’ perception of success. It builds connection when you understand what people believe they should be proud of.
- You can validate success. This is another very important piece of relationship building.
Ted Lasso knows that a tight-knit team will perform the best. You could give these questions a whirl to build your work relationships.
INTERESTING STUFF
🦟 SOME PEOPLE REALLY ARE MOSQUITO MAGNETS, AND THEY’RE STUCK THAT WAY — Scientific American
🚗 UBER TO LET MARKETERS TARGET RIDERS BY DESTINATION — Wall Street Journal
🎥 NETFLIX ANNOUNCES PROFILE TRANSFERS — FOR WHEN IT FORCES YOU TO FINALLY PAY UP — The Verge
🎃 GOOGLE’S SITE, FRIGHTGEIST, LISTS THE MOST SEARCHED HALLOWEEN COSTUMES
💻 GOOGLE’S FLEDGE LACKS MOMENTUM 4 MONTHS INTO TRIALS — Digiday
FLEDGE is Google’s cookieless retargeting initiative.
🐦 A MEME IS BORN: HOW PEOPLE ARE TAKING MIXED MEDIA VIRAL ON TWITTER — Twitter Blog
📱 JACK DORSEY-FOUNDED BLUESKY UNVEILS ROADMAP FOR DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL NETWORKS — Decrypt