COMING AT YOU THE WEEK OF 9.26.23
Hey!
What do you think?
Do you value Google search today as much as you did five years ago? Not as a marketer, just as a person.
Also, check you out! You woke up today, you’re taking on the world, you’re learning about marketing. Way to be 👏
Yours truly,
Hayley
GOOGLE BASICALLY SAID THAT THEY INCREASE AD AUCTION PRICES WHEN THEY NEED MORE REVENUE
During Google’s antitrust trial, Google’s VP of Ad products admitted that Google will make adjustments to search ad auction factors, and that those changes involve increasing the cost of ads or the minimum spending on an ad. The court proceedings discussed an example of this in May 2019 when the ad products team was desperate to meet revenue expectations set with Wall Street. And in response, it seems they altered ad auctions to hike up prices.
GOOGLE BARD IS NOW CAPABLE OF USING INFO FROM YOUR GMAIL, DOCS, AND DRIVE
This new integration could let you ask Bard “what are my travel plans for next Friday?” And it could do things like pull your flight plan from one email, your car rental from another, and your Airbnb from another.
GOOGLE LAUNCHED NEW REPORT TO IDENTIFY CHECKOUT PROBLEMS
The Checkout Journey report was created to help identify bottlenecks in the checkout process.
GA4 IS SHOWING AUTOMATICALLY MIGRATED CONFIGURATIONS FROM UA AND IT’S CAUSING SOME PROBLEMS
Some GA4 sites are automatically setting up configurations from their old UA site, like goal and audience configurations. This is happening to anyone who did not opt out of automatically created GA4 properties. This is making it difficult for some people to create and correctly monitor campaigns and reports. If that’s happening to you, contact Google support or the Google Ads Product Liaison.
It’s often complicated to buy Connected TV ads, and Microsoft says they created this ad product to be easier and more accessible.
MICROSOFT BING IS ROLLING OUT PERSONALIZED ANSWERS IN BING CHAT
These new personalized answers use your Bing search history to tailor answers to your questions.
YOU CAN PROVIDE RICH MENUS AND FORMS IN WHATSAPP NOW
This new feature, Flows, would let a customer book an appointment or order a meal within the Whatsapp chat.
META VERIFIED IS EXTENDING TO INSTAGRAM, FB, AND WHATSAPP
A Meta verified business subscription comes with a badge, impersonation protection, account support, and features that will help your business stand out. It charges $22/month for FB or Instagram and $35/month for both.
TIKTOK LAUNCHED A NEW AD ANALYTICS SOLUTION
TikTok Ads Manager now hosts Attribution Analytics. TikTok is hoping this helps advertisers understand the non-linear customer path to purchase that is common with TikTok ads.
OTHER UPDATES
A new TikTok test shows Google search results in app’s own search
With iOS 17 you can easily add a 3D product image to Shopify
You Can Now Have Multiple Personal Profiles on Facebook
Amazon is rolling out ads on Prime Video starting in early 2024
YouTube launched mobile video editing app, like CapCut, and new AI features
Bing Webmaster Tools will remove the disavow links feature in October 2023
Facebook made tiny updates to logo and branding
Google Streamlines AdSense Site Management With New Tools
Elon Musk says X will charge users ‘a small monthly payment’ to use its service
Google Ads Updates Misrepresentation Policy To Strengthen Standards
Google’s helpful content update did not yet target hosted third-party content
What the freeeak there were so many updates this week!
This is a sidebar app for Google sheets that…well, I’ll let Casper’s review explain it to you:
“A very helpful tool that imports and combines data from different sources e.g. search console and Google Analytics. The automated data refreshing is an amazing bonus. Easy to use and saves a lot of time.”
– Casper Kuijpers
WHEN I STOPPED TRYING TO SELF-OPTIMIZE, I GOT BETTER
This New York Times opinion piece starts with Francis realizing, “My self worth was bound at that moment to my success or failure, and that set off a chain reaction: unnatural desire, pressure, performance anxiety, anticipation, a mind enamored with the top but a body struggling below, bad decision-making, irregular movement, distraction, frustration. All in that order, too.”
He realized, like some of us may have, that that 👆 wasn’t working for him. So he tries out a new approach, one about subtracting instead of adding.
Some of the links in my newsletters are affiliate links. So sometimes I get monies (aka dollary doos, aka sweet sweet dough) when you buy or sign up for some of the stuff I mention—at no extra cost to you.