July has been an exciting month for new updates to paid advertising platforms. Google Ads rolled out 7 new updates alone. In this monthly blog post, we bring you the latest from all of the major platforms.
Google Ads
What: Google Ads Editor v1.1 unveiled
Details: This update is clearly in response to feedback Google has received from those of us utilizing the Editor. The key features include image picker, which allows you to quickly select previously used images, dark mode, IP exclusions, and accounts manager.
Impact: This update will create a few efficiencies we’ve been lacking, including being able to find images more quickly, keeping existing IP exclusions when copying and pasting campaigns, and making managing multiple accounts much easier.
What: New audiences for search
Details: Google Ads will be rolling out in-market audiences and detailed demographics to all accounts. Attendees saw a sneak peek of these features during Midwest Digital Marketing Day last week (get the recording.)
Impact: These new audience types allow us to get in front of the right audience at the right time on a more granular level.
What: Keyword Planner shows most relevant keyword ideas
Details: Keyword planner will now show the most relevant keyword ideas based on your seed keyword. You can then add recommended words to your seed keyword to broaden your search.
Impact: This update will make keyword research more efficient and will help prioritize keyword ideas. You can also use website filtering to show only keywords most related to your business based on your website and use a brand exclusion to exclude any keywords that include brand terms.
What: Trueview action comes to Google video partners
Details: Video marketing continues to grow, and Google Ads is tapping into that. By bringing TrueView for Action to Google video partners, the goal is to help drive leads and conversions on mobile applications and publisher websites beyond YouTube.
Impact: This will definitely increase impressions, and ideally leads and conversions. However, it does not seem to provide the same kind of brand safety available with YouTube ads, so that will be something for marketers to keep in mind as they launch these campaigns.
What: YouTube Masthead now available with CPM buying
Details: YouTube is selling off premium real estate – placement atop the YouTube Home feed. Advertisers have the option to purchase on a cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) basis and use advanced audience solutions to customize who sees it. It is a reserved placement, and impressions will be guaranteed across campaign flights that can range from one to seven days.
Impact: Consumers will likely learn to ignore this ad, unless it is highly relevant to them. It will also likely result in high competition, and therefore high cost.
What: Audience updates to App campaigns
Details: App campaigns are geared to making it easier to connect with your app-using consumers on Google Search, Google Play, YouTube and more. These new updates help unlock more search inventory on iOS mobile web browsers.
Impact: Expands the reach, and engagement, for App campaigns.
Also, parallel tracking will now be mandatory beginning July 31.
Microsoft Advertising
What: Introduces Dynamic Search Ads
Details: Microsoft Advertising will generate an ad based on a potential customer’s intent.
Impact: We’ve seen the results of Dynamic Search Ads in Google Ads, so we suspect similar here. Advertisers can capture additional keywords and it should ultimately lead to higher ROAS.
Details: Run a true A/B test within a campaign on components like ad copy, landing page URLs, bidding strategies and modifiers.
Impact: Should help marketers more quickly assess what is working well and how to optimize their campaigns for ultimate ROAS.
Details: Released ad customizers to improve ad effectiveness. Learn more from our PPC Newsflash >>
Impact: Allows for increased scalability and more targeted messaging. Also connects with Google Import Tool.
What: Attribution Models for Conversions
Details: Advertisers now have the ability to specify whether to attribute conversions to the latest campaign or to every campaign that had an ad interaction.
Impact: This new type of conversion tracking should help marketers have a better understanding of how their LinkedIn campaigns are working together to drive conversions.
What: Updates to the LinkedIn Insight Tag
Details: If there are unrecognized domains being tracked through your Insight Tag, advertisers can choose to block them. Blocking them will prevent conversions, website audiences, and website demographics from being sent from these domains.
Impact: This should give advertisers more control over only paying for traffic from websites that do result in conversions, and not paying for spammy or irrelevant audiences.
What: HG Insight integration for matched audiences
Details: Released in late June, you can now use HG Insights’ technographics to created targeted LinkedIn audiences.
Impact: Increased engagement, more lead generation, and better audience targeting.
Details: Twitter combines Creator management, video editing, and live broadcasting offerings into one entity. Twitter ArtHouse connects brands to the creative capital they need for their content. Twitter ArtHouse provides an opportunity to work with Influencers and Creators, as opposed to pushing content from the brand itself.
Impact: Brands may see an increase in performance if their campaigns lack on the creative side, or if they are in a highly-competitive industry and need additional help getting in front of their audience.
What: Ad placements available in Explore section
Details: As users scroll through the Explore section of their app, typically a space used to discover new brands and accounts to follow, ads can be included here just like in the normal feed.
Impact: More ad placements on Instagram is always great news – and putting them in a space where users are already in the mindset to explore and learn could prove to be very effective for advertisers.
What: Launches Branded Content Ads
Details: Instagram released branded content ads, which allow businesses to run ad campaigns from partnered creators to help them reach new audiences in new ways. The brands can utilize partnered influencer posts, and promote them like they would if it was their own.
Impact: It gives the brand more control over ad campaigns from creators. Brands can now control and manage the ad spend, targeting, and other details that impact campaign success. They will also have more insight into how influencer content performs.
We also checked Amazon, Quora, Pinterest, YouTube, Reddit, and SnapChat for updates. Check back in August for additional updates.
