Digital Minute – the latest digital marketing news and analysis

Facebook has started testing search ads, as part of a new strategy to turn around its declining ad revenues. The social network is testing a new search advertising concept with a small number of advertisers in the automotive, ecommerce and retail sectors in the US and Canada. The concept involves inserting news feed ads into the search function of the site, although Facebook is being quiet on the specific details of how the model works. Facebook last trialled search ads in 2012, although the idea was shelved just a year later, and is looking for new advertising revenue sources as it faces competition from Google, Amazon and its other social media brand, Instagram.

After investing heavily in promoting search carousels, Google appears to be cutting down the time that these search features appear. Data from two independent search software provides suggests that the Google has reduced the number of occasions that image and video carousels appear in the search results by as much as 30%. The development could have a major impact on the traffic of brands that have used these features as a way to secure prominent placements in the search engine results.

Could brands soon start being able to promote their YouTube content as a Google search ad? That’s the question that has been raised after Google was spotted trialling a new approach to promoted video in the search results. In what appears to be a test involving a small number of film studios, movie trailers have been seen appearing in a carousel ad unit in Google search results. These ads include content hosted by YouTube, raising questions over whether brands will soon be able to promote their own YouTube content in Google’s search results pages.

Some advertisers are moving more than half of their digital advertising spend into Amazon, according to a survey of leading advertising agency executives in the US. A survey by CNN found that many agencies were seeing clients move as much as 60% of their ad budgets away from mediums such as Google search, display and programmatic, and towards Amazon – lured by a more product-focused audience, better conversion rates and Amazon’s power as a “product search engine”.

Google used its 20th birthday celebrations to announce a number of new search marketing features, with a much stronger focus on the user search journey and the way in which users consume content as part of that journey. The biggest of the announcements was a number of features that will essentially see Google pre-empt the user journey for what it considers to be “high consideration” search queries, where multiple sub-topics may play an important role in the overall search journey.

Google has announced it is rolling out responsive display ads as a default to all advertisers in the next few months. Customers will be able to upload up to 15 images, five headlines, five descriptions and five logos and then leave the rest to Google’s machine learning to deliver the most relevant, valuable ads across their inventory. Digital Minute takes a look at the new offering. Source: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9131153

As Facebook continues its efforts to clean-up its platform, and lessen its capacity to be used in divisive and damaging ways, it has announced that around 5,000 of its advanced ad targeting options will be removed as it seeks to stamp out discriminatory ad targeting. The move comes after a series of scandals for Facebook, and follows specific complaints about certain advertisers using the platform to discriminate against certain audience segments. Digital Minute looks at what has changed, and what this could mean for social advertising strategy.

Google updated its search quality evaluator guidelines last month, placing a greater focus on the “E-A-T” principles of expertise, authority and trust. Those new policies have already had a major impact in some key search markets. With major brands in some key niches losing visibility, we analysed at what it means for your search strategy. Digital Minute looks at what has changed, and what this could mean for search and content marketing strategy.

Google confirmed last week that it released a “broad core algorithm update”, after certain quarters of the search community noticed shifts in rankings and traffic earlier this morning. It follows similar updates in March and April and importantly, Google has advised website owners that there is no specific action that they can or should take to respond to the change. Instead, Google claims that this update is simply up-lifting sites and pages that were previously under-valued, and that focusing on core SEO best practice – content, and user experience – is the best way to respond to any changes as a result of this update.

Google has lifted a lid on some of the secrets behind parts of its search algorithm, including how RankBrain handles unseen queries, how it penalises certain content and how many algorithm experiments it performed in 2017. Speaking to a United States House Judiciary Committee on “Facebook, Google and Twitter: Examining the Content Filtering Practices of Social Media Giants”, a Google representative Juniper Downs revealed some insight into part of the search algorithm and how it determines search result rankings.

Google hosted its Marketing Live Keynote on Tuesday and, amongst the key announcements, cross-device reporting is coming to Google Analytics. Advertisers will now be able to seamlessly attribute consumer spending and activity across mobile and desktop devices, allowing them to understand consumer behaviour and consumer value as they engage with the brand on multiple devices and platforms. Other key announcements include Responsive Search Ads, powered by machine learning to deliver the most relevant and contextual ads, the re-branding of Adwords and the introduction of a new and integrated Google Marketing Platform.

Surveys from Marin and Zazzle reveal that advertisers’ biggest challenge around the world in 2018 is the successful integration of search and social channels. Marin Software’s latest ‘State of Digital Advertising’ report revealed that 48% of advertisers named it as one of their three biggest challenges in relation to paid social. Social is now the most popular channel, overtaking search. Elsewhere, Zazzle’s report reveals that marketers are having some trouble convincing decision makers about the worth of content marketing, with expectations and pressure leading to poor perceived performance.

Apple hosted it’s WWDC Developer Conference, and announced a number of developments that take direct aim at the likes of Facebook and Google. The biggest of these developments was the announcement that the new version of iOS and MacOS would not allow the likes of Facebook or Google to track the browsing habits of Apple users across other parts of the web – effectively meaning that they couldn’t use those browsing habits to inform future advertising.

Google and PayPal have announced new a integration strategy that will make it easier for users to complete a purchase through services such as Gmail and YouTube – potentially creating new content marketing opportunities for Ecommerce brands. The new partnership will allow users to connect their PayPal and Google Pay accounts and seamlessly make payments whilst they are using Google properties. For example, the deal could allow a user to watch an instructional “how to” video on YouTube and then easily, with just the click of the button, purchase the tools or materials that were featured in the video.

Google held its I/O Conference last week, and artificial intelligence was the big theme. Amongst the headlines from the event was the introduction of Google Duplex, which will be able to automatically make phone calls to book restaurant tables and salon appointments, as well as the new version of Google’s Android OS – Android P. With updates also coming to Google Mail, News and new voice search devices, there is plenty for developers and digital marketers to get their teeth into from Google I/O 2018

Google updated a patent behind its PageRank algorithm, which is a key component of the Google ranking algorithm. SEO blogger Bill Slawski published an article noting that Google updated a patent related to PageRank, which is an algorithm within Google that influences how sites are ranked. The changes seem to focus on how links are judged by trying to determine the distance of a link between the site that it links to and the most authoritative site within a given niche.

Digital Minute is 100 episodes old. Over that time, we've picked up a lot about video marketing, but how can you apply our experience of 100 episodes and apply it you your video marketing strategy?  When you produce 100 episodes of a video series, you inevitably come up against some challenges and some successes along the way. So as we celebrate a century of Digital Minutes, we wanted to share some of our learnings over the course of this series, and how you can apply them to your video marketing strategy. What 100 episodes of Digital Minute has taught us about video marketing.

Google has announced that it is rolling out the next stage of its mobile first index, with more sites being moved onto the new ranking algorithm. This rollout is only for sites that “follow the best practices for mobile-first indexing”, but will see those sites ranked in organic search based on how they perform on mobile devices, rather than desktop. Google’s long-awaited mobile first index is now expected to go live later this summer.

Social media influencers could face an advertising clampdown after the Advertising Standards Authority announced that it would be launching an investigation into the relationship between them and brands. The ASA wants to investigate whether the average social media user can tell if a post or video is an advert, and to look at some of the loopholes that influencers may be exploiting to mask the fact that their content is a paid-for ad. The regulator is concerned that some publishers are taking advantage of technical flaws in the YouTube system to obscure ad disclosures, and have also raised concerns about the issue of so-called “astro-turfing”, where commercial promotions are disguised as editorial content.

Google is updating search results with a new type of featured snippet which is designed for queries that have multiple interpretations. The new snippet is designed to deliver relevant answers to questions that may have more than one user intent, ensuring that each user can get the answer that they are looking for within the snippet. The development is the latest update to Google’s featured snippets project, which is playing a big role in its push to develop voice search.

Google has announced that the latest edition of its Chrome internet browser is going to include ad blocking automatically – although only certain types of ads will be affected. Chromes ad blocker will automatically start blocking ads that it, along with the Coalition for Better Ads group, considers annoying or intrusive. The announcement will naturally have many publishers concerned, whilst advertisers will also be prompted to rethink their approach to digital advertising, but Google argues that by forcing publishers to adhere to better ad standards, it will improve the online user experience and reduce the motivation from users to install third party ad blockers.

Google took the step of ‘reintroducing’ its featured snippets last week, as it announced a couple of big changes to the way in which answers are displayed in Google search results. With rich snippets playing a big role in projects such as voice search, Google is developing them to provide more detailed and more customisable answers. The new features will provide more information in the search result and, in cases where there may be more than one answer to a query, will allow users to refine their answer without leaving the Google search result.

As Google looks to clear up YouTube’s image after yet another brand reputation crisis, it has introduced new rules to the way in which content creators can monetize their videos and channels. But in the wake of the Logan Paul scandal, Google’s proposed changes have caused concern amongst high profile content creators, who will lose out from the new policy, and from brands who are now facing fewer advertising opportunities and potentially higher costs in order to reach audiences on YouTube. The strict new guidelines will, Google hopes, restore some confidence in the platform amongst advertisers, and Digital Minute looks at just what is changing, and what the likely impact will be.

Google gave digital marketers something of an early Christmas present, releasing the first documented guidelines on how it will be assessing and ranking the quality of answers for voice search queries. The guidelines, which will be followed by Google’s “search quality raters” highlight how Google will be assessing the suitability of an answer for a voice query, and how they will be judging factors such as information relevance, quality, length, grammar and elocution. Whilst the guidelines are relatively basic for now, they represent the first official statement from Google as to what it is looking for from publishers and brands as it develops its library of voice search answers.

Google has announced that search snippets are getting longer, with snippets now growing to as much as 230 characters, depending on the search query. Google will dynamically increase the search snippet depending on the search result to from the current maximum of 160 characters, to as much as 230 characters. The change is designed to try and answer the user query within the search results – something that is good for users, but potentially a problem to website owners, who could see traffic from organic search decline. Read more on the blog at https://www.stickyeyes.com/2017/12/12/google-extends-snippets-in-big-changes-to-search-results/

Google will start penalising websites that use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) as teaser pages, where only a small portion of the content is served to users via an AMP page. From 1 February, Google will penalise any AMP page where the content on that page does not contain the same level of information as the equivalent desktop page. When AMP technology was introduced two years ago, the goal was always to give searches access to full-length content at lightning fast speeds. Some publishers have taken it upon themselves to use AMPs as teasers— presenting a snippet of content before directing users to click through to the original page. Needless to say, making a user click through twice to access the content they want to see is slowing down the experience rather than speeding it up.

Google and Salesforce have strengthened their ties in the last week, and it promises to open up some valuable data for marketers using the Salesforce platform. As part of the partnership, Google data and Salesforce CRM data will now integrate, meaning that marketers using Salesforce can start to see Google data against their own data, allowing them to determine what a sales prospect may be searching for online, what pages they are visiting and other pieces of key Google insight. The news follows Google’s enhanced partnership with Marketo, as the search engine looks to close the loop between search marketing and marketing automation.

Facebook has been caught testing a new version of its News Feed, and brands are getting understandably worried. The new feed, spotted in six ‘test’ markets, appears to remove branded page content from the main news feed, and hide it away on a secondary “explore” feed – making it easier for users to avoid content from brands and publishers that haven’t paid for promoted posts. So what is Facebook doing with the feed, and should brands be worried? Sian Hall takes a look in Digital Minute.

Snapchat is rolling out its latest feature, context cards, as it looks to increase its ecommerce functionality and broaden its appeal to advertisers. Context cards allow users to access additional content within the app that provides with more details on the issue, help them book a ticket or Uber to an event, or book a table at a restaurant. The concept is powered by what Snapchat describes as “trusted content partners” at the moment, but expect it to be opened to other brands in the near future.

YouTube has announced a number of new features as it attempts to attract advertisers to the platform – and to overcome a difficult period for its advertising services. Speaking at Advertising Week New York, YouTube’s Tara Walpert Levy, announced a series of new tools and features that it believes will make it easier for brands to reach more targeted audiences, and deliver more personalised content to those audiences. The features include tools that will make it easier to measure the impact of advertising, both online and offline, and features that will automatically “piece together” content elements to find the most appropriate ad for that user.

Google has announced that AMP landing pages for AdWords are on the way, with advertisers around the world able to take advantage of AMP pages as their landing pages. Up to now, AMP landing pages have only been a beta option for advertisers but, with AMP landing pages showing improved conversion rates, Google is rolling the platform out to all advertisers in the coming week. But with Google now rolling out AMP landing pages across the network, advertisers need to ensure that they adapt to this latest tactic in order to ensure that their ads remain effective, that they maintain their quality score and that they capitalise on the opportunities offered by AMP. https://www.stickyeyes.com/videos/google-gives-warning-on-amp-adwords-landing-pages

Does Google see Marketing Tech and automation as a key part of its plans to introduce more machine learning and artificial intelligence to its advertising platforms. Last week Google strengthened its relationship with the marketing automation platform Marketo, announcing that Marketo’s services will now be hosted by Google’s Cloud platform, and allowing the Marketo’s users to leverage Google services such as Gmail, Sheets and Hangout Chats for faster marketing content development and deeper engagement with customers and prospects. The move is seen as Google attempting to close the gap between AdTech and MarTech platforms, as it looks to introduce more machine-based learning and artificial intelligence as a way to optimise its ad services. Want to see more videos from Stickyeyes? Check out our Video Hub: http://www.stickyeyes.com/video Subscribe to our YouTube channel videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/stickyeyesTV. To get email updates of our latest video blogs, insights and intelligence, sign up to our email updates: http://www.stickyeyes.com/newsletter/ Subscribe to our Digital Minute podcasts: RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DigitalMi... Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/d... Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stick... Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/stickyeyes/set... Find us on Twitter at @stickyeyes or visit our website at http://www.stickyeyes.com

Facebook has responded to criticism from advertisers about its mobile ads, by introducing a new policy to address the issue of ‘fat fingered’ ad clicks - with research suggesting that as many as 60% of all ad clicks on mobile are made in error.

Facebook has been investing heavily in video content, believing that it holds the key to help advertisers get their message to hard-to-reach audiences.

Is Amazon taking back control of it's digital communities? The ecommerce giant is investing in it's own social network, called Spark, and we look at whether this could be the start of ecommerce brands moving away from the established social networks.

A new mobile search results page has been spotted – at the same time that Google has clarified its position on the forthcoming mobile-first index.

Google is taking on the likes of LinkedIn and Monster in the recruitment business, and it could change the way in which brands recruit new talent – and how you might find your next role.

Apple lifted the lid on their latest innovations at its World Wide Developer Conference in San Jose last week – and there are some notable developments that brands ought to keep an eye on.

Amazon and the online furniture retailer Wayfair has rolled out image search across their mobile platforms, representing the first real application of the technology to e-commerce. Digital Minute takes a closer look at the what and the why, explaining what this means for retail brands who aren't thinking about their "camera strategy".

The issue of net neutrality is back in the news, with regulators in the United States set to vote on whether to allow internet service providers to start discriminating internet data.

When is ‘exact’ not exact? Well, that’s the question that Google has raised recently after announcing that it is changing the way that it handles ‘exact match’ keywords in Adwords. Sarah Barker, PPC Lead at Stickyeyes takes a closer look. https://www.stickyeyes.com/2017/04/07/ok-google-define-exact-match/

A year ago, 'Stories' was a feature that would only relate to the multimedia mobile application, Snapchat. Fast-forward to April 2017 and Stories are now prevalent across the majority of social platforms, but what is a 'Story' exactly? This week on Digital Minute, Harry Smith, Account Executive at Stickyeyes takes a look at the rise of 'Stories', "the future of the newsfeed".

Google has been in the news over the past few days, but for all the wrong reasons. A number of advertisers have pulled ad campaigns from the Google Display Network after brand messages were associated with extremist content and material. Our Brand Communications Director, Lisa Wisniowski takes a closer look.

Google has announced that AdWords Price Extensions will now be live across both desktop and mobile, allowing your brand to showcase your services, products and prices. James Pierechod, Multimedia Designer at Stickyeyes takes a closer look.

It's all fairly quiet over at Google HQ, however our team of experts have been keeping a close eye on the recent developments in the world of SEO. Katie Fincham, Head of Earned Marketing Communications at Stickyeyes takes a look. Check out our Video Hub: http://www.stickyeyes.com/video Subscribe to our YouTube channel videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/stickyeyesTV. To get email updates of our latest video blogs, insights and intelligence, sign up to our email updates: http://www.stickyeyes.com/newsletter/

Facebook is making some big changes to its ad platform, with the company claiming that it wants to help brands to see the true value of their ads. In fact, Facebook wants to show advertisers how effective their ads are, compared to established offline channels – including TV. Want to see more videos from Stickyeyes? Check out our Video Hub: http://www.stickyeyes.com/video Subscribe to our YouTube channel videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/stickyeyesTV. To get email updates of our latest video blogs, insights and intelligence, sign up to our email updates: http://www.stickyeyes.com/newsletter/

If Google search results pages were a theatre, you would want your content to be taking centre stage – hogging the spotlight and standing out head and shoulders above the other performers. This week on Digital Minute, Phoebe Dixon, PR & Social Manager at Stickyeyes will discuss how you can use Rich Snippets to gain that all important visibility. Want to see more videos from Stickyeyes? Check out our Video Hub: http://www.stickyeyes.com/video Subscribe to our YouTube channel videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/stickyeyesTV. To get email updates of our latest video blogs, insights and intelligence, sign up to our email updates: http://www.stickyeyes.com/newsletter/ Find us on Twitter at @stickyeyes or visit our website at http://www.stickyeyes.com

With the average human attention span at an all-time low of a measly 8 seconds, it’s certainly becoming more and more difficult to attract new audiences. What better way to answer queries than in real time, from a real person? Want to see more videos from Stickyeyes? Check out our Video Hub: http://www.stickyeyes.com/video Subscribe to our YouTube channel videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/stickyeyesTV. To get email updates of our latest video blogs, insights and intelligence, sign up to our email updates: http://www.stickyeyes.com/newsletter/ Find us on Twitter at @stickyeyes or visit our website at http://www.stickyeyes.com

‘Avoid the queues, enjoy a brew and put your feet up’ the 2016 approach to Christmas shopping – I suppose you can’t really argue with it right? The question is, how do you as a retailer ensure your digital presence is up to scratch for the run up to Christmas? Suzanna Bain, Senior Content Editor at Stickyeyes takes a closer look - this week on Digital Minute. Want to see more videos from Stickyeyes? Check out our Video Hub: http://www.stickyeyes.com/video Subscribe to our YouTube channel videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/stickyeyesTV. To get email updates of our latest video blogs, insights and intelligence, sign up to our email updates: http://www.stickyeyes.com/newsletter/ Subscribe to our Digital Minute podcasts: RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DigitalMi... Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/d... Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stick... Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/stickyeyes/set... Find us on Twitter at @stickyeyes or visit our website at http://www.stickyeyes.com