Technology News and Industry Knowledge

The global pandemic has accelerated the trend to shopping online by approximately five years . People all over the world either increased the frequency of online shopping or tried it for the first time – and the first timers have now fully embraced the benefits of ecommerce. This playbook from Bidnamic explores how top retailers have leveraged the rise of Google Shopping in search marketing, driving increased online sales and profits. You’ll learn about: The input metrics used by campaign managers to beat the competition The latest technologies to optimize each step in the customer journey How to decide if Google Smart Shopping is right for you Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download the Google Shopping Playbook from Bidnamic. The post The rise of Google Shopping in search marketing appeared first on Search Engine Land . Via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc

Now that COVID vaccines are available to everyone 12 years of age and older, children may be more likely to return to school this fall, which means many retailers are preparing for back-to-school shopping. To highlight a few options that can help retailers optimize for both in-store and online back-to-school shoppers, Google has published a list of local ads solutions. Get your local inventory online. Businesses that don’t yet have a local inventory feed can use Pointy from Google , a hardware device that attaches to a point-of-sale barcode scanner to pull its title, image and description to add it to Surfaces across Google . For eligible retailers in the U.S., Canada, UK and Ireland, Pointy is free until September 30 . Local inventory ads. Retailers can bring their brick-and-mortar store online with local inventory ads. Local inventory ads also enable stores to indicate whether products are available for immediate curbside pickup or pickup later . Local inventory ads with pick...

The e-commerce giant said it has made its ads platform more robust in Q2, introducing 40 new features and self-service capabilities. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/amazon-ad-sales-jump-87-as-company-emphasizes-new-marketing-content-offer/604206/

Spotlighting a Tennessee class and its teacher who went viral for his personalized handshakes, the spot builds on the company's philosophy of "modern American optimism." source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/campaign-trail-gapkids-meets-anticipated-back-to-school-season-with-ad-on/604078/

The 2,500-square-foot space is stationed within the amusement park and links several pre-pandemic tactics while expanding the soda brand's musical ties. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/pepsi-activates-experiential-dance-pods-at-hersheypark/604208/

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Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily. Good morning, Marketers, in one of our featured stories below, I covered how Google decides to rank different vertical search elements, such as the image carousel or news box, in the search results. Gary Illyes explained about the process but also said that Google determines when to show images or videos or top stories boxes in the search results based on what it learns from searchers’ actions. So, if a lot of people click on image results from the main search results page, it is a sign that Google may want to show an image carousel box on that page. This click data is not used for individual search results (i.e., to rank page A over page B or to rank image X over image Y). Google is using the click data to see if people are going from...

New in-app shopping features have enticed consumers to shop as they scroll. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/e-commerce-skyrocketed-during-the-pandemic-now-instagram-facebook-and-sna/604175/

Google is adding a dedicated data visualization in Display & Video 360 (DV360) to show reach gains for each campaign that spans across channels and has a frequency goal set at the campaign level, the company announced Thursday. In addition, DV360 will also calculate the added reach advertisers get for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal using DV360’s frequency management solution. DV360’s frequency management data visualization. Image: Google. Why we care Having access to real-time reach gains can help advertisers gauge their campaign performance and manage their programmatic campaigns across channels. This new data visualization may also enable advertisers to save time that might otherwise be spent experimenting to test the impact of their frequency management strategies across various media types. And, the added reach data for Programmatic Guaranteed deals can help advertisers understand how those deals add to the incremental reach they get for their frequency management e...

With the Shop Module, Twitter joins its competitors in adding features that help brands tap into online shopping that surged during the pandemic. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/nike-patagonia-walmart-among-brands-piloting-twitters-new-e-commerce-fea/604142/

Brands will soon be limited to targeting ads based only on age, gender and location — likely resulting in less personalized content. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/facebook-tightens-ad-targeting-to-protect-privacy-of-young-users/604076/

The Brand Indicators for Message Identification standard, developed with Google, uses logos on official emails to prove legitimacy and elevate trust. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/anti-phishing-tool-designed-by-tech-companies-promises-brand-safety-in-emai/604031/

Apple's tracking changes are expected to deliver a steeper blow in Q3 as the social networking giant begins its reinvention as "a metaverse company." source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/facebook-revenue-rises-56-but-ad-targeting-headwinds-loom-large/604126/

The tie-up also features a voice-activated vending machine that asked fans to order a hard seltzer in Spanish. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/corona-teams-with-duolingo-to-teach-spanish-pronunciation-of-limonada/604090/

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily. Good morning, Marketers, I need your help. I’m hoping you’ll take three minutes to complete our Event Participation Index survey. The team here at Third Door Media has been hard at work programming our third virtual learning journey of the year, SMX Convert , which will be on August 17. We’re also looking ahead to next year’s line-up of events and we need to know how you feel about in-person and virtual events. We publish the results so that all marketers who are wrestling with these decisions can have some data to work with. Please make your opinions heard by filling out our quick survey . Keep on scrolling for the latest news. And for those who, like me, sometimes struggle with navigating the challenges that arrived with the pandem...

Google has updated its technical guidelines for Fact Check structured data saying that a page must only have one ClaimReview element and that multiple fact checks per page is no longer allowed. The revised guidelines. The revised guidelines now say “to be eligible for the single fact check rich result, a page must only have one ClaimReview element. If you add multiple ClaimReview elements per page, the page won’t be eligible for the single fact check rich result.” Previously the guidelines said “a single page can host multiple ClaimReview elements, each for a separate claim.” But that is no longer the case, now you can only have one ClaimReview element per page, not more, to be eligible to show fact check rich result in Google Search. Before screenshot. Here is a screenshot of the guidelines before this change was made: After screenshot. Here is what the page looks like now: Why we care. If your site does show fact check rich results in search and you are using multiple Cla...

The four-piece collection includes a jacket that can be "worn" in the 3D virtual reality platform Decentraland. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/coca-cola-auctions-its-first-nfts-as-interest-in-metaverse-grows/604069/

In the latest Search Off the Record podcast, Gary Illyes from Google spoke about how Google Universal Search works and more importantly, how Google decides which vertical search feature to rank in what position in the main search results. Gary Illyes explained why sometimes featured snippets show up at the top, or maybe news articles, or images, videos and so forth. In short, each of these vertical indexes bid for its position within the main web results. And how does Google decide to show images versus news versus videos? Gary Illyes said that Google sees what users click on and if for a specific query more users click on more images, Google knows users want to see the images carousel over a news carousel. One caveat, this does not mean Google ranks specific and individual documents, images, web results, etc based on click data. But which universal element Google may show in the web results, can be influenced by clicks. So if Google does not use click data to rank a specific image...

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Paid search is an efficient and cost-effective way to drive more high-intent customers to your business. If you get it right, you can drive high-value inbound calls. And once you get a potential customer to call, they convert at 10x the rate than they do online, so you might be sitting on a gold mine. But driving inbound calls with PPC is a bit different than clicks, and attribution and optimization can be tricky. In this webinar, the paid search geniuses from Media Experts and conversation intelligence pros at Invoca will show you how to implement and execute these killer paid search tactics that will turn more high-intent searchers into inbound calls that accelerate your customer acquisition. Register today for “Killer Paid Search Tactics That Every Marketer Needs to Know , “ presented by Invoca. The post Killer paid search tactics that every marketer needs to know appeared first on Search Engine Land . Via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc

Gap Inc.'s activewear retailer partnered with at-home workout company Obé Fitness as part of its transformation into a lifestyle brand. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/athleta-launches-digital-wellness-platform-athletawell/604072/

Following revenue declines and staff cuts, the company hopes its new program will draw in online shoppers. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/express-pilots-commission-based-influencer-program/604074/

Twitter has launched Shop Modules, a dedicated section at the top of profiles where brands can showcase their products, as a pilot, the company announced Wednesday. The Shop Module pilot is currently rolling out with a handful of brands in the U.S., and only people in the U.S. who use Twitter in English on iOS devices are currently able to see the module. The Shop Module appears below the header and above the tweets section. Image: Twitter. Why we care Twitter hopes that Shop Modules will be “a feature that allows us to explore how shoppable profiles can create a pathway from talking about and discovering products on Twitter to actually purchasing them.” If the pilot is successful, Shop Modules may become widely available, providing brands with a new way to help audiences discover their products. The user bases of social media platforms vary by factors like age, gender and education level . This new feature may be especially useful for B2C or D2C brands whose target audiences ...

Retail was the largest contributor to growth in the Google Ads business "by far," said Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler.  source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/google-ad-revenue-soars-69-as-new-bets-in-commerce-video-pay-off/604029/

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily. Good morning, Marketers, we have a new Google algorithm update to talk about again this week — the link spam update. If you thought Google was done with all these algorithm updates, you thought wrong. Google launched yet another algorithm update aimed at “nullifying” link spam. So if you or your clients were doing any spammy links and you see a drop in rankings over the next couple of weeks, it might be related to this new algorithm update. I should note, Google used the word “nullify” for a reason. Nullify does not necessarily mean “penalize,” but instead, to ignore or simply not count. Google’s efforts around link spam have been to ignore and not count spammy links since Penguin 4.0 was released in 2016. But ignoring a signal that ma...

Proceeds will benefit Feeding America, and the brand will work with Ntwrk and Aerial to offset the carbon footprint of the NFT. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/campbells-commemorates-updated-soup-can-labels-with-nft-collection/603975/

Creating a winning SEO proposal for a new lead is hard work. You need to assess their SEO potential, identify the right strategy for them, and showcase the business value you can create. And then you need to explain it in a way that is meaningful for the client.  A lot of proposals tend to jump directly to how the agency can do that for the lead, yet an important step is missing. To make your business case compelling, the first thing you need to do is understand what success looks like for your potential client. Then you can speak their language, whether that’s revenue, transactions, conversions, or traffic.  Kevin Gibbons, CEO and founder of Re:signal and SEOmonitor Masterclass educator, points out that what you should do is tie your activity back towards key business outcomes. If you can’t understand and explain exactly what success means and why they need SEO, then there will be no real alignment. That’s where, Gibbons adds, a reliable forecasting methodology makes ...

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SEO pros know that a comprehensive search marketing strategy should include p eriodic audits of a website’s technical health and its opportunities for improvement. But as you uncover these opportunities, how do you know which ones are most important?

Beginning in a few weeks, advertisers will only be able to target Instagram, Facebook and Messenger users under the age of 18 (or older in certain territories) based on their age, gender and location, Instagram announced Tuesday. As such, previously available targeting options, such as those based on interests or activity on other sites or apps, will become unavailable to advertisers. Why we care If you’re managing Instagram, Facebook or Messenger ad campaigns that target minors based on their interests and activities across the web, then you’ll need to find an alternative way to reach them as you’ll be losing access to those targeting options in the coming weeks. More on the news This policy change will roll out worldwide and, as mentioned above, apply to Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. When a user turns 18, Instagram will inform them about the targeting options that advertisers can now use to reach them and the ads settings at their disposal. Alongside this change, Instagr...

In its latest "Newstalgia" activation, the restaurant chain is making clothes that appear in TV spots available for fans. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/pizza-hut-spins-brand-elements-into-tastewear-capsule-collection/603965/

Dwindling viewer interest and the absence of live spectators this year mean brands must get more innovative to stand out. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/unusual-olympics-put-digital-mobile-marketing-tactics-to-the-test/603960/

Beginning on October 1, 2021, Google will include a 2% “Regulatory Operating Cost” surcharge to advertisers’ invoices for ads served in India and Italy, according to an email sent to Google advertisers on Tuesday. The surcharge applies to ads purchased through Google Ads and for YouTube placements purchased on a reservation basis. A screenshot of the email sent to advertisers. The link at the bottom takes advertisers to Google Ads’ jurisdiction-specific surcharges page . Why we care Google was already passing on digital service taxes to advertisers for ads served in Austria, Turkey, the UK , France and Spain. Beginning in October, it will be doing the same for ads served in India and Italy. Advertisers should be aware that these fees are charged in addition to their account budgets. As such, the surcharges won’t be reflected in the cost per conversion metrics in their campaign reporting. Advertisers should take these factors into account when creating their budgets. Additional...

After instigating a frenzy with its chicken sandwich launch, the chain will donate 1 million nuggets — including those from rivals — to promote its new offering. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/popeyes-calls-truce-to-chicken-sandwich-wars-with-nugget-launch-campaign/603899/

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily. Good morning, Marketers, do you work for a business that cares about making its content accessible to all? In our industry, we’re used to speaking of legislation in terms of antitrust or privacy, but for this newsletter intro, I’d like to shift our focus to another piece of landmark legislation: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — its 31st anniversary was yesterday. The ADA is directly responsible for the employment of so many people because it requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations, and we’re a more inclusive, stronger society for it. In addition to brick-and-mortar facilities, ADA protection also extends to websites. Between 2018 and 2019, there were over 2,200 lawsuits filed in federal courts , and although ...

Google seems to have resolved the bug it has with showing review snippets or stars in the search results. We are now able to see the gold yellow stars for many search results in the Google Search results. Timeline. The bug began creeping into the Google Search results interface on Wednesday, July 21st based on the reports that were sent to us. By the following day, Thursday, July 22nd, the review starts were hard to find for any query you conducted in Google. Google confirmed the issue on Friday, July 23rd. Then yesterday afternoon, Monday, July 26th, the issue started to get resolved where now everyone seems to be able to see review stars in the Google Search results. Reporting issues. Google also wrote on the  data anomalies page  that between July 19th and 23rd in the Google Search Console Performance reports for Google Search, “Due to an internal issue, you may see a drop in your Review snippet and Product rich results performance during this period. We regret any pr...

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