Daily Minute Master Series – May 16, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook Implements New Restrictions on Who Can Go Live to Stop the Spread of Disturbing Content

In the wake of the Christchurch terror attacks, in which the perpetrator broadcast his crimes live on Facebook, The Social Network scrambled to remove the footage, with various users posting clips, and/or variations of them, in quick succession. This week, The Social Network has announced new restrictions on who can actually use Facebook Live, with users who’ve previously violated Facebook’s rules losing their live privileges – first for a month, then extending longer for every subsequent infraction. The Social Network is additionally considering expanded restrictions to other Facebook tools – like ads – for those who break the platform’s rules. It may help, but the actual impact is hard to predict. Which is why Facebook’s also investing in new systems to better detect such content through automated means.

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Snapchat Publishes New Report on Optimal Ad Frequency to Drive Recall and Action

In order to determine the optimal ad exposure frequency, Snapchat analyzed 103 brand measurement campaigns, which consisted exclusively of Snap Ads in Stories. The campaigns ran between April 2017 and May 2018, with 75% of them running in the US, and 12% in the UK. Snap’s key finding says you’ll significantly improve your chances of your audience recalling your ad, and causing a change in their behavior, if you target them with two ads per week in Snapchat Stories. Any more than that, and the gains are not significant. Moreover, if you run a longer campaign, fewer ads per week works for recall, but shorter campaigns need more frequency.

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Marketing

Mailchimp expands from email to full marketing platform, says it will make $700M in 2019

Mailchimp will start to offer a full marketing platform aimed at smaller organizations. The new platform will feature a number of new products within it. They include technology to record and track customer leads; the ability to purchase domains and build sites; ad retargeting on Facebook and Instagram; social media management. It will also offer business intelligence that leverages a new move into the artificial intelligence to provide recommendations to users on how and when to market to whom. The expansion is part of a longer-term strategic play to widen Mailchimp’s scope by building more services for the typically underserved but collectively large small-business segment.

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“Trips” consolidates Google’s travel offerings

Oliver Heckmann, VP of engineering, shopping and travel at Google, announced the company’s latest efforts to consolidate and simplify travel planning. Known simply as Trips, it’s available on both desktop and mobile and allows users to explore sights and attractions as well as shop for flights, hotels and packages. Trips is accessible by heading to https://www.google.com/travel. The page features five tabs: Trips, Explore, Flights, Hotels, and Packages. If you already have some travel booked, the “Trips” tab will display an automatically generated timeline based on confirmation emails from your Gmail inbox. The Explore tab presents photographs, articles, videos and other information about a location, including “Things to do,” “Suggested day plans,” and “When to visit”. The “Flights,” “Hotels,” and “Packages” tabs let users compare prices but all transactions are still handled through other parties. Trips can be used to view, research and save potential destinations and attractions. This information can be used to retarget visitors that have already expressed interest in your business or to target travelers who may be passing through your area.

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Daily Minute Master Series – May 15, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook’s Developing New Link and Mention Stickers for Facebook Stories

According to reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, within Facebook’s back end code, there are in-development options for both link and mention stickers for Facebook Stories, unreleased, and unannounced as yet, but very likely to be coming soon. The main option of interest is the ability to add referral links. At present, the capacity to post links to Facebook Stories is available to some users, but access is very limited. If Facebook were to provide another way for brands to post links to their Stories, that would certainly spark more interest in the option. In addition, the mention sticker would enable you to tag other Facebook users in your Facebook Story – the same as you can on Instagram. The option will give you more ways to raise awareness of your Stories content – while for brands, it’ll provide another way to boost engagement with your audience.

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Facebook Outlines Coming Changes to Data Tracking Capacity

The Clear History tool, announced in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, will give Facebook users more control over their personal data, and how it’s used for ad targeting, with the capacity to view which apps and websites are using Facebook tracking, and clear that information from your profile, if you so wish. There will be changes to audience tracking. The most pressing point for marketers in the announcement is this: “This feature may impact targeting – When someone disconnects their off-Facebook activity, we won’t use the data they clear for targeting. This means that targeting options powered by Facebook’s business tools, like the Facebook pixel, can’t be used to reach someone with ads.” That, potentially, could be a significant blow for marketers, with the capacity to build accurate audiences for ad targeting diminished if a significant amount of users opt to remove data tracking. Data tracking will be impacted to some degree, but it’s unlikely to become a useless option, Custom Audiences are still probably going to be a key targeting tool for Facebook ads.

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Marketing

Google brings personalized Shopping, local inventory and better checkout to U.S.

To lure consumers from Amazon Google is upping the ante on personalization. It’s also emphasizing omnichannel shopping. Consumers will see shopping recommendations based on their shopping histories, search histories and lists. No two Shopping home screens will look alike. Users will also be able to buy online or locally, with buy online, pick up in store if that’s supported by the retailer. Another strategic move by Google is to handle the transaction and enable users to pay using cards in their Google accounts. This removes significant checkout friction and normalizes the Google Shopping experience.  After today, all merchants will need to adopt Shopping Actions. That will be the key going forward to retail advertising on Google and its various properties. It’s also noteworthy that Shopping Actions is commission-based and not a CPC model. Revenue share varies by category, as it does with Amazon.

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Advertising

Google’s Smart Shopping Campaigns Can Be Optimized for In-Store Visits

Google will soon allow retailers to optimize Smart Shopping Campaigns for store visits and display their local inventory information. Smart Shopping campaigns were introduced last year as a new advertising product that uses machine learning to optimize for performance as well as ad placement. Today, Smart Shopping campaigns let retailers optimize for online conversions. Soon, they will also help retailers drive store visits. Google is working on a way for retailers to drive store visits with local inventory ads. Google is making it possible to offer ‘buy-online, pick-up in-store’ service through Shopping ads. To utilize this capability, retailers will need product landing pages on their site showing when in-store pick-up is available and a local inventory feed in Merchant Center.

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Daily Minute Master Series – May 14, 2019

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Social Media

Instagram Separates New Likes on Posts, Adds Unfollower Stats for Creator Accounts

Instagram is testing out an option that would separate new and old likes on your posts, helping you to more easily see the latest activity, and take action on the same. The option could make it easier for businesses to ensure they’re tracking the latest activity, helping to glean more insight about who their posts are appealing to, while also providing a chance to respond or interact with individual users based on their interest. Along a similar line, Instagram Creator accounts now have access to a new chart of followers and unfollowers, helping to provide additional context on account performance. Both of these updates would provide significant benefit, with the unfollowers chart also looking like a potentially great addition for Instagram business analytics moving forward.  

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YouTube Tests New Tool to Automatically Generate 6-Second Ad Variants from Longer Videos

YouTube is reportedly working on a new process which would enable advertisers to create shorter, compressed versions of their video ads for usage in YouTube’s ‘Bumper’ format – without the advertiser having to actually create those shorter clips themselves. If YouTube’s machine learning system is actually able to identify the core aspects, and automatically compress them down, that could be a particularly handy tool for advertisers. YouTube says that the Bumper Machine, which is now being tested internally, would produce around four variants of each video for users to choose from, providing some level of human intervention in the process.

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Instagram Created an @shop Account to Promote Small Businesses and Their Products

Instagram’s latest initiative to promote shopping via its platform is a new account, simply and appropriately titled @shop. The @shop account was established to promote small businesses and the creators behind them, and it will cover categories including fashion, beauty and home décor. Instagram said every product featured on its @shop account will include shopping tags, enabling people to tap them and purchase the items right then and there.

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Advertising

Google Launches a New Performance Planner for Google Ads

Google Ads is getting a new tool in the form of a Performance Planner that helps with planning ad spend. Google says that, on average, Performance Planner can help advertisers drive up to 43% more conversions. The tool focuses on driving incremental conversions by identifying the best spend amounts for your campaigns. The performance planner can also make projections based on other adjustments, such as different spend levels and CPAs. This tool is a planner at its core. Changes made within the performance planner are not automatically implemented.

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Daily Minute Master Series – May 13, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook Launches New Tools for Small Businesses

Facebook is rolling out new tools to help businesses run automated ad campaigns, book appointments, and edit videos. With Automated Ads, Facebook can develop a customized marketing plan after asking a few simple questions about your business and your goals. A new appointment booking feature will let businesses take and manage appointments through Facebook and Instagram. Whether or not your business is running Facebooks ads you can still access this new feature. A new video editing feature in Ads Manager offers new ways to edit existing video. According to Facebook’s internal data, the platform is home to over 90 million small businesses as of January 2019. Facebook remains committed to improving the experience for this valuable user base.

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Advertising

Google Ads App Can Now Create More Types of Ads On-the-Go

Google unveiled some updates to the Google Ads app which will let users create more ads and manage more campaigns. An update rolled out last week let users create and edit Responsive Search Ads directly from the Google Ads app. In addition, advertisers and small businesses will soon be able to utilize Google Ads’ local campaigns whether or not they have store visits management enabled. Google is also enhancing ads in Local campaigns to help businesses highlight product-specific information and offers. Lastly, new inventory in Google Maps will let businesses serve ads in more places. Businesses can promote their locations when users are planning or navigating along their route.

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Google to add support for higher quality images in search, swipe up images & 3D images

Google announced in the State of Search session at Google I/O Thursday, that it will be launching higher quality image support, 3D images and the ability to swipe up images from AMP pages. Google said that a new program to submit higher resolution images to Google Image search is coming soon. Websites will be able to opt-in images to this program. Over the past several months, Google has been dropping hints that image search is something SEOs, webmasters, developers and content producers should pay attention to.

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New app rating formula headed to Google Play will favor newer reviews

Google is increasing the weight of more recent app reviews when calculating an app’s average Play store rating. The announcement came last Wednesday at the company’s annual I/O developer conference. The refreshed ratings will be rolling out to the public beginning in August. The idea of weighting more recent ratings is based on giving more credence to the most current version of an app. With this change, your Play store rating will not only give users a better understanding of the current state of your app, it will also better reflect all your hard work and improvements. The new ratings will go public in August, but developers can already prepare for it by previewing their rating (according to the revised formula) by going to their Google Play Console.

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Daily Minute Master Series – May 3, 2019

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Social Media

Instagram is Working on a New ‘Join Chat’ Sticker for Stories

Reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong has uncovered a new ‘Join Chat’ sticker option which would enable Stories viewers to join a private chat group, direct from a Story. The ‘Join Chat’ sticker prompts the user to add a note on what the chat is about, with the lower note saying: ‘People who view your story can request to join this group chat’. This new option looks to put more emphasis on prompting private group discussion and sharing. For brands, if this is indeed launched, it could provide another way to build stronger community connection, and bring your biggest advocates closer by sharing exclusive content and/or seeking consultation. There’s no word as yet from Instagram as to whether this feature will be released.
For the full article click here

Facebook Announces Bans of Well-Known Extremist Commentators

Facebook has announced that a range of extremist commentators will be banned from the platform entirely under its ‘Dangerous Individuals or Organizations’ regulations, as outlined in its guidelines. According to a Facebook spokesperson, the company will not only ban the Pages of these individuals, but it will also remove any links to their sites shared by Facebook users. It’s a major move by Facebook, underlining the platform’s renewed focus on curbing the rising amount of hate speech on its platform, which is not only causing societal division, but is also leading to increased attacks and violence in real-life. Users will still be able to create their own posts praising these commentators and their perspectives (subject to the usual content guidelines), but sharing direct links to their content will be a no go.
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YouTube Is Making All of Its Original Content Free and Ad Supported

YouTube is bringing all of its original content beyond the paywall and into an ad-supported environment. The streaming video service announced plans to create an expanded slate of new and returning series from a range of mainstream celebrities and YouTube creators. According to YouTube, this year’s slate of scripted and unscripted content is focused around “music, learning and personalities.” YouTube chief brand officer Robert Kyncl said “So, one of the changes that we’ve gone through is to align our originals with the way YouTube works, which is everything is available free, and everything is available behind a paywall if there are certain features that you value in order to pay for a [YouTube Premium] subscription. With originals, we’ve gone from being focused on driving subscriptions to align with the core business.”
For the full article click here

Marketing

Google Ads Reporting is Currently Delayed Until Further Notice

Reporting data for Google Ads and AdSense is currently delayed as a result of a bug discovered on April 30. Google confirmed the bug is delaying data reporting for April 30, May 1, and May 2. The company says it will publish an update when there is more information to share.
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Daily Minute Master Series – May 2nd, 2019

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Social Media

Quora Launches New Business Podcast, Google Tag Manager Integration

Quora is slowly but surely carving a niche for specific advertisers who are looking to reach consumers right when they’re seeking answers. Quora has announced a new integration with Google Tag Manager to help streamline its data tracking tools. In order to make it easier for advertisers to gather relevant data points for their on-platform ad targeting, Quora has now become an approved tag vendor with Google, facilitating new opportunities for tracking. In order to provide even more assistance for advertisers, and highlight the opportunities of Quora ads, the platform is also launching a new ‘Grow with Quora’ podcast to showcase advertiser success stories. While Quora may not get as much coverage as other social platforms, the fact that users come to Quora seeking answers to specific questions could actually make it a better option for ad outreach, as it enables marketers to show their ads to people at just the right time in their discovery journey.
For the full article click here

Marketing

Google To Let Users Delete Mobile Auto-Tracking Data

Google on Wednesday introduced an auto-delete function that will allow users to delete data about their search and location. The new tool automatically deletes a person’s Location History, as well as web and app Activity after a specific time period. Users can choose to delete the data after either three or 18 months. The function will then continue to delete the data over time. The feature, announced Wednesday, will roll out in the coming weeks.
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Google bringing call intelligence and automation to SMBs, for $39 per month

Google is bringing enterprise-like automated customer service and call intelligence capabilities to small businesses (SMBs) for a flat fee of $39 per month. Google’s Area 120 experimental products group announced the introduction of a new virtual agent and telephony product called CallJoy. CallJoy promises to help small businesses offer better customer service, free up employees from having to answer the phone and convert more business by ensuring that all calls are answered. Powered by the same technologies behind Google Assistant and Duplex, CallJoy will filter calls, block spam and manage customer calls. In some ways, this is “Duplex, for business owners.” . All calls are recorded and transcribed. CallJoy envisions that SMB owners will search, tag and interact with transcripts to gain insights about customer patterns, needs or concerns. If CallJoy works as advertised it could be a very valuable service to understaffed small businesses. It could also result in more conversions and revenue for SMBs.
For the full article click here

Advertising

Microsoft Advertising is no longer just chasing parity with Google Ads – it’s building unique ads features

The ads engineering team at Microsoft has long been focused on bringing parity to Google Ads. While that still remains a focus, there has recently been an accelerated push to develop and release product differentiators – features that Google Ads doesn’t offer. There are currently 10 product features available or in pilot that are only offered in Microsoft Advertising.

For example:

  • Ad customizers by audience: In addition to being able to customize ads by keyword, location, ad group or campaign, advertisers can apply ad customizers by audience.
  • Video extensions, in pilot. A video thumbnail can be displayed in the right corner of ads in position one.
  • Dynamic product extensions, in pilot. A list of product links display below the ad description with sale and original prices.

Other initiatives that aren’t unique, but are on the product roadmap for this year and next include several audience targeting options such as customer match, custom combinations, similar audiences, in-market audiences and product audiences.
For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – May 1st, 2019

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Social Media

Mark Zuckerberg Announces a New eCommerce and Payment Platform

Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a keynote presentation at the F8 Conference where he revealed that Facebook-owned WhatsApp is moving toward hosting web shops where customers can browse a store’s products and make purchases. What Mark Zuckerberg announced is a dramatic expansion to the WhatsApp Business app, with a feature called, Product Catalogs. It’s likely that the WhatsApp Business Product Catalogs will feature fully functioning stores where customers can not only browse products but purchase them, too. Mark Zuckerberg also announced a new payment service that will allow people to send money to each other. Mark Zuckerberg is expanding Facebook’s business model away from just advertising and expanding it to actual commerce.
For the full article click here

Facebook is Introducing New Business Tools for Messenger

Facebook is making Messenger even more useful for businesses with tools designed to generate leads and book appointments. Facebook’s first major business-related innovation for Messenger was its chatbot program. A new business tool on the way builds on the success of Messenger with a selection of lead generation templates. Lead-generation templates for Messenger ensure bots ask people standardized questions so they can receive a standardized response. The lead generation templates will also come with completion reminders and seamless hand-off to a live agent. In addition, Facebook is opening up its beta program which allows customers to book appointments through Messenger. Lastly, Facebook announced at the conference that a bare-bones version of Messenger will be available on desktop later this year.
For the full article click here

Instagram Just Made It Easier to Shop Your Favorite Looks From Influencers

Instagram continues its march to becoming a fully immersive shopping app. After rolling out the ability to check out from 23 brands on the app in March, the social media app is putting that tool in the hands of creators. Creators and brands part of the beta test can tag up to five items from one brand in either an image or video post, as well as in stories. As part of the initial beta test, Instagram’s working with 50 creators and five publishers. Creators do not receive any commission based on clicks or sales of these items. Brands that are part of the checkout beta tag products, which consumers can tap on, get to a product page, and then tap on another button that reads “Checkout on Instagram.” This new feature has the potential to upend a significant part of the influencer marketing community, namely the number of companies that help influencers generate a commission from products in their posts, like rewardStyle’s LiketoKnowIt app.
For the full article click here

Facebook’s F8 2019: Instagram’s Donation Sticker for Stories Is Going Live Today

The donation sticker was first mentioned at the Facebook Communities Summit in February, and it will be available in the U.S. starting Tuesday. Instagrammers will be able to use the new sticker to raise money for nonprofits including Black Girls Code, JED Foundation, No Kid Hungry, Boys and Girls Club of America, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Malala Fund, GLAAD and The Nature Conservancy. The donation sticker can be accessed by opening the camera in the Instagram application, capturing or uploading a photo, tapping the sticker icon and selecting it from the tray. Users can then choose a nonprofit to support and customize their sticker. Once the sticker is live, swiping up on the Story will display the total amount that was raised. Instagram said 100% of the money raised via donation stickers goes to the target nonprofits.
For the full article click here

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