Daily Minute Master Series – June 19, 2019

Advertising

Google Announces New 3D Ad Creation Tools and New Live and AR Ad Options for YouTube

Google is looking to provide more advanced ad tools, with the addition of a new platform for creating 3D ads, and new AR and Live options for YouTube promotions. First off, Google has announced its new ‘Swirl’ 3D display ad format, which will help brands provide a more interactive, engaging experience. Swirl ads will enable brands which have existing 3D assets to build them into their ad units. Over on YouTube, Google is also rolling out another immersive ad format, though this time through AR, with an opportunity to virtually try on make-up when viewing related content. Called ‘Beauty Try-On’, the new format will enable video viewers to check out related looks while following along with YouTube creators. And finally, YouTube is also looking to help live-stream creators maximize their live content, by rolling out a new ad option which will enable creators to run their YouTube live stream content within display ads, which will prompt the user to click through to see more. Each of these new tools offers unique considerations for advertisers, and will facilitate more engaging campaign types, which will likely help to boost campaign performance, and, eventually, raise consumer expectation.

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Spotify has expanded its ads capabilities with podcast listener targeting

Advertisers can reach Spotify Free podcast listeners, and in select markets, they’ll also be able to narrow their campaigns to certain podcast categories, such as “Comedy,” “Lifestyle & Health” and “Business & Technology.” .S. podcast ad revenue grew 53% in 2018, according to the IAB, and with 32% of Americans (age 12+) having listened to a podcast in the past month, according to Edison Research, marketers and platforms are seeing untapped potential. Spotify is looking to entrench itself early to become a leading platform in the sector. Insufficient campaign conversion data has been a barrier to growth for podcast advertising. Marketers have attempted to overcome this by using direct response calls to action (such giving listeners a unique code or URL) or by launching campaigns aimed at awareness. Targeting at scale has also been limited. Spotify’s newest capabilities help begin to address those limitations.

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Marketing

Google Search Console drops preferred domain setting

Google announced it is no longer supporting the preferred domain setting in Google Search Console. In short, this feature is not moving from the old Google Search Console to the new version. Google is removing this feature because it is now able to pick the preferred domain for you based on various signals Google ingests. You can now communicate to Google your preferred domain through good site architecture.  If you are currently depending on Google to select your preferred domain through this setting, you can no longer depend on that. You will need to ensure that your canonical URL listed in Google has not changed with this announcement. Google did not say if it will communicate in any way to webmasters, publishers or developers through Search Console if this resulted in your site switching its canonical URL in Google’s index. Instead, you need to audit your Google results to ensure no changes were made.

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Google is Reportedly Adding Timestamps to YouTube Videos in Search Results

Google has been spotted testing the addition of timestamps for certain types of YouTube videos in search results. The timestamps allow users to jump directly to key moments within the video without having to sit through content they’re not interested in. This may prove to be quite a useful feature for searchers, especially in today’s world of monetization where the length of YouTube videos is extended for the purpose of inserting a greater amount of mid-roll ads. At the same time, it could be argued that Google is taking viewing time away from videos by inviting users to skip to specific parts. While that may be the case, the video creators are inviting users to do the same by publishing timestamps in their own video descriptions.

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