OpenAI launches a SearchGPT prototype, Google is bringing better reporting to PMax campaigns, & WhatsApp reaches 100 million US users
Can you believe it’s August already? With the Olympics in full swing and the MN State Fair right around the corner, summer is flying by.
Before we get started, here are a few quick updates from Perrill:
Our team got out on the water last week, on a Lake Minnetonka boat cruise to try to take advantage of the short summer season here in Minneapolis. What are your summer highlights so far? Feel free to share in the comments – we’re always looking for activities to add to our summer bucket lists!
Next week, we’ll be at Digital Summit in Minneapolis, where President Nate Tower is speaking on one of his favorite topics, Google Analytics 4. If you’ll be at the Summit, make sure to stop by the Perrill booth to say hi, and head to Nate’s session on the 14th for a deep dive on getting the most out of your GA4 setup.
Alright, now let’s get back to what we’re here for: closing out the week with some pretty big updates in the digital marketing space. Ready to jump in?
Google was found guilty in antitrust lawsuit
At a glance: A federal judge ruled Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing search and search advertising markets after a 10-week long trial.
The ruling focused on Google’s search deals with Android and Apple – Google spends billions of dollars annually to secure its spot as the default search engine on these devices, which is monopolistic behavior, according to the Department of Justice.
Remedies have yet to be determined, and Google plans to dispute the decision.
Perrill perspective:
Although this is big news, it’s not going to lead to the downfall of Google, nor does it suggest anyone should abandon their SEO or Ads strategies. We know Google will appeal, and it could be many months before we see any type of ruling regarding what Google must do next to de-monopolize itself. One of the early predictions is that Google will lose its status as the default search engine for iOS. I’m not convinced this will happen. We can speculate all we want, but for now Google remains the dominant player in the search engine game with a 91% market share. Pivoting away from SEO or Google Ads right now would be incredibly premature and downright foolish if those channels are driving results for you. – Nate Tower , President
Improvements to Trending now section of Google Trends
At a glance: Google is improving its Trending now section of Google Trends by adding a better layout for viewing trending queries, including information like when the query started trending, search volume, breakdowns, and more.
This makes it easier for users to quickly analyze trends, which could be useful for getting context around traffic increases or for inspiration on new content to write if that’s what you’re using Trends for.
New GSC recommendations
At a glance: Recommendations are coming to Google Search Console, which should help users find ways to improve site performance.?
According to Google, the recommendations feature “provides websites with optimization opportunities and suggests actions they can take to improve their presence on Google Search.” Recommendations look very similar to the Recommendations section of Google Ads and could include things like indexation tips, insights on search term performance, and more.
Perrill perspective:
As with recommendations Google has rolled out in other platforms like Google Ads, don’t view these as an easy-button for driving results. Make sure you understand the implications and potential limitations of these recommendations, and implement the ones that make sense for your specific situation. Not all the recommendations will be impactful, so it’s important to understand the effort required to implement. It’s nice to see Google giving this support to webmasters, but applying all the recommendations won’t be a cheat code for better rankings and traffic.? – Nate Tower , President
Reddit confirms it’s blocking Microsoft and AI search engines
At a glance: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confirmed that Reddit is blocking AI models and search engines, including Microsoft, from crawling its content. Huffman stands by the belief that Reddit content isn’t free to crawl and train AI models on, and instead, prompts these platforms to pay Reddit for access to this content.
Google already entered into an agreement with Reddit, where the tech giant will pay the social platform to train its AI models on its content.
New ways to search with AI tools
At a glance: Google announced updates to some of its search tools, including Google Lens. Here’s an overview of these updates:
Olympics AI Overviews in Google Discover
At a glance: Google is promoting AI Overviews in Discover, sharing sample prompts of questions users could ask AI Overviews.?
The AI Overviews have been very present for Olympics-themed queries, which seems to suggest some kind of partnership with the Olympics. There has also been lots of advertising about Google Gemini during the Olympics–on NBC, with various athletes on TikTok, etc. Google seems to be using the huge Olympics audience to encourage adoption of AI in search.
GBP AI-powered menu generation
At a glance: For restaurant owners, this update should make menu changes much easier to update on your GBP account.?
A new AI-powered tool featured in Google Business Profile allows users to upload a picture of their menu and the tool will generate a menu based on that image. It’s quick, accurate, and can even include headers and prices.
OpenAI’s search prototype, SearchGPT
At a glance: SearchGPT’s temporary prototype is currently in testing, featuring AI-powered functionality that offers ‘timely answers with clear and relevant sources.”
OpenAI plans to integrate some of these features directly into ChatGPT once user testing wraps up. It seems similar to other AI-powered search engines, but the functionality looks more robust. Interested in testing out this prototype yourself? Join the waitlist here.
Perrill perspective:
Naturally, we saw plenty of people claiming the death of Google as soon as SearchGPT was announced. The reality is this might have a small dent in Google’s market share dominance, but keep in mind these three things: habits are difficult to change, many people distrust AI, and Google still has the best search engine on the market (even the antitrust ruling admitted this). We’re eagerly awaiting our access, but we don’t expect this to be much more than a small blip in the search engine ecosystem for now. – Nate Tower , President
Bing tests new generative search experience
At a glance: Bing is testing a new search experience, powered by AI, that would function like AI Overviews, with AI answers showing up for select search queries.?
After being the first search engine to fully integrate AI into providing answers to search queries, Microsoft has been testing ways to improve and refine the search experience. In this new experience, the AI-powered answer will show at the top, with clearly cited sources linked below, related sections available to improve the browsing experience, and traditional search results appearing to the right for further research. These new features are getting rolled out in the coming weeks.
Google plans on testing ads in AI Overviews
At a glance: There’s not a set date for when this will happen, but Alphabet’s Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer confirmed ads will hit AI Overviews soon.
Google plans to test these ad placements in the near future, so it will be interesting for advertisers to see how showing up in AI Overviews could impact their performance.
Google Ads reporting glitch
At a glance: A recent Google Ads glitch shared Merchant Center data with other advertisers, which is a major privacy breach and concern for advertisers.?
Most services are now restored, and Google is crediting accounts that were affected. Google stated the issue was caused by an ad-serving bug, not an issue with migrating to the new Merchant Center.
Say goodbye to Smart Campaigns
At a glance: Google is phasing out Smart Campaigns in Google Ads, instead integrating the features into Performance Max.
Google has made a huge push toward Performance Max, which is an AI-powered campaign type that allows users to reach a wide range of users across Google’s ecosystem. Google claims that this switch will result in an even larger return on investment.
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Google Ads consent settings tab
At a glance: Google’s new Ads feature gives advertisers more control over user consent management, letting advertisers adjust the default consent settings for their website data and uploaded data.
Not all accounts will get this feature as it's currently in testing, and it's possible that Google won’t roll this out on a wider scale. But updates like these are important as data privacy continues to be a topic of concern–and since Google decided against deprecating third-party cookies.
New PMax reporting in Google Ads
At a glance: New features in Google Ads should result in more effective creative and a better understanding of the results of Performance Max campaigns.
With new reporting tools, users will be able to see conversion metrics at the asset level and report on YouTube video placements.
With new creative tools, advertisers have more control over image editing, asset generation, and easier access to creative tools.
Perrill perspective:
Christmas came early this year! I don’t know about you all, but ever since Google launched Performance Max, I’ve been frustrated by the lack of detailed reporting. We see great results when we launch Performance Max campaigns, but I’ve always wanted to see data, not just “Good” or “Excellent” ratings next to the assets. These new reporting features will be extremely helpful, and I can’t wait until they’re fully rolled out! - Joesy Shea , Senior Paid Media Specialist
Google Ads + Merchant Center integration
At a glance: Ad creation between Merchant Center and Google Ads should be much simpler with this integration that allows advertisers to link Merchant Center feeds with Performance Max campaigns.?
Advertisers can also use the AI image editor in Ads to enhance product images from Merchant Center and then save them in the asset library.
Reddit lead-gen ads
At a glance: Reddit launched lead generation ads in beta, giving advertisers the opportunity to drive leads and collect user info directly from the platform through lead forms.
Reddit has been working on improving its advertising capabilities, and this feels like another step in the right direction as B2B businesses seek ways to grow their lead gen on Reddit.
YouTube picture-in-picture ads
At a glance: YouTube is testing new live stream ads on select devices, allowing creators to show ads without disrupting the live stream.?
These ads will appear smaller than typical YouTube ads, which may cause some concern about the effectiveness of the ads.
Snapchat+ hits 11M subscribers
At a glance: Snapchat+ is the most successful subscription social media platform, with updates that appeal directly to its audience. Subscribers have over 40 exclusive features, all catered toward improving the user experience, and all targeted toward younger users, which Snapchat has lots of.
From Chat Wallpapers to AI Bitmoji Pets, Snapchat+ makes it fun for users to customize their Snapchat experience while simultaneously creating a level of FOMO for users who aren’t paid subscribers.
Perrill perspective:
One thing that everyone can take away from Snapchat+'s success is how Snapchat uses its deep understanding of its audience to create features and updates that excites its users. While the introduction of Bitmoji Pets might not have seemed like an important addition to Snapchat+ from an outsider's perspective, it clearly aligned with user's desires and behaviors and goes to show how crucial it is for brands to listen to their customers when making decisions rather than assuming they know what's best. - Grace Hallen , Digital Marketing Specialist
TikTok adds the option to customize thumbnails
At a glance: Creators can now upload custom thumbnail images for their videos. As search on TikTok continues to grow, thumbnails could help creators stand out.
YouTube creators have been editing their video thumbnails for years, so bringing that functionality to TikTok seems like a smart way to cater to creators.
WhatsApp hits 100 million US users
At a glance: With messaging apps like Messenger popular in the US, WhatsApp has never really had a huge number of US users–even though it’s the biggest messaging platform in the world. Now, WhatsApp reached a new milestone of 100 million US users.
Messenger still has almost double the amount of users, but it's great to see this kind of growth for WhatsApp, especially as the platform focuses on privacy and global messaging.
Text-to-video generation tool
At a glance: TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, launched a new app called Jimeng AI that can create videos from text prompts.
Most video clips are less than five seconds long, and a lot of the example videos are fairly realistic. Check out their website to see the types of videos the tool can create and to generate one of your own.
Notes filter on Reels
At a glance: We’ve mentioned Instagram’s Notes feature many times over the past few weeks, and now there’s another Notes update worth mentioning: Instagram is adding a filter option to its Reels tab that lets users view Reels with Notes.
When mutual followers leave Notes on Reels, those Reels will appear in this tab–basically creating a private comment section for friends to talk to each other about the content.?
Threads slowly leans into real-time content
At a glance: One of the ways Threads differentiated itself from Twitter/X was by steering clear of divisive content, specifically political content. This meant avoiding real-time, newsworthy content. But now, Threads is slowly making a move into that space by including trending topic tags on posts and adding a Recent filter.
This should improve content discovery for users while creating a space for topical conversations. But not including political news, especially during an election year, could be a major turnoff for users coming to Threads as a Twitter replacement.
Add up to 20 frames to your Instagram carousel
At a glance: Creators can now add up to 20 different slides, or frames, to their Instagram carousels, giving more space for users to share related content.
Instagram has been experimenting with a variety of carousel updates, like the option to add videos and images of different sizes, or to add text overlays on top of the frames.
Perrill perspective:
Updates like these are great for giving users more room to be creative. I can see creators using carousels to post scrapbook, photo album-like posts that embrace creativity and personality. - Grace Hallen , Digital Marketing Specialist
Meta moves Llama AI models to open source
At a glance: To increase collaboration and user testing, Meta is releasing Llama AI models as open source. Developers will be able to build their own AI systems using Meta’s learnings.
This is a great way to continue growing and improving Meta’s product while allowing developers to create their own systems using Meta’s tools.
Annotations are coming to GA4
At a glance: Rumor has it GA4 is getting annotations sometime soon. Users had the ability to add annotations in UA, but the feature didn’t get transferred over to GA4.?
To fill the gap, users have implemented plugins that enable annotations. But having that functionality natively in the platform again would be a major plus.
Perrill perspective:
This is the UA feature I’ve missed the most. While we’ve been able to skirt around this through Chrome extensions, it will be nice to see annotations in GA4. Having clear notes regarding campaign launches, website changes, and more is very helpful when analyzing your data. I hope this one comes true sooner rather than later. - Nate Tower , President
Thanks for reading! Enjoy your weekend and we'll see you again in two weeks with fresh updates.