?? PPC News W3 (Jan 15-21)

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?? PPC News (Week 3)

[Jan 15-21]

Paid Search

Google Ads

Google Ads Image Upscaling Enhancements (Jan 19): Google Ads has introduced a new feature, "Image Upscaling Enhancements," designed to automatically improve and scale photos to meet the minimum size requirements for ad serving. This innovative tool is currently available for Performance Max and Responsive Display Ads. [post] (Anthony Higman)

Store Visit Diagnostic Tab (Jan 19): A new diagnostic tab has been introduced for advertisers, providing insights into their eligibility for store visits. This feature offers a valuable tool to understand and address eligibility issues, enhancing the ability to leverage store visit data for more informed campaign strategies effectively. [post] (Patrick Gehn)

Google Merchant Center's Enhanced Shopping Experience Scorecard (Jan 17): Google Merchant Center significantly updates its Shopping Experience Scorecard, offering a 0-10 score to evaluate and compare your store's shopping experience against direct competitors or within your industry. [post] (Thomas Eccel)

Deep-dive: The scorecard assesses four key areas: Shipping Experience (delivery cost and time), Return Experience (return cost and window), Purchase Experience (promotion disapproval rates and eWallets), and the new beta feature, Browsing Experience (image resolution and quantity).

Google Ads API

Cross-device conversion metric values no more (Jan 17, 2024): Google has announced the deprecation of cross-device conversion metric values in the Bid Manager API, by February 28, 2024. After the deadline, queries.create requests using these values will be invalid. [Google Ads Developer]

Google Ads Enhances Performance Max API Guide: Google Ads introduces a comprehensive "Getting Started" guide for Performance Max (PMax) campaigns via the API.

Expert Perspective: Video assets are no longer mandatory for retail campaigns, streamlining the asset creation process. Additionally, the API provides improved reporting data for e-commerce, including metrics like profit and cart size. Separately, Search Themes and Audience Signals are now distinctly recognized in the API, underscoring their unique roles in PMax campaigns. [post] (Navah Hopkins)

[See Performance Max Guide Enhancements]

Tip of the week:

Discovering the hidden way to delete draft campaigns in Google Ads is now easier, thanks to a tip from Ali Mehdi Mukadam on X. Navigate to the Overview page, locate the "Draft Campaign" card, and hover over the draft to find the elusive remove option — a valuable insight for tidying up your Google Ads account. [Tweet]

(image Thomas Eccel )

Amazon Ads

Coming - FBA Shipment Compliance Tightened (Feb 1): Amazon FBA now enforces stricter rules on shipment arrivals. Domestic shipments must arrive within 45 days, and international shipments must arrive within 75 days of creation. Non-compliance leads to automatic shipment closure and potential suspension for continued violations. [post] ( Akshay Tarpara )

Amazon Advertising Console Adds 'All Sold Products' Tab (Jan 17): Amazon enhances its advertising console with the new 'All Sold Products' tab in the product dashboard. This feature allows sellers to view the total sales of all products within a selected period directly in the advertising console. Key insights include advertising status, Sponsored Product eligibility, and gross sales (including organic and ad-attributed sales, with adjustments for cancelled orders). Additionally, it offers product recommendations and shows the product's available date. [post] (Mansour Norouzi)

Expert Perspective: While beneficial, the addition of metrics like spend, TACOS, and total ROAS would further enrich this dashboard's utility for a more comprehensive advertising performance overview. (Mansour Norouzi)

'Rest of Search' in Sponsored Products (Jan 16): Amazon introduces bid adjustments for 'Rest of Search' placements for Sponsored Products. This new feature operates similarly to existing adjustments for the top-of-search and product page placements, allowing advertisers to modify their bids by up to 900% for enhanced ad positioning and visibility beyond the first page. [post] (Pratyay Amrit)

Shutterstock Integration for Amazon (Jan 16): Amazon's collaboration with Shutterstock grants free access to a vast library of high-quality stock images for your Store, Sponsored Brand, and Sponsored Display campaigns. This partnership aims to elevate the visual quality and engagement of your advertisements. [post] (Pratyay Amrit)

Amazon API

Amazon's Persona Builder Beta (Jan 2024): Amazon's Persona Builder tool, now available in beta, offers an innovative approach to understanding and targeting audiences for advertisers.

Leveraging Amazon's first-party insights, the tool allows the creation of custom brand personas, integrating audience interests, shopping behaviors, and relevant life events. This significant development enables advertisers to tailor their campaigns more effectively, especially on platforms like Amazon DSP. [Amazon Ads] ( Mansour Norouzi )

Paid Social

Meta Ads

New Continuous Brand Lift Monitoring (Jan 19): Facebook introduces ongoing monthly or quarterly Brand Lift Monitoring, accessible via the Experiments page. This tool automates the brand lift study process, providing continuous insights into the brand impact of your ads.

It's an excellent resource for tracking brand perception over time without manually setting up new studies. While it may not offer detailed information about specific ad performance, its value lies in the long-term evaluation and validation of advertising strategies on brand health. [post] (Barry Hott)

Meta Report Library - Enhanced Attribution Settings (Jan 19): Meta has just updated its report library for app promotion campaigns, now offering more granular attribution settings. Advertisers can select specific attribution windows, including 7- and 28-day click results, providing deeper insights and more precise campaign performance analysis. [post] (Emir Bayutmu?)

Meta Advantage+ Shopping - Enhanced Conversion Event Choices (Jan 19): Meta has rolled out an update for its Advantage+ Shopping (ASC) campaigns, addressing a significant limitation in conversion event selection. Previously confined to the 'Purchase' event, advertisers in certain accounts can now select from a broader range of e-commerce events, like 'Add to Cart', and even custom conversion events. [post] (Dario Zannoni)

Expert Perspective: This update allows lower-level conversions for ASC campaigns struggling with insufficient purchase data and unable to exit the learning phase. This can help campaigns exit the learning phase more quickly, leading to more efficient ad distribution. (Dario Zannoni)

Meta Explores 'Profile Reels' Ad Placement (Jan 19): Meta has introduced 'Facebook profile feed' as a new ad targeting option alongside the existing 'Instagram profile feed' placement. Recently, 'Profile Reels' emerged as a placement option in custom report creation, hinting at the potential for advertisers to run ads in users' Facebook Reels feeds. [post] (Bram Van der Hallen)

Expert Perspective: While official details are scarce, this move could parallel the 'Instagram profile feed' format, expanding advertising opportunities within the dynamic Reels ecosystem. (Bram Van der Hallen)

Meta's Customer Acquisition Feature in Ads Manager (Jan 17): Ads Manager offers a 'Customer Acquisition' option for manual sales campaigns, enabling advertisers to target only new customers. By defining existing customers in the Audience section, this feature automatically excludes them from any ad sets with Customer Acquisition activated. [post] (Jon Loomer)

Expert Perspective:This functionality is similar to the existing customer budget cap in Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns and is particularly beneficial for businesses focusing on prospecting. However, manual audience exclusion within the ad set remains advisable for more specific exclusions, like those who have already purchased a particular product. (Jon Loomer)

Remarketing Update for Shop-Linked Accounts (Jan 17): Meta Ads introduces a crucial update for advertisers with Facebook and Instagram Shop-Linked accounts. Custom audiences created for remarketing now automatically integrate data from your shop's audience on these platforms. [post] (Dario Zannoni)

Deep-dive: This default setting aims to widen audience reach by including various sources like website visitors and those interacting with your shop's pages, products, and collections on Facebook and Instagram. While this feature is active by default, advertisers can edit and refine their audience selections later.

Meta's 'Expand Image' AI for Ads (Jan 16): Meta introduces 'Expand Image' as part of its Advantage+ creative enhancements. This tool automatically adjusts your uploaded ad images to fit various placements, like expanding a 1:1 image to a 4:5 aspect ratio for Instagram Feed or adding elements like sky or grass to occupy more screen space. [post] (Bram Van der Hallen)

Meta is renaming 'Meta Business Accounts' into 'Business Portfolios' (Jan 15): A Meta Business Account is a type of account that centralizes all business assets such as FB Pages, Instagram accounts, ad accounts and more. A 'Business Portfolio' centralizes all these assets. This name change will appear gradually across Meta technologies. [post] ( Bram Van der Hallen )

Connect multiple WhatsApp numbers to your Facebook Page (Jan 15): You can now connect various WhatsApp numbers to your Facebook Page. When you add WhatsApp numbers, you can use any of them in specific types of ads and posts. [post] (Bram Van der Hallen)

Turn off ALL ad account notifications in your 'Ad account settings' (Jan 15): You can now turn off ALL ad account notifications in your 'Ad account settings'. This toggle, available under 'Notification settings', lets you quickly turn off all updates about ad performance, budget, schedule and more. [post] (Bram Van der Hallen)

Expert Perspective: While this may reduce the number of emails and Facebook notifications, Bram Van der Hallen would not advise turning off all updates. Instead, you can deselect the ones you don't need to monitor, and be sure to update the email address attached to these notifications to your work business email address.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn's New Sponsored Articles Feature (Jan 19): LinkedIn has introduced a new feature allowing companies to sponsor articles directly within the platform, aimed at boosting user engagement without leaving LinkedIn. This tool enhances brand visibility and lead generation, offering an "Unlock Article" CTA for fuller content access. [SEJ] ( Nicola Agius )

LinkedIn's Enhanced Retargeting for Conversation Ads (Jan 19): LinkedIn's latest update enables advertisers to retarget audiences interacting with conversation ads, specifically those who have opened or clicked on a CTA. [post] (Ali Yildirim)

Expert Perspective: This feature enhances data segmentation capabilities but requires regular usage as these audience segments expire after 30 days of inactivity. Also, I would like to point out that data accumulation starts only after the insight tag installation for website retargeting. (Ali Yildirim)

LinkedIn's Form Submission Display for Lead Gen Ads (Jan 16): LinkedIn enhances its lead generation ads by displaying form submissions directly in the feed. Currently, this display is limited to the feed, not appearing in ad previews or company page posts. [post] (Kirill Vdov)

Expert Perspective: Another reason to put effort into your content and creatives. Social proof is a hell of a thing and it grows exponentially. And you can stalk ads’ performance. (Kirill Vdov)

Marketing Industry

GDPR, Users Protection & Privacy Laws

Google Ads Urges EU Campaign Compliance (Jan 18): Google calls for immediate action from advertisers targeting the European Economic Area (EEA) to comply with its EU User Consent Policy. Advertisers must send verifiable consent signals to maintain personalized ads and measurement within Google Ads, Google Marketing Platform, and GA4. Failure to comply may significantly impact campaign performance and ROI. [Google]

Google Adapts to EU's DMA (Jan 17): Google has announced updates to its European services in compliance with the upcoming Digital Markets Act (DMA). [Google]

These modifications, effective in March, will significantly alter user experience, including the introduction of dedicated units on SERPs for comparison website links, query shortcuts for refined searches, an enriched display for hotel searches featuring comparison sites and direct suppliers, and notably, the removal of Google Flights from search results. (Teodor Yordanov)

Advertising Industry

10-week program by Google for Startups (Jan 18): Google has introduced the Google for Startups Accelerator: AI-First, a 10-week program designed to support startups utilizing AI in their core business in North America. This equity-free initiative, run in collaboration with Google Cloud, offers hands-on mentorship, technical project support, and access to the latest AI tools, including Google’s own Gemini. Last date to apply - February 15. [Google]

Amazon's Investment in Diamond Sports (Jan 18): Amazon takes a significant stake in Diamond Sports, setting Prime Video as the streaming destination for at least five MLB teams' 162 games. This move aligns with Amazon's growing focus on live sports, including NFL, NASCAR, and WNBA content. The upcoming shift to an ad-supported Prime Video format presents new opportunities for brand engagement, especially for local brands during regional broadcasts. (Jeffrey Cohen)

Google Ad Sales Team Layoffs (Jan 16): Google is reducing its advertising sales team, impacting hundreds of roles globally. This decision aligns with their strategy to reorganize and utilize machine learning in ad sales, particularly for large businesses. [Engadget]

ShopPay on Non-Shopify Site: Everlane's New Checkout Experience (Jan 16): Everlane has integrated Shopify's ShopPay into its non-Shopify, homegrown CMS, marking a significant expansion of ShopPay's use beyond Shopify websites. This development could signal a shift in the landscape of one-click checkout solutions, with ShopPay now competing alongside established players like Apple Pay and PayPal. [Tweet] (Nik Sharma)

AI Developments

Zuckerberg's AGI Ambition - Open-Sourcing the Future? (Jan 18): In a strategic shift, Meta's AI research group, FAIR, will work closely with teams building generative AI products across Meta's platforms. Zuckerberg's vision includes potentially open-sourcing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), aligning with Meta's capacity expansion, including a significant investment in Nvidia’s H100 GPUs. This move signals Meta's commitment to playing a leading role in the AI race, alongside giants like OpenAI and Google. [The Verge]

AI-powered search with Circle to Search (Jan 17): Google is enhancing the multi-search experience by integrating generative AI breakthroughs, allowing users to ask complex questions about images captured by their camera. With the new multisearch expertise in the Google app, users can now upload a photo or screenshot, ask questions, and receive AI-powered insights beyond visual matches. [The Keyword]

You can watch the replay of Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Jan 24:

Amazon's AI-Powered Shopper Assistance (Jan 16): Amazon launches an AI tool designed to streamline the shopping experience on its mobile app. Users can ask product-related questions, receiving concise answers without extensive page scrolling. While it's not a conversational AI like ChatGPT, it does respond creatively, marking Amazon's continued exploration into AI integration for enhanced customer experiences. [CNBC]

Microsoft 365 Expands Copilot Access (Jan 15): Microsoft 365 broadens the reach of its Copilot feature, making it available to businesses of all sizes. This includes a new individual subscription, Copilot Pro, priced at $20/month, offering advanced AI capabilities like GPT-4 Turbo and a unique GPT Builder. The update also eliminates the 300-seat minimum for commercial plans, opening up opportunities for smaller businesses. [Microsoft]

Introducing Copilot Pro for Enhanced AI Experience (Jan 15): Copilot Pro offers a comprehensive AI experience across various devices and applications. It includes access to Copilot in Microsoft Office apps, priority access to OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo, and enhanced AI image creation. This new subscription is tailored for individuals seeking advanced writing, coding, designing, researching, and learning capabilities, priced at $20/month. [Microsoft]

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