Today in Digital Marketing - Google’s Big Day Out

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, everything you need to know from Google Marketing Live, including updates to Performance Max campaigns, AR shopping ads are coming to Google Search, and finally, ads are coming to YouTube Shorts. Snapchat's looming poor results brought all internet stocks down today, and a new supply chain tool adjusts your ad spend based on your product inventory. It's Tuesday, May 24th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:27 So it is Google Marketing Live Day. That is the annual conference that Google does to unveil its Google ad products, analytics, and so on. Jill Saskengale is the Google Ads pro and good friend of the podcast. And I did a YouTube live earlier this morning to prognosticate about what we thought was going to be coming.

Starting point is 00:00:43 You can find that on Jill's YouTube channel or premium members. It's already in your feed. However, as for what happened, a bunch of stuff. So we're going to start with performance max updates, performance max being their machine learning based everything in one bucket kind of new ad format. So there are six new updates that most people in the industry are talking about today. First, in-store goals. So these, of course, is a way to optimize your campaign to drive foot traffic in a store. It's also something called burst campaigns where users will be able to advertise for a set amount of time to meet in-store goals. Three, optimization score. Google is, of course, doubling down on automation, as you know, and they have a new optimization scorecard.

Starting point is 00:01:24 Advertisers get a score and also receive automated optimization tips. Many people in the industry, myself included, find those tips a little bit, shall we say, underwhelming. There are some new experiment tools available now. So these tools will take existing comparable campaigns and layer Performance Max on top with the goal of showing how much lift could be seen between the two campaigns. But of course, since the comparable campaigns are currently fixed and Google is moving toward this black box, you don't get to see what's inside. We brand advertisers cannot actually manage what is going to be considered the control.

Starting point is 00:01:56 PMAX campaigns can include branded competitor or remarketing audiences, which have a favorable CPA or ROAS. Also, Google will be adding more insights and explanations to Performance Max campaigns, including consumer, audience, and auction insights, and Performance Max will be more accessible. You'll be able to manage your campaigns through the Google Ads app or Search Ads 360. Google also unveiled three new reports that will be released over the coming months, including attribution insights, which will show how your ads work together across Google services to drive conversions. Budget insights will help you find some new opportunities, perhaps, for optimization of your budget,

Starting point is 00:02:34 show you how your spend is pacing against your budget goals. And this is a nice one, audience insights for first-party data. So the data that you upload from your email list or whatever your custom audience is, or customer match as Google calls it, definitely a welcome addition. Next on the agenda was the elephant in the room, TikTok, and specifically Google's plans to push short form video. And the big announcement, ads are now officially coming to YouTube Shorts. Shorts, of course, being their version of TikTok videos, starting today. YouTube Shorts ad inventory will be included in video action and app campaigns. This will gradually roll out to all advertisers. So when I say starting today, of course, that means you might be in the group that is getting it today. But in the coming weeks,

Starting point is 00:03:19 you'll certainly get it as well. Google also shared how later this year, advertisers will have the ability to connect product feeds to campaigns to create shoppable video ads on YouTube Shorts with a couple of new formats. With the first, a yellow ad badge, a brief description, the advertiser's name, and a show now button will appear at the bottom of your advertisement. Honestly, it looks pretty much identical to TikTok. The second format features a carousel of products that customers can swipe through. This actually looks really smooth. Along with ads coming to YouTube Shorts and TV, video ads are also coming soon to Google Discover.

Starting point is 00:03:54 There wasn't really a timeline on that. And finally, advertisers will be able to use connected TV campaigns to target viewers to reach affinity in market and demographic audiences across YouTube and most other connected TV apps. Next, we move to the new shopping ad formats. The company announced that Google Search will be getting a new highly visual shopping ads feature later this year, which will be labeled as ads and eligible to appear in dedicated ad slots throughout Google's properties, meaning organic results will appear alongside shopping ads in one larger swipable visual feed. This is going to U.S.

Starting point is 00:04:35 customers first. The new ad format will be available through search and performance max campaigns for apparel queries to begin with. Also, the tech giant is bringing AR, augmented reality, to Google Search. Soon, you'll be able to have 3D models of your products appear directly on Google Search. So if you have 3D models of the products you sell, Google can now surface them to shoppers looking for similar items right on Search. And finally, the company announced loyalty program ads integration in the coming months that will enable brands to market their loyalty benefits to potential customers. This too is in the US. Many of the announcements from Marketing Day are still rolling out as the event goes on today and tomorrow. This is what we were able to cram in before deadline. Of course,

Starting point is 00:05:18 we will have more coverage tomorrow. We don't cover the stock market that often here, but I thought I would share this one with you. Some interesting news from Snap Incorporated, Snapchat's maker. Shares fell more than 25% yesterday after the company warned of slower growth ahead. And that is dragging pretty much every other tech, internet, and social media stock down as well. Snap said in a filing yesterday that revenue for the second quarter will come in below the range that the company itself projected just a month ago. Due to slowed growth, the company plans to slow hiring for the remainder of the year. That resulted in the 25% fall yesterday.

Starting point is 00:05:58 Today, Snapchat's shares are down 42%. And as I mentioned, even other stocks like Meta, Twitter, and Pinterest took a hit. Even Bezos and Alphabet took a smaller hit, with Amazon and Google shares slipping following Snap's announcement. That said, of course, Snap's ad business is a fraction of the size of Meta's, Google's, or Amazon's. But according to the Wall Street Journal, it was a big enough forecast to drop to sound an alarm halfway through a quarter from a company that has never issued a revenue warning before. It's the season for new styles and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten.

Starting point is 00:06:39 And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches,

Starting point is 00:07:22 and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. It is one of the most popular web platforms out there, and today it launched a major upgrade. WordPress 6.0 is out. If you have automatic upgrades turned on, it may have already moved to that version. Traditionally, version numbers in software that end in a.0 are big upgrades. It's not quite the case here. There's nothing huge new, just a series of solid changes. The one I am most excited about is being able to select text across blocks. WordPress moved to a block editor a couple of years back, but each block was kind of its own thing, and you could select multiple blocks, but you couldn't drag your mouse across different words in various paragraphs like you might in a word processor. Now you can.

Starting point is 00:08:09 Also, there are some new page creation patterns, essentially page design templates. The WordPress core won't contain any templates, but they can be bolted on via a third-party provider. You can also now lock a block. This would prevent an end user from accidentally moving or deleting an important block. You'll find that in the block settings menu. There's also something called global style variations that will make it easier to make site-wide design changes without having to poke around the CSS. Which, whenever I do it, I completely screw up my website. So, kudos.

Starting point is 00:08:41 WordPress version 6.0 is available now. WordPress says it recommends that everyone upgrades. Hands up if you've ever spent a bunch of money on product ads, only to learn later that your product is actually out of stock. One company says it's figured out how to connect your ad budgets to your inventory levels. Omnicom Media Group has announced a new tool called Supply Chain IQ Score that can help brands determine when and where to redirect media spend in response to supply chain issues. The tool is powered by Crisp, which provides inventory data for more than 80% of the top U.S. retailers and distributors,

Starting point is 00:09:22 including Target, Amazon, and CVS, into what they call the Omni platform that supports all Omnicom agencies. According to the company, OMG's supply chain IQ store gives media planners day-to-day visibility into SKU inventory data at the physical store, digital shelf, and inventory in transit levels, enabling media investment to be shifted away from low inventory products in real time. According to Omnicom, the tool can be used for geo-targeting ads, measuring sales lift in real time, local store campaigns, and supporting new product launches. And finally, is Google showing fewer site links?

Starting point is 00:10:05 Site links are links from the same domain that appear under one result in the search engine results page, which are basically free advertisements. If you Google today in digital marketing, you will probably see, depending on what the algorithm thinks you want to see, things like our advertising page or our contact us page or our episodes page. We don't deliberately list that or put them there, but Google assumes that people might be interested. Those are site links. Previously, Google would display up to six site links in its search results. Now, according to a piece in Search Engine Land today, it appears to only be showing between two and four. Consequently, fewer site links could result in fewer clicks,

Starting point is 00:10:41 which could have a real effect on web traffic, if that is the case. Here's one very cringy moment, at least for me anyway, in Google Marketing Live today. You know, I have a problem with software engineers that have a lot of time on their hands because they start believing their own BS, frankly. And today they announced that the vision they have for Google Search, for the search engine, is not one, a better version of what we have today, which is, you know, it's really good at answering questions. Like I needed to know what kind of flour to put in my corn tortillas that I was making last night. I Googled that. It gave me the answer. But rather than doubling down on

Starting point is 00:11:19 being the best at answering questions or doing what it does right now. Here is, in six words, verbatim, what they believe the future of Google Search is. Are you ready? This is actually what they said. An endless stream of visual ideas. Like, what strain have you been smoking? Like, who wants that? Really? Like, who wants that? Really? Like, who is asking for endless streams of visual ideas?

Starting point is 00:11:49 We have Pinterest. We have TikTok. Be a search engine. You don't have to be everything to everyone. Not everything has to be TikTok. Oh, God, I'm getting old. All right, talk to you tomorrow. There are several good places in your home

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Today in Digital Marketing - Google’s Big Day Out

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