July Online Marketing Roundup

The news you were waiting is here! This time learn about all the changes in SERPs, new features in Facebook Ads, new stuff in Snapchat, Double Click launches AMP ads and much more. Get ready to read our July Online Marketing Roundup!

1. Significant Changes to SERPs: Have You Noticed Them?

The new set of SERP changes rolled out by Google is bound to impact your digital marketing strategies. Now, marketers should ideally brace themselves for the recent SERP changes that entail multifarious attributes including PPC, Google Images, Shopping on Google, News, Knowledge Graph and Apps.

What are the SERP changes that marketers should know this season?

While going through this particular primer (of the SERP changes introduced by Google in 2016) one can quickly notice Google has conducted experimentation including the color of PPC ads and the length of Meta descriptions and titles. Read on to explore details.

1. Increased Image Results Above the Fold

The first – most evident SERP change that one can notice is the appearance of tabs in the Image section instead of thumbnails at the top

2. PPC ads: It is not as easy to spot them as before

Marketers across the globe are yet to wake up to Google’s experimentation with the green and yellow ads labels. Make sure that you are acquainting yourself with relevant details without further delay.

3. The Introduction of the Product Info Graph

The Product Info Graph has just made its debut in Google.com. and its usage is primary associable with Google Shopping. The graph is known to derive all its information from Google Shopping and not from Wikipedia.

The SERPs will now directly show your product specifications on the right side of the page when you are accessing your desktop.

Formerly, this space (i.e. which is now occupied by the Product Info Graph) was occupied by PPC ads.

4. The length of titles and descriptions is also extended

Thanks to Ross Hudgens, who pointed out on Twitter last month, that Google has even gone on to extend the length of titles and descriptions.

He prudently drew our attention to the fact that Google is testing title tags again in the Search Engine Result Pages. From its previous 50- 60 characters, the title tags have now been increased to 70 or 71 characters.

You can write meta descriptions that now have been increased by 100 characters per line. Now, you can extend your descriptions to three lines from its previous two lines.

Read more about all the SERP’s changes in this amazing Positionly post.

2. Facebook Ad Changes: What Marketers Need to Know

To explore a number of recent changes to Facebook that will impact all advertisers, I interview Jon Loomer.

A. The 20% text rule change

Jon explains why the 20% rule was created and says that until recently, any Facebook ad image with more than 20% text would be rejected. The text ratio was measured by placing a grid over the image and if there was text in more than 5 out of the 25 boxes, it was considered over the 20% text limit.

Since Facebook has abandoned the rule, advertisers can have as much text as they want in their image. However, the more text in the image, the less reach it will receive and the more it will cost to run such an ad.

Now, when you upload an image to the Text Overlay tool, Facebook will rate the image as: OK, Low, Medium, and High.

B. Facebook custom audiences

With the new website custom audiences’ advanced feature, you can create an audience based on frequency. For instance, base it on how many times someone has visited your website or performed one specific action, such as a purchase or a registration.

In addition to frequency, you can create a custom audience based on a section or sections of your site, as well as time on site. For example, you can target only people who have been to your site for an hour over the last 180 days.

In the past, you couldn’t create an audience from a lead ad since users weren’t being sent to your website. Now, with the lead ad custom audience, you have the ability to create audiences out of anybody who submits.

You can upsell, exclude them from seeing that ad again, and create audiences out of people who clicked but did not submit, or clicked whether or not they submitted.

C. Dynamic ads

Facebook changed dynamic product ads to dynamic ads, partially because it applies to more than tangible goods. A dynamic ad gives you the ability to upload a product feed.

So if you have an ecommerce site with hundreds or thousands of products, you don’t have to create a different ad (and a different custom audience) for every product.

D. Other ad considerations

With features like Canvas, Facebook is trying to make users’ experience immersive, as opposed to solely text.

Jon explains how Canvas looks like a link ad, but the content immediately loads in your phone without going to a website.

It looks a lot like an instant article, except it’s not pulling from a feed from your site, which is what instant articles do.

E. The Audience Network

The Audience Network is the way for advertisers to reach targeted Facebook audiences when those people are away from Facebook. It’s a partner within mobile apps.

So if someone is using an app, they could see a Facebook ad at the bottom or a pop-up, even though they’re not on Facebook at the time. The advertiser is monetizing via the Facebook Audience Network.

Learn more about all the facebook changes in this amazing interview that guys at social media examiner did to Jon Loomer

3. Snapchat Memories Allows Republishing of Content: This Week in Social Media

Memories is a new way to save Snaps and Stories on Snapchat. It’s a personal collection of your favorite moments that lives below the Camera screen. Just swipe up from the Camera to open Memories!

It’s super easy to find the Snap or Story you’re looking for in just a few seconds by typing keywords like “dog” or “Hawaii” — that way you can spend less time searching and more time enjoying your Memories.

You can use Memories to create new Stories from Snaps you’ve taken, or even combine different Stories into a longer narrative! It’s fun to celebrate an anniversary or birthday by finding a few old Snaps and stringing them together into a new Story.

Learn more about Snapchat Memories here.

4. Facebook Now Allows Longer Livestreams

Big changes are coming to Facebook Live. The social network will let broadcasts run for up to four hours – or even continuously in some cases.

Plus, you can now hide reactions and comments, view livestreams in full-screen, and restrict who sees your broadcast.

Here’s a quick roundup of all the changes coming to Facebook Live that marketers need to know.

• 4 Hour Live Streams
• Hide Reactions & Comments
• Full-Screen Live
• Continuous Live
• Geogating

Learn all about these Facebook changes in their Livestreams in this Search Engine Journal article.

5. Google is Soon Rolling Out Imported Call Conversions for AdWords

Mobile click-to-call has made it easier than ever for consumers to connect with businesses over the phone. And growth in call volume shows no signs of slowing down.

In fact, calls to U.S. businesses from smartphones are predicted to reach nearly 162 billion by 2019, a 73% increase from 2015.¹

Even though calls are a major source of conversions for many businesses, it can be challenging to measure a consumer journey that starts online from a search ad and ends with an offline conversation.

That’s why Google has announced imported call conversions to help advertisers attribute revenue from phone calls back to their AdWords campaigns more accurately. This will roll out to all advertisers over the next few weeks.

Learn more about this coming feature here.

6. DoubleClick launches AMP ads and landing pages

Google’s DoubleClick has announced accelerated mobile page (AMP) ads and landing pages, in a bid to increase loading times for publishers and advertisers.

According to Paul Muret, VP of display, video ads, and analytics at Google, research shows that the average mobile site takes 19 seconds to load.

This presents a missed opportunity for publishers and Google estimates that mobile sites that launch within five seconds can earn up to 2 x more revenue.

Last autumn, Google announced its open source AMP project, with files that are smaller than their traditional web counterparts. But now, DoubleClick's announced a new initiative to bring AMP tech to advertising itself - and it’s already being trialled by publishers such as the Washington Post.

AMP ads means advertisers can now create ads in AMP HTML, so the entire AMP experience loads simultaneously at AMP speed. Google’s also announced AMP landing pages - which they say are fast and can be custom built by advertisers with AMP HTML.

With this, advertisers can upload the ad components and DoubleClick will automatically assemble them to fit the context and format of the site/app where they appear.

In addition, publishers can now make ad inventory across the web and apps available programmatically or through traditional direct sales.

Learn more about AMP ads here!

7. Google Maps adds more ways to add or edit locations

Each day, we make million of updates to Google Maps throughout the world. But it’s still not enough to ensure that every single restaurant, shop or landmark worldwide has the most accurate information possible.

That’s why google has been rolling out new, easy ways for you to help keep the neighborhoods and places where you hang out up-to-date.

I. Easily add places or suggest edits

First, they have expanded the ability to add missing places and edit existing business or landmark information worldwide on both the Google Maps app (Android, iOS) and through Google Search.

This lets people contribute new and updated information to Google Maps from more places—whether they’re searching for a new restaurant on Google.com or looking for a nearby convenience store while on the go.

II. Share more details about a place

There’s more to a place than its business hours or address—you might want to know if a place has a romantic vibe, serves vegetarian food or offers outdoor seating.

Now on Google Maps for Android and when searching on your mobile phone, you can contribute what you know about a place so that others can benefit from the info as well.

III. Verify suggested edits from others

They have also introduced a new way for users to help approve edits suggested by others, ultimately reducing the amount of time it takes for edits to appear on the map.

For places that have pending suggestions, you’ll see a notification stating that “Someone suggested new info.”

If you click or tap that notification, you’ll have the option to verify whether the suggestion is accurate. Once enough votes are received to be confident that the suggestion is accurate, it’s published to the map.

Learn more about all the Google Maps changes here.