The marketing insight and news from November are here! As we head into the last month of the year, there has been a clear trend for a new channel for eCommerce powered by interaction and emotion. Any clue of what we might be talking about? 

During this month, the topic of social media as a new eCommerce channel was definitely relevant. Both giants TikTok and YouTube shorts are taking the leap in this field. Could it be too much of a coincidence that channels with similar content types are trying to incorporate a direct sales experience into their customer journeys?

Keep on reading to find out more about this new trend and, of course, about the other search marketing, tech marketing, social media news and updates from Frizbit.

Digital Marketing News and Updates from November 2022

CONTENT

Search Marketing Updates

• Google releases the ultimate guide to understanding current and retired ranking systems

• Google finally rolls out their new Local search features

• Drive traffic to your eCommerce with the new Google Shopping tab

Tech Marketing Updates

• The new era for ClickUp and Hubspot: the strategic partnership

• Get ready for Notion AI and all its possibilities

Social Media Updates

• TikTok Shop begins rolling out in the United States

• YouTube Shorts has rolled out product features in videos (also just in time for the holidays) 

• Tumblr is back. How can you use it for your marketing strategy?

Updates from Frizbit

• Frizbit exhibited at WebSummit

• Hello, Helsinki: Frizbit was present at Slush

• Client Spotlight!: We welcome Zelucash on board!

Search Marketing Updates

• Google releases the ultimate guide to understanding current and retired ranking systems

Source: Adobe Stock

Good news from Google, just in time before the end of the year! Get ready to readjust your SEO strategy as the company has rolled out the ultimate guide to understanding the current ranking system and discarding old practices.

In the new ranking guide, Google explains which ranking systems it uses to rank search results as well as introduces new terminology, such as highlighting the difference between “ranking systems” and “ranking updates”. In this case, the word “system” stands for a constant concept that is always functioning. And on the other hand, “updates” stands for a one-time specific change to the ranking systems.

With that being said, we will go first through some of the current ranking systems in alphabetical order.

• BERT: Short for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. It allows Google to understand different combinations of words to create different meanings and intent.
• Exact domain system: It ensures that Google doesn’t give higher punctuation to websites with domain names that exactly match a query.
• Helpful content system: A system developed to rank better content created to add value rather than content created to gain or increase traffic.
• Neural matching: A system that aims to ensure Google understands representations of concepts of queries and pages to match them accordingly.
• Reliable information systems: It ensures that reliable information is shown by elevating authoritative pages, demoting low-quality content, and rewarding quality journalism.

Now let’s move to the retired Google Ranking systems.

• Hummingbird: Rolled out in 2013, it represented a significant improvement in Google’s rankings system.
• Mobile-friendly ranking system: It preferred the content rendered specifically for mobile experiences. It has since been incorporated into Google’s page experience system.
• Panda system: Introduced in 2011, this system preferred high-quality content and original content. It is now part of Google’s core ranking system in 2015.
• Secure sites system: Introduced in 2014, this system preferred websites secured with HTTPS. It is now part of the page experience system.

With this update, Google isn’t implying those older ranking systems, such as page speed, rewarding original content, or secure navigation, are obsolete. On the contrary, Google has transformed most of the retired rankings to be part of their essential needs to be met through their core ranking system or Google’s page experience. This ultimately means that meeting these requirements is no longer optional, but a must when creating content to improve the search experience of the users.

• Google finally rolls out their new Local search features

Source: Google Blog

The time has come, and Google is finally rolling out the local search features that were briefly introduced earlier this year. We believe the timing couldn’t be better as well, as it can increase the positive impact for local businesses during the holiday season.

As a local business in the hospitality industry, this update brings to life the feature of searching a restaurant by dish, as well as incorporating new search capabilities built into Google Maps Live view. This means having a possible increase in both visibility and reach results. 

If you own a local store, keep on reading to find out the new functionalities available to elevate your search possibilities.

1. Live view search: For the moment, it is only available for London, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Tokyo on Android and iOS. This feature allows you to find information around you through the lens of your camera. Information includes if a business is open, how busy it is, star rating and even price range.
2. Search restaurants by dish: In the case of restaurants, this update brings up two ways of being found. Restaurants can be found by either the user manually typing their desired dish or conducting a visual search through Google Lens.
3. Accessibility search: Available worldwide, now users can search in Google Maps for wheelchair-accessible, stair-free places.

• Drive traffic to your eCommerce with the new Google Shopping tab

Source: Google Blog

With the goal in mind of supporting merchants to achieve growth, Google Search Console is introducing the new Shopping tab listings. This new feature aims to help online store owners to showcase their products with ease on the shopping tab on Google.

Through merchant listing reports and product structured data, among other features, Search Console is making it easier for merchants to display their products across Google. The company is then helping merchants drive more traffic to their online stores and connect with customers who already have a need/search in mind.

With this update, merchants can easily create a Merchant Center account and ease the process of having to re-verify the website ownership or submitting a product feed. All that is required from you as a business owner is to keep the product structured data up-to-date. The company hopes that speeding up processes will get products quickly on the Shopping tab on Google.

The roll-out will be deployed gradually and only to eligible businesses.

Marketing Tech

•  The new era for ClickUp and Hubspot: the strategic partnership

Source: Adobe Stock

One of the most remarkable CRM platforms: Hubspot, meets productivity with ClickUp. This partnership aims to help customers create more efficient processes and workflows while collaborating across multiple team members.

Yamini Rangan, CEO at HubSpot, mentioned: 

 “Building deeper relationships with customers starts with having a team that’s aligned and working together towards creating a better customer experience. That’s why I’m so thrilled about our partnership with ClickUp, the power of HubSpot + ClickUp enables growing companies to create strong connections at every point in the buyer journey.”

How will ClickUp contribute to Hubspot?

The productivity app enables teams to achieve their deadlines and goals by creating a seamless and collaborative experience that ultimately reflects delightful experiences for its customers. It will be achieved through:

• Two-way-sync between ClickUp and HubSpot. This creates more efficiency in teams as it saves time on some manual tasks, therefore accelerating the customer success workflow.
• Seamless Automations: By collaborating, if a project needs to be handed off, now it can be done automatically while ensuring the best experience for the users.  Also, stakeholders will get to know the status of the project at all times.
• Special deals for Users: If you are a client of either of the platforms, you can enjoy a 20% discount on the previously unused software during implementation.

We believe that by joining forces, the results will be a game-changer for creating powerful results in the experiences for both the front-end and back-end parts when managing and delivering different projects. 

• Get ready for Notion AI and all its possibilities

Source: Notion AI

 

Recently, Notion has been the number one tool for productivity, planning, and organization. From simple planning to complex tracking, Notion has become the platform to do-it-all in one place. 

In its most recent update, the company has announced that now the tool is putting all its efforts into developing what seems to be the most dynamic and powerful writing artificial intelligence assistant.

They state that its development is able to generate any type of content. What can you achieve?

• Blog post: Write the page title, and Notion AI will do the rest
• Press release: Become an expert in PR.
• Poem: Inspired by the Japanese haiku, Notion AI promises to write poems about all topics
• Meeting Agenda: Provide a topic, and Notion AI will outline the agenda
• Job Description: You only need to add the basic requirements
• Pros and Cons list: Consider and evaluate different scenarios 
• Social media posts: The tool provides specific copy for different channels while providing multiple options.
• Sales emails: It can help you to be persuasive and increase your revenue
• Outline: Create structures while staying in your creative flow. 

Besides generating any type of content, the tool has also announced its great capabilities to work as an editor by translating in real-time, summarizing and fixing grammar and spelling.

As Ivan Zhao mentions: 

“For many users in this space, it solves the cold start problem. And even more than that, it saves time.” Notion AI won’t write you a publishable blog post, but it can help you skip the crappy first draft phase and go straight into improving and polishing.”

Zhao also envisions Notion, further than a mere writing assistance tool. As he describes it, the platform already has the potential to be able to answer questions and act as a knowledge database. Could it be the next Google, powered with AI and productivity tools?

The alpha private version started rolling out in mid-November and will gradually release to more users on a waitlist basis.

 Social Media Marketing

• TikTok Shop begins rolling out in the United States

Source: Adobe Stock

TikTok keeps being controversial, as now the social media platform has decided to broaden its lists of competitors and enter the eCommerce and ads space, competing directly with one of the biggest retailers: Amazon.

Having said this, TikTok is rolling out its shop feature in the United States. For the time being, the feature is only available to a limited number of merchants that have been invited to test the social commerce solution.

TikTok is slowly building fulfilment centres in the US, which might indicate that the platform is serious about making it big in the social commerce space. With this, TikTok has also established the benefits that brands are entitled to by selling on the platform:

• A built-in payment system that creates a streamlined customer experience to buy products
• A rich user base that connects merchants with potential customers in a more trusted space
• An algorithm designed to match brands and content with users who find it relevant, which means that products will be visible to people who are most likely to buy.

This new approach isn’t surprising, as TikTok knows the potential it has, the growth it has achieved through the years, and the capabilities of its algorithm that connect people with their interests. This makes it the perfect space for promoting online shopping dynamics.

 

•  YouTube Shorts has rolled out product shopping features in videos

Source: Deposit Photos

Following up with the new social media eCommerce selling trend, Shorts from YouTube is adding shopping functionalities to this format. The shopping features allow users to purchase products while scrolling through the app.

Is it available to everyone yet? Unfortunately, it isn’t. For the time being, it is being rolled out only to eligible creators in the United States, who are able to tag products of their own shops. 

Who can shop, then? Viewers in the United States, India, Brazil, Canada, and Australia. YouTube has stated that it plans to continue expanding its shopping features to more creators and countries in the future.

The eCommerce social news doesn’t stop here. YouTube is also experimenting with an affiliate program, in which creators can earn a commission for products they recommend through their content, both regular and Shorts formats. 

As the company stated:

“We firmly believe YouTube is the best place for creators to build a business, and shopping is a piece of that” 

 

• Tumblr is back. How can you use it for your marketing strategy?

Source: Deposit Photos

 

Tumblr is back, and although its interface hasn’t changed in more than 10 years, they have understood what it is that its audience wants to get from them, and they are not holding back.

In times when we are overwhelmed by how the algorithm is trying to work on other platforms, Tumblr still works with a reverse chronological feed, you see only what you’ve followed, there’s no pressure and feels absolutely free.

Tumblr invites users to post freely, diversely, and as creatively as they’d like to. Currently, there are 135 million monthly users who are enjoying the freedom and feeling relief from traditional social media channels.

With this rapid resurge, how can marketers take advantage of Tumblr?

Although the social media platform might not be suitable for every brand, here are our takeaways for you to audit if your brand is a good match.

1. Tumblr is defined by its culture, not its content type.
2. Understand its chaotic nature and use it to your benefit
3. Be open to a less structured way of selling 
4. Organic marketing is everything, making your user really see more of your posts
5. Be authentic and content relevant

We are sure Tumblr isn’t for every business, but if your industry fits into this platform, we encourage you to take the leap. Connecting with customers has been one of the biggest pillars of eCommerce this year. It’s a natural and organic way of functioning, making it perfect for brands to show authenticity.

Updates from Frizbit

• Frizbit exhibited at WebSummit

  

From November 1st to November 4th, Frizbit attended one of the most claimed events, WebSummit, in which +2000 companies redefining the global tech industry gathered in just one place.

Representing Frizbit, our co-founder & CEO, Ata and our business developer for Spain, Oscar, let the participants at the Summit learn more about Frizbit and how we can help bring your customers back through cookieless remarketing strategies.

From the Frizbit team, we are deeply thankful to Eureka for the opportunity of participating in the startup Alpha track this year under the category Advertisement, content & marketing.

•  Hello, Helsinki: Frizbit was present at Slush

November was a pretty dynamic month, and Frizbit travelled all the way to Helsinki for this.

In this case, our CEO & Co-founder, Ata Gur was at Slush 2022, representing our AI-based SaaS startup Frizbit and our solution helping the e-commerce industry to bring customers back, revolutionising retargeting without ads or third-party cookies.

The event was a great opportunity for connecting startups with relevant potential stakeholders or even just other startups, their unique solutions and proposal. Thanks to ACCIO for the opportunity to join their delegation as a part of the selected Catalan startups.

It was a great opportunity to connect, inspire, and be inspired!

 

•  Client Spotlight!: We welcome Zelucash on board!

We are thrilled to announce that the Argentinian number one reconditioned devices retailer, Zelucash has decided to join the Frizbit family.

Zelucash knew the potential they had with the service and products they were offering, but was also aware of the need for them to expand their reach and be present in a multichannel customer journey. It was then that the solutions Frizbit introduced were the perfect match for them, and after the one-month free trial, they took the leap and incorporated web push notifications into their strategy.  

During this first month, they have generated a database with more than 20000 push notification subscribers. Our platform multiplied their reach as we are capable of targeting both registered and non-registered users.

Happy to have you on board!

If you wish to experience what retargeting without ads can do for your business, get in touch with us for a personalised demo.

A new month is here, and with it, our monthly newsletter has arrived as well. As we enter the last Q4 of the year, it is even more crucial to keep up to date with the latest digital marketing news and start adjusting our strategies.

So, if you are ready to dive into this new quarter of the year with the latest trends and updates, keep on reading to get the latest insights and advice from us. 

Just a quick announcement for those living in Barcelona, our next event (in Spanish) is scheduled on October 26th, 18.00h @Aticco Verdaguer. For those who can’t attend on-site, we will also have a live-streaming option.

Without further do, we wish you a happy reading!

Digital Marketing News and Updates from September 2022

CONTENT

Search Marketing Updates

• Mobile Search will experiment 5 new changes, according to Google.

• Google includes a new HTTPS Report in Search Console
  

Tech Marketing Updates

• iOS 16 has landed, and with it, the web push notifications for iOS (earlier than expected).

• Meet the new Flodesk Checkout

• Canva Create 2022 surprises with its new features

Social Media Updates

• Instagram announces that videos up to 60 seconds are available for stories

• TikTok is competing to become the leading search engine social media platform

• Snapchat provides voter registration tools ahead of the US Midterms

Updates from Frizbit

• Mark your calendars. A new Workshop about GA4 is scheduled.

• New software updates to the Frizbit dashboard

• It’s a wrap! The replay of the session and event recap for How to Do Retargeting in the Cookieless World are up.

Search Marketing Updates

• Mobile Search will experiment 5 new changes, according to Google

Search mobile experience is definitely getting an upgrade, according to the latest announcement from Google. The company has recently listed 5 upcoming changes worth learning to increase your search possibilities on mobile devices.

1. Say hello to Google Search Shortcuts:
   
   

   Source: Screenshot from Google Blog Post
   

   As we know, users can search on Google beyond typing their queries. However, although the possibility of this has always been there, few are fully aware of it. From searching through Google Lens uploading pictures to humming songs, the search experience is just so much richer nowadays.

   Well, Google has decided to amp up the experience and introduce more tappable solutions. For the moment, this update is only available for the Google app on iOS and is here to compete directly with the native Safari browser.
   
2. Predicted results are coming from the results in the search bar:
   

   Source: Screenshot from Google Blog Post

   This feature is expected to roll out in the upcoming months, but Google has shown that they are committed to improving the navigation for users. 

   The new feature aims to shorten the search time spent when doing a query by suggesting the most suitable solutions right away. This plays a significant role in SEO to match and guide the users in the right direction, working seamlessly with the algorithm.

    

3. Refined queries:
   

   Source: Screenshot from Google Blog Post

   
   Following the previous update, Google is enhancing the search for queries with recommended words to tap on. Again, we believe having a clear SEO strategy can boost your company to be associated with the most common related searches.

   While the user types his/her query, Google with start recommending associated and common words to that search to make it more relevant and specific.

    

4. Welcome to the Google Web Stories:
   

   Source: Screenshot from Google Blog Post

   This update aims to make the mobile searching experience a more pleasant one through the integration of visual layouts. However, this rollout also gives credit to content creators and positions them as a valuable source for content search. 

   As stated by the company:

   “So, we’re also making it easier to explore a subject by highlighting the most relevant and helpful information, including content from creators on the open web. For topics like cities, you may see visual stories and short videos from people who have visited, tips on how to explore the city, things to do, how to get there and other important aspects you might want to know about as you plan your travels.”

   This feature will be displayed as a widget in the search results, in which the users will be able to expand further, if interested.

5. Visual Search Feeds will be a reality:With the clear goal in mind of enhancing searchability navigation, Google aims to bring a visually harmonic experience by combining text, images, and video in mobile searches. The feed is expected to look like the following example:
   

   Source: Screenshot from Google Blog Post

   As aesthetic as it looks, the next big question is what happens with the traditional ranking system? This new search layout puts all media at the same level, so it will be safe to say that visuals and graphics will become as relevant as the main content for upcoming searches.

   Google has stated that creating aesthetic searches is going a step further into the mobile navigational experience:

   “We’re also reimagining the way we display results to better reflect the ways people explore topics. You’ll see the most relevant content, from a variety of sources, no matter what format the information comes in — whether that’s text, images or video.”

• Google includes a new HTTPS Report in Search Console

  

Source: Adobe Stock

 

Google has announced a new rollout to identify which sites are HTTPS and which ones aren’t, all accessible from Google Search Console. Unfortunately, the new integration will still need a few months to be completed, but it is undoubtedly a functionality that users have been requesting.

As the company stated in its blog: 

“One of the common requests we heard from you was to provide more information regarding the HTTPS status of the site and make it easier to understand which pages are not served over HTTPS, and why not,”

Why does this matter? How can it be useful?

Both marketers and SEO professionals can benefit from this new feature, given that it will help to map out which URLs from the same site are indexed as HTTPS or HTTP. 

HTTPS doesn’t only serve a secure navigation purpose, but also, as announced by Google in 2014, it is a recognised ranking signal. The report will also help to prevent common errors that prevent pages from being served as HTTPS by addressing the exact cause of failure. 

Lastly, this report will certainly come in handy as, according to the Core Web Vital from Google, using HTTPS increase the metrics ranking for UX. 

To recap, both in providing secure navigation to the users and for better ranking possibilities, this report is an outstanding addition to Google Search Console.

 

Marketing Tech

•  iOS 16 has landed, and with it, the web push notifications for iOS (earlier than expected)

Today as Safari 16.0 ships for iOS, macOS Monterey and Big Sur — lots of you are asking about Web Push.

Yes, real Web Push is coming to macOS Ventura in Oct. 100% web standard based. No Apple Developer Program membership required.

Read all the details:https://t.co/RYGjmoJUrQ

— Jen Simmons (@jensimmons) September 12, 2022

Earlier this year, we published an article highlighting what this rollout could actually mean for the ‘cookieless’ retargeting world. We finally have some dates to mark on our calendars for the release on MacOS Ventura in October 2022.

Let’s recap what web push notifications or browser notifications are: These are alert-messages types working on an efficient opt-in basis. Users get asked for permission to receive time-sensitive alerts without compromising their personal data.

What do we know so far about the update?

1. It will be available for all users, regardless if they have or not an Apple Developer Program membership.
2. Apple rolled out this update ahead of its original expected date, which was appointed to be in early 2023.
3. It will use the same Apple notification service powering Native Push on all iOS devices.

If you want to be ahead of time and prepare for when push notifications are ready to be used on iOS (iPhone), get in touch with us for a personalised demo

• Meet the new Flodesk Checkout

Source: Flodesk

Flodesk has slowly worked on its branding positioning as one of the most visually pleasant and straightforward email marketing platforms in recent years. By providing high-performance experiences to their users, they have partnered with Stripe to bring to live Flodesk Checkout.

What is it, and how can it benefit you?

It might be one of the simplest and most visually aesthetic ways to sell online. Their advantage is that you don’t need to create a fully operating website to sell.

With this rollout, you can:

1. Build a sales page
2. Build a checkout page
3. Build a delivery page
4. Publish a functional payment gateway page
5. Integrate payment methods with Stripe.

Of course, while keeping the great CRM and email marketing functionalities from Flodesk.

 

•  Canva Create 2022 surprises with its new features

Source: Canva

 

Canva Create 2022 came in with tons of new functionalities. It is positive to affirm that the platform is evolving and growing with its audience needs to become the new one-stop-shop for all visual needs. Yet, by remaining accessible to non-designers. 

From the Frizbit team, we have highlighted 3 of their recent updates:

 

1. Video Background remover:
   

   Source: Canva

   In the same way that removing the background from a picture was possible for non-designers with Canva, now the platform brings a whole new level to video editing. Video background removal is now possible, just under one click. This is an outstanding development, considering that not even professional tools can get done the same job with that ease.

    

2. Creating websites is now accessible to everyone:
   

   Source: Canva

   This rollout allows users to create responsive websites with both desktop and mobile previews. Again, everything under the same mission of making design accessible to everyone. Choosing from beautiful templates and customising it was never so easy to bring a website to life
   
   

3. Canva Docs (Beta Version coming soon):
   

   Source: Canva

   
   Canva announced their Canva Docs development, aiming to create visual docs in an entirely collaborative environment. The main standout characteristic is that these documents are meant to work on building richer media documents. As in opposite to the other existing text-based document with a difficult media integration option. The rollout already has a waiting list for when its Beta version becomes available.

   
   

 

 Social Media Marketing

• Instagram announces that videos up to 60 seconds are available for stories

Source: Instagram

The well-known video updates from Instagram continue their course over the last months. The newest announcement revealed that now videos of 60 seconds will no longer be split into 15-second segments in the app.

The new feature has already started rolling out in September by showing a pop-up notification to users. 

So, can this have an entirely positive experience for content creators?

• Pros: Content creation through stories for promotions, selling content or engaging could be easier for creators, easing the work to split the content.
  
• Cons: Users typically scroll through stories to get the information they are looking for as fast as they can, meaning that engagement might actually drop.

Instagram has confirmed the new Stories video expansion to TechCrunch, explaining that:

“We are always working on ways to improve the Stories experience. Now, you’ll be able to play and create Stories continuously for up to 60 seconds, instead of being automatically cut into 15-second clips.”

 

• TikTok is competing to become the leading search engine social media platform

Woah…! TikTok has increased video description character limit to 2,200 characters!

This is huge for creators and massive in terms of TikTok’s plans for becoming a search engine pic.twitter.com/kGhnL97uUM

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 23, 2022

The video platform is clearly evolving into a wider version of itself, leaving behind being considered only as an entertaining social media platform. 

According to Matt Navarra, TikTok has increased the maximum length of its captions from 300 characters to 2,200. Although the company describes the update as a space to express more details about creations, the truth is that it leads the platform to become more competitive as a search engine social media platform, especially for Gen Z.

This update allows content creators to include keywords that will improve the discoverability of their content in search. If we take into consideration that TikTok is already recognised for having one of the most accurate algorithms, then this entitles TikTok as a leading search engine social media platform.

 

•  Snapchat provides voter registration tools ahead of the US Midterms

Source: Snapchat

Snapchat has shown a history of educating its users and providing in-app tools to build youth engagement in political events. For instance, in 2020, the platform helped 1.2 million users to register to vote and play a part in what resulted in the largest youth turnaround in decades. 

The platform reaches 90% of the 13-24-year-olds, giving the opportunity to empower and educate the youth about the importance of participating in the democracy. 

2022 couldn’t be any different from previous elections periods aiming to build youth civic engagement, so they have developed some tools:

1. Allow Snapchatters to register to vote
2. Allowing 16- and 17-years-old Snapchatters to pre-register in selected states.
3. Community building to reach out to friends who haven’t registered yet
4. Creation of Voting 101 Hub: an in-app training on how to register to vote, becoming a poll worker, and so much more.
5. Curated Map stories 
6. Safeguards to review the content and prevent misinformation 

 

Updates from Frizbit

This monthly newsletter comes with some outstanding updates from the Frizbit team! 

We have a special invitation for those interested in evolving with Google Analytics 4, some product updates and past-events recap.

 

• Mark your calendars. A new Workshop about GA4 is scheduled.

  

 

In partnership with Jevnet, Aticco Workingspaces and the Barcelona Growth Marketing Group, we have designed a new workshop to skyrocket your digital marketing skills.

As some of you might already know, the traditional UA (Universal Analytics) platform is phasing out in less than 9 months, meaning that data and traditional measuring will come to an end.

So what solution do you have at your fingertips? The answer is short: migrating into Google Analytics 4 as soon as possible.

We have come to realise that there is still some hesitation and doubts around the new platform. Having this in mind, we’ve created this event in Spanish to equip marketers with all the relevant information about the new software.

Event details:

Date: October 26th 2022

Where: Aticco Workspaces Verdaguer for our friends based in Barcelona and streamed online for those who can’t attend live.

Time: 18.00h to 20.30h

Workshop Facilitator: Michele Sforza, Senior Account Manager at Jevnet

Language: Spanish

Book your spot here

•  New software updates to the Frizbit dashboard

In the last few months, we have been working on improving the experience and added value for our customers on the platform. Currently, our product could integrate different channels such as web push, email and SMS to provide seamless messaging strategies. However, in order to improve and reach a wider audience, we are developing the WhatsApp channel as a retargeting medium without ads.

The update is still under development, so elements such as images included in the message are not yet available. However, we have prepared an example as a preview of what is to come.

Among the hyper personalisation possibilities, you can have the following:

• User name
• Name of the specific product
• Price of the selected product
• CTA
• Product image (coming soon

From the Frizbit team, we are excited about this new launch as it will generate more possibilities to reach and bring back more users at different points of their customer journey.

If you’d like to know first-hand what these new software updates can mean for you and your business in bringing customers back, you can get in touch with us for a personalised demo.

•  It’s a wrap! The replay of the session and event recap for How to Do Retargeting in the Cookieless World are up

 

On the 22nd of September, we hosted our first event after the summer break, and we must admit it felt like a great way to come back to the routine. As usual at our events, we enjoyed -which was maybe – the last open terrace networking session of the year with some mandatory beers.

If you work in/with the digital marketing industry, you might be aware of the constant changes that we frequently face. During the event, our main goal was to demonstrate to our attendees that entering the cookieless is less scary than what we could imagine. There are alternative ways to do retargeting without ads or third-party cookies.

Also, in the way things are shifting, leaving third-party cookies behind is no longer an option or a choice, but rather a necessity. In our event, we teach you how to do it seamlessly.

Having said this, if you couldn’t join us at the event or simply would like to refresh what you’ve learnt, we have created two options for you:

? If you’d like to learn more about the right strategies, channels and have a deep understanding of the cookieless world, you can find all the necessary information here:

Read all the info from the blog here

?If, on the other hand, you are more of a visual learner and would like to learn first-hand, then the event session replay in Spanish is here for you:

Watch the replay of the event here (In Spanish)

2021 was for sure an eventful year and it went by really, really fast. We shared every step of the ways with you bringing you a sum up of the most important digital marketing news each month and here were are once more with the:

Digital Marketing News from December 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

• DuckDuck Go is Launching Desktop Version of Mobile App

The mobile search engine solution for a more private experience has announced the release of a desktop version. They claim their solution to be an “everyday browser that respects your privacy” and to be much faster than Google. 

This new release is not to be confused with their extension for Google Chrome. The DuckDuck Go private browsing app will be a standalone product. So far this is what we DuckDuck has said about it:

• Cleaner and simpler interface
• It will keep the “Fire” button from its mobile app
• Less clutter and offer more privacy than Chrome
• Faster than Google Chrome

This desktop version is currently being tested in a closed beta and the company hasn’t made it clear when it will be available for everyone. 

• Google Updates Local Search Results

An algorithm update began to roll out late November and Google has confirmed it concluded early December. Through their Google Search Central Twitter account they said:

Our November 2021 local search update has concluded. It began Nov 30 and ran through Dec 8. It involved a rebalancing of various factors we consider in generating local search results.

On Google’s support page you can find a list of the ranking factors and how to improve them:

• Relevance: how well a local Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.
• Distance: how far each potential search result is from the location term used in a search.
• Prominence: how well known a business is keeping in mind that some places are more prominent in the offline world. 

Even though Google has never been specific about how they rank search results, with these insights you can redirect your efforts towards the one that works best for you and your business. 

• Microsoft Bing’s Integration with Shopify is now Live

Back in October Microsoft Bing announced a new integration with Shopify to allow shoppers across Microsoft to get more diverse products, great prices, and improved discovery of deals.

That integration is now live!

If users head to Microsoft Bing right now and search for a product they have been looking for, they will receive results from millions of merchants thanks to the Shopify integration. After selecting a product and clicking on the “buy now” button, they will be instantly redirected to the shopping cart page to continue with their purchase. 

These products will also be available on Microsoft Start. We’re excited to launch our integration with Shopify to provide our shoppers a delightful experience with wider variety of products, better prices and convenience of “buy now”. – Microsoft Blog

2. Marketing Tech Updates

• Adobe Announces Free Creative Cloud Express

Adobe is introducing a new suite of tools called Creative Cloud Express. It’s a web and mobile app created for anyone, from students to entrepreneurs, to create:

Creative Cloud Express draws on our decades of experience working with the creative community. It makes the core technology in our industry-leading products like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro available with just a few clicks — and with no learning curve. And whether your goal is to make a flyer, edit an image, or produce marketing assets, you don’t have to start from scratch — Creative Cloud Express gives you access to thousands of beautiful templates, millions of images from Adobe Stock, thousands of fonts, and many more assets that you can personalize to tell your story. – Adobe Blog

This free tool is designed for everyone to use, even people with no previous experience with design software. This new suit of tools, Creative Cloud Express is available on the web, in Microsoft stores and on apps for iOS and Android.

It’s so easy to use thanks to many simple features called Quick Actions like removing an image background, trimming a video, or creating a GIF with just a few clicks. On top of that, the suite offers access to millions of resources like photos, fonts, templates, graphics and other. 

• WordPress delayed  5.9 version Release

WordPress has delayed the release of the 5.9 version to January 25th 2022. Originally, it was intended to be published in December 2021, but the project fell significantly behind schedule and core contributors raised their concerns about being able to meet deadlines. 

On their blog they informed that near the end of original alpha release cycle there were issues related to the new features planed for the 5.9 version:

• Full Site Editing (FSE), which is a collection of features, such as global styles interface, Navigation Block, block themes, template editors, and site editing flows.
• The Twenty Twenty-Two (TT2) theme, which depends on these FSE features.

The thing is that WordPress 5.9 version is a major one because of the full editing features it includes and they need to get it right. Adding up to that, the WordPress 6.0 version was scheduled to be released in April 2022 and they felt it was too long for the community to wait.

After revising the list of issues, the Core Editor team realized that these features could be included in the 5.9 version with the new schedule. They are focusing on a schedule that delivers full release and this is what they said:

5.9 is still in feature freeze. Work from here on is strictly to address the changes that get the release to a stable state. – WordPress Blog 

• Jotform adds 3 new Widgets

Jotform takes pride in the vast amount of (very specific) widgets they have to cover their users’ needs. This month they are introducing 3 new ones they feel are worth highlighting:

• Image Gallery
• WhatsApp Button
• OpenStreetMap

The Image Gallery widget allows users to add a photo gallery to their form. They feel this feature could be useful for order forms, for example, when a user needs to display a wide range of products. The widget it’s said to be very easy to use and customize with no coding required. 

The Whatsapp Button embed directly to the forms so anyone can access and message to Whatsapp. It’s a widget that allows users a seamless way to communicate. In Jotform’s blog they say: Use the WhatsApp Button to collect orders, receive feedback or contact information, or simply as a way for users to contact you with any urgent requests.

Last but not least, the OpenStreetMap widget allows users to display an interactive map on their form or app:

This can be especially useful for giving users a point of reference for specific destinations — whether it’s to show precisely where your business is located, how to find an event space, how to navigate to the nearest parking lot, or anything else. – Jotform Blog

3. Social Media Updates

• TikTok Users Can Make Money Through Tips & Gifts

Social media platform TikTok is introducing new ways for content creators to get paid with addition of tips and gifts. These new features are part of a suite of new monetization tools called Creator Next. 

• Tips: the new tipping feature allows users to send tips of $5, $10, $15, or custom tip amount to other users to show their appreciation for the content they create. When a user gets a tip, they receive 100% of it. These payments are facilitated by Stripe and users who are eligible to receive them will display a new icon on their profiles.

• Video Gifts: the new gifting feature allows users to send virtual gifts to other users on specific videos and the recipient can exchange them for money. You might have already seen a new gift box icon displayed on certain videos. 

To be eligible for receiving tips and gift a user must comply with the following:

• 18+ years of age
• At least 1,000 video views in past 30 days
• Have at least three posts in the past 30 days
• An account that’s in good standing with TikTok’s community guidelines
• Be based in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, or Spain
• Meet minimum follower requirements (which differs depending on region)

• Twitter Adds Auto Captions for All Video Uploads in Tweets

Twitter has announced a major new feature: all videos uploaded within tweets will have auto caption enabled. 

The new captions will be enabled for in-stream videos that are muted, on both iOS and Android, while desktop users will have the option to switch them on and off as they please. The captions are available in 37 languages and will show in the language of the device used to upload the video.

Translation and editing of the captions are still in development but this new feature allows Twitter users to access content in more formats. As this social media platform has always been text-focused the auto caption for videos opens the doors to give more prominence to videos. 

• Clubhouse Launches Saved Replays, Unveils New App Icon

Clubhouse, the popular social media platform that gave us so much to talk about early 2021, has announced one more update before the year ends. 

The new “Saved Replays” feature allows users to save the audio from a recorded Clubhouse chat to listen to later. Any user can access the option by clicking the three dots and then tapping the “Save Replay” button. 

This might be a feature users were expecting from the app since it seems to be very useful to be able to listen to audio chats later in time. 

The app also unveiled a new icon featuring streaming influencer Abraxas Higgins since they consider him a “quintessential Clubhouse success story”:

“A former Wall Street banker turned music marketing strategist turned audio influencer. In addition to being the host of Clubhouse’s beloved morning show 9AM in London, Abraxas is also the most followed person in the UK on Clubhouse and makes more money now from brand partners than he did as an investment strategist.” 

That ‘s for 2021!

2021 was for sure a year full of interesting events in all aspects. We hope you enjoyed our last digital marketing news article of the year and we will see you on the next ones! 

Happy 2022! 

2021 has gone by extremely fast, we are already in the last quarter of the year and the most important dates for marketers are upon us: Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas. That is why it is more important than ever to be informed about what’s new in the digital marketing world and use all tools available to carry out the best campaigns.

Here are the most relevant:

Digital Marketing News and Updates from October 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

• Shopify & Microsoft Team Up To Help Merchants Reach More Shoppers

Microsoft is aware of the significant increase in online shopping and the acceleration of e-commerce sites, that’s why they are looking for ways to help brands connect with consumers. With that in mind, they recently announced a partnership with Shopify. 

Shopify merchants can now reach more shoppers using the updated Microsoft Channel app available in their Shopify store. They will have access to more customers through the Microsoft Search Network and Microsoft Audience Network. 

Merchants can connect to the Microsoft Channel app using their Microsoft Advertising accounts or by signing up in a few steps. They can create new ad campaigns, access real-time reports in their Shopify store and all merchants’ products are automatically able to be shown on the Microsoft Bing Shopping tab and the Microsoft Start Shopping tab free as Product Listings.

This new feature is currently available just for Shopify merchants in the United States and Canada.

Microsoft states that soon they will be rolling out a checkout option via the Buy button “to help consumers quickly bridge the gap from discovery to purchase”. 

• Google Mobile Search Updated With Continuous Scrolling

Mid October, Google announced to their blog The Keyword that Continuous scrolling is coming to Google Search on mobile devices. 

Google is always working towards helping people find what they are looking for easily and quickly. Making Search results browsing a seamless experience is a priority, and that is why they are introducing continuous scrolling on mobile devices.

Now, when users conduct a search from their mobile device and reach the bottom of a results page, the next set of results will automatically load to offer more information. The reason behind this update is to save people from having to click on the “See more” button and make their browsing experience more pleasant.

“While you can often find what you’re looking for in the first few results, sometimes you want to keep looking. In fact, most people who want additional information tend to browse up to four pages of search results.” – Google Blog

The new Search experience is starting to gradually roll out today for most English searches on mobile in the U.S.

• Google Rolls Out New Eco-Friendly Search Filters

Google’s rolling out new Search filters to help people make more environmentally-conscious decisions when looking for flights, hotels, routes or products. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a series of green initiatives from the company, and this new Search filter is one of them.  

• Google Flights Updates: an update to Google Flights will showcase information about carbon emissions in SERP. The information will be displayed next to the price and duration of the flight. 

• Hotel results: when looking for a hotel, users will now see information regarding their sustainability efforts such as waste reduction and water conservation measures, and whether they’re Green Key or EarthCheck certified.

• Environmentally Friendly Appliances: a Google Shopping update will help shoppers find the most environmentally friendly options when looking to buy appliances by displaying the most sustainable products. 

• Eco-friendly Routing in Google Maps: from now on in the U.S and in Europe from 2022, Google Maps will show you the most fuel efficient route to choose from. Google estimates that by doing this, they could help save over one million tons of carbon emissions per year.

Google says that all these efforts are aimed towards being more sustainable and helping contribute against climate change:

In all these efforts, our goal is to make the sustainable choice an easier choice. At the individual level, these choices may seem small, but when people have the tools to make them at scale, they equal big improvements. We’ll need nothing less to avert the worst consequences of climate change, and we’ll continue to find ways our products can help.

2. Marketing Tech Updates

• Free AI Content Optimization Tool by MarketMuse

MarketMuse is a platform built to accelerate the content research, creation, and optimization process using AI and they recently launched a free version of their software.

This tool is designed to help content creators plan and optimize their writing with helpful insights powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. The new free version is very similar to the paid one and contains the primary features of MarketMuse, the only difference is that, with the paid version, you can focus on more queries. 

The new version is thought out to help small sites with up to 35 queries a month and it offers the following features: 

• Optimize
• Connect
• Compete
• Research
• Questions

Many MarketMuse users have reported the tool to be a complete game changer for their content marketing strategy:

In my opinion, MarketMuse is useful for every business that is doing content marketing. Using MarketMuse, you can create in-depth content that is valued by readers and considered authoritative. I used MarketMuse as an experiment on one of my sites, and my organic traffic grew by 400% in less than 6 months. – Israel Gaudette, Full-time affiliate marketer and founder of the Link Tracker Pro rank tracker.

• Google For Creators Is Here To Help Publishers Get Found & Make Money

Google is introducing Google for Creators to offer personalized guidance, product recommendations and inspiration for creators. 

In a recent blog post Google announced the launch of a new tool to help content creators learn, grow and get inspired. The objective is to bring audiences closer to the content the like and enjoy, at the same time it helps creators reach and connect with more people. 

Google for Creators shows how the web can become part of your content mix. A quick quiz on the homepage provides personalized recommendations with topics most relevant to you. So if you’re just getting started, the quiz might recommend that you check out guides for finding a niche or creating a content strategy. Or if you’re a more seasoned creator, you might see recommendations for learning how to grow your audience and make more money. – Google Blog

The tool is promised to be useful for all types of content creators, new ones or more experienced ones. The quiz will offer relevant insights and recommendations on how to find a niche, planning a content strategy and how to grow your audience. 

Google will release more features in the coming months. 

• WordPress Releases Gutenberg 11.6 

Early October WordPress released Gutenberg 11.6 fixing bugs and making important changes and improvements. Gutenberg is a WordPress site builder with drag and drop functionality to design interfaces. 

Gutenberg is rolling out in a four phase development process and it’s currently in the second one. This builder is aimed to “to revolutionize the entire publishing experience as much as Gutenberg did the printed word”, according to the description in its plugin page. 

The 11.6 version includes:

• Site Logo cropping and rotating within the editor: users are now able to adjust their websites’ logos directly within WordPress. Before this update the image used as a logo had to be edited before loading it in the site. With the Site Logo block’s toolbar that won’t be necessary anymore. 

• Locking control at block level: this new feature allows designers to lock individual blocks to prevent them from moving or accidentally removing them. 

• Query Pagination uses Flex Layout: the new Gutenberg version improves the Query Pagination block to support the flex layout.

There are other notable improvements and changes with Gutenberg 11.6 such as basic support for child themes, enhancements to the writing flow and much more that you can check out in detail here. 

3. Social Media Updates

• Facebook Has New Communication Tools For Businesses

Facebook is rolling out changes and improvements targeted to small businesses. These updates are coming just in time for important marketing dates such as Black Friday and the holiday season which reportedly counts for 20% of annual revenue for small businesses.

Let’s sum up the new features:

• Video and Audio Calling on Messenger: Facebook is testing business audio and video calling with some businesses using Business Inbox in Messenger. This feature allows them to connect directly with their customers right from the platform in order to facilitate transactions.

• Live Audio Rooms: earlier this year Facebook launched Live Audio Rooms as their own version of ClubHouse appa. They are now making it available for small businesses to host live conversations on topics they consider relevant for their target audiences. 

• Expanding Appointment Booking Globally: the appointments feature on Facebook is an easy way for customers to book appointments with local service providers, and for businesses to manage their bookings. From now, Facebook is gradually making Appointment books available to all small businesses, globally.

• Personalized Ads: Facebook wants to let people know they are supporting a small business when they come across a small business ad, so they are testing the display of an informational message in the feed that lets people know they liked or loved a small business ad. According to Facebook “The message explains how engaging with an ad from a small business can help the business continue to find new customers and grow.”

 

• Instagram Adds More Demographic Insights For Businesses

Instagram is introducing new audience insights as a way to give content creators and professionals the tools they need to make more money doing what they love on the social media platform. They are rolling out: accounts engaged, engaged audience, reached audience and new transparency for creators who partner with brands.

• Accounts Engaged and Engaged Audience: the “accounts engaged” feature shows the number of people that interacted with your content in a specific period of time. Instagram is also adding demographic insights to help professionals have a better understanding of their audience. 

• Reached Audience: Instagram is adding new information about reached audiences also adding important demographic insights such as top cities, top countries, top age ranges and gender. 

• Transparency for Creators: Instagram is going to give more visibility to creators who partner with brands to create collaborative content. “When a brand promotes a creator’s post with the paid partnership label or creates an ad without a pre-existing post, that creator will now be able to see the performance of that ad including reach, likes, comments, saves and shares.”

• Instagram Tests new “Add Yours” Sticker for Stories

If you hang out a lot on Instagram you might have already come across the new “Add Yours” sticker in someones’ story. 

Instagram rolled out this new sticker as a way to create chains of content in the app. It works like this: a user uploads a story and inserts the “Add Yours” sticker of a certain topic. Then when another user sees it, they can click on it and their own input to the topic, thus creating a chain of content. 

For example, someone can create a prompt about their favorite Italian restaurant, share it, and then other users can add their own favorites. This is a great way for brands to connect and reach new audiences. 

Even though the sticker is limited to users in Japan and Indonesia, once a prompt has been created, anyone can participate. 

This are the most relevant Digital Marketing News and Updates from October 2021

There were many updates in search, tech and social media marketing this past month and certainly many interesting features to try for next big dates like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas. 

Did you have a favorite? Let us know in the comments!

You can also find useful:

• Top 2021 Black Friday Digital Marketing Strategies for Your E-commerce
• “Don’t Use Web Push Notifications!” Demystifying the Biggest Prejudices About Web Push Notifications
• SMS Marketing: 7 Tips for a Winning Strategy

There wasn’t much digital marketing news to report during summertime. However, September has arrived in full strength with many updates to note that might help us marketers strategize better for the last few months of 2021. 

Digital Marketing News, Insights and Updates from September 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

• Google is Working on New Search Feature to Index Instagram and TikTok Videos

Google has been reported to be working on new deals with Instagram and TikTok’s parent companies, Facebook and ByteDance, to get the data they need in order to index and rank videos from the social media platform in Search results. 

Users often go to Google to search for TikTok and Instagram videos everyone is talking about and have no luck finding them. The best result they get is a preview with lower qualities. Well, Google is trying to fix that and show users the exact video they want to see in Search, just like they do with tweets. 

A few years ago tweets didn’t show in SERP like they do now. Since Google reached an agreement with Twitter back in 2015, they now show in results and the same thing might happen if these new negotiations go well. We might start getting used to seeing these short social media videos in SERP sooner than later. 

Google is always aiming to make content easily discoverable by users. However, when asked about the new feature a spokesperson stated that sites “can choose how or whether their content appears in Search.”

To this point is just a matter of time and wait to see how the negotiations pan out. 

• Google is Giving Users More Transparency Into their Google Ads Experience

Google has been innovating with different features to help users have a better understanding about ads they get in Search and Display in different formats. Features such as “About this ad” and the advertisers identity verification program, enhance user experience by offering transparency and credibility with the ads shown to them.

Not stopping there, Google has announced now they are rolling out Advertiser Pages to offer users more information about the ads they get. Users can access these disclosures in the new “About this Ad” menu and check the ads said advertiser has run over the last 30 days. 

“For example, imagine you’re seeing an ad for a coat you’re interested in, but you don’t recognize the brand. With advertiser pages, you can learn more about that advertiser before visiting their site or making a purchase.”  Google Blog

 

Users will also be able to report an ad they feel is violating Google’s policies and if they see fit, a Google team member will delete it. As always, Google is aiming to offer users the best online experience as possible and taking their feedback is key to achieving that objective. 

Advertiser pages will launch in the coming months in the United States, and will roll out in phases to more countries in 2022.

• Microsoft Advertising Launches Open Beta for Credit Card Ads 

Microsoft Advertising has announced that, from this week, Credit Card Ads will be available for advertisers targeting customers in the U.S and Canada.

Credit Card Ads are intent-triggered ads dynamically generated with no keywords or site crawling required. They appear on the right side of the Bing Search Results Page alongside text ads.

“Credit card ads trigger for queries such as brand name, card category, credit level, and more. Bank issuers, comparison sites and brands can all take advantage of Credit card ads.” Microsoft Blog

On its blog, Microsoft states that, so far, advertisers have seen great results using Credit Card Ads:

• Up to 46% more conversions
• 70% lower cost per acquisition

Early results are sure promising for advertisers.  This new feature is rolling out as an open beta and anyone wishing to participate has to contact their Microsoft Advertising representative or sign up here.

2. Marketing Tech Updates

• Shopify Launches Shopify Markets to help Internationalize Stores

Up until now, if an ecommerce wanted to sell internationally, they’d have to use a third party marketplace or retailer to do so. With the launch of Shopify Markets that won’t be necessary anymore, since it allows merchants to sell directly to a global market all from one place.

Shopify Markets is a centralized hub with all the tools ecommerce sites need to sell directly outside of their home country. On the announcement of the new solution, Shopify stated that “Complexities like currency conversion, language localization, providing local payment methods, and duty and import taxes can all act as barriers to effectively selling internationally”. All of this is solved with Shopify Markets. 

By entering, merchants can: 

• Enter new markets easily
• Increase buyer trust and conversion with tailored experiences for each market
• Optimize cross-border operations with actionable insights and smart settings
• Save time with a central global management platform

Shopify Markets is already available in early access globally. 

• HubSpot Partners with Envato 

The CRM platform and Evanto, the world-leading online community for creative assets have partnered to launch over 250 high-quality templates specifically designed for HubSpot. 

“Designed by Envato’s internationally recognized community of professional theme developers, the new templates offer a wide variety of ways for businesses to customize their online presence, whether they use a multi-purpose theme or something more niche to their industry.” – HubSpot.com

Since both platforms, HubSpot and Envato, are aimed towards building engaging web experiences faster, Envato’s Chief Content Officer, Cameron Gough, said the partnership was a natural connection between both companies. He also added that:

“With these themes, we have an opportunity to provide the global creative community with the assets they need, while HubSpot can bring their CMS Hub product to life with the help of our talented author base”.

The have reported that the initial reactions from the community have been very positive with the creation of a huge variety of template themes. You can see the collection of CMS Hub themes on ThemeForest here: https://themeforest.net/lp/hubspot-cms-hub-themes/.

• Intuit Confirms Deal to Acquire Mailchimp

A few weeks ago, global technology platform Intuit, confirmed rumors about the acquisition of the popular mailing automation platform, Mailchimp for $12 billion.

Intuit is better known for its financial softwares TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint and Credit Karma, but with this new acquisition they aim to “advance their mission to power prosperity around the world for consumers and small businesses”.

They described the objective saying that they “will work to deliver on the vision of an innovative, end-to-end customer growth platform for small and mid-market businesses, allowing them to get their business online, market their business, manage customer relationships, benefit from insights and analytics, get paid, access capital, pay employees, optimize cash flow, be organized and stay compliant, and have experts at their fingertips.”

3. Social Media Updates

• Twitter Makes Tips Available to Everyone and Adds Bitcoin & GoFundMe As Tipping Options

Back in May Twitter rolled out a feature called tip jar, that allowed users to tip others. This feature was only available for a select group of English-speaking content creators. Now, Twitter is rolling out Tips for everyone and adding new payment alternatives. 

Tips make the payment much easier by providing one spot right in the user’s profile where they can link to their Cash App, Patreon, Venmo and other platforms. Before, users had to manually share links to their payment profiles in their bios and in their tweets.

In addition to that, Twitter is also including new payment services: GoFundMe, an online fundraising platform, and Bitcoin through Strike, a payment application built on the Bitcoin Lightning Network that offers instant and free payments globally.

This is what Twitter had to say:

We want everyone on Twitter to have access to pathways to get paid. Digital currencies that encourage more people to participate in the economy and help people send each other money across borders and with as little friction as possible – help us get there.

• Facebook Launches New Tools for Businesses

In order to help businesses connect with more people and generate more leads, Facebook is launching a set of new free and paid tools:

• Start conversations with ads that click to message: businesses can use ads to invite people to message them through the messaging platform they prefer: Messenger, Instagram Direct or WhatsApp.

• Start a WhatsApp chat from an Instagram Profile: for many small businesses Instagram is the main platform through which people discover them, and Whatsapp the platform to engage in conversations. With that in mind, Facebook is making it possible to add a click-to-chat button to their Instagram profiles and a button that takes users to Whatsapp directly from Instagram ads.

• Quote Request on Messenger: with this feature businesses can elect 4-5 questions to ask consumers prior to starting a conversation. Then, consumers are able to request a quote from a business by completing a questionnaire on Messenger. This feature is only currently available for select advertisers for testing. 
• Lead Generation on Instagram: Facebook will start testing paid and organic tools to help businesses find qualified leads on the social media platform in a more personal way and reducing costs.

Regarding all updated and new features, Facebook stated that “Today is just a step towards the future we’re building for and with businesses in this next era of personalization and we’ll share more on this as it progresses.

• YouTube Adds 5 Features for Creators

YouTube content creators will have access to more insights and more control over ads and chapters thanks to these five new features:

• Evergreen video insights: evergreen videos are those that have been popular for a long period of time. YouTube is giving content creators access to insights for these types of videos as a way of helping them improve their monthly channel performance analysis. 

• Trending hashtags: YouTube launched the trending hashtag feature in the explore section to help viewers find popular content, and creators to identify topics for their future videos. This feature is only available for U.S mobile users. 

• AdSense Blocking Controls: YouTube is making available the Adsense Blocking Controls to multi-channel affiliate networks (MCNs). Previously this feature that allows content creators to control what type of ads run on their channels, was only available to channels in the YouTube Partner Program.

• Bulk Edit Video Chapters: YouTube launched automatic chapters for newly uploaded videos and creators are automatically opted into it. And for those who don’t want the feature enabled on their channel, YouTube is making it easier to edit the chapters in bulk. 

• Appeal Yellow Icons on YouTube Studio Mobile: a yellow icon means a video is receiving little to no monetization. From now on, content creators will be able to appeal them via the Studio Mobile app, instead of solely via desktop.

Digital Marketing News from September 2021

There was a lot to choose from to sum up the most important digital marketing news and updates from September 2021. We gathered the news we believe you’ll find more interesting and useful to strategize next month. 

If you want to keep reading…

• Remarketing: Everything You Need to Know
• Web Push Notifications Performance: Key Metrics to Track!
• How can Marketing Automation Help you Sell More

Happy summer, everyone! July is finally here and (and least us) couldn’t be happier. Summertime is usually a slow work season, but that hasn’t stopped the digital marketing world and there is a lot to cover this month. 

We have summed up the most important:

Digital Marketing News, Insights and Updates from July 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

• Google Launches Free Deals Listings in Search Results

As we always do, let’s begin with some updates from Google. This month Google is rolling out a new feature that gives online retailers in the US more ways to reach customers who are seeking discounts and special offers.

 

Google reported a 50% increase in searches for “discount codes” since the previous year. This means that customers are looking even more for ways to save money and shop at discounted prices. 

In response, Google is launching new features that allow e-commerce sites a new way to list deals in search results: 

• Competitive prices are highlighted in the shopping tab of search results
• Google Search will showcase the most important offers for sales such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday (in October)
• Google will showcase offers based on information regarding the discount, product popularity, site’s popularity and other factors. 
• An upcoming update will make it possible for deals to show on the main results page whether retailers pay or not for advertising. 
• Retailers are now able to customize their offers and indicate specifics, suchs as if a deal is only available for certain customers. 
• Sellers reports are updated with “Historical Best Seller Data” and “Relative Product Demand”

• Google Share 5 Insights Into Appearing in Google News

As you know, Google is always on top of users and site owner’s need to help them have the best online experience possible. So, this time Google is answering the most common questions and doubts about how news are shown in News and Search, giving valuable insights to help site owners have a better understanding on the subject. 

The 5 most common questions are: 

a) Where does news appear on Google

Google says that news content can appear on Google News, Google Search, Google Assistant, YouTube and Discover. Google News includes two ways information can be displayed: the “For You” feed that contains specific stories based on user interests, and “Headlines” which show stories for all users from a particular region.

There is also Google Search that includes the “Top Stories” carousel highlighting relevant news on timely topics, and the “News” tab that narrows the results to focus on specific queries. 

b) How do I know if my site is eligible to appear in Google News?

Google states that all sites are automatically eligible for Google news in Search without any application requirement. They emphasize that the important thing is for sites to produce relevant content with high levels of expertise, authority and trustworthiness, with a history of producing original news and that complies with Google’s News Policies. 

c) How can I check if my site is appearing?

The best way to know if your site is appearing, is to look at the performance reports on Search Console by filtering for Google News and Google Search. These insights will indicate if your site is getting traffic from boths sources. 

d) Can I do something to improve my visibility?

The ranking of sites is automatically determined by different factors such as relevance of the content, freshness, location and language. Publishers can access the Publisher Center to define certain aspects about their site that can help Google to Index it. 

However, eligibility is always determined by an automated process, which means that being approved and submitting content does not directly mean that it will appear in Search Results, Google News or News surfaces. 

e) If I follow everything Google says, why am I still not appearing?

According to Google one of the keys is to constantly produce relevant, original content that can be automatically detected by their systems and become more eligible if the site has risen to meet their criteria. 

• Google Launches Free Tools for Travel Marketers

We have mentioned in previous articles that global searches related to travel information, like “where to travel”, “can I travel” and “covid travel restrictions” are at a peak for some time now. 

Travel Insights with Google is being launched in the US as an effort to answer the travel industry needs and help businesses with free tools they can use to improve their marketing efforts and overall service. It includes:

• Destination Insights: provides information regarding the top demands per destination. It allows travel marketers to view demand data related to specific countries on specific dates.

• Hotel Insights: analyzes search trends that identifies where users are coming from and allows marketers to create stronger digital presences segmented to fit said information. 

• Focusing Facts: this information is nested within the Destination Insights and displays data related to queries suchs as “fastest growing destinations globally” gathering previous 84 days of data. 

• Demand Sizing: also a part of Destination Insights. It allows filters to compare interests amongst various countries. 

2. Marketing Tech News

• Vimeo partners with TikTok

The video software company has joined as a TikTok Marketing Partner. The social media platform users can now access Vimeo’s suite of video creation tools and still benefit from its broad user base. 

Both companies ran tests previous to the release of the partnership and saw that participants were able to highly increase the number of videos they create and reach a 50% higher click through rate of their campaigns. 

The main objective of this partnership is to help small and medium businesses create more content with better tools. Melissa Yang, head of ecosystem partnerships at TikTok said:

 “As small businesses recover and rebuild after a challenging year, TikTok is working on ways to make it easier to reach their community and grow their business. Our partnership with Vimeo provides small businesses with simple, effective video tools that rival what the biggest brands in the world have access to — and they drive real results.”

Vimeo and TikTok also invited some small businesses to try out a new AI-driven video production tool called Vimeo Create. A tool designed to advertise on TikTok and help brands produce creative content that adjusts to the platform without needing to rely on a production studio. 

Brands have reported great results and say they plan to keep running additional campaigns on TikTok. 

• Hubspot Reports an Increase on Marketing Automation  Techniques

Marketing automation keeps gaining ground as chatbot usage has more than doubled in the UK as a valid option to engage with customers since 2020. Hubspot has reported so on their Not Another State of Marketing Report 2021. 

One of the main reasons marketers are betting more and more for automated solutions, are the market shifts provoqued by the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to offer customers the most tailored virtual experience possible. 

“The different types of automation, across various industries, can provide marketers with a range of skills to improve their return figures and therefore a number of AI tools must be used, as opposed to one.” – Scott Brinker. VP of platform at HubSpot

The same way, live video is also becoming more popular with an increase of 40% marketing tactics using it in 2021, compared to 17% last year. Pandemic and consequential lockdowns have forced a shift on content production to be designed for virtual audiences, along with an increase on the time consumers are spending watching videos.

These changes are forcing marketers to adapt and shift the way they create content and how they engage and communicate with their audiences. Implementing automation strategies provide solutions to adjust marketing techniques to the times we are facing and to what customers are expecting from brands. 

• Google partners with GoDaddy

Google has announced a new partnership with GoDaddy with the purpose of helping e-commerce sites gain more online visibility. Google wants to help businesses get discovered easier and to connect better with shoppers by making e-commerce more open online.

With the new partnership, GoDaddy online stores are able to integrate their product inventory across Google with no additional costs. GoDaddy sites can now be discovered through Search, Shopping, Image Search and YouTube. 

Merchants can upload products directly to Google, create listings and ads all within the GoDaddy’s Online Store. By partnering with e-commerce platforms, Google aims to help more businesses to engage with shoppers that want to discover new products and brands online. 

3. Social Media Updates

• TikTok Launches 8 new Features for Livestreams

TikTok users who livestream have doubled during the past year. Taking note of this, the platform is rolling out eight new features to improve live streaming experience for both broadcasters and viewers:

• Schedule: users can now schedule, manage and promote livestreams in advance. 

• Picture-in-picture: this new feature allows users to pinn the livestream to a corner of their screen while they freely navigate. 

• Go live with a friend: a new feature called “Live Together” allows two users to broadcast live on the same stream. 

• Live Q&A: this feature allows creators to engage with their audience by answering questions live in real time.

 

• Top streams: TikTok wants to make it easier for users to find and tune into live streams from the “For You” and “Following” pages. Live sessions will also be discoverable through Chat, Gaming, Talents, Fashion and Daily Life. 

• Moderators: before livestream, users can assign a person to help them moderate the session by going to Settings on the right side of the stream launch screen. Features like muting viewers and removing disrespectful comments will be added in the upcoming weeks.

 

• Keyword filters: streamers can now mute words they choose during live streams by going to settings. They can also turn off or add limits to the comments. 

• Harmful comments alert: before posting a comment that TikTok detects as disrespectful, users will be prompted to reconsider their language and how they will be received by the streamer. 

• Pinterest adds Feature for Users to Make Money With Affiliate Links

Pinterest wants to help content creators to earn money through the platform by making it possible to get commissions with affiliate links. When a user tags a product on a pin idea and another user clicks on the link, the one who posted it will receive a commission. 

The platform has reported that “users are 89% more likely to exhibit shopping intent on products tagged in idea pins than on standalone product pins.” The same way that engagement with idea pins is much higher than standard pins. 

By simply tagging products on their idea pins, Pinterest creators can control the shoppability of their content. This feature will be available to business accounts in the United States and will continue rolling out to other countries in the next few months. 

• Twitter Tests Voting on Tweets

Twitter is constantly adding or trying out new features, and this time they are experimenting with an option that allows users to “down vote” or “up vote” a reply within a Twitter conversation.

The same as other social media platforms offer multiple icons for users to express how they feel about a post or a comment, Twitter has announced they want to try out a voting feature only available for Tweets replies. 

Twitter says that, for the meantime, this is only a feature destined for research, that doesn’t qualify as a dislike button and only the owner of the down vote will be able to see it. Twitter also clarified that this experiment, as they call it, has the intent to inform the platform about the relevancy of the conversations.

This feature will only be available for iOs. 

If you liked this summary of the most important Digital Marketing News, Insights and Updates from July 2021, we got more for you to read!

• 6 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your E-commerce Website
• 7 Tips to Increase Web Push Notifications Click Through Rate
• Hyper-Personalization: What is it and How it Differs from Personalization

Digital marketing never sleeps and neither do marketing professionals when it comes to keeping up with trends, news and updates. Between coming up with new and innovative ways to catch people’s attention and not missing any news from Google, finding time to shut an eye might seem impossible. 

So here we are, gathering and sharing with you the most important:

Digital Marketing News, Updates and Insights from June 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

• Google delays third-party cookie phaseout one more year

In a recent blog post, Google updated us about their progress on their intention to eliminate third-party cookies. They announced that, even with the considerable progress they’ve had with Project Sandbox, more time is required to get things right. 

The aim of this project is to protect people’s privacy online, while still offering companies the tools they need to do digital business. Google believes that the online community needs “to come together to develop a set of open standards to fundamentally enhance privacy on the web, giving people more transparency and greater control over how their data is used.”

To achieve this, they feel the need to move at a slower pace to be more responsible. Google wants that boths users and publishers are protected, by making sure that cookies are not replaced with any sort of individual tracking or fingerprinting, and that advertisers have enough time to migrate their service and preserve their business models. 

We must take time to evaluate the new technologies, gather feedback and iterate to ensure they meet our goals for both privacy and performance, and give all developers time to follow the best path for privacy. – Google Blog

They stated that key technologies will be deployed for Chrome late 2022 and start phasing-out third party cookies by mid 2023 ending late 2023. 

• Google ads new feature that helps businesses display their information

Google is constantly updating and creating new tools to help businesses show more accurate and detailed information in Search and Maps so owners can easily connect with potential customers.

You can add details, such as contact information and opening hours, and create Posts to share updates, like special offers or new offerings, right from Google Search. Starting next week, you’ll also be able to create Posts about upcoming events including when and where they’re happening. Google Blog

New features allow businesses to change and share information directly from Search and Maps. They include:

• Easily show your services: businesses can now use the Edit Profile menu on Search to display their services. It’s even possible to show specialties if you offer personal care services, for example. For restaurant owners that work with Reserve Google, they can enable online bookings through their Business Profile.

• Accept takeout and delivery orders: Google reported a 230% increase in food ordering since last year. To adapt to this demand, Order with Google allows businesses to accept takeout and delivery orders through their Business Profile. Restaurants can also update their menus directly on Search and Maps.

 

• Automatically update your inventory: Google Searches for “who has” + “in stock” have grown by more than 8,000% year over year, which shows that shoppers are searching for products online before they head to the stores. As a response to this, eligible retailers in the U.S will be able to “get all their in-store product inventory automatically added to their Business Profile by signing up for Pointy from Google right from Google Search”. With this tool you can scan your products and they are automatically added to your Business Profile.

• Brave search engine launches public beta

Creators of Brave, the browser that puts user’s privacy first, have launched Brave Search Engine in a global public beta. They have announced it as a “real alternative to Google” that’s private, transparent and doesn’t surveille users.

Brave’s search engine works completely independently from Google, it uses its own independent index of the web. It’s available for desktop and mobile devices in any browser at search.brave.com. 

This search engine doesn’t collect user data which makes it impossible to sell, share or lose. They also claim to offer real transparency by not using any type of “secret algorithms” to show search results: We rely on anonymous community contributions to refine results, and community-created alternative ranking models to ensure diversity. 

The engine was developed by the former Cliqz Team as the company announced back in March of this year. 

2. Marketing Tech Updates

• Google Integrates with WooCommerce for easy Product Uploads

WooCommerce has launched an extension that allows sellers to upload their products to Google for free. This means that online retailers will have the opportunity to get discovered by more shoppers through Search, Shopping, Images, and YouTube.

By connecting a WooCommerce store with Google Merchant Center, all products and their information will be listed on  search results on Google. All the product’s details will be automatically updated when any changes are made on WooCommerce. 

It’s completely free to list products in the Google Shopping tab, and retailers also have the option to pay for ads if they wish to have more visibility. 

Through the new Google extensions, sellers have total control of their products listing, performance and analytics without needing to leave the dashboard and the opportunity to reach more users without extra work. You can get the extension here!

• Google Announces New Ads Creative Studio

With the intention of offering designers, agencies and brands better ways to work and create ads, Google has announced the launch of Ads Creative Studio. A platform to unify all of Google’s creative advertising tools. 

The objective is to help creative teams increase productivity and to simplify the process of designing compelling ads. Google says on their blog that “Ads Creative Studio will bring together a number of creative tools previously found across products like YouTube, Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360. “

Ads Creative Studio features include:

• Director Mix: this feature allows to create different versions of a YouTube video for different audiences with swappable elements.

• Dynamic display and HTML5 tools: they allow you to generate customized and interactive creatives for Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360.

• Audio Mixer: that allows you to create tailored audio ads for Display & Video 360.

• Shopify rolls out Product Updates for Shopify Developers

This month Shopify announced a series of updates for developers:

• Subscriptions support for PayPal Express: the launch of this feature represents the first additional payment gateway support after Shopify Payments with the hopes of offering support to more sellers around the world. 

• Partner-initiated app refunds: before this update, partners had to contact Shopify Support to issue refunds. Now, they can handle them directly through the Partner Dashboard.

• VAT changes for ecommerce purchases made within the EU: in order to help merchants comply with changes made to tax regulations for ecommerce purchases made within the EU, Shopify is adding new options to the tax settings. 

3. Social Media Marketing Updates

• Twitter is adding Subscribe Button to profiles for Newsletter Signups

In January 2021 we shared the news about Twitter acquiring newsletter platform Revue to help content creators share and monetize their work. As it was to be expected now Twitter is adding a new Subscribe button to profiles so people can sign up to newsletters. 

The button will appear on the user’s profile next to the mutual followers section. When signing up, the subscriber will receive a message letting them know that their email address will be sent to the newsletter owner and have the chance to take a sneak peek at the content before finally agreeing to sign up. 

This new feature will be available to all users that have a Revue account. 

• Instagram Announces New Features for Creators to Make Money

Instagram has become a business platform for a lot of people. With this in mind, they have announced the launch of three major new features to help content creators make money: Creator Shops, affiliate commerce, and a “branded content marketplace.

• Creators Shop: creators shop is designed for those who want to sell products using their personal profiles. It can be done in two ways:

• Existing products can be linked to both personal and business accounts
• New shops can be set up through the Instagram app linking their account to one of Instagram’s merchandise partners: Bravado/UMG, Fanjoy, Represent, and Spring. This feature will be available for creators in the US at the end of the year.

• Affiliate Commerce: this program aims to help creators gain a commission payment within the app when they generate a sale for a brand through a post in their accounts. It will feature a label indicating users that they will support the creator with their purchase.

• Branded Content Marketplace: this feature is designed to help brands connect with content creators and influencers that match and align their work. Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri said “We should be able to help brands find creators that are uniquely aligned with the work they’re trying to do and vice versa. If we can help with matchmaking, we can help drive more dollars to the smaller creators who can do amazing work for brands.” 

• Facebook Launches 4 New E-commerce Features 

Facebook is introducing new features to help online shops reach more people, get their products discovered and increase sales:

• Facebook Shops in More Places: online shops can now choose Marketplace as an additional channel to Shop tabs on Instagram and Facebook to sell their products. 

• Customer reviews: customer ratings will be expanded to products in Shops on Instagram with photos and videos from the community.

 

• Personalized shop ads: Facebook is launching new ads to personalize customer’s shopping experience and send them to curated collections based on their shopping history where they are most likely to make a purchase. 

• Expanded Access to AR Try-On Feature: Facebook is developing APIs to help more brands have access to augmented reality features that bring the “in-shop” experience to users online. They are also adding AR to some types of ads to encourage people to try on suggested products. 

Which digital marketing news from June 2021 surprised or interested you the most?

Make sure to also read: 

• How can Marketing Automation Help you Sell More
• Hyper-Personalization: What is it and How it Differs from Personalization
• 6 Multi-Channel Marketing Strategies for B2B

Time is going by so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up with all digital marketing news and updates for every month. Google always keeps us on our tiptoes with constant updates, changes and new features for all of its products, new marketing tech is being developed every day and social media is a complete universe on its own. 

But don’t despair! As every month, we are to gather and sum up for you the most relevant:

Digital Marketing News, Insights and Updates from May 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

Google previews MUM

The biggest news from Google this month is the preview of MUM. It stands for Multitask Unified Model and this new tech was showcased mid May by Google’s Prabhakar Raghavan at Google I/O. 

Since 2019 Google’s search algorithm to understand queries has been powered by BERT, an extension of Natural Language Processing. This algorithm helps searches deliver accurate results by asking questions more similar to the way we talk naturally, instead of trying to think what type of keyword or phrase will actually give us the answer we’re looking for. 

Google has now announced the preview of MUM: a new tech 1,000 times more powerful than BERT. The biggest and most important difference is that MUM can multitask to help deliver more information: it’s trained in 75 languages and it’s multimodal, meaning it can understand information across text and images. 

According to Google, they have discovered that it takes an average of eight searches for users to get the information they want and complete a complex task. With the development of MUM they aim to solve this issue and help users get things done with fewer searches. Google says:

Imagine a question like: “I’ve hiked Mt. Adams and now want to hike Mt. Fuji next fall, what should I do differently to prepare?” This would stump search engines today, but in the future, MUM could understand this complex task and generate a response, pointing to highly relevant results to dive deeper. 

Google’s mission has always been to make information more accessible to everyone. They have already started running internal pilots with MUM and says to be very excited about how this new search technology can improve Google products and user experience. 

Google’s launching new features for smart bidding

Google is rolling out new features for Smart Bidding to make marketers life much easier, better manage their bidding strategies and improve campaign performance. 

• Top signals for Target ROAS and Maximize conversion: Top signals highlight some of the dimensions in which the bid strategy is automatically optimizing the bids depending on likelihood of users converting (device type, location, day of week, time of day, keywords). They currently report for campaigns that use Target CPA and Maximize conversions, with the launch of the new features, they’ll be available for search campaigns using Target ROAS and Maximize conversion value.

• Seasonality adjustments at manager account level: Smart Bidding takes into account seasonality to improve the performance of the campaigns. However, for specific times such as big sales or product launches, the adjustments had to be made manually for each individual account. With new features Google makes it possible to set them at the manager account level. 

• Maximize conversions with recommendations: Google will be showing new opportunities to opt into maximize conversions on the Recommendations Page: “These recommendations will show for eligible Search campaigns and can help you get more conversion value within your budget.”

• Target Impression Share simulators to predict performance: up until now Simulators to help understand how target bid and budget changes could affect campaign performance, were only available for conversion and click-based bid strategies. With the roll-out of new features they are expanding to Search campaigns using Target Impression Share.

New ad formats for local campaigns on Google

At its annual Google Marketing Livestream, they announced the launch of new formats for local ads campaigns: 

• Auto suggest ads: one of the new formats is called Auto Suggest Ads, which show ads based on the user’s location. When a user searches for a product or service in Google Maps, the auto suggest will show an ad of a nearby advertiser.

• Navigational ads: these new types of ads will be shown on the user’s screen when using Google Maps driving directions. So when a user is driving towards a destination, an ad of a nearby local business will appear on the screen and the user will have the option to add the destination to the route.

• Similar destination ads: another new ad format is Similar Destination Ads. They will show when a user searches for a local business and it’s closed at the time of the search. Google will then show a similar business with the tag “Similar and Open”. 

All new three ad formats will be available for local ad campaigns globally in the second quarter of this year.

2. Marketing Tech Updates

Microsoft Advertising announces Unified Smart

Acknowledging the importance of having a strong online presence for any business and how challenging it can be to manage it successfully, Microsoft has launched Unified Smart campaigns: a unified solution to manage social media presence and search advertising. 

With Unified Smart campaigns platform you can:

• Run ads: this new solution allows you to run ads on both search engines with Microsoft Advertising and Google Ads, as well as social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. 

• Manage social media: Unified Smart allows to publish, like and reply comments on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

 

• Reporting: additionally to being able to manage campaigns across channels in one single place, publishers can also see reports of search and social media in one place.

• Automate and optimize with AI: you can create ads, let them run for a while and then watch how AI creates additional ones for you, optimizing your campaign results. The same way you budget will be distributed by AI across channels to help you get the best ROI. 

The most interesting thing about the new Microsoft solution is that it is free to use. There are no charges, service fees or commissions. You only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad. That’s what makes Unified Smart campaigns so interesting for new and small businesses that wish to handle their campaigns all in one platform. 

Google expands its shopping integrations

Google is always considering its users needs and is now rolling out shopping integrations with WooCommerce, GoDaddy and Square. During the Google I/O they announced that they want to help retailers and consumers connect and build lasting relationships, hence the new integrations.

This open ecosystem approach means that retailers will have even more ways to get discovered across Google, and shoppers will have even more choice.

Retailers that use any of these e-commerce platforms will now be able to show their products for free across Google. A few days earlier Google announced the Shopify integration and has now revealed the expansion to the other platforms.

The aim is to help people discover new and easier ways to shop, and to offer retailers more options to connect with their customers. Google says that “As this generational shift to e-commerce accelerates, having a digital presence is just the minimum — it’s now imperative for you as a retailer to stand out and speak directly to your customers.“

Zoom announces all-in-one events platform

The popular video conferencing platform Zoom has announced the launch of Zoom Events, an all-in-one solution for digital events. It is scheduled to be launched this summer and it will combine features from Zoom meetings, chat, and webinars.

One of the interesting features is that you will be able to produce ticketed, live events for audiences of all sizes. All the process of organizing, managing and billing the event can be done in the platform, as well as keeping track of registration and attendance. 

The possibilities Zoom Events present are endless. You can host internal and external events for companies and businesses of all sizes. Conferences, classes, product launches and pretty much anything that has a space in the virtual world. 

This initiative finds its roots thanks to the on-going growth of virtual meetings during Covid-19 pandemic times. Zoom understands that digital events have found their way into our daily lives and it’s trying to make it as easy as possible for big and small businesses to adapt to this new reality and offer customers the best experiences they can. 

 3. Social Media Marketing Updates

Snapchat launches Public Profiles for Businesses

Snapchat had already launched Public Profiles for Creators, Shows, and Snapchatters and has now opened the doors for Business with Public Profiles: “Public Profiles for Businesses has launched on Snapchat, giving brands of all sizes a free, permanent home for all of their unique Snapchat content.”

Public Profiles for businesses offer brands the opportunity to house all of their unique content in one discoverable place. Some of the most important features include:

• Native store: you can link your Shopify ecommerce store to your Snapchat profile so users can browse products and even buy through the “Shop” feature. 

• Highlights: you can permanently showcase some of your content on your profile so that new users that visit for the first time get to know your business. 

• AR lenses: you can now publish lenses to your Public Profile so that snapchatters can discover them and engage continuously with them. 

• Public stories: so you can share any type of content of what’s happening behind the scenes of your business. 

With this new feature Snapchat is looking to catch up with businesses’ needs on social media nowadays by offering tools that allow them to engage and connect with their audience. 

New messaging features for Facebook and Instagram

New features are coming to Facebook and Instagram DMs to give users the opportunity to express themselves better with additions that go from new themes to the ability to reply to messages with photos or videos.

Facebook messenger new features

• Chat archives: users can now clear their inbox without deleting chats for good. With a swift “swipe to archive” option it’s possible to keep everything tidy and then access inactive chats in the future if need be. 

• Tap to record: for all those audio-lovers out  it’s now possible to record voice notes hands-free. With just one tap is sufficient to begin recording, and one tap to finish. This feature will be available also for Instagram in the future.

• New themes: new themes to customize chat screens are now available for both Messenger and Instagram DMs.

Instagram DMs new features

• Visual replies: Instagram has made it possible for users to answer direct messages with a photo or video they can take in the moment or choose from their camera roll. At the moment this feature is only available for iOS.

• Inbox seen states: users can now see from their inbox when someone has already read their message. This was only possible before when opening the chat. 

Twitter acquires Scroll

Scroll is a subscription based service that removes ads from new sites. From some time now Twitter has been focusing on offering content creators means to grow and monetize their content on the social media platform. 

With this in mind, most recently they acquired Scroll, a platform that removes ads from new websites for a monthly fee. The service will be integrated with Twitter into a subscription service they plan to launch in the future. 

Twitter’s VP of Product said, “As a Twitter subscriber, picture getting access to premium features where you can easily read articles from your favorite news outlet or a writer’s newsletter from Revue, with a portion of your subscription going to the publishers and writers creating the content.”

It seems that Twitter aims by this new acquisition is to offer users a subscription model to access an ad-free timeline by sharing revenue with content creators. 

Digital marketing news from May 2021

There was a lot to note and learn from the digital marketing world during the month of May. It was eventful and filled with very interesting updates to keep an eye out. 

What did you find most interesting?

If you wish to read something else, check out:

• Real Estate Marketing: Boost your Business with Web Push Notifications
• How to choose the right Web Push Notification Service
• Are Cart Abandonment Emails GDPR Compliant?

April was an eventful month for digital marketing. As always Google launched a number of interesting features for Search, Maps and Web Stories while social media platforms continue to keep us on our toes with new updates to compete with ClubHouse app.

We’ve summed up the most important:

Digital Marketing News, Insights and Updates from April 2021

1. Search Marketing News

• Microsoft rolls out new price comparison beta

Microsoft has announced a number of new features for Microsoft Advertising. One of the most interesting ones is the price comparison that allows sites that use Microsoft shopping features to be eligible to show in the flyout panel that delivers discount codes. 

The price comparison will appear within the toolbar of the panel when users browse and save a product on Edge or Collection. They would have to click on it to view the price comparison results. 

This new feature by Microsoft is so interesting for retailers because they can offer relevant information to their target audience while they browse other retailers’ sites and with no extra effort from their part. The listing will grab the information from existing catalogs from Microsoft Merchant Center which means no additional work is required from businesses that already have created shopping campaigns. 

The cherry on top is that, since this new feature is in beta testing, Microsoft won’t charge advertisers for the clicks they obtain through price comparison! Right now it’s only available on desktops in the US on Edge browser. 

• Google adds 3 new travel-oriented features to search results

Google is very well-known from listening and adapting to users’ needs. That’s why due to a recent increase in travel related queries, they have announced to add 3 new features to search results in the intent of helping people plan their next vacation during pandemic times. Google stated: 

As vaccines become more available, many people are eager to start planning vacations again. We’re seeing more searches for travel-related destination information — like travel restrictions by country and where to travel, which both recently hit all-time highs. 

When looking for travel information like hotels, flights or things to do, Search will show results regarding Covid-19 related advisories on destination. Additionally, they’re adding more detailed information regarding if you need to comply with quarantine requirements or show test results proof.

If users are logged in their Google accounts, they can choose to receive email notifications about restrictions updates from their selected destination by toggling “Receive an email if this guidance changes.”. These updates are country specific and will include information regarding any change on lifted or reduced restrictions. 

• Google lets users talk directly to them to fix indexing issues

As we said earlier about Google: they always have users in mind. That’s why they created a new feature that allows webmasters to communicate with them to solve indexing issues they can’t figure out by themselves.

Webmasters can now get directly in touch with Google’s search team to report any indexing problem they can’t find an answer to in the “community forums and support documentation.” The new feature is accessible in the footer of the URL inspection help document and indexing coverage report document,  as a pilot only in the US.

Webmasters that want to access the reporting issue form need to have a verified Search Console account. Once there, they’ll need to answer a series of questions that try to help the user fix the issue by himself step by step before submitting to Google.

This solution is aimed to help SEOs fix indexing issues that aren’t related to quality or technical issues within the website, but rather with Google Search. 

2. Marketing Tech Updates

• WordPress plugin for Google Web Stories Updated

Even though there’s still some debate on whether web stories are worthy of our time and effort or not, new features keep coming and Google has updated their official Google Web Stories WordPress plugin with a feature that allows to embed content on webpages.

The plugin had many options available for content creators, but the ability to embed web stories was still missing until now. The new feature allows to do this very easily and also offers the possibility to embed web stories from other sites.

The process is very simple:

• Insert a Web Stories block

• Select the type of Web Stories you want to to embed:
  • Latest Stories: display the most recent stories. The list will update automatically as new stories are published.
  • Selected Stories: display a list of handpicked stories.
  • Single Story: embed one single story by URL.

• Choose if you want to to display the Web Stories as a carousel, a grid, or a list.

• WordPress wants to block Google FLoC

Google’s FLoC (Federal Learning of Cohorts) solution for a cookieless internet has been raising some eyebrows. Even though Google has stated that this new tracking system is safe and much less privacy-invasive than 3rd party cookies, some don’t agree. 

Recently WordPress made their opinion very clear and proposed to block Google’s FLoC by default on all websites created with the platform. WordPress considers Google’s alternative for third party cookies a security concern:

Why is this bad? As the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains in their post “Google’s FLoC is a terrible idea“, placing people in groups based on their browsing habits is likely to facilitate employment, housing and other types of discrimination, as well as predatory targeting of unsophisticated consumers.

This is in addition to the privacy concerns of tracking people and sharing their data, seemingly without informed consent – and making it more difficult for legislators and regulators to protect people.

This is a proposal from a WordPress developer and website admins who do want to allow FLoC on their site, can override the code. Google said that they appreciate the community taking part on this initial test of their proposal and that they will adjust accordingly to all the comments received. 

• HubSpot acquires media company The Hustle and expands their CRM Platform with the launch of Operations Hub

The giant CRM platform announced they signed an agreement to acquire The Hustle, a media company that produces newsletter, podcast, and premium research content. Their objective is to keep offering their community very valuable and relevant content through a more diverse set of media:

For many customers, their first introduction to HubSpot is through our educational blog, Academy, and YouTube content, not our software (…) By acquiring The Hustle, we’ll be able to better meet the needs of these scaling companies by delivering educational, business, and tech trend content in their preferred formats.

With this move they show they’re listening to their audience and giving them what they want. HubSpot is betting for content marketing as their main strategy to reach out and get in touch with their target: entrepreneurs, startups, and scaling companies.

Keeping up with this in mind, they also announced they are expanding its suite with the launch of Operations Hub. The objective is to make companies’ lives a little easier by automating processes, unifying data and aligning teams’ purposes. 

With Operations Hub, users can unify customer data in a connected CRM platform, automate a host of time-consuming tasks, maintain a clean database with ease, and ultimately, play an active role in shaping their company’s strategy. 

 With the Operations Hub they want to include operations teams to the heart of the platform and help companies have seamless inner interactions. Hubspot believes that companies have to run better on the inside in order to offer a great customer experience, and the way to do so is for team members to work together in a unified CRM.

Operations Hub joins CMS Hub, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub as part of the HubSpot CRM platform.

3. Social Media Marketing Updates

• Facebook and Instagram let business schedule stories

Last September Facebook introduced Facebook Business Suite. It’s an all-in-one platform designed for businesses to manage their social media activity from Instagram, Messenger and Facebook. Since the launch new features are being added constantly.

More recently a new capability was added in which businesses are now able to schedule stories on both Instagram and Facebook. Scheduling posts has always been a desired feature for any social media manager, since it helps plan ahead, save lots of time and maintain community engagement.

By going to “Create Story” on Home, or by navigating to the “Posts & Stories” tab on the Business Suite app on iOS,Android or desktop, businesses can create and schedule stories very easily. 

It doesn’t end here. Facebook also added a feature that allows users to edit scheduled posts. If users wish to, they can access the “Scheduled Posts”section, select the post they wish to edit, choose “Edit Post” , make the changes and save it. In some time, they will also add a feature to Create and Manage Albums and Save Posts in Drafts. 

• Reddit announces Clubhouse competitor Reddit Talk

Clubhouse appearance has shocked the social media world and now almost all platforms are preparing to launch their own version of the audio-only chat rooms wonder. We already talked about Facebook’s option, Twitter Spaces and now it’s Reddit’s turn with Reddit Talk. 

Reddit announced the intention to join the only-audio social media hype with their own version. It seems to be in very early stages of testing periods but the platform has invited moderators to join a waiting list, which indicates that they are moving pretty fast on the subject.

The moderators will be able to start talking immediately and they can invite redditors to participate as listeners. It will be available for both Android and iOS devices unlike Clubhouse which is only available for iOS with many interesting features:

We’re testing ways for hosts to customize the look and feel of Reddit Talk through emojis and background colors. Redditors can change their avatar’s appearance to fit the talk as well. We’re also exploring features to support AMAs and other types of conversations.

Moderators will have complete control over the rooms, being able to invite, remove and mute listeners. Reddit is really focusing on creating a complete experience for each room. 

• Twitter launches test of a new profile type called Professional Profiles

The new Professional Profiles will provide businesses a new way to present themselves on the social media platform:

Professional Profiles are a new tool that will allow businesses, non-profits, publishers, and creators – anyone who uses Twitter for work – to display specific information about their business directly on their profile. We’re starting with a small pool of businesses in the U.S. and will give more accounts access to Professional Profiles in the coming months.

This new layout for professionals shows different information than regular profiles. It includes address and contact information and other elements like products displays, image galleries and business categories are being developed for the future. 

They’re starting to test with only a handful of businesses while taking notes to make the new Professional Profiles exactly what Twitter users expect them to be. 

To sum up!

It seems to be like digital marketing news from April 2021 are all tied together by the common thread of complying with users expectations and improving user experience. Google, HubSpot, Twitter and Facebook updates are all aiming into pleasing people’s needs with features that help them improve their working processes. 

Which new feature or update caught your attention the most? 

Make sure you check out:

• Private Shopping Sites: Web Push Notifications Strategies
• SMS Marketing: 7 Tips for a Winning Strategy
• Marketing Funnel Explained: Optimize your Full Funnel Strategy

Related articles

1. Digital Marketing Insights from July 2020
2. Digital Marketing Insights from August 2020
3. Digital Marketing Insights from September 2020

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