Markestic Monthly
2020 OCTOBER
The world is changing, now faster than ever. With digital technology being the new normal, it’s hard to keep up with recent trends and updates of the e-commerce industry. To help you stay up-to-date, we have collected the hottest news of the past month, so you have it together, in one place.
Every news starts with a short summary with the key points, however, if you are willing to dive deeper into a certain topic, you can always find an additional link for further reference.
1. Facebook to Impose Limits on Number of Ads
Search Engine Journal
Facebook announced that as of February 2021, they plan to limit the number of ads an advertiser can run on behalf of a Facebook Page. They claim that due to the huge number of ads on the platform and the fact that their algorithm needs a specific time to learn, now a lot of ads never exit the Learning Phase at all. They will create 4 groups, and each advertiser will fit into one ‘bucket’, based on their ad spend in the last 12 months. The lowest limit will be at 250 ads where only active ads and ads in review status are taken into account. Thus no worries! 250 ads are generally enough for most of the advertisers. You can check how many ads you have left here.
2. Facebook to exit the European market?
Ars technica
With the end of the Privacy Shield between the US and the EU that so far enabled US companies for easier data transfer between the continents, Facebook might have to leave its combined 410 million monthly European users behind. Personally we don’t assume it may turn into reality. However, some additional regulations may get applied.
3. Google Reduced Visibility in Search Terms Report
Wordstream
As of September 2020, Google has changed its search term report: it will now only include terms that a significant number of users searched for, even if a term received a click. This was a result of Google trying to adhere to privacy thresholds. This decision makes keyword mining more difficult, harder to optimize the campaigns and ad spending. However, for now you can reach this data if you go to Google Analytics > Acquisition > Google Ads > Search Queries (read more here).
Dive deeper on the reduced visibility and what PPCers think about it.
You can reach your search terms report under “Keywords” In Google Ads.
4. Google search trends of 2020 that have nothing to do with the pandemic
Marketing Land
2020 saw big changes and trends that no one could have predicted, but some have long been awaited. Some trends have started earlier than the pandemic: the death of tablets, decline in click share coming from Google Search Partners (non-Google websites that show Google ads), and there was a decay in broad match click traffic as well.
5. Want to make your Christmas email marketing campaign 2020-compatible?
Marketing Land
Because of COVID-19 regulations, this Christmas’ marketing will be more digital-focused than ever before, and promotional emails will be flowing into your customer’s inboxes. You have to do your very best to differentiate your offer from your competitors – besides the subject line, focus on the content as well, with the help of real-time content (e.g.: videos in emails, showing the nearest shop to your user’s location). To get some ideas how to stand out:
Find more useful tips for your Christmas marketing campaign here.
6. The pandemic’s effect on video ads & how customers perceive them
Think with Google
Marketers might start questioning how to adjust their communication strategies to the pandemic, whether there’s a need to even do that. It turns out that most advertisers didn’t adjust it so far, and the performance of their ads stayed the same, so we may conclude there’s no need to worry about sudden modifications.
For more info about video ads during the pandemic, check out Google’s article!
7. Why do people want to quit Facebook suddenly?
Search Engine Journal
In the past few weeks, you might have encountered Facebook’s new design – a permanent change in the social giant’s look. Users don’t really approve of this, they find it really confusing – in fact, some of them even threaten to quit the platform! We have to wait until Facebook’s next report comes out to see the real effect of the redesign though. It is also pretty fascinating to see how redesigns often affect the popularity of any social platform in a positive or negative manner.
8. Optimize for mobile – an essential for the post-pandemic era
Click Z
COVID-19 accelerated the shift to online shopping, making digital presence an essential for retailers. Analyzing these insights shows that customers prefer mobile first now more than ever and that there was a change in what drives brand affinity. Due to the effects of the recession, predictions show that this Christmas, customers will spend less and support local small retailers, and you must adapt to these challenges. According to predictions, the best way to effectively reach your customers this Christmas is through personalized ads and messages, having multiple marketing channels and empathetic messaging.
9. How do People Use Google Search?
Backlinko
People’s everyday habits change rapidly, thus in the digital marketing world, it’s important to analyze from time to time their searching habits. Did you know that for a lot of users it only takes 9 seconds to click on a result? You have to win their attention & trust in such a short time! Backlinko analyzed more than 1,800 search sessions and published their findings in a very detailed article.
10. How to include diversity in your ads efficiently?
Think with Google
With the Black Lives Matter Movement being more important than ever, Google made a research involving black audiences and how they can relate to advertisements. In their findings, they claim that it’s not enough to have diversity in ads – it’s also important that diverse people have to be in authentic roles as well.
11. Say hello to lead gen campaigns on YouTube!
Search Engine Journal
From now on, you can run lead generation campaigns on YouTube and with Discovery ads (ads that appear when people are open for new opportunities, eg. searching on YouTube, checking their Promotions box in Gmail or searching Google Discovery about their favorite topic) as well! The company also introduced initiatives to automate offline data imports into Google Ads – this way sales that start online but finished offline will be easier to track.
12. New tool in Google Shopping to make your work easier
Google Ads
Just in time for the Christmas campaigns! From September 2020, Google’s Performance Planner is available for Shopping campaigns as well. It helps you to plan your budget more effectively, you can use it to plan for upcoming seasonal periods, manage budgets across multiple accounts and campaigns, and adjust budget & campaign settings to evaluate their impact on performance.
13. Post-quarantine tips for ecommerce businesses
Click Z
The winners of quarantining were the businesses with previous online presence, who put e-commerce first in their business – and it’s being claimed that even after the pandemic settles, the growth of the ecommerce sector may continue, since customers still find it easier and lots of formerly less digital-savvy folks had to change their buying habits from offline to online. You can help your business with installing a chatbot, making flexible pricing (taking competitors’ prices, market demand, and actual value of the product into account) available or implementing an inventory management software (designed for ecommerce sites) for example. Within this article you can find a very detailed list of tips.
Find the full list of post-quarantine tips for ecommerce businesses here.
14. How will Google’s ranking factors change?
Search Engine Watch
Google announced it’s about to change its algorithm which determines the search results page (SERP) – changes are coming in the world of SEO in 2021! Soon some factors, like CLS – Cumulative Layout Shift (aka how much the page jumps while loading the content) will be part of a page’s ranking, too, and that’s highly likely that in the future there will be a higher emphasis on expertise and authority in your website’s topic (easiest example: a website providing medical help can’t rank without an actual doctor writing the articles) as well.
Click here to find out what other ranking factors Google is about to implement.
15. Trends to watch out for this Christmas
Think with Google
How can you prepare for the winter holiday season in the middle of a pandemic? Customer behaviors have changed significantly this year, this comes as no surprise. According to Google’s findings, people tend to start holiday shopping earlier this year, consumers are less loyal and (obviously) there’s a shift to online shopping. What’s important is that you have to stay flexible to meet your customer’s demand. For more detailed insights from the Google survey results, please:
16. More people are searching “near me”
Google
Global searches including “near me” have increased enormously in the last year, thus it’s becoming more and more important for marketers to be able to be found online. Google is making it easier for you to set up your location by creating lists of business chains you can choose from in location extensions, and then you can choose from specific location groups within.
17. More conversion categories available in Google Ads
Google
Up until now, you could organize your Google Ads conversion into 6 main categories – from now on, you will have 19 to choose from, including ‘add to cart’ , ‘book appointment’ & more! Google will help you with suggestions to your already existing conversions, and from 15th October, they will automatically be applied! This update helps you to track different conversions that are the most important to your business easier and it makes optimization more efficient.
Check out more info about these new categories in Google Ads here.
18. New metrics available for YouTube video campaign reports
Google
From now on, in your video campaign reports there will be new metrics available: frequency distribution and weekly or monthly average frequency by which you may have an even better understanding of your campaign performance. Frequency distribution helps you see how many people saw your ad a certain number of times over a selected period – there are 6 possible buckets for this. Average frequency helps you to see how your weekly or monthly average frequency changes over time. You can add these metrics to your statistics table here.