It has been an absolutely huge month in digital marketing with SEMrush’s integration with Umbraco & Surfer SEO, Ahrefs’ $60M acquisition of ‘Yep’, Meta’s new community feedback policy, Twitter’s new eCommerce integration with Shopify, an interactive live shopping platform from eBay, new cashback promotions for Microsoft Product Ads and more.
ICYMI, here’s what happened in digital marketing in June.
- Snapchat Unveils Dynamic Ads Service for Travel Advertisers
- New Reels Features on Instagram
- Pinterest Acquires Product Recommendation Platform ‘The Yes’
- Ahrefs invests $60M in Creator-Friendly Search Engine, ‘Yep’
- Meta is Developing ‘Basic Ads’ Product Amid Privacy Changes
- Instagram’s Sensitive Content Filters are Changing
- LinkedIn Announces Business Manager
- Twitter Introduced ‘Product Drops’
- SEMrush Integration with Umbraco
- LinkedIn Announces Boosting for Event Posts
- Microsoft Bing Confirms Working on New Retail Marketplace
- Firefox Rolls Out Total Cookie Protection by Default to All Users
- Pinterest Launched New Ad Format ‘Idea Ads’
- Twitter Launched ‘Location Spotlight’ for Professional Accounts
- Microsoft Advertising Introduced ‘Advertiser Identity Verification’
- eBay is Launching an Interactive Live Shopping Platform
- Meta’s New Community Feedback Policy
- New Monetisation Tools on Instagram and Facebook
- New Cash Back Promotions for Microsoft Product Ads
- Twitter Launches ‘Campaign Planner’ Platform
- Twitter Making ‘Branded Likes’ Available to All App Advertisers
- Twitter’s New eCommerce Integration with Shopify
- TikTok’s New ‘Attribution Manager’ Tool
- Surfer SEO Unveils New SEMrush Integration
Snapchat Unveils Dynamic Ads Service for Travel Advertisers
Snapchat has launched a new ad product, Dynamic Travel Ads, which enables travel brands to seamlessly create a variety of ads based on their product offerings. Snapchat says the ads have several unique benefits for travel advertisers, including targeting.
The social media platform says it will serve the most relevant ads to “Snapchatters” interested in travel, whom it claims are 37% more likely to book travel after seeing an advertisement.
New Reels Features on Instagram
Instagram rolled out new features in Reels that provide users with more ways to apply their creativity to short video clips. These features are intended to help creators engage with their audiences, and express themselves in new ways.
Instagram has now extended Reel videos to post up to 90-second clips. Reels ads now have a maximum running length of 60 seconds.
Pinterest Acquires Product Recommendation Platform ‘The Yes’
Pinterest has acquired the high-tech fashion-shopping platform ‘The Yes’ in the hopes to improve the online shopping experience on its platform. ‘The Yes’ uses quizzes and direct user inputs to refine its item listings based on your preferences.
‘The Yes’, with numerous brand merchants on its platform, has evolved as an extensive fashion taxonomy by using AI to power a comprehensive algorithm in fashion.
Ahrefs Invests $60M in Creator-Friendly Search Engine, ‘Yep’
Search engine toolkit Ahrefs confirmed that they are working on their very own search engine called Yep. Ahrefs is positioning it as a Google competitor. Yep will soon be available in all countries and most languages.
Yep is taking a fresh new path through the world of internet advertising, claiming that it’s giving 90% of its ad revenue to content creators.
Meta is Developing ‘Basic Ads’ Product Amid Privacy Changes
Meta is reportedly developing a new ad format that would use less data for targeting. ‘Basic ads’ as Facebook engineers have been calling it, are aimed at brand advertisers that are trying to build awareness and shape perception of products.
The product is being developed in response to Apple’s ATT update, which has seen many Facebook users opt out of personal data tracking in the app.
Instagram’s Sensitive Content Filters are Changing
Instagram is expanding its Sensitive Content Control, setting the impact beyond the Explore page to include anywhere it makes recommendations, including in-feed, search, hashtag pages, Reels, and Accounts You Might Follow.
The Sensitive Content Control has three options, which we’ve renamed from when we first introduced the control, to help explain what each option does. The three options are: “More”, “Standard” and “Less”.
LinkedIn Announces Business Manager
LinkedIn announced the creation of ‘Business Manager’, a centralised platform designed to make it easier for large companies and agencies to manage people, ad accounts and business pages.
The platform was designed to help maximise efficiencies, so users can create and execute engaging campaigns that cut through a crowded market with no added cost. LinkedIn Business Manager will be publicly available to marketers across the globe in the coming weeks.
Twitter Introduced ‘Product Drops’
Twitter is introducing another shopping feature to ramp up its in-app commerce features with ‘Product Drops’. This feature will allow Twitter users to get notifications ahead of in-demand product launches.
Companies using product drops will be able to tweet links to upcoming launches, and users can sign up for in-app notifications to be reminded ahead of the launch.
SEMrush Integration with Umbraco
SEMrush announced the new integration with Umbraco, a versatile and open-source content management system. The integration allows you to conduct keyword research within the Umbraco interface, boosting your content’s chances of ranking on search engines.
The data itself is sourced directly from the SEMrush Keyword Overview tool via a secure API, ensuring that the information you receive is trusted, accurate, and up to date. When using the integration, the data limits of your SEMrush subscription still apply.
LinkedIn Announces Boosting for Event Posts
LinkedIn announced they are expanding the Boost button to the LinkedIn Events page, so advertisers will be able to promote events and drive registrations. The platform initially launched its ‘Boost’ option last year, providing a simple, quick way to amplify organic posts in the app.
LinkedIn will provide advertisers with insights into how many members clicked on or saw your boosted event ad, and/or registered for your event.
Microsoft Bing Confirms Working on New Retail Marketplace
Microsoft Bing confirmed that they are testing a retail marketplace to compete against Google in the United States. The new marketplace is called ‘Buy Direct’ and lets people click on products and complete the purchase within Bing’s platform.
A Bing spokesperson said, “Buy Direct is a part of Microsoft Start Shopping. This is a new product experience that we recently launched with limited sellers to our customers in the U.S. We’ll continue to listen to feedback as we explore new ways to serve our customers”.
Firefox Rolls Out Total Cookie Protection by Default to All Users
Mozilla is rolling out Total Cookie Protection by default to all Firefox users worldwide, making Firefox the most private and secure major browser available across Windows, Mac and Linux. Mozilla describes the new feature in terms of a separate “cookie jar” for each website, preventing trackers from linking up user behaviour across multiple sites.
Total Cookie Protection is Firefox’s strongest privacy protection to date, confining cookies to the site where they were created, thus preventing tracking companies from using these cookies to track your browsing from site to site.
Pinterest Launched New Ad Format ‘Idea Ads’
Pinterest launched two new ad products designed to help brands tap into its Stories-like Idea Pins, while also launching a new ‘Paid Partnership’ tagging process to provide another way for creators to make money from their Pin efforts.
The ‘Idea Ads’ are designed to give brands a way to connect with their audience on Pinterest’s platform, which can then in turn drive traffic to their websites or inspire future shopping purchases — similar to much of Pinterest’s organic content. It features an immersive, multipage format designed for advertisers who want to showcase their ideas in action.
Twitter Launched ‘Location Spotlight’ for Professional Accounts
Twitter launched a new feature called ‘Location Spotlight’ for professional accounts. Now, local stores can display details on their profiles such as the location of their business or shop, contact info and operational hours.
The new feature is available for Twitter Professional account users in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia. Businesses can also add a way to contact them in the profile, including a phone number, and a link to send a text or an email.
Microsoft Advertising Introduced ‘Advertiser Identity Verification’
Microsoft is implementing a new advertiser identity verification program to help protect our searchers, publishers, and advertisers from rising threats and attack vectors in a timely manner.
As part of this program, advertisers will be required to undergo a verification process to establish their legal identity. They can use government-issued, photograph-included personal identity or business-related documents issued by appropriate regulatory authorities to complete this process. The program will be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Poland, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
eBay is Launching an Interactive Live Shopping Platform
eBay announced that it’s launching eBay Live, a dedicated shopping platform that gives users a way to purchase products in a live and interactive environment. The new experience is rolling out in beta this month.
The company’s first live shopping event will offer a curated selection of rare trading cards. eBay is the latest online platform to enter the live shopping space and joins the likes of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Meta’s New Community Feedback Policy
Meta launched a new Community Feedback Policy that will provide more specific parameters on what’s allowed within customer reviews and feedback published in the app. The new policy has been created “to ensure that reviews are based on real purchasing experiences”.
Meta says that it will rely on automated technology and human reviewers to detect potential violations, while it also encourages people and businesses to report questionable reviews in its apps.
New Monetisation Tools on Instagram and Facebook
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is rolling out more ways for creators to make money on Facebook and Instagram, and is also expanding some of its current monetisation tools to more creators.
Meta is going to keep paid online events, fan subscriptions, badges and its upcoming independent news products free for creators until 2024. Zuckerberg also announced that Meta is opening up Facebook Stars, the virtual items that allow fans to express their support for their favourite creators, to all eligible creators.
New Cash Back Promotions for Microsoft Product Ads
Microsoft Ads launched Cashback promotions on product ads with text ads to drive more sales and conversions for online retailers. The goal of the cashback promotion program is to drive incremental sales and return on ad spend (ROAS) growth.
The program is an AI-based optimisation, managed entirely by Microsoft, giving users the peace of mind of growing their sales without having to worry about attribution, optimisation and user inquiries.
Twitter Launches ‘Campaign Planner’ Platform
Twitter has announced the official launch of its new ‘Campaign Planner’ platform, a forecasting tool designed to help advertisers estimate campaign results before launching based on advertisers’ entered variables.
By creating this new layer of forecasting into its ad platform, Twitter hopes to empower its partners to better understand the size and cost of reaching a target audience during the planning process. With ‘Campaign Planner’, advertisers can:
- Forecast reach, impressions, average frequency, and CPM against a specific audience, campaign duration, frequency setting, and placement
- Budget for auction-based campaigns
- Start and save a draft campaign directly from the tool
Twitter Making ‘Branded Likes’ Available to All App Advertisers
Twitter has announced the launch of its Branded Likes ad option to all advertisers, which will enable brands to create custom ‘Like Animations’ for their tweets to help improve engagement within the app.
Twitter says that it’ll make Branded Likes available as an ad option to all advertisers in the US, UK and Japan from next week.
Twitter’s New eCommerce Integration with Shopify
Twitter announced a new partnership with Shopify that will keep a seller’s Twitter profile page updated with direct links to the products they have for sale. The new add-on automatically loads a merchant’s products from Shopify onto Twitter.
Users who install the new Twitter add-on can connect their Twitter account with Shopify and then start building out a store on Twitter with the platform’s Shop Module. Users can browse through or expand the carousel to view up to 50 products — selecting a product redirects users to the merchant’s website for purchase.
TikTok’s New ‘Attribution Manager’ Tool
TikTok has released its new ‘Attribution Manager’ tool, which enables advertisers to set custom attribution windows within TikTok campaigns. The new tool will provide more ways to measure ad response, which could help improve the TikTok ads process.
TikTok’s Attribution Manager will provide more flexibility in measuring the results of TikTok promotions, with the data then linked to actions taken over a chosen window of time after ad exposure.
However, advertisers are different based on their business and advertising goals, so the following options are available:
👉 Click-through (CTA): 1, 7, 14, 28 day
👉 View-through (VTA): off, 1 and 7 day
Surfer SEO Unveils New SEMrush Integration
Machine learning tool Surfer SEO has partnered with SEMrush for a first-of-its-kind integration. Surfer’s Grow Flow tool provides users with data-driven SEO insights, allowing businesses to follow a structured growth plan and build their online presence.
With this integration, SEMrush backlinks are now accessible in Surfer SEO. This means that, as a Surfer user, you can obtain invaluable insights into your competitors’ link-building activities without having to leave the Surfer interface, saving you time and simplifying the process.
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