From new advertising developments in Facebook and Twitter to new ad suggestions in Microsoft, a lot of awesome new features from some of our favourite brands and tools launched in March.
ICYMI, here’s what happened in digital marketing last month.
- Twitter Launches Monetised ‘Super Follow’
- SEMrush ‘Core Web Vitals Report’ is now in Beta
- Outbrain Launches Content Referral Network
- Bing Updates Search Results Interface
- Brave to Launch Search Engine
- Facebook Adds Sticker Ads in Stories
- Nielsen Finds Biggest Digital Consumers in Australia are Women
- Microsoft Announces Static Headlines for Dynamic Search Ads
- Adobe Introduces Experience Manager Forms as a Cloud Service
- Bing Adds Local Panel Questions & Answers Box
- Taboola Launches New High Impact Brand Awareness Service
- Pinterest Travel Searches Increased 60% Year Over Year
- Microsoft Introduces Ad Suggestions with Auto-apply
- Advertising in IGTV Now in Australia
- Twitter Adds Curated Categories for Ads
- LinkedIn Adds Video Cover Stories and ‘Creator Mode’
Twitter Launches Monetised ‘Super Follow’
Twitter has announced an upcoming paid feature called Super Follow, which gives users the ability to monetise their content. Users can pay a monthly fee in exchange for premium content from creators they follow.
Users will receive a supporter badge, subscriber-only newsletters, exclusive content, discounts and community access. This is the first paid feature Twitter has ever offered to its users.
SEMrush ‘Core Web Vitals Report’ is now in Beta
SEMrush has released in Beta its Core Web Vitals Report. You can now check your site’s speed, responsiveness and visual stability in real-time. You can make changes, re-audit your site and see how it performs in the live metrics before it affects users and Google detects the data. Go to the main tools page in the Thematic Reports section in Site Audit to try it.
Outbrain Launches Content Referral Network
Outbrain is launching a content referral network for publishers. The open web discovery platform invites publishers to form audience exchange networks to diversify referrals as part of a Content Coalition.
The Content Coalition is launching in Australia and New Zealand ahead of other markets. Outbrain will allow publishers to exchange links for free and anyone can join, however without being a partner they cannot refer traffic back, so it’s not as mutually beneficial.
Bing Updates Search Results Interface
Microsoft Bing has updated its Search results interface to make it more visually immersive. Microsoft announced several updates to Search to make it more “visually immersive”, including recipe results, image search’s similar looking items, expandable search result carousels, infographic knowledge panels and the local answers design.
Brave to Launch Search Engine
Following the acquisition of Tailcat, Brave, the makers of an open-source web browser, are launching a privacy-focussed alternative search engine that will offer options for ad-supported and ad-free search results.
Brave Search is being touted as “the first private alternative to Google Search and Google Chrome on both mobile and desktop.” There is currently no launch date.
Facebook Adds Sticker Ads in Stories
Facebook has added a range of new features to help creators monetise their video content, including the use of sticker ads in Stories. Yoav Arnstein, Facebook app monetisation director said,
“Video creators can now earn money from videos as short as one minute long, with a minimally interruptive ad running at 30 seconds. For videos three minutes or longer, an ad can be shown 45 seconds in. Previously, only three-minute or longer videos could monetize with in-stream ads, with an ad shown no earlier than 1 minute.”
Nielsen Finds Biggest Digital Consumers in Australia are Women
Nielsen has released new research on the digital habits of women in Australia. The study found that women spend more time consuming digital content than men. On average, women spend seven more hours on digital content per month compared to men, 97 hours in total.
The biggest online consumption group is women aged 25-34, with an average of 112 hours and 46 minutes per month. Women aged 35-44 spending just minutes under this. The study also found that women consume digital content on mobile 81% of the time, compared to 74% for men.
Microsoft Announces Static Headlines for Dynamic Search Ads
Microsoft has announced that static headlines for Dynamic Search Ads are now available in all markets where DSAs are available. This means you’ll be able to get all the power of DSA matching your landing pages to new and unique queries while retaining control over your ad content.
Adobe Introduces Experience Manager Forms as a Cloud Service
Adobe has announced that Adobe Experience Manager Forms technology has been reimagined to operate in the cloud. Forms are now faster, scalable, easier to use and have additional security in the cloud environment. It’s also integrated with Adobe Sign, making it a seamless end-to-end digital enrollment and onboarding solution.
Bing Adds Local Panel Questions & Answers Box
Microsoft Bing has added a questions and answers section within a business’s local panel in the search results for some businesses. The Q&A box looks very similar to Google’s, however, unlike Google, pulls from the questions and answers from the business’s website directly. Google’s Q&A pulls from those posted on Google.com.
Taboola Launches New High Impact Brand Awareness Service
Taboola has launched High Impact, a new advertising solution for brand marketers and agencies, specially designed for brand awareness campaigns. The solution comes with access to readership data based on 500 million daily active users to inform content strategies.
Ads will only run on the homepage, mid-article placements and the very top of Taboola Feed Formats. The ads will be surrounded only by “safe and premium editorial content”.
Pinterest Travel Searches Increased 60% Year Over Year
According to Pinterest interest in travel-related content is surging.
“On Pinterest, travel engagement is at an all-time high – even when you look at the year before COVID. Travel searches on Pinterest increased 60% year over year and those searches are turning all the pent-up demand into real bookings.”
Pinterest also noted that its travel audience is up 40% from 2019 and it’s seen an 80% increase in searches for rural travel.
Microsoft Introduces Ad Suggestions with Auto-apply
Starting in March, Microsoft will offer ad suggestions with auto-apply on the Recommendations page. You’ll receive an email notification from Microsoft Advertising with suggestions for new ads (dependent on your email preference settings).
You’ll be given 14 days to review the suggestions. After that, the ads will be automatically enabled unless you remove them.
Advertising in IGTV Now in Australia
Instagram has announced that they are introducing advertising in IGTV in Australia. The ads will include a revenue share model for certain Australian creators. The IGTV ads will initially appear when people click to watch IGTV videos from previews in their feed.
Twitter Adds Curated Categories for Ads
Twitter is adding more placement opportunities for brand promotions with additional curated categories to make it easier for brands to place their video ads with relevant content.
“Our Curated Categories include niche topics like light-hearted content, football, basketball, soccer, or gaming personalities and allow advertisers to run their pre-roll against video content from publishers covering the topic of choice. The publishers included in each of our Curated Categories are always hand-selected by Twitter teams for their relevance and conversation driving ability within their category’s topic, ensuring a deeper level of contextual alignment for brands.”
In addition, Twitter is also launching a new format for Amplify pre-roll ads, providing additional branding and UI enhancements.
LinkedIn Adds Video Cover Stories and ‘Creator Mode’
LinkedIn is launching a new video cover story option, enabling users to add an introductory video users can view on their listing. The feature will enable job seekers to share a video overview of their experience and business owners to promote their products and services.
“Once you add your Cover Story, an orange ring will appear around your Profile photo, and a preview of your video will auto-play silently within your photo frame (we like to think of it as the “Harry Potter” effect). And, stay tuned for captioning capabilities coming soon.”
LinkedIn is also launching ‘Creator Mode’ which will add a selection of hashtags to indicate what topics a user posts about most and showcase them to interested audiences. Creator Mode will move your Featured and Activity sections to the top of your profile to more prominently display your content while your Connect button will be switched to Follow to help users choosing to update to Creator Mode build an audience in the app.
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