[Ep153] - Google: This Is How We Process Your Robot.txt

#TWIMshow - This Week in Marketing

Get up to speed with the Digital Marketing News and Updates from the week of Mar 20-24, 2023.

1. TikTok CEO Makes His Case To US Congress - TikTok’s fate in the US market is still unknown. However, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew’s appeared before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce this week, in which Chew had the opportunity to present TikTok’s case, and convince senators that TikTok does not pose a national security threat. In his pre-prepared testimony, Chew wrote that “More than 150 million people in the United States use TikTok on a monthly basis, with the average user today being an adult well past college age. Their videos provide a lens through which the rest of the world can experience American culture. Examples include TikTok’s role in bringing exposure to American musicians, artists, chefs, and many more. While users in the United States represent 10 percent of our global community, their voice accounts for 25 percent of the total views around the world.”

It is interesting to note the average user age, as per Che’w example here, which is likely older than many would expect. The general consensus is that if the US imposes a TikTok ban, other regions will follow. It’s not a certainty that a ban will be imposed, but Chew’s written testimony doesn’t do a lot to provide new assurance.

2. LinkedIn Rolls Out 4 Updates For Business Pages - LinkedIn's latest features for business pages aim to enhance brand visibility, audience engagement, and hiring efficiency. They are:

1. LinkedIn now lets you plan your business page posts up to three months ahead for steady interaction with followers. Available now on desktop, this feature will come to mobile soon.
2. LinkedIn is introducing live, audio-only discussions, eliminating reliance on external broadcasting applications. Listeners can engage in the discussion through emojis and request to speak if they wish to contribute verbally.
3. For businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees, LinkedIn now offers an automatic job posting feature. Once activated, the platform will automatically share one open role daily as a pre-scheduled post. The posts can be edited after they’re shared.
4. LinkedIn Pages can now follow other Pages, making it easier to join chats related to your field with a feed dedicated to content from the businesses you’re following.

It’s interesting to see that LinkedIn is doubling down on the audio segment at a time when Facebook is killing it. I’m not suggesting that the platforms should necessarily copy each other even though that seems to be happening a lot lately (esp Meta copying TikTok) however audio is a hard space to win in and the only one seems to be doing a decent job is Clubhouse.

3. 6 New Features In Reddit Ads - Reddit has announced 6 updates to its Ads Manager to accommodate its growing global advertising business and cater to the diverse needs of its advertisers. These changes are effective immediately and offer specific improvements for self-service clients and international advertisers.

1. Simple Campaign Creation: Enables advertisers to create a campaign with a single ad in just three easy steps: create an ad, set up targeting and budgets, and select payment. This feature is particularly helpful for self-serve advertisers who want to launch ads quickly and seamlessly.
2. Automated Ad Creation: Allows advertisers to build and test multiple sets of ad variations to determine which messaging connects best with their target audience. This feature saves time previously spent creating new ads one-by-one.
3. Multi-Currency Support: Advertisers from more than 40 countries can choose from various international currencies, including the Australian Dollar (AUD), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Euro (EUR), British Pound (GBP), and New Zealand Dollar (NZD).
4. Improved Community Search: Lets advertisers find targetable communities based on topic relevance, ensuring better reach to relevant audiences.
5. Reporting Retention: Now supports a 12-month look-back, enabling advertisers to analyze their ads’ activity over time.
6. Bulk Edit Improvements: Allow advertisers to change bids, budgets, and third-party reporting trackers for ads across multiple campaigns and ad groups simultaneously.

4. Instagram Adds Reminder Ads and Promoted Results in Search - Just two weeks back in episode#151 I covered “TikTok Enters The Search Ads Market Even Though It Is Inching Towards A US Ban”. In that show, I said that it will be soon that Instagram will copy this feature. And now my predictions came true. Maybe I should quit my day job and become a forecaster. Haha. j/k.

Instagram’s launching two new ad options, with Reminder Ads, that enable users to opt into alerts ahead of an event, and ads in search results, helping to better connect with users in a discovery mindset.

After a user opts-in via the ad CTA, they’ll then receive three subsequent notifications of that event, with the first coming a day before, then another 15 minutes ahead of the start time, with a final alert as it begins. Which will ensure that you don’t miss out – and while three reminders may seem a little much, if you’re really keen (or forgetful), it could be of benefit. Reminders can be set up to three months ahead of time, and once you’ve added a reminder to a post, you can create additional posts with reminders for the same event, without adding new event details. The event time will also be displayed in local time equivalent.

The search ads will help to connect users based on contextual keyword. “Ads will show up in the feed that people can scroll when they tap into a post from search results. We plan to launch this placement globally in the coming months.”

You can learn more about Reminder Ads here, while Search Ads are being rolled out with selected accounts from this week.

5. Microsoft Introduces Category-Based Targeting For Retailers - Search advertising is evolving, especially in retail media. Keyword targeting has been ubiquitous in search advertising for a long time, as it is an effective way for advertisers to reach shoppers who search via keywords. But traditional keyword targeting has constraints within the retail media space. It may limit campaign reach and performance for advertisers and the advertising revenue generated through a retailer’s retail media programme. Microsoft’s retail media platform, PromoteIQ, has launched an innovative solution to address these constraints.

To address advertisers’ desire to maximize their reach to relevant shoppers on a retailer’s website and app, Microsoft’s retail media platform, PromoteIQ has launched a new solution that targets retail shoppers based on the categories they browse, and leverages keywords as a booster for campaign bids. This new solution will give advertisers the ability to unlock the benefit of insights into retail shoppers’ behaviours, achieving stronger performance for both advertisers and retailers.

With Microsoft PromoteIQ, advertisers can boost bids with keywords to show ads to those shoppers who are searching for specific products on a retailer’s website and app, for a higher chance of converting purchase intent to a sale.

Unlike traditional keyword targeting—which requires advertisers to research and build an exhaustive list of keywords per campaign—when man...