Click Through Reads #53: UK Google Shopping Issues

Hello Click-Through-Readers! To our readers in the UK — how are your shopping campaigns doing? We report on Google technical issues that are having marketers reporting a 70% to 90% drop in revenue on their shopping campaigns! Some other big news that many people have been asking for, Google will allow conversion value adjustments on location, audiences and devices to be taken into consideration for Smart Bidding campaigns in the coming weeks. This should be a game changer for everyone using Smart Bidding. LinkedIn is also offering a free certification program, to earn the certificate you must pass two exams. There are lots of other updates in the news this week, so let’s get into them!

Google Shopping issues in the UK lead to sharp KPI declines

A Google Shopping Ads technical issue preventing products from being served via in the UK this past week has caused some advertisers to question what's going on behind the scenes of ads machine learning and automation.

Beginning on Aug. 20, 2021, many UK-based advertisers saw impressions, spend and revenue drop in their Smart Shopping campaigns--some as high as 70% to 90%!!!

Emmanuel Flossie, Google Ads platinum product expert, wrote that it’s a known issue; as of Aug. 24, the team found and resolved it. However, corresponding impressions and clicks--and, thus, bidding strategies--have been affected. 

Hopefully, this issue is fully resolved; as for trust in machine learning and automation, well, that may take some time...

Google Allows Conversion Values Adjustments in Smart Bidding

Google will be rolling out conversion value adjustments on location, audiences and devices to be taken into consideration for Smart Bidding campaigns in the coming weeks.

By adjusting the values on these criteria, advertisers can communicate who holds more value and enable smart bidding to adjust auction-time bidding as needed to win the conversion.

It’s important to note that these value adjustments will only be taken into consideration with Maximize Conversion Value and target ROAS bidding strategies.

Snapchat Introduces Snapchat Trends 

Last week, Snapchat released a new feature on their platform called Snapchat Trends. Snapchat Trends is the way we can see the top topics that are based on popular keywords that the Snapchat community shares by their public stories/my stories and have been viewed by a large number of people that have been trending on Snapchat in the past week. The trends are only available by country and are available in four different countries - United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. There’s an option to search by terms and show usage of that term overtime and then underneath it may show you snaps that are related to it. This new feature offers a new source of insight and learnings about the top topics or interests the Snapchat community cares about. Snapchat Trends can be useful and unlock powerful insights for the following:

• Product Market Research
• Creative Messaging and Copywriting
• Building User Profiles and Personas
• Research Key Moments
• Competitive Research

Show Up to Users Before They Search on Apple Search Ads

Ads on the App Store Search tab allows advertisers to drive awareness and downloads by promoting it at the top of the suggested apps list. With these types of ads, advertisers can capture potential customers before they even perform a search. 

Ads are automatically created using the assets that are used on the App Store product page and feature the app name, icon, and subtitle. Search tabs ads are only available through Apple Search Ads Advanced. 

Ad pricing is based on a CPM model, and the advertiser determines the maximum amount that they are willing to pay. An impression is counted each time at least 50 percent of the ad is visible for one second. 

The same targeting that is available for search ads (age, gender, location, device type, customer type(all users, new users, returning, etc) is available for search tab ads. 

LinkedIn Offers Free Accredited Marketing Certification

Just like Google, LinkedIn allows marketers a more visible way to showcase their expertise with LinkedIn Ads. Overall demonstrating their understanding of LinkedIn best practices. To earn the certificate you must pass two exams. LinkedIn advertising fundamentals, and LinkedIn marketing strategy.  Once you complete the exam you will receive a credential that's added to your LinkedIn profile, distinguishing you as a proven expert.

Facebook Announces Privacy-Enhancing Technologies

With changes to browsers and an evolving privacy regulatory landscape, Facebook is investing in a multi-year effort to build privacy enhancing technologies that will help the company be less reliant on individual third party data.

Facebook believes that personalization is still the best experience for users and businesses and without it, communication and news would be less accessible if people had to pay subscriptions. Facebook believes that new privacy enhancing technologies will help minimize the amount of personal information they process while still being able to show users relevant ads.

Facebook recently released their Private Lift Measurement solution to select partners, which uses a privacy enhancing technology called secure multi-party computation. This helps advertisers understand their performance while adding extra layers of privacy to limit the amount of information that can be learned by the advertiser or Facebook. This technology will become available to advertisers next year. In the meantime they have open-sourced their framework for Private Computation Solutions, so that anyone can develop measurement products based on this technology. They are also exploring on-device learning which would process data locally on the user’s device rather than sending information to a cloud.

Facebook is calling on the industry to collaborate on a shared set of standards. Solutions are being developed through industry groups like the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media. Engagement with the industry has focused on data use cases, proposals and feedback.

Facebook remains committed to helping small businesses grow while also meeting customer’s privacy expectations. 

TikTok Adds Canva to Creative Integrations

In addition to their recent integration with video-editing platform, Vimeo, this week TikTok has announced another marketing partnership, this time with graphic design platform, Canva. With an effort to make advertising on TikTok more accessible for small and midsize businesses, creators can access more than 50 ad templates on Canva that are already tailored to TikTok ad dimensions and aesthetics. Canva’s Publish End Points tool also allows users to publish and engage natively, making the entire creative process seamless. Both creative integrations have promising potential to help advertisers streamline their advertising efforts by reducing the time and cost of making new creatives. 

Google’s tool for reporting indexing issues directly is now available

Google’s new indexing tool provides a way for SEOs and site owners to escalate issues with Google search directly to Google. The tool was first announced as a pilot in April and is now available in the United States to signed in users. It can be found at the bottom of the URL inspection document and the indexing coverage report document. Follow up questions are generated as the form is filled out to provide additional information about the issues at hand in order to find a resolution as quickly as possible.

Instagram Rolls Out Limits Feature to Help Users Hide Unwanted Comments, DM Requests

To help users avoid abuse on its platform, Instagram has introduced Limits, a way for people to prevent unwanted comments and DMs. Limits allow users to automatically hide comments and DM requests from people who recently began following them or don't follow them. According to Instagram's research, much of the negativity toward public figures comes from people who don't follow them or just began following them. 

In a recent blog post, Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri stated, "We developed this feature because creators and public figures sometimes experience sudden spikes of comments and DM requests from people they don't know. In many cases, this is an outpouring of support—like if they go viral after winning an Olympic medal. But sometimes, it can also mean an influx of unwanted comments or messages. Now, you can turn on Limits and avoid it."

Instagram also added a sterner warning for people attempting to post multiple comments that are potentially offensive. Those users will see the new prompt the first time they try to post potentially harsh words, rather than Instagram waiting for numerous occurrences.