This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
Google Making Travel Easier
Redesigned Google Flights has made a simpler home screen and search experience on desktop. Flight price insights show the cheapest dates to fly and alternate airport options to help you save money. To see only ticket prices that include access to overhead bins, Google has added a Bags filter that is available for US flights. The Hotels tab will let you know if you’re getting a room rate that is lower than normal. You can select a bed type and other add-ons like free breakfast and are able to book a room right through Google. Source: Google Blog
New Ad Format Appearing on Mobile SERP
A new ad format has been spotted on the Google mobile search results page. These ads are shown in a box of ads with the header “Ads: more for” followed by your query. This is then followed by an icon and the URL of the site. With this format, no titles, descriptions, or ad extensions are included. Experts so far are not a fan of this test as they provide little information to push searchers to make a click decision. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Compliance with GDPR regulations
When users open Twitter, a new window displays requesting acceptance of the new terms taking effect at the same time as EU’s GDPR. Twitter will begin showing users a personalized Settings and Privacy Section that will help them review, change and approve the types of data they share. Instagram also has a new tool that will let users download a copy of everything they’re shared to the network. This is currently only available on desktop browsers. A link to a file with all of their information will be send to users within 48 hours of their request via email. Source: Adweek & TechCrunch
Google Announced Removal of More Types of Autocompletes
Google is removing autocomplete predictions that are perceived as hateful or prejudiced toward individuals and groups. The expanded policies rolling out in the coming weeks will cover: Sexually explicit predictions that are not related to medical, scientific or sex education topics, hateful predictions based on race, religion and several other demographics, violent predictions, dangerous and harmful activity in predictions, spam, and searches closely associated with piracy. Google notes that these types of autocompletes may be retained if there is a clear source indicated like a song lyrics or book title. Source: Search Engine Journal
Google Looking for Advertisers to Create “How to” Content
In an alleged attempt to replace the assistant featured snippet answers with “How to” ads, Google has been looking to get advertisers to create how to content/videos. This content would then be used as voice responses for Google Assistant and Google Home queries with examples like Johnson and Johnson creating a video on how to bathe a baby or Kraft making a video for a cheese fondue recipe. Google has stated that “While surfacing a how-to video from a brand will be free, initially, Google could eventually charge companies for promotion.” According to CNC, Google plans to reveal more about this feature during their annual conference for software developers in May. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Analysis
Current State of LinkedIn’s Video Ads
Mark Ferree covers the latest with LinkedIn’s video ads which have previously been tested with select advertisers since August 2017. This feature will become available to the general public for the first time in Q2 2018. Ferree notes that, according to Anthony Ha from techcrunch.com, users were engaged with the video ads on LinkedIn three times longer than they were with static images. The author also notes that LinkedIn ads share many similarities with Faceook in that they can be used in campaigns optimizing for traffic, video views, or campaigns utilizing LinkedIn’s Lead Gen forms. Also similar to Facebook, LinkedIn Video Ads autoplay without sound when users scroll through their feed. With the launch of this feature, LinkedIn shows that they are willing to adapt to the demands of the marketplace. Source: Mark Ferree, PPC Hero
Making the most of Google’s Q&A
Darren Shaw from Whitespark gives tips on making the most of your business’s Q&A. He reminds users that some questions can be reported if they are completely irrelevant. You can choose to report a question as: off-topic, no longer applies or incorrect information. Customers have the option to go back to their questions and edit or delete them, which they may do after you helped them resolve their issue to a negative question. Take the questions that you think are the best and up-vote it. These question will show higher in your Knowledge Panel. You can also seed the Q&A by adding your own relevant questions and answering your own questions. Source: Whitespark
