Google updates shopping to support local traffic
Google has added a new local stores card to shopping, as well as increasing the prominence of the nearby filter and curbside and in-store pick up annotations (length: long). As Search Engine Land highlights, the ability to bridge the online to offline shopping experience gives Google an edge over Amazon this holiday season (length: long).
As these insights from Think With Google show, since COVID people have increasingly searched for live information about their local shops, demonstrating the wider context of Google’s latest update (length: long).
Custom audiences are now available
Custom affinity and custom intent audiences are now combined into a single targeting option called custom audiences (length: medium). The important thing to highlight is that targeting uses OR rather than AND commands.
Facebook expands brand safety controls
This week, Facebook announced additional limitations that advertisers can place on in-stream placements (length: long). SocialMediaToday summarised the changes here (length: medium), and also rightfully highlighted that Facebook hasn’t shared how it will define these new categories available for advertisers to exclude (gaming, news, politics etc.).
In other news
- Facebook launches a new training course, in collaboration with Coursera (length: long). 100 hours long and aimed at beginners.
- Google adds engaged view conversions (EVCs) for video ads (length: medium)
- Search Engine Journal considers the difference between remarketing and retargeting (length: long)
- Optmyzr released a script (length: long) to help track the impact of Google’s changes to search term reporting in your own accounts.
- Google shared some long term retail trends (length: long). Given the recent focus on understanding the impact of COVID, it’s refreshing to see a longer term view.
- Battle of the giants – Facebook has complained to the EU about Apple, saying that changes to tracking in iOS 14 and app store restrictions are attempts to monopolise the market (length: long)
- Google launches YouTube shorts – Google’s answer to TikTok? (length: medium).
