This Week in Digital Marketing - August 19, 2022

This week's top digital marketing stories include Apple's expansion of search advertisements on the iPhone and iPad, welcome emails' dominance in initial purchases and click-through rates, and Google's disclosure that certain Search Console sites were not indexed.

Apple Is Expanding Ads On iPhone And iPad
In an effort to increase money, Apple will be extending adverts to additional parts of the iPhone and iPad.

There are display adverts in the search tab. According to Bloomberg, Apple will soon add advertisements to both the main Today tab and the pages where users may download outside apps. Developers can pay to have their apps appear in the search results when users enter phrases relevant to the app in the app store's search advertisements.

A significant increase in Apple commercials could result in additional and possibly less expensive advertising opportunities. As with Yelp or other local search engines, brands who are interested in sponsoring their company listings may be able to do so.

Welcome Emails Have Best Click-To-Open And First Purchase Rates
According to a recent study, welcome emails and those sent in response to inventory adjustments have the highest click-to-open and first purchase conversion rates.

According to Bluecore's 2022 Retail Benchmark Report, email campaigns sparked by price decrease and back-in-stock alerts led to first purchases from 25% of subscribers. Welcome emails and abandoned cart notifications both had success rates of 23.9% and 23.3%, respectively. The campaigns targeted at those who performed a specific search or selected a category or product but took no further action had the lowest success rate (14.9%).

It's difficult to exaggerate the significance of welcome emails when it comes to immediately attracting new customers. Then, they can be just as successful as abandoned cart emails, which have the highest rate of purchase intent. The key here is undoubtedly personalisation based on a customer's preferred category or next-purchase prediction. Although the data is from last year, before inflation became so severe, the report advises against including price reductions when personalizing.

Google Search Console Reported Pages As Being Indexed When They Were Not Indexed
Google claimed that there was a fault with the coverage report in Search Console that caused it to falsely report that some pages had been indexed. You should probably check your coverage reports for the sites you control again as Google stated that this "damaged numerous properties."

Make sure to annotate your findings for clients if you give stakeholders or clients reports on a website's indexed versus unindexed pages. Hopefully, this won't add to the stress you already feel from working in SEO.

Apple Search Ads Can Now Be Edited In Bulk
A new bulk advertisements editor that lets advertisers alter numerous campaigns and ad groups simultaneously has just been released by Apple.

You can modify parameters, daily budget, max bids, audiences, and more using the bulk advertisements editor. The Campaigns Dashboard's Actions menu contains a link to the bulk editor. You then download the settings you want to change from there. Once the new spreadsheet is uploaded, your new campaigns will become active.

By allowing changes to be made to multiple ads at once, bulk editors typically make life for advertisers much simpler. The Apple version, which necessitates downloading and uploading templates, appears complicated and time-consuming. But if you oversee Apple Search Ads, give the bulk editor a shot and decide for yourself whether it's worthwhile.

Google’s New Helpful Content Update Targets Sites Creating Content For Search Engines First
Google is ready to roll out "the helpful content update," a significant new upgrade to its search algorithm. This upgrade will target websites with a disproportionately large volume of unsatisfactory or useless material that was generated for search engines rather than for people.

SEOs will probably look back on Google's helpful content update as a key upgrade that sparked a shift in the guidance they give clients when creating content. The extent to which this upgrade may affect Google's search results, your website, or the websites of your clients cannot yet be determined. Keep an eye on your analytics when the update is implemented and, if necessary, modify your content strategy.

Google To Release August 2022 Product Reviews Update In Coming Weeks
Another upgrade to Google's product reviews is forthcoming. The goal of this update is to promote review content that is superior to and goes beyond most of the pre-written content you see online. According to Google, it will prioritize these product reviews in the order of search results.

If the content on your website includes product reviews, you should check your rankings to determine if they have changed. In the long run, you'll want to make sure that you put a lot more time and care into your product review content moving forward so that it is distinctive and stands out from the competitors on the web. Additionally, people affected by earlier core modifications who put in the effort might be compensated by this update to the product reviews in August 2022.

Google Adds Additional CTV Buying Options In Display & Video 360
Google is adding three new options for brands advertising on CTV. 

Audience guarantees based on Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings (DAR): The Nielsen DAR is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of campaigns across digital media platforms and determine the number of unique viewers CTV and video ad buyers reach within their target audiences. In order to make CTV, Display, and Video 360 planning and measurement easier, Google is sharing Nielsen audience assurances.

Advanced Programmatic Guaranteed: Google Ad Manager, Xandr, and Magnite will now all support Google audiences for Programmatic Guaranteed. With the new version, you may now purchase Programmatic Guaranteed offers from a range of partner publishers while using affinity, in-market, and demo segments.

Consolidated CTV workflow across YouTube and other CTV apps: To assist marketers with planning, managing, and measuring performance across YouTube and CTV inventory, Google is introducing a streamlined workflow.

Positive changes to Google's connected TV expansion strategy include broadening audience reach, reducing frequency, and consolidating the workflow. Take use of these new features if your company is utilizing Display or Video 360 to advertise on linked TV in order to increase your reach, test new demographics, and track the effectiveness of your CTV advertising campaigns using the Nielsen DAR.

It looks like a lot of streaming services are coming out with guarantees based on Nielsen DAR, so it’s not exactly the top selling point for picking one over the other.

Some of this information will be useful to your company, while some will not. This is where we can help you. We can sort through these updates and determine which ones are most significant to you and your company. Contact us for a consultation!