This Week in Digital Marketing - September 17, 2021

We love to keep up with what we love. Focusing on marketing and how it changes keeps us on our toes and able to produce and execute successful marketing strategies that provide the results you want.

Facebook is testing a new marketing tool called Ad Strategies
“Ad Strategies uses automation to help you build complete customer pipelines,” according to an email to advertisers. The idea is to provide an easier-to-use advertising setup that doesn’t require as much effort for advertisers.

Ad Strategies uses a five-step process that includes answering questions about your chosen ad strategy including what you’re selling, your sales cycle, whether you want to prioritize sales or leads, and what your budget is. From there, you can set locations, add media, and review the campaign before launch.

Why we care: Facebook has been saying it cares about small businesses for a while now, and this seems to be a step toward demonstrating that. Just like with Google and Microsoft Advertising’s automated tools, there’s potential for humans to lose the control that many advertisers like to maintain. The most common complaint about automation in ad tools is that it prioritizes impressions over conversions, and we’re interested to see if the Facebook Ad Strategies tool will follow the same pattern.

What You Need to Know About Instagram Stories

• 58% of users that view Stories become more interested in a product or brand after seeing it in Stories.
  
• Top-performing Stories ads have an average scene length of 2.8 seconds (out of 5, for an image). Because of this, it’s important to maximize your first 3 seconds.
  
• Adding links and shopping to your Instagram pages makes it easier than ever to make shopping convenient for your customers.
  

Google Ads will combine Smart and standard Display campaigns
Beginning this month, Google Ads will combine standard Display campaigns and Smart Display campaigns into a single option. In addition, Google Ads will also be introducing optimized targeting to Display campaigns.

When advertisers create a new campaign, they’ll see the new Display campaign type. During the setup process, advertisers can choose what to automate or control manually, and they can change their automation choices at any time without having to create a new campaign.

Why we care: Soon, there will be just one option to create Display campaigns. The new Display campaign type will have the same controls for bidding, ads, and audiences that standard Display campaigns currently offer. Currently, existing Smart & standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change.

Reddit invests in advertising features (as promised)
With its latest round of funding, Reddit promised to expand advertising options to help businesses drive more qualified leads. Well, it didn’t take long, from what we can see. The latest announcement indicates that ad features are where the platform’s headed. 

• Bid Recommendation: Leverage the bid recommendation tool in the ad group build page for guidance on what to bid to reach your target audience.
  
• Improved Bulk Edit Tool: Save time optimizing campaigns by updating bids and budgets across multiple ad groups simultaneously.
  
• Updated look w/ Better Performance: Loading times with the updated dashboard is also now 2x faster than before.
  

Why we care: The communities (called subs) are so niche and specific to certain groups and interests. While they are generally wary of advertising, there’s an opportunity there to really hone in your targeting and find the exact people who would want your product or service. These upgraded advertising options will help marketers do that even more effectively now.

TWITTER: New Monetization Features Are Stalled
Twitter's platform may not be crashing as much, but their most recent feature isn't exactly blowing the doors wide open.

Their creator platform Super Follows, which they launched three weeks ago, has only generated a little more than $6,000 in total revenue on Apple devices. In Canada, it's made a whole $600 bucks. In total. Oh, and that includes revenue from their Twitter Blue upgrade package. Super Follows is like a sub on Twitch, joining as a channel member on YouTube... that sort of thing, where users pay $5 a month for access to private tweets.

VIDEO MARKETING: Vimeo + Facebook
Facebook has added some new video tools into Facebook Business Suite: ‘Vimeo Create’

Vimeo is a premium video platform, and they have their own set of tools they sell as a plug-in to other platforms — kind of like how you sometimes see mini versions of Canva in other social media tools.

TIKTOK: The Bad Hashtag
TikTok is limiting the searchability of a specific hashtag after it was found to be encouraging kids to steal. It's part of a viral TikTok trend happening now — one of many that pops up on the platform. But this one encourages students to steal small items from their classrooms — things like COVID test kits, soap dispensers, and even school technology.

It’s important to create your brand’s voice and put it out there with your best foot forward. From start to finish, we can set up your brand, increase awareness, and start building valuable relationships with your customers. We’re proud to provide a wide range of marketing services. Contact us for a consultation today!