Bonded Bitesize – Your Midweek Roundup
Bonded Bitesize – Your Midweek Roundup
Bonded Bitesize – Bringing you your midweek roundup of the latest in digital and media.
Stay connected with recent updates from Microsoft, Google, Meta & many more!
Meta has partnered with Amazon to facilitate Amazon Shopping on Facebook and Instagram
Meta has signed a new deal with Amazon to enable Facebook and Instagram users to purchase Amazon products in-stream. This integration allows users to connect their Instagram and Amazon accounts, and facilitate one-click purchases without having to leave Instagram. Amazon explains, “Customers in the U.S. will see real-time pricing, Prime eligibility, delivery estimates, and product details on select Amazon product ads in Facebook and Instagram as part of the new experience”.
Channel 4 adds data of 14.4 million Tesco Clubcard users to its customer targeting service
Channel 4 is adding the data of 14.4 million Clubcard users to its retail media data-matching service to give advertisers more powerful ad targeting. Having access to Nectar and Boots Advantage Card data already, adding Tesco clubcard data will help provide additional insights to Channel 4’s advanced data suite - giving greater insight into the products and brands that a viewer regularly consumes.
TikTok partners with Rockerbox to improve campaign attribution tracking, with more advanced insights
TikTok has announced a new partnership with attribution platform, Rockerbox, to help provide marketers with advanced insights into TikTok campaign performance. Rockerbox has additional analytics that can better link a TikTok campaign with actual sales results, through the direct integration of data from the platform and the vendor. TikTok explains, “Thanks to this partnership, all Rockerbox clients can now have access to deeper insights into TikTok’s impact on their customers’ purchasing journey, enabling them to optimise their marketing strategies and get more from their ad investments”.
Google adds new deal-finding tools to Search & Chrome to help users find discounts
Google is introducing new features on both Search and Chrome designed to help users find discounts. On Google Search, the platform is adding a new designated page for deals, showing discounted products from across the web in one spot via a new ‘Shop deals’ button - this includes deals from big box stores, DTC brands, luxury multi-brand retailers, designer labels as well as local stores. On Chrome, Google will now actively search for discounts on products a user has previously looked at, show coupon codes on product pages and add further support for its price insights and price drop alerts.
Microsoft Ads announces new bid strategies for audience ads: maximise conversions & target CPA
Microsoft has added two new bid strategies to its Microsoft Audience Network ads, ‘Maximise conversions’ and ‘Target Cost per Acquisition (CPA)’. Firstly, the new bid strategy ‘Maximise conversions’ aims to get marketers the most amount of conversions possible within their budget - with the option of Maximum CPC (Cost per click) and CPA (Cost per Acquisition) limits. Secondly, ‘Target Cost per Acquisition’ aims to get marketers the most amount of conversions possible at their target CPA. It’s worth noting that these new bid strategies are not compatible with 3rd-party platform bidding.
Meta announces new lead generation ad tools to Facebook and Instagram that click to start a WhatsApp chat
Meta has announced new lead generation ads designed to help nurture more quality leads through messaging across its family of apps. To do so, the company is expanding its lead objective to Facebook and Instagram ads that click to start a WhatsApp chat - with select advertisers even able to add a Q&A flow in Ads Manager. Meta also shared, “Advertisers that choose to engage people through click to message ads on Instagram can now offer people a coupon/discount for completing the question-and-answer flow”, adding an additional incentive for completion.
Google AdSense is changing its publisher revenue share structure to pay per impression
Google has announced that it is changing the way it pays AdSense publishers, from paying per click to exclusively paying on a per impression model instead. Google explained that this “will provide a more uniform way of paying publishers for their ad space across Google’s products and third-party platforms, helping them compare with other technology providers they use”. The update has had mixed reviews from publishers - with some worried that publishers may begin to not care whether the content is good for advertisers or not.
TikTok adds more local agencies to its Marketing Partner Program, with ‘proven track record of success on TikTok’
TikTok has expanded its Marketing Partners Program with several new ad agencies deemed as local experts endorsed by the platform. According to TikTok, “our badged Agency partners can operate as a one-stop shop for advertisers across marketing objectives, from driving upper-funnel awareness and site traffic to lower-funnel conversions and e-commerce sales”. TikTok considers this list of partners local experts, having been vetted, trained and badged based on their expertise in using TikTok-style creative assets as a lever for media optimisation.
LinkedIn to delete all carousels, profile videos and in-image links previously posted on LinkedIn
Having announced the removal of carousels, profile videos and the ability to embed clickable links within images and videos several months ago, LinkedIn has now announced that this will be backdated on all previous posts - meaning existing posts using any of these formats will be deleted. LinkedIn will begin removing this content starting on December 14th, though did share that while content with clickable links will remain, the links will no longer work. Carousels created using a PDF document format will still be allowed on the platform - so don’t worry, all our Bonded Bitesize posts aren’t going anywhere!
Google brings AI ad tools beta to Performance Max users in US - including image & text generation
Google has announced that several of its new generative AI features for ads are being rolled out in beta to all Performance Max users in the US, right in time for the holiday season. These tools are designed to help marketers generate and enhance their creative assets, with asset generation capabilities that can create headlines, descriptions and images to help bring ads to life. Google explains, “With the help of your knowledge and expertise, Google AI will generate assets that help you reach customers across all of Google’s performance inventory and formats. Performance Max will also take performance data into consideration when suggesting or generating certain assets for your campaigns to help your ads perform well”.
TikTok is shutting down its Creator Fund as it focuses on newer Creativity Program
TikTok has announced that it is shutting down its Creator Fund, its original monetisation program for creators launched in 2020, in favour of its new Creativity Program. Starting December 16th, the Creator Fund will be discontinued in the UK, the US, France and Germany - encouraging users to switch to the Creativity Program. TikTok claims this new system would result in higher payouts for popular creators - though only for uploads over one minute long, which is encouraging the push of longer content on the platform.
Snapchat announces Lens Studio 5.0, its upgraded AR creation platform with range of new AR tools
During its Lens Fest 2023 event, Snapchat has announced several new AR features coming to the latest version of its Lens Studio - including ChatGPT API, improved 3D modelling & team collabs. Lens Studio 5.0 will include performance improvements, more advanced 3D modelling tools, options to collaborate as a team, and more ways to develop AR projects. On top of this, Snap is also adding new AI capabilities within its app, by teaming up with OpenAI to offer a new ChatGPT Remote API.
Google has expanded its AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE) globally to over 120 countries
Initially launched in select markets, Google has now rolled out its AI-powered search experience worldwide - giving users in over 120 new countries and territories access to the tool. As part of this SGE will support four new languages. In addition, Google is testing a new way for users to ask follow-up questions on its SGE, while still showing prior questions and search results - including search ads. The company is also improving the SGE translation feature - showing words that may have more than one possible meaning to help pick the translation that fits the wider context of the phrase. These tests are first coming to US users, with plans to expand to more countries following this.
Meta outlines new transparency rules for use of AI-generated content in political or social issue ads
In a move to minimise misinformation on the platform, Meta has set new transparency standards for political or social issue ads. This policy states that ads that feature photorealistic images, videos or audio that depicts false events or statements - whether altered by AI, or digitally manipulated will have to carry a disclosure. Content will be reviewed by independent fact-checkers and advertisers who fail to comply with these new transparency rules will face ad rejection and potential penalties. Meta has commented that disclosures will not be required for minor edits like colour correction or image resizing, providing they do not affect the ad’s message.
Google has rolled out its November 2023 reviews update to evaluate review & opinion-based content
Google has announced that it is rolling out its November 2023 reviews update, which is expected to take two weeks to complete. The reviews ranking system is designed to evaluate articles, blog posts and other standalone content focused on opinions and analysis - it doesn’t assess third party reviews left by users. This is being rolled out at the same time as the November 2023 core update, meaning many sites may see fluctuations in search traffic and rankings from both of the updates. While Google has shared that this update involves an improvement to a different core system than the last month, the guidance for it is the same.
