This week it was revealed that Yahoo had a massive ‘state-sponsored’ hack, Brangelina broke up and the 2016 Rio Paralympics came to an end. It was an eventful week in world news, but were there such ‘big’ happenings in the digital marketing world?
Here are a few of this week’s marketing headlines:
Possum: The Local Google Algorithm Update Messing With Your Rankings
If you’ve seen your rankings fluctuate over the last few weeks, it may be because of a new local algorithm update that Google rolled out on September 1st nicknamed ‘Possum’.
So, why the nickname? Well, after the update at the beginning of the month many businesses thought their Google My Business listings had been taken down, when they hadn’t. Instead they were being filtered… or, play possum.
Possum was introduced to diversify local listings and to ensure spam does not rank well. As a result, businesses located just outside the physical city limits have seen a spike in rankings, Google is now filtering results by address and affiliation, and the local filter appears to be working more independently from the organic filter.
Expect a Mobile Organic Search AMP by the End of the Year
Google’s Lead Product Manager for AMP, Rudy Galfi, has told the press that the rollout of its AMP in mobile organic search should be complete by the end of the year. In addition to this, he reiterated that this should now affect ranking signals.
Facebook is Launching New Ad Measurement Tools
Facebook announced this week that it would be rolling out new measurement tools to better analyse the effectiveness of cross-channel campaigns and their return on investment both online and offline. Using third party relationships, the ‘people-based measurement’ should give brands more accurate results.
The VP of Marketing Science at Facebook, Brad Smallwood, has said:
“Measurement is difficult, and one reason is that every vertical thinks about it a little bit differently,”
“Let’s say if you’re a mobile-game owner, you care about app install and re-engagement. But if you’re a [consumer-package-goods] advertiser, you want to know how to allocate media spend and what’s the best way of doing that across television and digital and other forms of media.”
Facebook Releases New Ad Options to Target In-Store Sales
Facebook has rolled out two new advertising options aimed at boosting in-store sales: dynamic ads for retail and store visits optimisation.
Dynamic ads for retail will allow shops to upload their inventory to the social media network and this will automatically update running ad campaigns according to availability and location. Whereas store visits optimisation will ensure ads reach users who are likely to visit the physical store.
Instagram Makes Drafts Available to All Users
Instagram has been testing a draft function for months, but the photo sharing app has finally announced it will be providing the feature to all of its users very soon.
This new draft feature will allow users to save their work mid-post and revisit the photo at another time. To do this, hit the back button and the app will ask you if you want to ‘save draft’. To retrieve this, drafts will appear at the top of all your photos the next time you use the app. Use the ‘manage’ button to remove drafts you no longer want or need.
Those are the popular digital marketing stories for the week, but follow this blog for our weekly updates.
Read more:
#CatsNotAds – Putting Their Paws Down on Advertising
Five of Our Favourite Online Campaigns So Far in 2016
Are You Using Artificial Intelligence in Your Digital Marketing?