Missed the important digital marketing news and updates from last week? We’ve got you covered with the WDA Digital Marketing Round-Up. This week, news includes Gmail Ads being merged with Discovery Ads, Pinterest Stories test, TikTok’s Q and A feature and much more.

Let’s delve into it…

Google

Gmail Ads to be Merged with Discovery Ads: Google’s standalone Gmail ads will no longer be available as of July this year. Instead, Gmail Ads will be merged into Discovery Ads and it won’t be possible to target them individually. Google sent an email to advertisers early last week to notify them of the change.

Google Crawl Stats Report Updated: Google has updated its crawl stats report (first launched in November last year), to show increased coverage for additional crawl types. It’s important to note that this is purely a reporting change and isn’t reflective in any way of a change in search results/performance, so don’t worry if you get a large crawl rate increase.

Price Drop Appearance: Google has introduced a new Price Drop search appearance in its Product Structured Data page to help searchers understand the lowest price for products. Adding this will further enhance product display information in the search rich results. To become eligible, publishers need to use the “offer” structured data and the product price can’t be a range.

New Mobile Search Results: Google’s mobile search results are getting a bit of a revamp that’s designed to provide a better UX and make content easier to read. It’s a simpler, edge-to-edge design that uses more white-space, larger sections and labels, bolder text and more. The new mobile design should be rolling out soon.

Facebook

Facebook Updated ‘Account Quality’ Dashboard: Facebook is going to be rolling out an updated version of its ‘Account Quality’ dashboard to further help admins of Pages to address concerns such as violations and suspended ads etc. This information is already available but the update makes it easier to access and get a glimpse of potential issues.

Facebook’s Automated Alt Text Process Improved: Facebook has made some significant improvements to its Automated Alt Text process to ensure that visually-impaired users on the app get a better user experience.

Here’s how Facebook explained the update… “First and foremost, we’ve expanded the number of concepts that AAT can reliably detect and identify in a photo by more than 10x, which in turn means fewer photos without a description. Descriptions are also more detailed, with the ability to identify activities, landmarks, types of animals, and so forth – for example, “May be a selfie of 2 people, outdoors, the Leaning Tower of Pisa.”

Pinterest

Pinterest Stories Test: Pinterest has recently been testing a new Stories section at the top of its user’s home screens. Story Pins were first launched as a beta back in September last year and they look to be expanding them slowly. The update gives Story Pins a more dynamic look but is just a test for now.

Pinterest Dynamic Creative Ad Process Launched: Pinterest has launched a new ‘Dynamic Creative’ ad process to automate ad setup.

Here’s what they said… “Advertisers can now generate multiple versions of new Pins from uploaded assets or a product feed where they can automatically import product data (price, location, availability, etc.). Parts of the Pins will dynamically display creative elements like product images, copy, pricing, etc. which will only be shown to the advertiser’s assigned audiences.”

Other Social News

TikTok Q and A: TikTok is looking to prompt more engagement between creators and their fans with the launch of a new Q and A option. The new option will enable users to ask creators questions and creators can then use the query as a prompt for a new video. Additionally, other profile visitors can also see the list of questions asked of a creator and Like each as a form of voting for which queries they also want to see addressed.

LinkedIn’s New Reply Control Tools: LinkedIn has joined Twitter by adding new reply control options for LinkedIn posts – enabling users on the platform to change who’s able to comment. LinkedIn has stated that the new feature provides additional discussion options on the platform by allowing users to just ask questions to industry-specific groups for example. There’s also a no replies option for those that don’t want to get into a discussion.

Shorts Views Counted: Views for YouTube Shorts are available in YouTube Analytics and are counted as if they’re regular videos. Shorts were launched in September last year and are still in beta. Creators’ 60-second Shorts clips will also count towards their channel’s total views.

Snapchat Dark Mode: Snapchat look set to be joining almost every other app that has a dark mode option. They’re currently testing it with a small group of its users and we expect this to get rolled out.

WDA’s Highlight of the Week

Our highlight from this week’s WDA Marketing Round-Up is Google’s new and improved mobile search results. While this isn’t an update to any algorithm etc. it should make the mobile searching experience loads better. The larger labels and bolder text could also help generate better click-through rates from mobile devices.

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