Flywheel News | September 2020 Digital Marketing Month in Review
1. Google Ads Removes Substantial % Of Search Term Data From It’s UI
Google proceeded with a reporting change that has deeply upset the SEM industry. At the beginning of September, Google moved to exclude a large percentage of search term report data available to advertisers. Noting the reason as wanting to only include terms that were searched by a significant number of users, Google has taken away a large amount of data used by SEM specialists to review all search terms that have driven traffic from ads campaigns. Seer Interactive is reporting that up to 28% of data in their accounts is now unavailable. We believe, along with many experts in the industry, that Google has taken away this data in order to drive more profit for themselves as marketers won’t be able to complete as extensive negative keyword research to ensure ads are only showing for the most relevant searches.
2. Google Ads Expands Conversion Categories Available
Google Ads has expanded it’s available conversion categories from 6 to 19 and now includes actions such as “add to cart,” “submit lead form,” and “book appointment”. Google Ads will be suggesting new categories for any existing conversion metrics that you have set up in your accounts and these suggestions will be automatically applied starting on October 15th. This recent change makes it easier to understand different funnel metrics within the path to booking for your campaigns.
3. Facebook Announces It’s Removing Restrictions on Text Content in Facebook Ad Images
Historically, Facebook has disapproved any ad images that have text that takes up more than 20% of the image space. Even though Facebook’s documentation has stated that images with less than 20% text tend to perform better, the social media platform will no longer penalize ads for going above the 20% threshold. This is a great opportunity to test different amounts of text within your Facebook ads to determine what works best for your campaigns and your business.
4. GCommerce Launches Metasearch Advertising Service
GCommerce is excited to announce that we now offer metasearch advertising for hotel and vacation rental clients. The service provides fully managed metasearch campaigns including Google Hotel Ads, allowing hotels to compete with OTAs in this crucial ad space. Learn more here.
