Industry Insights Gallery

Discover the latest digital marketing trends, insights, and previous updates from Google, Meta, Social Platforms, Amazon and more

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Google Merchant Center collaborates with Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) to improve shipping information for retailers. This allows retailers to present more precise delivery times, enhancing the shopping experience.

SOURCE: Swipe Insights

AI Overviews, concise summaries generated by Google’s AI for specific search queries, will now feature ads for queries deemed commercially relevant. For instance, a search for removing grass stains might trigger product recommendations within the AI Overview. These ads, clearly labelled as “Sponsored”, will be sourced from existing Google Shopping and Search campaigns, ensuring advertisers don’t need to take additional action. However, Google has stated that advertisers won’t have granular reporting on ad performance within AI Overviews for the time being.

SOURCE: eMarketer

Meta revealed updates during Advertising Week 2024, emphasising video content, AI tools, and partnerships with creators.

A new full-screen Video Tab on Facebook will showcase Reels, extended videos, and Live content. Generative AI advertising tools, utilised by more than 1 million advertisers, demonstrate improved click-through and conversion rates.

SOURCE: Swipe Insights

TikTok has introduced Search Ads Campaign, a new campaign format that allows advertisers to engage with high-intent audiences during critical moments. The biggest difference from its existing Search Ads in format is giving advertisers more control in placement. This will be rolled out in the US to begin with.

SOURCE: TikTok

TikTok have launched their Smart Performance (Smart+) Campaign which is their new end-to-end automation campaign solution to maximise results with less manual input. Like Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns on Meta, this will streamline set up and is currently available for App Promotion and Web Conversion Optimisations.

SOURCE: eMarketer

September, 2024

Google Ads will fully transition to a new design on August 30, 2024, replacing the old version.

The updated layout includes a left-side menu with five categories: Campaigns, Goals, Tools, Billing, and Admin, making navigation easier.

Users have responded positively, and Google encourages feedback to keep improving the platform. All current features and tools will remain supported.

SOURCE: Google Ads

Google found that viewers prefer fewer interruptions during videos, with 79% favouring video ads grouped together rather than spread throughout. 

YouTube has introduced fewer, longer ad breaks for connected TV (CTV) viewers watching longer videos, leading to 50% longer viewing sessions before the next ad break.

While viewers can still skip ads after five seconds, advertisers benefit from better-targeted opportunities with minimal disruption to viewing. YouTube continues to refine this approach to enhance the ad experience for both viewers and advertisers.

SOURCE: Google Ads

Shopify is retiring checkout.liquid and transitioning to Checkout Extensibility, a faster, more secure, and upgrade-safe platform for checkout customizations. 

The upgrade deadline for Information, Shipping, and Payment pages is August 13, 2024, with automatic upgrades starting January 6, 2025, which will remove any existing customizations. 

The deadline for upgrading Thank you and Order status pages is August 28, 2025. Shopify Plus users can fully customise checkout through apps, while basic plans offer limited customisation. Shopify provides a customisation report to help merchants smoothly transition to Checkout Extensibility.

SOURCE: Shopify

Instagram is testing a new vertical grid display for user profiles, moving from traditional square thumbnails to longer still images, which aligns better with video content, particularly Reels. 

Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri stated that this change reflects the platform’s shift towards vertical content, acknowledging that cropping images into squares can be limiting for content creators. 

This update could significantly alter how users present their profiles and engage with their audience, prompting a reevaluation of posting strategies on the platform.

SOURCE: Social Media Today

Instagram is introducing improved text tools – including new fonts, animations and effects – to Reels and Stories. 

They’re also bringing text and stickers to photos and carousels. The hope is that these will give creators more flexibility to tell their stories and be more expressive with their content.

SOURCE: Instagram

August, 2024

RBA expected to lower cash rate to 3.6 percent by the end of next year.

This indicates that households will be squeezed for at least the next 6 months. Therefore, brands need to continue focusing on USPs and value propositions. Also, it’s worth considering lowering the barriers to purchase, such as offering free delivery or offering easy returns. 

SOURCE: Financial Review

This gives users more control over how their content is indexed by search engines; as users can opt out of having their public content appear in search results outside of Instagram.

SOURCE: Swipe Insights

Meta are making an update within insights to make “Views” the primary metric for reels, stories, photos and carousels. 

It will be easier to understand how your content is doing regardless of the format. However, you may need to adjust your reporting metrics in the coming months.

SOURCE: Head of Instagram’s Reel

ChatGPT’s OpenAI announced that they will be testing SearchGPT, a new AI search feature that will give fast and timely answers to user questions. 

This new search engine type can condense information and provide real-time information, reference and link websites in answers.

It’s essential that brands optimise their websites available for crawling and indexing by OpenAI’s search bots, which can be achieved by adding an allow function in the Robots.txt of the site.

SOURCE: OpenAI

July, 2024

In contrast to pre-rollout figures, 8% of the examined searches now trigger an AI Overview. This represents a 52% drop compared to January 2024 levels.

SOURCE: Search Engine Journal

Enables advertisers to display additional business and product information on their ads.

This feature allows the addition of multiple landing pages to a Facebook Ad, similar to Google Ads.

SOURCE: Swipe Insights

This integration aims to streamline data management and improve the performance analysis of advertising campaigns through GA4.

Only available to a limited number of accounts.

SOURCE: Swipe Insights

June, 2024

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