#TWIMshow - This Week in Marketing

1. Snapchat+ Reaches 1 Million Subscribers & Adds New Features - Snapchat+ launch was covered in Episode#115. And now it seems that in 6-weeks, Snapchat+ has crossed 1 Million subscribers. FYI: Snapchat+ is a premium membership tier available for $3.99 per month that grants access to exclusive features. At launch time, it had the following features:

• A Snapchat+ badge.
• “Ghost trails,” which is the ability to see where your friends were in the past 24 hours.
• The ability to see who rewatched your snaps.
• The option to designate a “best friend” and pin them to the top of your feed.
• Various exclusive icons and themes.

And now here are the new features that Snapchat has added:

• Priority story replies: Your replies will be more visible to influencers and celebrities.
• Post-view emoji: Show people a specific emoji after they view your snaps.
• Bitmoji backgrounds: More options when selecting a background for your bitmoji.
• App icons: Change the Snapchat icon on your Home Screen to one of several new designs.

Snapchat+ seems to have better features than the comparable subscription service Twitter Blue. And Twitter Blue is about a $1 more per month ($4.99). While Twitter hasn’t revealed how many premium subscribers it has. However, there’s evidence suggesting the service isn’t doing well. According to Twitter’s Q2 2022 earnings report, revenue from ‘subscriptions and other’ sources is down 36% year-over-year.

2. Pinterest Announces “Hosted Checkout” For Shopify Merchants - Pinterest claims that the Hosted Checkout shopping experience removes multiple steps from the checkout process, making it simpler than ever for people to shop on Pinterest—and for merchants to sell. According to them “This new purchasing process removes friction from the shopping process—making it simpler and faster for people to complete the purchase.”

Prior to hosted checkout, when shoppers wanted to shop from a product Pin, they has to click the Pin, visited the retailer’s own site and go through extra steps to add products to their cart, enter payment and shipping details, etc.

With hosted checkout, shoppers will pick the exact product they want—think colors or sizing. Then, they tap “Buy” to enter the hosted checkout experience via Shopify where they will enter details like shipping and payment.

In my opinion, it does eliminate couple of steps in the checkout process. The hidden benefits of this integration are:

a.) The time delay from transferring a shopper from Pinterest to Shopify store is eliminated

b.) Better conversion data that would otherwise be lost due to Apple’s ATT update.

3. 3 New Types Of Shopping Ads On TikTok - Advertisers can now run shopping ads on TikTok with three different formats to choose from. They are:

• Video shopping ads - Video shopping ads allow advertisers to create shoppable videos for display on the For You page. This ad type combines features from existing TikTok ads — collection ads and dynamic showcase ads. Video shopping ads will dynamically combine video creative and product cards into different variations. The format can be either product-specific to drive sales or a broader brand message to drive consideration. As TikTok gathers data, it will optimize a campaign’s performance by dynamically choosing the top converting combinations. When a user taps on the ad, TikTok will create an in-app landing page to better determine a user’s intent to buy. These pages let shoppers learn more about products and redirect users to a retailer’s site when they’re ready to purchase. Collection ads and dynamic showcase ads will remain available until the end of the year, then TikTok plans to phase them out in favor of video shopping ads.
• Catalog listing ads - Catalog listing ads allow advertisers to promote product catalogs at scale with new placements across TikTok. Something advertisers may appreciate about catalog listing ads is that they’re not required to create video content. The ads allow brands to get in front of the TikTok audience without making videos, which is a first. Instead of video, catalog listing ads pull product images from a retailer’s catalog and promotes them in shoppable placements. Users discover the ads through branded content on the For You page.
• Live shopping ads - Live shopping ads are specifically designed to promote live shopping streams. The ads help direct people from the For You page to a live shopping event. TikTok says these ads can boost traffic to a live shopping event by getting it in front of people who are ready to buy.

The new advertising formats are accessible in TikTok Ads manager th...

1. Wix Site Inspection Tool Integrates Google Search Console - Knowing whether your pages have been crawled (discovered by Google) or indexed (stored in Google’s index), or whether your structured data markup is valid, for example, can help you fine-tune your online presence and make large leaps in search visibility.

Google has always provided this information via Search Console, its platform for measuring search traffic and performance. To make those insights and tools more accessible to all business owners and SEO professionals, Wix now offers an approachable way to monitor and understand your site’s issues and indexing status at scale.

The Wix Site Inspection tool enables you to keep an eye on your site’s technical health, mobile usability, rich result eligibility, and more, without having to pull the data manually or leave the Wix dashboard.

“The tool will report any index status that Google is reporting, sometimes with easier language to understand. For example, it could be “crawled but not indexed” or “blocked by robots.txt” etc. Each index status detail will have a “learn more” link to an article explaining it and mentioning the common reasons why it could happen, with links to more relevant explanations. We also tell the users exactly what app and type of page each URL is so they can easily know where they need to take action.

With this tool, users can debug any issue that they would get if they manually used Search Console’s inspect URL tool. Users can understand the index status of their pages in Google and the specific reason for it. For each issue, we have additional resources to help guide users. These articles provide in depth explanations about each response, the possible reasons for it and how to fix it. Users will also be able to debug their mobile readiness and their structure data status.”

The value of Wix is that it enables businesses to focus on doing business without having to deal with the underlying technology.

Click here to learn more on how to get started with Wix Site Inspection tool.

2. Google: Duplicate Content In Business Profile Posts Is Spam - Google added a line to its Business Profile posts content policy section cautioning users to avoid posting duplicate content.

According to the update, duplicate content in posts published by Google Business Profiles is now considered spam. Google is sending a clear message that it wants businesses to post unique content.

In addition, it sounds like Google wants businesses to limit their use of logos. Putting a logo on every photo, for example, may get you in trouble. The best way to stay within the new guidelines is to ensure every post published by your Google Business Profile is unique.

Click here to read the complete content policy.

3. LinkedIn Lets You Add Clickable Links To Photo Posts - LinkedIn rolled out a new feature that allows users to add external links to photos shared in posts as stickers. You can add link stickers to your photos and videos via the post creation tools in the LinkedIn mobile app. You cannot add link stickers through the desktop interface. However, users on any platform can see and click on the links when they see the posts in their feed.

Link stickers are rolling out to users in phases, which means some people will have access to it before others. When you’re eligible to use it, you’ll see a chain link icon button when creating a post in the LinkedIn mobile app.

4. IndexNow attributed for 7% URL Clicks On Bing - Fabrice Canel, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft Bing told Search Engine Land that 7-percent of all the new URLs clicked in Bing Search in the past month were sourced from the IndexNow protocol. And more than 16 million websites are using IndexNow, publishing over 1.2 billion URLs per day to the IndexNow API.

IndexNow provides a method for website owners to instantly inform the supported search engines about the latest content changes on their website.

The IndexNow plugin was released by Microsoft back on Jan 5, 2022 and was covered in Episode#90. It was also covered in Episode#91 when it added support for Yandex - the russian search engine. It is unclear if IndexNow still sends data to Yandex now that there is a sanction on Russia since the Ukraine invasion.

5. Google: Clicking On Your Site In Google Search Won't Change Your Rankings - One of the oldest myths in the Google SEO-verse is that clicking on your search results in Google Search will help you rank better. However, Google does not and has never used click data for ranking purposes. So someone asked John Mueller of Google the other day if clicking on my own link doesn't help...

1. Shopify Lays Off 10% Of Workforce - Tobias Lütke, the founder of Shopify, announced that it is letting go of ten percent of its workforce. He blamed himself for misjudging trends, resulting in too many employees. What was anticipated at Shopify was that the rapid Covid-era increase in E-commerce shopping would continue as a trend, hastening a greater adoption of online shopping.

Unfortunately, the forecasted boom in post-Covid shopping failed to materialize. The CEO said that he decided to scale up hiring to meet the increased demand and that now that the projections are falling short, he was forced to make a difficult decision. Shopify employees face a layoff in recruiting, support roles, and sales.

2. Instagram Backtracks And Rethinking Instagram Forward Strategy - In a new interview with Casey Newton, Adam Mosseri explained that Instagram will actually take a step back from recommended content, as well as its experiment with a full-screen, TikTok-like viewing experience.

“For the new feed designs, people are frustrated and the usage data isn’t great. So there I think that we need to take a big step back, regroup, and figure out how we want to move forward. When you discover something in your field that you didn’t follow before, there should be a high bar - it should just be great. You should be delighted to see it, and I don’t think that’s happening enough right now. So I think we need to take a step back, in terms of the percentage of feed that are recommendations, get better at ranking and recommendations, and then - if and when we do - we can start to grow again.”

3. Revenue Roundup: Microsoft, Google & Meta - Here are some key takeaways:

1. Microsoft ad revenue decreased by about $100 million due to reductions in advertising spend
2. LinkedIn revenue increased 26%, while user sessions grew 22%.
3. Total Alphabet revenue 13% increase YoY to $69.7 billion (from $61.9 billion by the end of Q2 in 2021)
4. Google Ad revenue $56.3 billion (up from $50.4 in 2021)
5. YouTube revenue $7.3 billion (up 5% from $7 billion in 2021), which missed analysts’ predictions of $7.5 billion
6. Meta’s ad revenue dropped one percent in Q2 2022 compared to last year’s period.
7. They brought in $28.82 billion from ads, though it expected to earn $28.94 billion. One positive trend to note is Facebook’s daily active users are up three percent. There are now 1.97 billion people logging in every day.
8. Meta’s apps aren’t declining in popularity by any means. The audience is there. The problem is that advertisers have smaller budgets, and they’re not getting the same value from ads as they used to. To remedy the issue of declining ad revenue, Meta has plans to offer new types of monetization. More specifically, the company is working on ways to make money from Reels.

4. LinkedIn Launches Native Carousel Posts - LinkedIn users have been posting makeshift carousel posts for some time, using its PDF attachment option to create individual frames. And now, LinkedIn has decided to make it a fully-fledged functionality, with a new ‘Carousel’ post option being added to your update tools.

5. Pinterest Launches Real-Time Analytics - Pinterest has now officially launched real-time analytics elements within Pin Analytics on mobile, which will provide more data on exactly how your Pins are performing at any given time. Real-time insights are also available in the web Analytics platform, but now, you’ll also be able to access much of the same data on the go, which is likely where many more people are looking to check in.

Real-time insights are not available for audience metrics, like ‘Total Engaged Monthly Audience’ and age and gender filters. But you will be able to see overall data on response to your Pins, whenever you check in, which could be a helpful guide for your Pin strategy.

6. Google Extends Deadline For Third-Party (Tracking) Cookies To 2024 - Google is now expanding the testing window for its Privacy Sandbox APIs before it moves to disable third-party cookies in Chrome. They announced that it’s expanding the testing period for its Privacy Sandbox, and its alternative tracking tools, in order to give the industry more time to provide feedback and adjust to the coming shift.

“The most consistent feedback we’ve received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new Privacy Sandbox technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome. This feedback aligns with our commitment to the CMA to ensure that the Privacy Sandbox provides effective, privacy-preserving technologies and the industry has sufficient time to adopt these new solutions. This deliberate approach to transitioning from third-party cookies ensures that the web can continue to thrive, without relying on cross-site tracking ...

1. LinkedIn Business Manager is Now In Public Beta - The LinkedIn Business Manager was announced in June and finally the public beta was announced this week. Unlike invite-only betas, our public beta is open to all marketers who want to use Business Manager.

The new business manager dashboard allows advertisers who manage multiple ad accounts to grant access to ad accounts and pages, create and edit campaigns, manage pages, and create reports.

Matched audiences allow you to retarget your website visitors, and upload lists of accounts or emails to target within LinkedIn. Through the new Business Manager, you can share those matched audiences across all accounts.

You can create a Business Manager account here. When you move your current ad accounts under the Business Manager umbrella, all settings including current campaigns and billing remain the same.

2. Twitter Posts Lower Revenue Despite Adding 9 Mil Users - Twitter added 9 million new daily active users in Q2’2022, taking it to 238 million total mDAU. Most of the new growth has come from international markets, with Twitter only adding 2 million new users in the US. In terms of its ‘rest of the World’ stats, Twitter hasn’t provided a breakdown of where its newest 7 million users have come from, but Japan and India remain its second and third largest user bases, after the US.

In terms of revenue, Twitter brought in $1.18 billion in Q2, a decrease of 1% year-over-year.

3. Snapchat Added 15 Million New Users - Snap Inc. has posted its Q2 2022 numbers, which show a steady increase in usage, but slower growth on the revenue side. First off, on users – Snapchat added 15 million more users in Q2, taking it up to 347 million daily actives. Though Snapchat has seen significant growth in India, there was virtually no growth in the North American market.

Average revenue per user remains relatively low in other markets, especially in the ‘Rest of the World’ category, where Snap added the majority of its new users.

4. Meta Launches Small Business Studios Project - Meta has launched a new Small Business Studios project, which will provide both online and in-person training elements to help small businesses make the most of their marketing efforts across both Facebook and Instagram.

• Build Your Brand workshop: An online workshop providing creative inspiration and branding guidance to small businesses using Facebook and Instagram. This workshop champions a customer mindset and dives in on business branding, how to build copy and creative when creating a post and then deciding what to post.
• Reels School: A course designed for small businesses to simplify Reels creation while expanding their audience reach and helping achieve business goals.
• Photography virtual workshop: Since building great creative can feel daunting, this training pairs small businesses with an expert to teach owners how to make great, low-cost and low-lift images that are made for mobile.

In addition to this, you can also sign-up to get a one-on-one business support session with someone from Meta’s Small Business Team, which could provide some valuable insight into how to maximize your Facebook and Instagram presences.

It’s also one of the only ways that you might be able to speak to a real person within Meta, which could see it flooded with non-brand-building queries. Either way, you can register for the initiative here.

You can learn more about Meta’s Small Business Studio programs and content here.

5. Facebook Changing The News Feed - “One of the most requested features for Facebook is to make sure people don’t miss friends’ posts. So today we’re launching a Feeds tab where you can see posts from your friends, groups, Pages and more separately in chronological order. The app will still open to a personalized feed on the Home tab, where our discovery engine will recommend the content we think you’ll care most about. But the Feeds tab will give you a way to customize and control your experience further.”

Facebook’s main UI will now be split into a ‘Home’ feed, which will primarily focus on recommended content to keep you entertained, while you’ll also have a new ‘Feeds’ tab, where you’ll be able to view the latest posts in different categories, including ‘Favorites’, ‘Friends’, ‘Groups’, etc.

The move shifts the Facebook experience more into line with TikTok, which calls itself an ‘entertainment app’, not a social network.

6. Instagram Adds In-Chat Payment Feature - Now you can m...

1. Removing Unwanted Mentions In Twitter - With the help of a brand-new feature called unmentioning, Twitter now lets users remove their own tags from messages.

Unmentioning enables individuals to disengage from a conversation they do not wish to be a part of.

It's an improvement over muting a conversation because it takes away the reference to the specified person's account and stops others from bringing up the subject again.

Here's more information on how unmentioning functions and what happens after you do it on Twitter.

• It removes the link to your Twitter profile from the original tweet and all replies.
• It stops people from mentioning you again in the same conversation.
• It stops any further notifications about the conversation you were tagged in.

To unmention yourself, tap the three-dot menu at the top right of the tweet and select “leave this conversation.” Confirm your decision, and all tags will be removed.

2. Twitter Now Prompts You To Add Alt Text Descriptions To Images - Hey, are you adding alt text captions to your images? You should be, and now, Twitter’s going to prompt you to do exactly that, with new pop-ups being shown to some users alerting them to the benefits of alternative text summaries within tweets.

Text descriptions are a key tool for visually impaired users, with screen readers able to communicate these descriptions to add relevant context.

FYI: Facebook introduced a new technology called automatic alternative text (AAT) in 2016, that generates descriptions of photos on demand so that blind or visually impaired individuals can more fully enjoy their News Feed.

3. Netflix Partners With Microsoft For Ad Supported Tier - FYI: On Wednesday, July 13th, 2022 Microsoft announced that they had been selected as the new partner to help bring an ad-supported subscription plan to Netflix.

Last month the media speculated that Google & NBCUniversal were frontrunners, but it makes sense for Netflix to partner up with Microsoft - they do not have competing products aka streaming service. The details of the partnership are scanty and we will bring you additional information as it is released to the public.

4. YouTube Explains The Appeals Process For Community Guidelines Violation - A product manager at YouTube answered commonly asked questions about submitting appeals for community guidelines violation strikes. So what is a community guidelines violation? When a YouTube creator publishes content that violates the website’s community guidelines, they receive a strike against their channel.

We are publishing a blog on Tuesday (7/19/22) that will go in depth on this topic.

5. Video Index Report Is Now Available In Google Search Console - Google is adding a new report to Search Console that will help you understand how your videos perform in search results. The Video Indexing report makes it easy to identify and fix issues preventing your videos from surfacing in Google Search.

FYI: If Google detects videos on your site, the Video indexing report will appear on the left navigation bar in the coverage section. If Google has not detected a video on your website, you will not see the report.

The report will help you answer the following questions:

• In how many pages has Google identified a video?
• Which videos were indexed successfully?
• What are the issues preventing videos from being indexed?

In addition, if you fix an existing issue, you can use the report to validate the fix and track how your fixed video pages are updated in the Google index.

6. Not All Search Queries Show Up In Google Search Console - A couple of weeks ago, Ahrefs released a report showing that on average about 50% of queries in Search Console are hidden, i.e. classified as anonymized. The Ahrefs study looked at 146,741 websites and about nine billion total clicks and it compared the total clicks by URL compared to the clicks by query reported in Google Search Console. It found that Google hid 46.08% of all query data, or as Google calls it, classified them as anonymized queries.

Now Google has updated their help document from saying "Very rare queries (called anonymized queries) are not shown in these results to protect the privacy of the user making the query" to saying "Some queries (called anonymized queries) are not shown in these results to protect the privacy of the user making the query."

Google also added a section about "other limits on queries" that says "due to internal limitations, Search Console stores top data rows and not all data rows. As a result, not all queries beyond anonymized...