Our Senior Performance Marketing Manager, Tom, and Senior Performance Marketing Executive, Kylie, discuss this week’s top digital headlines. The biggest news this week is about Facebook changing its ads in response to the current privacy crackdown. Plus, Google has gotten rid of its structured data testing tool. Also, Reddit has moved away from programmatic ads, Google has recommended that site owners should add the Author URL to their Article schema, and an update has recently been rolled out for Google Ads Editor.
Here are this week’s five digital headlines to watch:
Facebook changing ads in response to privacy crackdown
Facebook ads are to receive a full revamp following changes from Apple and a crackdown on tracking happening across the internet. They are calling it a ‘rebuild’ that will protect customers’ privacy more than ever. Having seen a major impact from iOS14.5 it’s no surprise Facebook is looking to change direction. Many other large brands and advertisers are finding the platform less effective than before.
It looks like for now the new privacy-focused system will be focused on ‘on-device’ learning. This means that your device will learn over time what type of ads do and don’t resonate with you. This will protect the privacy of users as the information will never leave your device.
Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool is no more
It’s been a while coming but Google has finally removed their Structured Data Testing Tool. There is now a landing page that suggests two alternative tools.
- Google’s own Rich Results Test to see which Google Rich Results in your structured data can generate.
- Schema.org’s Markup Validator identifies errors and warnings in your structured data much like the old Structured Data Testing Tool used to do, with a very similar look and feel.
Unsurprisingly, Google seems to favour its own Rich Results Test but we think both tools will come in handy to use together when checking your structured data implementation.
Reddit moves away from programmatic ads
Reddit has taken the decision to move away from allowing programmatic ads on its platform and is instead pushing customers to use its own native solution.
This move has clearly paid off as they saw a 192% increase in revenue compared to the same period last year. Reddit is continuing to invest in both the audio and video sides of its business. This all should provide more advertising platforms in the future. Reddit has also set up its own inhouse creative team to help advertisers get content in front of customers.
Google recommends adding Author URL to Article schema
Google has recommended that site owners should add the Author URL to their Article schema to remove any ambiguity between Google identifying the correct author for a piece of content. To be clear, the Author URL property is not new and has always been nested within Article schema, but it has always been optional. Now, Google is actively recommending adding this field.
Google’s Quality Raters look for information about articles when evaluating content and an inadequate amount of information about who wrote a piece of content can result in your article being perceived as low quality. By adding the extra field pointing to the author’s bio page or a link to their social media profile, you can easily provide this information.
With the focus on content quality being a massive part of Google’s recent updates, we recommend following all of Google’s guidelines to ensure your content is as trustworthy as possible.
New features in Google Ads Editor
An update has recently been rolled out for Google Ads Editor. The update includes new features bringing it in line with the web interface. It also has a new download option that lets you choose what sections of a campaign you want to download. This, therefore, speeds up the process.
Additionally, lead form and YouTube audio ads have been added. These have been available online for some time now. Finally, a big one which has been missing in ads editor for nearly 3 years is Hotel ads. This can now be created and maintained in Ads Editor.
Are you looking for digital marketing support? Drop us an email at team@modo25.com for an informal chat. We look forward to discovering how we can support you with your digital marketing success – let’s work together.
