Google’s monthly Privacy Sandbox timeline update indicates that the company will push back FLoC testing from Q4 2021 (announced in July) to Q1 2022. Testing of FLEDGE, the company’s remarketing solution designed so that third parties cannot track user behavior across sites, is being delayed to Q1 2022 as well.
The Privacy Sandbox timeline, as of October 1, 2021.
The “Discussion” period, originally set to end in Q3 2021, in which “technologies and their prototypes are discussed in forums such as GitHub or W3C groups,” has been extended through to the end of Q4 2021. This also has an impact on when testing is estimated to end, pushing that back from the end of Q2 to the end of Q3 2022.
Additionally, testing for the APIs that fall under the “measure digital ads” category have also been delayed to Q1 2022.
Why we care
These changes may affect when Chrome will phase out support for third-party cookies. Google has eliminated the “Ready for adoption” stage from the FLoC and FLEDGE parts of the timeline and another delay may mean a shorter testing period or that Google will have to push back its planned Stage 1 period (the green column in the table above, expected to last from Q4 2022 through to the end of Q2 2023). At some point during Stage 1, the company will announce a new timeline that lowers third-party cookies’ “Time to Live”.
More about the Privacy Sandbox timeline
The timeline divides initiatives into four categories (“fight spam and fraud on the web,” “show relevant content and ads,” “measure digital ads,” and “strengthen cross-site privacy boundaries”). APIs shown on the timeline are based on Google’s current expectations and are subject to change. The timeline will be updated monthly.The phases indicated on the timeline are as follows:
Discussion – The technologies and their prototypes are discussed in forums such as GitHub or W3C groups.
Testing – All technologies for the use case are available for developers to test and may be refined based on results.
Ready for adoption – Once the development process is complete, the successful technologies are ready to be used at scale. They will be launched in Chrome and ready for scaled use across the web.
Transition period: Stage 1 – APIs for each use case are available for adoption. Chrome will monitor adoption and feedback carefully before moving to next stage.
Transition period: Stage 2 – Chrome will phase out support for third-party cookies over a three-month period finishing in late 2023.
Google Ads is launching a new budget report to visualize monthly campaign spend behavior, the company announced Thursday.
The new budget report. Image: Google Ads.
What the budget report shows. The budget report shows daily spend, your campaign’s monthly spending limit (solid grey line), your monthly spend forecast (dotted blue line), cost to date (solid blue line) and any budget changes you’ve made during that particular month.
The shaded blue area shows the prediction intervals that indicate the upper and lower bound that the actual aggregate spend will likely land for a given day. Changes to your average daily budget are represented by arrow icons on the days the budget changed and you can hover over the arrows to see the budget changes.
How to access the budget report. To see the budget report, you’ll first need to have a campaign with a date range that includes the current month. The budget report is accessible from the Campaigns page, the shared library and the Ad groups page.
Why we care. This new report can help advertisers understand how editing their budget can impact the campaign’s spending limits, how past changes to average daily budget can affect performance and spend limits, and how much they’re projected to pay at the end of month. That information can then be used to improve their planning.
Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.
Good morning, Marketers, your reputation precedes you.
What does the web have to say about your business? What’s your online reputation look like these days? Platforms like Google have been making efforts to increase transparency so that users have all the information they need to stay safe, but also to protect themselves from increased regulatory scrutiny.
On the PPC side, we’re seeing this play out in Google’s “About this advertiser” initiative (more on that below). On the organic side, the search engine launched the “About this result” box in February and, over the summer, expanded it to include why it ranked a specific search result.
Although users probably aren’t inspecting these details before every click from the SERP, all the information is available to them, which means that it’s easier for them to find out more about your brand. If you’re in a highly competitive space, and/or if your reputation isn’t stellar, the information could cost you conversions. And, with consumer preference and regulatory trends the way they are, platforms will most likely be releasing more of these features to take some of the heat off. If that’s scary for you, perhaps it’s time to audit your online reputation and business practices to make the necessary changes before it’s too late.
George Nguyen, Editor
Google Ads announces machine learning-based data-driven attribution models in new privacy landscape
“In a move away from last-click, data-driven attribution [DDA] will soon be the default attribution model for all new Google Ads conversion actions,” tweeted Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin on Monday morning. As Google works toward a more privacy-focused search experience for users, it’s also adjusting the available attribution models for advertisers.
DDA works by looking at all the touchpoints, like clicks and video engagements, on your Search (including Shopping), YouTube and Display ads in Google Ads to compare the paths of customers who converted with ones who didn’t. The model then identifies patterns among those interactions that lead to conversations. Over the coming months, Google Ads will be migrating existing conversion actions to DDA for many advertisers over the coming months, Marvin said.
Why we care. Attribution has long been an issue for marketers. This conundrum is especially salient as FLoC threatens to take away even more data from search advertisers — leaving them cobbling together data on their own. Google Ad’s machine learning attribution model seems to be Google’s solution to this lack of data. “Privacy-centric, DDA trains on real conversion paths & uses machine learning to measure and model conversion credits across touchpoints, even when cookies are missing,” added Marvin.
Additionally, DDA was previously only available to accounts with enough conversions in their recent history. Now, all accounts can run it and it’s replacing last-click as the default.
Many advertisers have claimed that the lack of data and reliance on machine learning makes their jobs harder (how can we optimize when we don’t know exactly what is causing success or failure?). This is another case where they will have to just trust the information that Google Ads is giving them without seeing the inside of the process. However, if done well, it could help many advertisers better understand which campaigns and ads are contributing to overall success throughout the funnel.
Should robots.txt support a feature for no indexation? Take the survey
Have you ever blocked a page from being crawled, yet still wanted it indexed? Eric Enge, SEO veteran and general manager at Perficient Digital, says that he’s never encountered such a situation in his 20+ years in the industry.
A few professionals have taken this idea to Google’s John Mueller, asking whether the company has considered making it so that robots.txt files don’t just block crawling, but also indexation: “That would be a significant change in expectations (and yes, we do think about these things regardless). Do you have some examples where this would cause a visible improvement in search?” Mueller responded. “I’d like to avoid adding more directives. I’m still not aware of common issues caused by this documented functionality … SEOs worry about indexing, but usually these URLs only rank for site:-queries (or if there isn’t other, better content on the site), so it feels artificial?”
What do YOU think? Would it be helpful to have a feature in Robots.txt that allowed you to specify the pages you don’t want to have indexed? Take our quick three-question poll and let us know what you think.
SMX Next Super Early Bird rates end this Saturday
With October right around the corner, marketers should be building out their roadmap for 2022. At SMX Next, happening November 9–10, we hope to help you overcome the search marketing challenges you’re currently facing as well as prepare you for what’s next.
On the SEO side, there’ll be sessions covering Python SEO, auditing your Core Web Vitals and ranking in Discover, News and Web Stories, to name a few. PPC practitioners that attend can learn about incrementality testing, advanced modeling for better forecasting as well as how to develop an RSA strategy as ETAs go by the wayside.
As a former content marketer, I’m particularly excited about our session on the future of content creation, in which we’ll learn how to generate hundreds of new content ideas using data analysis. And, as a member of the search industry, I consider it an honor to present to you career development sessions on effective mentorship programs and what to look for when hiring SEOs.
There are way more sessions that you’ll be able to view live or on-demand, and if you register before 11:59 p.m. ET this Saturday, October 2, you’ll be able to take all those learnings back to your company and with you for the rest of your career, at the lowest possible rate. I hope to see you there!
‘About this advertiser’ initiative now includes Advertisers Pages for Google Ads
Image: Google.
Last year, Google launched an identity verification program for advertisers, and with that came the “About the advertiser” disclosure. Last week, the company expanded on this transparency measure by adding advertiser pages that enable users to see the ads a specific verified advertiser has run over the past 30 days. This expansion will be rolling out on YouTube and Google Search in the coming months.
Why we care. The advertiser page gives PPC experts the opportunity to show the integrity of their advertising to users but also leaves a trail of previous advertisements. This will hopefully help keep advertisers in compliance with Google’s ad policies and encourage them to think about how their ad history affects any current ads. It seems like there might be an opportunity for competitors to report ad violations (how would consumers know what violates Google’s ads policies?), but that seems like a super niche use case for this feature.
An attribute for Latino-owned businesses, and jokes that aren’t really jokes
The Latino-owned GMB attribute may be on the way. Google My Business profile managers may already be familiar with the women-led, Asian-owned or veteran-led profile attributes (to name just a few), and it looks like the platform will be adding a Latino-owned attribute soon. Tip of the hat to Colan Nielsen for bringing this to our attention.
The metaverse is an environment created by marketers…for marketers? “Marketers often go into new experiences with brand myopia, over-inflating how much people actually want to engage with their brands,” said Marketoonist creator Tom Fishburne. But, as my colleague Chris Wood so concisely put it, “Brands should experiment with new platforms when a sufficient number of their customers are there.”
Microsoft Advertising has introduced Credit card ads as an open beta, the company announced Tuesday. Credit card ads will become available this week to advertisers targeting customers in the U.S. and Canada. Over the last six months, the company has also launched ad formats specifically for the travel and leisure and automotive sectors.
An example of Credit card ads in the search results. Image: Microsoft Advertising.
Where and when Credit card ads can appear. Credit card ads appear on the right rail of Bing search results and run alongside mainline text ad placements. These ads can trigger for queries like brand name, card category and credit level.
How Credit card ads work. Credit card ads are dynamically generated based on advertisers’ data feeds. The feed file should contain business data like the card issuer, annual fee and any sign-up bonuses. Keywords are not required and Microsoft Advertising does not need to crawl your site to generate content for this ad format.
How to get started. To register for the open beta, contact your Microsoft Advertising representative or enroll at this link.
Why we care. This format may be useful for credit card advertisers, like banks, brands and comparison sites, to showcase their promotions. They may also offer increased efficiency for this particular segment of advertisers: “In early flights of Credit card ads, advertisers so far have seen 70% lower cost per acquisition,” Microsoft said.
From an industry standpoint, Microsoft Advertising is on a streak of launching vertical-specific, feed-based products that are unique to the company — in addition to Credit card ads, the company has rolled out open betas for Tours and Activities ads and Automotive ads over the last six months. The platform’s strategy of appealing to advertisers with automated ad formats tailored specifically to their industry may help it achieve wider adoption and increase its market share.
“In a move away from last-click, data-driven attribution will soon be the default attribution model for all new Google Ads conversion actions,” tweeted Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin on Monday morning. As Google works toward a move privacy-focused search experience for users, it’s also adjusting the available attribution models for advertisers.
“[Data-driven attribution] uses advanced machine learning to more accurately understand how each marketing touchpoint contributed to a conversion, all while respecting user privacy,” according to an announcement from Vidhya Srinivasan, VP/GM Buying, Analytics and Measurement, Google Ads.
How it works. “Data-driven attribution looks at all the interactions—including clicks and video engagements—on your Search (including Shopping), YouTube, and Display ads in Google Ads. By comparing the paths of customers who convert to the paths of customers who don’t, the model identifies patterns among those ad interactions that lead to conversions,” says the about page.
Benefits according to Google. In its “About data-driven attribution” page, Google lists potential benefits for advertisers:
Learn which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns play the biggest role in helping you reach your business goals.
Optimize your bidding based on your specific account’s performance data.
Choose the right attribution model for your business, without guesswork.
The default last-click model only counts the final interaction toward the attribution, so advertisers have the potential to miss out on contributing micro-conversions along the user journey. “Data-driven attribution provides advertisers and businesses with reporting that better reflects the full marketing journey and higher performing bidding, which adapts to customers’ real journeys to conversion,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.
Ad availability. The data-driven attribution model is now available for Search, Shopping, Display and YouTube ads. The announcement also adds that Google will be “adding support for more conversion types, including in-app and offline conversions. We’re also removing the data requirements for campaigns so that you can use data-driven attribution for every conversion action.”
Opting out. For advertisers that do not wish to participate in the data-driven attribution option from Google Ads, the five rule-based attribution models will still be available:
Last click: Gives all credit for the conversion to the last-clicked ad and corresponding keyword.
First click: Gives all credit for the conversion to the first-clicked ad and corresponding keyword.
Linear: Distributes the credit for the conversion equally across all ad interactions on the path.
Time decay: Gives more credit to ad interactions that happened closer in time to the conversion. Credit is distributed using a 7-day half-life. In other words, an ad interaction 8 days before a conversion gets half as much credit as an ad interaction 1 day before a conversion.
Position-based: Gives 40% of credit to both the first and last ad interactions and corresponding keywords, with the remaining 20% spread out across the other ad interactions on the path.
However, it seems it will be a manual switch as “Over the coming months, we’ll be migrating existing conversion actions to DDA for many advertisers,” added Marvin. “When you set up a new conv action it’ll default to DDA (instead of last-click). You can select a different model if preferred. For existing conv actions, many will be migrated to DDA, but with plenty of warning to opt out & stick with another model. You can still switch any time,” she added in a new tweet. DDA will also be available in Google Analytics 4.
Other features and updates. Along with the transition to DDA, Google Ads has announced “a number of privacy-centric measurement features and product updates – many of which will directly impact advertisers,” said a spokesperson. These features and updates include the following:
Enhanced conversions: As a follow up on our announcement earlier this year, enhanced conversions are now available to all eligible advertisers.
Engaged-view conversions for display: A more robust non-click conversion measurement. Engaged-view conversions allow you to measure conversions that take place after someone views 10 seconds or more of your ad, but doesn’t click, and then converts within a set amount of days.
Why we care. Attribution has long been an issue that marketers have faced. This conundrum is especially salient as FLoC threatens to take away even more data from search advertisers — leaving them cobbling together data on their own. Google Ad’s machine learning attribution model seems to be Google’s solution to this lack of data. “Privacy-centric, DDA trains on real conversion paths & uses machine learning to measure and model conversion credits across touchpoints, even when cookies are missing,” added Marvin.
This is a “pretty big shift,” tweeted Kirk Williams, Founder of ZATO Marketing and PPC expert. “Data-Driven Attribution (DDA) was previously only available to accounts who had enough conversions in recent history to build the models to run DDA accurately.” To Williams, this indicates two big changes for Google:
All accounts can now run DDA immediately (I assume this means Google has enough confidence in its algorithms and sampling now, even for smaller accounts).
Attribution by default on accounts appears to have changed from last-click to DDA.
Many advertisers have claimed that the lack of data and reliance on machine learning makes their jobs harder (how can we optimize when we don’t know exactly what is causing success or failure?). This is another case where they will have to just trust the information that Google Ads is giving them without seeing the inside of the process. However, if done well, it could help many advertisers better understand which campaigns and ads are contributing to overall success throughout the funnel.
We will add more information on the new attribution model as it comes in.
A phrase match or broad match keyword that is identical to a query is now always preferred as long as it is eligible to match, Google announced on Thursday. In addition, the company has provided new details on how keyword matching works when a search is identical to a given keyword as well as when a search is not identical to any of an advertiser’s keywords. And, Google has also revealed that BERT’s language understanding capabilities are now being used to understand the intent of queries and match them to keywords.
BERT for keyword matching. “Since 2019, our research team has made significant improvements in how we interpret language, queries, and search intentㅡand your keywords now use this same technology to connect you with more people that are searching for what you have to offer,” Google said, referring to BERT, a neural network-based technique for natural language processing pre-training that Google uses to better discern the context of words in search queries.
While not necessarily specific to keyword matching, the improvements in language understanding that BERT enables helps Google understand the intent behind queries and match them to keywords.
BERT technology can be especially useful for broad match keywords. “For example, a highly specific query like ‘1995 5 speed transmission seal input shaft’ is now able to match with the broad match keyword auto parts because we can tell they’re related, even though none of the words in the query and in the keyword actually match,” the company provided as an example.
Searches that are identical to your keywords. When Google announced that it was expanding phrase match to include broad match modifier traffic earlier this year, it told advertisers that an exact match keyword that’s identical to a query will always take priority, so long as it’s eligible to match. Moving forward, broad match and phrase match keywords will follow that same behavior.
Here’s an example provided by Google: “Let’s say someone searches for ‘sushi delivery near me’, and you have the broad match keywords sushi delivery and sushi delivery near me. Before this update, both of these keywords would be eligible to serve. Now, the keyword sushi delivery near me is preferred because it is identical to the search term. Note that if you have an eligible exact match keyword that is identical to the query, it will still be preferred over the phrase and broad match keyword.”
Now that broad and phrase match keywords that are identical to a search term also receive priority, according to Google, there is no benefit to using the same keyword in multiple match types as broad match already covers the same queries. However, depending on your structure and setup, this may not apply so test before making any changes.
When a search isn’t identical to any of your keywords.Ad Rank used to determine which keyword was served when multiple keywords matched, but none were identical to the search. Now, in addition to Ad Rank, Google is taking relevance signals into account. Relevance is determined by assessing the meaning of the search term, the meaning of all the keywords in the ad group and the landing pages within the ad group. Here’s a breakdown of how various scenarios may play out:
Keywords that are eligible
How keywords are selected
More than one broad match keyword
Only relevant broad match keywords from the most relevant ad groups will be considered. Ad Rank is then used to decide which keyword will be selected among this narrow set of broad match keywords with similar relevance.
One broad match keyword and one exact match / phrase match keyword
If you have exact match or phrase match keywords that are deemed more relevant than these broad match keywords, the exact or phrase match keyword will be selected.
If you have exact match or phrase match keywords that are deemed similar or less relevant than these broad match keywords, there is still a chance the exact or phrase match keyword will be selected if it has a higher Ad Rank.
More than one exact match / phrase match keyword
If you have multiple exact and/or phrase match keywords eligible and no broad match keywords eligible, the keyword with the higher Ad Rank will be selected.
To illustrate this in action, Google provided this example: “Let’s say someone now searches for “quick sushi delivery near me”, and you have the phrase match keyword “fast sushi delivery” and the broad match keyword food delivery. In this instance, the phrase match keyword will be selected because it’s more relevant, even if it has a lower Ad Rank than the broad match keyword.”
Why we care. The natural language processing capabilities BERT brings to keyword matching may mean that your ads get shown for more relevant searches. Knowing how Google matches keywords can help you save time and better configure your campaigns. However, the removal of search terms not deemed “significant” remains a problem for broad match. Google has added more historical data for queries that received impressions but no clicks, which can be helpful, but advertisers may be missing out on important search query data if broad match terms with less “significant” queries drive more traffic.
Google also recommended that advertisers group keywords into thematically consistent ad groups so their ads will serve from the ad group they expect them to: “Let’s say your business offers food delivery, and your most popular search categories are sushi and pizza delivery. In this case, we’d recommend three ad groups so you can tailor your creative and landing page: one for ‘sushi delivery’, another for ‘pizza delivery’, and a third for ‘food delivery’.”
“To give users of our products even more transparency, we are enhancing ad disclosures with new advertiser pages. Users can access these disclosures in our new ‘About this ad’ menu to see the ads a specific verified advertiser has run over the past 30 days,” said Google in an announcement today.
As part of the company’s advertiser transparency initiative, Google Ads introduced their advertiser identity verification program as well as their “About this ad” information this past year. The new Advertiser Page program takes that transparency for searchers to the next level.
Users can learn more about advertisers and report ad policy violations. “This transparency helps users learn more about the company behind a specific ad. It also helps differentiate credible advertisers in the ecosystem, while limiting the ability of bad actors to misrepresent themselves,” according to the announcement blog. Searchers can report any ad policy violations they believe an ad is breaching. From there a Google team member reviews it and takes the ad down if the violations are found to be true.
What type of advertiser info is displayed? “[The advertiser page] will be generated based on the approved ads running and the information in their account. In terms of information about the advertiser, we will continue to show the advertiser’s name and location,” a Google representative told us.
YouTube has highest ad control adoption. “Users engage with our ads transparency and control tools on YouTube more than any other Google product,” added the announcement. As such, Google Ads will be rolling out the “About this ad” option for YouTube and Search in the coming months, as well.
Why we care. The advertiser page gives PPC experts the opportunity to show the integrity of their advertising to users but also leaves a trail of previous advertisements. This will hopefully help keep advertisers in compliance with Google’s ad policies and may be thinking about how their ad history affects any current ads. It seems like there might be an opportunity for competitors to report ad violations (how would consumers know what violates Google’s ads policies?), but that seems like a super niche use case for this feature.
Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.
Good morning, Marketers, and the coworking space saga continues.
Once a month my coworking space has a catered lunch. It wasn’t the reason I signed up for this spot (the proximity to daycare was the driving factor), but it is a nice benefit. The other cool part is that it’s not just a Chipotle buffet. Don’t get me wrong. I am the least snobby food person. I will gladly eat Chipotle and enjoy it.
But the catered lunches are gourmet. Yesterday there were quail egg Croque Madames, spicy pesto avocado toasts, and cream of celery root soup with beet puree and fresh grapes. As a non-fancy eater, this menu was a hit or miss for me (who puts cold grapes in hot soup?). But what I love most is that it makes me try new foods that I would never have tasted before.
I recently asked on Twitter how search marketers level up their careers (stay with me here), and a lot of people said TRY NEW THINGS. Oftentimes we get caught up in what we have to do and what we’re good at doing, but trying new things (that you probably never would have tried before) can be a big key in taking the next steps in your career.
New things can be anything: taking Python classes, learning the basics of design in Canva, negotiating a raise if you never have before, taking the lead on a project you normally wouldn’t have.
So today I’m encouraging you to try new things! Whether it’s on a menu or in your job. Take the risk. Try the thing. Advance your career! Just do it.
P.S. Want to learn more about leveling up your search marketing career? That’s what my SMX Next keynote is all about. Plus we’ll have a whole track dedicated to what’s next for our profession.
Carolyn Lyden, Director of Search Content
Google Ads will combine Smart and standard Display campaigns
Beginning this month, Google Ads will combine standard Display campaigns and Smart Display campaigns into a single option. In addition, Google Ads will also be introducing optimized targeting to Display campaigns.
When advertisers create a new campaign, they’ll see the new Display campaign type. During the setup process, advertisers can choose what to automate or control manually, and they can change their automation choices at any time without having to create a new campaign.
Why we care. Soon, there will be just one option to create Display campaigns. The new Display campaign type will have the same controls for bidding, ads and audiences that standard Display campaigns currently offer. And, “Existing Smart & standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time,” Ginny Marvin, Google’s ads product liaison stated on Twitter.
“It’s hard to tell from the announcement, but hopefully there won’t be a major near-term impact,” Greg Finn, partner at Cypress North, told Search Engine Land. “Additionally, some advertisers will be able to test the power of Smart Display automation without having to create a one-off ‘Smart’ campaign.”
Reddit invests in advertising features (as promised)
With its latest round of funding, Reddit promised to expand advertising options to help businesses drive more qualified leads. Well, it didn’t take long, from what we can see. The latest announcement indicates that ad features are where the platform’s headed. What’s new?
Bid Recommendation: Leverage the bid recommendation tool in the ad group build page for guidance on what to bid to reach your target audience.
Improved Bulk Edit Tool: Save time optimizing campaigns by updating bids and budgets across multiple ad groups simultaneously.
Updated look w/ Better Performance: Loading times with the updated dashboard are also now 2x faster than before.
Why we care. As an avid Redditor, one thing I love is that the communities (called subs) are so niche and specific to certain groups and interests. While they are generally wary of advertising, there’s an opportunity there to really hone in your targeting and find the exact people who would want your product or service. These upgraded advertising options will help marketers do that even more effectively now.
Search Shorts: Writing and stages of the funnel for both SEO and PPC
SEO: How to plan SEO content that actually ranks. Learn how to identify metrics for content goals, perform keyword research that drives SEO value and build your content calendar from Hubspot’s head of English SEO, Aja Frost.
PPC: How to write ad copy that actually converts (and 3 major mistakes to avoid). When testing copy, make it worth testing. Use power words or emotional calls-to-action to really analyze what messaging has a stronger appeal and why, from Alyssa Altman, Vice President at WORX.
PPC: Three PPC targeting tactics that power every stage of the funnel. “You can make any channel work for you depending on who your prospects are and which channels they use and which targeting options are available across all channels,” said Amy Bishop, Owner and Marketing Consultant at Cultivative.
SEO: How to drive the funnel through content marketing and link building. “It isn’t so much about what you want to tell your audience, it’s what you understand they want to learn and what’s going to be helpful for them,” suggested Eve Sangenito, director at Perficient.
Joke of the day
“I don’t kill spiders. Why? Because I can’t harm a fellow web developer,” tweeted Florin Pop.
Beginning this month, Google Ads will combine standard Display campaigns and Smart Display campaigns into a single option, the company announced on Wednesday. In addition, Google Ads will also be introducing optimized targeting to Display campaigns.
The new Display campaign type. “In this new Display campaign experience, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to, with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences,” Bonnie Pericolosi, director of product management, Google Display ads, wrote. During the campaign setup process, advertisers can choose what to automate or control manually, and they can change their automation choices at any time without having to create a new campaign.
“No action is needed: Existing Smart & Standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time. Once this update is rolled out in your account, you’ll see the new Display campaign type option and workflow when you create a new campaign,” Ginny Marvin, Google’s ads product liaison, said on Twitter.
Optimized targeting will be available for Display campaigns. Along with this change, Google Ads will also introduce optimized targeting, which treats audience settings as signals to find audience segments that may improve campaign performance, to Display campaigns. Previously, this option was only available on Smart Display campaigns. Note: Optimized targeting is automatically enabled for all campaigns.
Why we care. Soon, there will be just one option to create Display campaigns. The new Display campaign type will have the same controls for bidding, ads and audiences that standard Display campaigns currently offer. And, as Marvin stated, existing Smart and standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time.
“It’s hard to tell from the announcement, but hopefully there won’t be a major near-term impact,” Greg Finn, partner at Cypress North, told Search Engine Land, “Additionally, some advertisers will be able to test the power of Smart Display automation without having to create a one-off ‘Smart’ campaign.”
Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.
Good morning, Marketers, and do you remember office life?
By now you probably know I work from a coworking space. They’ve recently started construction to expand it, which is great because there will be more room! But it’s also awful because the construction noise is atrocious. To remedy this and to save the ears of the poor people I spend all day on calls with, I booked a conference room for the afternoon.
Just like at the office (remember those?), I arrived at the room for my booked time, and it was occupied. I waited until exactly noon (my reservation hour) and then politely knocked and waved. The squatters acted surprised but still took their sweet time to gather their things and leave.
I rushed in, late for my first call, and got settled. But once I got a chance to take a breath between calls I remembered that this is how it used to be all. the. time. when we actually went places to work around other people at our jobs. We did the conference room dance and awkward wave all the time!
Many businesses are saying they will stay remote or at least introduce hybrid options. I’m interested to see what new customs we come up with in these remote or partial in-office environments. I, personally, am a big fan of the “goodbye Zoom wave” myself.
Carolyn Lyden, Director of Search Content
Google search terms report adds historical query data for impressions without clicks
As of yesterday, Google Ads will show advertisers historical data for queries that received impressions but no clicks in the search terms report for Search and Dynamic Search Ads campaigns, the company announced.
“Historically, the report only ever showed queries that resulted in a click,” Pallavi Naresh, senior product manager at Google, told Search Engine Land. “We knew that advertisers wanted more data and we had to make investments in our tech stack to show this magnitude of data in Google Ads.”
And, on February 1, 2022, the company will remove historical query data collected before September 1, 2020 (the day before the company initially limited search terms reporting) that doesn’t meet its privacy thresholds.
Why we care. Advertisers are gaining access to some new data, but this update is not a reversal of the September 2020 change that initially limited search terms reporting. The additional data is for queries that received impressions but no clicks and the data is still only for “terms that were searched by a significant number of users.”
Nevertheless, this new information could be quite useful for many advertisers. The additional query data could reveal what’s failing to attract the right audience. Advertisers can use this information to build out their negative keyword lists to improve their campaign efficiency.
Why you shouldn’t overlook site search optimization
We all know that listening to the wants and needs of our customers is essential to delivering satisfying experiences that drive conversions.
Steve Zakur, CEO at SoloSegment, will explore the process of improving your onsite search, which in turn will help improve your business results, next week at MarTech.
ICYMI: Missed the news this week? Don’t worry. We gotchu, fam.
Video and vertical-based product ads pilots arrive on Microsoft Audience Network. Disclaimers in ads, third-party integrations with Universal Event Tracking, flexible insertion orders and inline appeals for rejected product offers were also among Microsoft Advertising’s September announcements.
Google News app will display non-AMP content and send readers to publisher pages. Tracking and performance reports in Google Search Console won’t be affected.
Microsoft Ads announces optimization score. The availability of Optimization Score in Microsoft Ads now means advertisers have the option to ensure they understand all of the recommendations and consider options they may not have before.
Bing content submission API now available to all. Now you can push your content and HTML directly to Bing Search without the need for crawling.
Search Shorts: Movin’ on up (while in-house), ranking in Google Discover, prepping your holiday PPC strategy, and site manager role leaves GMB
Career progression within in-house SEO – the conundrum. Land of Rugs SEO expert, Billie Geena, runs through the top three issues in-house SEOs see in their day-to-day work.
What does it take to rank in Google Discover? With Google Discover, the user does not need to search for anything. The product is a form of queryless search: the feed of content is displayed based on the user’s interests alone and without any query being entered. So how do you show up?
Yep, it’s already that time. Prepping your holiday paid media strategy. This post breaks down the steps your B2B business needs to refine your paid media strategy, stay competitive, and drive results during a holiday season typically dominated by B2C retailers.
It’s official. Google My Business is getting rid of the site manager role. That’s what Joy Hawkins tweeted yesterday along with a screenshot of the email from GMB.
Quote of the Day: Keep asking questions (even if they’re obvious to everyone else)
“I’m the most annoying person on the call. Every. Single. Time. Why? Because I can’t write about what I don’t understand,” explains Cain Lewis, Freelance Copywriter and Founder at Kraken. “I can’t be an expert in everything, so I’m always asking questions. They’re mostly stupid questions to everyone else on the call, but they’re necessary for me to do my job to the best of my ability – so I’ll never shy away from asking them.”
