Welcome to ‘What Happened in Search’.
Packed full of the week’s search marketing news each Friday, this week we’re talking about PayPal’s IPO, Video Manager on Facebook and Econsultancy’s best in class UX examples.
GOING, GOING, GONE
This week saw PayPal and eBay divorce after 13 years, as PayPal seeks to raise more capital and make aquisitions of its own.
Valued at 33 times higher than at its last public valuation, the fintech company is now reportedly worth $50.8bn, far more than eBay’s valuation of $34.5bn.
Having managed more than $1 trillion with over 18 billion transactions, PayPal is now ready to stand alone against competitors including Alipay & Stripe.
LIGHTS, CAMERA…
As Facebook’s attempts to rival YouTube continue, the social platform is upping its video game.
Recent updates include an upgrade for Facebook Pages, with new tools including the prohibition of embedding on third party websites, a Video Library where page admins can manage their uploads, including bulk editing tools, restriction of a video’s audience and a ‘secret’ option, so videos can only be viewed with access to a specific URL.
Other updates include a ‘Watch Later’ option, which is being tested.
AT YOUR SERVICE
According to a recent study, 20% of the top 500 mobile retailers are now using responsive design on their sites.
In fact, the use of responsive design on mobile retail sites has more than doubled since 2014.
5% switched from a dedicated mobile site, though more than 50% still use this method to serve mobile customers.
Overall, there has been a 9% increase in some form of mobile site of the 500 websites reviewed in the study.
FULL FRONTAL
In March this year, YouTube introduced 360-degree videos on the site, which it claims can have more impact on customer engagement than traditional formats. The platform has now begun to support this feature on TrueView ads.
Coca-Cola saw success, with its 360-degree TrueView outperforming traditional in-stream ad view-through rates by 30%.
The feature can be viewed by consumers on the YouTube app on Android and iOS, as well as in Chrome.
BEST IN CLASS
This week, the Econsultancy blog showcased 25 examples of top notch User Experience (UX).
Looking across the full scope of UX requirements, from design impact to user journeys and everything in between, the selected brands included Amazon for its useful review filtering and of course ‘1-Click’ function, Farmdrop for its straightforward journey and guidance, as well as The Whisky Exchange for its expert taste guide.