It’s been a bit of a quiet week in search but nonetheless, we’ve managed to rustle up a few interesting updates for you digital marketers from the likes of Adwords, Facebook, Google and Twitter.
ADWORDS CUSTOM COLUMNS
A nifty new feature has been introduced in AdWords giving you the ability to apply formulas to the metrics you set up in custom columns i.e. you can now divide the ‘mobile clicks’ column with the ‘total clicks’ column to get your % of mobile clicks.
FACEBOOK VIDEO BOOM
100 million hours of video are now being watched daily on Facebook, reported Zuckerberg after announcing huge growth across the board. There was also talk of Facebook creating a ‘dedicated place’ for people to just watch video. Is there anything Facebook doesn’t do well?!
WEBMASTER GUIDANCE
Google, ever elusive in regards to SEO, have updated their webmaster guidelines with far more technical detail and pointers for UX, technical and design. This should be second nature to any SEO practitioner but is helpful nevertheless.
FACEBOOK MAKES SEARCH WORK HARDER
This week we came across an article from the Insights team at Facebook who ran a study to measure the cross-channel effect of Facebook advertising. To cut a long story short, the study revealed that there was an average 6.3% lift in mobile search engine traffic resulting from those that had been exposed to Facebook adverts and users were more likely to search for cheaper branded search terms after Facebook ad exposure, driving down overall multi-channel average CPA.
BROAD MATCH LONG TAIL KEYWORDS
“If you want long-tail conversions (which, in my mind, is akin to saying “if you breathe air”), it’s time to start using broad match keywords.” Matt Lawson, director or performance ads at Google.
A study Matt’s team conducted came to the conclusion that accounts that invest more than 20 percent of their spend in broad match keywords drive a twice as many conversions from long-tail queries. They also found that more than 85% of all long-tail conversions come from broad match keywords. When you weigh it up against exact, phrase and broad match modifier, broad match did the best job of capturing long-tail conversions. Matt also gives readers a few handy tips on how to use broad match smartly.
PROMOTED MOMENTS
Tesco has become the first brand to advertise with Twitter’s new ‘Promoted Moments’ feature with their #FeelGoodCookbook campaign built to inspire shoppers with meal tips using videos, images and flickable recipe pages. XBox and Sky look set to be next in line to try this new visual form of Twitter advertising. ‘Moments’ launched in December accessible only on the mobile app via the ‘lightning bolt’ tab, allows users to find content related to stories with just a few taps. Twitter continues its bid to boost consumer engagement.
