The Funnel

Our roundup of the top PPC news headlines this week.

PPC News Roundup is a weekly roundup of all news related to the major PPC and digital advertising platforms. Published on Tuesdays, “PPC News Roundup” will help you stay up-to-date on all the important PPC ads news you need to know.

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Amazon Ads News

What Amazon’s Intention to Acquire Sizmek Means for the Advertising Industry

New Sizmek technology eyed by Amazon will give advertisers even stronger targeting and the ability to plan one campaign and target ads to different audiences.

How Amazon is using its DSP to get more high-quality inventory from publishers

Amazon is trying boost buyer views by attracting higher quality inventory from outside publishers such as connected TV inventory and then give access to advertisers through Amazon’s DSP.

The 4 Most Helpful Reports You Can Run Using Amazon Ad Data

Amazon collects an enormous amount of data about everything on their site, making it hard to find which data is useful. Here we get an overview of the most helpful data points.

Facebook Ads News

Facebook to Boost Ad Spending as It Tries to Restore Reputation

Facebook says it is ramping up its global advertising spending to fix its tarnished reputation after a series of privacy missteps and other controversies.

After previously banning cryptocurrency ads, Facebook is set to announce its own cryptocurrency

Facebook is launching its own Libra digital currency to 2.4 billion users who could use it to shop on and off the social media platform.

Facebook page organic reach continues its marked decline

The organic reach of Facebook business pages simply continues to decline, forcing brands to spend on paid advertising to get views that once were free.

Facebook agrees to settle with advertisers who sued company over bad video metrics

Facebook has agreed to a settlement deal with a group of marketers that claimed the metrics errors provided by Facebook led them to buy ads on the site based on false information. In 2016, Facebook mistakenly inflated the average time people spent watching videos. The event highlights the degree to which marketing metrics can be manipulated, by even the biggest companies.

Google Ads News

Why Google's advertising dominance is drawing antitrust scrutiny

The US Justice Department is preparing antitrust action against Google for its dominance in online advertising. Google has a 37% share of the $130 billion US digital ad market, but also dominates secondary areas of online advertising in a plethora of ways that have some screaming monopoly.

Google claims it is not killing ad blockers in new Chrome update

Google has answered critics that have accused the company blocking ad blockers in its new Chrome update. In an official blog post, Google said the changes are designed to help developers write extensions in a way that protects users’ privacy.

Watch out, Google, Facebook is eating into paid-search budgets

Paid search no longer dominates the performance budgets for advertisers, and paid-social ads on Facebook often deliver better results than search.

Instagram Ads News

Ads From Influencers You Don't Follow: What Marketers Need To Know About Instagram's New Update

Instagram has introduced a branded content feature that will soon bring sponsored influencer posts to your newsfeed even if you don't follow their account. This marks a significant change in how influencer content can be marketed on the platform. Not only will influencers now be able to reach users outside of their traditional followings, it also allows Instagram to cash in on the influencer phenomenon, something that other platforms have found difficult to do.

Instagram keeps a detailed list of your interests to show you ads - it isn't very accurate

While Instagram's list of interests is available for every user to access, it hasn't been shown to be very accurate and to reflect people's interests.

Instagram: Shopping And Stories Are Top Priorities For The Foreseeable Future

Stories and Shopping are the priorities for Instagram moving forward, Instagram Head of Business Jim Squires says in an interview.

Microsoft Ads News

Microsoft deals blow to Google's ad blocking plans

Google's plans to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users only has led to a backlash. As users search for a new browser, Microsoft's Edge Browser has a unique opportunity to build ad blockers into the new version of Edge to attract the Chrome defectors.

Microsoft introduces new AI-driven recommendations tabs

In an official blog post, Microsoft announced that it has replaced the opportunities page with a new recommendations tab. Users can use it to take action with state-of-the-art AI-powered suggestions that are customized, easy to understand, and insightful.

A Brief History of Advertising on LinkedIn [Infographic]

View the evolution of LinkedIn since 2003 in this neat infographic.

Pinterest Ads News

Pinterest Marketing Partners Program adds shopping specialty

The goal of Pinterest's Marketing Partners Program is to make the platform more accessible to third-party technology and business communities and enable more shopping experiences.

Reddit Ads News

Will Reddit Ads Help or Hurt Your B2B Marketing Efforts?

Marketing on Reddit can go a longway in promoting your B2B brand. Make sure you 1) find the right subreddits, 2) engage with the community, 3) focus on upvotes and 4) don't spam.

Snapchat CEO interviews Reddit CEO on saving Reddit from death

In a rare chat between Reddit CEO Steve Huffman and Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, the two tech entrepreneurs discuss the future of their platforms and what made Huffman return to Reddit to save the company after being gone for five years.

Snapchat Ads News

Snapchat Brings Native Checkout Feature To Five Influencers

Snapchat is breaking into the e-commerce game with a new native checkout feature rolling out to five influencers on its platform.

Snapchat report paints Gen Z as the 'super creatives'

A new Snapchat report studies Generation Z and labels them the 'super creativies.' Aged between 13 and 22 years old, Gen Z is already monetizing their content, building followings and communities online with visual and video tools.

Snapchat publishes report on global trends among Gen Z

Another report by Snapchat analyzes global trends among Gen Z, finding that there is 97% worldwide smartphone presentation among Gen Z, 78% say mobile is the most important device for them to get online and spend an average of four hours and 15 minutes a day on their phones.

Twitter Ads News

How Twitter is striving not to be forgotten in the digital advertising game

An overview of how to use Twitter in 2019, when it seems like the company is slowly being forgotten by advertisers. Hint: focus on what your users are saying.

Twitter is resurrecting its Mac desktop app

The new app will feature keyboard shortcuts, desktop notifications, support for multiple notifications and a dark mode to help tempt users away from using Twitter.com in their browser.

Twitter Analyzes 6 Tactics For Creating An Engaging Campaign

Twitter teamed up with a creative agency to analyze 1,856 Twitter-led campaigns from Cannes submitted to the competition between 2014-2018. A closer look at these successful campaigns shed light on six key themes that resonate with people and create effective content.

YouTube Ads News

YouTube releases year's top 10 YouTube ads in run-up to Cannes

The combined list of 10 ads had 388 million minutes of watch time and 276 million views. Google noted noted a distinct trend toward long-form content, with the winning ads averaging just over 90-seconds long. Viewers are choosing to watch beyond the ads’ first 5 seconds, meaning brands need to be deliberate about how the story unfolds to hold attention.

YouTube Demonetization and the Adpocalypse: What This Means for Business in 2019

The trend toward increasing demonization has many content creators that rely on YouTube for their income worried.

Algorithms Won’t Fix What’s Wrong With YouTube

A deep dive by the New York Times into the problems with YouTube's algorithm and how it encourages bad viewing behavior among the internet's not-so-innocent.

PPC PDFs this week

Study: The Number Of Brand-Safety Incidents On Mobile Is Increasing

A report published by media verification company, DoubleVerify, reveals that brand-safety incidents almost tripled on mobile devices in the past year. Such brand safety incidents can permanently damage brand reputation among consumers.

Facebook report on how moments are the new driving factor behind social media

Facebook’s new report concludes that the 'moment' is now the most important symbol that people rally around on social media. Such moments can include events, celebrations or communities. The takeaway for marketers is that they can no longer rely on regular calendars when planning their social media initiatives, but need to instead flow and ebb with the activities of the community.

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