The Funnel

The most important PPC news on all the major advertising platforms in October 2019.

Here's a roundup of all the major stories that occured on all the major advertising platforms in October 2019. We cover Amazon, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and a bunch of others.

This is the only news roundup you need to keep up to date with the fast-changing world of PPC. Enjoy.

Using any of these platforms for your advertising? Check out our smart advertising solutions to see how they can help.

Amazon Ads News

42% of ad spend through Amazon goes to brand awareness
(24 Oct 2019) - A new study shows that advertising on Amazon is increasingly going toward brand awareness, instead of just product promotion. The report points to continued momentum in Amazon as an advertising platform to help drive sales and awareness both on and off Amazon.

Amazon profit slips 26% amidst increased shipping times
(24 Oct 2019) - Amazon reported that third quarter fell 26% to $2.1 billion, the first profit decline since 2017. The company said profit was down due to heavy investment to reduce shipping times.

Amazon Echo speaker spied on owners via third-party speakers
(21 Oct 2019) - Amazon is pushing a deal to sell its voice-activated smart speaker Echo for $1. But an investigation by a Berlin-based research agency found that it was relatively easy for third-party apps to eavesdrop on users and steal

Amazon catching up to Google, Facebook in US ad market
(14 Oct 2019) - A new eMarketer study released this week revealed that Amazon's share of the search ad market in the United States is rapidly being eaten off by Amazon. According to the study, by 2021 Amazon is expected to capture 15.9% of the US search market, while Google's will contract to 70.5%.

Amazon Sellers Are Using Facebook Chatbots To Cheat Their Way To Good Reviews
(14 Oct 2019) - Facebook ads touting free products are actually fake review programs commissioned by Amazon sellers.

How advertising rates vary by category on Amazon
(11 Oct 2019) - A thorough understanding of search terms for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands from a volume and margin perspective is needed to bid to value effectively on Amazon.

Is Amazon Unstoppable?
(10 Oct 2019) - Politicians want to rein in the retail giant. But Jeff Bezos, the master of cutthroat capitalism, is ready to fight back. A New Yorker article details the stunning growth of Amazon, and how it is stirring up controversy in every industry is enters.

There's a 'revolving door' at Amazon, where company insiders are ditching the retail behemoth to expose its inner workings and make a fortune
(10 Oct 2019) - Brands large and small don't understand how to navigate Amazon, which is America's largest online retailer. This is creating a cottage industry of Amazon employees turned consultants who guide retailers for how best to advertise on platform.

Roku Is Running Out of Places to Show Ads, and at the Worst Possible Time
(10 Oct 2019) - The streaming video receiver is now showing pop-up ads during commercials, with more rival receivers coming to the market.

Amazon’s advertising arm is getting so big it held a major conference for brands
(9 Oct 2019) - Amazon held its first ad conference last week in Seattle called AdCon which attracted 400 people and showcased best practices for advertising on the platform.

The secrets to bidding on brand terms on Amazon Advertising
(4 Oct 2019) - Testing strategies to capture shoppers’ attention on a crowded shopping channel can have benefits beyond increasing paid conversions - it can boost organic sales as well.

Amazon Clashes With Disney Over Terms for Offering Apps in Fire TV
(3 Oct 2019) - Disney resists Amazon push for share of ad revenue from entertainment giant’s apps.

Amazon sellers say online retail giant is trying to help itself, not consumers
(1 Oct 2019) - As much as a third of every dollar merchants make goes back to Amazon, prompting regulators in the US and abroad to investigate the e-commerce giant for violations of antitrust laws.

Apple Ads News

How Apple TV+ fits in to an increasingly crowded ad-free video streaming market
(31 Oct 2019) - Apple has made a concerted global push into original TV with the launch of its ad-free streaming service today (Friday 1 November). So how does the tech giant barging into an increasingly fierce market alter the future of streaming?

Govt's can't stop Facebook, Google from abusive tracking, but Apple can
(3 Oct 2019) - Apple's ITP prevents browser tracking, limiting how long cookies are available for third-party contexts by removing them after 24 hours. Apple's moves put online advertising at risk, which depends on cookies for targeted ads.

Facebook Ads News

Responsive ads come to Facebook with Multiple Text Optimization
(28 Oct 2019) - Advertisers can create several versions of ad copy, headline and description at the ad level.

Facebook News to launch very soon, local newspapers under threat
(25 Oct 2019) - Facebook announced that a new section of the app would be dedicated to news, promoting a wide variety of stories. Algorithms will be used to provide personalized recommendations for further reading, based on the news you read, share and follow.

Facebook getting a face lift
(24 Oct 2019) - Facebook is drastically changing the look of its interface, including introducing dark mode. The new look will emphasize three main tabs: Facebook Watch, Marketplace and Groups. There were also be a less prominent, Gaming tab.

New Facebook features fight election lies everywhere but ads
(21 Oct 2019) - Facebook is trying to preempt any inappropriate use of its platform with a slew of new features, including Facebook Project which adds an extra layer of security to politicians when using their Facebook accounts. Other features include taking down foreign influence campaigns, labeling state-owned media on FB pages and Page ownership transparency. But misleading political ads are still allowed, prompting anger from some congress members.

Facebook Ads in Search Results Rolling Out to More Advertisers
(17 Oct 2019) - Ads in Facebook search results have been available to select advertisers since last December. This past June, Facebook quietly rolled out the search results ad placement to more businesses.

Facebook testing ads in Groups tab
(17 Oct 2019) - Facebook is trying out ad placements it the Groups tab where users can view content from all the Groups they belong to.

Advertisers on Why WhatsApp’s Status Is a Good Testing Ground for Ads
(17 Oct 2019) - Ads on WhatsApp are expected to appear sometime in 2020.

Facebook Introduces New Custom Templates for Stories Ads
(16 Oct 2019) - Facebook is introducing new templates which make it easier for marketers to create custom stories ads across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram.

How A Massive Facebook Scam Siphoned Millions Of Dollars From Unsuspecting Boomers
(16 Oct 2019) - How a company was built on the subscription trap using Facebook and how it fell apart.

Facebook Launches New Tools to Help With Holiday Marketing
(10 Oct 2019) - Facebook has released several new tools to assist businesses with their holiday marketing efforts, including customizable story templates, enhancements to Messenger and Instagram Direct, Holiday Marketing Tips and more.

Children 'interested in' gambling and alcohol, according to Facebook
(9 Oct 2019) - Facebook claims it does not advertise harmful substances to minors, but an investigation by the Guardian revealed that its algorithms include under-18s to be targeted for alcohol and gambling.

Facebook agrees $40 mln settlement over ad engagement lawsuit
(8 Oct 2019) - Facebook has agreed to pay advertisers $40 million to settle a class-action suit which accused the media giant of exaggerating video ad engagement metrics.

Facebook encryption threatens public safety, say ministers
(4 Oct 2019) - Ministers from the UK, USA and Australia have publicly called on Facebook to rethink its plans to encrypt all messages on its platforms, saying it would hamper international efforts to grant law enforces quick access to private messages. Facebook says people have a right to a private conversation.

Facebook advertisers can now use Stories ads to start conversations in Messenger
(1 Oct 2019) - Users can click to message with brands and businesses from Stories ads on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

Google Ads News

Google Ads Officially Announces Rollout of Lead Form Extensions
(30 Oct 2019) - Google confirmed it’s rolling out lead form ad extensions in the coming weeks, a feature that was recently spotted in testing.

Google Ads Brings New Sets of Data to Shopping Campaigns
(28 Oct 2019) - Google Ads can now report on cart data for shopping campaigns, tracking all information related to purchases.

Google Is Making A Big Change To The Way It Serves Search Results
(25 Oct 2019) - Google is switching to a new machine-powered language processing technology called BERT, which looks at the sequences of words in searches, not just the words themselves, to glean more information on the intent behind them.

Google Ads to Improve the Optimization of App Campaigns
(24 Oct 2019) - App campaigns use text, image, video and HTML5 assets to deliver relevant ads. Soon Google will update campaigns to attribute traffic to each of these creative assets.

Google Adds New Features For Advanced OTT Ads
(24 Oct 2019) - Amidst the growing popularity of over-the-top and streaming TV services, Google's ad manager has now launched a new sharing feature allowing programmers and distributors to configure flexible inventory sharing tools.

Google Ads Rolls Out 2 New Tools for Responsive Search Ads
(22 Oct 2019) - The two new tools include performance column, which identifies the exact creative assets which are driving results in high volume ad groups, as well as ad variations which now support responsive search ads and lets advertisers run their own ad copy tests.

Capture leads with Google Ads latest ad extension test
(21 Oct 2019) - Google is beta testing a new ad extension for advertisers looking to capture leads from their text ad campaigns. Searchers can submit their information to request or download information from Google Search ads through the new lead form extension.

Google Ads debuts ‘conversions by time’ reporting
(18 Oct 2019) - The new columns report conversions on the days they occur instead of by ad click date.

More States Exempted in Google Policy Gambling Ads Changes
(18 Oct 2019) - Google has revealed plans to increase the online ads coverage of sports betting and casinos, opening the sluice gates for such marketing tools in more states across the United States.

Google Ads Introduces 2 New Ways to Target Users in Google Search
(15 Oct 2019) - Google Ads is rolling out two new ways to reach your target audiences in Google Search. Over the coming weeks, Google Ads will be launching affinity audiences and seasonal event segments for in-market audiences.

Google updating machine learning to avoid showing repeat ads to users
(10 Oct 2019) - Google will roll out its machine learning solution in the next month or so. It will first come to the Display & Video 360 advertising platform, and will later be a feature for display ads in Google Ads.

Google Ads to let users optimize video ads at campaign level
(8 Oct 2019) - Google Ads is letting advertisers set conversion actions at the campaign level for video ads in a new update. Previously this could only be done at the account level.

Google AdSense publishers can now turn on Auto ads without new code
(8 Oct 2019) - Auto ads have been updated to make them easier to implement and customize, with less coding required and and more controls over reporting.

Google Shopping Ads With User-Generated Images In Product Reviews
(7 Oct 2019) - User-generated images can now be included in product reviews for Google Shopping Ads, allowing customers to visually connect previous customers with what you sell.

Google enables cross-account reports in Google Ads
(4 Oct 2019) - Advertisers can now aggregate the data of multiple accounts into one report, directly in the browser. Before, advertisers had to download the reports from the different accounts and merge them.

Google Chrome Will Block Mixed Content
(3 Oct 2019) - Chrome will begin blocking web pages with mixed content beginning in December 2019. Mixed content is when a secure web page (HTTPS) also contains scripts, styles, images or other linked content delivered through an insecure HTTP protocol.

Google Ads switching to standard delivery on Oct 7
(2 Oct 2019) - Google will be removing the accelerated ad delivery option for Search and Shopping campaigns as well as shared budgets, signalling yet another shift toward machine learning for the company.

Google announces three new ways to hide your personal activity from Google
(2 Oct 2019) - These include Incognito mode for Maps, auto-delete for YouTube history and deleting data from voice commands by simply saying "Hey Google, delete everything I said to you last week." Greater awareness of privacy and data storage could hurt advertising strategies online.

Instagram Ads News

Mark Zuckerberg is adamant that Instagram should not be broken off from Facebook
(30 Oct 2019) - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a full-throated defense of his company’s ownership of Instagram this week, describing the hefty competition that the combined company faces in the market.

Instagram's Now Testing New AR 'Try On' Ads with Selected Advertisers
(4 Oct 2019) - Instagram has now launched a new test of AR 'try on' ads with selected brands, through which users will be able to actively engage with the advertised product virtually and see how it looks.

Instagram launches Threads, its latest attempt to clone Snapchat
(3 Oct 2019) - Threads is a camera-focused app that allows Instagram users to share their status or quickly send photos and videos to people they’ve added to their list of close friends.

Microsoft Ads News

Microsoft Advertising Launches a Preview of its New Redesign
(29 Oct 2019) - Microsoft Advertising is in the process of redesigning its interface and is giving users a chance to join an early preview.

Microsoft Advertising goes through a redesign
(23 Oct 2019) - Microsoft announced that its advertising interface has gone through a redesign to give it a more modern, sleek look.

Microsoft wants to challenge Amazon and Google's dominance of search
(17 Oct 2019) - Microsoft has increased its product offerings for brands and retailers since it rebranded its ad platform in April. One new product is Sponsored Products.

Shopify and Microsoft Advertising team up to ‘help merchants sell more’
(9 Oct 2019) - Shopify and Microsoft Advertising have teamed up to allow merchants to set up, optimise, and track the results of their campaigns alongside their store management dashboard in Shopify. Sellers also have the flexibility to set a daily budget based on seasonality and their goals.

Microsoft Advertising to depreciate Accelerated Budget
(6 Oct 2019) - Microsoft Advertising will depreciate the Accelerated Budget strategy for Search, Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) and Shopping campaigns. Microsoft campaigns using Accelerated Budget will migrate automatically to Standard Budget starting on November 1.

Microsoft Introduces New Ways to Target Audiences With Search Ads
(2 Oct 2019) - Microsoft has new audience targeting solutions combining customer data with new technology to reach customers when they’re ready to buy. Here is an overview of them.

Pinterest Ads News

Pinterest shares tumble 20% as US revenue disappoints
(28 Oct 2019) - While active user numbers increased by 28 per cent year-over-year to more than 322m, analysts noted that US sales growth, and the amount of advertising revenue raked in from those users, was disappointing.

Pinterest Lite Debuts for Android Users in 5 Countries
(10 Oct 2019) - The slimmed-down app takes less time to download and occupies less storage space on users’ Android devices.

Why Pinterest Is Only Scratching the Surface with Advertising Revenue
(9 Oct 2019) - Pinterest impressed the Street with its performance in the second quarter of 2019 with a 62 percent year-over-year increase in revenue.

Pinterest Launches 'Pinterest Academy' Education Resource for Marketers
(9 Oct 2019) - The new Pinterest Academy offers a range of education courses, and links to various other tools and reference studies, in order to help you get a better handle on how to utilize Pins for your business.

Google Takes Aim at Pinterest with 'Style Ideas' and Improved Google Shopping
(4 Oct 2019) - This week Google launched a new tool which replicates Pinterest's 'Shop the Look' Pins, offering relevant product matches based on an image captured through Google Lens, or via screenshot sample.

Quora Ads News

Quora Adds New Ad Targeting Options
(10 Oct 2019) - Quora has outlined a range of new ad targeting options to help better target your on-platform campaigns, while it's also published a new checklist of the key elements you need to keep in mind to help maximize your Quora ads performance.

Reddit Ads News

Reddit is about to further censor its communities to attract advertisers
(6 Oct 2019) - Reddit is attempting to clean up the platform of extremist content to make it a more attractive and brand safe environment for advertisers to run their marketing.

Snapchat Ads News

How Snapchat is pitching its ad offering to European agencies
(30 Oct 2019) - As Snapchat gains more market share in video advertising, it’s tweaking its pitch to not only cover social media buyers but also TV and video buyers.

New Snapchat Dynamic Ads Allow Advertisers to Create Promotions in Real Time
(29 Oct 2019) - The latest feature allows advertisers to create customized mobile ads. And target audiences in real-time.

After sluggish start, more publishers are finding Snapchat a moneymaker
(26 Oct 2019) - Snapchat Discover has become a profitable venture for both early adopters and relative newcomers to the nearly 5-year-old media feature.

TikTok Ads News

How Fast-Growing TikTok Does and Doesn't Compete Against Instagram and Snapchat
(16 Oct 2019) - TikTok's short-length video platform has become quite popular with younger consumers. But it isn't exactly a substitute for services such as Instagram and Snapchat Stories.

TikTok Bans All Political and Advocacy Advertising on the Platform
(7 Oct 2019) - TikTok is setting itself apart from Facebook and Twitter by banning political and advocacy advertising.

Twitter Ads News

Twitter will ban political ads, Jack Dorsey announces
(31 Oct 2019) - Dorsey's comments puts him at odds with senior Facebook (FB) executives, including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, who have vigorously defended Facebook's policy of not fact-checking political ads.

Twitter admits that it showed more ads to less popular users
(24 Oct 2019) - The platform has admitted that in the past it has shown more ads to users with less followers, in an attempt to not alienate more influential figures from using its platform.

Twitter Shares Plunge as Ad-Business Troubles Weigh on Growth
(24 Oct 2019) - Technical glitches in Twitter Inc.’s advertising software roiled the social-media company in the third quarter, as a pullback in spending from some buyers and weaker pricing for ads also cut into revenue and profit even though it added millions of new users.

Twitter apologizes for targeting ads with email, phone numbers used for two-factor authentication
(9 Oct 2019) - The company said it has addressed the issue to ensure emails and phone numbers entered for security purposes will not be used for ad targeting.

Twitter's Testing a New Option to 'Stream' Tweets in Real-Time
(4 Oct 2019) - Twitter is testing out a new option which would enable users to 'stream tweets', meaning that their timeline would be updated as tweets happen. Which feels a little closer to what Twitter was before the introduction of the algorithm-defined feed.

YouTube Ads News

YouTube Expands Access to AR 'Try-On' Ad Feature
(15 Oct 2019) - After first launching its augmented reality 'Beauty Try-On' ad format with selected partners back in June, YouTube has this week announced that it's expanding the pool of brands who'll be able to access the function, while it's also adding the AR ads to its Masthead ad placement options, making them easier to find for users.

YouTube is letting politicians reserve advertising space for 2020 election
(8 Oct 2019) - YouTube is allowing politicians to purchase precious ad space on the platform, including ads that target voters in important early voting states like Ohio and South Carolina. A new tool automates the whole process.

Comcast cries foul in YouTube ad access row
(2 Oct 2019) - Comcast’s video ads business Freewheel has accused Google of hiding behind privacy concerns as a means to prevent it from selling ads for clients with YouTube channels.

PDFs Worth Reading This Month

Amazon Ads Benchmark Report Q3 2019

The report includes figures and trends related to Amazon Advertising, such as how marketers are using recently released new-to-brand metrics, the growth of clicks, spend and CPC on Amazon Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products and more.

Google Reveals Small Business Search Trends for 2019

The new report contains fresh data on how people are searching for small businesses in the United States.

Microsoft releases targeting playbook

Microsoft has new audience targeting solutions combining customer data with new technology to reach customers when they’re ready to buy. Here is an overview of them.

Try Aori

Using any of these platforms for your advertising? Check out our smart advertising solutions to see how they can help.