The Funnel

Our roundup of the most important PPC news this week.

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

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

Amazon Ads News

Amazon entering healthcare industry, testing Amazon Care

Amazon has set its sights on a new industry: healthcare. In particular, the e-commerce giant wants to change the way Americans get healthcare by simplifying the whole process. An app dubbed 'Amazon Care' has been released internally to employees that connects them with doctors via video or chat. Amazon traditionally tests products in-house before releasing them to the broader public.

Amazon Prime Video growing faster than Netflix

Subscriber numbers grew 35% in Q4, Amazon's best year since launching. It is now the fastest-growing video-on-demand in the UK, with similar growth in the USA.

Amazon removing products profiting off of Coronavirus

As the Coronavirus continues to spread worldwide, a number of third-party products have appeared on Amazon claiming to protect consumers from getting infected from the new virus. Amazon has announced it will be removing any listings that make any claims that have not been verified by reputable health organizations.

Amazon's first-ever employee now says the tech giant is too big

Shel Kaphan, one of the first employees to work at Amazon, is now claiming the company is too big. In an interview with PBS Frontline, Kaphan said he agrees with lawmakers like Elizabeth Warren who want to break the company up.

Marketers planning to spend more on Amazon ads in 2020

Slightly over 80% of current Amazon advertisers plan to increase ad spend on the platform in 2020, according to a study by Marketing Land. Amazon's ad business grew 40% year-on-year in 2019 and the behavior of marketers is in line with such growth.

Prices for Amazon Sponsored Product Acts continue to climb

With more and more marketers advertising on the platform, spending on sponsored product acts, Amazon's most popular ad product, continue to rise.

Apple Ads News

Apple considers letting users switch default iPhone apps

Apple may end up giving rival apps more prominence on iPhones and iPads and open its HomePod speaker to third-party music services after criticism the company provides an unfair advantage to its in-house products.

Facebook Ads News

Shopify joins Facebook's Libra Association after slew of defections

On Friday Shopify announced it would join Faceook's Libra Association, despite several prominent companies backing out of the project, including PayPal, eBay, Visa, MasterCard and Stripe.

Facebook delays roll-out of Dating feature following EU criticism

The move comes after Ireland's data regulator inquired why Facebook hadn't provided the necessary data privacy paper for the feature.

Zuckerberg pushed for lax content rules in EU

Facebook's CEO is in Europe this week pushing for the continent to adopt less stringent rules on how content is regulated on the platform. He says Facebook should be regulated somewhere in between a telco and traditiaonl media. "Right now there are two frameworks that I think people have for existing industries — there’s like newspapers and existing media, and then there’s the telco-type model, which is ‘the data just flows through you,’ but you’re not going to hold a telco responsible if someone says something harmful on a phone line," he said in a speech at a security conference in Germany over the weekend.

IRS suing Facebook for $9 bln over Irish tax structure

The US Tax Court will decide whether Facebook owes more than $9 billion to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in a landmark case. This would hit the company’s cash reserves hard.

Google Ads News

Google adds audience sharing to MCC accounts

MCC account managers can now continuously share audience lists to all of the sub-accounts in an MCC. Similar to how Facebook allows audience sharing in Pixel, the new feature is designed to simplify the process of creating and sharing audiences in Google Ads.

Google Maps now used by over 1 billion people every month

Google turned 15 years old this week and officially has 1 billion users each month, an elusive advertising opportunity for marketers. Google's advertising solutions for Google Maps include My Business, launched in 2014, along with Local Search Ads.

Fitbit acquisition is major security risk, EU protection adviser says

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) is raising concerns over Google's access to Fitbit's healthy and activity data after the search engine giant acquired the company recently. Regulators are considering whether to allow the acquisition to go through citing privacy concerns.

BitCoin extortion scheme targeting Google's AdSense program

A new email-based extortion scheme apparently is making the rounds, targeting Web site owners serving banner ads through Google’s AdSense program.

Instagram Ads News

Instagram IGTV launching ads, influencers still not ready

Instagram IGTV launched two years ago and is finally getting around to offering monetization options via ads. But influencers are unsure how and if the platform will indeed help them grow their channels and make money.

LinkedIn Ads News

LinkedIn launches new 'featured' section on profiles

The feature gives users the ability to highlight certain aspects of their professional life at the top of their profile. LinkedIn says: 'the Featured section allows you to showcase samples of your work to people who view your LinkedIn profile. This is a great way to provide evidence of your skills and experience.

Pinterest Ads News

Facebook's latest experimental app copies Pinterest

Facebook has quietly released a new app dubbed 'Hobbi' which lets users save photos of things they are interested, you know, a lot like Pinterest. Hobbi focuses on topics like cooking, interior decorations and fashion. Users can also organize their photos into collections, just like Pinterest. Facebook has a history of copying other successful apps, the way Stories copied Snapchat, and how Instagram Reels is set to copy TikTok. It looks like Pinterest has now become Facebook's next target.

Pinterest publishes data on trending searches by women

The main demographic on Pinterest is women, and ahead of International Women's Day on March 8th, the social media company has released figures on what's popular among that half of the world's population. Some highlights include:

• Solo living: more women are searching for solo travel ideas, living single and buying your first home.
• Financial independence: more women are searching for business ideas, negotiating salaries and higher education.

Are ads ruining Pinterest?

The trajectory of most social media platforms is one in the same. Gather a bunch of users, monetize those users. And ads are the best way to do this. It's what happened with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. It's happening with TikTok. So it's no wonder that Pinterest is following suite. However some users are now starting to complain how Pinterest is now trying to push products with every pin.

Snapchat Ads News

Snapchat launches 'swipe up to call' ads in USA

Following their debut in the Middle East, Snapchat is now bringing 'swipe up to call' ads to the United States. As the name implies, swiping up leads to a direct phone call with a business.

Adtech Industry News

Big tech bracing for antitrust legislation

Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook are all considering changing decades-long practices in order to ward off criticism they operate as monopolies.

Try Aori

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