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 Tuesdays, “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 is turning advertising into its next huge business

Amazon has built a huge advertising business. Here’s a little more about how it all works. The e-commerce giant lets advertisers reach consumers through product ads or even videos on third-party websites.

Amazon looks to release new audio ads in music on Alexa

Amazon is quietly asking top brands to participate in its early tests of music ads, representing the e-commerce giant's first steps toward offering paid product placements within its Alexa voice-activated ecosystem.

Amazon top-of-search ads drive 3% of impressions but 45% of spend

Amazon's top-of-search ads, which appear in search results for products, drove 3% of its ad impressions but 35% of clicks and 45% of spend during Q2. Product sales attributed to Sponsored Products ads more than doubled (up 102%) in Q2 from a year earlier, outpacing the 53% gains for its Sponsored Brands ads.

Here’s How Much Amazon Spent on Prime Day Ads

Amazon increased its Prime Day ad spend by more than 25% this year to $40 million, the 5th official Prime Day the company has held, while over 300 other retailers offered copycat events.

Facebook Ads News

Facebook’s News Feed ads are changing

Facebook will soon tweak the creative restrictions to ads in its mobile News Feed. The changes will shrink the amount of text and the image size, which marketers say should improve ad copy overall but would be burdensome.

UK Facebook users now have a tool to report scam ads

Facebook users in the UK now have the ability report Facebook ads they suspect of being scams.

Facebook is already awash with fraudulent ads about its own cryptocurrency

Dozens of legitimate-looking ads purport to be selling Libra at discounted prices.

Google Ads News

Google accused of ripping off digital ad technology in U.S. lawsuit

The company Impact Engine Inc has filed a complaint in federal court alleging various Google online advertising platforms, including Google Ads and Google AdSense infringed on six of the company's patents.

Parallel tracking for Google display ads to become mandatory at end-July

On July 31st advertisers using third-party tracking parameters will be required to switch to parallel tracking. Parallel tracking helps speed up landing page load times by separating track parameters from the landing page URL.

6 Google Ads Targeting Hacks to Lower CPCs and Boost Sales

Google Ads not performing as well as you would like? Make sure you are doing this six hacks in order to get the most of your Google Ads investments.

Instagram Ads News

Instagram to test removing likes in six more countries

By removing likes, Instagram is hoping to make the platform more accommodating for users and promote well being. While post creators can see the number of likes a post gets, they are hidden from public view. The test is currently underway in Canada and will be expanded to Australia, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand.

IGTV emerging as a test platform for YouTube stars

Instagram's long-form video platform IGTV has yet to significantly challenge YouTube's hold on the industry, but YouTubers are finding ways to test content on there that does not fit with their YouTube audience.

Microsoft Ads News

Microsoft Advertising rolling out experiments A/B testing tool globally

Soon there will be a new tab in your Microsoft Advertising account targeted at testing ad copy, landing pages and bidding strategies and modifiers.

Microsoft Updates Dynamic Search Ads With Longer Titles & Descriptions

Microsoft Advertising is updating its dynamic search ads with longer titles and an additional description field which will make them more comparable to Google's. This includes two description fields with up to 90 characters each and longer ad titles.

Google ad growth slowed, Microsoft gained with Yahoo in Q2

Desktop spend on Microsoft Advertising had its strongest quarter in more than three years in Q2 2019, outstripping that of Google.

Pinterest Ads News

Pinterest focuses on 'compassionate search', forgoes targeted ads

Pinterest's decision to not show ads or product recommendations to people who use its "compassionate search" forgoes ads ads in an attempt to help 265 million users who feel stressed.

With new conversion data tool and product updates, Pinterest solidifies pitch to advertisers

Newly-public Pinterest still is playing catch up when it comes to media buyers — with new tools and improvements in an effort to go beyond an awareness platform to one that marketers can use to actually track and attribute sales.

Reddit Ads News

Reddit Ads vs. Quora Ads – Do They Really Work? [Infographic]

A $2,500 experiment on Reddit and Quora found that Quora outperformed Reddit on several key indicators, such as the possibility to create audience campaigns, auction insights, GTM default tag types and more.

Reddit rolls out 'Community Award' system sitewide

Reddit's latest move to monetize the platform lets moderators give users "Community Awards" sitewide.

Snapchat Ads News

Snapchat tops 200 million daily users for first time

Snapchat added 13 million daily users in the three months ending in June, ending a long period of lackluster growth and pushing the company's total audience above 200 million daily users for the first time.

Snap earnings send stock higher than IPO price for first time in more than a year

Snap Inc. shares closed atop the price charged in its initial public offering for the first time in more than a year Wednesday, after analysts said a strong earnings report could set the stage for another monster quarter.

YouTube Ads News

Google Makes YouTube Masthead Ads Available to All Advertisers

Google is now letting all advertisers buy YouTube masthead ads, following a successful beta test in select markets. Ads will be available to buy on a CPM basis.

Politics & Society

Internet advertising to grow at slowest rate since 2001 dotcom bust

Cinema ads, billboards and and ads on the sides of buses are all growing at a healthy rate, at a time when internet advertising is facing its worst growth on the back of brand safety concerns and suspicions as to how effective advertising on Google and Facebook really is.

PDFs Worth Reading

Merkle Q2 2019 Digital Marketing Report

Some key trends in the digital marketing industry in Q2 include:

• Advertising spend on Google Shopping up 38% year-on-year
• DuckDuckGo only US Search Engine to grow in Q2, organic search visits overall down 6%
• Amazon Ads sales revenue growth up 102%
• YouTube Ad Spend up 43% year-on-year

Try Aori

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