PPC News: Google scraps average position, Facebook spying on users, Amazon blockchain advertising

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. “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

4 Reasons Amazon Ads Are Better For E-Commerce Than Facebook

While Facebook has become one of the world’s largest platforms for e-commerce marketing, this doesn’t mean that it's necessarily the best pick for your advertising dollars. Ads on Facebook are seen as intrusive and distracting, whereas on Amazon users go there specifically to shop.

How to use Amazon advertising’s dynamic bidding feature

Dynamic bidding gives more control for how and where you place your advertisements, enabling you to be more focused with your PPC strategy.

Tiny Roku Fends Off Amazon and Thrives by Selling Ads

Roku is tiny compared with tech giants spending billions to compete in the streaming-video world, but its stock has more than tripled since Christmas on the growing popularity of internet videos.

Amazon Hints At Expanding Blockchain Into Advertising

An Amazon job post suggests the company will expand on the work it has already done in blockchain by bringing the technology into advertising.

Apple Ads News

Break Safari's privacy rules and we'll treat you like malware

Apple has released a policy specifically aimed at stopping advertisers and websites from tracking you online.

Facebook Ads News

Facebook Said It Wasn't Listening to Your Conversations. It Was.

Facebook isn't randomly turning on your microphone to sell you more targeted ads, as some conspiracy theories have asserted ⁠— but on Tuesday, the social media giant admitted that it has, in fact, been listening in on some users’ conversations.

Facebook movie ads will now include ticket and showtime details

Facebook ads for movies will now include two new features: premiere reminders and the ability to look up showtimes and buy tickets. Users can hit the “Interested” button when they come across a movie ad in their News Feed, and they’ll receive a notification when the movie is in theaters, similar to how event pages work.

Facebook's Optional Ad Campaign Optimization is Going Away

Just two years after introducing the option for advertisers to optimize their campaign budget, Facebook will mandate that all advertisers set a central ad set budget. This means that their algorithms will automatically and continuously find the best active opportunities for results across your ad sets.

Facebook’s Ad Network Keeps Crashing, and Clients Are Fuming

Advertisers say Facebook's ad system hasn't been the same since a crash on Black Friday in 2018, and continues to experience outages that make it impossible to to set campaigns for clients.

Google Ads News

Google Ads to Remove Average Position Metric on September 30

Moving forward, Google recommends using Search top impression rate and Search absolute top impression rate that reflect the actual placement of the ads on your page, rather than the position of your ad compared to others.

Google Ads is Emailing Accounts That Haven’t Switched to Automated Bidding

Google Ads appears to be emailing owners of accounts that haven’t made the switch to automated bidding.

Google Ads’ Optimization Score Now Includes Shopping Campaigns

Optimization scores in Google Ads will now include shopping campaigns as well as search campaigns.

Instagram Ads News

Instagram Ad Partner Banned For Scraping User Data Without Consent

Facebook-owned Instagram has banned one of its advertising partners HYP3R after a security lapse and configuration error on its behalf allowed the marketing company to scrape data of millions of users, without explicit consent.

Has Instagram increased its ad load? Marketers report as many as 1 in 4 posts are ads

Advertisers say demand is leading to more ads to the Instagram News Feed -- particularly for users who have a history of engaging with ads.

Instagram Story ad share doubles while overall ad growth levels out

Instagram Story Ads account for nearly 20% of ad spend on the platform, according to Kenshoo.

Microsoft Ads News

PromoteIQ acquisition diversifies Microsoft Advertising platform

Microsoft has acquired vendor marketing startup PromoteIQ, which provides the tools for retailers to place ads on their online storefronts. Microsoft will make PromoteIQ a division within Microsoft Advertising.

Pinterest Ads News

Pinterest Provides Additional Insights into its Pin Classification Process

Now framing itself as a product discovery platform, Pinterest is increasingly working to better connect product matches with user interests, in order to help prompt users to buy, and build its eCommerce credentials.

New Research Indicates Pinterest is an Effective Marketing Tool for Auto Advertisers

Pinterest has a reputation of being dominated by a female audience, but campaigns for cars, a traditionally male-focused category, are surprisingly popular on the platform.

Reddit Ads News

Is it time to pay more attention to Reddit?

With the site’s overhaul last year, Reddit has rebuilt its platform to be more welcoming to users and, during the past year, rolled out several new advertising options for brands.

Snapchat Ads News

Snapchat Is Back in Fashion

Many brands fled Snapchat for greener pastures on Facebook and Instagram. But those that stuck around have found Snapchat is a winning platform to reach Gen Z.

Snapchat Simplifies Ad Creation With Launch Of Instant Create Tool
Advertisers have the option to upload their own creative or allow Instant Create to pull in images from their websites and automatically leverage Snapchat’s most popular ad templates, further streamlining the ad creation process.

Snap Has Soared 200% This Year, But Its Problems Are Actually Just Beginning

Snap's stock is doing well, but investors are concerns about slow user growth and ad supply being outpaced by demand, while increased monetization is already frustrating users. Snapchat's growth in overseas markets is also questioned.

TikTok Ads News

What Happens When TikTok Stops Being A Haven For Weirdo Creatives?

TikTok has blown up in 2019 and eclipsed its rival Snapchat for impact. The Chinese-backed app is opening offices around the world and seeking to monetize its audience. Yet, the content continues to be a haven for shock content that could keep it from becoming mainstream.

Twitter Ads News

Twitter debuts 6-second video bidding unit to encourage more short-form ads

Twitter has unveiled a video ad-bidding option that could bolster the use of short-form video on the platform. The new ad-bidding unit lets advertisers run video ads of 16 second or less, and only charges them after the video is watched for six seconds with 50% of pixels in view.

Twitter bans advertising from state-controlled news outlets

The change comes after 'Xinhua' sponsored ads attacking Hong Kong protesters.

YouTube Ads News

YouTube videos for kids will reportedly stop getting targeted ads

Because targeted ads involve collecting information about a user, gearing them toward kids under age 13 without parental consent is essentially a violation of COPPA. YouTube's decision to eliminate targeted ads could result in an immediate loss in ad sales.

YouTube Shared Its Top 6-Second Ads From July 2018 Through July 2019

The Google-owned video site complied the list using a creative rating test conducted by Ipsos, along with an algorithm that factored in total views and engagement. The list is dominated by the food and beverage category, as well as consumer packaged goods, illustrating that six-second ads are a good format for brands in those sectors.

YouTube pressured to ban Chinese state media ads that spread misinformation about protesters

YouTube is being pressured to remove ads from China Central Television, a state media channel that’s allegedly spreading misinformation about protesters in Hong Kong.

PDFs worth reading

Amazon quadruples digital ad spending to overtake Netflix, study finds

Amazon overtook Netflix as the top advertiser for video streaming services after quadrupling its digital media spending in the first half of 2019 from a year earlier.

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