Hello, Dear Readers,
It’s our favorite day of the week again. Nothing quells my cynicism like a Friday night dinner with my besties, and I’ve got one planned this very evening. I encourage you all to do the same. But the workday isn’t over yet, Darlings. It’s time tik-talk about TikTok… I’m sorry, that was awful. Please forgive me and keep reading.
TikTok advertisers can now target its search results page
Google found dead. Just kidding, our overlords will never die. But they’re definitely feeling threatened by the clock app’s fast and furious rise to power. I’ve shared data in the past about how TikTok is becoming Gen Z’s go-to search engine, and the company self-reported that 57% of its users use their search functionality. Basically, they’re coming for Google’s bag. And now, advertisers can target keywords on their search results page, mimicking the paid search model.
The search ads feature is available in the US now and is coming to other markets soon. TikTok claims that “advertisers that run Search Ads in addition to In-Feed Ads see a 20% increase in conversions on average.” So, if you’re already running In-Feed Ads, I highly recommend adding search ads to the mix. In other TikTok news…
How to get featured in TikTok’s holiday gift guide
Combine the influence of TikTok Shop with the holiday buying frenzy, and what do you get? An opportunity to make a boatload of money if you’re a retail marketer. And what better way to get millions of eyes on your product than to be featured in TikTok’s holiday gift guide? The guide will be highlighted in TikTok Shop and promoted by influencers and in-app marketing pushes. Sounds ideal, except for one tiny detail… you have to spend a lot of money on TikTok Ads over the next three months to qualify. And even if you spend enough, there’s no guarantee that your products will be included. You can review the details here and decide if it’s worth a shot. In other social news…
Some advertisers lost Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping campaigns
If you recently tried to choose Advantage+ while creating a sales campaign in Meta Ads and noticed the option was no longer available, you’re not alone. Some advertisers saw the Advantage+ option disappear, and in its place, the option to create a Catalog Sales Campaign. No word from Meta yet on whether this is intentional or a bug. But if you’re hitting this issue, you can work around it by duplicating an existing Advantage+ Shopping campaign instead of creating a new campaign from scratch. Hopefully, things will go back to normal soon. If they do, I’ll let you know. Now, let’s chat about Reddit…
Reddit’s new ads inspiration library offers, you guessed it, ad inspiration
The layout is quite similar to Facebook’s ad library, but you can’t search for specific brands, and it only features ads that Reddit deems ‘top performers.’ So, maybe it’s not as good for competitive analysis as the Facebook Ads library, but it’s still a great place to go for ideas. You can search ads by keyword, industry, budget, format, placement, and objective. Take it for a spin to get your creative juices flowing. In other social news…
Review your industry’s social media benchmarks
This benchmarking report from Hootsuite can help you understand how your content is performing on key social platforms compared to your industry’s average. It also outlines the best types of content to post on each channel, ideal posting frequency, follower growth rates, and more. Check it out to see how your social strategy stacks up. Now for a bit of ecom news…
Walmart is running a sale the same day as Amazon’s Fall Prime Day
Amazon recently announced that their second sale event of the year, ‘Prime Big Deal Days,’ will happen October 8th and 9th. And hot on their heels, Walmart announced that their first ‘Holiday Deals’ sale will start the same day, October 8th, and run through the 13th. So, if you sell on those platforms, it’s time to start scaling up ad spend in preparation for the big days. And if you want to make sure all your boxes are checked, my alter ego wrote a handy Prime Day Prep Guide. Now, let’s talk about everyone’s favorite streaming platform…
YouTube announced a new ‘Pause Ads’ placement
In addition to the typical placements before and during videos, YouTube is rolling out ads that play when a video is paused. They can be static images or short looping videos and occupy a small portion of the screen. Unlike unskippable ads, users have the option to close out of pause ads, making the whole experience less disruptive to viewers, but also likely decreasing user engagement with the ad. Regardless, this new placement is worth testing. In other video news…
Google added video enhancement for PMax
The new feature is being rolled out now and is intended to improve video ad performance with automated adjustments. Advertisers have reported seeing this option in some of their PMax campaign settings and noticed campaigns are being opted in by default. The setting says, “Enhance videos by creating additional vertical and square versions, as well as additional shortened versions.”
Would you check yes on that? My initial instinct is no, because what if it crops out critical parts of my video ad? Isn’t this why we create multiple variations of our creative? Giving Google’s AI the power to edit my ads makes me a bit nervous, not gonna lie. Can someone else test this out for me and let me know how it goes? And for my last bit of news…
Perplexity is inventing a new online ad auctioning system
For those unfamiliar with Perplexity, they’ve developed an AI-powered search engine that costs users a moderate $20 a month. Their engine scans the web and provides AI-generated summaries of its findings to answer questions, and offers users a list of follow-up questions they could ask.
And that’s where us advertisers come in - we’ll be able to bid on those follow-up questions. Android Headlines provided this example - “If you ask ‘How long to heat up baby formula,’ a company can pay to display the follow-up question, ‘What are the best times to feed your baby.’ The follow-up question could lead to that company’s website, where it will be able to gain additional ad revenue.” It’s an interesting model that they plan to launch by the end of the year. Could it give Google a run for their money? Only time will tell…
And that’s all for now, darlings. October starts next week, and I know my Digital Darlings love autumn. So watch some spooky movies, frolick through a pumpkin patch or two, binge-watch Caitlin Covington’s Reels, and come back next Friday for some pumpkin-spiced tea.
You know you love me.
.png){kind=avatar}
