YouTube Audio Ads, Hotel Ads, and Lead Form Extensions
These are the 3 new ad formats and extensions that you’ll be able to manage in Google Ads Editor v1.7 starting next Monday. You will be able to download specific parts of your advertising campaign as well.
Google had planned to release Ads Editor 1.7 today, but they postponed the release to August 9th.
The bigger you get, the more appealing Editor becomes: If you’re only running a few small campaigns with 100 keywords or less, Google Ads Editor might not be that appealing.
However, once you get to some serious numbers (with hundreds of campaigns and thousands of keywords), you’ll see how making changes in bulk saves you time…and nerves.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Clubhouse vs. Twitter Spaces: August Edition
If you thought Clubhouse was dead, the company has some news for you: Clubhouse now has 600,000 daily rooms created on average.
Jealous? So is Twitter (it seems). They announced today that they’re finally removing Fleets from their app to make way for Spaces, their live audio feature.
We’ve also seen some recent reports about Twitter experimenting with making spaces more discoverable to people who don’t follow you… like your ex, maybe?
The live audio war is far from over. It’s only getting started. And (for the moment) Clubhouse is in the lead.
SPONSORED BY SAILTHRU
What brands of any size can learn from Adidas, Nordstrom, and American Eagle Outfitters in 2021
Remember 2020? All those lockdowns and stay-at-home orders helped online shopping skyrocket!
Sudden changes that came with two things: challenges and opportunities. Who won, and who lost?
Sailthru analyzed some of the top fashion retailers like Adidas, Nordstrom, MATCHESFASHION, and identified 6 strategies brands of any size can implement to improve their sales.
Who is Sailthru? Just the largest sender of personalized emails in the world. If there’s anyone who can unravel what made these brands thrive in the past year, it’s them!
They put all their findings in a detailed guide that contains:
- How a high-end clothes rental service used Facebook Lookalike Audiences to build predictive purchase models and reduced subscriber acquisition cost by 20%.
- Adidas’s cross-channel lifecycle messaging used to recover abandoned carts.
- How MATCHESFASHION mixed “Amazon’s recommended products” feature with email to assign a product for each customer profile. This is extremely useful if you have a large product inventory.
- What to include in your subject line to increase open rates by 14.68%.
And more strategies from Nordstrom, American Eagle, and TechStyle Fashion Group.
YOUTUBE
This 15,000 keywords analysis will show you how to rank higher on YouTube
YouTube was started in 2004 as a video dating website. Today, it’s the second most used search engine after Google, attracting 2B monthly users.
(No wonder Google put a 1.65 billion dollar ring on it.)
If you’re trying to scale your ranking on this search engine, you might want to check out the research run by Sermrush and Tubics.
They analyzed the top 10 search results for 15,000 keywords to determine which metric points affected performance the most. Here’s what they found:
Growth dynamics
- Subscribers: Most of the results in the top 10 came from channels with the highest number of subscribers. Only 18% of videos came from channels with less than 1,000 subscribers.
Take away: Subscribers help, but if the content is engaging and of high quality you can still make your way into the top ten.
- Views: On average, the video in the first position had 74% more views than the video in the second position. Also, the YouTube algo recommends videos that are more likely to be viewed to the end based on their length
Take away: Promote your content as soon as you release it (across multiple platforms) to get early traction for views. Don’t solely depend on the algo to do all the heavy lifting.
Engagement metrics: In short, it’s a virtuous circle. The more people watch a video, the more views, likes, and comments it gets. And the more engagement signals it receives, the higher it ranks.
Video features and elements
- Titles: 54% of all the analyzed videos had an average of 8 words in their title. Limiting your word use here seems to be the way to go. Also, be sure to mention the main keyword.
- Description length: The average number of words was 107. The idea here is to go longer, but not crazy. And ensure the description closely matches the video content.
- Links in the description: Branded URLs were shown to increase CTRs by nearly 36%. If you want to drive the viewers to your website, use these.
- Hashtags: Top-ranking videos have on average 13 tags. Videos with fewer tags ranked in lower positions. Sprinkle in tags that match the keywords without overdoing it.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
E-COMMERCE: Check out how this lifestyle newsletter powers the e-commerce business that is Huckberry. Free preview here.*
INSTAGRAM: If you’re stuck on what to post next on Instagram, they’ve got your back. The social network has just launched an inspiration collection you can look at before posting if you’re stuck for ideas.
SEO: New update, new SEO disagreements. This time, it’s about how to approach no-follow sponsored links.
YOUTUBE: The company wants to pay you up to $10k per month if you post Shorts on YouTube.
PRODUCTIVITY: Gmail Smart Compose. You either love it or hate it. In any case, this functionality is now coming to Google Slides, Sheets, and Drawings.
GOOGLE: Did you know that ranking in Google images is determined not only by the image but also by the associated landing page? Glenn Gabe goes into greater depth.
TWITTER: Including links in your post can reduce your organic reach on Twitter, according to this experiment.
*This is a sponsored post
BRAIN TEASER
A man describes his daughters, saying, “They are all blonde, but two; all brunette but two; and all redheaded but two.” How many daughters does he have?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Payphones are still a thing in Australia
Dead in Canada. Virtually non-existent in the US. Payphones are something that’s been forgotten in almost every…single…country, except for one: Australia.
Telstra, Australia’s biggest telco, has announced they’re removing the word “pay” from payphones by making them free for making national calls.
If you’re thinking to yourself: “Gosh, this is going to be a dream come true for pranksters,” you’re probably right. There are pros and cons to everything though. And the pros of making payphones free outweigh the cons, according to Telstra.
“They are an iconic and critical part of our community, and for many Australians, the availability of a payphone is a vital lifeline, especially for those vulnerable, including the homeless, people who are isolated or someone escaping an unsafe situation.”- Telstra CEO Andrew Penn.
With natural disasters happening all around the world lately, this is a great example of how old technology can be used for good. Yay for Australia!
Hopefully, they chill on the jokes about the refrigerator running…get it?