Goodbye, limits! You can go over 20% now…
What are we talking about? Facebook just made an update.
The infamous “less than 20% text” rule is gone.
Tip from The Crew: more text in images can work in some cases, but don’t assume that this update means you should run wild with loads of text in your images. Less is (usually) more.
A few other things that you might care about if you run ads on Facebook:
- A few advertisers are reporting that the View Content event is not firing on Shopify sites. So if your metrics are screwed, it’s probably not your fault.
- Are your ads casual enough? Data is showing that user-generated ‘viral’-style content is more popular than ever on Facebook, a signal to you should keep up with the trends.
Now, let’s move to Big G.
ADVERTISING
Google wants you to listen to its senses
We just had to use that pun…
Here’s what’s up: AdSense is the most popular way to monetise a website so Google wants to help owners with some best-practices.
Long story, short: it’s about finding a balance between providing a good experience to the user, making sure advertisers find the platform advantageous, and ensuring publishers generate revenue.
How?
- Create outstanding content, whatever that is for your audience.
- Keep it family-friendly.
- Don’t place ads on content you don’t have the right to use.
- Don’t drive unnatural attention to ads by using visual elements such as arrows, callouts, etc.
That’s just a quick overview. If you do use AdSense, definitely read the full guide.
SPONSORED BY GENUS AI
Understand and implement AI in your marketing efforts with no code – The Marketer’s Artificial Intelligence Playbook
Fact: Data is awesome!
Also fact: Insights from the right data are the ones driving results. Data alone won’t do much!
We’re thinking about results such as 32% lower CPA,124% higher ROAS and 132% more revenue with paid social channels (like Facebook and Instagram).
Or, if you are more of an email person, results such as 277% LTV lift and 167% AOV increase.
Do you want results like those? Then read this! The Marketer’s Artificial Intelligence Playbook guides you step by step, from getting your data ready, setting the right goals, adjusting your campaign tactics and, of course, deploying AI. All in the effort to get you a better return on your marketing. And it’s free!
This free playbook is the clearest step by step guide for someone without any coding knowledge to leverage AI into accelerated growth.
Best of all, it’s absolutely free to download here, courtesy of Genus AI.
What’s Genus AI, you ask? Genus AI is the world’s first no-coding Customer Modeling Platform for Emotional Intelligence. Give the free playbook a read. You’ll get it then!
SEO
Is Google ignoring your meta descriptions?
How long do you spend writing meta descriptions for your blog posts and product pages?
No matter how long you’re spending, it might all be a waste of time.
The importance of meta descriptions is just another SEO debate making noise in SEO Facebook groups and everywhere else SEOs can find a platform to debate things – but it’s a relevant debate.
However, rather than reading opinions on Facebook groups, you could just have a look at this research done by Evan Hall at Portent and let the data do the talking.
They used a list of 30,000 keywords taken from their clients with brand terms filtered out. They then entered the keywords into STAT Search Analytics and pulled rankings for both desktop and mobile search results.
The goal? To find out if Google’s actually using the meta descriptions you’re writing.
Here are some results of the research:
- First-page rewrite rate: 71% for mobile and 68% for desktop. In other words, Google uses the meta description tag for the snippet around 30% of the time when the page ranks on the first page.
- Rewrite rate by search volume: the higher the search volume of the keyword, the less likely Google is to rewrite the meta description.
- Rewrite rate by query length: like search volume, long-tail queries tend to have search result snippets that don’t use the page’s meta description.
These are just some of the different stats you can find in Evan’s article.
But you’re probably wondering what you should do with your own meta descriptions.
As Evan says, you shouldn’t give up on writing good meta descriptions. But, you can just be smart about it.
For example, as per the study, if you’re targeting high search volume keywords, it is better that you put more time in coming up with a better meta description.
And for more scenarios, just give a look at the stats in the research.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
PINTEREST: iOS 14 is making waves, and not just for its imminent tracking restrictions that could hurt advertisers. It’s being reported that Pinterest’s downloads hit an all-time high this week as users searched for iOS 14 widget inspiration.
INSTAGRAM: A recent study found that 76% of Instagram influencers hide advertising disclosures in sponsored posts, either by putting them in the comments or a hard-to-read part of the post.
PINTEREST: If you’re looking for holiday marketing ideas and guidance, check out Pinterest’s latest piece for businesses and marketers about capitalizing this year.
SEO: Celebrate SEOs! Google just announced that they support shipping details schema – and in perfect timing for the holiday season.
GOOGLE: Video appointments and online class options are slowly being rolled out to local businesses, part of Google’s push to support local businesses during the pandemic.
BRAIN TEASER
What is one thing that everyone, regardless of their religion or politics, agrees is between heaven and earth?
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.
It’s Russia vs. Tom Cruise
The space race is back on. Except this time, instead of the U.S. and Russia competing for a trip to the moon, Tom Cruise and Russian filmmakers are racing to be the first to film a movie in space.
You may have already heard of Tom Cruise’s space movie ambitions by now, as it was announced a few months ago and officially confirmed yesterday. He’ll be working with NASA and SpaceX alongside Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman to shoot the movie aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
As it turns out, though, Russia has its eyes set on a similar prize. In a statement yesterday, Russian space agency Roscosmos claims that it will be helping to create the first-ever movie filmed in space, with an ISS arrival date set for Fall 2021.
Turns out, Tom Cruise’s ISS film date is also in Fall 2021… We can’t wait to see how that plays out.
Who are we kidding, though – as cool as two space movies will be, it’s going to be hard to beat Tom Cruise at pretty much anything.