This week: Pinterest has some good news for ecommerce marketers, YouTube rolls out a couple of new features for merchants, and LinkedIn offers new retargeting opportunities.
Here’s what happened this week in digital marketing.
YouTube Rolls out New Features for Merchants
Here’s some good news if you’re selling products via YouTube.
For starters, YouTube now gives you access to a monthly performance report. It combines various data sets.
You can access the report via YouTube Studio in the Channel Overview section. There, you’ll see a bar chart showing 13 months of data.
Use that report to gauge your performance on a month-by-month basis.
Next: YouTube will also display an alert for each sale during a live stream. Viewers will see messages about sales in the comments section.
An example message looks like: “So-and-so just bought a Star Wars T-Shirt!”
YouTube says that non-advertising revenue for video publishers is on the rise.
Google Updates Featured Snippets
This past week, Google announced that it updated Featured Snippets. Now, users who click on some snippets will go directly to that text on the hosting web page.
Here’s what the Google Search Liaison posted on Twitter: “As we have done with AMP pages since December 2018, clicking on a featured snippet now takes users to the exact text highlighted for HTML pages, when we can confidently determine where the text is, for browsers that support the underlying technology….”
You don’t need to do anything to take advantage of the new feature. Google handles everything on your behalf.
Google: Some Guest Post Links Are Unnatural
In case you missed the news, SEMRush is selling guest posts. That might not seem like a big deal, but it is to Google.
According to John Mueller, selling a guest post “is an unnatural link.”
He went on to say that it’s the kind of unnatural link that the webspam team might take action on. Mueller also used the phrase “manual action” when he mentioned that.
So you want to tread lightly before you pay for guest posts via SEMRush.
Mueller did say that webmasters can avoid any violations of Google guidelines if they use the rel=nofollow or rel=sponsored tags with their guest post links.
LinkedIn Introduces Remarketing for Video and Lead Ads
Big news if you’re into B2B marketing: LinkedIn recently announced the engagement and retargeting options for users who engaged with Video Ads or interacted with Lead Gen Forms.
In either case, you’ll define your audience in the Account Assets section. Then, choose the Matched Audiences option.
If you want to retarget people who’ve watched your videos, you’ll also need to select how much of your video they watched (25%, 50%, etc.).
If you want to retarget people who’ve engaged with your Lead Gen Form, you’ll need to select a time frame since they engaged. You can choose anything from 30 to 365 days in the past.
Google Tests Showing Web Pages in YouTube Search Results
This past week, a Reddit user noticed something different in YouTube search results: web page links.
The user posted a screenshot of his discovery on Reddit. And now we all know that YouTube will sometimes show web pages in its search results.
New YouTube Feature: Links to Web Pages from Google Search Results
Web pages show up in a section entitled “Results from the web.” It looks like they list the top few results you’d see if you did a Google search for the exact same keyword.
Clearly, the new feature is running in limited test mode for now. Google is probably gathering feedback from users to determine whether or not the YouTube community would welcome it.
Twitter Lets Users Schedule Tweets
Goodbye, Hootsuite?
Well, maybe.
Twitter now allows you to schedule tweets in advance. You don’t even need a third-party tool.
To take advantage of the new feature, just compose your tweet as you normally would. Then, click the calendar icon at the bottom of the tweet card.
You can schedule your tweet up to 18 months in advance.
The feature is only available on the browser version of Twitter at this time.
Google Top Stories Will Show More Than Just AMP Results
Once upon a time, Google would only show AMP results in Top Stories. That’s no longer the case.
Google announced the change recently when it mentioned the update about ranking signals. As I mentioned last week, user experience will soon become a ranking factor.
When that happens, you won’t need AMP to get a spot in Top Stories. That’s because mobile-friendly web pages don’t need AMPlificiation.
However, Google still supports AMP.
Almost Two-Thirds of Online Publishers Saw Lower CPMs in May
According to the IAB, 62% of publishers saw lower CPMs between April 29 and May 11.
The report blames the lower CPMs on budget cuts and limited competition.
Programmatic specialists saw a 57% decline during the same time period. However, 8% saw a significant increase in CPMs.
The biggest CPM drops occurred in the “open web display” category. That was followed by mobile advertising.
CPM prices on desktop are down 27%. On mobile, they’re down 18%.
Google: We Don’t Give Old Domains a Ranking Boost
Some SEOs think it’s easier to rank content with an old domain. According to Google, that’s not the case.
This past week on Twitter, someone pointed out to John Mueller that the top 20 Google results were represented by old domains. He asked if it was related to last month’s update.
Mueller replied simply: “There is no ‘old domains’ ranking change.”
Pinterest Adds ‘Shop’ Tab to Lens Results
Lens visual search results in Pinterest now include a “Shop” tab. That makes it easier for users to find items they can purchase.
Here’s what Pinterest says about the new feature:
It’s a timely feature. According to Pinterest, engagement on Product Pins increased 44% since the COVID-19 lockdowns began.
Bing Updates Backlink Research Tool
Bing recently improved its backlink tool so that it now shows backlinks from competitor sites.
You’re not limited to view backlinks from competitor sites, though. You can view backlinks from whatever sites you want. Just enter the domain name and check out the report.
The new tool doesn’t provide an exhaustive list of all backlinks. Instead, it just lists “representative” links.
Still, it’s valuable info that you can get free of charge.
The new feature gives you details about referring domains, the number of links per domain, and anchor texts.
Homework
Lots of news you can use this week. Here are a few assignments:
- Use Bing’s updated backlink tool to check the backlink profile of a couple of competing sites. You might get some inspiration about how to improve your own backlink profile.
- If you’re running an ecommerce site and not yet marketing your products on Pinterest, get that going right away.
- Do a “test drive” of scheduling a tweet on Twitter. If you like what you see, ask yourself if you really need Hootsuite or Buffer any more.
- If you’re into B2B marketing, take advantage of the new retargeting options on LinkedIn.
- If you’re selling products via YouTube, check out the new month-by-month sales report. Look for opportunities for improvement.
