Instagram Reel ads are the new TikTok competitor; Monday’s daily brief

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.

Good morning, Marketers, and what is your take on the state of marketing careers?

It seems like marketing jobs are on the rebound after the pandemic. I’m seeing tons of listings in my Twitter feed and on LinkedIn for big companies expanding their marketing departments, including positions ranging from entry-level to the head of marketing. It makes me hopeful for those looking to rebound after a hard year and a half and excited for those who are looking to grow in their careers.

We’ve included a small list of jobs below that we think seem interesting and fun (like SEO for a fancy dog food company!), and if your company is hiring too, make sure to send along any job listings and we might include them in the newsletter.

Along with our Monday job listings, we’ve got some of the latest SEO and social advertising news for you, as well as an interesting take on big tech and privacy.

Carolyn Lyden,
Director of Search Content

Google limits FAQ rich results to a maximum of two per snippet

Google has confirmed that it made a change to show a maximum of two FAQ rich results per search result snippet in its search results. Previously, Google would show several FAQ rich results but over the past couple of days, SEOs began to notice Google limiting them to two.

This change started to roll out yesterday, Mark Barrera first noticed it and many since then confirmed seeing the limit. However, it does not yet seem fully rolled out globally yet because many are still seeing more than two displayed, especially outside of the US.

Why we care. This means that your snippets that contain FAQ rich results may not be as long as previously. So your snippet real estate may be a bit smaller and take up less of the search results, leaving more room for others to show up higher on the search results page. At the same time, it may mean that if competitors were above you, you can show up higher on the page.

Read more here.

Instagram rolls out Reel ads globally

Last week Instagram announced that Reels, its main competitor to TikTok’s short-form video, will be rolling out ads globally. Tested initially in select markets, all countries will now have access to the 30-second ad format. “Like Reels, the new ads will loop, and people will be able to like, comment on, and save them, the same as other Reels videos,” said Sarah Perez for TechCrunch.Brands currently using the Reels ads include big names like Louis Vuitton, Netflix, and Uber. The number of ads an Instagram user sees will vary based on how they use the app.

Why we care. “Like Instagram’s other advertising products, Reels ads will launch with an auction-based model,” wrote Perez. This format has implications for D2C and retail brands that often see success on Instagram due to the visual nature of the platform. This new global release comes around the same time as headlines about TikTok’s increase in ad prices. But with both TikTok and Instagram at over one billion monthly active users, it may be worth the investment in the new format.

On the hunt for something new in 2021? Here are the latest career opportunities in search

Digital Advertising & Analytics Manager @ Aeroflow Healthcare (Asheville, NC or remote)

• Develop and manage digital advertising campaigns and accounts across multiple platforms for several profitable divisions of Aeroflow Healthcare
• Identify market trends, provide analysis, and maintain reporting

Senior Copywriter @ LeadPages (Minnesota or remote)

• Develop, write and thoroughly proof marketing copy for the company website, landing pages, blog articles, nurture emails, case studies, ads, and large content assets (e.g., eBooks, white papers, interactive content, etc.)
• Craft long-form blog articles that are optimized for humans and search engines alike and format content in WordPress for review and approval.

Paid Search (SEM) Associate Manager @ Merkle (Austin, TX or remote)

• Perform day-to-day campaign activities for enterprise level Paid Search (PPC) campaigns: bid management, budget allocation, forecasting, performance monitoring, strategic testing, campaign expansion, etc.
• Act as the main point of contact for the client, internal departments, and third party providers

SEO Specialist @ The Farmer’s Dog (NYC)

• Work with Product & Content teams to manage our SEO strategy and execution, including growing traffic to our blog and increasing #1 rankings for related terms, as well as increasing new customer acquisitions
• Work closely with the Director of Content on content and keyword strategy for SEO.

Enter a job opening for an opportunity to be featured in this section.

New changes in Google Ads plus non-AMP top stories in the wild

Changes to availability enforcement in Google Ads. As of September 1, Google will be replacing the “Delivery issues” policy violation with a new product data violation: “Inaccurate availability (due to inconsistent availability between the landing page and checkout pages on your website)”.

WebP added as a supported image format in Merchant Center. Google Ads updated the Merchant Center image requirements so that you can now submit a WebP (.webp) image as a valid value for the image_link and additional_image_link attributes.

Non-AMP stories spotted in the wild. “This is the first time I’ve consciously seen a non-AMP in a top stories carousel,” said Valentin Pletzer on Twitter. 

Tech giants say on-device ML offers more privacy, but it also keeps users tied to their machines

Both Apple and Google announced machine-learning driven innovations on their mobile devices this month. At WWDC, Apple said that Siri will soon be able to transcribe speech without having to tap into the cloud and Google announced secure processing of sensitive data on the Android devices. On-device processing feels more secure to users because their data doesn’t travel to the cloud. 

“Not transmitting personal data cuts the risk of exposure and saves time spent waiting for data to traverse the internet. At the same time, keeping data on devices aligns with the tech giants’ long-term interest in keeping consumers bound into their ecosystems. People that hear their data can be processed more privately might become more willing to agree to share more data,” said Tom Simonite for Wired.

Initiatives like FLoC and Apple’s app-tracking transparency notifications can make people feel like their data is being protected from these larger organizations, but it’s still up to those apps how they handle it.

“Privacy gets confused with keeping data confidential, but it’s also about limiting power,” says Michael Veale, a lecturer in digital rights at University College London. “If you’re a big tech company and manage to reframe privacy as only confidentiality of da