Fancy like????… why brands should pay attention to TikTok

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Good morning, Marketers, how do you feel about TikTok?

We’ve had the discussion internally with the Search Engine Land editorial team, and I’ve let everyone know I’m a fan. I absolutely love the platform and the creative that comes out of it. Other apps have tried to replicate it (see: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube), but none have captured the pizzazz of TikTok. Maybe it’s the demographic. Only we olds are stuck using Facebook and Instagram. 

The company recently announced that it surpassed one billion monthly users, so it’s a huge opportunity for advertisers, especially those targeting that younger audience. But it’s one that we have to get really right to succeed.

But sometimes TikTok creators are the leaders here and brands take the cue. I recently read an article in Esquire about how the “Fancy Like” TikTok trend was co-opted by Applebee’s marketers to become their latest TV commercial campaign. And it works!

Not only has TikTok helped surface Applebee’s but it’s helped the country artist Walker Hayes top the charts as well. This is just the latest trend. One TikTok designer “redesigned” many popular logos, and so many brands hopped on board. 

The lesson is sometimes the innovators are in nontraditional places and that UGC is still a huge opportunity for brands. Now pardon me, off to practice my next TikTok dance…

Carolyn Lyden,
Director of Search Content

Microsoft Advertising’s new Credit card ads continue its streak of vertical-specific products

Microsoft Advertising has introduced Credit card ads as an open beta, the company announced Tuesday. Credit card ads will appear on the right rail of Bing search results and run alongside mainline text ad placements. These ads can trigger for queries like brand names, card categories and credit levels. Credit card ads are dynamically generated based on advertisers’ data feeds and keywords are not required. They will become available this week to advertisers targeting customers in the U.S. and Canada.

Why we care. This format may be useful for credit card advertisers, like banks, brands and comparison sites, to showcase their promotions. They may also offer increased efficiency for this particular segment of advertisers: “In early flights of Credit card ads, advertisers so far have seen 70% lower cost per acquisition,” Microsoft said.

From an industry standpoint, Microsoft Advertising is on a streak of launching vertical-specific, feed-based products that are unique to the company — in addition to Credit card ads, the company has rolled out open betas for Tours and Activities ads and Automotive ads over the last six months. The platform’s strategy of appealing to advertisers with automated ad formats tailored specifically to their industry may help it achieve wider adoption and increase its market share.

Read more here.

More product and feature announcements from Google Ads this week

Along with the data-driven attribution announcement from Monday, Google Ads made a few other product and features announcements all at once this week. Here’s the latest to keep you in the loop:

• Engaged-view conversions for display: A more robust non-click conversion measurement. Engaged-view conversions allow you to measure conversions that take place after someone views 10 seconds or more of your ad, but doesn’t click, and then converts within a set amount of days.
• TrueView for action to become Video action campaigns: Starting early 2022, all existing TrueView for action campaigns will automatically upgrade to Video action campaigns. As a reminder, September 30, 2021 is the last day to create a new TrueView for action campaign and any existing TrueView for action ads will continue to run until early next year. Moving forward, advertisers can create Video action campaigns using the responsive ad group type during campaign set-up.
• Update to sexually explicit content policy: In December 2021, Google Ads sexually explicit content policy violations will be updated to egregious policy violations. Egregious policy violations result in account suspension upon detection and without prior warning. Google will begin enforcing the policy update on December 1, 2021, with full enforcement ramping up over approximately 4 weeks.
• Send non-personalized ad requests to third-party RTB buyers: Beginning on October 21, 2021, Google will start a phased rollout to enable publishers to begin sending bid requests for publishers’ non-personalized and restricted data processing ad requests to the third-party RTB (real-time bidding) buyers. To protect user privacy, RTB protocol fields that are designed to be used to share user identifiers (e.g., google_user_id) will not be populated in these bid requests. OThe high-level phased rollout plan can be viewed here. The phased rollout plan set out on that page will be updated from time to time, so please review this resource periodically.

Ecommerce SEO guide: Google’s latest documentation for SEOs and developers

With COVID forcing many retailers online, there are more ecommerce options than ever. Google Search Central recently released new guidelines for developers to help improve search visibility for ecommerce sites. 

“When you share your ecommerce data and site structure with Google, Google can more easily find and parse your content, which allows your content to show up in Google Search and other Google surfaces. This can help shoppers find your site and products,” said the guide.

The seven pages include information on the following:

1. Where ecommerce content can appear on Google
2. Share your product data with Google
3. Include structured data relevant to ecommerce
4. How to launch a new ecommerce website
5. Designing a URL structure for ecommerce sites
6. Help Google understand your ecommerce site structure
7. Pagination, incremental page loading, and their impact on Google Search

Why we care. With many businesses starting ecommerce websites for the first time in the past year or so, this guide can help ensure that they’re following the best practices to get their products seen in the varying search engines Google provides. It also gives SEOs who focus on ecommerce documentation to show their clients and stakeholders to help get their recommendations for better ecommerce SEO implemented. 

Read more here.

Search Shorts: Google hosts Search On virtual event today (and we’ve got your coverage), plus don’t forget to take our quick robots.txt survey

Don’t miss Google’s Search On today. Want to know what’s next for search? At this virtual event, Google will “share how we’re making Google more helpful for the trillions of questions we see every year, whether you’re looking for a simple answer, to explore a new topic or find the right product for you.” 

And, of course, stay tuned to Search Engine Land for the latest Search On coverage and what it means for you, the search marketer.

Don’t forget to take our robots.txt survey. Should robots.txt support a feature for no indexation? Take the survey. “I’d like to avoid adding more directives. I’m still not aware of common issues caused by this documented functionality,” said John Mueller.

What We’re Reading: We’ve curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader.

• How to do keyword research for YouTube – Yoast
• What Can You Update in Hotels Knowledge Panel – Online Ownership
• Reporting and the Journey to Advanced Analytics – ClickInsight
• Types of machine learning models – Think with Google
• 13 questions to ask your next PPC agency – Vertical Leap