LIVE updates: This month in search marketing [August 2023]

Tuesday 01st August 2023

It has begun…AI based job positions now opening up

Coca Cola has become the first company to appoint a ‘Global Head of Generative AI’!

As AI becomes an integral part of day-to-day marketing activity, employing people to be a lead on the topic is likely a step forward for marketing teams. With fears that AI might decrease the amount of jobs available in the field of marketing, Coca Cola appointing this new position might ease some of that tension – as AI is starting to create roles in the industry.

It will be interesting to see how Coca Cola moves forward with the new addition to their marketing team, and how this shapes the future of the industry.

09th August 2023

The expansion of paid social

As technology advances, and consumer behaviour shifts, more people are turning to social media to make their purchase decisions. After a 13.9% dip in ad spend on paid social in the last 6 months of 2022, social media platforms are starting to adopt generative AI in an attempt to stay relevant, and increase the ad spend of their platforms.

11th August 2023

Where are budgets being focused in the financial crisis?

According to a recent survey by Wunderkind 44% of marketers expect their performance marketing budget to increase in the coming year, closely followed by the budget for marketing technology (39%). From the survey, it was clear that for marketers performance marketing takes priority:

• 77% are collecting behavioral data
• 70% are collecting engagement data
• 53% are collecting attitudinal data
• 52% are collecting personal data

How has Search Engine Marketing evolved?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has changed drastically since its early days, and it continues to evolve and adapt at a rapid pace. This article by MarTech talks about the evolution of SEM, and discusses the more recent adaptations to the practice such as:

• An increase in mobile use
• A higher importance on local search
• The introduction of voice search

13th August 2023

PETs in a post cookie world

As we veer towards the end of the third-party cookie, marketers are looking for alternative methods for successful remarketing campaigns. Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) can offer this solution, without compromising user privacy. This article goes into more depth on how these work, but in summary, PETs use the following to pinpoint their audiences, craft messages, and assess their campaigns:

• Differential privacy
• Multi-party computation (MPC)
• Homomorphic encryption
• On-device learning
• Synthetic data
• Federated learning

14th August 2023

Using AI to help meet customer expectations?

Expectations of the digital consumer continue to rise, and marketers need to find new lengths to continue to deliver the personalised experiences that consumers want to see. It seems that AI is helping achieve this, by boosting productivity, increase creativity, and providing better understanding of your target audience.

Demand for skilled AI experts is soaring

Following the AI appointed role by Coca Cola earlier this month, many more companies seem to be searching for talent with AI expertise. It looks as if this trend will continue to rise as more AI based marketing jobs crop up across multiple industries.

16th August 2023

Google says not to worry about SEO tool scores

In a recent Q&A session, Google’s John Mueller says not to worry about the scores you receive from SEO tools, as they are not used for ranking. Although he says it is not used for ranking, he says they are useful tools to find and fix actual issues that do affect ranking.

17th August 2023

Less than 25% of marketers plan to invest in X (formerly Twitter) in the next 12 months

In research conducted by Search Engine Land, it was found that 17% of marketers plan to invest in X in Q3 of 2023, down from 27% in Q1 of this year. Instead, marketers plan to invest in both Google (81%) and Meta platforms such as Facebook or Instagram (57%).

19th August 2023

Google announces plans to purge inactive accounts

Starting in December 2023, Google plans to purge accounts that have not been accessed in two years or more. While many are unhappy with Google’s decision, they have stated that the policy doesn’t apply to schools or businesses, and all people need to do is sign in once every two years in order for their account to remain active.

23rd August 2023

TikTok has introduced an ad feature to search results

TikTok has expanded its ads feature, so now in-feed ads can appear in the search page, alongside organic search results. Known as the ‘Search Ads Toggle’ this new feature is further establishing TikTok as a discovery platform, and search engine, with more and more users the platform to search for queries and information.

29th August 2023

60% of Gen Z watch both YouTube videos, and Ads!

New stats have emerged which provide insights on how the younger generation are engaging with ads on the popular video search platform, YouTube. With 80% of this age group actively watching videos on the platform, it seems the perfect place to display advertisements for this target audience – but with the ability to skip ads, are this generation watching and paying attention to the ads embedded into their videos. New research would suggest that yes, they are, with 60% of Gen Z stating they would rather watch an ad than skip it, and 45% actually being able to recall ads that they have seen on YouTube. The research even suggests that Gen Z are twice as likely to remember an ad seen on YouTube than TikTok.

The ad formats you should be using for gaming audiences

With an audience that surpasses 3 billion, in-game adverts have the potential to reach a huge number of your target population. The problem? Gamers state that they ‘can’t stand’ video advertisements – so placing ads on these platforms might be turning away, rather than enticing your audience. New research, however, looks at the ads that gamers dislike, and the ones they prefer:

• In-game banner and video ads are disliked by gaming audiences
• Opt-in video ads that provide an in-game reward, or ‘playable’ demo type ads are a more preferred form of advertisement  to those previously mentioned