This week, Facebook introduced a new mobile ‘Ads Manager’ app which claims to make it easier for the over 800,000 monthly advertisers on the site to manage ads on the go.
The new Ads Manager app allows advertisers to create new ads, as well as tweak and monitor existing ads on the fly. It also includes budgeting and scheduling features.
This means increasing budgets for well-performing ads or drafting up new ads is as easy as pulling out your phone, no matter where you are.
The Ads Manager app is available now for American iOS users, and the company says Android users can expect the app later this year.
The timing of the new app is especially relevant as the company simultaneously announced reaching a milestone of two million unique businesses advertising on Facebook.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-26 13:46:182015-02-26 13:46:18Facebook Ads Manager Lets You Control Your Ads On The Go
The release of Google My Business was intended to make it easier for businesses to maintain a consistent appearance across all of Google’s services, but one feature was seriously lacking. While Google My Business allowed businesses to upload an image to their profile, the companies still had difficulty controlling which images would be used in various listings.
That is a serious problem when you are trying to establish a consistent brand presence online.
Today, Google announced a major update to Google my Business that finally gives companies some agency in their appearance across Google’s platform. As the announcement explains:
Starting today, you can tell us which image you’d like to appear when customers search for your business on Google. Just log in to Google My Business on the web or in the Android or iOS apps, and visit the Photos section. While you’re there, you can also give your business a fresh look online by updating your profile, logo and cover photos.
The upgrade unifies Google’s three interfaces for images into one simple interface. There is no longer any guesswork in making sure your brand is always presented how you want it on the search engine.
Google Help Files explains the best practices for uploading photos for your business:
Your photos will look best on Google if they meet the following standards:
Format: JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP
Size: Between 10KB and 5MB
Minimum resolution: 250px on the longest side for profile & logo photos; 720px on the longest side for other business photos
Aspect ratio: The longer dimension of the photo should be no more than four times the shorter dimension. Landscape photos look better than portrait photos on Google products. Panoramic photos may use different aspect ratios.
Quality: The photo should be in focus, well-lit, have no photoshop alterations, and no excessive use of filters. The image should represent reality.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-24 14:14:422015-02-24 14:14:42Upgrade Gives Businesses Control Over Their Images On Google
Facebook is usually rather tight lipped about how it measures the impact and views for ads on their site, but today the social media giant offered some rare insight by saying the company doesn’t believe advertisers should be charged unless ads are seen by real people.
This might seem like common sense, but it is actually common for online advertising services to measure impressions based on how many ads are ‘served’, not how many are ‘viewed’.
Ads are counted as being ‘served’ so long as the ad renders anywhere on pages that are opened, even if the ad ends up never actually appearing on the screen. On the other hand, ‘viewed’ impressions only counts if they are displayed on the screen.
The metric isn’t perfect. There is no fool-proof way to ensure someone scrolling down a page will actually glance at an ad, as most Facebook users can tell you. Still, Facebook’s method of measuring impressions seems to be a more accurate and fair way of counting ad views than is typically used.
Facebook explains why it counts viewed vs served ad impressions in their blog post on the subject:
“At Facebook, we agree that viewed impressions are a better way to measure ad delivery. The reason is simple: if an ad is viewed it has a greater chance to drive value for an advertiser. That’s why we use viewed impressions to measure ad delivery across desktop and mobile.”
The company hopes to expand this measuring method to organic posts on the site in the next few months.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-19 12:41:392015-02-19 12:41:39Facebook Says It Doesn’t Charge For Ads Unless They Are Seen
Google Webmaster Tools is usually the best friend for any webmaster trying to keep informed, but users have noticed the normally up-to-date service has not been updated in over a week.
The problem was noted by Search Engine Land last week and has been the main topic of conversation on the Webmaster Tools forums all weekend, but so far Google has no response.
The closest thing we have to a response comes from forum user ‘Kai Z’, who wrote “Known issue. […] Give it a few days to update/ return”. Normally forum posts like this wouldn’t carry much weight but it seems notable that Google webmaster trends analyst John Mueller marked this response as ‘best answer’. Naturally this has caused quite a bit of speculation but could potentially be meaningless.
The outage seems to line up with a similar issue in Google Analytics. Many users reported data in analytics was missing for Monday February 9, but Google that problem received a prompt response from Google on its product forums: “We’re sorry for our unusually bad case of the Mondays. We’ve fixed the issue and no data was lost. Analytics users should start seeing any missed [data] soon.”
Most likely the problem will be resolved fairly quickly, but the lack of transparency from Google on what is causing the lack of updating has caused some concern within the SEO community.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-16 14:33:502015-02-16 14:33:50Google Webmaster Tools Is Missing Data and Google Isn’t Saying Why
Valentine’s Day is huge for online retailers, but some e-commerce sites are already wondering why they haven’t felt the love this year. If your e-commerce business isn’t seeing the traffic or conversions you think you deserve during this time of year, consider some of following tips and statistics about the big day tomorrow.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-13 11:54:542015-02-13 11:54:54E-Commerce Tips To Help You This Valentine’s Day [Infographic]
Online reviews can be the deciding factor in the success of small businesses or companies that are just starting out, and yet many businesses ignore the single most powerful free form of marketing. This infographic from Web Republic breaks down the current trends and effects of reviews including:
Amazon is the leading review site in America and 42% of all its customers have left at least one review.
Other top US review sites include Google+, Yahoo, Yelp, and TripAdvisor
Yelp is the review site with the most global traffic
84% of all consumers read online reviews, reading an average of 4-6 reviews before they begin to trust a business
76% of customers are willing to pay more for hotels with better reviews.
How are you encouraging happy customers to leave reviews?
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-09 13:53:332015-02-09 13:53:33What Do Businesses Need To Know About Online Reviews? [Infographic]
Promoting a tweet on Twitter just got a lot easier. While users have been able to promote tweets in the past, it required going through the company’s self-service platform. Now users can use the “quick promote” tool to quickly and easily promote a tweet.
Twitter designed quick promote expressly with small and medium businesses in mind. All you have to do to increase your tweet’s visibility is go to your tweet activity dashboard at analytics.twitter.com. Then, you simply have to select the tweet you want to promote and click the option to promote the tweet in the left sidebar.
For now, the service is relatively limited compared to Facebook’s extensive ad platform. Currently, Twitter only allows you to target quick promoted tweets to users similar to your followers. Although nothing is confirmed, it seems likely the company will expand the options in the near future.
The more useful features for small businesses hoping to increase their Twitter visibility is the ability to set small budgets and receive an estimate of how many people you are likely to reach.
After you’ve set the budget and promoted your tweet, you can watch its performance in real time using the analytics dashboard.
The service isn’t revolutionary, but it was in dire need for one of the most popular social platforms around. Now, small and medium businesses can benefit from Twitter ads in the same way big brands have been for over a year.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-05 12:52:322015-02-05 12:52:32Twitter Makes It Faster and Easier For Small Businesses To Promote Tweets
Online ads on Google’s AdWords network are a great way to reach a larger audience interested in your services, but breaking the rules can have harsh consequences. Google removed over 524 million “bad ads” from its ad network last year, and 214,000 of those advertisers are entirely banned from the service due to their bad behavior according to a recent announcement from Google.
“While this represents a tiny fraction of the total ads on our platform — the vast majority of advertisers follow our policies and act responsibly — we continue to remain vigilant to protect users against bad advertising practices,” Vikaram Gupta, director of ads engineering at Google, wrote Tuesday in the post.
The latest data shows several improvements from past years, such as a distinct drop in banned advertises for promoting counterfeit goods, but Google says it is a “constantly evolving fight” and the war against bad ads is far from over.
The announcement highlighted several of the “bad ads” trends that dominated 2014, including more than 43 million ads trying to trick users into clicking, over 4.3 million ads containing copyright infringement issues, and over 9.6 million ads containing healthcare-related violations.
The following infographic breaks down Google’s efforts to weed out bad advertising last year:
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-04 12:10:102015-02-04 12:10:10Google Shows How They Fought ‘Bad Ads’ In 2014
For years, Google has had a strong hold on the search industry, maintaining over a 75% market share for the desktop search market. If recent months are any indication however, that grip appears to be loosening.
According to the latest data from StatCounter, Google’s desktop search market share dipped below 75% for the first time since July 2008, continuing a downward trend that started in November.
In November, Mozilla replaced Google with Yahoo as the default search engine on its Firefox web browser. Initially Google didn’t seem to be concerned, but a three month drop in search share seems to be finally getting their attention.
In mid-January Firefox users who visited the Google homepage were greeted with a banner encouraging them to set the search engine as their default. At the same time, Google also began tweeting instructions for how to replace the search engine.
Since the five-year agreement was made between Yahoo and Mozilla, Yahoo has been consistently gaining ground, already replacing Bing as the second most popular desktop search engine. In total, Yahoo has nearly tripled its share of the desktop search market on Firefox, climbing to over 28% from less than 10% in November.
In the long run, it is still unclear whether Yahoo is going to be able to continue its ascent. While the changes are substantial, Firefox is also the least popular major desktop browser available. The change is search share is also limited to desktop, suggesting users aren’t so much choosing a new search engine but accepting what they are being given.
Despite these challenges, Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, says Yahoo is already beating the odds:
“Some analysts expected Yahoo to fall in January as a result of Firefox users switching back to Google. In fact Yahoo has increased US search share by half a percentage point. It will be fascinating to see if these gains continue.”
It will be interesting to see if the trend continues and how Google might try to persuade more users to actively choose their search engine over the default.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-02-03 12:42:412015-02-03 12:42:41Google Falls To Lowest Desktop Search Share in 6 Years
Twitter likes to tout itself as the social media site to watch events unfold as they happen, but a recent online survey suggests the majority of people will be sticking with Facebook during the Super Bowl this weekend.
According to the results of a survey by Salesforce Marketing Cloud, 66% of respondents plan to use Facebook while they watch the game, compared to just 56% who said they plan on using Twitter. Instagram came in third with 31% and Snapchat followed with just 11%.
Marketing Cloud’s survey received more than 400 responses over the past week, which means the survey is far from scientific. Nonetheless, the results do provide some insight into viewer behavior on social media during the big game.
The findings also showed that over 60% of Super Bowl viewers will be watching with a smartphone in hand, 24% will have a tablet, and 20% plan to watch with their laptop.
The results also provide some demographic information. Unsurprisingly, younger users leaned towards newer social media channels such as Snapchat, which will be used by approximately 45% of people between the ages of 12 and 24. However, Facebook and Twitter still led the poll within the demographic. Over 80% of 18-24 year olds will be Tweeting during the game, while 66% plan on posting to Facebook.
It is also not surprising to find Facebook had the biggest pull with older viewers. Over 75% aged 35-44 say they will use Facebook, compared to 54% who will use Twitter. This trend continues in the 45054 demographic, with 71% planning to use Facebook and 54% planning to use Twitter.
Perhaps the biggest shock in the results is the distribution of gender amongst social media platforms. Facebook overwhelmingly draws in female users, with 78% planning to post during the game. In comparison, only 45% of women plan to use Twitter. The results were distinctly reversed for men, 68% of whom will be Tweeting, compared to 55% for Facebook.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-01-30 12:14:202015-01-30 12:14:20Survey Shows Facebook Is The Favorite For Super Bowl Sunday
Google Webmaster Tools is usually the best friend for any webmaster trying to keep informed, but users have noticed the normally up-to-date service has not been updated in over a week.
