Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Wednesday, October 4th, 2023
Meta Ads Manager has started rolling out its first generative AI-powered features for advertisers.
The new tools, which have been designed to maximize productivity, personalization and performance, include:
- Background Generation
- Image Expansion
- Text Variation
Global roll out is expected to be completed by next year.
Background generation. This new feature creates multiple backgrounds to complement the advertiser’s product images, allowing advertisers to tailor their creative assets for different audiences.
Image expansion. This tool can be used to adjust creative assets to fit different aspect ratios across multiple surfaces, like Feed or Reels, allowing advertisers to spend less time and resources on repurposing creative assets.
Text variation. Advertise can utilize this new feature to generate multiple versions of ad texts based on their original copy, and to highlight the selling points of their products/services. The tool provides multiple text options to help advertisers better reach their specific target audience.
Why we care. The ability to instantaneously create multiple asset variations will reduce time spent going back and forth between creative and media teams on editing tasks, allowing for more investment on strategic work like audience analysis.
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What has Meta said? A spokesperson for Meta said in a statement:
- “Today’s generative-AI powered ad features are just a start. We plan to offer advertisers more ways to generate ad copy to highlight product selling points or generate background images in minutes with tailored themes, like outdoor images for an athleisure brand.”
- “As we shared at Connect, businesses will soon be able to use AI for business messaging on Messenger and WhastApp to engage with customers – helping with commerce, engagement and support, unlocking instant conversational responses. We’re testing with a small number of businesses in Alpha and plan to scale it further next year.”
- “With millions of businesses advertising on our platform, we will continue to take a collaborative approach in developing these features and experiences so that they provide value to businesses and people.”
Deep dive. Read Meta’s announcement in full for more information.
The post Meta’s first generative AI-powered tools for advertisers are here appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023
“Bogus.” That’s what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella thinks about Google’s argument that there is actual choice in the search engine market. And artificial intelligence will provide zero advantage or hope for any companies that hope to enter web search – the “biggest no-fly zone of all,” Nadella said.
Why we care. The ongoing U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial has already unearthed troubling behavior from Google, including raising ad prices to meet revenue targets. If Google is found to have abused its monopoly position in search, it could potentially reshape the company and the search landscape.
Exclusive rights. To further enhance its dominance in AI Search, Google plans to pay publishers for “exclusive” content rights, Nadella testified. If only Google could access this data, it would essentially make every other search engine irrelevant, Nadella said.
- “When I am meeting with publishers now, they say Google’s going to write this check and it’s exclusive and you have to match it,” Nadella said.
- “What is publicly available today, will it be publicly available tomorrow? That’s the issue.”
- “Is this going to be even more of a nightmare to make progress in search?” Nadella added.
Search engines have been “the organizing layer of the internet” Nadella said. But publishers are concerned over the rise of large language models (LLMs) – many popular websites have blocked GPTBot – and using their content/data for training and profit, without compensation.
Google has not commented on this accusation about exclusive deals.
Google’s Search Ads 360 dispute. One of the key issues of interest to paid search marketers is Google Search Ads 360. The platform has not kept up with new Microsoft ad features and types and Nadella said Microsoft wanted to make it easy for advertisers to transfer ad campaigns from Google to Microsoft with the click of a button. That didn’t happen.
- “We keep asking for them to add some features we want. They’ve asked us to go pound sand,” Nadella said.
A vicious cycle. With nearly 90% market share, Google is able to improve its search results and bottom line, Nadella said, and has nothing to do with product quality.
- “The distribution advantage Google has today doesn’t go away. In fact, if anything, I worry a lot that – even in spite of my enthusiasm that there is a new angle with AI – this vicious cycle that I’m trapped in could become even more vicious because the defaults get reinforced.”
All hope is gone? The launch of the new Bing and Bing Chat, powered by OpenAI’s technology that powers ChatGPT, came with a lot of hype and excitement, especially from Nadella, who said he may have been over-enthusiastic.
- “Yeah, I mean, look, that’s called exuberance of someone who has like 3% share, that maybe I’ll have 3.5% share,” Nadella said.
So far, Bing Chat has failed to take market share away from Google. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s corporate VP and consumer CMO, claimed the opposite, but to date has not shared any of the company’s data showing this. In fact, Microsoft Bing’s market share is lower than it was a year ago, as we reported in August.
No breaking the Google habit. Default search agreements, such as the one Google has with Apple, have cemented Google’s dominance, Nadella said.
- “You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, and you search on Google. With that level of habit forming, the only way to change is by changing defaults,” Nadella said.
- “Defaults are the only thing that matter in terms of changing user behavior.”
- “It would be a game changer (for Bing) to be a default on Safari,” Nadella added.
But. On laptop devices where Microsoft’s operating systems are used, and Bing is the default search engine, Bing’s market share is still below 20%, Nadella admitted. That means a lot of people have figured out how to switch their default search engine.
$100 billion. That’s how much Microsoft has invested in Bing, according to Nadella. Why?
- “I see search or internet search as the largest software category out there. We are a very, very low share player. But we continue to persist in it because we think of it as a software category we can contribute to.”
Leading with pessimism. It surprised me to see such bleak quotes today from Nadella, who has typically been an optimistic leader with all things Bing. He never argued that Microsoft Bing Search is better than Google Search. It seemed more like a concession that Microsoft Bing Search could never be better because of Google’s monopoly position.
Is this Nadella simply telling it as he sees it? That he knows Microsoft Bing will never be a true contender (which is true).
It’s likely he views this antitrust trial as a last-ditch moment to stop Google – a monopolistic rival that could do real damage to consumers, competitors and the entire ecosystem that relies on Google advertising and traffic. The $244 billion question is whether Google will be forced to change how it operates.
The post Microsoft CEO: AI will make Google more dominant appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023
TikTok may soon pilot an ad-free subscription service on its app.
Code within the social platform suggests that subscribers may soon be able to access content with no interruptions from adverts for $4.99 a month.
Screenshots of TikTok asking users if they’d like to upgrade to an ad-free experience were shared by Android Authority.
Why we care. If sign-ups for TikTok’s ad-free subscription tier prove to be popular, then this could have a significant impact on reach for the platform’s advertisers, which will ultimately lower the product’s value.
What ads will be excluded? Influencer marketing one-offs or campaigns will still appear on the paid-for version of the app – it’s only ads that are served by TikTok that will be excluded. This means the change is unlikely to help combat the issue of TikTok influencers not disclosing brand partnerships.
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Why now? TikTok generates most of its profits from ad revenue – which came to $9.4 billion in 2022. That number is expected to quadruple by 2026. However, in a bid to mitigate financial risk, the platform’s executives are exploring the diversification of revenue streams, with the potential introduction of paid subscriptions not coming as a surprise.
Deep dive. Check out TikTok’s newsroom for more information on the platform’s latest developments.
The post TikTok set to trial ad-free subscription for $4.99 appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023
If e-commerce is the heart of your business, staying ahead is not an option – it’s a necessity. Join paid search experts who unveil the strategy and innovation needed to take your business above and beyond the competition.
Learn more by registering and attending “Elevate Your Business With Advanced Google Performance Max Strategies,” presented by iQuanti.
Click here to view more Search Engine Land webinars.
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Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023
Reddit has launched new capabilities on Ads Manager for enhanced community targeting.
The platform has added three new features to the platform, as well as two new administration tools, designed to enhance campaign efficiency and performance, benefitting small business advertisers all the way through to enterprise clients.
Why we care. The enhanced features in Reddit’s Ads Manager provide improved tools for a deeper understanding of relevant Reddit communities, helping connect brands with high-value consumers for better conversions. The new administration tools also provide more efficient and controlled campaign management, offering advertisers greater flexibility and effectiveness in their advertising efforts.
New Ads Manager features. Reddit has added several new Ads Manager features to help advertisers find their audience, expand their targeting, and better understand the Reddit communities most relevant to them:
- Improved Community Search: Advertisers can now search for relevant communities by topic in Ads Manager.
- Targeting Suggestions: This new feature helps broad reach by suggesting additional communities based on an advertiser’s selected community target.
- Community Info: Reddit now provides community descriptions, topic tags, estimated audience size based on membership and engagement, as well as a link to the community, to give advertisers access to all of the key details in one easy place.
New administration tools. Reddit has also invested in new administration tools to help streamline campaign optimization and oversight:
- Campaign lifetime budget: Advertisers can now set a maximum spending limit for their campaigns. Once the allocated budget is exhausted, all ad groups in the campaign will automatically cease spending, providing a straightforward way to manage budgets.
- Inline editing: Advertisers can now edit campaign names, bids, and budgets in one convenient location – the Ads dashboard.
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What has Reddit said? Reddit’s EVP of Business Marketing and Growth Jim Squires told Search Engine Land:
- “With more than 100,000 communities on Reddit covering every topic imaginable, it’s helpful to know where to start and how to effectively navigate to success, especially for advertisers less familiar with our platform.”
- “Our client partners do a great job of connecting the dots, and these latest updates allow us to go a step further in providing that guidance and support at scale through our Ads Manager.”
- “Whether you’re a large brand or small business, self-serve or managed advertiser, you’ll be able to better harness the power of Reddit communities by discovering, understanding and targeting their ranging passions and interests, in one easy-to-use place, which will ultimately strengthen campaign outcomes.”
Deep dive. Read Reddit’s Business Blog for more information about the platform’s latest developments.
The post Reddit unveils Ads Manager updates for improved community targeting appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Friday, September 29th, 2023
Microsoft claims its attempts to sell Bing to Apple were blocked by Google.
The tech giant’s CEO of Advertising and Web Services, Mikhail Parakhin, said he offered Apple more than 100% of the revenue or gross profit to make Bing its default search engine – but the proposal was rejected because of the company’s deal with Google.
Speaking at the federal antitrust trial, Parakhin alleged this was despite Microsoft offering to pay Apple more than Google – which he claims was offering in the region of 60%.
How much did Microsoft offer Apple? Tinter didn’t reveal exactly how much its offer to Apple was worth, but it was enough that the tech giant would have sustained a several billion dollar loss as a result. Tinter explained the company felt the short-term loss would be a justified investment because of the importance of default search engine status.
Why we care. Apple’s decision to reject Microsoft’s higher monetary offer for Bing as the default search engine implies that the Google deal might not be solely based on financial considerations. This could reinforce Google’s argument that it’s preferred for its superior product. Nevertheless, it underscores the significance of default status for search engines, as Microsoft was willing to incur a significant loss for the position.
Better offer than Google. While Tinter didn’t provide the exact dollar amount Microsoft offered Apple, he asserted that Microsoft was confident it presented a superior deal compared to Google. He explained: “That’s based on our best estimates of the revenue payments that Google was making to Apple in the United States.”
Samsung also shut down potential sale. Tinter went on to reveal that Microsoft had also tried to pitch Samsung about making Bing the default search engine on its products. However, he claims these conversations were shut down by the tech giant in their early stages.
Tinter allegedly urged Samsung to at least allow Microsoft to try and make an offer that could rival its deal with Google. But the tech giant told Microsoft that negotiations wouldn’t be worth discussing because of the company’s contract with Google.
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What has Microsoft said? Parakhin told the court at the federal antitrust trial:
- “We were just big enough to play but probably not big enough to win, if that makes sense.”
- “The optimal thing for Apple to have done — and again, I think in closed session, maybe we’ll end up looking at some of the sort of math on this — would have been to have switched to Microsoft in the United States, taken our aggressive offer there, and continue with sort of Google in the rest of the world.”
Deep dive. Read our Google antitrust trial updates for the latest developments in the courtroom.
The post Microsoft blames Google for Apple rejecting offer to buy Bing appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Thursday, September 28th, 2023
Google today is adding its About this result feature to the AI-generated answers in the Search Generative Experience (SGE).
What it does. About this result is meant to “give people helpful context, such as a description of how SGE generated the response, so they can understand more about the underlying technology,” according to Google.
What it looks like. Here’s a GIF showing how this feature works:
In this example, the description says:
- “This overview was generated with the help of AI. It’s supported by info from across the web and Google’s Knowledge Graph, a collection of info about people, places and things. Generative AI is experimental and info quality may vary. For help evaluating content, you can visit the provided links.”
For individual links (soon). About this result will “soon” be added to individual links in Google SGE as well. Here, the purpose will be to give people more information about webpages that backup the SGE answers.
About About this result. Google launched About this result in Search in 2021. It was meant to help searchers learn more about a search result or search feature.
Why we care. While it’s felt like a struggle for Google to cite its sources in SGE and Bard, this highlighting of webpages and content seems like another positive step for highlighting the source from which Google is generating its AI answers.
Targeted improvements in SGE. Google is also working to reduce AI-powered responses that validate “false or offensive premises” in SGE. A “false premise” query is inaccurate or factually incorrect and something Google has worked to reduce in featured snippets. According to Google:
“We’re rolling out an update to help train the AI model to better detect these types of false or offensive premise queries, and respond with higher-quality, more accurate responses. We’re also working on solutions to use large language models to critique their own first draft responses on sensitive topics, and then rewrite them based on quality and safety principles. While we’ve built a range of protections into SGE and these represent meaningful improvements, there are known limitations to this technology, and we’ll continue to make progress.”
– Hema Budaraju, Google senior director, product management, Search / How we’re responsibly expanding access to generative AI in Search
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Thursday, September 28th, 2023
Google today announced a new “standalone product token,” Google-Extended, that lets you control whether Bard and Vertex AI can access the content on your site.
This seems to be the end result of a “public discussion” Google initiated in July, when the company promised to gather “voices from across web publishers, civil society, academia and more fields” to talk about choice and control over web content.
Bard is Google’s conversational AI tool. Vertex AI is Google’s machine learning platform for building and deploying generative AI-powered search and chat applications.
The announcement. In a blog post, Google said:
“Today we’re announcing Google-Extended, a new control that web publishers can use to manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs, including future generations of models that power those products. By using Google-Extended to control access to content on a site, a website administrator can choose whether to help these AI models become more accurate and capable over time.”
– Google’s Danielle Romain, VP, Trust / An update on web publisher controls
What is Google-Extended. Google calls it “A standalone product token that web publishers can use to manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs, including future generations of models that power those products.”
The new crawler has been added to the Google Search Central documentation on web crawlers.
What Google is saying. The company said Google-Extended gives publishers “choice and control”:
- “Making simple and scalable controls, like Google-Extended, available through robots.txt is an important step in providing transparency and control that we believe all providers of AI models should make available. However, as AI applications expand, web publishers will face the increasing complexity of managing different uses at scale.”
Robots.txt. You can use robots.txt to block Google-Extended from accessing your content, or parts of it. To fully block Google-Extended, add the following to your site’s robots.txt:
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
Why we care. We know 242 of the most popular 1,000 websites have already decided to block GPTBot, OpenAI’s web crawler, since it launched in August. Now you can decide whether your website should opt out of helping Google improve its AI products.
Is this the right answer? In Robots.txt is not the answer: Proposing a new meta tag for LLM/AI, Search Engine Land contributor argued why using robots.txt for managing data usage in LLMs is the wrong approach. Seems Google didn’t agree.
Dig deeper. Crawlers, search engines and the sleaze of generative AI companies
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Thursday, September 28th, 2023
Advertisers have been encouraged to reevaluate their match type and bidding strategies to effectively optimize costs and maximize campaign performance.
The advice was published in a new report conducted by Optmyzr that investigated broad match type vs exact match type.
Although researcher and Optmyzr evangelist Navah Hopkins previously strongly supported broad match in favor of exact match type, the study found that exact match outperformed broad match for the majority of accounts in terms of:
- Cost Per Click.
- Click Through Rate.
- Cost Per Acquisition.
- Return On Ad Spend.
- Conversion rate.
The report also found that the majority of accounts performed better with Maximize Conversion Value than Maximize Conversions, and the median percentage gains were better as well.
Why we care. For advertisers, it’s crucial to test new strategies in your campaigns before making decisions. This ensures enhanced performance. Evaluate costs and adjust your approach based on budget and targeting goals, exploring more cost-effective networks or top-of-funnel options to optimize spending.
The study. The Optmyzr report analyzed 2637 accounts to compare the effectiveness of broad match type versus exact match type. Additionally, we examined Maximize Conversions against Maximize Conversion Value in 1,334 accounts due to their close association with smart bidding.
The results. Key findings from the study reveal:
- Broad vs. Exact Match:
- In most cases, exact match performed better in terms of CPC, CTR, CPA, ROAS, and conversion rate.
- Conversion-oriented metrics like CPA and ROAS also favored exact match.
- If broad match is doing well, it’s advisable not to make major changes. However, testing for potential benefits is worth exploring.
- Maximize Conversions vs. Maximize Conversion Value:
- Maximize Conversion Value performed better in terms of CPC, CTR, CPA, and ROAS for most accounts.
- Max Conversion Value had cheaper CPC, possibly due to bid caps and practical ROAS goals.
- CPA was generally better with Max Conversion Value, challenging the belief that higher CPA can lead to higher-value customers.
- The data also recommends using Max Conversion Value and determining conversion value based on customer value and channel conversion rates.
Key takeaways. The study concluded by advising advertisers to:
- Test your assumptions and don’t just accept common wisdom without questioning it.
- Make sure you’re always checking in on your accounts and tweaking your bidding strategies to get the most bang for your buck.
- Ensure you’ve got your safety nets in place and budget set aside for data acquisition, if you’re going to give broad testing a shot.
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What has Optmyzr said? Navah Hopkins, Optmyzr Evangelist, said in a statement:
- “The biggest takeaway from looking at the data is not taking anything for granted. Just because we’re told X is true, it’s important to test and prove whether it’s viable in our accounts before committing to it or discarding it.”
- “Additionally, given that the conventional wisdom of Exact and Max Conversion Values are more expensive because they provide more value that didn’t play out at scale, it’s worth doing a deep dive into your accounts if they are driving up your costs.”
- “Consider being more aggressive with negatives and exclusions, as well as owning whether you have the budget to go after desired transactional traffic or if you’d be better served leveraging your budgets on cheaper networks (Microsoft) or top of the funnel (PMax, social, video).”
Deep dive. Read the Optmyzr report in full for more information.
The post Why it’s time to reevaluate your match type and bidding strategy appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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Thursday, September 28th, 2023
Ad fraud will cost marketers $84 billion this year – 22% of all online ad spend.
This figure is expected to soar to $170 billion in five years’ time in 2028, according to a new in-depth study from Juniper Research.
Why we care. Ad fraud could be costing your brand money, hurting campaign results, leaving you with fewer genuine leads and poor advertising ROI. With this in mind, it may be worthwhile exploring fraud-blocking technology or reallocating some of your ad budget to your SEO strategy.
Key findings. Juniper’s study analyzed digital advertising in 45 countries across 8 regions, using a dataset of over 78,700 data points from 2019 to 2028. The research found that:
- 22% of all online ad spend is lost due to ad fraud in 2023.
- 30% of mobile ad spend is lost to ad fraud in 2023.
- $172 Billion of ad spend is projected to be lost due to ad fraud by 2028.
- $23 Billion per year can be recovered by using fraud mitigation platforms.
Solution. Fraud detection technology, such as Fraud Blocker, can detect and identify fraudulent or invalid traffic, impressions, clicks, or conversions on ads, helping to protect your campaign performance and ad budget.
What has Juniper Research said? Senior Research Analyst from Juniper Research, Elisha Sudlow-Poole, said in a statement:
- “Data provided by popular ad platforms, such as Facebook and Google, provide an incomplete picture of the success of advertising campaigns.”
- “That is, these platforms give an optimistic view of campaign efficiency, failing to distinguish between how many clicks or views originated from legitimate users compared to click farms or fraudulent bots.”
Deep dive. Download the full report by Juniper Research for more information.
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