Google Ads makes more updates to AI for a smarter and easier way to create campaigns and Meta Ads lets you customise your ads even more! These major updates show just how much AI is transforming the way businesses create and customize ads to make them more effective marketing tools. These ones could be a game changer for businesses’ paid ads so don’t miss out on any details in this week’s dose of Digital Updates.

What’s new with Meta?

Customizing Site Link Thumbnails on Meta Ads

Meta has introduced a new feature allowing advertisers to customize the thumbnail images for their Site Links. Previously, these images were automatically pulled from the linked pages.

Key Highlights:

• Customization: Advertisers can now upload their own square images (at least 300 x 300 pixels) for Site Links.
• Limited visibility: Site Links may not appear in all ad placements or situations.
• Tracking: Using UTM parameters can help track clicks on Site Links to measure their effectiveness.

Recommendations for Businesses: This update will help improve the creative control business owners have over their ads, making sure your ads are as on-brand as possible.

👀 Tests Spotted on Meta this week:

• Meta’s new tests on Meta AI features are game-changing. You can now have a personalized AI assistant on Instagram, similar to Siri, that can even sound like your favourite celebrity (like Kristen Bell or John Cena). Plus, you can edit photos with ease, identify flowers, create stunning AI backgrounds for your stories, and even translate Reels while preserving the speaker’s voice. It’s the future of social media.

If you’re a business owner or marketing team that wants to solidify your point of difference, win customers and grow your market share — enquire now to meet your dream team.

What’s new with Instagram?

Allow your posts to appear in Search Engines

One of our co-founders, Hayley, found this toggle in the settings of our OMD account that lets your public posts and videos be available to search engines such as Google. This lets your public reels and posts appear in the search results outside of Instagram.

Our Recommendation: We’ve turned this on for our Instagram and we’ll wait and see if this shows a boost in our engagement over the next few months and report back!

📔 Other noteworthy updates from Instagram this week:

• Instagram has introduced 38 new stickers, including popular choices like hearts and days of the week, that you can use to enhance your Stories and Reels. It’s not a ground-breaking update but, we always love new ways to spice up our content.
• Instagram has revived its “Emoji Pong” game, allowing users to challenge friends to a game by sending an emoji in a DM. The game was initially introduced as an Easter egg in March and has now been improved with a refined interface and additional options. This update definitely shows the push for one-on-one engagement within the platform.
• Instagram has created a new signature sound for Reels that will be attached to the end of every Reel that’s downloaded from the app. The sound is designed to be a trademark to Instagram’s reels and capture the essence of Instagram, similar to TikTok’s old downloaded video sound that has since been removed. We see what Instagram is trying to do but frankly, we think this sound is just a bit annoying and makes repurposing harder! 🤷‍♀️

Whether it’s the first time you’re outsourcing, it’s time to break up with your agency or you need a dream team to help you fill the shoes of your Marketing person while they’re out of action. Consider us your plug and play marketing team. With a wide range of skills and specialties, flexible packages and monthly contracts, we’re here to support you through every season of business. You ready? Enquire here.

What’s new with Google?

Google’s AI-Powered Updates for Smarter Ads

Google has introduced a new range of AI-powered features to its Google Ads platform. These updates focus on enhancing creative controls, expanding language support, and providing deeper insights to improve campaign performance.

Key Updates:

• Expanded AI-powered image editing tools: Advertisers can now customize images across various campaign types, including Search, Demand Gen, App, and Display.
• Enhanced creative flexibility: Advertisers can generate high-quality visuals with less manual effort, including the ability to select and edit images directly from Google Merchant Center and generate assets in multiple languages.
• Improved campaign insights: Asset-specific conversion metrics and asset coverage reporting provide deeper insights into campaign performance.
• Greater control over campaigns: Advertisers can now add campaign-level negative keywords, optimize for both online and in-store conversions, and purchase Demand Gen campaigns through Display & Video 360.
• Expanded language support: The conversational experience for Search campaigns is now available in German, French, and Spanish. 

Our take: These updates will hopefully make AI-driven advertising more accessible and effective, while giving businesses greater control over their campaigns. We can’t wait to test these ones out for our clients!

What’s new with Pinterest?

Pinterest Collages Just Got Cooler!

Pinterest has enhanced its collage tools with brand-new easy-to-use features. Users can now remix existing collages to create their own variations and share their collages as videos on other platforms. These updates aim to increase user engagement with the popular collage format and promote item discovery within the app.

Key Updates:

• Collage Remixing: Users can create their own collages based on existing ones, collaborating and sharing their creations.
• Collage Sharing: Collages can be downloaded as videos and shared on social media platforms.

Recommendations for Business Owners: Consider creating visually appealing product collages by combining products from your line with different aesthetics to showcase their versatility or complementarity.

What’s new with TikTok?

TikTok is offering brands the chance to be featured in its upcoming holiday gift guide. However, there’s a catch: brands must spend a significant amount on TikTok ads to qualify.

👀 Tests spotted on TikTok this week:

• TikTok is testing Search Ads campaigns to give advertisers more dynamic options on where their ads appear in the app. This includes a new option to target specific keywords, which is similar to search campaigns in other apps. TikTok has noted that brands see 20% more conversions with Search Ads in addition to In-Feed Ads.

Our plug and play marketing team will guide your audience from brand fans to repeat buyers. Click through our quick and easy quiz to discover the best way we can support your business as you grow! Once you submit your answers we’ll be in touch with the next steps.

What’s new with LinkedIn?

LinkedIn has announced that it is retiring its “Top Voice” badges for contributing to Collaborative Articles. This is a significant change as the badges were a key motivator for people adding their insights to AI-prompted content. This is due to concerns about the quality of the contributions and people incorrectly labelled experts. There will likely be less interest in Collaborative Articles as a result.

We can’t wait to see if these AI tools to will improve Google Ads effectiveness and we will be sure to let you know! Feel free to sign up for our weekly updates here (plus so much more hot goss) so you never miss the best updates. AND don’t forget, if you do miss out you can always go back to last weeks blog posts here.

XOXO

Oh My Digital Team