Monthly Industry Roundup: September 2019

Location3 Releases LOCALACT 3.2

LOCALACT 3.2, the latest update to the premier platform built to power and scale local digital marketing for franchises and multi-location businesses, was released this week. Updates include:

Upgraded Service Enrollment & Budget Management: Whether you’re enrolling in new services, making changes to existing services, or updating your budgets, LOCALACT users will enjoy a streamlined process that bypasses the full enrollment wizard.

Facebook Ad Creative Previews: Access to previews of Facebook and Instagram ads before your campaigns go live.

Facebook Ad Creative-Level Reporting: A more granular view of campaign performance at the ad level

Facebook Demographic Reporting: Performance metrics segmented by age and gender

Stay tuned for more updates, including a Google Ads Campaign Targeting Map.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN LOCAL LISTINGS MANAGEMENT?

Google Takes Ad Format From Yelp Playbook

Google is testing an ad format in Google My Business that has long been an option in Yelp. The new format allows businesses to populate ads on their competitors’ business profiles.

As Location3’s Tom Lynch notes in “How to Thwart Competition in Google’s New Ad Format“, businesses are unable to directly manage a strategy that could ensure that your competitors’ ads do not appear as part of your maps listing.

The best way to compete in this new Google My Business ad environment is to bolster your business listings content, including engaging in Q&A, updating photos, and monitoring and responding to reviews.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CONTENT?

Brands Are Missing Opportunities on Instagram

While images are still the most popular post type on Instagram, a recent study from Quintly shows that videos and carousels significantly outperform images in user engagement. In fact, carousels received nearly 25% more interactions than images, and videos received 49% more interactions than images.

Quintly also analyzed how captions affect performance on Instagram posts. The results showed that the most popular profiles (1-10 million followers) perform best with no caption, while the rest of Instagram profiles perform best with captions between 1-50 characters.

And finally, Quintly looked at how brands are using emojis on Instagram. While the majority of brands are not using emojis at all, Quintly’s analysis shows that “the higher the number of emojis used, the higher the amount of interactions.”

In conclusion, to increase engagement on Instagram, your brand should be:

• focusing on video posts more than image-based posts
• writing captions between 1-50 characters (unless you’re Justin Bieber)
• incorporating emojis into captions 

See the full report here.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN PAID SEARCH?

Google Ads Smart Bidding Now Supports Store Visits Optimization

Store visits in Google Ads’ Smart Bidding is now available, per an announcement from Google. The new feature is available for Search and Shopping campaigns and aims to “maximize omnichannel ROI”.

The new bidding strategy will improve overall campaign performance while allowing businesses and advertisers to track how clicks and impressions affect store visits in addition to affecting online sales.

The new bidding strategy can be enabled through the campaign-level conversion setting.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN PAID SOCIAL?

Snapchat Releases New Ad Features

Snapchat is expanding ad features, including extending ad time duration as well as adding more interactive features. Here are a couple of the new features:

3-Minute Snap Ads: A significant lift from ten seconds, Snap Ads can now reach 3 minutes. Users are still free to skip the ad when they desire.

Up-Swipe for 6-Seconds Ads: Users can now swipe up to launch a web view, long-form video, or camera attachment on Snapchat’s six-second Commercials .These ad units cannot be skipped by users and have seen solid performance, according to Snapchat reports.

Snapchat is known for its users’ quick-shoot video content, but users are becoming more comfortable with long-form content. These new updates will allow advertisers to tap into a growing trend that includes watching Snapchat Originals, premium mobile shows broadcasted only on the Snapchat app.