Summer is almost here and the updates we are seeing from the digital industry are as bright as the sun! Get ready for May with updates about Google’s new gold verification badges, Amazon and Pinterest’s huge partnership, TikTok’s new product: Pulse Premiere and many more. Keep reading to find out more.
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Google Introduces Gold Verification Badges
Breaking news: wild verification badges have escaped from Twitter and have been sighted roaming the Google Search rankings.
Rumours of Google’s new feature have been circulating for a while now, with blue verified checkmarks appearing next to businesses’ paid search results. Recently, however, users have been spotting the elusive gold badge sitting beside results from certain websites.
More likely than not you won’t see these features until they are rolled out across the platform, and these sightings are from users randomly chosen to test new verification features. The expectation from Google is probably that similarly with social media platforms, verified users or businesses in this case will yield more authority and garner higher than average trust from users.
The question, therefore, is what does take to obtain these badges? Due to the implication of approval that comes with Google verifying a business, we can expect that it won’t be as simple as signing up. A safe bet would be to assume the blue badges are a basic level of verification that could be tied to the verification involved with the already-established My Business service, whereas the gold badge is reserved for recognisable names, industry leaders, or those with consistently performing ads accounts.
Social Media Ad Spend Declines for the First Time Ever
Figures recently released by the Advertising Association (AA) for the last six months of 2022 indicate a 13.9% decline in advertising spend on social media channels. This sharply opposes the first half of the year when ad spend was up 28.3%.
This decline that is predicted to carry into the beginning of this year is not just unusual, but unseen. Since these measurements began in 2014 there has never been a recorded drop in social media ad spend until now – researchers in fact predicted a continuation of the post-pandemic upturn.
It seems a simple bounceback is not what we should have expected. We could be currently seeing an unforeseen reaction to our current global economic situation. The pandemic created an immense uptick in online traffic and increased demand for e-commerce, but since inflation and cost of living crises have impacted the global landscape, small businesses are having to choose other priorities above advertising.
This coincides with news that over half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers no longer do so on the platform at all. It comes after its acquisition and transition into a less advertiser-friendly space has diminished trust from brands and consumers in the platform.
As we can see predictions are never assured, and a change in this situation is tied to the consequences of the global economy at large. It is likely ad spend with move with the consequences to small businesses, which we all hope can prevail and continue as before.
Amazon and Pinterest Ads Partnership
Pinterest has just announced a huge partnership with Amazon. This multi-year deal will mean when users see and click on an Amazon Ad on Pinterest, they’ll be directed to Amazon straight away to be able to complete their purchase on the App.
The partnership is definitely a step in the right direction to ‘make every Pin shoppable’ as stated by Pinterest’s CEO, Bill Ready. It’s also great news for advertisers and brands as there will be a new way to reach a new audience with high intent to buy.
This partnership is expected to contribute massively to Pinterest’s revenue, but only starting next year. Both parties have not shared any details on ad placements or revenue forecasts yet, so we are going to have to wait and see.
TikTok’s New Product: Pulse Premiere
You might be familiar with TikTok’s revenue-sharing programme, Pulse. They’ve just announced an extension to this called Pulse Premiere.
This new product will allow a group of top creators to receive half the revenue from video ads shown right after their content. This will go hand in hand with TikTok’s strategy to support and encourage creators through the current economic challenges by giving them more opportunity to earn more if they product top quality content.
We love seeing TikTok being proactive in supporting their community with these fresh and innovative updates. Let us know what you think.
The End of Search Engines for Shopping?
“The future of marketing is no longer about interrupting what people are interested in, it’s about being what people are interested in.” That was Julie Lock, UK marketing director at HubSpot following the release of their new Social Media Report, revealing that 82% of businesses believe consumers will soon almost exclusively use social media to find brands instead of search engines.
It’s no revelation that social media has grown to subsume many of the functions of search engines – particularly with younger generations. These platforms tailor their individual experiences to the interests of consumers and don’t rely on existing search intent or having to catch people off-guard.
Not every brand or campaign needs to go viral, simply put just being in these spaces where consumers are so engrossed and receptive to content, fanatical for trends and constantly sharing with others makes social media a far more dynamic and engaging platform for advertising. Nowhere is this more relevant than TikTok, the home of viral trends which often sweep up-and-coming brands and products into previously unthinkable success.
