Google has announced a new knowledge graph card for news publishers in which searchers can learn more about a specific news publication directly in the search results. [Source: Search Engine Land]
Less than two months after testing extending tweets’ maximum length to 280 characters, Twitter is enabling the new length for all users. The new maximum will apply to tweets in all languages except Chinese, Japanese and Korean, in which space is less of an issue. [Source: Marketing Land]
Facebook’s providing a new way for advertisers to better optimize their ad spend by automatically allocating more of their ad budget to their highest performing ads. Called ‘Campaign Budget Optimization’, the new option is aimed at smaller businesses who need to more closely monitor their ad spend, but are also looking to run multiple ad sets. [Source: Social Media Today]
Under its services, PayPal India will offer global Indians a single account for their domestic and cross-border transactions. [Source: MoneyControl]
Messenger is rolling out a chat plugin for companies to use Facebook’s messaging service to power the chat features on their own sites. Called Customer Chat, the tool is currently in testing with a limited number of companies, but businesses can apply to be added to the waitlist. [Source: MARTECH TODAY]
To help customers gain more insights into their marketing campaigns’ impact on the customer journey, Salesforce and Google have announced an arrangement to integrate CRM data with digital analytics and ad campaign data. [Source: Marketing Land]
Wait times for some local listings, such as restaurants, are Google’s latest addition to its local search results, appearing when people view those listings in web search. Eventually, this information will appear on Google Maps, as well. [Source: Search Engine Land]
In June, Instagram began testing a tool for creators to label when an organic post or Story has been paid for by a brand, similar to the one its parent company, Facebook, debuted in April 2016. Now the photo-and-video app is making the branded-content tool available to more creators, in particular those that receive high levels of engagement on their posts and account for a lot of the branded content on Instagram. [Source: Marketing Land]
Over the summer, Twitter began testing a subscription-based ad-buying program through which brands could opt to pay Twitter $99 a month and have the company promote their accounts and tweets for them. Now the company is opening up the program to all accounts in the US and United Kingdom, including businesses and individuals. [Source: Marketing Land]
Instagram has rolled out a new change for Instagram Stories which enables users to upload any photo or video content from their camera roll for their Story, even if that content is older than the previous 24 hour limit. [Source: Social Media Today]
Expert Opinion:
- Marketing Attribution is the need of the hour for new-age marketers
There has been a rise in the usage of marketing attribution lately suggesting an increase in the recognition of this technology as a helpful tool for brands to grow their businesses. The State of Marketing Attribution 2017 Report by Econsultancy suggests that the proportion of companies that carry out attribution on all or most of their marketing activities has significantly increased from 31% in 2016 to 39% this year.
In spite of this positive boost in the usage of the technology and growing awareness about this useful tool, a lot of marketers are still hesitant or lack the required confidence for using attribution technology for their marketing activities. Also, a lot of businesses find it difficult to apply the findings of the insights received through attribution tools to enhance their marketing activities.
There are multiple types of attribution models that can be used by businesses to gain better returns from their activities. However, most companies still use simplistic attribution models with last-click and first-click being the most popular ones. This limits the efficiency and effectiveness that this technology can offer for the growth of business.
Brands that wish to really make an impact and boost the success of their companies need to buckle up and take a holistic and nuanced approach to attribution, understand the contribution & impact of every touch-point and plan the future activities considering every minute detail to achieve enhanced results.
Some of the ways to better utilize the attribution technology for your business include:
– Use a good mix of automated softwares as well as the good old spreadsheets, etc to achieve the required flexibility
– Understand the online customer journey well and work on the relevant problem areas to provide a seamless experience to the users
– Keep yourself well aware about any developments and updates and incorporate them at every step applicable to keep your processes/ activities updated
– Create a culture of measurement and accuracy across the organization so that every individual works towards doing the best and improving the activities on an on-going basis
Attribution is an impressive tool that can profoundly help your business grow and sustain. A lot of marketers are already focusing on this technology and have adapted to various attribution techniques. In the age where things change every moment and the customers are shifting towards online channels, attribution can act as a gateway to understand the efficiency of your marketing activities and plan the future activities in order to reach out to the correct audiences and eventually gain positive results. If you are still not using this technology, it is high time to start incorporating attribution models in your marketing plans to move up in the advertising space.
