In-Market Audiences for Google Shopping Campaigns & This Week’s Digital Marketing News [PODCAST]

Hosts Jess Budde, Greg Finn, and Christine “Shep” Zirnheld are covering all the digital marketing news of the week, including the major Google Shopping update that you may have missed.

If you’re unable to catch the episode on Spotify, be sure to watch the video version on the Search Engine Journal YouTube channel.

In-Market Audiences for Google Shopping

This week, digital marketing consultant Steven Johns noticed an exciting new functionality in his Google Ads account.

In-market audiences are now compatible with Google Shopping campaigns!

These audiences can be applied to campaigns with either the targeting or observation setting and can also be used for bid adjustments or exclusions.

Many of these audiences focus on shopping behavior, so pairing them with shopping campaigns could be a huge boon for retailers.

Is TikTok under new ownership in the U.S.?

While it was widely reported that TikTok would be purchased by Microsoft, it was announced that Oracle is actually likely to end up purchasing the video-sharing app.

The deal is under review by a team of advisors that will give a formal recommendation to the U.S. president before anything is finalized.

YouTube announces Shorts feature

YouTube Shorts, a new feature specifically for short-form videos, will launch in beta this week.

YouTube stated that Shorts will be tested in India before expanding to other locations in the coming months.

“Shorts” videos are 15 seconds or less and creators can take advantage of tools like multi-segment stings to combine clips, the ability to add music to videos, speed controls, and a countdown timer for hands-free recording.

Many have pointed out that the feature feels eerily similar to TikTok.

Google Ads rolls out custom audiences

Google’s new combination of custom intent audiences and custom affinity audiences has arrived.

The new “custom audiences” can be used for targeting on display, discovery, Gmail, and YouTube campaigns.

Advertisers can build keyword lists based on “people with any of these interests or purchase intentions” or “people who searched for any of these terms on Google”.

Additionally, advertisers will be able to expand their custom audiences by targeting apps, URLs, and a brand new “places” category.

This week’s ICYMI comes from David Hermann who says the Pinterest Trends report is one of the best in the social space.

Small hack that many don’t even realize is there…..

Pinterest trends. Probably one of the only true trend reports on the social space outside Google.

Her’s how much travel has flatlined. Notice the up-tick in end of April (before wave of Covid cases)? pic.twitter.com/noDnLxgvT2

— David Herrmann (@herrmanndigital) September 10, 2020

Plus, Amalia Fowler found an awesome (probably temporary) solution for accessing Google’s hidden search query data.

With search queries – Analytics is still showing me which Google Ads queries led to traffic.

For this particular account I can only see 10/20 clicks in Google Ads, but I can see 17/20 in Google Analytics.

The ones missing? Not impressed (competitors & irrelevant) #ppcchat

— Amalia Fowler (She/Her) (@amaliaefowler) September 16, 2020

We’ll answer these important marketing questions during our lightning round segment:

• Who is being banned from using Hotjar?
• What Instagram’s new patent reveals about its future link-selling plans
• When will  Googlebot start crawling some sites over HTTP/2?
• Where Facebook users will be sent if the click on the new automotive inventory ad.
• Why you might want to try resubmitting your Facebook ads that were rejected for being too text-heavy.
• How effective are emojis in email subject lines?

Check out the Marketing O’Clock site to subscribe to the show! You will also find links to all of the articles featured in this episode.

Featured Image Credit: Cypress North