YouTube’s Bite-Size “Clips” Rolls Out In Beta & This Week’s Digital Marketing News [PODCAST]

On this week’s episode of Marketing O’Clock, hosts Greg Finn and Jess Budde break down the biggest digital marketing news of the week.

If you are unable to listen on Spotify, check out the video version of this week’s episode on the Search Engine Journal YouTube channel.

YouTube Clips, a New Sharing Feature, Rolls out in Beta

YouTube is rolling out a new short-form video sharing feature called Clips. With this new feature, users can clip out, assign a title and share 5-60 second clips from an existing video or live stream.

This feature is currently in beta, and is only available to a small number of gaming channels. Users can only find this feature when on desktop or Android device until the feature is further along in development.

While this feature can be used on a variety of videos, it’s unavailable for use on children’s content, live streams over 8 hours long, premiers while they are still live, and on content that has either been deleted, set to private, or that violate community guidelines.

Google Ads Phrase Match Expands

Goodbye Broad Modifier Match, Hello expanded Phrase matching.

Google Ads is doing away with Broad Match Modifiers in an effort to consolidate match types. While this move makes total sense seeing the state of matching, advertisers be wary that “Phrase” match will begin to perform differently.

Facebook Announces Testing of New Topic Exclusions for Advertisers

Facebook has announced that it will soon commence testing of topic exclusions with a small set of advertisers. This solution allows advertisers to stop their ads from appearing next to certain topics on the News Feed.

Advertisers are able to pick from a list of topics for what they would like to show up next to – this will signal to Facebook where they should show ads.

While topic exclusions may at first seem redundant, as Facebook already offers exclusions in video campaigns for certain topics, the new test brings a whole new, more complex list of categories to be used on campaigns for the News Feed.

Facebook says that this test will take most of 2021 to safeguard user privacy.

Google’s “About This Result” Feature Gives More Information About Results in the SERPs

This week, Google launched the “About this result” beta feature. This feature shows up under a small menu icon, available on some search results.

When selected, Google will give the user more information about the search result, with a description of the selected website from Wikipedia.

If there isn’t a Wikipedia article for the search result, Google will show other useful information about the site, like when it was first indexed.

Instagram Begins Testing Removing the Option to Share Feed Posts in Stories

Instagram has been taking steps to encourage users to post separate content to their feed and stories by starting a test to remove the option for feed posts to be shared in Stories.

Instagram reported that the reason for this test was complaints of too much repeat content between stories and the feed, which will be resolved if this removal is put fully into action.

It will prompt users to make content made specifically for each type of stream, creating a better user experience and promoting more user engagement.

As of now, Instagram has not said if this removal will come to fruition permanently, and they are currently testing it with a small selection of regions.

Take of the Week

In this week’s take of the week segment, Zach gives us a comedic step-by-step guide on how to “deal” with Facebook Ads Manager and how frustrating the platform can be for marketers.

Dear #fbadschat #ppcchat – one quick tip for Ads Manager if you are frustrated.
1️⃣ Reset Ad Manager
2️⃣ Close all your Fb and Ig tabs
3️⃣ Delete all cookies/content for Fb and Ig in your browser
4️⃣ Head back to ad manager and realize it did nothing because it awful and foaLKNLHILJ

— Zach ≡ (@zmste) January 27, 2021

ICYMI

Next, in our ICYMI segment, Duane Brown, founder of Take Some Risk, gives us some helpful advice on how to grow and scale Google shopping ads in 2021.

Google Shopping Ads 🛍️

2020 was a crazy year but there is room to grow and scale shopping ads for many brands.🚀

After working on more shopping ad audits then you can shake a stick at. Here are 8 areas that brands need to work on if you can not scale or hit ROAS goals. 🥅

— Duane Brown 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@duanebrown) February 2, 2021

Then we answer your burning digital marketing questions during our lightning round segment:

• Who’s excited for the new Web Stories update?
• What can I do to support black-owned businesses this month?
• Where did all my old Facebook Ads data go?
• When is the most important moment of this YouTube video?
• Why do people listen to Google’s recommendations?
• How can I boost my ranking? The only way might be with core web vitals.

Check out the Marketing O’Clock site to subscribe to the show (and our newsletter!) and read all the articles featured on this week’s show!

Featured Image Credit: Samantha Hanson