Monthly Marketing Update: LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads

Search Engine Optimization

Open AI Launches GPTBot

OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research organization, has introduced GPTBot, a web crawler designed to improve AI models. By allowing GPTBot to access your website, your site content is added to this data pool that aims to enhance the AI ecosystem. However OpenAI provides guidelines on how website owners can restrict access to GPTBot to maintain control over website interactions and to uphold privacy and security measures that can be as simple as robots.txt. One major concern is copyrighted content gathered from the site being used without attribution as ChatGPT does not currently cite sources.

Google Implements Changes to FAQ Rich Results & How-To Rich Results

Google is making adjustments to the way certain types of rich results appear in its search results to ensure a more consistent and streamlined search experience. The changes involve reducing the visibility of FAQ rich results and limiting How-To rich results to desktop devices. These modifications will be fully implemented globally within the next week (written on Aug 8, 2023). FAQ rich results will only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer be shown regularly. Sites may automatically be considered for this treatment depending on their eligibility. Existing FAQ structured data does not need to be removed, but it will no longer be beneficial (or harmful) for rich results

Paid Search

Gen Z Music lineup is a new advertising solution offered by YouTube. It is designed to help advertisers connect with the Generation Z (Gen Z) audience, which refers to individuals born after 1997 . Advertisers have the opportunity to purchase the Gen Z Music lineup as an advertising package. This allows their ads to be displayed alongside the curated music videos that are popular among Gen Z viewers and listeners. The specific placements may include: Alongside Music Videos, In-Stream Ads, and Display Ads. This new ad offering provides a means for advertisers to connect with Gen Z viewers and listeners in a way that feels authentic and culturally relevant.

Paid Social

Introducing X, the Future & Rebrand of Twitter

The app previously recognized as Twitter has recently revealed a new name. Last week, X.com transitioned to redirect to Twitter.com. In a visual shift, the company's headquarters now displays a blinking X in place of the former bird logo. The X experience offers long-form publishing, more immersive video (with vertical video and long form), a space for creators to make a living, and a new standard of brand adjacency protections. The company's owner, billionaire Elon Musk, recently spoke to the name change saying, “Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app.” Musk has hinted at a future vision for the app that bears resemblance to China's WeChat, although the implementation of these updates appears to be occurring gradually.

New Ad Format on Linkedin - Thought Leader Ads on LinkedIn

There is a new ad type available to elevate a company's presence in Industry Thought Leadership. You can now promote native content published by employees/executives of your company allowing for more reach with brand awareness and establishing credibility by using employee experiences. This supports Brand Awareness and Engagement campaign objectives with single-image ads only right now. 

For this ad format to function, specific conditions must be met

• Exclude Audience Network in LinkedIn targeting to avoid ad deactivation.
• Employee must be verified member (has company as active & current job in LI profile)
• Employee must have public profile and employer must match company page associated with the ad account

Display

Roku partners with Shopify to allow purchases direct from TV

Roku has teamed up with Shopify to enable direct purchases from TVs, capitalizing on the rise of ecommerce in streaming TV. CTV has been seen as mostly upper funnel, with additional tactics like CTV QR codes and CTV viewer retargeting as a means to drive site traffic and conversions. While the t-commerce medium could be great for digital conversion rates, users are comfortable shopping on their mobile devices, so it may require "retraining" customers to use their TV remotes to get more information versus using a second screen. Through Roku Action Ads, viewers can interact with ads, click "OK" on their Roku remote, and buy products directly from their TV screens. The partnership integrates Roku's payment platform, Roku Pay, for smooth transactions. This collaboration enhances Shopify's relationship with Roku, offering merchants access to customer data and insights. The move reflects the trend of enabling purchases in streaming experiences, catering to growing audiences and enhancing the overall viewing and buying process.