December 2024: 4:5 aspect ratio, GA4 customer match, and more

The Bluebird Messenger is a monthly newsletter that recaps all the latest news that digital marketers need to stay on top of their game. Keep scrolling to find out which updates recently dropped and how they impact best practices within marketing. Enjoy the read!

Paid Search

Optimize pricing with GMC sale price suggestions

Google Merchant Center's newly launched sale price suggestions use performance data to recommend optimal pricing based on market trends and price sensitivity, helping boost visibility and profitability.

Google's AI Overviews now feature sponsored ads

Google's AI Overviews in Search now includes 'Sponsored' ads within AI-generated summaries, selected for their relevance to user queries and content. AI overviews were recently rolled out in more than 100 countries around the world, but not yet in Scandinavia.

Pmax campaigns introduce asset coverage tab and ad strength reports

Google's Performance Max campaigns now include an Asset Coverage tab, offering a visual overview of creative assets and identifying any gaps. Accessible via Campaigns > Assets, this feature is complemented by Ad Strength reports for each asset group, aiding in campaign optimization.

Paid Social

New best practice to use 4:5 Aspect Ratio (Image)

Following the recent increase in height allowance to a 4:5 aspect ratio for single image ads on FB Feed, Meta now recommends 4:5 as the standard format for FB feed single image ads. Historically we’ve used 1:1 which is a highly versatile format that will fit many different placements outside of the feed. Until we gather more information on this, we’ll still continue with the 1:1 format and dip our toes into customizing FB feed placements to 4:5 for single images for testing purposes. 

Poll ads are being deprecated

As of November 4, Meta removed the option to add poll ads to both Instagram and Facebook ad placements. This has historically been a way to interact with users on an upper funnel level which will not be available anymore.

Automatic product updates for catalog

Streamline your product catalog 🛍️ Let Meta automatically update your product information directly from your website if a mismatch is detected. This ensures accurate and up-to-date product listings. To manage this, simply visit Commerce Manager and adjust your catalog settings

SEO

OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Search

On October 31, 2024, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Search, a feature that integrates real-time web search directly into its chatbot interface. Unlike traditional search engines, ChatGPT Search provides conversational summaries of web findings, enabling users to access and understand information quickly and effectively. This innovation challenges the dominance of established search engines like Google by offering a more interactive and user-friendly search experience. For businesses, this shift signifies a need to adapt SEO strategies to optimize for AI-driven platforms.

Google's November 2024 Core Update

Google released a major core algorithm update on November 11, 2024, aiming to enhance the quality of search results. The update emphasizes E-E-A-T principles (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), encouraging content creators to focus on producing user-centered, credible, and valuable content. Websites that fail to meet these standards may see a decline in their rankings, while those prioritizing quality and relevance are likely to benefit. This update highlights the importance of continuously auditing and improving content to ensure it aligns with user expectations and Google’s evolving standards.

Google's Crackdown on “Parasite SEO” Content

Google intensified its efforts against "parasite SEO" practices, which involve publishing irrelevant or low-quality content to exploit a website's ranking. The updated policy clarifies that any form of such content, whether produced internally or outsourced, violates Google's search policies. This move aims to preserve the integrity of search results and ensure that users receive relevant and trustworthy information.

Tracking & Analytics

Google Analytics 4

Customer Match in Google Analytics

If your data includes user-provided data, any audience exported to Google advertising products will match your consented, hashed customer data with Google data.

Custom Channel Groups support Manual ad content

You can now use the manual ad content parameter as a condition group when creating a new custom channel.

Progress with Data Quality issues

Addressing the misattribution of Google paid campaigns to Organic campaigns, processing improvements for over attribution to direct and reduced attribution to not set has been ongoing.  

Google Tag Manager

Conversion Linker now stores ad click information in Browser Local Storage in addition to first-party cookies.

Funnel.io

Google BigQuery Connector

This new feature allows importing data from BigQuery directly into Funnel.

Field and data previews during connect flow

View a searchable list of dimensions and metrics along with a visualized data preview.

Google Sheets connector  Sync Sheet button

The “Sync” button to the Google Sheets connector lets you update data in Funnel as you need it.

Display & Video

YouTube introduces format buying controls and new updates to Shorts format

Formats buying controls allow you to customize your campaigns to run exclusively in specific formats or feeds, such as Shorts feed, or horizontal creative in-stream. Short feeds have also been updated to include videos up to 3 minutes long which gives the advertisers/creators more flexibility to tell their story. Additionally, to make Shorts more interactive and fun they announced stickers, which automatically will be created from images in your product feeds and added to your Shorts. 

Adform integrates  brand-lift analytics and insights

Adform has expanded its partnership with Happydemics to integrate brand-lift analytics and insights, like ad recall rate and purchase intent. This will help advertisers to better evaluate channels’ combined effectiveness, like the interplay between CTV and DOOH.