Welcome the EasyAutoTagging newsletter! The digital landscape keeps changing and here some of the most recent updates to keep you in the loop:

• Are virtual environments the future of digital advertising?
• Bing is testing 3D immersive ads
• Small but big – Two new Facebook feature alerts!
• Upload product data to Google search…for free 🤯
• Measure cross-device performance data with Google Ads
• Guess who the two big spenders in traditional media are?
• Liven up FAQs

Obviously, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. So let’s get started!

The Future of Advertisement

 Virtual Ads 

Is a gamified virtual experience the future of digital advertising?

Maybe. Design Home, a virtual video game has been downloaded over 50 Million times with 1 Million+ DAUs.

How it works: Players get presented with a daily challenge of furnishing an empty space of their choice.

So where do the ads come in? There are no ads per se…instead call them hyper native ads on steroids. Users can select furniture pieces from a catalog with an array of products from retailers like West Elm and Design Within Reach.

Taking notes: Reaching relevant users will become a lot more complex than serving a video or display ad especially when it comes to Gen Z (who can have a hard time telling the difference between IRL and RL) breaking into the market. Interestingly enough, when Netflix recently called out their biggest competitor for attention it wasn’t another streaming service but Fortnite; which recently hosted a live Marshmello concert within the game watched by more than 10 Million viewers.

Is the underdog of search stepping up its game with visual search by displaying full 3D immersive ads?

The Scoop: In partnership with Samsung, these ads only display in desktop search taking over your screen and creating an interactive 3D experience.

This is a great way to create a virtual in-store experience over a screen.

We do have questions: Why would Bing test this on Desktop only? The idea and format remind us of Facebook Instant Experience ads (formerly known as Canvas) that can only be viewed as a full-screen immersive experience on mobile.

What does this mean for marketers: Google and Bing both continue to test visual experiences on search to improve the user experience competing with other platforms that can scale native and visual ads.

PS: Now if only the Bing audience were as savvy as their ads

Learn More: Bing Ads brings 3D ads to Search with Samsung

New Facebook Feature Alert 👍

 Facebook 
There are two recent feature rollouts for the Facebook Ads Manager that might seem minuscule but are actually pretty big.

Copy engagements when duplicating an ad: This reminds me of the old days when you used to run ‘dark posts’ as ads. The good thing about this approach was that you could aggregate all engagement onto a single post leveraging social proof. Now you can duplicate ads with an option to copy the engagements over….sweet!

Learn More: Duplicate an ad in Ads Manager

Video Performance Card: Ok so ya’ll remember when Facebook came out and said a view is counted when the video is viewed for at least 3 seconds and we were all supposed to buy it?

Ok, now they came out with a Visual Performance Card. According to Facebook ‘The Video Performance Card lets you see the percent of video plays that occurred at different intervals at a granular level.’ This is can provide valuable creative performance insights up to 60 Seconds in a specific video.

Learn More: About the Video Performance Card in Ads Manager

See the screenshot below that was posted by Thomas Hutter out in Germany 🇩🇪

Upload product data to Google search…for free?

 Virtual Search 
What this means for advertisers: Your products are now able to appear in search results without having to run any paid ads to display them. All you need is a product feed and a merchant center.

Additionally, Google added a product section to the search console so you can quickly identify and flag any issues with your product markup.

Takeaways: As search becomes more visual (Think Google Lens) Google is rolling out features tying back to a visual search experience.

Learn more: Help customers discover your products on Google

Access Cross-Device Behavior 🗗 Insights in Google Ads

 Google Analytics 

Google Analytics will now export cross-device conversion data to Google Ads

Why should you care: We all know that users browse across multiple devices in their customer journey. Being able to leverage Google’s treasure trove of cross-device data extrapolated from signed in users can help you guide advertising bidding and optimizations.

Learn More: About cross-device conversions

Are Online & Tech Going Traditional?

 Ad Tech 
So, the biggest online and tech companies are dominating traditional TV and OOH advertising.

An interesting and somewhat unexpected trend pulled from Ad Age Datacenter shows that Apple, Amazon, and Google, were among the 10 biggest OOH spenders last year.

It kinda makes sense since all of these players have media subscription services and they need mass market appeal and reach to bring on new subscribers.

While internet companies typically have the highest online spend they are going to start becoming more dominant in the traditional space. So don’t fret TVs and Billboards are here to stay 😉

Read More: Silicon Valley Tech Is Spending More On Ads – Largely On Itself

Livening up FAQs

 Strategy 
We always like to be on the lookout for interesting strategies to engage with our end customer.

It’s no secret FAQ can be boring, but they are a necessary evil for any e-commerce site. The guys at Sunski’s had a genius idea of answering their FAQs with video + singing and incorporating these at the bottom of every product page.

Now aside from making it easy to find and even easier to digest (who likes reading dry FAQ content) you are also creating a fun and memorable brand experience.

Read More: How Two Surfers Turned a Pair of Vintage Sunglasses into a Two-Million Dollar Business (Case Study)

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