In the latest WDA Marketing Pit Stop, and the final one this year, we take a look at the most important digital marketing news and updates for our automotive audience, from the 7th – 18th December. News this week includes LinkedIn launching their new ‘Products’ tab, TikTok and Samsung partnership, new Google ad formats rolled out, WhatsApp Carts and more.

Let’s take a pit stop and get into it.

LinkedIn ‘Products’ Tab Launched

LinkedIn has launched a ‘Products’ tab for Company Pages, providing an area for businesses to showcase their products and to highlight features. Here’s how LinkedIn explained it…

“With Product Pages you can spotlight product endorsements and testimonials by your users, gather ratings and reviews from current users, and generate leads with a custom call-to-action button, such as a demo request or contact sales form. In the new “Products” Tab, you can add new products you want to feature and include rich media like videos or product screenshots, descriptions and more.”

This new feature provides a great opportunity for automotive businesses on the platform to showcase their product offering.

Twitter Testing “Highlighting Things in Common”

Twitter is launching a new test for Android users that will see them highlight things they have in common when replying to a user that they don’t follow or engage with. The idea with it is to boost engagement and discussion on the app but it does feel slightly forced. We’ll see if they roll this out.

Lead Form Ad Extensions Get Enhanced

Google has announced several enhancements for its Lead Form Ad Extensions. Lead Form Ad Extensions are great for letting prospects directly enquire with a form just below your ad. The new enhancements make them even more attractive to automotive advertisers. They include:

• Apply and share lead form ad extensions across all of your campaigns easily.
• Connect a webhook to automate the lead gathering process.
• Make use of more pre-made question options that can be added to the form.

TikTok Coming to TV’s!

Samsung has announced a partnership with TikTok to bring the app’s short-form videos straight to your Samsung TV! Here’s a snippet from Samsung’s statement…

“Samsung Electronics Ltd and TikTok are proud to announce a new app partnership that brings TikTok’s trending content into the home. TikTok will be exclusively available on Samsung Smart TVs in Europe, launching first for UK customers today.”

Clarity Integrated into Bing Webmaster Tools

Microsoft Clarity was launched earlier this year and features from it have now been integrated into Bing Webmaster Tools. In case you missed it when we discussed it in one of our previous Pit Stops, Clarity enables website owners to understand how users are engaging with their website through click maps, scroll maps and more. Integrating this into Bing Webmaster Tools makes sense and provides a single platform for automotive businesses to monitor SEO and optimise site usability.

Instagram’s New Creative Tools

New creative tools have been added to Instagram Reels and Stories. Firstly, with Reels, ‘Audio Mix’ and ‘Voice-Over’ options are being added. Secondly, on Stories, a new ‘Photobooth’ mode has been added, enabling users to take several shots in sequence.

Twitter Set to Add New Tweet Reply Option

Twitter introduced reply options for tweets earlier this year, allowing users to choose to limit replies from – everyone, people you follow, or people mentioned in the tweet. The new option, found by reverse engineering expert, Jane Wong, would allow users to also limit replies to their followers only.

New Ad Formats Rolled Out

Google has rolled out Web Story Ads (available via their Display Network). These allow automotive advertisers to create full-screen mobile ad experiences. Additionally, App Campaigns for Engagement have started launching internationally. This new ad format can be used to re-engage/retarget users who have previously downloaded your app.

Facebook Expands Brand Collabs Manager

Brand Collabs Manager will now include groups. Here’s what Facebook said about the update…

“Public Group admins can collaborate with brands to create campaigns that resonate with their group members. Brands will be able to connect with relevant audiences in spaces people trust and actively engage in, and group admins will also have an opportunity to earn money to support their work to manage engaged communities.”

Google Interactive Search Results

Google has started to test an interactive search results page that will allow searchers to click and view images that are embedded on the ranking web pages. Will this have an impact on organic click-through rates? Quite possibly, but it is only a test at this point. If it does roll out, we’ll definitely be discussing it here and how it could impact your automotive SEO.

LinkedIn Story Ads

LinkedIn is currently in the process of testing ads in the fairly recently rolled out Stories. This is how they explained the test…

“…we’re excited to announce that we are testing Stories Ads with a limited number of advertisers in a closed beta with all members globally. Stories Ads can help brands grow their reach with our community of more than 722M members with video and image ads. Already, we have had more than 600 advertisers activate campaigns with positive performance in clicks, views and cost metrics.”

If they end up rolling this out to all users then it’s definitely something that B2B automotive businesses should be testing.

LinkedIn Page Roles Expanded

LinkedIn page roles have been expanded to give company page owners more control over page management options. The options now include “Page Admin” and “Paid Media Admin”, allowing for tiered levels of management allowing members, associated employees and advertisers, varying levels of page access.

WhatsApp Carts

WhatsApp has now officially launched Carts, further expanding the apps eCommerce capabilities. It’s a great update for automotive retail businesses, particularly those without online stores. Here’s what WhatsApp said on the launch…

“Starting today, we’re excited to bring carts to WhatsApp. Carts are great when messaging businesses that typically sell multiple items at once, like a local restaurant or clothing store. With carts, people can browse a catalog, select multiple products and send the order as one message to the business. This will make it simpler for businesses to keep track of order inquiries, manage requests from customers and close sales.”

That wraps up the latest Marketing Pit Stop. We’ll be back in the New Year with a bumper edition!

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Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

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