In the latest WDA Marketing Pit Stop, we take a look at the most important digital marketing news and updates from the last two weeks, 23rd November – 6th December, including new Facebook tools for car dealers, Google’s latest core algorithm update, Snapchat Spotlight and much more.

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

New Facebook Tools for Car Dealers

Great news for car dealers as Facebook is adding three new tools that will help them connect with more buyers. These include:

• Manage Inventory Tab: A new tab that enables dealers to create, manage and promote vehicle inventory all in one place with performance insights available in a couple of clicks.
• Automotive Inventory Ads: These have been improved to allow dealers to promote inventory simpler and quicker. If a catalogue has been created then ads can now be set up using a pre-filled template.
• Vehicles Tab: On dealership pages, new and used inventory can be showcased for free in the new vehicles tab.

Google Algorithm Updated

Google recently announced the latest core algorithm update which has begun rolling out. It’s the third core update to the algorithm this year and for automotive businesses that are focussing on SEO, this is something to take note of. We’ve not noticed any major traffic swings for our clients but we’d highly recommend keeping a close eye on your organic traffic and rankings.

New Crawl Stats Report

Search Console has now got a revamped crawl stats report that provides webmasters and marketers with data and insights into crawling issues. The report includes host status information, the total number of requests and more.

Instagram Branded Content Ads Improved

Instagram branded content ads were first introduced in 2019 and have now been improved. The improvements to the ads give advertisers the power to create them on a users behalf – making the entire process more seamless. With branded content ads, your business can tell stories through the voices of influential creators on the platform. If it’s something you’ve not tested yet for your automotive brand then why not give them a try?

YouTube Premiere New Features

YouTube Premiere is getting a suite of new features that will give content creators more options and new ways to build hype for videos. The new features include:

• Live Redirects: Letting creators connect a live stream to a premiere.
• Premiere Trailers: A 15 second to 3-minute long clip that can be shown before the premiere at any time.
• Expanded Countdown Themes: 10 themes to choose from instead of 1, coming early next year.
• Schedule Premieres on Mobile: Gives creators the capability to schedule premieres on the YouTube mobile app.

The Live Redirect and Trailers features need a min of 1K subscribers to access.

Twitter Verification Returning

Ever dreamt of getting that blue tick next to your business Twitter account? Their verification process was put on hold in 2017 but Twitter is updating it and bringing it back early next year. The following account types will quality for verification: Government, Companies, Brands and NonProfit Organisations, News, Entertainment, Sports, Activities, Organisers and Other Influential Individuals.

YouTube Automated Video Chapters

YouTube video chapters could be automated in the future as they’ve been testing auto-generated chapters using machine learning with a small selection of videos. Here’s what YouTube said on the tests…

“We want to make it easier for people to navigate videos with video chapters, so we are experimenting with automatically adding video chapters (so creators don’t have to manually add timestamps). We’ll use machine learning to recognize text in order to auto generate video chapters. We’re testing this out with a small group of videos.”

Instagram FAQ’s

Automated FAQ’s are already a feature on Facebook Messenger and a similar feature now looks set to be coming to Instagram. The new FAQ feature will be available for business accounts – giving potential customers instant access to the answers of the most common questions.

Snapchat Spotlight is Here

Snapchat Spotlight is a new dedicated tab within the app, providing a TikTok like experience for users. Spotlight features short snaps up to a minute long. Users can submit videos to the Spotlight feed for approval. Spotlight is something worth checking out if your automotive business already has a Snapchat account and caters to a young audience.

Page Experience FAQ’s

Google has published a new FAQ page which answers a range of questions concerning the upcoming Page Experience algorithm update and Core Web Vitals. There’s some valuable information in some of the answers so it’s worth checking out: https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/86521401?hl=en

Google Local Business Updates

Several updates are being rolled out for local businesses, including a way for consumers to message businesses from Google Maps, improved Business Profile performance metrics and the introduction of a “community feed” within Maps. The new features will provide local automotive brands with more tools and options to boost their local presence.

Twitter Ads Frequency Capping

Frequency capping can now be applied across all ad campaign types on Twitter. Here’s how Twitter explained the update…

“Marketers know one key component of campaign success is effective audience reach. That’s why we are introducing frequency caps for ads on Twitter globally. Whether it’s brand lift or offline sales impact, frequency caps allow advertisers to optimize campaigns to deliver efficient business outcomes through better control over impression delivery and audience reach over extended periods of time.”

Google Discovery Ads Get New Image Option

4:5 aspect ratio images that are popular within social media ad campaigns can now be utilised within Google’s Discovery Ads. Discovery Ads are a fairly new ad format and are native ads that appear in multiple Google feed environments such as the Discover feed and Gmail. They’re another potential ad option for automotive brands to explore and test if you haven’t already.

That wraps up the latest Marketing Pit Stop. Subscribe to our blog and follow us on social media so you don’t miss the next one!

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