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, 19th October – 1st November, including further information on passed-based indexing, new e-commerce features on Facebook, Google highlighting shopping deals and more.

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

New Facebook & WhatsApp Shopping Features

Great news for automotive e-commerce businesses, as Facebook and WhatsApp are rolling out some new shopping features. For Facebook, this includes the functionality to create Instagram Ads with product tags from Facebook Ads Manager and new shopping audience targeting. Also, in the US only, sales and discounts can be promoted in Commerce Manager.

With regards to WhatsApp, the updates include a way to browse products, select and pay for them, whilst communicating with a business and the shopping tab seen on Facebook and Instagram will also be added.

Further Information Release on Passage-Based Indexing

Google has further expanded on what passage-based indexing means – confirming that passages will simply become an extra element that Google considers when ranking pages. If you want to know more about passage-based indexing, read Google’s blog: https://blog.google/products/search/search-on/

Google Releases Study Findings on Personalisation and Privacy

Google has recently released findings of a preliminary study that shows it’s possible to deliver personalisation and privacy at the same time in a cookie-less future.

YouTube Betters its Mobile Experience

YouTube has launched several updates to improve user experience on mobile devices. The updates include a streamlined player page, new screen swipe gestures, digital wellbeing reminders, suggested actions that prompt the user, and making better use of video chapters.

Microsoft Clarity Now Available

Microsoft Clarity was first launched as a closed beta in 2018 and is now officially available. It’s a fantastic tool for automotive businesses looking to improve their website’s user experience, customer journey and ultimately, conversion rate with heatmaps, click maps, session playbacks and more.

Twitter Shareable Topics

Topic listings on Twitter are now shareable in tweets, DM’s and away from the platform. This comes as Twitter continues to introduce ways to improve content discovery on the platform.

Visual Upgrades Made to Google Ads Report Editor

Google Ads Report Editor allows advertisers to visually analyse campaign performance within the AdWords interface. It has recently been upgraded visually to look more like Google’s Data Studio.

Shopping Deals to be Highlighted

In yet another exciting update for automotive e-commerce brands, Google will be highlighting shopping deals in search results for both paid and free merchant listings. This firstly delivers a great user experience by letting shoppers find the very best prices possible for the products they’re looking for and secondly, boosts product exposure and hopefully sales for automotive brands that take advantage of it.

Instagram Live Stream Time Limit Increased

Instagram has increased its live stream time limit from one hour to four hours, bringing it in line with Facebook’s mobile live stream limit. If your automotive brand has a good presence on Instagram and isn’t making use of live streams yet then we’d recommend doing so, particularly as people are consuming more content than ever online!

Pinterest Shopping Updates

Pinterest has launched more updates and tools for e-commerce businesses to generate sales. In this latest batch of updates, including improving merchant discoverability, an updated merchant profile that resembles a storefront, a more intuitive interface for catalogues, automatic shopping bidding, new conversion analytics and improved product tagging.

LinkedIn Makes Virtual Events Easier to Find

LinkedIn has made virtual events on the platform easier to find for users which should boost attendance also. Also, event organisers can now capture leads from event sign-ups.

TikTok and Shopify Partnership

TikTok has announced a partnership with e-commerce giant, Shopify. This is what TikTok had to say on the partnership…

“Today, we’re announcing a global partnership with Shopify that will help more than a million merchants create and run campaigns directly geared toward TikTok’s highly engaged community.”

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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