As a month with two full moons, clocks that changed and a terrifying announcement on Halloween that England is to head into a "circuit-break" lockdown, it's fair to say this month has felt a little like something out of a movie.
Meanwhile, in the world of marketing things have felt a little quite as business prepare for the festive season, but nevertheless, there has still been a few exciting developments.
Catch up on what you might have missed in our 5-minute marketing round-up for October 2020:
Google Ads introduce tailored business insights
Google Ads has announced that they are launching a new Insights Page that will provide custom market-demand insights that are specific to your business.
The new page has been developed to help brands stay ahead of fast-changing consumer trends by providing real-time visibility of current and emerging search demand for products or services relevant to their business.
With the ability to delve into the search queries or geographical locations of demand, you’ll be able to be proactive in your response to consumer behaviour and ensure you don’t miss out to the competition. Whatsmore, with seamless integration into the Recommendations tools, you’ll be able to implement quick changes to your keywords, budget and bid optimisations, maximising on any unexpected spikes in search behaviour.
Unfortunately, the new tool will be rolling out as a beta first, so it will likely be a few more months before you’ll get access to this exciting new dashboard.
If you're too excited to wait for the new page, head over to Google Blog to learn more about the feature.
Google Launch Google Analytics 4
It’s been a busy month over at Google as October also saw the launch of Google Analytics 4 - complete with AI-powered insights, improved user tracking across different devices, improved integration with Google Ads and more granular data controls.
Possibly one of the most exciting new features is the addition of alerting that notifies users of changing data trends, such as a surge in demand or a sudden shift in consumer behaviour. This proactive alerting will help marketers and business owners everywhere stay ahead of the game.
It’s important to be aware that existing Google Analytics setups will not be automatically changed to Google Analytics 4, however, any new properties that are created will be. Therefore it is advisable that businesses set up a new property to run alongside their existing set up so that data can start to be tracked as soon as possible. Don’t forget, Google Analytics can’t track anything historic, so a new property will only start to collect data from the day it’s set up and a tracking code installed.
If you’re not sure about how to set up a new Google Analytics property please feel free to reach out, or if you want to learn more about the new look Google Analytics 4 head over to the Google Blog Announcement.
Facebook for Business launches new advertising features to help boost sales during the seasonal period
As the trend in online shopping continues to soar and businesses are disrupted by the impact of COVID-19, Facebook has announced the launch of a range of new features to help merchants maximise sales during the festive period.
The new features include:
Instagram Ads with Product Tags which means you'll no longer need to publish posts organically first to be able to include product tags, instead you'll be able to do it straight from the advertiser's dashboard.
New Shopping Engagement Custom Audiences will allow you to reach people who’ve already shown an interest in your product or brand, such as visiting your website or engaging with your Facebook page.
New Shopping Lookalike Audiences will allow you to target shoppers who have similar interests to your existing Facebook and Instagram customers, increasing the likelihood of reaching your target audience through paid adverts.
TikTok joins forces with Shopify for social media eCommerce
TikTok has embarked on a global partnership with eCommerce platform Shopify, to allow merchants to create and publish shoppable video ads to the TikTok platform directly from the Shopify dashboard.
Providing a selection of ready-made templates, the new tool will automatically create video ads for selected products to focus on driving visitors to the Shopify store.
The partnership has already started to be rolled out across the US and UK merchants can expect to get access early next year - so watch this space!
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