Google Core Web Vitals to Be Used as Ranking Signals & This Week’s Digital Marketing News [PODCAST]

Hosts Jess Budde, Greg Finn, and Christine “Shep” Zirnheld are back to deliver the digital marketing news you need to know.

Plus, way more information than you ever need to know about Googlebot’s new spider sidekick.

Core Web Vitals to Be Used As Ranking Signals

Google announced new page experience ranking signals for Search that will go into effect in May 2021.

This update will combine Core Web vitals with existing search signals.

Facebook Ads Accounts Disabled

Advertisers around the world reported having their Facebook Ads account disabled on November 5.

Facebook product manager Rob Leathern tweeted that this was due to a technical issue and that the mistakenly disabled accounts had been reactivated.

2021 Paid Search & Social Trends

Search Engine Journal’s Danny Goodwin interviewed 32 PPC and paid social experts to create a list of 10 trends to watch for in 2021.

The experts agreed, advertisers should expect less data, more automation, and a greater emphasis on the buyer’s journey, mobile experience, and ad platform diversification.

Download the free ebook to hear from all 32 experts.

In our Take of the Week segment, Savannah Sanchez shared her advice on best practices for Google Shopping campaigns.

Not sure anyone can be the “best” at google shopping. Set up the feed, turn on Smart Shopping, and let it ride ⛵️

— Savannah Sanchez | The Social Savannah (@social_savannah) November 11, 2020

Then, ICYMI, some Google advertisers, like James Svoboda, are reporting poor broad match modified conversion rates for the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2020.

How’s Google Ads Close Variant’s Change going since Sept?

Here’s a example of Conversion Rates we’re seeing from an Ecom client with a 10+ year tenured account.

Q1&2 = Jan 1 thru Aug 31st. Q3&4 = Sept 1 to today.

Time to Kill Broad & Phrase Match??? Maybe…#ppc #ppcchat pic.twitter.com/EvOAOUnQ3i

— James Svoboda (@Realicity) November 12, 2020

Andrea Cruz had the same issue and saw performance improve when she paused broad and phrase match keywords in her account.

I paused all BMM and phrase match for a B2B client and it’s getting the best performance ever! Obviously this can’t be a blanket statement for all accounts

— Andrea Cruz (@andreacruz92) November 12, 2020

But, Andrew Lolk reminded us why blanket statements are so dangerous.

Best practices are horrible 😉

In your case it makes perfect sense to kill BMM.

We have a case where it was smarter to kill Search, and just run Smart Shopping in three countries (and reduce our fee) while they rebuilt their new website.

You don’t see that in a blog post 😀

— Andrew Lolk (@AndrewLolk) November 12, 2020

Then, we answer your burning digital marketing questions during our lightning round segment:

• Who wants to be called a “Webmaster” anymore?
• What you need to know about the new customer acquisition goal in Google Smart Shopping campaigns.
• When will Megaphone’s “Streaming Ad Insertion Tool” be available for Spotify podcasts?
• Where can you find Instagram’s shopping tab in the new navigation?
• Why your site needs an XML sitemap file.
• How you can access exclusive Spotify podcast episodes.

Head over to the Marketing O’Clock site for more information on this week’s stories. Don’t forget to subscribe while you’re there!

Thank you to our sponsor, Upfluence!

With Upfluence’s all-in-one platform, marketers can streamline their influencer marketing campaigns and scale their influencer programs in no time.

Featured Image Credit: Cypress North