Digital Marketing Week in Review by Four Dots: February 2020, Week 3

Yet another installment of Digital Marketing Week in Review by Four Dots is here – our weekly blog post in which we tackle some of the most interesting and impactful industry-related events and pieces of news that happened over the past 7 days (or so). 

In this “February 2020”: Week 3” edition, you can read about the following topics: 

• Big Changes to Google Partner Qualifications are About to Take Place
• Facebook Releases a New App (That Looks a Lot Like Pinterest)
• It is Now Easier to Review a Campaign’s Change History in Google Ads
• YouTube is Testing New Creator Donation Feature ‘Applause’
• Facebook’s WhatsApp Broke 2 Billion Users…

…and more. 

Let’s get down to business!

Big Changes to Google Partner Qualifications are About to Take Place

The coveted Google Partner badge requirements and criteria are to be substantially changed sometime in mid-2020. The new Google Partners program will affect companies and agencies, and here’s what Google had to say on the impending changes:

“We’re excited to announce the launch of a new Google Partners program in mid-2020. You can look forward to a new badge, new status and updated product capabilities categories, as well as improved program benefits to better support the business needs of our Partners and their customers.”

The new requirements that are to affect the Google Partner badge involve the following aspects:

• Spend threshold
• Optimization score 
• The number of certified Google Ads users

More information on the topic available via this Search Engine Land article. 

Facebook Releases a New App (That Looks a Lot Like Pinterest)

Facebook has a new product, a photo-sharing app that looks awfully familiar. The app’s name is Hobbi and it lets its users capture and organize their creative, hobby-focused processes and results. 

Whether your sub-niche is arts/crafts, fitness, cooking, fashion or home improvement/decor, ETC; Hobbi should help you track your creative process over time and better arrange your crafty projects via photo collections. 

Although Hobbi doesn’t appear to have a social sharing component, the app can be used to create videos of your projects after you’re finished creating them.

As The Information reports, the app has first ben released first in Colombia, Belgium, Spain, and Ukraine.

It is Now Easier to Review a Campaign’s Change History in Google Ads

Google Ads is about to change the way you determine the way your campaign is affecting ad performance as advertisers will now be able to more easily review the changes made within their campaigns via performance charts.

Here’s an instance from a Google Ads Help article on the subject:

“For example, let’s say you notice a drop in conversions for one of your active campaigns. With the change history report, you can now hover over the markers in the performance chart to get more details about the changes you’ve made over a defined period.”

(Source: Google)

This means that advertisers are now able to click on the hover-card links and therefore glean more useful data through additional filtering. This way you can highlight changes to:

• audience list
• optimization goal
• assets (only for App campaigns)

This is designed to help advertisers quickly identify the type of change they need to investigate.

YouTube is Testing Its New Creator Donation Feature ‘Applause’ 

YouTube is apparently about to introduce a new feature that should help creators more easily monetize the support from their fandom. Namely, the video-sharing platform is following Twitch’s suit and is currently testing the new “Applause” feature, expanding on YouTube’s “Super Chat” streamer donation system.

The upcoming option will provide fans with an option to buy an applause animation by clicking on the new Applaud button and then use that animation to donate a certain amount of money to an approved YouTube video of their choice. More precisely, each Applaud essentially donates $2, 70% of which goes directly to the content creator, while YouTube takes 30% of the cut.

Here’s YouTube’s explanation:

“You may be able to buy Viewer applause on participating creators’ videos and show your support for YouTube channels. When you buy Viewer applause, you’re purchasing a one-time “clapping” animation that will only be shown to you over the top of the video.”

Facebook’s WhatsApp Broke 2 Billion Users

WhatsApp, perhaps the most popular messaging service around the globe, has recently announced via a blog post that it now harbors over 2 billion users worldwide. The number went up from 1.5 billion measured in 2018. 

Facebook itself has 2.5 billion users, which really puts the numbers into perspective. 

“Private conversations that once were only possible face-to-face can now take place across great distances through instant chats and video calling,” was stated in the blog. “There are so many significant and special moments that take place over WhatsApp and we are humbled and honored to reach this milestone.”

The team behind this messaging app also used this occasion to emphasize how paramount message encryption is in today’s landscape: 

“That is why every private message sent using WhatsApp is secured with end-to-end encryption by default. Strong encryption acts like an unbreakable digital lock that keeps the information you send over WhatsApp secure, helping protect you from hackers and criminals. Messages are only kept on your phone, and no one in between can read your messages or listen to your calls, not even us. Your private conversations stay between you.”

Read more on WhatsApp’s milestone here. 

New “Google’s Search for Beginners” Video Sums Up Best (And Worst) SEO Practices 

If you read our weekly digest regularly, you probably know that we are fans of the “Google’s Search for Beginners” video series. Their latest episode tackles both the best and worst SEO practices, providing us with a new and exciting beginner-level insight into the ever-changing landscape of Search Engine Optimization.

This may mean that experienced SEOs could find many of the explained tactics familiar, but we nonetheless suggest checking out the video, especially to those coming from the e-Commerce niche. 

This also the last piece of news we covered for this week’s edition of Digital Marketing Week in Review by Four Dots. See you next week, until then, feel free to check out our previous edition!

Radomir Basta

CEO and lead SEO strategist at Four Dots and lecturer at Digital Marketing Institute Also an angry driver and huge tattoo fan. In love with growth hacking.

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