INSIGHTS

Digital marketing industry roundup: July 2024

So many updates, so little time. New core algo update, TikTok partners with Eventbrite, Microsoft ads introduces impression-based remarketing, Reddit introduces lead-gen ads. July was another packed month of big updates, we’ve curated the biggest, most impactful ones for you.

SEO

New core algo update upcoming. The last update was March 2024; many sites still recovering from Sept. 2023 HCU.

TLDR: Google said the next Google core update may be released “in the coming weeks.” Google does not yet have a date for when that core update will start to roll out because Google doesn’t know until it’s tested, evaluated and approved to be incorporated into Google Search – and that hasn’t happened yet. Many sites that were hit by the Sept. HCU that have not yet seen recoveries are hoping to see improvements with this next core update.
Our POV: As with previous Google Core Algorithm Updates, domains implementing SEO-guided, human-first content that follows Google’s EEAT quality guidelines should not be concerned.
Moving forward: NPD will continue to monitor the impacts of this algorithm update on performance, and note any rank changes, positive or negative.

Source: Search Engine Journal

58.5% of US Google searches result in “zero-click” searches. Only 41.5% of searches result in a click and almost 30% of those clicks go to Google-owned properties.

TLDR: SparkToro utilized clickstream data to conduct a study on what happens after Americans and Europeans search Google. For every 1,000 searches, 58.5% resulted with no click – signaling a searcher was satisfied, frustrated, or completed another search. Only 360 of the searches with clicks made it to a non-Google-owned property.
Our POV: This confirms what SEOs have suspected for some time – Google prioritizes its own results in search (YouTube, Maps, Images) and queries are often answered directly in SERP features, requiring no click.
Moving forward: It’s more important than ever to ensure content is marked up and optimized to achieve SERP features such as videos, images, etc. to stand out in SERPs and increase chances of getting a click (especially as the open web click-share pie gets smaller).

Source: SparkToro

AI overviews only show for 7% of queries. Education, entertainment and ecommerce queries saw the largest drops in June.

TLDR: AI Overviews are now only showing in SERPs for 7% of queries, which is a new low. BrightEdge data shows education, entertainment and ecommerce related queries saw the largest decreases in June.
Our POV: With fewer AI overview rankings, there is a reduced risk to organic traffic loss because organic rankings are not being pushed further down the SERPs. If an AI overview is not ranking on the page, this also creates more space to allow for visibility of more websites to rank in search results. This enhances diversification and provides users with a wider range of options when deciding which website meets their needs.
Moving forward: Even with fewer AI Overviews ranking, we know they are not going away entirely so we will continue to monitor their presence and how they are impacting overall rankings for our campaigns.

Source: Search Engine Land

OpenAI launches SearchGPT. OpenAI launches SearchGPT, an AI-powered search prototype offering direct answers with citations.

TLDR: OpenAI announces the launch of SearchGPT, a prototype AI-powered search engine. The search engine will directly answer user queries. Rather than offering a list of links SearchGPT will show responses with citations to source material. Publishers can control how information appears in results
Our POV: The addition of a new search engine can potentially shake up the search game. SearchGPT may offer new opportunities for presenting content users. The new guidelines also give content creators control of their content.
Moving forward: While this is still a prototype, SearchGPT offers new opportunities to expand Search Everywhere Optimization. New techniques may need to be developed as SearchGPT rolls out. We have also yet to see how widespread the adoption of SearchGPT may be.

Source: OpenAI

Organic Social

Tiktok partners with eventbrite. TikTok has partnered with Eventbrite to simplify event promotion and creation for the global TikTok Community.

TLDR: With the new partnership, any Eventbrite creator or TikTok user can add Eventbrite links directly to their TikTok videos, helping the TikTok community discover event details and purchase tickets without ever leaving the app.
Our POV: This offers a great opportunity for brands to share events with the TikTok community — introducing them to real-life experiences that reflect their passions.
Moving forward: If there is an in-person event you want to gain exposure for, we recommend creating an Eventbrite post and linking it in your TikTok videos to boost ticket sales, promote multiple events simultaneously, and reach more attendees.

Source: TikTok

X tests ability to disable links in comments. X may make it possible to disable links in replies to your posts.

TLDR: According to app researcher, Nima Owji, X is working on the ability to let you disable links in the replies of your posts.
Our POV: If you are tired of experiencing spam posts in your comment section, this is a great feature to enable as it will reduce spam and allow real users to engage with your content. However, if you’ve been testing the zero-click content method, you will no longer be able to include links in your comment section with this feature enabled.
Moving forward: If you don’t see many spam posts or have seen great success from the zero-click content method, then we recommend business as usual on X. If you do struggle with spam in your comment section, then we recommend disabling links in replies once this feature rolls out.

Source: The Verge

Instagram focuses on new metric: send per reach. What this new metric means for brands and how to adapt.

TLDR: According to Adam Mosseri, send rates are actually more important for reach compared to watch time, likes or comments.
Our POV: Mosseri says this metric aligns with Instagram’s mission to help people connect over content they discover. Of course, you might like a post or comment on it, but when you send it to someone, it resonates with you in some way — it could be funny, entertaining, informative, or provocative — which is Instagram’s goal.
Moving forward: Create SHARABLE content! People tend to share things that evoke emotion. A good practice is to ask yourself is, “Would someone share this?” and “Why would someone share this?” Also be sure to add CTAs in your captions or text overlays to encourage viewers to share the content instead of urging viewers to like or comment.

Source: LinkedIn

Digital PR

2024’s Meltwater Summit. NPD’s DPR team was once again in attendance of the annual Meltwater Conference in NYC.

TLDR: Meltwater, a SaaS media monitoring company, holds an annual two-day summit in NYC. Notable leaders in marketing, content creation, and social media hold panels and various networking events throughout those two days. Keynote speaker this year was Ryan Reynolds, who brought his valuable insights as an owner of the successful brand Mint Mobile.
Our POV: There were several panels throughout the conference that stood out to our team. Cultural relevancy for brands – this discussion revealed key insights on how to leverage social listening to drive up engagement and brand trust. How to engage with Gen Z– as this generation is self-identifying with brands more than any other in history. Other panels also discussed emerging trends with AI and consumer buying habits.
Moving forward: We will continue to attend in person networking events as they contain emerging, invaluable industry insights that can be leveraged for on-going DPR initiatives.

Content Marketing

Blogs build trust in an AI world. Creating and using a high quality blog will build brand loyalty and trust.

TLDR: With the growth of AI Overviews, search is changing, but one thing that isn’t is the importance and necessity of a blog. Blogs are a great way for brands to build loyalty, trust, and an audience, which in turn helps them to increase sales and their ROI. Blogs provide an opportunity to educate potential customers, as well as appear in competitive searches that you may not have otherwise, such as People Also Ask.
Our POV: Blogs are a fantastic way to connect and grow your audience and nurture them into a sale. When a brand provides quality information to an audience, they are building trust and authority, as well as beginning to build brand loyalty as your audience turns to your blog for more answers in the future. To help your blog stand out even more, we include Subject Matter Experts and proprietary data, which work to improve trust and authority within these pieces. Blogs are a great way to get your brand in front of your target audience for a variety of searches, not just ones specifically related to your products.
Moving forward: The Content Team at NPD is happy to help with creating a blog, supplying blog topics, outlines, and full new or refreshes blog posts to help drive users to your website and build authority and trust in the new world of search.

Source: Search Engine Land

Use AI as a content creation tool and don’t forget the human touch. AI can be a great tool when it comes to content creation, just make sure you add a human touch.

TLDR: AI can be a very helpful tool for creating content, but it needs a human touch. Ensure a human touch is used to create the proper tone and style of writing for your audience. Add human elements by using custom imagery and expert quotes from SMEs to add to pieces and utilize case studies and proprietary data when possible to help elevate your content. Ultimately, remember AI is a great tool, but it’s not able to replace writers and the human touch is still necessary.
Our POV: We have been testing the top AI tools to determine how AI can support content creation, with the support of a human hand guiding it the whole time. At this point, AI is a great tool to help with a variety of things from content topic ideation to outlining and suggesting keywords, but it is not able to write articles on its own and does not produce quality content without a human editor.
Moving forward: We will continue to keep our finger on the pulse of AI and how it works with content development, while also ensuring that our clients get human-produced content for their websites.

Source: Search Engine Land

Paid Search

Microsoft ads introduces impression-based remarketing. This new feature automatically generates & updates audiences lists based on ad impressions.

TLDR: Microsoft Ads launched impression-based remarketing, targeting potential customers who previously viewed ads. It automatically generates audience lists from ad impressions, shareable across accounts. Benefits include increased clicks and conversions, improved bids and targeting, and simple setup without UET tags.
Our POV: Impression-based remarketing opens up a new world of opportunities for advertisers not having to rely on a click to re-engage with an interested consumer. It benefits advertisers by potentially increasing clicks and conversions, improving bids and targeting.
Moving forward: Although it’s not yet available to all users, it promises to maximize brand awareness and customer engagement by effectively remarketing to interested users. Keep your eye out for updates and become an early adopter of this new powerful first-party data capture tool.

Source: Swipe Insights

New ai-powered search engine: searchgpt. OpenAI announces its new search engine, a potential search market disrupter.

TLDR: OpenAI has launched SearchGPT, an AI-driven search engine prototype designed to deliver organized and intelligible results rather than just a list of links. The tool includes innovative features such as visual answers and in-line, named attribution with links, developed in collaboration with news partners.
Our POV: SearchGPT aims to provide real-time internet information and integrate search features into ChatGPT. This does pose a potential threat to Google. However, OpenAI faces significant cost and we suspect will need to devise monetization strategies too.
Moving forward: With Google’s adoption of Gemini (FKA Bard), we know that AI features in search engine results are becoming the norm. The real question will be how different will the results be when a query is submitted via Google vs via SearchGPT, and which results will the user find more relevant. We don’t anticipate that Google will lose its majority of market share anytime soon but it’s good to be aware that a new competitor is looming on the horizon.

Source: The Verge

Paid Social

Meta: overlay ads and custom offers. More opportunities to reach engaged audiences.

TLDR: Meta has added overlay ads to Instagram Reels, available in single-image and image carousel formats, appearing as banner ads at the bottom during Reels playback. They also introduced custom offers on Instagram ad call-to-action buttons, dynamically sourcing up to 20 offers from the ad’s website URL for single-media ads in Stories.
Our POV: This expansion provides advertisers with new ways to engage with Instagram’s rapidly growing audience, enhancing the ability to craft flexible and effective ad messages. The dynamic and predictive nature of the custom offers feature could significantly boost user engagement and click-through rates.
Moving forward: While these features are gradually being rolled out and may not be immediately available to all advertisers, they represent a strategic move by Meta to monetize Reels and improve ad performance. Advertisers should watch for further expansions to other ad formats and placements across Meta’s platforms.

Source: Search Engine Land

Linkedin: ‘accelerate’ campaigns expansion. Driving ROI with AI-generated campaigns.

TLDR: LinkedIn’s Accelerate platform now integrates Microsoft Designer to help B2B marketers create AI-generated campaigns, enhancing creative customization and targeting. New functionalities include bringing your data into Accelerate for better targeting and expanding the AI marketing assistant to offer insights and recommendations. These updates aim to save time, improve focus, and drive higher ROI for campaigns.
Our POV: With 66% of B2B marketers already using generative AI, these new tools in Accelerate align with the growing trend of integrating AI to enhance marketing efficiency. By leveraging AI for creative customization and data-driven targeting, marketers can expect to see significant improvements in campaign performance and ROI, as evidenced by successful case studies like Calendly’s increased lead conversion rates and reduced cost per lead.
Moving forward: As AI continues to evolve, marketers should stay updated on new functionalities within Accelerate to maintain a competitive edge. Future enhancements will likely focus on further optimizing campaign reach and engagement, ensuring that advertising efforts are both efficient and impactful.

Source: LinkedIn

Reddit: lead-gen ads. Connect with redditors and drive quality leads.

TLDR: Reddit has launched Lead Generation Ads in public beta, allowing businesses to collect high-quality leads from Reddit’s engaged users. This new ad format integrates with Zapier for seamless lead management, offering benefits like easy information collection, lower cost per lead, and higher submission rates.
Our POV: Reddit’s Lead Generation Ads leverage the platform’s information-seeking user base, making it an ideal environment for brands to connect with potential customers. With 75% of B2B decision-makers finding Reddit influential for business products, these ads are poised to drive meaningful business results. The integration with Zapier enhances efficiency by streamlining lead management and improving follow-up times.
Moving forward: Available globally, Reddit’s new ad format promises improved lead quality and campaign performance, as seen in early testing with companies like LaunchDarkly. Businesses should explore this tool to capitalize on Reddit’s unique audience and further optimize their lead generation efforts through targeted campaigns and automated processes.

Source: Reddit

Programmatic

Google TV advertising network. Google TV network is now available via Google Ads and DV360 for U.S. campaigns.

TLDR: As connected TV ad spend continues to increase, Google is growing their CTV advertising offerings by launching a free ad-supported TV network called, Google TV networks (GTV). Google TV will offer targeted, in-stream video ads across 125+ channels built into Google TV and Android TV OS devices. Inventory includes live sports, shows and movies. Currently, advertisers can purchase non-skippable and 6-second bumper ads via Google Ads and DV360.
Our POV: With consumers spending more time on CTV devices and YouTube’s TV usage rising in the U.S. (jumping from 6% in March 2022 to nearly 10% in March 2024) it’s no surprise Google is looking to capitalize on CTV’s opportunity. Google has a great opportunity to increase their CTV revenue and already has 20 million monthly active users thanks to Chromecast, Sony, & TCL TV brands to name a few.
Moving Forward: If an advertiser currently buying YouTube and is looking for a way to increase reach, Google TV is a natural fit but be aware, CTV is a non-clickable environment, so it is best for driving awareness.

Source: Search Engine Land

Netflix to launch new ad tech. Netflix will roll out a proprietary ad tech platform by next year.

TLDR: Netflix’s ad-supported subscribers list has increased from 23 million globally in January 2024 to 40 million as of May 2024. With this growth and recent frustrations from advertisers due to lack of targeting and measurement, Netflix plans to launch their own ad tech platform in addition to new partnerships with programmatic platforms (TTD and DV360 via Magnite supply) and measurement vendors (iSpot and TVision).
Our POV: The news that Netflix is improving their targeting and measurement capabilities is music to many digital agencies and advertisers. Advertising on Netflix has been of interest to many clients since the opportunity launched back in 2022, but it’s been challenging for media buyers to recommend the platform due to the limitations and lack of transparency. Partnering with platforms like DV360 and TTD along with adding measurement vendors will likely increase the number of advertisers looking to run on Netflix.
Moving Forward: Even with Netflix’s global growth, their scale is still limited at 40 million ad supported users (YouTube on TV devices has 150 million US viewers). If deciding to test Netflix advertising once their ad tech launches in 2025, keep an eye on your campaign’s reach and frequency and ensure your brand isn’t bombarding the same people to often.

Source: Ad Exchanger

User Experience

Design with AI. Best-in-class creative tools using next-gen technology.

TLDR: Figma’s ongoing push into AI is focused on going from idea to product as efficiently as possible. Figma’s perspective on the role of AI is unique because their design team builds for other designers. It’s not enough to simply check the AI box, rather to go beyond the hype and anchor its AI toolset within real user needs.
Our POV: Figma’s Visual Search helps designers more easily find assets within their growing project database using a single reference. Search for anything from icons to entire design files with a screenshot, or even a simple sketch with the pencil tool, and Figma will pull in similar designs from team files you have access to.
Moving forward: Figma is NPD’s web design software of choice due its user-friendly interface and dev-friendly capabilities, now with AI capabilities to make the early stages of the design process fast and efficient.

Source: Figma

Enhanced presentations. Over 3.5 million presentation decks were created in Figma last year alone.

TLDR: Work has changed drastically over the years, but presentation decks haven’t kept pace. Still, collaborating with non-designers or presenting to those unfamiliar with the tool often required tedious workarounds and hacked-together workflows.
Our POV: As a tradeoff for pixel-level control and advanced prototyping tools, designers have gone without basic slide functionalities like speaker notes and slide transitions. Figma Slides not only addresses those core features, but amplifies design functionality, making it easier for both designers and non-designers to co-create in the same space.
Moving forward: Whether it’s a product review for executives to green-light a new feature, a sales deck convincing a client to say yes, or a pitch deck for funding from a potential investor, Figma Slides enables designers to craft a story that gets people on board.

Source: Figma

CRO

Brands unprepared for the future of cookies. 97% of executives admit they are ill-prepared for Google phasing out third-party cookies.

TLDR: Optimizely research indicates that brands are not only struggling to leverage personalization, but they’re largely unprepared for the shift toward a cookieless future. Third-party cookie deprecation would affect data management platforms (DMPs) which often fuel onsite personalization efforts.
Our POV: While third-party cookie deprecation may not directly-affect testing platforms (usually first-party cookies), it could affect personalization and other optimization tactics.
Moving forward: We should make ourselves aware of cookie limitations and alternative solutions/platforms so we can make informed suggestions to our clients regarding personalization and testing platforms. First-party customer data platforms (CDPs) and server-side testing platforms (e.g., Sitespect) may be more future-proof.
Update – As of 7/22, Chrome’s third-party cookie deprecation is uncertain

Source: Optimizely

AI largely unadopted for cro/personalization. Optimizely research shows slow adoption of AI, despite major opportunities for marketers.

TLDR: Despite an influx of AI/ML-oriented personalization and A/B testing platforms, the use of these tools remains largely unadopted. Optimizely research indicates that only 13% of marketers leverage AI for personalization efforts.
Our POV: Newer AI-based testing platforms may be effective for testing smaller changes (button color, headlines, etc.) but may not be dependable for more complex strategies/learnings (value proposition, functionality, navigation).
Moving forward: We should stay up-to-date on new tech/platforms and as more established testing platforms bake AI/ML features into their existing tools, we should learn and leverage those whenever possible/applicable to improve efficiency and better inform clients as to the capabilities.

Source: Optimizely

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Digital marketing industry roundup: July 2024

SEO

Organic Social

Digital PR

Content Marketing

Paid Search

Paid Social

Programmatic

User Experience

CRO

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Need help executing your strategy? Let’s talk!

GLOBAL

COMPANY

RESOURCES

LEGAL

Social

Partners

MINORITY OWNED