Show Notes
1. LinkedIn Introduces Features To Drive Up Engagement - LinkedIn has added a showcase link to your profile, as well as new group post statistics and newsletter display settings.
To begin, you can now add a website link to the showcase link, which will be displayed underneath your user name and description. In addition, LinkedIn has launched new group post analytics, allowing users to see engagement data for their group shares directly from their post. In this regard, the ability to gain greater insight into your contributions could be beneficial.
Finally, LinkedIn users may now publish their newsletter links in the 'Featured' part of their profile, which will contain a 'Subscribe' button, giving them another method to get people to join up.
2. WhatsApp to Debut Communities - WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, isn't just for one-on-one discussions, as demonstrated by the addition of a Communities option, as well as new features for its current groups capability, last week.
WhatsApp users will be able to combine multiple groups under one roof and exchange updates with the entire community, as well as establish smaller discussion groups.
Administrators will have control over which groups can be included and will be able to send out announcement messages to all participants.
"We believe Communities will make it easier for a school principal to gather all of the school's parents together to exchange must-read messages and set up groups regarding certain classrooms, extracurricular activities, or volunteer needs," WhatsApp wrote in a blog post last week.
3. Twitter’s Q1’22 Results Show 12 Million New Users While Revenue Declines - With the Elon Musk buyout still pending, Twitter has released its newest performance update. To begin with, Twitter currently has 229 million monetizable daily active users, up from 217 million in Q4. That's a much better rate of growth than the previous two reports, with 12 million new users joining Twitter during that time.
Twitter also stated that, due to a mistake on its part, it has been miscounting its mDAU data for the past two years. Due to the miscalculation, it was overstating its user counts by roughly 2 million on average.
Twitter also said that subscription and other revenue (which includes data licensing) totaled $94 million, down 31% year over year. To me this is a sign that new options like Twitter Blue are not gaining any really any traction as yet, and not driving the supplementary income streams that Twitter was banking on.
4. Meta’s Q1’22 Results Show Revenue And User Growth - Meta announced in its first performance update of the year that Facebook has regained its user growth momentum. In March 2022, the average number of Facebook DAUs was 1.96 billion, up 4% from the previous year. The Asia Pacific region, where the app is still reaching out into developing nations and seeing steady take-up, accounted for the majority of Facebook usage growth.
Meta does not provide usage statistics for its other platforms.
In terms of sales, Meta earned $27 billion in the first quarter, growing 7% year over year.
5. Pinterest Adds 2 Million New Users in Q1’22 - Pinterest's latest quarterly update shared some not-so-great stats, with revenue up year over year but down quarter over quarter, while user growth has returned, if only slightly, with 2 million more monthly actives logging in in Q1.
Due to lockdowns and other pandemic mitigation measures, Pinterest usage has dropped dramatically from its heights early in the epidemic, when it was the big winner of the forced eCommerce push. People who were stuck at home flocked to Pinterest to browse and shop, bringing the app's total number of users to 478 million. Since then, it's been on the slide, though it may currently be stabilized around 433m.
6. LinkedIn Business Highlights from Microsoft’s FY22 Q3 Earnings - Microsoft has released its earnings for the third quarter of fiscal year 22. The following LinkedIn highlights were included in the financial performance report:
In the third quarter, LinkedIn's revenue climbed 34% year over year, and they saw record engagement, with over 830 million professionals using the platform to connect, learn, grow, and get hired.
And creators are increasingly leveraging the platform to develop their voices and grow their networks, using tools like as Newsletters to distribute information they care about. LinkedIn now has 28 million members who subscribe to at least one newsletter, up 51% in just the last quarter.
You can see LinkedIn’s quarterly product highlights, releases and enhancements in the Q3 FY22 product list
here. For more information, see the Q3 FY22 earnings release
here.
7. Both Google Ads & Microsoft Bing Ads Report Strong Search Ad Revenue Growth - Both Alphabet/Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) reported earnings this week, with both seeing about 22 percent growth in search ad income year over year.
Alphabet's total revenue was $68 billion, up from $55.3 billion in the first quarter of 2021. Here are the important metrics for Q1 2022 (compared to Q1 2021) for Google search, which accounted for 58 percent of Alphabet's revenues:
- Total Google advertising revenue: $54.7 billion (up 22% from $44.7 billion)
- Google Search & other: $39.6 billion (a 24% vs. $31.9 billion)
- Google Network: $8.2 billion (up 20% vs. $6.8 billion)
- YouTube: $6.9 billion (up 14% vs. $6 billion)
Microsoft's revenue for the third quarter of 2021 was $49.4 billion, up 18 percent from $41.7 billion in the previous quarter. Search and news advertising are combined by the company. In Q3 2022, revenue was $2.9 billion, up from $2.4 billion in Q3 2021.
LinkedIn's sales increased by 34% to $3.4 billion, up from $2.6 billion a year before. The revenue from LinkedIn advertising increased by 61 percent year over year.
8. New Features in Google Ads Performance Max Campaigns - Updates to Google's Performance Max (PMax) campaigns include new insights and manual checking options, a new customer acquisition objective, and improvements to existing Smart Shopping and Local campaigns.
PMax is largely intended to increase conversions, with Google's automated system using Smart Bidding to enhance ad performance in real time and across channels. Essentially, the technique allows Google's automatic bidding, budget optimization, audiences, and creative aspects to work together to optimize for the greatest outcomes in your campaigns, decreasing manual strain in focusing your ad performance.
Google is adding a new Insights aspect for PMax as part of its current update, which will provide more information on the particular variables being weighed into your campaign, as well as the levers to optimize your performance.
The first is 'asset insights,' which will show you how your text, image, and video assets are performing with different client categories.
“For example, if you’re an outdoor retailer running a campaign for bikes, you may find that exercise enthusiasts engage more with images of people mountain biking, rather than product images of the bike itself. Using these insights, you can tailor your creative and influence your broader marketing strategy.”
Meanwhile, consumer interest data will reveal the most appropriate search query themes for your advertisements.
Google is also adding a new customer acquisition target to Performance Max, which is aimed to optimize for leads and sales.
“This was previously available for retailers using Smart Shopping campaigns and is now expanding to more advertiser goals in Performance Max. This goal will allow you to either bid more for new customers compared to existing customers, or focus your optimizations on new customers only while maintaining your cost efficiency.”
Advertisers will be able to optimize the performance of their advertisements by using their own Customer Match lists.
Finally, relevant ad accounts are now receiving notifications in the Ad Manager app when they can upgrade to Performance Max campaigns.
9. Google Adds Nine Policies to Three-Strike Ads System - Google has added nine new restrictions to its three-strikes system for advertisers who break the rules. Enforcement begins on June 21, 2022.
In July 2021, the three-strikes system was announced. The three-strikes regulation is now global, according to Google, and is still being phased out across rules. To be clear, Google Ads does not have any of these policies. They're only new in that they're part of the three-strikes system.
Running advertising on any of the following sites could result in a strike against your account:
- Compensated sexual acts
- Mail-order brides
- Clickbait
- Misleading ad design
- Bail bond services
- Call Directories, forwarding services
- Credit repair services, binary options and personal loans
You will be alerted via email and in your account if your account earns a warning or strike.