Google allows ads for sports betting in Louisiana
Google will begin accepting and running ads for sports betting and daily fantasy sports from certified, state-licensed entities in Louisiana beginning on January 28.
Advertisers must first apply for certification to be eligible. Application for certification became open to online gambling advertisers in Louisiana on January 27.
Louisiana isn’t the only state where it’s legal. Earlier this month, Google updated its Gambling and games policy to allow ads for sports betting in New York as well. The same requirement of being state-licensed and certified by Google also applies in New York.
If one of your clients is a sports betting company (or your brand is), the option to run ads on Google targeting users in Louisiana will soon be available to them, enabling them to reach more potential customers.
Read more: Google allows ads for sports betting in Louisiana
WordPress 5.9 launches with full site editing
WordPress, which continues to lead the CMS market by a wide margin, has announced its new release, WordPress 5.9.
Among the enhancements announced with the new release are:
- Full site editing making it easier to edit WordPress themes without using code (only for themes that support the new feature).
- Ten new blocks for site editing listed under Themes (including next post, previous post, post comments, etc.).
- The opportunity to save theme changes for specific templates or globally across the whole site.
- A new default theme (named “Twenty Twenty-Two”).
- New ways to customize and configure blocks.
There are also some changes on the developer side. For example, theme.json now supports child themes allowing users to build themes in WordPress Admin without writing code.
Why we care. If you’re a CMS user and you aren’t using WordPress in your current role, the chances are that you used it in your last role or will use it in your next. Its ubiquity makes changes relevant to almost all content creators. There’s nothing here as dramatic as the introduction of the block editor in WordPress 5.0, but there is a continuing trend of increasing the capabilities of no-code users.
Read more: WordPress 5.9 launches with full site editing
How to win with PPC in a dataless world
The biggest platforms in the digital advertising landscape — Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook — are making huge changes to accommodate current and upcoming consumer data regulations. And while many marketers bemoan this loss of data, thinking it will make it much more difficult to manage client campaigns, Sam Tomlinson, executive VP of strategy and analytics at marketing agency Warschawski, says this data, by itself, was never as valuable as once believed.
“Decision-making was never that simple, and some of the data that may have been taken away weren’t that good,” said Tomlinson in his presentation at SMX Next. “The same thing goes for conversion tracking; we have had that for a long time and it’s been hit-or-miss.”
“Just because some data has been taken away and some control levers have been taken away doesn’t mean that we’re in a world of hurt,” Tomlinson said. “It just means we have to adapt.”
There are still plenty of actionable insights to be gleaned from the data that is available. Here are three ways Tomlinson says marketers can succeed with PPC despite having access to fewer data.
Tomlinson recommends marketers grow their data pool using marketing mix models (MMMs), which are statistical analysis methods that determine the effectiveness of campaigns by measuring the impact of marketing strategies alongside sales and customer retention efforts.
“Historically, they [MMMs] have been staggeringly expensive and incredibly complicated and have taken weeks, months, or years to put together,” he said. “But now, we can open-source them. If you have an intern who knows Python, they could make one in a couple of days.”
Marketers can gather even more customer insights by adopting automated MMMs. Tomlinson cited Facebook’s open-sourced Robyn as an example, which aims to reduce human bias in data measurement.
Read more: How to win with PPC in a dataless world
Google Search Console logging issue may cause a drop in image search performance data
Starting on January 24, 2022, and currently still ongoing, Google said there was a “logging issue” with Google “Search data for images” which may result in a drop in the number of clicks and impressions you see in your Google Search Console Performance reports for images. This is just a reporting issue and has no impact on actual rankings or Google Search traffic.
The issue. Google wrote, “Search data for images is affected by a logging issue that might cause you to see a drop in clicks and impressions for images on your site in the Performance report.” This issue started on Monday, January 24, 2022, and is still ongoing.
Working on a fix. Google said the search company is “working on resolving this issue.”
No impact in Google Search. Google confirmed that this “issue is a logging issue only.” Google added that “it does not reflect a drop in either user behavior or search results on Google.”
If you see a drop in clicks and impressions for your image searches in the performance reports, this is a logging bug and not likely a ranking issue. Please annotate your reports and communicate these issues to your stakeholders.
Read more: Google Search Console logging issue may cause a drop in image search performance data
New Google mobile search feature: People Search Next
Google has launched a new feature in its mobile search results called People search next, a Google spokesperson has confirmed with Search Engine Land.
The feature is meant to “help people more easily get to and see popular next searches based on what they’re searching,” according to Google’s spokesperson.
What is People Search Next? People search next is an addition to Google’s mobile search results – not a replacement for another feature. It joins other Google search features like People also ask, People also search for, Refine this search, and Related searches.
The feature is available on mobile in the U.S. for English-language queries, according to Google.
Read more: New Google mobile search feature: People Search Next
More news:
Google tests favicons in-text ads
Google Search Console launches desktop page experience report
Google Ads launches placement reports for Performance Max campaigns
