More Google Ad incidents and issues
The last few weeks have seen several problems with the Google Ads Manager, specifically affecting publishers and an incident dating all the way back to August 31.
The original issue. On August 31, Google reported an incident that “Google Ad Manager Historical Report stats are showing lower than expected for some networks. There’s no clear impact on Serving or Data Transfer at this point.”
Fast forward to this week. Yesterday Google reported an additional issue “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Ad Manager. We will provide more information shortly. The affected users are able to access Google Ad Manager, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and other unexpected behavior.”
Additionally, they provided the following update from the August 31 incident “Ad Manager Reporting stats remains fixed with all new data since September 1st (PDT) being accurately reported. We are working on correcting the affected data (issue duration: August 30th, 8:00 PM PDT thru August 31st, 5:00 PM PDT). Our current ETA to have it fixed is September 23rd.
We received reports from multiple Publishers where Line Items were under-delivered around September 15th, which might be related to this incident. Engineering is investigating and we will provide more details today.”
Later that day. Around 7 pm UTC Google reported “The Reporting workaround fix introduced on September 13th to mitigate the missing stats for this incident has impacted the budget extractor causing under-delivery in a few Line Items. A Serving fix has been issued and will be released shortly (expected EOD PDT). This issue potentially only affected Line Items that meet these two criteria:
1. Line Item has been active through the 8/31 (PDT) incident and after the 9/13 (PDT) workaround fix.
2. Line Item had one or more of the following specific changes made on or after the 8/31 (PDT) stats incident: date duration, the actual budget goal, and delivery speed.”
September 21. Today Google posted an update “We expect to resolve the problem affecting a majority of users of Google Ad Manager on Sep 24, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC. Please note that this time frame is an estimate and may change. The affected users are able to access Google Ad Manager, but may not have access to the most recent data.
Source: More Google Ad incidents and issues
TikTok will start banning political campaign fundraising
TikTok will soon start requiring accounts that belong to U.S. government departments, politicians, and political parties to be verified. They’ll also ban any videos and content that call for fundraising.
Fighting political misinformation. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are working to shut down political misinformation in time for the midterm elections in November. Previously they had allowed that content and faced scrutiny from US lawmakers because of it. As a result, TikTok started banning political advertising in 2019.
Request verification. Political accounts can request verification and the platform will also take added steps to confirm the identity of any profiles they believe to belong to politicians or political parties.
Enforcing the ban. TikTok will update its policies to prohibit campaign fundraising. Accounts belonging to politicians and parties will automatically be prevented from accessing any ad features. Additionally, those accounts will also be banned from using money-making features available to influencers on the app such as digital payments and gifting.
Source: TikTok will start banning political campaign fundraising
Google Answers If Core Update Ranking Losses Are A Soft Penalty
Google answers question about the causes of ranking drops after a core algorithm update
Google’s Office Hours Hangout featured a question about algorithm updates and whether the rankings of a negatively affected site are suppressed by a “soft penalty.”
The person asking the question made reference to a soft penalty, which is a phrase that’s been around for several years but isn’t really a thing.
They also make reference to suffering from a “flag” that’s been assigned to their site, which alludes to Google having marked the site in some way, as in flag.
Here is the question:
“Both of my websites have been hit by different updates, around 90% drops and are suffering from some type of flag that is suppressing our sites until the soft penalty is lifted.
Or… is there even a soft penalty? “
This is the answer:
“No, the named updates that we publish on the rankings updates page on Search Central are not penalties in any shape or form.”
That confirms that any ranking drops associated with a named Google update is not a penalty and should not ever be thought of that way because that’s not what is happening.
The Googler explained why it’s not a penalty:
“They are adjustments to our ranking algorithms, so they surface even higher quality and more relevant results to search users.
If your site has dropped in rankings after an update, follow our general guidelines for content.
Take a look at how you could improve your site as a whole, both from a content and user experience perspective, and you may be able to increase your rankings again.”
Source: Google Answers If Core Update Ranking Losses Are A Soft Penalty
Facebook introduces Collaborative Ads for local delivery
Facebook is rolling out Collaborative Ads for local delivery to help restaurants and grocery stores give people more ways to shop and order. The ads allow local businesses and packaged goods brands to display their products next to options for people to purchase.
Local delivery competition. Collaborative Ads for local delivery help brands and advertisers reach new customers by showing their products, restaurants, or grocery to new audiences on Facebook and Instagram.
Early testing. Meta reported that fast-food chain Wendy’s saw early success using Collaborative Ads for local delivery by reaching consumers who had shown previous interest in their products on Grubhub to drive high-value conversions.
A few helpful tips. Meta provides a few helpful tips to make the most of your Collaborative ads for local delivery.
- Use the Catalog Sales objective for lower-funnel activities such as retargeting and high-intent targeting.
- Use the Conversion objectives for prospecting activities such as targeting first-party audiences and general demographics that are important to your business.
- Consistently test, learn, and monitor your campaign performance to see how your ads perform and make changes that align with your goals.
- Negotiate access to Premium Options based on your business needs for Collaborative Ads with your retail partner. Premium Options by Collaborative Ads include extended audience retargeting, basket insights, and retailer-customized audiences.
Dig deeper. You can read the announcement from Meta here. To get started with Collaborative Ads for local delivery, visit the setup guide.
Source: Facebook introduces Collaborative Ads for local delivery
Google makes some core updates to improve search results
Google, in a small question-answer session, answers some basic core updates by users. Google answers queries about ranking drops due to core algorithm updates.
During Google’s office hours, a user asks a question on Hangout. The question about algorithm updates. The users are curious whether the soft penalty affects their ranking.
Nobody has come up with a proper definition for the term soft penalty. Although this term is quite in use. The user complains in the session that both his websites have lost ranking due to different updates. Also, the user says that some type of flag is suppressing his sites.
The user suspects that this is due to the soft penalty on his website. If Google lifts the soft penalty from the site, the user expresses his site might become functional again.
Google confirms that no such ranking drop due to a named google update is not a penalty. Google clears that people should not believe this penalty theory as it’s a misconception.
Also, Google explains that these are minor adjustments to ranking algorithms. The intention is to surface higher-quality content. Google wants its search engine to be very efficient and relevant to users.
Google advises website owners whose rankings have gone down. However, Google tells them to follow the general guidelines for content on the websites. The company asks them to take a look around their websites and make necessary changes.
Source: Google makes some core updates to improve search results
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