Responsive Search Ads take center stage – are you prepared?
Responsive Search Ads – RSA for short – are not the new kids on the block. RSAs have been a part of the PPC ecosystem for a few years. That being said, RSAs have been a hot topic in 2022. Why all the hubbub about them now?
This summer, the preceding ad type, Expanded Text Ads, is being deprecated. This puts Responsive Search Ads front and center for advertisers as the singular text ad type for search campaigns. Let’s dig in a little bit deeper on RSAs, the change, and how you can maximize your potential with RSAs.
Why RSAs matter
Responsive Search Ads are all about serving the right message at the right time. RSAs are a flexible ad experience that shows more customized content to reach your customers. These ads adapt your text ads to closely match what someone is searching for when they search for it.
Further, RSAs can help to reduce bulky operations and save time. Advertisers provide up to 15 headlines and up to four descriptions. All of these components can create over 40,000 possible ad permutations! Find efficiency in evaluating ads through A/B tests and automatically determine what creative content works best with different queries.
Expanded Text Ad deprecation
The deprecation of Expanded Text Ads is coming in two waves this summer. The first wave was for Google Ads on June 30th. The second wave will be Microsoft Advertising. As of August 29th, advertisers will no longer be able to create new Expanded Text Ads.
On both platforms, previously existing Expanded Text Ads will continue to serve. Note that though you can toggle these ads on and off, you will no longer be able to edit the ads.
Maximize your potential with RSAs
How can you maximize your potential with RSAs? First and foremost, get started by launching RSAs alongside Expanded Text Ads today if you haven’t already. Here are some additional best practices to consider when working with RSAs:
- Convert top-performing content from your existing Expanded Text Ads into distinct RSA headlines and descriptions.
- Ensure there are at least two to three Responsive Search Ads in all of your ad groups.
- Include top-performing keywords and clear calls to action within your headline and description assets.
- Create at least 11-15 headlines and use a combination of short and long headlines to maximize character count across all devices.
Source: Responsive Search Ads take center stage – are you prepared?
CMS Market Share: Shopify Falls Slightly As Losses & Layoffs Loom
WordPress holds its dominant position in CMS market share and takes a small piece out of Shopify’s pie in July 2022.
Shopify’s 0.1% loss in CMS market share this month was picked up by WordPress, with little movement across the rest of the content management systems (CMS) sphere.
Overall, WordPress is the CMS of choice for 43% of all websites and 64.3% of those that use one.
According to the source of this data, W3Techs.com, 33.1% of websites don’t use a CMS at all – at least, not one they monitor.
Shopify is the second-most preferred CMS solution and was used by 6.2% of websites with a CMS (4.2% of all websites) in July.
As in June, the top five are rounded out by Wix (3.4%), Squarespace (3%), and Joomla (2.5%).
Drupal, Adobe Systems, Google Systems, Bitrix, and Webflow are also among the top 10 CMS solutions for July 2022, although each accounted for less than 2% of the market.
Source: CMS Market Share: Shopify Falls Slightly As Losses & Layoffs Loom
New video explains YouTube Shorts recommendation Algorithm
YouTube released a QnA video explaining its recommendation algorithm for YouTube Shorts. It answered general queries and gave insights into improving visibility through short-form content.
YouTube came out with the video to answer creators’ concerns on some issues. First, it answered whether creators set up a channel for shorts-only content.
The video first explained how the YouTube Shorts algorithm works for channels publishing long and short-form content. Then, it said that channels that mixed long-form and short-form videos were growing faster.
The company discovered this after a thorough analysis. They compared viewership for long video-only channels and long-short video channels. YouTube feels that short-form content will continue to be prominent. They have high viewership compared to long videos.
Second, it explained that short-form content engagement doesn’t impact long video recommendations. It’s because YouTube has different recommendation algorithms for the two.
This follows the idea that people have all sorts of different viewing preferences. Hence it becomes necessary to isolate algorithms from one another. So, for example, short-video engagement on a channel won’t influence recommendations for its long videos.
Source: New video explains YouTube Shorts recommendation Algorithm
WebP by Default Merged Into Core for WordPress 6.1
WebP, an image format developed by Google, which is intended to replace JPEG, PNG, and GIF file formats, will soon be generated by default for new JPEG image uploads in WordPress and used for website content. The main work for this feature was committed to the core for inclusion in the upcoming WordPress 6.1 release.
The initial proposal was revised after significant critical feedback. The most notable changes include automatically generating WebP versions of only core image sizes, keeping secondary (WebP) sub-sizes only if they are smaller than the primary MIME type, and only generating WebP images for image sizes that are intended for use in user-facing front-end content.
Despite a raft of revisions and filters to control or disable WebP uploads, the proposal remained controversial. Contributors continue to report issues after testing. Many still have reservations about whether this should be opt-in or on by default.
Some developers are supportive of the change but prefer for it to be off by default when it is first rolled out, to allow the ecosystem to prepare for the change. The Performance team has a new blog where people can follow updates on their current projects and proposals. Now that the main WebP work has been committed, the next steps will be discussed in future meetings with notes posted to the new Core Performance blog.
Source: WebP by Default Merged Into Core for WordPress 6.1
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