I am feeling light on my feet because Friday is here! Here is some food for your SEO-craving big brain:

• Microsoft Ads and Google Ads Quarter 2021 Financial Results
• Microsoft Advertising Birthed a Series of New Updates
• Google Ads API Version 7.0 Up and Running
• Google Search Console Recently Added Regex Support
• Google Search Central Announced New Feature in Pilot Program

28/4/2021 – Microsoft Ads and Google Ads Quarter 2021 Financial Results

Microsoft (Bing) and Alphabet (Google) both released their financial report, and as expected, both have an impressive rise in their search advertising revenue and earnings. 

In terms of search advertising revenue, Microsoft has an increase of 17%, and Google observed an increase of 32% as compared to last year.

Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, Satya Nadella said “Over a year into the pandemic, digital adoption curves aren’t slowing down. They’re accelerating, and it’s just the beginning,” 

Microsoft has seen an increase of 19% in revenue over the corresponding period of last fiscal year, meanwhile, it is a 34% rise for Google.

After reading their respective reports, what do you think of it?

27/4/2021 – Microsoft Advertising Birthed a Series of New Updates

Microsoft has announced several new updates in April that helps advertisers to increase conversion.

First, a new feature of API support for Google Import. This is huge news that saves time off developers’ watch, which allows API users to sync Google Ads campaigns to Microsoft Ads.

In the past, search management tools would need to establish support when new features are released. 

Now users can support automated synchronization from Google Ads through API even when their application has not been updated to support the new features.

Next, the new countdown customizer can now be added to ads on Microsoft to tell time to consumers. This new feature allows advertisers to display a countdown clock to urge potential customers to click ads with greater push.

Microsoft Advertising has also expanded its In-market Audience by adding new segments for marketers to reach out to the right audience who have shown purchase intent are ready to buy. 

On top of 60 new segments, they have also added two new seasonal audiences: Mother’s Day and Back to School. This new feature is now only available in certain countries, including United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, and Italy.

29/4/2021 – Google Ads API Version 7.0 Up and Running

Google shared with the globe that version 7.0 of Google Ads API is now available.

From v6.1.0 to v7 in less than a month, Google mentioned the need to upgrade client libraries and client code if you are to use v7.

The full version is available here, but here are some of the highlights:

• Google Ads API now supports reporting for Apple’s SKAdNetwork. Advertisers can query how many SKAdNetwork conversions and their conversion value they received from their iOS apps.
• You can now manage bidding strategy and campaign simulations.
• Test accounts now have new assets:
  • Structured snippet assets
  • Sitelinks assets
  • Callout assets
• Marginal ROI campaign budget recommendation is now available. The recommendation provides you suggestions in adjusting a campaign’s budget if you predict the ROI will rise.

28/4/2021 – Google Search Console Recently Added Regex Support

Empathetic and active listening are valuable soft skills we need to be better people than we are yesterday. 

As evidence, Google recently announced that they have added regex (reh-jex; also known as regular expression or rational expression) support into their performance report.

This additional support allows owners to enter patterns instead of words for matching, which allows them to create more page-based filters and answer more questions that interest them.

In addition to the newly improved performance report, the compare mode now has a new interface and contains a comparison column.

Users can compare metric side-by-side and this improvement also supports the new regex filter for pages and queries. 

Now we do not have to filter URLs and queries by one string at a time. Thanks, Google update.

To get started, owners just need to verify ownership of their site’s domain name.

29/4/2021 – Google Search Central Announced New Feature in Pilot Program 

If you follow Google Search Central on Twitter, you probably would have known that less than 24 hours ago, Google announced that they are running a pilot program that allows site owners to identify indexing issues.

The pilot program was primarily set up for site owners to report urgent bugs or other issues related to Google Search.

The pilot expansion allows owners to run analysis provided by Google to identify the reasons why some of their pages are not indexed and troubleshoot any indexing issue.

The program is currently only piloting in the US and it should be available to the whole US in a week.

Full details are available at their help center, and you are suggested to try this pilot program if you have more than 500 pages. Make sure you know how Google Search works before you attempt the pilot to avoid unnecessary confusion.

That’s all for the week, folks. See you again next Friday.

Happy weekends!

Updated: 23 November 2024

About Win Wei

When life is bitter, drink black coffee indoor and grab yourself some self-help books while listening to cafe lofi. Win Wei is just another being that enjoys life and the wonders of digital marketing. Oh, I do love myself some swimming, too.