Welcome to our weekly round-up of all the latest news and research from around the world of search marketing and beyond.
This week we have news about Google’s latest acquisition, the progress of AMP and some spooky Halloween search data.
Google acquires FameBit to cash in on YouTube branded content
As reported by Al Roberts, Google has announced that it is acquiring FameBit, an influencer marketing platform. The startup, which was founded in 2013, helps brands connect with more than 45,000 content creators for branded content opportunities, including product placements, promotions and sponsorships.
This acquisition signals that Google sees influencer marketing and branded content as an important part of the online marketing ecosystem, particularly on YouTube.
According to Google VP of Product Management, Ariel Bardin:
“We believe that Google’s relationship with brands and YouTube’s partnerships with creators, combined with FameBit’s technology and expertise, will help increase the number of branded content opportunities available, bringing even more revenue into the online video community.”
Google reveals the progress of AMP one year later
As I reported this week, Google released loads of stats around its AMP project, in an attempt to persuade you to implement its faster mobile pages.
The uplifts for major publishers who use AMP include:
- Washington Post — 23% increase in mobile search users who return within 7 days
- Slate — 44% increase in monthly unique visitors and a 73% increase in visits per monthly unique visitor
- Gizmodo — 80% of Gizmodo’s traffic from AMP pages is new traffic, 50% increase in impressions
- Wired — 25% increase in click through rates from search results, with CTR on ads in AMP stories up by 63%.
- Relay Media — in the last 30 days alone has converted over 2.5 million AMP pages for publishers like The Daily Dot, Hearst Television and The Miami Herald which says mobile users who start with an AMP article spend 10% more time than those who land on regular mobile pages.
Facebook tests ads for Groups
Facebook’s ad business could be expanding to Groups, as reported this week by Al Roberts. Groups is a popular feature that “allow[s] people to come together around a common cause, issue or activity to organize, express objectives, discuss issues, post photos and share related content.”
Groups are used by more than a billion people each month, making them a potentially lucrative source of ad inventory for Facebook.
According to a statement from Facebook:
“We have started to test delivering ads to people in Facebook Groups, and will be evaluating the response before determining how we will move forward.”
Amazon takes on Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play
The big story in streaming this past week is the anticipated arrival of Amazon’s new on-demand music service. As reported by Luke Richards, the initial Amazon streaming service aimed at Echo users certainly looks to add value to the brand’s latest audio device.
The option for users to be able to search a bigger catalogue of music than is currently available to Prime subscribers will be a big asset for the device alongside it’s voice-activated functionality, its ability to search the web and its quick connection to make orders from the Amazon website.
Most popular Hallowen costumes according to paid search
AdGooroo has revealed the top Halloween costumes for 2016. To determine the most popular costumes, they compiled a ranking of the top 20 costumes by text ad and product listing ad spend on 2,959 Halloween costume keywords on US Google desktop search from August 1 through October 4. The findings include:
- Nine super hero costumes rank in the top 20
- Batman villainess Poison Ivy tops the list with nearly $159,000 in paid search spend, $58,000 more than the next two most popular costumes
- New to the top 20 this year is the category ‘steampunk’ ($58,000 in ad spend)
Is this the first mention of steampunk on the website?
Yes.
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