Digital Marketing Industry Updates – November

Google introduces new features to keep data private and secure

To celebrate Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Google has recently released several new features to help keep your data secure. One of these features that is important to note for small businesses is the Chrome HTTPS-First Mode. HTTPS websites (compared to HTTP) are websites with added security to reduce online threats, such as network eavesdropping. For Chrome users, this HTTPS-First Mode feature will give users a warning that a website has a less-secure connection before moving forward with loading the site. The impact this warning could have is important, as it could turn away potential clients and customers. So if your website isn’t secured with HTTPS yet, now would be the time to make sure that it is.

 

Google Opens Performance Max Campaigns to All Advertisers

Last year, Google introduced Performance Max campaigns as a move towards Google Ads automation. If you already have existing Google Ads campaigns running, Performance Max serves as a good complement to you keyword-based Google Search campaigns by improving growth across all of Google’s channels. Now, after receiving strong beta results with the product, Google has rolled out Performance Max to all advertisers. According to Google, Performance Max promises to be the next generation of Smart Shopping and Local campaigns.

 

Need to Take a Break from Instagram? Instagram Testing New Feature!

Do you think you’re spending too much time scrolling through your Instagram feed? Well, as a way to curb users’ time on the app and improve productivity, Instagram is testing out a “Take a Break” feature with a select number of users. The feature gives you the option to choose when to send you the reminder: after 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or 30 minutes. Once the allotted time passes, you’ll get a prompt from the app suggesting you take a break and even offering a couple of suggestions such as: “Take a few deep breaths; Write down what you’re thinking; Listen to your favourite song; Do something on your to-do list.” The new feature doesn’t block the app once you choose to take a break. However, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri considers this as a step towards giving users more control over their experience with Instagram.

 

Facebook Shutting Down Facial Recognition System

Facebook has decided to shut down their facial recognition system that’s in charge of identifying people’s faces across images and photos uploaded onto the platform. This shut down will also take away the automatic tagging suggestions you receive when you post a photo, as well as notifications whenever your face might appear in photos and videos posted by others. Overall, this is also a positive step towards increasing privacy and security online because it will give users more control over how their face is used. Right now, Facebook is looking for other ways that they can make use of this system where it might deem more appropriate

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