Advertising and future Google updates – the most interesting articles of the week

This week we are looking at new features and services Google is prepairing for us this year. You can also find 2 very useful guides: one with all the options for optimizing your website for mobile and a second one, published by Google, about programatic buying.

1. Google to tell brands whether video ads are actually getting views – advertisers are not happy to spend the budget for ads that people won’t actually see because they skipped it or scrolled the page. Google will release later this year updated to let advertisers know if the sound was on or for how long the ad was in view.

2. Google Results For “Car Insurance” Could Look Different Very Soon – Google will launch a comparison site for car insurance. Read the searchengineland.com article to see how it might look and more details on when it will roll out.

3. Language Translation Tech Starts to Deliver on Its Promise – after Skype announced their simultaneous translation option, Google had to do something to catch up, so they did: the app will recognize you language if it’s a popular one and turn it into written text. Bonus: Google will also launch a service wich will translate a foreign street sign and render an automatic translation just by holding the phone up to it.

4. Reach and frequency report will soon only be available from the ‘Campaigns’ tab – the change announced on Google+ will happen starting the week of January 28th. The good thing is that Google added new and improved reach and frequency columns in the ‘Campaigns’ tab allowing you to see aggregate results for any time range and see reach and frequency metrics for any Display campaign.

5. Publishers warily test the water with chat apps – even though apps like Whatsapp and Snapchat became extremely popular, brands are still searching for a way to get in the game. WSJ, HuffPo, BuzzFeed and others are experimenting with these apps. It seems to work fine for them, but not everyone can provide interesting news people want to chat about. You need to do some A/B testing for your brand before you decide to invest too many resources in chat apps.

6. The Definitive Guide to Mobile SEO – Nick Wilson wrote a very simple and clear guide for all of you who don’t know exactly what they need to do to have their website optimised for mobile. As traffic on mobile increases every year, this is no longer a matter of it, but rather a matter of when. He presents all the options so that you can choose the best one for you.

7. Programmatic Guide – Think with Google – you heard about programmatic buying a lot and you are confused about its meaning and how it works? Google in its comprehensive brand marketer’s guide explains that “Programmatic buying allows brands to use audience insights and technology to tailor messages to the right person, at the right moment, in the right context.” Ads are not free and if your purpose is to sell, conversions are extremely important. By using programmatic buying you make sure that your ads are displayed exactly when consumers are connected, interested and engaged.

Have a productive week ahead!