Last Week in Digital Marketing: Trends in Online Transactions Plus Updates for Google Ads and Echo Devices

When it comes to the landscape of digital marketing, things are constantly changing, including trends in online transactions. As always, Google is in the news as it continues to add new functions to enhance their user experience. Amazon, another company whose name we see quite often in the headlines, is now adding image search for their Echo devices.

Google Ads Update: Enable Call Reporting at the Account Level

Over the course of the next few weeks, Google will be rolling out a new setting for Google Ads that will allow users to enable call reporting for all call-only campaigns and account extensions at once. Before now, users had to enable call reporting every time they set up a new call-only ad or extension.

Takeaway: This new function will make setup easier and make sure nothing gets missed. However, it’s worth noting that this function will apply the same settings for call reporting across your entire account. So if you are using various call reporting settings in your account, with different conversion actions for different ads, then this new function is not something you will want to implement.

Amazon Brings Image Search to Echo Devices

In a press release issued last week, Getty Images announced that they will be partnering with Amazon to provide Echo devices with image search. Getty Images is already providing images for some searches, and plans to expand their content to include topics like pop culture, entertainment, and news.

Takeaway: Getty Images, who already has existing relationships with Google and Bing, is now the main company licensing content to most major search providers.

Online Transactions and Mobile Shopping

Just a few days ago, Criteo, which is an advertising platform, released its Global Commerce Review for the second quarter of 2018. In the report, they used data from over 5000 retailers to analyze the behaviors, preferences, and activities of online shoppers. Their findings state that in many countries mobile transactions account for more than half of total online transactions. Another key finding is that in North America, the conversion rate is more than three times as high for consumers in a retailer’s dedicated shopping app versus the retailer’s mobile site.

Takeaway: This data supports what we all already know as marketers, you must optimize for mobile. With the majority of traffic coming on mobile devices, not optimizing for mobile creates the risk of your business missing out on potential customers. Retailers should also consider developing a dedicated shopping app that their consumers can utilize.

Michael Childs is an Web Content Specialist on the the LeadBuilder® inbound marketing team. His interests include music, art, sports, and movies. He also loves animals. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Image via iStock