Google Ads Smart Matching “Bug” & Digital Marketing News [PODCAST]

On this week’s episode of Marketing O’Clock, hosts Greg Finn, Jess Budde & Mark Saltarelli break down the biggest digital marketing news of the week.

If you are unable to listen on Spotify, check out the video version of this week’s episode on the Search Engine Journal YouTube channel.

Google Ads Tests Smart Matching

@PPCGreg on Twitter, along with multiple other marketers have noticed a new match type on the Google Ads platform that seemed to be trending towards a more automated match type system.

After reaching out to Google Liaisons for clarification, Google Ads responded confirming that Smart Matching was just a bug. This match type experiment was meant for a select group of advertisers who opted in to test this new addition.

.@GinnyMarvin Hello – I've looked all over the help articles on match type but couldn't find anything on 'Smart Matching'. Do you have any information on what it is or is going to be?

— Greg (@PPCGreg) March 11, 2021

Read more here.

3.1 Billion Ads Blocked, Says Google’s Ads Safety Report

Google released their annual Ads Safety Report, which stated that Google had Blocked 3.1 billion ads, restricted over 6.4 billion ads, and suspended 1.7 million advertisers.

Due to how many sensitive topics were brought to the forefront in 2020, numbers have significantly risen across the board in terms of blocked ads, restrictions, and suspensions.

Google blocked over 99 million COVID-related ads from running, along with temporarily pausing over 5 million US political ads that fell under their “sensitive events policy.”

Read about it here.

Take of the Week

In this week’s take of the week segment @PPCGreg and Mark Bissoni, riff on the correct naming for Google Ads match types.

pic.twitter.com/YDTlot9IoA

— Greg (@PPCGreg) March 11, 2021

ICYMI

Next, in our ICYMI segment, Pamela Lund and Andrew Foxwell discuss their very positive experiences testing out Nextdoor’s new self-serve ad platform.

Just did a demo with Nextdoor. Targeting and demo are 👌👌👌 Really looking forward to checking this out. (Thanks for the $300 credit Foxy!) https://t.co/YfJ2UXksg0

— Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund) March 11, 2021

Lightning Round

Then we answer your burning digital marketing questions during our lightning round segment:

• Who’s excited for full image display on Twitter?
• What have trends been for gamers in 2021?
• Where will trolls be able to hide now on Facebook?
• When will YouTube Shorts morph into an exact TikTok clone?
• Why is Google Ads telling me that my ads are limited because of “low inventory”?
• How are FLoCs holding up?

Check out the Marketing O’Clock site to subscribe to the show (and our newsletter!) to read all the articles featured on this week’s show!

Featured Image Credit: Samantha Hanson