1. Microsoft Introduces Portfolio Bid Strategies & Integration with Google Tag Manager - Microsoft Advertising said that portfolio bid methods are now accessible globally. The platform's automated Google Tag Manager (GTM) integration is now available to everyone.

Portfolio bid strategies. This feature automatically adjusts bidding across multiple campaigns to balance under- and over-performing campaigns that share the same bidding strategy (like maximize conversions, target CPA, target impression share, etc). Portfolio bid strategies can help save time that might otherwise be spent manually adjusting bids.

Automated integration with GTM. Microsoft Advertising’s integration with Google Tag Manager enables you to automatically copy the setup used by your existing Google tags. To do so, sign in to Google and select the Google Tag Manager account and container via Microsoft Advertising online. Next, enable the permissions to update your setup, and Microsoft Advertising will set up the UET tag with additional parameters.

1. Pinterest Introduces AR Try-On for Furniture - With a new 'AR Try-On for Home Décor' process, Pinterest is taking its augmented reality purchasing possibilities to the next level, allowing users to digitally place furniture in their homes. The approach makes use of Pinterest's continually expanding AR Lens technology to determine the virtual object's true dimensions and characteristics in order to create an accurate representation of how it will appear in our real-world location. Pinners can then alter the product in the camera view to evaluate how it fits in their space and how well it matches their current decor.

2. Twitter Launches New 'Toolbox' Hub to Highlight Helpful Creation, Moderation, and Analytics Tools - Twitter has launched a new 'Twitter Toolbox' hub, which will feature useful, dependable Twitter statistics and creation tools to help you get the most out of your Twitter marketing and growth efforts. Expression tools, Safety Tools, and Measurement Tools are the three sections of the new Toolbox. The measurement aspect is likely to be of most relevance to marketers, with a variety of Twitter analytics software available to provide greater insight into your tweet performance.

3. FaceBook, Pinterest, and Snap Revenue Updates - Pinterest Turns a Profit in 2021 - Pinterest, Inc. recently reported better-than-expected results ($846.7 million, up 20% year-over-year.) for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2021, on the back of growth in revenues. In other operating metrics, Pinterest’s average revenue per user (ARPU) increased 23% from the previous year to $1.93. However, the company’s Monthly Active Users (MAUs) saw a 6% year-over-year decline to 431 million.

Snap Posts Its First Full Year of Positive Cash Flow in 2021 - Snap reported its first quarterly net profit on Thursday, and beat analyst estimates for the fourth quarter on earnings, revenue, and user growth.

Facebook Loses a Million Daily Active Users, Posts Big Revenue Result for Full Year 2021 - Facebook earnings came in below expectations for the fourth quarter, and the company said numerous challenges are ahead in the first quarter. Facebook said it’s being hit by a combination of factors, including privacy changes to Apple’s iOS and macroeconomic challenges. It blamed the lower-than-expected growth in part on inflation and supply chain issues that are impacting advertisers’ budgets.

1. Google Q4 Search Ad Revenue: $43.3 Billion While YouTube Generated $8.6 Billion - In Q4 of last year, overall Google advertising income was $61.2 billion, up from $46.2 billion in Q4’2020. Google search and other, YouTube advertising, and Google Network are all included in "total Google advertising." In Q4 2021, YouTube made $8.6 billion in ad revenue, with a total of $28.8 billion in advertising revenue for the year. That's a substantial improvement above YouTube's 2020 results. With artists receiving roughly 55% of YouTube ad revenue, that means YouTube will pay creators more than $15 billion in 2021. Search advertising generated $43.3 billion in revenue in Q4 of this year, compared to $31.9 billion in Q4 of last year. In the fiscal year 2021, Google search and others generated slightly about $149 billion, up 43 percent from $104 billion in the fiscal year 2020.

2. Google Search Console Domain Properties Can Now Be In Search Results - Google has announced that the Search Console snapshot in the search results now includes domain attributes. This is a snapshot card showing some of the higher-level data for your site immediately in the search results from Search Console.
   This card can appear only if you are an owner or full user of the site in Google Search Console, and you are signed in with that Google account while searching for your site or queries it might rank for. You can turn this snapshot on or off as well, those instructions are in this help document.

Having this snapshot appear can be handy for site owners who have access to Search Console but don't check their data very often. This serves as a helpful reminder to site owners that Search Console contains a wealth of data and information that they may examine or have an SEO professional examine on their behalf.

1. Auto-tagging Added to Google Merchant Center Free Listings - Google Merchant Center now supports auto-tagging for free product listings and free local product listings, according to the firm. By adding a result ID to your URLs, you should be able to follow your shopping efforts better using Google Search.

Auto-tagging is a Google Merchant Center feature that allows you to measure conversions from your free product listings and free local product listings on your website separately from other conversion types. It also allows you to separate your free listings and free local listings from total Google organic traffic via a third-party site analytics tool like Google Analytics.

1. Google Ads Launches Revamped Partners Program - The new Partners program rules went into force about two years ago, and Google will notify all Partners of their current status. All Partners will be notified of their current status by Google. Those who have already accomplished the new standards will receive their Partners badge right now, while those who have not will receive it once they have met all of them. This program's criteria adjustments were first announced in February 2020, but the debut was postponed owing to the effects of the coronavirus epidemic, giving Google time to incorporate comments from advertisers into the final version of the requirements.

To be eligible for the new Google Partners program, advertisers must:

• Achieve an optimization score of 70%.
• Spend $10,000 across all of a partner’s managed accounts within a 90-day period.
• Have at least 50% of designated account strategists certified in Google Ads, with at least one certification in each product area (Search, Display, Video, etc.) with campaign spend of $500 (or more) in 90 days.

Agencies that meet Partners requirements and are within the top 3% of participating agencies in their country are eligible to become Premier Partners. The top 3% is evaluated annually; the factors that determine the top 3% include, but aren’t limited to:

• Client growth – Ability for partners to grow their existing clients and acquire new clients, measured by year-over-year ads spend growth and ads spend among first-time Google Ads clients.
• Client retention – Demonstrated ability to sustain client business, measured by the percentage of clients retained year-over-year.
• Product diversification – Demonstrated investment in results-focused product mix beyond Search, measured by the percentage of spend in Display, Apps, Video, and Shopping each calendar year.
• Annual ads spend – Investment in Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform, measured by spend across managed accounts each calendar year.

Google Ads is now offering its Premier Partners the following:

• Product betas – Receive ongoing access to the most current product betas.
• Advanced Google Ads support – Access 24-hour advanced ads support.
• Executive experiences – Attend invite-only industry events, such as roundtable discussions with Google leaders, sessions with other Premier Partners, and opportunities to hear from industry thought leaders.
• Premier Partner Awards – The Premier Partner Awards highlight excellence in digital marketing and showcase Premier Partners that help drive results for clients with Google Ads.

• Newly redesigned 2022 Premier Partner badge.

• Google Consolidates Advertiser Identity & Business Verification - In March 2022, Google Ads will combine the current advertising identity and business operations verification programs into a single advertiser verification program, resulting in a more streamlined and better advertiser experience. On Monday, January 20, 2022, Google began distributing alerts to advertisers who will be affected by the move. "Advertisers will be contacted through email and an in-account message when they have been selected for the Advertiser verification program," Google added.

Here is what Google wrote:

• About your business: In the first step of the unified Advertiser verification program, Google will ask advertisers a few basic questions related to their Google Ads account and business under a new ‘About your business’ section. The questions will ask, for example, the advertiser’s industry and billing country, and information to help Google understand if they are a direct or indirect provider (third party) of the products or services advertised on the Google Ads platform. Advertisers will be given 30 days to submit their answers. If advertisers have not submitted their answers by the end of the 30th day, their account will be paused.
• Verification timeline updates: Responses from the completion of the 'About your business' questions will determine the verification requirements and direct advertisers to the next steps of additional verification, which may include verifying your identity, your business operations, or both (see the 'Advertiser selection criteria updates' section below). Advertisers will be given 30 days to successfully complete these additional verifications. Failure to complete or meet the verification requirements in the specified time period will result in an account pause. Note that the pause will only be applied by the end of the 30th day if advertisers have not completed or met the requirements.
  • For Identity verification: Previously, advertisers were given 30 days to start verification and additional 30 days to successfully complete the identity verification.
  • For Business operations verification: Previously, advertisers were given 21 days to successfully complete the Business operation verification along with a 7 days notice period before account suspension.
  • For the unified Advertiser verification: Now, advertisers will have 30 days to complete the ‘About your business’ questions and an additional 30 days to successfully complete all requested verifications, which may include verifying their identity, their business operations, or both.
• Business operations verification updates: To reduce the administrative burden and provide a consistent and synchronized experience for our advertisers, we are aligning the enforcement actions for all the verification requirements under the Advertiser verification program. As a result of this alignment, failure to complete or meet the business operations verification requirements (if requested) will now result in an account pause instead of an account suspension. This means that advertisers' accounts will stay open, but their ads will not be able to serve until they are able to complete this program successfully. Note that the pause will only be applied by the end of the 30th day if advertisers have not completed or met the requirements.
  To run ads again, advertisers must complete the verification successfully by submitting the requested responses to the survey along with the relevant documentation (as applicable).
• Advertiser selection criteria updates: As a part of a unified Advertiser verification program, we are combining the advertiser selection criteria for the current advertiser Identity verification and Business operations verification programs for a more harmonized experience, introducing additional criteria to provide an increased layer of protection for our users, and clarifying the instances when the advertiser accounts may be paused immediately. Details below.
  • Additional criteria: Google may request that advertisers complete the Advertiser verification program if, for example, they are advertising on brand-related queries or user queries in business verticals or industries susceptible to abuse, fraud, and scams (such as travel, customer or technical support services and financial services). Where an advertiser is asked to complete additional verification, advertisers' campaign performance may be impacted when advertising on certain Google restricted queries. Successful completion of the requested verifications will help improve campaign performance (as applicable).
  • Criteria for immediate account pausing: In certain circumstances, we may pause advertisers’ accounts immediately when the Advertiser verification program is initiated. Your account may be paused immediately for the following reasons:
    • If we suspect your ads violate our Google Ads policies, including, for example, Misleading representation, Unreliable claims, Unidentified business, Business name requirements, Solicitation of funds, Sensitive Events, and Coordinated Deceptive Practices.
    • If we suspect that your advertising or business practices may cause physical or monetary harm to users. Non-exhaustive examples include: misrepresenting yourself in your ad content; offering financial products or services under false pretenses; or offering unauthorized customer support services on behalf of third parties.
    • If we suspect you are attempting to circumvent our verification process.
    • If your identity or your advertising behavior has been identified as unclear.

• Transparency & disclosures: Similar to the current process followed in the identity verification, as a part of the identity and/or business operations verification steps, advertisers will be required to submit their legal business or their individual name along with supporting documentation for the unified Advertiser verification program. With the information advertisers provide, Google will display the advertiser name and location via an ad disclosure. Learn more about ad disclosures.

• Google Ads Introduces Discovery Optimization Score & Updates Auto-Applied Recommendations - Google Ads rolls out updates to Discovery Optimization Score, auto-applied recommendations, and YouTube campaign optimizations. Until now, the Optimization Score in Google Ads only scanned across Search, Display, Shopping, and Video campaigns. Today, they now include Discovery campaigns. Your Discovery campaigns will now show a score of 0-100%, with 100% meaning the campaigns are performing at their full potential. The new recommendations for Discovery campaigns are geared to getting you to lean more into automation through audiences.

The second set of updates is within auto-applied recommendations. You are now able to auto-apply Google’s campaign recommendations at the manager account level. This update means that you no longer have to go into individual accounts and apply recommendations manually. You do have the option to personalize which recommendations you automatically apply if any at all. The recommendations are aimed to scale the level of effort it takes to optimize campaigns. However, at the end of the day, these automatic recommendations are best used in conjunction with manual monitoring.