Google Ads Rolls out Lead Form Extensions Directly in the SERPs & This Week’s 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 Rolls Out Lead Form Extensions Directly in the SERPs

Google’s lead form extension has gotten an overhaul! In the recent rollout, lead form extensions will now make a lead form pop up right in the SERPs after an ad with the extension is clicked.

This action allows the user to fill out the lead form without having to click to the advertiser’s website, never having to leave Google.

Google Passage-Based Ranking Is Live

Google Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan announced on Twitter that as of February 11, passage-based rankings are live for English-language search queries in the US.

Further launches are expected to be commencing in the near future, which will all be reported on Google’s Search Liaison Twitter account.

These passage-based rankings only seem to go into effect on longer, unstructured content. Along with that, the scroll-to-text feature is not used for passages.

LinkedIn Announces New Content Creator Program

After seeing the success of other platforms that have begun similar programs, LinkedIn has become the latest social media platform to jump on the content creator program.

LinkedIn’s Editor In Chief, Daniel Roth, tweeted on February 12 about the importance of creators to the platform. “Creators are the driving engine of LinkedIn [… they are] the ones who often get that ball rolling, creating original posts, stories, videos, articles, etc.; amplifying new people to follow; sharing news and links and explaining why they’re worth our time”

The program is now in the very early stages of development.

Take of the Week

In this week’s take of the week segment, Larry Chasse shares some of Google Ads’ abysmal Target CPA bid suggestions.

You ever wonder "how many people actually click that"? Just makes me wonder in Google's AI why there is even this as an option.

Just caught me as funny and I have seen this with CPC bid amounts etc… as well. Just some crazy numbers. #ppcchat pic.twitter.com/9xAjwRqlRG

— lchasse (@lchasse) February 10, 2021

ICYMI

Next, in our ICYMI segment, @PPCGreg on Twitter spills the beans on a lesser-known feature in Google Ads that will exclude all apps categories without much hassle.

In the ads dashboard, add mobileappcategory::69500 to exclude ALL APP categories (as a single category). Lesser-known feature.. (h/t @amaliaefowler) https://t.co/NPFhWULvlk

— Greg (@PPCGreg) February 17, 2021

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

• Who in the world ever thought auto-population of services was a good idea?
• What is TikTok Shop?
• Where can I easily manage my negative keyword lists in Google Ads?
• When will I get my invite to Facebook’s Clubhouse clone?
• Why is it so hard to distinguish ads in my SERPs? Oh yeah. Dark mode.
• How can I get a 1:1 session with a LinkedIn customer service rep?

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!

Image Credit: Samantha Hanson