Digital Marketing Industry Updates – November

Facebook has recently decided to limit the use of facial recognition in its products. In the coming weeks, it will shut down the Facial Recognition system that’s responsible for identifying and recognising users’ faces in photos and videos, and making suggestions on who users can tag in their images. The system was also used to aid visually impaired people by creating image descriptions for them. This system has raised several societal concerns, especially with regard to privacy and security. After the change, both functions will cease to exist on the social platform, and Facebook is looking for other, and perhaps more appropriate, ways to make use of their technology.

When was the last time you promise yourself only ten minutes on Instagram, only to look up from your phone later and discover that it’s actually been an hour! Instagram has said that it wants its users to consider just how much time they spend on the app. As a result, they’re currently testing a new feature called “Take a Break”. How it works is that you opt in to the feature and then choose when you want the app to remind you to take a break: after 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or 30 minutes. Once the set period passes, you’ll get a message on your screen saying, “Time for a break? Take a moment to reset by closing Instagram.” The app will not force close on you, or restrict access. Instead, it will provide suggestions on what to do instead. This means that users can simply ignore the prompt and continue scrolling. If the testing phase is successful, the feature will then be rolled out to the entire community.

In celebration of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Google is releasing several new features to further protect its users. Among these include a new security hub for Pixel devices, VPN expansion to new countries, and end-to-end encryption calls for Google Fi. Most notable of all, though, especially for online business owners, is Google Chrome’s HTTPS-First Mode. For those unaware, “HTTPS is a secure and private way for users to communicate with websites, reducing the risk of threats like network eavesdropping.” What the HTTPs-First Mode feature does is it will show users a warning, letting them know they are entering a less-secure website before loading the page. For websites still on HTTP, this could greatly affect traffic and conversions. So if you haven’t secured your site on HTTPS yet, then now would be a good time to work on it.

Because of the volatility of online consumer behaviour in the past year, Google had introduced Performance Max last year to stay ahead of the changes using automation. Performance Max campaigns were a way to buy Google Ads across Google’s full range of advertising channels, including Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps, all in a single campaign. They first opened it for a number of advertisers to test its performance. And after beta-testing proved successful, Google has rolled out the feature to all advertisers around the world. “They will also become the next generation of Smart Shopping and Local campaigns,” Google says. In fact, according to Google, both will be upgraded to Performance Max next year.