This week: Earnings are on the rise, Clubhouse lands a partnership, and Apple breaks our hearts.

Here’s what happened this week in digital marketing.

Google Ads and Microsoft Bing Ads Report Increase in Earnings

Good news for a couple of high-profile advertising platforms: their ad revenues were up big. Google Ads saw a 32% year-over-year increase to $44.68 million in the most recent quarter. The company also reported a 34% earnings increase during the same period. Microsoft Bing Ads, on the other hand, reported a YoY revenue increase of 17%. So online advertising is still popular and growing. Even in the midst of a pandemic.

Google: SEO Lives and Dies With Consistency

Google’s John Mueller took to Twitter this past week and offered some sage advice to SEOs: be consistent. “SEO lives & dies with consistency,” he tweeted. He was responding to someone who asked about whether the trailing slash at the end of a URL has any effect on SEO. Mueller said it doesn’t. Then he advised the questioner to just pick one standard and stick with it. But that consistency principle in SEO applies in other areas, too. For example: don’t put structured data on some pages but not on others. And don’t put different structured data from one page to the next. Take a consistent approach to your SEO strategy with your entire site and you’ll find that the search engines reward you.

Google: Our Bot Doesn’t Evaluate Page Experience, Chrome Does

You might think that Googlebot is the beast that gives you low (or high) Core Web Vitals scores. But it doesn’t. Google Chrome handles that task. If you visit Google Pagespeed Insights, you’ll see a report about “field data.” That’s actual recorded data from real Chrome users. Googlebot does crawl the web. And it does gather some ranking signals. But it doesn’t handle the page experience part of analysis. The browser does that.

Pinterest Rises to 478 Million Users

Pinterest posted some nice quarterly numbers this past week, including a 30% jump in monthly active users (MAUs) to 478 million. Now that businesses are reopening, it’s possible that ecommerce will take a hit. Time will tell. By the way, Pinterest monthly usage is now higher than Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit. It still lags behind Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Also, Pinterest’s average revenue per user (ARPU) grew 34% YoY. And its global revenue increased 78% YoY to $485 million. According to LinkedIn’s latest performance update, the B2B social platform continues to see “record engagement.” Overall sessions are up 29%. Also, LinkedIn’s overall member count stands at 740 million. The company doesn’t disclose MAU and DAU metrics as other social sites, for whatever reason. Some folks think that LinkedIn usage stands at about 25% of its user base. Others think it’s around 40%. LinkedIn also reported a steady growth in ad sales.

LinkedIn Launches ‘LinkedIn Learning Hub’

Speaking of LinkedIn, the company recently announced that it will soon launch LinkedIn Learning Hub. It’s an online resource that offers insights about training opportunities for both businesses and individuals. The new tool will use analytics harvested from the social site’s Skills Graph to produce a powerful learning experience platform (LXP). According to LinkedIn, Skills Graph is the world’s most comprehensive learning taxonomy. It boasts of more than 36,000 skills among 24 million job openings. Learning Hub will also offer personalized content and community-based learning. It’s set for launch in the second half of 2021.

Clubhouse Inks Deal With NFL

Clubhouse closed a deal with the NFL to host Draft-related discussions. “Draft Week is coming to Clubhouse!” the announcement reads. It goes on: “Beginning Monday, April 26, the official NFL club will host a series of rooms throughout the week around the Draft, including pre-Draft assessment of the prospective players, a conversation with the University of Alabama’s football team alumni, a fan mock Draft, debriefs, and more.” Fans can drop into rooms and follow the picks in real time. They can also listen in on discussions between NFL bigwigs. Some folks might even get invited to say a few words on the virtual stage. It’s the first time a major sports league has collaborated with Clubhouse.

Snapchat Soars to 280 Million Users

Snapchat is yet another Big Tech name that posted great quarterly numbers this past week. For starters, the company boasts 280 million users. That’s a 22% YoY increase. That’s also the app’s largest user count increase in more than three years. It’s largest DAU increase occurred outside of the U.S. and Europe. That’s because Snapchat recently invested in localized content and additional language support options. Snapchat also benefited from the release of Spotlight. That’s a TikTok clone that surfaces the most entertaining clips from the platform. Additionally, Snapchat posted a 66% YoY increase in revenue to $770 million.

Apple Launches User Data Tracking Permissions With iOS 14.5

Digital marketers got some bad news this week. Apple officially announced the release of iOS 14.5. That may not seem like such a bad thing, but that iOS will ask users if they want to let apps track their data.

RELATED: A World With No Third Party Cookies: How to Transition

It’s a safe bet that many users will respond “No” to that question. And when that happens, then digital marketers will lose out on some valuable info when it comes to targeting and analytics. It’s not just digital marketers that are unhappy with Apple for the change, though. Facebook has been publicly feuding with the company for a while. But Apple says it’s responding to consumer concerns for more privacy. Facebook says the move will increase advertising costs. It sounds like that battle will continue.

Homework

Only a few things to do based on this week’s news:

• Think about how you’ll approach online advertising over the long haul. You’ll need to make some changes now that Big Tech companies are making it more difficult to identify people based on interests and demographics.
• Snapchat is taking off. Look for ways to promote your brand on the platform.
• If you’re in the e-commerce space, think about how you can use Pinterest to sell more products.
• Make sure you apply a consistent SEO strategy across your entire website.

  About the author: John Lincoln (MBA) is CEO of Ignite Visibility (a 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 Inc. 5000 company) a highly sought-after digital marketing strategist, industry speaker and author of two books, \"The Forecaster Method\" and \"Digital Influencer.\" Over the course of his career, Lincoln has worked with over 1,000 online businesses ranging from small startups to amazing clients such as Office Depot, Tony Robbins, Morgan Stanley, Fox, USA Today, COX and The Knot World Wide. John Lincoln is the editor of the Ignite Visibility blog. While he is a contributor, he does not write all of the articles and in many cases he is supported to ensure timely content.