You’re listening to Digital Drop. Our monthly round-up of digital trends to keep you and your digital up-to-date. This month we’re catching with Twitter and the latest news from Google, stay tuned.

First up, let’s talk Twitter. You’ve probably heard the commotion about who’s in charge of the social media company, but if you’re not here’s a quick rundown of what’s been going on and how it will affect you. Elon Musk has finally made himself CEO and ‘sole director’ of Twitter. A move made possible by firing the former CEO, the chief financial officer, and the entire Twitter board. Without going into financial legal implications of that decision it sees the conclusion of an acquisition that started back in April. These changes in the company structure have brought a lot of uncertainty about the future of the Twittersphere. We’ve already seen verification ticks be sold for $8 a month, causing a flood of verified imposter accounts and even real-world consequences on victimised companies and their stock prices. We could put this down to a bumpy start for Musk or take it as a sign of more to come. With celebrities and company accounts leaving the platform in unprecedented amounts and warnings from the IPG about advertising on the platform, it is clear that we keep an eye on these changes. The main takeaway from this update is to brace yourself for more.

Moving on to a few updates and tips from Google. Google Performance Max campaigns, described as the next generation of Smart shopping campaigns, are being upgraded with a series of new features. First of all, advertisers can now forecast results with the Google Ads Performance Planner tool – something that has not yet been available previously for this type of campaign.

They are also adding asset group scheduling, increasing the number of headlines from 5 to 15, adding explanations for online sales campaigns and first-party audience insights. All these changes have been made with Christmas shopping in mind. If you are interested in improving your sales this Christmas, here are some of the best practice tips straight from Google. Tip 1, adjust campaign budgets, return on ad spend, or cost-per-action targets leading up to the peak Christmas shopping periods. This will help maximise visibility when customers are actively looking. Tip 2, consider using seasonality adjustments when running a sale that will drastically change conversion rates for longer than 7-days. Tip 3, to promote sales of specific products, create separate campaigns with their own targets and budgets.

Now, Google’s new search labels for coupons and promos. Google is updating the shopping search results with new labels that highlight discount codes and promotional offers, making it easier to compare prices across multiple websites. Soon you’ll be able to see available discount codes on shopping ads something that Bing has offered in its search results since August. You’ll also be able to compare deals side-by-side. When you click on a product, similar products and their prices will be listed below. Another feature you may already be familiar with is price insights, allowing you to find out whether a price is high or low based on its historical values. This comes after research found shoppers were looking for bargains more so than ever this year. This increased transparency puts shoppers first, creating a smoother experience by preventing website hopping.

That’s all from us this month, thank you for listening.
This has been Digital Drop. We’ll see you in the next one.