It's that time of the week where us sharks get together and discuss all of the hottest trends in digital marketing. This week we bring you interactive ad creatives, Google's new SERP changes, as well as Snapchat's complete overhaul! So without further ado, let's dive into the good stuff.

The State of Interactive Adverting

Everyone knows that the rise of mobile usage is growing rapidly. This has caused all brands to face the challenge of how to communicate the same message, with way less space. Most companies are starting to move towards interactive ads. This gets users more engaged and catches attention way faster and reliable than a standard picture ad. The companies that are using interactive ads have made it very clear that the amount of interaction they have seen since using them has significantly increased, and will continue to do so.

Next-Level Display Ads

Timberland recently ran an ad that was a coloring book ad with a video at the bottom and a click to color picture at the top. The coloring book grabs the attention, and while you are coloring the video at the bottom is playing. Timberland said that in less than 40 days the ad accrued 59 days of video play time, with over 50% of video starts being completed and more than 200,00 engagements.

360-Degree Video

360-degree navigation gives users a visual environment that can also include 3D or 2D computer-generated elements, photos or graphics and transactional calls to action in the ads. Users can click interactive hotspots to explore different aspects of the environment. For example, The North Face ran a 360-degree gyroscope ad that included weather data.

Augmented Reality

Even though virtual reality advertising is still very popular and effective, augmented reality is very quickly gaining popularity, mainly because the delivery of this format doesn't come via headset. Snapchat has boosted the popularity of augmented reality significantly as the regularly run augmented reality campaigns on their platform.

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SERP's Up, Dude

As the evolution of the internet continues to force our focus to center stage, we all must adapt for the betterment of users everywhere. The steadily changing environment of Google’s SERP is to provide a more dynamic experience for us all.  As nearly 60% of all searches are carried out by mobile users, the results must then arch towards generating a response that is supremely beneficial to the end user. The user now expects to see a swath of media in their search results including photos, videos, rich text and beyond.   This is a big change from the former results which was comprised of 10 results that were standard clickable blue links. As these trends ripple through SERPs, they also create a stir within the SEO world. With each dynamic result, SEO doers must optimize each piece of content in order to remain relevant and visible in this new landscape. To focus in on these we must look to optimize educational videos, high-quality images, relevant information about your product or business and a Q/A section to answer common questions.  All of these pieces will ultimately enhance your chances of rising to the top in the ever-changing world of SERP.  SERP’s Up, Dude!

New SnapChat Changes making ripples in the Digital Marketing World

In the upcoming weeks SnapChat will be unveiling a redesign that will make the app more appealing to advertisers and marketers. The new design will separate content from people’s friends and content from everything else.

Friends Tab

In the redesign the “Friends” tab replaces the current “Chat” tab on the left side of the app. The redesign combines friends stories and private messages into one tab. Users will view friends stories from this tab by tapping the profile photo which will appear with a blue ring if friends have posted to their stories.

The redesign will also alter the way users view stories. Currently, users create a playlist of stories to view by selecting the stories they want to watch and Snapchat plays them in order, inserting ads between some. When the redesign goes live users will select one story to watch and Snapchat will automatically queue up another following using an algorithm, but we’ll talk more about that later.

Discover Tab

Design-wise, the redesign of the “Discover” tab will aesthetically look the same. The only major difference is following the roll out of the redesign the “Discover” tab will feature vertical tiles for Official Stories from verified accounts.

Similar to the “Friends” tab when a user is done watching a story in the “Discover” page Snapchat will automatically transition to the next Story.

This new version of advancing from Story to Story mimics how Netflix, YouTube, and other platforms automatically start playing the next episode or video. This gives SnapChat a TV-like experience making it very appealing to advertisers. We’ll talk more about all the benefits the redesign has for advertisers in the future.

These new user experience features will mean big changes for how marketers, advertisers, publishers, and creators will use Snapchat. Stay tuned to the Red Shark Digital Blog for how these new features could affect your digital marketing campaigns and strategies!

Well, there ya have it, here's the week of digital marketing! As we continue to head further into the future, we hope that you can trust us here at Red Shark Digital to keep you up to date on the newest trends to ensure that we keep you ahead of all of your competitors.