eCommerce Express Digest - July 2024

We’re halfway through the year already and businesses have been getting ready for the EOFY and Sales! If you didn’t have time to keep up with the latest stories from across the digital realm, fear not! We have you covered!

We’ll start with a non-Google update this month, with tougher conditions coming for providers and customers: Australia is set to introduce stricter regulations for Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services. These new rules aim to protect consumers and ensure responsible lending practices by BNPL providers. How will this affect the industry? Time will tell but with the ‘cost of living crisis’ it may sway spending habits.

Onto the Google news…

Google released its June 2024 spam update aimed at improving the quality of search results by targeting and reducing spammy content. This update is part of Google’s ongoing efforts to enhance user experience by filtering out low-quality websites.The rollout took roughly a week and was complete by the 27/06/2024. Be sure to check their Spam Updates documentation for more details. 

In a couple of other updates – the search engine giant also  announced the discontinuation of continuous scrolling in search results, reverting to the traditional pagination. This change aims to improve the usability and navigation experience for users. This has already rolled out for desktop and mobile (you may have noticed!).

Why should we care? Listings that appear on page 2 may receive less clicks and impressions – so keep an eye out for discrepancies in Search Console and this may be the reason.

Google also stated that as of the July 5th, they  will no longer index websites that are not optimised for mobile devices. This policy change emphasises the importance of mobile-friendliness for website visibility in search results. See what John Mueller had to say about this on their blog.

As announced on X, merchant listing performance has been added to Search Console in the ‘Google Search Image’ tab. More about this here. 

From the Paid Social world…

Reddit has launched a new advertising feature called “Conversation Ads” which allows brands to engage with users directly within the comments section, fostering more interactive and engaging ad experiences. Search Engine Land gave a good summary about it!

Pinterest has introduced new AI-powered ad tools designed to help advertisers create more personalized and effective campaigns. These tools leverage artificial intelligence to optimize ad targeting and performance.

I’m sure there’s much more in store for the second half of 2024 so stay tuned! If you have any questions or would like to get in touch, contact us today.