Monday, December 16

🌟 Today’s Highlights:

• Instagram’s testing out DM scheduling features

• Google PMax is (finally!) testing out negative keyword exclusions

• If you want to book more qualified calls, you need to check out my new lead funnel

• 📊 Stat of the Day: X reached a record high of 364 billion total user active seconds this year. (Source: X)

• 💡 Today’s Insight: Evolving to Gen Z’s search habits

👀 Something New Up My Sleeve

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💡 Today’s Insight 💡

Evolving to Gen Z’s search habits

🗞 TL;DR - We’ve heard for years now how Gen Z was going to be the death of Google due to their social media discovery habits… and for the most part, the trend experts weren’t entirely wrong. Nearly 40% of Gen Z users now prefer TikTok or Instagram over Google for searches and Gen Z relies on Google 25% less than Gen X for searches. Here are Search Engine Land’s top tips on how to adapt to Gen Z’s search habits.

💡 Insight - When Gen Z wants to find their next recipe or gift idea, they’re more likely to go to a social network search than Google to find it. Search Engine Land breaks it into key reasons why Gen Z users gravitate toward each platform:

• TikTok is the visual search engine with its highly engaging, algorithm-driven content

• Pinterest is the visual inspiration engine which is focused around discovering new topics visually

• YouTube (and YouTube Shorts) are powerful video discovery tools and Shorts, in particular, dominate mobile search results on the platform

• Reddit is becoming a hub for niche searches with younger users seeking deep-dive insights or peer reviews

The common denominator behind all of these search alternatives? Users are increasingly valuing trusted, authentic content over sponsored results. Brands can pivot by focusing on developing native social content, partnering with influencers (both macro and micro), and expanding paid search campaigns to Google alternatives like YouTube or Pinterest.

⚡️ Today’s Headlines ⚡️

✉️ Instagram is testing out the ability to schedule DMs. The feature would allow accounts to plan to send messages to followers at optimal times, similar to how posts and Stories can already be scheduled ahead of time.

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⛔️ Google’s Performance Max is finally getting negative keyword exclusions. The highly requested feature is rolling out in beta at the campaign-level and gives advertisers better control in preventing ads from showing up for unwanted search terms.

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👀 X really wants brands to spend Q5 advertising with them. X released new insights for a final push to generate brand interest in the last weeks of the year claiming that user active seconds increase 8% in Q5 on the platform.

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