1. Businesses on Instagram Can Boost Posts to Message Them on WhatsApp - Instagram has announced that all businesses can now connect their WhatsApp business account to Instagram to facilitate new connection opportunities in the app. By connecting your WhatsApp business account, you’ll be able to add a new WhatsApp connection tab to your Instagram business profile, providing another way for people to get in touch, and spark direct conversations with your business. This could be a big deal - according to Facebook, 75% of adults want to communicate with businesses via messaging. Which seems high, but even if that’s partially correct, providing a means for each individual to contact you via message, and in the messaging app they prefer, could be a positive step.

Furthermore, after you’ve connected your WhatsApp business account, you’ll also be able to boost posts that drive customers to message you in the app.

2. Facebook Officially Launches Reels (on Facebook) to US Users - On Sep 29, 21 Facebook launched Reels on Facebook for all users in the US, bringing its short-form video to its bringing the option to its 250+ Million US audience. Up until this launch, Reels was only available on Instagram. 

Along with the capacity to share your Reels to your News Feed, you’ll also be able to post your Reels direct to groups that you’re a member of, while Facebook’s also launching a new ‘Single Theme’ group setting “that makes it easy to prompt members to share their Reels”. 

3. Facebook’s Pre-Campaign Estimates Moving Away from Specific Audience Projections - Facebook advertisers take note – Facebook has announced that it’s changing the way it displays estimated audience reach for ads, by switching from more specific reach estimates to generalized potential reach categories.

Right now, when you go to set up your Facebook ad, Facebook will display ‘Potential Reach’ with a fairly specific number range of people that your campaign is likely to be seen by, based on the targeting criteria that you select. 

The new Estimated Audience display is more broad, with the potential reach figure in this example covering a potential discrepancy of 10 million users. Not all of the estimates will be that broad, but the basic premise is the same – Facebook will now show you a much more generalized reach estimate, as opposed to specific numbers, based on your targeting criteria.

You can read more about Facebook’s Estimated Audience Size calculations here.

4. Second Annual Pinterest Creators Festival Set for Oct. 20 - Pinterest will host its annual Creators Festival on Oct 20, 21, where the platform will showcase its latest features, highlight key usage trends, provide engagement tips for Pin marketers, and more.

The Creators Festival provides an opportunity for Pinterest to present its evolving vision for the platform, via new tools and coming additions, while also facilitating connection among Pin creators.

Pinterest’s Creators Festival will be hosted in local time for audiences in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany and France on October 20th. You can find more info here.

5. YouTube Ads Retires TrueView for Action Campaign - Introduces Video Action Campaigns - YouTube Ads is evolving TrueView for action and scaling its best features to more places on and off YouTube with Video action campaigns. With Video action campaigns, you can tell your brand’s story with longer headlines and have access to top performing places like YouTube’s home feed, watch page, watch next feed, and Google video partners—all within one campaign. Per YouTube, they’ve seen Video action campaigns drive 20% more conversions per dollar compared to TrueView for action. 

Starting early 2022, all existing TrueView for action campaigns will automatically upgrade to Video action campaigns.  As a reminder, September 30, 2021 is the last day to create a new TrueView for action campaign and any existing TrueView for action ads will continue to run until early next year.

6. Google Display Ads Introduces Engaged-View Conversions - Measuring the full impact of your Display ads means looking beyond clicks, especially when you incorporate the rich storytelling power of video ads into your customers’ increasingly complex online journey. That’s why Google has  developed engaged-view conversions (EVCs), a more robust non-click conversion metric. These are counted when a user watches 10 seconds of a video in your ad and doesn’t interact, but later completes a conversion on your site.

Now, you can more consistently measure the impact of your ads across different Google Ads channels. Engaged-view conversions can also be tracked on TrueView skippable in-stream ads, Local campaigns and App campaigns.

7. Data-Driven Attribution is Now The Default Attribution Model for All New Google Ads Conversion Actions - Per Google, in the face of a changing privacy landscape the current last-click attribution increasingly fall short of advertisers’ needs.

The Data-driven attribution in Google Ads uses advanced machine learning to more accurately understand how each marketing touchpoint contributed to a conversion, all while respecting user privacy. 

While Google Ads offered data-driven attribution for sometime, not all advertisers was able to use it due to minimum data requirements or unsupported conversion types. 

Now to help all advertisers take advantage of better attribution and improve their performance, they’re removing the data requirements and adding support for additional types of conversions. With these improvements, they're also making data-driven attribution the default attribution model for all new conversion actions in Google Ads.

8. Microsoft Advertising Launches Open Beta for Credit Card Ads - Microsoft Advertising has announced a new ad unit called Credit Card ads. Credit card ads are available to advertisers targeting the United States and Canada. Credit card ads are feed-based, dynamically generated ads. The ads are created purely from the feeds – and are not triggered by keywords, or site content. Feeds for credit card ads include things like the card issuer, cash-back percentages, rewards, annual fees, and sign-up bonuses.

Advertisers are increasingly looking to stand out from the competition and captivate their target audience in new, innovative ways. With the introduction of video ads on the Microsoft Audience Network, you can reach potential customers where they are actively consuming content on MSN and Microsoft News. Video ads can help you boost awareness, capture attention, and drive leads for your brand, while creating deep emotional connections with your customers.

9. Microsoft Introduces Video Ads on the Microsoft Audience Network - Advertisers are increasingly looking to stand out from the competition and captivate their target audience in new, innovative ways. With the introduction of video ads on the Microsoft Audience Network, you can reach potential customers where they are actively consuming content on MSN and Microsoft News. Video ads can help you boost awareness, capture attention, and drive leads for your brand, while creating deep emotional connections with your customers.

Not only will you be able to captivate your audience in a compelling format, but Microsoft is the only platform with access to Microsoft Bing search intent data, as well as LinkedIn profile data on video assets — this means your video ads on the Microsoft Audience Network work harder to drive deeper connections and deliver performance across the funnel.

10. Clubhouse Adds Universal Search, Clips & Room to Help Boost Sharing - Universal Search - will allow you to search for people, clubs, live rooms and future events — so you can find your friends more quickly, discover amazing clubs and events related to any breaking news or nerdy interest, and find rooms about specific things happening in the world right now.

Clips - will allow anyone to share 30-second clips of public rooms, so more people on the Internet can discover and join your club. Here’s how it will work: 

Replays - a new way for people to experience your live rooms on Clubhouse. Just later. :)