Digital Marketing News: CMO Diversity Shortfalls, Goo.gl Retirement, Facebook’s New A/B Tests

Brands Fail to Meet the ANA’s Diversity Goals, Too

Brands Fail to Meet the ANA’s Diversity Goals, Too
Progress has been strong in CMO gender balance while ethnic diversity continues to face significant shortfalls, according to new research from the Association of National Advertisers and its inaugural CMO scorecard. While 45 percent of top marketer positions examined in the ANA member data were female, only 13 percent were people of color. AdWeek

Instagram Makes Stories Advertising Easier with Automatic Full-screen Support
Instagram advertisers can now have square or landscape ad photos or videos automatically reformatted for full-screen utilization, one of several new features the firm recently announced as part of an effort to improve Instagram Stories. Marketing Land

YouTube Launches Reach-Based Pricing for User-Skippable Ads
YouTube advertisers can buy spots skippable after five seconds with prices based on a CPM basis, the firm has announced. With TruView for Reach, YouTube now offers an ad option aside from its in-stream non-skippable “bumper” ads and its traditional TrueView ads. Variety

Goo.gl Shutting Down – These are Your Options
Google’s popular URL shortener goo.gl is being phased out over the next year, with the Internet giant supporting a move to the newer take on short and persistent links that is offered with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL). Existing goo.gl links will continue to function, however, Google has noted. Search Engine Journal

Advertisers on Facebook Have Some New Ways to Conduct A/B Tests
Facebook advertisers can now use split A/B tests in its Ads Manager’s Quick Creation system, the company announced Monday, a new option to augment the creative split testing it launched in October. The option to easily duplicate split tests while keeping them separate from existing settings was also among several new features Facebook rolled out this week. AdWeek

Snapchat Lays Off 100 From Advertising Division in Department Restructure
Three percent of Snapchat’s workforce has been cut in layoffs, with 100 workers in the firm’s advertising department being the latest affected in a series of downsizing that has followed lukewarm quarterly earnings results, Snapchat announced this week. AdWeek

Facebook Will No Longer Allow Third-Party Data for Targeting Ads
Facebook has begun disabling its popular Partner Categories, as part of a continued recent effort to combat potentially vulnerable advertising practices, the company has announced. The Verge

Twitter’s Timestamps Lets You Share Live Videos from Any Specific Moment
The ability to schedule live videos with a new Timestamps feature has been announced by Twitter, as part of a new set of tool options that also allows video replays to begin at any point. The Verge

Snapchat is Testing ‘Connected Apps’ for Sharing Information
Snapchat has made way for the possibility of offering connected apps in its latest beta version, a move which could eventually mean a similar feature in its widely-used release version. Mashable

Google Lets Businesses Post Offers to Organic Search Results
Google is testing a new feature that allows businesses to present offers in both maps and directly in SERPs, from Google My Business pages, including offer photos, text, link, dates and times. Search Engine Journal

Facebook Restricts APIs, Axes Old Instagram Platform Amidst Scandals
Facebook is shutting down portions of the Instagram API for developers months ahead of a previously-scheduled July 31 deprecation, in the wake of Facebook’s must-publicized recent privacy concerns. TechCrunch

Bing Adds More Intelligent Search Features
Bing has launched several new search features, including aggregated facts from multiple sources, hover-over definitions for uncommon words, image search object detection zoom enhancements, along with updated handling of how-to questions, the company announced. Search Engine Roundtable

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

Marketoonist Personal Data Simplicity Comic

A lighthearted look at product proliferation, non-universal USB frustration, and Steve Jobs’ product matrix – Marketoonist

April Fools’ the Day After: Our Roundup of Every Brand Stunt You Missed the First Time Around – AdWeek

Google Rickrolls SEOs With Recrawl Now Button – SEO Roundtable

‘Stolen office lunch’ drama has Twitter gripped – BBC

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

LinkedIn (client) – How to Ignite Your LinkedIn Marketing Strategy [Infographic] — Marketing Profs
Lee Odden – 47 Quotes about content marketing from top content marketers — Medium
Steve Slater – Search Marketing Scoop with David Bain #5 [podcast] — SEM Rush
Ashley Zeckman – Romancing B2B Influencers: How to Attract, Engage and Persuade Influencers to Co-Create — AMA Iowa
DivvyHQ (client) – [Interactive Guide] Take Your Content Marketing Program Back to the Future with DivvyHQ — DivvyHQ

Don’t miss next week, when we’ll be sharing all new marketing news stories, and in the meantime you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news. Also, don’t miss the full video summary on our TopRank Marketing TV YouTube Channel.

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