This week on The PPC Show, I'm joined by a special guest, AJ Wilcox who is the ‎LinkedIn Advertising Consultant/Evangelist/Speaker at ‎B2Linked. You can follow him on Twitter @wilcoxaj .

We're breaking down the latest news and trends in ad tech and digital marketing. In this episode we discuss the 2017 Mark Meeker Report, updated Google's new attribution tool, Google's new data visualization, Quora's new ad platform, and Instagram's new objectives for Stories Ads.

Tune in to get caught up on the top headlines!

SHOW NOTES

Mary Meeker Industry Report

Slide 15: Google and Facebook own the growth share in online ads — 85% and rising

Slide #17: Measuring Engagement, having trouble with ROI

And Peter Drucker is credited with two of the most important quotes in business management. "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it."

Google Attribution: What search marketers need to know

One of the biggest announcements to come out of Google Marketing Next, held in San Francisco last week, was the release of Google Attribution. The new, free solution can pull in data from Google Analytics, AdWords or DoubleClick Search to provide a more holistic view of conversion actions across channels and devices for attribution modeling and bidding information.

Google’s Launched a New Data Visualization Tool, With GIFs as a Presentation Option

Data visualizations are an essential storytelling tool in journalism, and though they are often intricate, they don’t have to be complex. In fact, with the growth of mobile devices as a primary method of consuming news, data visualizations can be simple images formatted for the device they appear on.

Enter data gifs. Create your own gif here .

Quora’s ads platform is out of beta and available globally

Quora, the place to get answers to questions on just about any topic you can dream up from people who know about it, has now opened its self-serve ads platform to advertisers globally. This under-the radar company is valued at $1.8 billion as of its latest funding round last month. Though it has been comfortable with a slow growth approach until now, as we reported in April, Quora has doubled its ads team , which includes several Facebook ad alumns, and is planning to invest in building out the ads platform.

Quora currently offers two native ad formats — text and app install ad — that run on question pages and include a call-to-action button. Ads are sold on a CPC basis in a real-time auction, and campaigns can be targeted by topics, location and device.

Instagram Adds Links in DMs, New Image Sharing Options and New Objectives for Stories Ads

First, Instagram has announced that users will now be able to share website links in DMs, which will appear with an auto-preview in the thread. I mean, it’s not links in captions, which is what businesses really want, but it’s another way to connect with users, and usher them to relevant product pages. For example, at present, a lot of brands on Instagram use the old ‘link in bio’ tactic to direct potential customers to product pages using the only link they can add to their profile. Now, you might also consider trying ‘DM for link’.

As explained by Instagram :

“When first rolling out ads in Instagram Stories, we began by focusing on the Reach objective to help businesses better target and reach the people they wanted to connect with. But over the past three months these capabilities have greatly expanded, giving businesses the ability to purchase ads in Instagram Stories across additional objectives - Video Views, Traffic (formerly known as Website Clicks), Conversions and Mobile App Install”