Today in Digital Marketing - And You Thought YOUR Brand Activations Were Complicated...

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Starting point is 00:01:07 Instagram gives regular people the ability to tag your products. Google points your ad dollars to underrepresented publishers. Updates to Microsoft Advertising's reporting dashboard. And Red Bull's brand ambassadors are ditching their wings. It's Tuesday, March 22nd. I'm Todd Maffin. Here is what you missed today in digital marketing. Today's episode is sponsored by Vendasta.com. Build your agency with

Starting point is 00:01:31 the tools you need and the hassles you don't. Visit Vendasta.com slash superhero to book a demo and learn more. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine nearly a month ago, the digital ad industry has been relatively quick to respond and act as another vehicle to protest the war, whether through marketing campaigns or suspending operations in Russia. And as the war continues, a new follow-up study conducted by the Association of National Advertisers shows that support for Ukraine is on the rise. The report found a significant increase in marketers taking specific actions to protest the aftermath of the invasion. More than 70% of brands who currently do business in Russia said they were suspending or reducing media spend. And that is a 130% increase from those who took the survey back in February.

Starting point is 00:02:24 Two-thirds said they were ceasing or scaling back larger operations, and half said they were publicly voicing support for Ukraine. So how should your brand show support? The survey also asked what role should marketing play in a global crisis? Here is how the industry responded. Marketers should not use this time as a place for gratuitous activity, of course, and an attempt to gain attention with any disingenuous actions. It is appropriate, though, for some businesses to offer support in some kind of fashion, particularly those with business interests or related products in Russia. The study says, though, that those brands without

Starting point is 00:02:59 those links should steer clear unless there are reasons to suggest otherwise. There's no one-size-fits-all playbook for marketing in a crisis like this. The key will be to inform consumers and stakeholders about the action a company is taking in reaction to what's happening. For most brands, that's probably sufficient. Instagram is finally rolling out its product tagging feature to all U.S. users as it continues its push to e-commerce. Yes, all users. People will no longer need a business or creator account to tag products in their posts. Now, all accounts will be able to tag products from businesses that are set up for Instagram shopping. So, if your brand isn't set up for commerce on the app right now, now might be the time to set your product catalog up.

Starting point is 00:03:46 The company said that on average 1.6 million people tag at least one brand each week on the platform. On the user side, to tag a product, they'll first have to tag a brand. And then from there, they tap tag products to search for a business, select the products they want to tag. Users will be able to tag more than one product in a post. This is, of course, free advertising for you, essentially, and free direct links to your product pages. So something you definitely may want to take advantage of. As for brands, business owners will receive a notification when someone on Instagram tags a product of theirs. Brands will also be able to view all tagged content on their profile in one place and control who tags their products by managing preferences in their settings.

Starting point is 00:04:32 Google has added a new feature that can make it easier for digital marketers to support minority-owned websites. Advertisers in the U.S. will be able to select ad placements on Latino and women-owned websites through dedicated attributes in Display and Video 360's marketplace. These new options build on the company's multicultural inventory indicators, which it added for black-owned publishers last year. The company says that it uses those same attributes, quote, to make it easier to discover publishers owned by individuals from these communities so you can add these properties to your media plans, unquote. Here's how to view these inventory packages.

Starting point is 00:05:11 First, from Marketplace, choose the Digital tab. From the Filter Inventory pane, you can select whatever you like there. Black-owned, women-owned, Latino-owned publishers. And then you can view inventory packages from any of those three. Another important update to share with you from Google, the company today announcing the release of Google Ads Editor version 2.0, which includes support for Performance Max campaigns, as they promised. The editor is their offline tool, which lets you load up a bunch of campaign changes, then sync them to the platform. Facebook had one of these two called Power Editor, they promised. The editor is their offline tool, which lets you load up a bunch of campaign changes,

Starting point is 00:05:49 then sync them to the platform. Facebook had one of these too called Power Editor, but they discontinued theirs some time ago. With Google Ads Editor, you'll be able to manage Performance Max campaigns, asset groups, and product groups. The update also includes support for custom actions and action triggers. A custom action being a task that you can save in your account so that you can easily rerun the task, things like replacing text, adjusting bids, and so on. And an action trigger lets you run a custom action when a specific event occurs. As well as support for conversion goals,

Starting point is 00:06:18 shared audience support, and more, advertisers can also create and edit shared audiences and attach them to ad groups and asset groups in this new version. From Google's ad platform to Microsoft's platform, the company today announcing updates to its ads reporting dashboard. The company says the new dashboard is designed to streamline workflows by making reports easier to customize and access. Here's what the Microsoft update includes. First, a new way to access reports. You will be able to select recently run reports from a drop down menu and use either default or

Starting point is 00:06:56 customized reporting options. Also, new preview options. Before, if you wanted to see reports, you had to download them first. Now you can see real-time report previews as you create and modify your columns and filters. The company has also improved load times. And finally, additional formatting options and shortcuts. Among the new features are conditional formatting, inline edits, sharing, scheduling, saving, scope changes, and other common shortcuts used in Excel. There comes a time in every established digital agency owner's business journey when growth hits a slump. You have a reputation, clients, a team. You're successful, people trust you, and you want to leverage that trust to expand your operations and boost your bottom line. To find and leverage that growth catalyst,

Starting point is 00:07:46 more and more agencies are turning to Vendasta, the end-to-end digital platform trusted by over 60,000 local experts. With Vendasta's marketplace of over 250 products, your agency can develop custom packages of complementary digital solutions to target local businesses in your niche, such as SMS marketing, reputation management, and e-commerce products. Plus, Vendasta offers powerful reporting tools to measure your client's digital performance, as well as white-labeled marketing services to help your agency keep costs down.

Starting point is 00:08:20 Learn more by booking a demo at vendasta.com slash superhero today. vendasta.com slash superhero. Are you using Yoast on your WordPress website? If so, a bug might be affecting your ranking. Yoast yesterday confirming a bug that is causing their plugin to generate duplicate sitemaps. You can notice the bug on any site using the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin, including, ironically, Yoast itself. It was caught by a search marketer that found these duplicates

Starting point is 00:08:53 and then tweeted the company to ask if there's any way to turn off these duplicate XML sitemaps that Yoast creates. The company acknowledged by, well, essentially saying, I'm sorry, what's happening? Then acknowledging the bug, noting that they are aware of the problem. They are working on a fix. If your site has been impacted, Yoast suggests that the easiest fix for now is to set up a redirect for each post affected in the meantime. Something that sounds to me like fixing a hangnail with a flamethrower.

Starting point is 00:09:22 So maybe instead just wait it out a little. Nobody's really sure how duplicate sitemaps are handled by Google. Chances are it ignores them, but it might also see the listed content as duplicate content, which could in turn hurt your ranking. Instagram is testing a new scheduled sticker for Stories, which could provide a more effective way for you to market your upcoming brand events, including future product launches, live streams, and more. With this sticker, users in the test group will be able to share a reminder of their upcoming events in their story, along with a direct link to the event listing. Currently, you can promote events in stories and in the main feed

Starting point is 00:10:02 as part of the initial creation process. But once an event has been set, there's no way to easily reshare it. You can also use the countdown sticker to lead up to the event, but that doesn't include a link to the event. If you are part of the test group, you will see the scheduled sticker in the latest version of the app. In case you're looking for ideas for your next non-digital brand activation, how about swapping planes with a pilot while it's 14,000 feet in the air? Or maybe you should leave that one to Red Bull. The energy drink company has planned its next marketing stunt,

Starting point is 00:10:39 Plane Swap, where two pilots will attempt exactly that. The pilots, each in a different aircraft, will fly very high before shutting down their engines, dropping vertically, and ditching their planes at the same time. They will then pass each other in the air and attempt to get into the cockpit of the other plane until it's what they quote too late, unquote. Yeesh. All in the name of some brand clout.

Starting point is 00:11:11 There is a tiny digital component to this as well, as this plane swap will air on a live stream on Hulu on April 24th. Don't forget if you've got a marketing position you're trying to fill, or maybe you're looking for that next great gig, consider a classified ad right here. It's just 20 bucks. You can book it online. Link in this episode's description under advertising. That's it for today.

Starting point is 00:11:34 See you tomorrow. Never really had a home Not a place to call my own Time to time it gets to me Maybe I'm a city girl and I've been around the world still like the sand beneath my feet

Today in Digital Marketing - And You Thought YOUR Brand Activations Were Complicated...

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