Today in Digital Marketing - As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, Google versus trademarks, and your brand might come out the loser. More details leak out about Meta's Twitter killer. The AI is ready, and Zuckerberg will unleash it first in the most bizarre place. And the answer to the question, what are the lyrics to the closing theme of WKRP in Cincinnati? It's Friday, June 9th. I'm Todd Maffin. Ads Ahead, today in digital marketing. Google Ads is making a big change in how it processes trademark complaints, updating its policy to remove industry-wide blocks for trademark terms. Starting on July 24th, Google will only let you report violations of your trademark against specific advertisers and ads,

Starting point is 00:00:44 rather than applying restrictions to all advertisers in the trademark owners industry. The current policy restricts all ads in an entire industry from using trademark material when complaints are filed. Google says this has resulted in over flagging and industry wide blocks, causing challenges for advertisers. With its updated policy, the company hopes to reduce these issues and speed up resolution times. Trademark restrictions imposed before July 24th, as per the current policy, will remain in effect. But Google says it plans to gradually phase out these limitations for most advertisers over the next year to year and a half. From trademark policies to API updates, Google released version

Starting point is 00:01:29 14 of its Ads API this week, which includes new features that support the transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. SearchEngineLand.com has a great breakdown today of what's new in this update. And remember, the API is used by third-party tools to do what Google's native platform does. A couple of the big ones, there are account-level negative keywords now. This means you can exclude specific keywords from targeting, not just for a single ad group or campaign, but across your entire account. Offline conversion client summaries. This is actually a brand new field in customer resources that offers information

Starting point is 00:02:05 about the offline conversion process, like how many conversions were uploaded successfully and how many failed when the offload jump was executed. There are also new conversion action types. These help advertisers identify conversions imported from Google Analytics and determine if a conversion is from a GA4 or UA property. This is particularly important as GA4 is replacing UA on July 1st, so those changes need to be reflected in the Google Ads API. The update also includes several new recommendation types, as well as improved keyword planning capabilities. In other Google news, the company has upgraded a tool that lets publishers and buyers track ad tech fees. The tool called Confirming Gross Revenue lets publishers see the total revenue generated from a specific buyer.

Starting point is 00:02:56 Comparing this data with the media cost on the buyer's end, both parties should be more confident that there are no hidden ad tech fees. Confirming gross revenue was initially launched to select firms last year, but it now will be made available to all publishers using Google's SSP Ad Manager 360 and all advertisers using Google's DSP Display and Video 360. Adweek reports today that Google plans for the tool to be adopted by other ad tech firms as well and is working with the industry trade group, Adweek reports today that Google plans for the tool to be adopted by other ad tech firms as well, and is working with the industry trade group, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, to set some standards. Google has faced criticism regarding the fairness of ad auctions. In a 2020 lawsuit filed by a group of attorneys general against the company,

Starting point is 00:03:46 it was alleged that Google manipulated auctions, resulting in systematic overcharging of buyers and underpayment of publishers. Publishers have also expressed frustration with the tech giant's refusal to provide access to log-level data, which could help uncover irregularities in auctions. Google clarified that the confirming gross revenue tool still does not offer log-level data, but instead provides aggregated gross revenue figures. They cited user privacy concerns for that decision. Meta previewed the company's new app that will rival Twitter during an internal meeting yesterday. A recording of that meeting has been obtained by The Verge. The platform is still currently called either P92 or

Starting point is 00:04:25 Barcelona. It is a text-based feed app that lets users share text updates as well as photos and videos to their messages. According to the report, the app might actually be called Threads upon its release, which is weird because Instagram had a spinoff app once called Threads, which they later killed. The main feed looks a lot like a Twitter thread, with replies expanding below the original message and profile icons, indicating the users who replied. The app features four tabs, Main Feed, Explore, Favorites, and User Profile. Most interestingly, Meta noted that it will integrate with the decentralized protocol ActivityPup,

Starting point is 00:05:04 which could let users transfer their information to other apps that support that. Other apps like Mastodon. Meta has been dribbling AI into its ads manager for some time now, but we haven't seen a ton of information about how they plan to use it on the consumer-facing side. Now we have more detail on that with the company previewing some of the generative AI it plans to launch in the coming months, including AI-generated stickers, chatbots for Messenger and WhatsApp, and photo editing tools for Instagram Stories. So Meta's AI chatbots. They'll be called AI agents. They will let consumers interact with bots with unique personalities and skills. They'll be released on Messenger and WhatsApp with plans to expand them across apps and potentially integrate them into smart glasses.

Starting point is 00:05:57 The vision is that consumers would wear these smart glasses to interact with the agents via voice. Meta also said it's experimenting with AI that will let users engage with a text prompt to modify their photos in Instagram stories. They also showed how they were using generative AI internally, including an experimental interface called Agents Playground for employees to engage with these agents and provide feedback. Meta confirmed this week to TechCrunch that its initial consumer-facing tools

Starting point is 00:06:26 should launch later this year. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters.

Starting point is 00:06:49 Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. And finally, more brands on TikTok will now be able to invite creators to pitch campaigns. The company is expanding its open applications feature, which lets businesses post details of their upcoming campaigns on the platform, giving interested influencers the opportunity to respond within the app.

Starting point is 00:07:14 Through this tool, creators can submit a short pitch, examples of their relevant TikTok content, contact information, and their proposed fees. After creators make their pitches, brands and marketers can review submissions directly within the app. Users can also filter applicants based on audience demographics, follower count, location, and a few others. Brands also have the option to invite specific creators to apply if they have someone in mind for the campaign. The company has been testing the option since February, but this represents a wider expansion with all brands gaining access via TikTok's creator marketplace.

Starting point is 00:07:55 And finally, just before we say goodbye, a quick reminder that the sale on our premium podcast expires at the end of this weekend. Besides having no ads, that's where you'll hear weekly deep dive updates into the two major digital ad platforms. Tuesdays is the Meta Platform with Andrew Foxwell. Wednesdays is the Google Platform with Jill Saskengales. If you do advertising on those platforms, you really do want those weekly updates. Also, little things, better audio quality, story links in the show notes, a back catalog of more than 30 deep dive interviews with marketing scientists, discounts on marketing tools, 30% off our premium newsletter, a whole bunch of stuff. Just go to the show notes right now and tap go premium or go to todayindigital.com

Starting point is 00:08:36 slash premium. That sale ends Sunday night. All this week we have been running kind of a weird contest of sorts. No prizes, no money. If you recognize this theme song, it was the closing theme to WKRP in Cincinnati. It did have lyrics, and in a moment I'm going to let you hear them. And your job is to guess what those lyrics are. And afterwards, I will tell you the answer to this. It's kind of an interesting story. All right, get ready.

Starting point is 00:09:10 Here come the lyrics. See if you can guess them. So many people have tried to guess the lyrics. A lot of people think that last chunk was, I said I wouldn't do it if a poodle had a lid on. But sadly, those are not the lyrics because here's the answer. There are no lyrics. So the story behind the song is that, or at least as the legend goes, they kind of had to come up with it at the last minute. They'd more or less forgotten after the artist had recorded the opening theme that actually had lyrics.

Starting point is 00:10:00 And they had to come up with something before their studio time closed out. So they just kind of riffed and the lead singer there just sort of like yelled nonsense words essentially. And there were some studio executives in the room and they were just trying to give them a feel for what the music would sound like. They would never intended to actually use the nonsense stuff. And the studio executive said, that's perfect. That sounds great. We'll use it. And musicians were like, no, wait a minute. There was no, we didn't, that was just a dry run. The lyrics are nonsense. And it stuck.

Starting point is 00:10:29 And if you don't believe me, I have isolated the nonsense lyrics, and I'm now going to play them for you. All right, so there you go. See, you never know what you're going to learn here on the show. Today in digital marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is Steph Gunn, production coordinator Sarah Guild, music licensing by Source Audio, ad coordination by Red Circle. And you know, not many people know this, but our theme composer Mark Blevis was actually originally picked for the job of Twitter CEO.

Starting point is 00:11:32 Instead, it went to an ad executive named Linda. Mark was pissed. He wondered if Elon picked her for her look. So like you told me this morning, Mark texted Elon the other day saying, she's more like a beauty queen from a movie scene. I said, I don't mind, but what do you mean? I am the one. I'm Todd Maffin.

Starting point is 00:11:51 Have a restful weekend, friends. See you on Monday. Baby, if you've ever wondered Wondered whatever became of me I'm living on the air in Cincinnati Cincinnati WKRP. Got kind of tired of packing and unpacking, down, down, up and down the dial. Maybe you and me were never meant to be, Just maybe think of me once in a while.

Starting point is 00:12:26 I'm a WKRP in Cincinnati. As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

Today in Digital Marketing - As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly.

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