Today in Digital Marketing - Aug 4: How a Microsoft-Owned TikTok Would Change Digital Marketing (Ep 207)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, Google Ads partners with Zapier to keep your target lists updated. How would a Microsoft-owned TikTok affect your future ad campaigns? Facebook's web chat plugin gets a welcome upgrade. Would you pay Twitter $5 a month to have more control over your brand's tweets? And in case you were curious, yes, Yelp is still evil. It's Tuesday, August 4th, 2020. Happy National Architect Day, Chile. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here is what you missed today in digital marketing brought to you by Podcorn.com. All right, I'm back after the long

Starting point is 00:00:38 weekend here in British Columbia. Lots to get to today, and we are going to start with a whole bunch of news from Google Ads. First, they have added a new campaign optimization goal, perhaps the most important one you can have, maximize conversions. Starting today, you can add that to your mobile app campaigns, the conversion event being, of course, install your app. Optimizing your campaign for a conversion event tells the algorithm to watch as people see your ad and then go on to install it. Watch enough of those people and it'll get an idea of the kind of person who's likely to do that. Then after it thinks it has enough data, it'll start showing your ad to more of that type of person. I'm not sure what the threshold for Google Ads is, but over on Facebook, it's generally thought that about 50 conversions per week is the minimum for it to start making semi-accurate predictions. If you've got an app campaign running on Google

Starting point is 00:01:31 Ads right now and you want to test this, just edit your campaign, select the bidding section, and uncheck the box that says set a target cost per install. Google Ads news number two. They have broadened their optimization score system. Those recommendations and the score are now available in manager accounts for up to 8,000 accounts. You can also click to drill down into individual accounts if you'd like to apply the recommendations that it comes with. But a warning here, these recommendations are made by an algorithm and are often, sometimes very often, just wrong. Not necessarily wrong in terms of inaccurate, but wrong in terms of aligning with your brand strategy. In its announcement, Google said one digital agency they worked with saw conversions increase by 20% after they applied the recommendations.

Starting point is 00:02:29 If you want to check it out in your manager account, you can find it under the recommendations page. Number three, a nice simplification of asset management is coming. You might remember when we started with this whole internet advertising thing, there really only were like one or two types of image dimensions, right? Basically tall and wide. And then Instagram made square images of things. So then we had three. Then there were different tall ratios for different mobile platforms. And then the landscape dimensions also got varied. And because of that, Google ads today supports more than 30 different sizes and dimensions for image assets. Well, just yesterday, they announced that later this year,

Starting point is 00:03:07 they will be reducing that to just three image dimensions that you will need to upload. Quoting Google, Beginning early next year, we will migrate all app campaigns to this set of requirements. At that time, you will no longer be able to add new images that do not fit these aspect ratios or file formats. Existing images that do not follow these standards will stop running and be automatically removed. However, your asset reporting history, including data for any removed images and GIFs, will not be affected. Unquote. Yes, I know it's GIFs. I just can never say it that way.

Starting point is 00:03:42 So big change, but there's lots of time at least. And honestly, this is going to make things a little easier for people who spend their days knees deep in the Google Ads platform. They will also be adding a cropping tool to help with the transition. And they will be increasing the image file size limit from the current paltry 150K to 5 megabytes. Number four, Google today announced it has built a Zapier integration for customer match. Let's back up a little. Zapier is a middleware tool. It connects one web app to another web app. At my agency, we use it a lot. For instance, one of these apps we have sends form completions on our website into an Asana task. We have another that sends mentions of our clients' brand names on YouTube into a special Slack channel. I have

Starting point is 00:04:31 one on the side that sends me a text message whenever I get a new follower on the game streaming platform Twitch, because why the hell not? Zapier really is amazing. And now you can connect it to Customer Match. So you'd feed any data source through Zapier into Google. That way you can use those lists to re-engage prospects or maybe find new ones like them across Google's whole platform, including search, shopping, Gmail, display, and even YouTube. So this means you no longer need to manually upload, sort, or remove contacts from a list, it will automatically upload contact details from your CRM system or your marketing automation tool or your e-commerce tool directly to Google Ads. And finally, in Google Ads news, don't worry, by the way, we are getting to other news in a moment.

Starting point is 00:05:19 They've launched a new feature allowing us digital marketers to record phone calls that come in from call ads or extensions. Yes, Google has offered call tracking for a while now, but this call recording feature will give us a lot more insight than the metadata, like how long a call was or how many calls you got. A couple of things you should know if you decide to opt in. First, Google will only save recordings for 30 days. Also, this seems to only work for US-based numbers at this time. If you want to turn it on, you will need to have enabled call reporting in your Google Ads account. And you also have to have gone through domain verification for any of the URLs that are associated with your ads.

Starting point is 00:05:58 If you've done all that, go to account settings, look for the call reporting section. You should see a setting that now says save call recordings for 30 days. Still ahead, your Facebook ad results may be on the downswing soon, and you can blame Apple for it. A huge security hole in the WordPress theme that many businesses use. Medium is testing some changes that will appeal to brand managers. And how would a Microsoft-owned TikTok change the digital marketing landscape? That's in a minute,

Starting point is 00:06:28 when Today in Digital Marketing continues. You may have heard me mention every Friday that we work with Podcorn for our ads and wondered, how does that work? It's actually quite a nifty system. If you've got a podcast, you browse a list of brands that are looking for a home for their ad. Then when you've found one you think fits your show, you send them a quick note.

Starting point is 00:06:50 They just have to click approve. That's it. Now you've got a paid sponsor. As the podcast producer, you control everything from your ad rates to who you work with. You don't have to sign any exclusivity deals and never give up any rights to your podcast. And if mid-roll ads aren't your jam, there are other formats available, like sponsored review segments, topical discussions, and more. And on the brand side, it couldn't be easier to get your message out. You just add a profile of what kind of show would be a good fit

Starting point is 00:07:17 and sit back while podcast producers pitch ways to help you promote what you do. You approve the script, the final audio file, and Podcorn takes care of the money stuff. Whether you're a podcaster or a brand marketer, I can't recommend Podcorn highly enough. Click the link in the show notes to sign up free and start browsing sponsorship opportunities. That's Podcorn.com. All right, let's address the Chinese elephant in the room. Microsoft confirmed over the weekend that it is in talks to buy part of TikTok. More on that in a moment. This after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to ban the app, citing security issues.

Starting point is 00:07:54 I'm sure it has nothing to do with that massive TikTok-led troll that resulted in his Tulsa campaign event being a complete bomb. Microsoft says it expects to have a deal in place by mid-September. But here's what most of the media missed over the weekend. Despite what most outlets reported, this is not a wholesale purchase of TikTok. What Microsoft would be buying is only the portion of TikTok that operates in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. TikTok in the rest of the world would continue to be held by the same ownership group that, yes, includes a large Chinese company. And so under this scenario, there would essentially be two TikToks. Microsoft says any videos or data uploaded to its TikTok

Starting point is 00:08:38 would be stored on American servers. And oddly, it also said that if any of the data ends up outside the U.S., Microsoft says it would, quote, ensure that this data is deleted from servers outside the country after it is transferred, unquote. Which, of course, is ridiculous. I mean, first, why would you send copies of that data elsewhere if the whole point was to keep it firewalled inside this new group? Remember, those servers would be owned and controlled by the other TikTok. Meanwhile, over at Facebook's HQ, I am guessing that they have already broken out the gin and champagne. Over the weekend, TikTok was full of creators announcing that if the app disappears, hey, here's my Instagram account and I'll see you over there. Already, a lot of the accounts, at least the ones that I follow, have already made the move entirely over to Instagram.

Starting point is 00:09:30 Good timing for the Facebook-owned Instagram, especially given that they are actively testing a TikTok clone that they call Reels that will be built right into Instagram. Sound familiar? Yeah, this is basically how we got Instagram Stories. It was copied from Snapchat. So that's how the ownership stuff breaks down. But how would this affect us digital marketers? Well, for starters, if you are looking to run a global campaign, you will be dealing with two separate ad platforms, the existing TikTok platform and Microsoft's existing platform. The good news here, at least if you're planning to run ads in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is that Microsoft's ad platform is pretty comprehensive already, with pixeling, retargeting, custom audiences, all the things you'd expect.

Starting point is 00:10:11 But all this makes you wonder, like, why Microsoft? Facebook I could see. Snapchat I could sort of see. Hell, I could easily see Twitter as the parent, but Microsoft? Its big acquisitions lately have all been business-focused. Skype, LinkedIn, Lynda.com, GitHub. They really only had two gaming and entertainment brands that they acquired, Mojang, the maker of the incredibly popular Minecraft game, and the game streaming platform Beam, which Microsoft later rebranded as Mixer,

Starting point is 00:10:42 and then just last month shut down entirely and pointed its community to Facebook. So why TikTok? Maybe we're just overthinking this. TikTok has the potential to bring in a lot of ad dollars from people like you and me. Maybe it's just a pure revenue play. Also, they still own the Mixer code, so maybe there's going to be some sort of gaming connection there or live streaming connection or Xbox connection. Who knows? One thing is sure, it's going to get a little messy before things sort out.

Starting point is 00:11:15 The next version of iPhone's operating system will, of course, come with a whole bunch of new features. But one of these new additions might affect the success of your ad campaigns. And that feature will let users disable tracking between apps. Quoting 9to5Mac.com, developers use trackers to identify each user in different apps and websites so they can target advertisements based on what you access on your device. Even if users leave this option enabled, third-party apps will have to ask for permission for tracking and collecting your personal data.

Starting point is 00:11:47 Facebook's CFO told NBC Today it's going to be harder for app developers and others to grow using ads on Facebook and elsewhere. Here's how Apple describes this feature. Apple requires app developers to ask for permission before they track you or your device across apps or websites they don't own in order to target advertising to you, measure your actions due to advertising, or to share your information with data brokers, unquote. So in short, nobody knows for sure how this will affect ad campaigns. Obviously, this would impact more than just Facebook, but it's probably going to be a big deal given that Facebook is already signaling to investors to expect a decline in the fourth quarter the same time that iOS 14 becomes publicly available. And finally, sticking with Facebook marketing news for a moment, you might know that back about, oh, I don't know, three years ago or so, they launched a web chat plugin that lets you chat

Starting point is 00:12:47 with visitors on your website through a kind of scaled down Facebook messenger. You may have even installed it on your own brand's website. It had many benefits. The biggest, of course, was being able to launch a pretty comprehensive web chat tool with a couple of lines of code. But its biggest drawback is that it relied on your customer being logged into their own Facebook account at the time. If they weren't logged in on the device they hit your website with, or they couldn't remember their password, or they just straight up didn't have a Facebook account, they simply couldn't use it. Facebook has launched a new version now and that big drawback has been fixed. There is now a continue as guest option

Starting point is 00:13:25 available. On your side, the brand manager side, there really is no difference. You'll still have all the same tools as you had before. They're also giving it a bit of a design refresh. But as TechCrunch noted today, quote, though Facebook's plugin has the benefit of being tied to the larger social network where many businesses today run their own page to reach customers, it's still facing a range of chat software competitors, large and small. These competing solutions will often offer deeper integrations with the other services the businesses may use, like CRM, analytics, help desk software, and more, unquote. Which brings us to the lightning round. Facebook is testing a new look to post comments where if a commenter has a large number of followers, their comment is highlighted for

Starting point is 00:14:14 everyone who is seeing that post. Medium, the long form blog site, is beta testing some new features, including the ability to pretty radically overhaul the branding. Right now, of course, it's just black text on a white background. But if you'd like your brand colors there or your own preferred typeface, you will be able to. There's a link in this episode's notes if you'd like to get in on that beta test. A big bug for the popular WordPress theme Divi. If you run that theme, you should update it right away.

Starting point is 00:14:40 Even if you no longer have a support membership with them, you can use their security patcher plugin to patch the vulnerability. It is a free download for everyone. Google has a new structured data type, occupation data, with fields for things like salary ranges, benefits, and educational requirements. Twitter has been floating a few ideas around a paid membership. In a survey over the weekend, some people saw the company was asking which features they'd pay for. So far, the ideas include taking ads off the timeline, being able to publish videos

Starting point is 00:15:11 five times longer and at 8K resolution, the ability to create your own custom hashtags with emoji, and the kind of undo tweet, which actually just holds your tweet for 30 seconds before it actually goes live. Notably not on that list, an edit tweet button. God before it actually goes live. Notably not on that list, an edit tweet button.

Starting point is 00:15:27 God damn it. And finally, Yelp keeps living up to its evil reputation. Now charging about $60 a month if you want a badge on your brand's listing that indicates you have COVID-related services like curbside pickup and online classes. They're now apparently charging small businesses $30 a month just to have their logo on their listing. $30. Oh, you can rearrange your photos also if you get that package. Come on, Yelp. And so that's it for a very busy Tuesday. Special thanks to Podcorn.com for sponsoring today's episode. Remember, if you've got a marketing

Starting point is 00:16:06 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 as always full transcripts to each episode are at todayindigital.com and follow me on social media all my links are in the notes. I'm Todd Maffin. Talk to you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Aug 4: How a Microsoft-Owned TikTok Would Change Digital Marketing (Ep 207)

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