Today in Digital Marketing - “Best-Friend Brands”: The New Social Metric

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, why social media ad growth is slowing, how TikTok feels about Facebook's plans to steal its market share, shoppable ads are coming to a streaming platform near you, and why advertisers are getting carded by Microsoft. It's Friday, June 17th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Sometimes one of the tasks of a marketing person at a company is to propose partnerships between their brand and another. This offers the opportunity of joint advertising campaigns like Coca-Cola and McDonald's, cause-based alliances like Target and UNICEF, or even bundling products together,

Starting point is 00:00:41 like the streaming deals that include joint Hulu and Spotify subscriptions. But finding those brand partners isn't always easy, and determining whether your customers would be thrilled by an alliance or offended by it should be top of mind. What if there were a measure of brand partnership potential, a score that would tell you which other organizations would make for great alliances. That's what Pankuri Malhotra set out to invent. She and her co-author have published a paper in the Journal of Marketing called Leveraging Co-Followship Patterns on Social Media to Identify Brand Alliance Opportunities.

Starting point is 00:01:17 I spoke with her recently. We found these like clusters of brands in these networks. So we are finding clusters of brands like Tesla connected to technology brand. We were finding brands like Nike connected to NFL and NBA. I mean, based on what people were like, based on how people were engaging with them. Yeah. Connected how? What do you mean? Like this was grouping hashtags together? How did you link these companies with topics? Followership activity. So if I am following Tesla and Budweiser together, there will be a link between the two. I see. Yeah. And what we did was we looked into like

Starting point is 00:01:54 the entire brand audience of all these brands. So like Google, they have like 20 million followers. NFL, they have like 25 million followers. So what we did was we looked into these common followership pattern. So it's not just one person who's co-following these two brands together. These are like millions of folks. So there was this range in the co-interest patterns between certain groups of brands. And I think that range was very, very interesting to us because in some way it was telling us that, hey, there's a potential brand alliance opportunity that the managers may not be aware of. I see. So the practical application of this is a way to identify potential partnerships between brands based on them having similar Twitter followings. Do I have that right? Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So that's the objective.

Starting point is 00:02:44 You can hear the full interview tomorrow exclusively on the premium podcast feed, which you can sign up to by tapping the link in the show notes or going to todayindigital.com slash premium feed. Earlier this week, we reported that agencies are forecasting a strong ad market for the second half of the year. But now that the softened economy is taking hold, interest rates and inflation are going up. Some of those forecasts are beginning to change and not for the better. The global investment firm Magna recently slashed its forecast for social media ad growth from 18% to 11%. They identified two main reasons why social advertising is suddenly struggling.

Starting point is 00:03:30 First, audience saturation. Magna reports that reach and time spent with social apps have become saturated in all advanced markets and advertising growth was almost entirely driven by pricing rather than volume. The plateauing in usage and ad impressions has become even more apparent this year, and incumbent players have reported declines in some mature markets. And second, more fallout from targeting restrictions.

Starting point is 00:03:55 We're all aware that Apple's privacy changes have made it more difficult for brands to reach target audiences on social. Magna notes that the greater anonymity made it more difficult for marketers to attribute consumer purchases to campaigns among different social platforms. According to their report, the effect was gradual, but was evident at the end of last year, actually, as social media advertising became less attractive, particularly for Meta and Snap. The media agency also says in its report that the rise of TikTok in the U.S. poses an additional headwind for social platforms. Looking forward, of course, we advertisers will be facing even more privacy restrictions. Magnet predicts that social media companies will become more attractive to advertisers, but through new services like in-app commerce and partnerships with retail media networks. Social media's golden child has a message for Mark Zuckerberg after hearing yesterday's news that Facebook plans to copy TikTok.

Starting point is 00:04:53 TikTok's president of Global Business Solutions, Blake Chandler, said yesterday, quote, Facebook is a social platform. Ours is not. TikTok is an entertainment platform, unquote. Chandler spent 12 years at Facebook before joining TikTok and also said that if Facebook tries to copy TikTok, it will end up offering a subpar experience to its users and brands. Furthermore, he added that the company had not actually seen a slowdown in advertising despite what agencies are projecting and companies like Meta are saying, quoting Chandly, I've heard there's going to be a slowdown in the ad market, anywhere from two to 6%,

Starting point is 00:05:29 but we have not seen it. We're not seeing the headwinds that some others are seeing. 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. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com.

Starting point is 00:06:00 Be protected. Be Zen. So while TikTok claims that it has not seen any negative effects from the adpocalypse, you know which industry has? The mobile app marketing business. In fact, according to new research from ad tech company Bango, more than a quarter of apps are expected to shut down due to this. As a result of Apple's IDFA changes, Google's phase-out of third-party cookies,

Starting point is 00:06:33 and government restrictions, app marketers and developers report that it has never been more difficult to acquire new paying users for their apps. And in a stat I have never seen in a study before, more than 60% of app marketers report they have lost sleep over the matter. In response to this new challenge, two-thirds of app marketers are seeking new, more privacy-friendly targeting techniques that don't, of course, rely on IDFA or cookies. For its part, Bango suggests its product, Purchase Behavior Targeting, which allows app marketers to promote their apps based on similar products customers have already bought

Starting point is 00:07:01 without the need for cookies or IDFA tracking. The biggest retailer in the world is partnering up with a streaming giant in an attempt to make connected TV an e-commerce platform. Yesterday, Walmart and Roku announced consumers will soon be able to purchase items with their remote while streaming Hell's Kitchen or any other Roku show. Here's how it'll work. First of all, Roku will display Walmart's shoppable ads that will let viewers purchase featured products fulfilled by the retail giant. Viewers press OK with the remote on an ad and proceed to checkout with their payment details pre-populated from Roku. By tapping OK on the Walmart checkout page, the order is placed. And finally, of course, a confirmation is emailed to the customer. The shoppable ads will be powered and measured by OneView, Roku's ad buying platform

Starting point is 00:07:58 for TV streaming. Microsoft Advertising announced yesterday it is implementing a new Advertiser Identity Verification Program to ensure that consumers see ads from trusted sources. Now, advertisers will be required to undergo a verification process to establish their legal identity. Advertisers can use government-issued photograph-included personal identity or business-related documents issued by the appropriate regulatory authorities. Once completed, your advertiser details will be displayed to searchers on your ads. Microsoft claims the process is highly automated and it has simplified the procedure to ensure that advertisers can complete it quickly. Snapchat is testing replies in its TikTok-inspired Spotlight feed. Users will be able to reply directly to creators' videos in Spotlight as a way of commenting on videos.

Starting point is 00:08:56 This report coming from Axios. A spokesperson confirmed yesterday that the feature will be called Spotlight Replies, and it'll be different from competitors in that replies will be private by default, but creators will have the option to make them public. Snapchat will test the new reply feature in New Zealand before rolling it out globally to all users. And finally, in case you've ever been curious how we make our podcast, this week I was the guest on the Geopats podcast with Stephanie Fuco. We talked about the importance of narrative structures, building a podcast community, how our monetization works, and other stuff. That episode came out today.

Starting point is 00:09:36 Just look for the Geopats podcast in your favorite podcast app. So logged into our podcast platform to check a couple of things this morning. Discovered that at some point overnight, we crossed a million downloads of this podcast. I got very excited. Then I realized that's only actually on our current hosting platform. We spent many months on Anchor when we started. There were about a quarter of a million downloads there. So one and a quarter million downloads as of today. Thank you so much for listening. Special shout out to subscribers of our premium podcast or

Starting point is 00:10:14 premium newsletter. It means the world to us that you support the work we're doing. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunamik First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is Steph Gunn. Production coordination by Sarah Guild. Podcast music licensing by Source Audio. Ad coordination by Red Circle. And you know, it has been ages since I've seen our theme composer Mark Blevis in person.

Starting point is 00:10:47 I think the last time was when he and I were in a little toy shop, bought a bag of balloons with the money we got, set them free at the break of dawn, till one by one they were gone. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. I'll see you on monday come on if you keep moving like nothing to hurt welcome to the winning circle come on you reach the peak in the land of birds

Starting point is 00:11:10 welcome to the winning circle you ain't stopping nothing no matter the hurdle welcome to the winning circle when there ain't nothing in life that can deter you that's right welcome to the winning circle

Today in Digital Marketing - “Best-Friend Brands”: The New Social Metric

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