Today in Digital Marketing - Brake and Buy

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

This week: The hack to get your brand web traffic from Reddit... big changes to Google's Local Services Ads... Will YouTube's milestone this week change your video ad creative? And it's happened folks — unskippable ads playing... in your car..📰 Get our free daily newsletter🌍 Follow us on social media or contact us📈 Advertising: Reach Thousands of Marketing Decision-Makers.GO PREMIUM!Get these exclusive benefits when you upgrade:✅ Listen ad-free✅ Back catalog of 20+ marketing science interviews✅ Get the show earlier than the free version✅ Member-only monthly livestreams with TodAnd a lot more! Check it out: todayindigital.com/premium✨ Premium tools: Update Credit Card • Cancel.MORE🆘 Need help with your social media? Check us out: engageQ digital🌟 Rate and Review Us🤝 Our Slack.UPGRADE YOUR SKILLSGoogle Ads for Beginners with Jyll Saskin GalesInside Google Ads: Advanced with Jyll Saskin GalesFoxwell Slack Group and Courses.Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. Associate producer: Steph Gunn.Some links in these show notes may provide affiliate revenue to us.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. It is Friday, February 14th. Be protected. Be Zen. It's finally happened, folks. Unskippable ads playing in your car. I'm Todd Maffin. All that ahead in our Friday wrap-up of the week in digital marketing. Ad buyers this past week pointed the finger at Google, Amazon, and brand safety firms like Integral Ad Science and Double Verify after ads for major brands like Sony, Pepsi, and the NFL reportedly showed up on image hosting sites

sometimes flagged for hosting child sexual abuse material. Two senators criticized Google and Amazon for failing to provide clear ad placement data, saying that without access to exact URLs, advertisers can't ensure that their ads aren't appearing next to illegal or policy-violating content. Advertisers typically only get domain-level reports, not exact URLs, leaving them in the

dark about where their ads show up. Amazon declined to say if URL-level reporting is available, while Google said it may be, depending on the campaign. Both companies have since blocked the flagged sites. Display and Video 360 has launched some updates for YouTube ads. Pause ads are now available for Instant Deals customers, enabling ads during video pauses on connected TVs. Enhanced content control now lets advertisers exclude ads from appearing alongside sensitive themes. And improved frequency management will now let you set monthly impression goals. Still with advertising and Google, Campaign Manager 360 has some new integrations. Adobe Gen Studio will now let you send creative assets directly to Campaign Manager.

The Trade Desk has some more tracking options. And Netflix is working with the company to expand its ad placement options inside that. Some advertisers this week voicing frustration over a drop in lead quality for local services ads, with some blaming the recent shift to the new automated ads credit system, which removed the options for advertisers to manually request lead credits for poor quality leads. On social media, one marketer said Google's move was a money grab and saying it started, quote, in shitifying all the leads with a ton of out-of-industry, out-of-city leads that are pure garbage, unquote.

Now, businesses have to pay for those low-quality leads with no way to dispute them, he said. Ginny Marvin, Google's ads liaison, defended the changes, saying the new system results in more credits, not less. But this particular marketer wasn't buying it. He said he reached out to agencies managing multiple LSA accounts, and they all reported a big decline in lead quality over the last few months. The Super Bowl pulled in 128 million viewers on Fox,

setting records for the biggest Super Bowl audience and the largest single network telecast in TV history. Fox-owned Tubi, which stream for the biggest Super Bowl audience and the largest single network telecast in TV history. Fox-owned Tubi, which streamed the game for free, saw an average minute audience of 13.5 million, peaking at 15.5 million concurrent streams. Snapchat wants your ad dollars, the platform going all in on small and medium-sized businesses, expanding its direct response business with some new data partnerships, new ad products, and automation tools all announced this week. Apparently, SMBs were the biggest driver of its ad revenue growth last year, but kept

the breakdown of its $5.3 billion in revenue under wraps. Meta is expanding its support for third-party ad placement block lists by adding integrations with DoubleVerify and Zephyr alongside its existing partnership with IAS. Advertisers can work directly with IAS, DoubleVerify, or Zephyr to select the categories that they want to block. MetaSet-approved partners can create block lists for any category, as long as they follow its discriminatory practices policy with reporting consistent with its standards.

The Trade Desk stock plummeted 26% this week after its first ever quarterly earnings miss, despite posting a 23% revenue increase in Q4 to $741 million, but the company had forecasted $756 million. Microsoft Ads is facing criticism over invalid traffic and junk leads. Ad agencies Aim Clear this week reported that fake leads like spam bots and non-human traffic are affecting campaigns over on that platform. The agency claims hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted spend due to unreliable leads and was requesting the company to compensate it. And finally, in our roundup of the advertising news, Applovin's ad revenue surged 73% to almost a billion dollars in Q4, driving a 30% jump in shares this week.

The mobile gaming giant, which generates revenue from placing games in ads, reported a 45% revenue increase, surpassing expectations. All right, to social media now. Consumers are now watching more YouTube on TVs than phones, with viewers watching more than a billion hours of content on their TVs every day. YouTube has been the most watched streaming service for the past two years in the

U.S., according to Nielsen. YouTube TV has 8 million subscribers, while YouTube Premium and Music subscriptions have 100 million. These numbers are consistent with last year. YouTube is expanding its text-to-speech feature for shorts, now available on iOS in addition to Android. Creators can add text to have it narrated, control the start and end points with four voice options to choose from. It's also updating its profile cards on Studio Mobile to match the app's overall design. This new pop-up format will show a quick user overview

within the Studio display, but keeping the same functionality. So news leaked this week that BuzzFeed is considering building its own social platform to rival major players and offer an alternative to the right-leaning masculine shift in American popular culture. The CEO said the company wants to avoid relying on tech giants for its content distribution. Meta's layoffs are underway. According to reports, employees across Asia, Europe, and the U.S. started receiving notifications this week. The company plans to cut 5% of its workforce, meaning about 4,000 jobs could be affected.

Instagram plans to test new features in its upcoming CapCut-style edits app set to launch next month. Instagram's head, Adam Massouri, said that since Instagram and edits share the same code base, new features would likely be trialed in edits first and then integrated into Instagram if successful. Reddit has partnered with Intercontinental Exchange to create data and analytics products for the financial industry. The collaboration will connect trends and discussions on Reddit to market analysis,

using insights from posts and comments to create new tools for portfolio optimization and trading. Incidentally, Reddit shares dropped more than 15% this week after missing user growth estimates in Q4. And finally, in our wrap up of social media news this week, US federal workers say they are ditching meta platforms like Facebook altogether and moving sensitive chats to encrypted apps like Signal. The Verge reported that rising concerns over government surveillance, especially under U.S. President Trump and his top campaign funder Elon Musk, have fueled distrust, with some fearing tech companies could share user data with the government.

To influencer marketing now, and His Majesty's Revenue and Customs Organization in the U.S. is cracking down on British influencers earning from side hustles like live shopping and affiliate marketing. The new rules target those making at least $1,244 from secondary income sources like eBay and Airbnb. And TikTok released its Discover list, highlighting the platform's rising creators across categories like educators, foodies, icons, innovators, and originators. It's also launched a new lookbook, giving each creator a profile to showcase their work, like that guy who made cucumber salads go viral. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do,

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Get started for free today. All right, turning to search marketing now. And Google this week said almost no one uses search to find and watch YouTube videos. This came in court as it defends against antitrust claims from the right-leaning video platform Rumble. Rumble alleges that Google uses its monopoly to prioritize YouTube videos over

rivals, arguing that once its videos are placed above others in search results, competitors just can't compete on Android home screens. But Google said search traffic accounts for less than 1% of total YouTube views. This may be the first company that Google has disclosed this stat, suggesting that most users find videos directly on YouTube. The judge has yet to rule in the case. Reddit is dominating search results lately on Google, even though its links are typically marked as nofollow. But Joy Hawkins from the Canadian SEO agency Sterling Sky tested whether these nofollow links could still impact rankings. To test this, Hawkins posted on Reddit linking to her site with anchor text. The post was relevant. It added value to the discussion. She assured everyone it wasn't spam and included a targeted keyword in the anchor text. Two weeks later, the targeted keyword

went from position 25 to position 10, all from a single no follow link. Why did this work? Hawkins says the key factor was the context. The Reddit thread itself ranked well on Google already and received lots of organic traffic. Using anchor text also helped. If you try this, Hawkins suggests making sure the Reddit thread isn't spammy or low traffic, as it likely won't give you the same results. Google is testing a new share list button for local pack place results, letting users share local listings directly from the search results. The company also this week confirmed an issue causing some business profiles to show incorrect review counts. Google says the reviews haven't been removed. It's just a display glitch.

They were working on a fix and were restoring accurate counts this week. And finally, in our search news, there's chatter in the SEO community this week that Google image search may be downranking AI-generated images in favor of non-AI ones. Some users reported a big drop in image traffic in late January, despite steady web traffic leading to speculation about some kind of new quality metric involving AI images. Google has yet to

comment on the matter. To commerce news now, and Amazon is about to feature products it doesn't even sell. The company is testing a new Shop Brand Sites Directly option that will direct shoppers off of Amazon to the brand site to complete the purchase if Amazon doesn't carry that product. When users search for a brand or item, they'll see Amazon's offerings alongside select products from external brands. Clicking on these will take shoppers to the brand's website with a pop-up alert that they're leaving Amazon. If the brand uses the buy with Prime options, users can still get Prime benefits like free

shipping. It is not clear if Amazon is getting a cut. Amazon's Q4, incidentally, saw strong growth with ad revenue up 18%. Online store sales grew 7% to $75 billion. Physical stores rose 8.3%. Third-party seller services rose 9%. Subscriptions up 9.7%. Overall, net sales grew 10% to $188 billion. TikTok, meanwhile, is expanding its in-stream shopping push to Latin America, with the platform set to launch TikTok Shop in Mexico this month. Merchants in Mexico were invited to join TikTok Shop in January, with transactions starting in February. To sweeten the deal, local merchants were invited to join TikTok shop in January, with transactions starting in February. To sweeten the deal, local merchants were eligible to sign up and be exempt from commission fees for

the first 90 days. TikTok is adding a most loved tag to top rated TikTok shop products. The badges factor in return rates, shipping times and customer service feedback, while users can influence rankings by leaving feedback on purchased items. And finally, in commerce news, Shopify reported its Q4 earnings as well this week, warning that its free cash flow margin could drop to the mid-teens this quarter, down from 22% in the final quarter of last year. Shares fell nearly 2% on that news. Shopify's revenue in Q4 did increase by a healthy amount, 30%, to $2.8 billion. The company is projecting revenue growth will slow to a percentage in the mid-20s in Q1 of this year.

And finally, Jeep owners this week are reporting that their in-car displays are now showing relentless pop-up ads, pushing them to buy the FlexCare plan every time they stop at a red light. Apparently, there's no way to turn it off. A company called Stellantis apparently is the firm responsible for it. It said the ad was part of an in-vehicle message about its extended vehicle care options. But a software bug had affected the ability to opt out. Those were the top digital marketing stories over the last five days. You'd have gotten all this news earlier if you were signed up to our email newsletter, which comes out every weekday at 5 o'clock Eastern and is completely free to sign up at todayindigital.com slash newsletter.

Tuesday, on our weekly deep dive episode, our Google Ads correspondent Jill Saskin-Gales will be here to bring us up to speed on all the changes on that platform in the last month, including the surprise introduction of negative keywords in Performance Max campaigns. Follow us on social media. We are on Blue Sky, Mastodon, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest. Go to todayindigital.com slash social or tap the link in the show notes. Follow me on Blue Sky at toddmaffin.com. Thanks for listening. Have a restful weekend. If you're in Canada, a long weekend. The next newsletter is out Tuesday because of the holiday on Monday, and I will be back in your podcast feed on that day. boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.