Today in Digital Marketing - Broken and Buggy

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Thursday, September 19th. Today, broken and buggy. With millions of dollars lost from an unstable ad platform, why isn't Meta prioritizing fixing its site? The new YouTube placement marketers will love but consumers will hate. Google business profiles are being suspended en masse. And the world's most underwhelming logo change is rolled out. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. So our agency, EngageQ, provides engagement and moderation for clients. So one of our most important tools is a third-party engagement platform that brings in comments and mentions from Facebook threads, Instagram, TikTok, and a bunch of other platforms. But for more than a month now, Facebook's API has

Starting point is 00:00:51 had a huge bug. Third-party platforms have been unable to reply to threaded comments. In other words, replies to replies, which actually happens a lot in this business. A month. It's been broken for a month. Meta claims it's working on it, but honestly, who knows? Of course, it's not just the organic side. Marketers have been reporting an increasing number of bugs on Meta's ad platform. And ad buyers now say Meta's automated tools are so broken, some days it burns their budgets. Marketing Brew covered this in detail today. Several media buyers shared their struggles

Starting point is 00:01:31 with the platform, with some opting to avoid AI-powered ad tools altogether. One CMO of digital marketing agency MHI Media faced a costly glitch last month. Instead of targeting younger audiences, mostly on Instagram, for a fashion brand campaign, Meta's automated ad tools shifted to an older 65-plus audience, mostly on Facebook, resulting in a high five-figure loss for his client. As a result, the CMO says he shifted away from Meta's Advantage Plus AI advertising tool in some cases, opting to manually control campaigns to achieve the same performance they once had on the platform. Other buyers echo these frustrations, reporting frequent bugs like ads not loading and budgets being burned through in hours. Meta has logged at least a dozen disruptions to its ad tools since Memorial Day,

Starting point is 00:02:25 with four marked as major. The tech giant, though, denies an uptick in issues. Several buyers told Marketing Brew that Meta's support team, hit by 2023's year of efficiency, has not been particularly helpful in resolving issues either. In response, some buyers are reallocating budgets to TikTok influencers, but some say that for large-scale spending, there's still no place like Meta. As consumers swap channel surfing for scroll surfing, YouTube is stepping up as a major player in the TV game. YouTube now claims 10% of daily TV viewing time in the U.S.,

Starting point is 00:03:06 making it the top platform for time spent watching TV, according to recent data from Nielsen. The platform took the lead over Disney, NBCUniversal, and Netflix. YouTube is the first streaming platform tracked by Nielsen to exceed this daily share of viewership. eMarketer reports today that the platform's growth may be attributed to a surge in sports viewership content. YouTube's CEO told the Financial Times that in the second quarter of this year, sports content alone reached 35 billion hours.

Starting point is 00:03:40 That's a 45% increase year over year. On the other hand, social media is eating TV's lunch, particularly when it comes to Gen Z. Social media use is on the rise across all generations, but Gen Z is leading the way with a projected almost 8% growth this year compared to just under 2% for the general population. Today, eMarketer has some analysis on the three key ways Gen Z is leading social media usage.

Starting point is 00:04:11 First, Instagram usage. Gen Z is set to surpass millennials on Instagram, with forecasts predicting more than 52% million Gen Z users in the U.S. by next year. More than three-quarters of Gen Z will be active on Instagram next year, compared with 70% of millennials. And users aged 18 to 24 will spend an average of 45 minutes per day on Instagram. That's more than any other age group. Second, Reddit. Gen Z is embracing Reddit. With logged-in Gen Z users expected to grow more than 20% in the U.S., reaching 18 million. More than a quarter of the Gen Z population will be Reddit users this year, increasing to 40% by 2028.

Starting point is 00:04:55 It's millennials that currently dominate Reddit, but their share will decline over the next few years, giving way to Gen Z. And third, Facebook relevance. Gen Z is the only generation to increase their usage of Facebook, with projections predicting an 8% rise this year, reaching nearly 34 million users. This year, nearly half of the Gen Z population will be a Facebook user. Google is cracking down on trash and dumpster listings, literally. Search Engine Roundtable reported today that several businesses are voicing concerns in the Google Business Profiles forums about their profiles being suspended. It appears that Google is mass disabling business profiles across specific industries, including dumpster services, garage door companies, and personal injury lawyers.

Starting point is 00:05:49 So if you work in or manage any brands in these sectors, you may want to review your listing. And if you're affected too, consider appealing the decision, avoid any disruptions to your business. For digital marketers aiming to target an engaged audience, podcasts have emerged as the most trusted source of news among U.S. registered voters. According to a new survey from Vox Topica, 85% of respondents trust podcasts more than any other news and information source,

Starting point is 00:06:22 including newspapers, TV, radio, and social media. Almost 80% of voters agree that podcasts encourage them to explore news topics further, while more than 60% believe these shows can shift their opinions on various issues. How many registered voters are tuning in? Nearly half of those surveyed listen to at least one podcast per week. One-third say they consume five or more episodes per week. We have the full report in today's email newsletter, which you can sign up to by tapping the link at minimalism and may or may not have been created in Microsoft Word. The redesign, as they're calling it, marks a pretty stark contrast to its previous logo, which, if you remember, featured a dynamic slant, two shades of blue, and the prominent

Starting point is 00:07:25 PayPal peas. PayPal says this change will help distinguish it from the sea of fintech brands that use blue tones. Now, it just looks like the basic black Arial font. The CMO probably paid like $100,000 for this rebrand, by the way. Would you run an ad if the CPM were $1? Well, if you're trying to reach marketing decision makers, consider an ad on this podcast or newsletter. Together, we reach nearly 10,000 people. Some ad slots are currently just $10. That is a $1 CPM. Tap the link at the top of the show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash ads. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

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Today in Digital Marketing - Broken and Buggy

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