Today in Digital Marketing - Can Bing Finally Dethrone Google?

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, February 1st. Today, will Microsoft's plans to build ChatGPT into Bing be the best decision in the company's history? Ad buyers remain bullish on podcasts. TikTok's audience is proving too tempting for marketers. Snapchat's peculiar plan to boost revenue. And do we really need to say this? Stop sharing your customers' personal health data

Starting point is 00:00:23 with ad platforms. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. As the AI search wars heat up, Google may finally face some competition for its position as the number one search engine. Semaphore reporting today that in the next few weeks, Microsoft's second place search engine Bing will incorporate the latest version of ChatGPT, known as GPT-4. Sources say the main difference between the ChatGPT that you may have played with on the web and this new GPT-4 is speed. According to the report, the updated software responds to queries much faster and provides more detailed responses. With this new integration, Bing would be able to provide users with human-like answers, rather than displaying a list of links it thinks might have the answer in them.

Starting point is 00:01:12 Semaphore also reported that OpenAI is planning to launch a mobile chat GPT app in the future and test a new feature in its DALL-E image-generating software that would create videos using AI. Neither OpenAI nor Microsoft would comment. Google, meanwhile, is sweating, but a new report from CNBC gives us some details on how the search giant is preparing to respond to the threat of chat GPT. According to the report, the company is currently testing an AI chatbot of its own called ApprenticeBard, which offers responses to questions posed using natural language just like its chat GPT rival. A big advantage for Bard is the ability to discuss recent events, a feature chat GPT doesn't have yet.

Starting point is 00:01:57 The company is also testing alternate versions of its homepage, according to designs viewed by CNBC. One version replaces the current I'm feeling lucky button with prompts for potential questions. Quoting the report, When a question is answered, the search results show a gray bubble directly underneath the search bar, offering more human-like responses than typical search results. Directly beneath that, the page suggests several follow-up questions related to the first one. Under that, it shows typical search results, including links and headlines, unquote. As The Verge points out, this design may be reminiscent of ChatGPT's homepage, which lists example questions, capabilities, and limitations above a search box.

Starting point is 00:02:42 The ad market slowdown hasn't come for podcasts. Digiday reporting today that podcast ad buyers haven't seen any significant budget cuts from their clients. Rather, brands are continuing to spend more on podcast advertising. According to a new survey from, incidentally, podcast company Acast, which obviously has a dog in this fight, two-thirds of marketers expect to increase their ad spend in the format year over year. As for marketers who have previously purchased podcast ads, more than 80% expect to increase their spend on the medium. While advertisers remain bullish on podcasts, the fervor that swirled around the medium during the pandemic appears to be waning.

Starting point is 00:03:22 Digiday noted that podcasts are considered just one of many channels brands can put their dollars into now, rather than the shiny new place they used to be. The controversy surrounding TikTok's data sharing continues, so how will that impact its ad businesses? Advertisers apparently don't care. Adweek reporting today that in spite of the sensitive nature of the allegations against the company, history has shown it will have a limited impact on ad spend. An analyst for market research company Insider Intelligence told Adweek, quote, at this point, for most advertisers, the audience on TikTok is just too good to resist, unquote. While other platforms are seeing declines in time spent, 2024 projections show that adults in the U.S. will spend nearly a fifth of their social media time on TikTok.

Starting point is 00:04:15 As a result, the platform has become an increasingly valuable tool in the performance marketing toolbox. Meanwhile, Insider Intelligence reports that TikTok's U.S. ad revenue is expected to grow to nearly $7 billion this year from $5 billion last year. That said, U.S. lawmakers still want to hear from the company. We recently reported that TikTok's CEO is scheduled to testify in March about the app's privacy and security practices. Although it's unclear what will take place during the congressional testimony, Adweek notes it will be another consideration for marketers about where they put their spend. 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. Be protected. Be Zen. Snapchat is searching for new sources of revenue with plans to start monetizing its Snap Streak feature. Business Insider reporting today that the company is considering a 99-cent charge

Starting point is 00:05:28 that will let users maintain a streak of having sent a Snap to a friend for a consecutive number of days, even if they missed a day. So yeah, a dollar and you could cheat. Some users have hundreds or even thousands of consecutive days of Snaps with friends on the app. Thus, Insider sources said there's a considerable amount of anxiety associated with breaking a streak, and users often try to get their streaks restored by contacting support. Quoting Business Insider, with the option to pay for the restoration of a missed day, users won't have to wait, and Snap will make incremental revenue that could, in theory, become a large amount. If 10% of Snap's daily users paid for one streak restoration a month, that would be more

Starting point is 00:06:11 than $400 million in annual revenue, unquote. The company could certainly benefit from expanding its revenue options given its recent Q4 performance review. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Snapchat did add 12 million more active users, and Snapchat Plus subscriptions grew, but revenue fell short of market expectations. While Snapchat's revenue did increase in Q4, the problem is that the US and Canada account for the majority of that spend, with other markets lagging far behind. Despite gaining users, its revenue per user has decreased year over year. So while it's adding users, it's not generating revenue at the same scale. The company, however, saw an increase in subscriptions due to its premium tier.

Starting point is 00:06:56 In Q4, Snapchat Plus received more than 2 million paying subscribers. While that's a nice extra revenue stream, as Social Media Today points out, take-up is generally limited with social media subscriptions like Twitter Blue, and with only 2 million subscribers, that's still just half of 1% of Snapchat's active user base that's willing to pay extra for those add-on features. And that will bring us to the lightning round. TikTok has added new video insights in Ads Manager. The new data includes comparative ad performance versus industry benchmarks, frame-by-frame engagement, ad spending over time, audience breakdown, and comment analysis by sentiment and theme. The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. has fined healthcare tech company GoodRx $1.5 million for sharing personal data about its users' prescriptions with Facebook and Google.

Starting point is 00:07:58 The company's also agreed to a first-of-its-kind provision that bans it from sharing health data with third parties for advertising. The court order still has yet to be federally approved. ChatGPT's creator has developed a free tool for detecting AI-generated text, and that tool seems to be absolutely terrible. The company warned that the tool, called Classifier, sometimes incorrectly but confidently, that's their words, labels human-written text as AI. It also said it wasn't even clear if a BuzzFeed News article was written by AI. Despite the notice at the bottom of the pieces that read,

Starting point is 00:08:29 this article was written entirely by ChatGPT. The company says the tool is still a work in progress. And Twitter has killed its co-tweets feature before that bird even got a chance to fly. The experimental feature lets two accounts co-author and publish posts. The company posted an update yesterday that said it would be sunsetting the feature immediately. It's taken me longer and longer these days to get the show all put together. I'm not proud of the reason why.

Starting point is 00:09:05 I have Court TV on a side monitor all day long. And you know that case in the U.S.? It's like some guy, I don't know, in the South somewhere, is accused of murdering his wife and his son. How did I become this person? How did I become a true crime fan? I blame the OG podcast Serial, but I'm following it on YouTube at night. There's a podcast, like, please help me. Please help me. Our LinkedIn newsletter is called the

Starting point is 00:09:31 Top Story. It sends you our top digital marketing story every day directly to your inbox and your LinkedIn feed. You can sign up for that at todayindigital.com slash top story. There's also a link in the show notes and join our Slack community. There's almost a thousand people in there now. That's todayindigital.com slash Slack, or again, tap the link in the show notes. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Can Bing Finally Dethrone Google?

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