Today in Digital Marketing - Clickbait Doesn't Work — and Hasn't for 13 Years

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Clickbait hasn't worked since 2009 — so why do content managers still rely on the practice? Google shares its plan to cut ad tracking from Android mobile apps. Why are holograms making a comeback as a promotional tool? Brand safety in the podcast world.Go Premium! No ads, more stories, audio chapters, and extended weekend episodes — https://todayindigital.com/premiumADVERTISING as low as $20: https://todayindigital.com/ads JOIN OUR SLACK! https://todayindigital.com/slackFOLLOW US: https://todayindigital.com/socialmedia (TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit) ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Please tweet about us! https://b.link/pod-tweet- Rate and review us: https://todayindigital.com/rateus- Leave a voicemail: https://b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- TikTok: https://b.link/pod-tiktok- Twitter: https://b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: https://b.link/pod-linkedin Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (https://b.link/pod-engageq). Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Does your brand need a podcast? Let us help: https://engageQ.com/podcastsOur 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. Today, clickbait hasn't worked since 2009, at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. brand safety in the podcast world, and on the premium podcast with no ads, more stories, and extended weekend episodes. Tap the link in the show notes for more. How keyword sniping the Super Bowl turned into big results for Google advertisers. It's Wednesday, February 16th. I'm Todd Maffin.

Here is what you missed today in digital marketing. Let's be honest. There are some things we do as digital marketers that we know are a little janky, Today in Digital Marketing. do they? Are people more or less likely to share clickbait? Less likely to share clickbait. Raj Mukherjee is an assistant professor of marketing at the Indian Institute of Management. A couple of weeks ago, he and his colleagues published a paper about this in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. I spoke with him earlier today. We have almost 20,000 articles from 27 sources, including the Breitbart and the Washington Post, New York Times, Bleacher Report, a large number of very well-known sources. You note in your paper that BuzzFeed is considered the grandfather of clickbait headlines, but

their own executives have said that clickbait hasn't really worked for them since 2009. And we've seen leaked documents that show that at least between 2011 and 2014, three quarters of BuzzFeed's traffic came from Facebook ads, not from organic clickbait. With that knowledge, why do you think digital marketers continue to use the practice? I would love to know why. The only thing I can think of is that a lot of people do tend to believe that it works as viral content. But you're right, you're quoting Ben Smith, I think, who said that ClickBaid stopped working in 2009 or something like that, right? From BuzzFeed.

They know, they clearly know, right? And they spent a lot of money. So it was a leaked document that showed this, but they spent a lot of money, almost three-fourths of their editorial budget on Facebook traffic. So they are aware, but I'm not entirely sure that other people are at the moment. Raj's paper is called, Did Clickbait Crack the Code on Virality? He joined me today from his office in Bangalore, India. iOS 14.5 is coming to Android phones, or at least the ad tracking changes are. Google today revealed its plans to phase out cross-app tracking in a move that could have

similar effects on advertising as Apple's app tracking transparency changes. Google announced its plans to launch the Privacy Sandbox on Android over several years with the goal of introducing more private advertising solutions. In the current system, each Android device is given a unique identifier called an Advertising ID, which can then be used by developers to target in-app ads. With the new changes, Google will phase out advertising IDs in favor of alternative targeting mechanisms

that it says will be more beneficial to consumer privacy. And they couldn't resist the opportunity to take a shot at Apple. Quoting Google, other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. Our goal with the privacy sandbox on Android is to develop effective and privacy enhancing advertising solutions where users know their information is protected and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile, unquote.

According to the company, it will be working with developers to find the best approach with a beta release by the end of the year. Didn't see this one coming. Apparently, holograms are making a comeback. Holograms were once thought to be the future of advertising, letting brands communicate with consumers, but they never really took off. However, Strategy Magazine reports today that over the last few months, more and more brands are experimenting

with the 3D ad format. A few of the companies that have experimented with holographic advertising in the last couple of months include Nordstrom, which used holograms in stores in December to help people shop the look for the holiday season. Johnny Walker's products in some Canadian liquor stores used holograms to educate and engage shoppers. And the grocery chain Loblaws installed displays in some of its stores to promote its magazine,

as well as inform consumers about the benefits of new products. Why is there a re-emergence of holographic displays in marketing? Holograms enable one-to-one contact without being face-to-face, making them pandemic-friendly, and there is no denying that they certainly catch the attention of consumers. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes.

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Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. 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.

Be protected. Be Zen. Spotify's recent headlines of hosting Joe Rogan's podcast, despite episodes containing misinformation, has brought attention to the importance of brand safety in the audio industry. After all, if you're a risk-averse brand, how do you control what kinds of topics your ads show up beside in a podcast? iHeartMedia today announced a partnership with Soundr to help with that very thing. The brand safety solution will allow iHeartMedia's advertisers to buy spots

with the assurance that the content next to it meets industry safety standards. Soundr, for its part, says its ratings will be used at the discretion of advertisers and not as a means to block creators from the network. Here's how it works. Soundr's technology will transcribe the audio into text, then apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify specific words words or topics determining if they are brand safe. It has been tested on nearly 50 million episodes on the iHeart podcast network and has a 90% accuracy rate in identifying content relating to drugs, alcohol, firearms, and ammunition. Another platform is buckling down on brand safety. TikTok today launched a new brand safety center.

The new center will serve as a central hub for various insights, resources and reports, including the platform's transparency updates, rules and its key pillars for brand safety. It also includes links to various case studies, blog posts on brand safety, an overview of the platform's certification partners, and video overviews of various reports and safety tools. TikTok says it plans to expand its brand safety offerings over the coming months. Microsoft's free website building service, Smart Pages, is now available to all small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. As well as rolling out the site builder to more users, the company will be adding new features. Here are some of them that you can expect in the coming months.

Business owners will be able to embed YouTube or Vimeo videos onto their smart page. Smart pages will generate text suggestions to help business owners fill out more of their information. There will, of course, be a Bing Maps integration, and the social posts section of the interface will be updated to let business owners write updates without having to post them to Facebook first. This is certainly a nice little

addition for businesses which don't want to spend the money on a hosted site or just rely on social media. Another sign that Reddit wants to be taken seriously as an ads platform, it has named Tenuity as its first independent agency partner. And my apologies, Tenuity, if I'm mispronouncing your brand name. It is one of the largest independent performance marketing firms. They serve Amazon, Facebook, Google, and TV streaming platforms. Along with the commercial benefits, the partnership will also provide support for creative strategy provided by Reddit's in-house agency, which it calls Karma Lab.

Access to Reddit measurement experts, customer program learnings, campaign insights and optimizations. You'll also get early access to research commissioned by Reddit, including consumer content patterns within Reddit communities. A couple of quick updates from Google. First, while someone was sharing screens with their Google Ads rep, they noticed that the rep had a keywords tab within the Performance Max setup screen. This person took it to Twitter to ask, why hasn't this been rolled out to more users? Google says, no, no, no, no, you saw nothing. No current plans for a keyword tab in Performance Max campaigns. There are, though, plans for negative keywords at the account level, so maybe that's what he actually saw. Second, Google Business

Profile Manager seems to have removed the option to modify or add a new appointment link to your profile in Google Maps and Google Search. The company has not confirmed whether this is intentional or a bug. And finally, after prohibiting the sale and promotion of COVID-19 test kits on Facebook and Instagram, Meta has changed its mind. The company announced today that legitimate businesses can now sell and promote these products, but peer-to-peer sales will continue to be prohibited. Meta said the reason behind the change of heart is because it recognized, quote, that access to these tests is a challenge in some regions. Another warning that we will be closing new admissions into our Slack community in the coming days as we prepare to transition it to a paid community. So now is the time to get in and be grandfathered in with lifetime free access.

More than 800 of your fellow digital marketers are in there. There's advice on campaign setup and scaling, some exclusive content, jobs get posted there, all sorts of stuff. Tap the link in this episode's notes or go to todayindigital.com slash slack before it is too late. Talk to you tomorrow.