Today in Digital Marketing - Consumers Prefer AI-Written Marketing Copy

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Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. It is Monday, December 4th. Today, a major marketing platform keeps shedding employees. Why Threads isn't going to give you the search capabilities you want. The global ad market will end the year up. And an MIT study finds consumers prefer marketing copy written by AI. I'm Todd Mathen. That's Ahead, Today in Digital Marketing. The marketing platform Twilio, which many marketers use for communications, this morning announced more job cuts, this time about 5% of the total workforce,

Starting point is 00:01:01 which represents hundreds of people. It was only a year ago when the company laid off 11% of its staff, and that was only a few months after it laid off 17% of its total. In terms of staff numbers, according to Twilio's latest earnings release, there are about 5,600 people there now compared to 7,800 a year ago. The CEO told employees in an email that it was, quote, right-sizing, unquote, after a bet on one of their acquisitions didn't pay off as well as they were hoping. The move comes amidst activist shareholder pressure the last couple of weeks. One fund investor wants them to either sell the whole company or at least the data and

Starting point is 00:01:40 applications division. All that said, Twilio's had a great month in terms of share value. It was at about $50 at the beginning of November. It is around $66 now. Threads continues to reap the benefits of the chaos at X, the platform formerly known as Stable. MetaZap is now garnering more daily downloads than X, which has been declining in downloads since September. Since that month, X saw 27 million new downloads. Threads is past 41 million. Most estimates show Threads has about a third the monthly active user base as X. Over the weekend, one more huge advertiser called it quits. Walmart joined the growing list of major brands pulling their ads off the platform. It joins Apple, IBM, Disney, Paramount, Sony, Comcast, and a whole bunch more.

Starting point is 00:02:35 One thing some people believe is holding threads back from being a major player is its lack of real-time search. This is something the former Twitter excelled at. If something was going on in the world, you often searched on Twitter, clicked latest to see a real-time stream of information. It wasn't always the right information, but it was always the fastest. Threads only last week added the ability to search for text in posts,

Starting point is 00:02:59 but many people quickly noticed the results were coming back filtered, sorted, and sent through some kind of ranking algorithm, often surfacing posts days old, which might be what you want, but almost certainly not for when you're looking for very recent information. The head of threads over the weekend said they're worried about real-time search being exploited by spammers. Solutions they're thinking about include highlighting top stories from reputable news outlets, ranking profiles based on trust and relevance, or employing an editorial team to manage topic focus. On the marketing side of things, this means it's not easy to search for your brand or product names. And the only thing we've heard mentioned API-wise is they're collecting ideas for what would be supported in a publishing API. Right now, there are no APIs, meaning no third-party app support.

Starting point is 00:03:55 A recent MIT study has upended previous notions about generative artificial intelligence, such as chat GPT, and their ability to match human writing skills. The study revealed that readers preferred AI-generated content over that created by professional human writers. The research included various content types like product descriptions and persuasive ad campaign material. The four categories tested were human-only content, AI-only content, human content edited by AI, and AI content edited by humans. Surprisingly, the AI-driven content, whether solely produced by AI or edited by it, was favored by the readers. Another significant finding was that revealing the AI origin of the content did not affect its preference. This challenges the traditional view of persuasion as a uniquely human skill, suggesting that AI can excel in this realm within certain constraints.

Starting point is 00:04:56 This study doesn't imply that AI content is always superior to human-created work, as the human subjects worked without editorial input or revisions. However, it highlights that AI can match or surpass the average professional human writer in simple, well-defined, persuasive tasks. But do you think you'd be able to tell the difference? If you said yes, would you change your mind now that I can tell you that I had ChatGPT write this story?

Starting point is 00:05:27 Well, the study is real. The story is true. But AI wrote what I just read. 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. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more.

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Starting point is 00:06:22 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. Global ad spending is expected to be up at the end of the year. Group M projecting a nearly 6% increase. Magna has its numbers at a 5.5% rise. This is definitely welcome news for the industry as a whole,

Starting point is 00:06:48 which has seen significant volatility in inflation and global events. We did see some month-to-month dips, but overall it looks like there is a continued return to normal. Both companies noted a shift in spending away from traditional media like TV and a noticeable move toward retail media networks. There are also some big spending events coming next year, the Olympics, the American elections, and so on. Magnus says when you break out digital ad sales, that part of the pie will be up more

Starting point is 00:07:16 than 10%. Digital now makes up nearly 70% of all ad sales. And finally, Google says it will support rules and supplemental feeds for Google Merchant Center Next in the new year. A spokesperson for Google Ads posted on social media, quote, support for rules and supplemental feeds is coming early next year, and we know they're important to many.

Starting point is 00:07:44 We won't invite merchants using these features to migrate until they're available in GMC Next. All existing rules will continue to function after migrating. If you've migrated to GMC Next and now need to access these features in the meantime, you can switch back to Classic Mode. Change that for my game streaming. Some of you know that I stream on Twitch.

Starting point is 00:08:11 Playing Xbox, I'm really bad at it. My former username was TheRealHeels because I used to play a lot of support characters, but it wasn't a great username. So I was looking for something kind of self-deprecating and funny. I settled on low effort dad. So if you're on Twitch and watch live streamers,

Starting point is 00:08:30 feel free to add me low effort dad. See you tomorrow. Life is a game and I'm just player one. Jump online and start this mission to boost this level. I'm on games. Master doesn't want me to win, but stay in the level. I'm from shame on them them when I clock this game

Starting point is 00:08:46 it's peak when I prove them wrong. It's about time this game gets clocked.

Today in Digital Marketing - Consumers Prefer AI-Written Marketing Copy

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