Today in Digital Marketing - Everything is Made Up and the Search Ads Don't Matter

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

A huge sea change in how consumers find deals could change where you spend your ad dollars — and Google isn’t going to like it. Meta changes its mind on a big policy — and you aren’t going to like it. And hope you’ve got backups for those backups — what’s behind the mass failing of thousands of hard drives.Links to today's stories📰 Get our free daily newsletter📈 Advertising: Reach Thousands of Marketing Decision-Makers🌍 Follow us on social media or contact usGO 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✅ “Skip to story” audio chapters✅ Member-only monthly livestreams with TodAnd a lot more! Check it out: todayindigital.com/premium✨ Premium tools: Update Credit Card • CancelMORE🆘 Need help with your social media? Check us out: engageQ digital🌟 Rate and Review Us🤝 Our SlackUPGRADE YOUR SKILLSGoogle Ads for Beginners with Jyll Saskin GalesInside Google Ads: Advanced with Jyll Saskin GalesFoxwell Slack Group and CoursesToday 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

It is Monday, September 16th. Today, a huge sea change in how consumers find deals could change where you spend your ad dollars, and Google isn't going to like it. Meta changes its mind on a big policy, and you aren't going to like it. And hope you've got backups for those backups. What's behind the mass failing of thousands of hard drives?

I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. Consumers are no longer relying on search engines to find special offers online and in stores. Instead, 44% of American consumers now say they discover deals through in-store advertising or ads on the retailer's own website. This number jumps to 51% in the UK. The study by Covio Research also found that email is still a popular way to find deals,

36% of consumers turning to their online inboxes. This shift in discovery, of course, could impact where we digital advertisers spend our money this holiday season. It also found that 59% of shoppers plan to cut everyday purchases to prioritize gifting budgets. Advertisers may focus on platforms like Instagram, where 35% of survey respondents say they find deals. Gen Z and millennials are most likely to discover deals on social media at 65% and 50% respectively. Also, spontaneous purchases are on the rise. 45% of consumers say fashion, shoes, and apparel are their top online impulse buy. But these buys can come with a cost for marketers, as high return rates force retailers to extend return reimbursement timeframes.

To encourage consumers to spend more, the study authors recommend retailers offer free shipping, special offers, and personalized recommendations. As TikTok heads to court to argue against a U.S. ban, its parent company ByteDance is pushing a newer social app, Lemon 8, to the top of the U.S. app store. This app is often described as a cross between Pinterest and Instagram, and it's seen a surge in downloads, though that's coming mostly from increased advertising. This move appears to be a backup plan in case TikTok is removed from the U.S. market or divested from its Chinese parent company. To achieve its latest ranking, ByteDance has invested in a massive Apple search ads campaign using 5,300 keywords in the past week

alone. The company has also been running ads for Lemonade on TikTok, driving users' curiosity. Many TikTok creators are promoting the app on their profiles, some without disclosing if they are being paid to do so. According to app figures, Lemon8 received 78,000 estimated downloads on Saturday. That's a 44% increase from its average over the last few weeks. The app has seen 16 million global downloads this year, with 6.4 million coming from the U.S. Social media managers rejoice. TikTok is testing a new feature that lets users start over with their in-app video projects by removing all edits and recreating their clips.

It's called a delete and re-edit option. It's currently in testing. It would undo any edits made to videos within the app. Now, this feature only applies to edits made within TikTok, so not those made in third-party apps like CapCut. But for users who edit and create their clips entirely within the app, this could be a game-changer. It would let them easily redo their clips if they come up with a better idea

or want to try a different approach after they have published the video. While users can already delete and start again if they have the original video in their camera roll, this would make it easier for those who work entirely within the app. TikTok has not yet rolled out a date for the future, but it could be a valuable update for users who primarily edit and create their clips within the app. Meta will start using UK, Facebook, and Instagram's users' public posts to train its AI. The plan was put on hold three months ago because of concerns from the UK data privacy regulators. Meta says it's made changes to its plan to address those concerns. It'll make it easier for users to object to having their data used and give them more time to do so.

That option simply doesn't exist at all outside the UK and Europe. The company says it will also display objection forms more prominently on Facebook and Instagram. The UK's Information Commissioner's Office says it will be watching closely to make sure Meta follows the law.

The ICO has not given regulatory approval for Meta's new plan, and it's up to Meta follows the law. The ICO has not given regulatory approval for Meta's new plan, and it's up to Meta to demonstrate ongoing compliance. UK users will start seeing in-app alerts about the model training next week. They will also be given information on how to prevent their data from being processed. The actual AI model training

will begin in the next few months. Meta says this will help its AI models reflect British culture and allow UK companies model training will begin in the next few months. Meta says this will help its AI models reflect British culture and allow UK companies to use the latest technology. Companies with old backups listen up. Storage company Iron Mountain says about one-fifth of the hard drives it stores from the 1990s are completely unreadable. This is a particularly big problem for the music industry, which relies on these archives to store and protect its valuable content. Musicians and studios are finding that even when they store their hard drives at industry-standard

temperatures and humidity, they can still fail. There's often no way to recover the data, leaving the content lost forever. The problem isn't limited to hard drives. Other storage formats like optical media, magnetic media, and flash storage can also fail over time. And it's not limited to the music industry. Any company that has archives on hard disks from the 90s are now said to be at risk. Guys, should I feel weird that you all love this AI podcast thing that we're playing at the end of a couple of episodes? Should I feel threatened? Really, level with me here. I'm enjoying it as much as you are. If you haven't listened, Google came out a couple of days ago

with this thing called Notebook LM, where you basically put in some text or a webpage. We've been feeding it marketing topics on Wikipedia, And it creates a podcast, a conversation between two people that really does a great job of explaining complicated concepts. So we're going to do another one at the end of today's episode. It's on marketing mix modeling. But first, I want to take you back about five years or so. Five years ago, I was listening to a great podcast. It's still out there called the Tech Meme Ride Home, which is just basically a few headline stories. It's like the top five or six stories in the world of tech. And he puts it out every day.

And I thought there's got to be one of these shows for the marketing industry, right? And there wasn't. I couldn't find one. So I created one. Five years ago today, the first episode of Today in Digital Marketing came out. Other than the music, it sounds, I think, pretty much identical to what we ended up with.

Here's what the start of the very first episode five years ago today sounded like. It's Monday, September 16th, 2019. I'm Todd Maffin. Today, Facebook may be shutting down an important part of link ads. LinkedIn finally joins the live video party and expect another placement in your Facebook ads manager. Good news, especially for hyper local brands. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing.

No, it wasn't just you a huge bug on Instagram. Yeah. Other than kind of a crappier Mike back then, uh, it's basically the same. So thank you for being part of this. Thank you for listening. And in honor of the fifth anniversary, we have a special very rare

sale going on for our premium podcast that'll bring you ad free episodes, skip to story audio chapters, access to my course on starting an agency. You get the episodes earlier. There's more than 20 deep dive marketing science episodes waiting for you. Just go to today in digital dot com slash premium for 50% off. And that's not for like three months and then it jacks up. No, 50% off for life. So check it out todayindigital.com slash premium. This goes until the end of the week.

So if it is after September 23rd, when you listen to it, it's too late. All right. As promised, here is the Google AI thingamajiggy on the topic of marketing mix modeling. Ever feel like companies are whispering a secret code? Like they're trying to make us buy their stuff. Yeah. It's like there's this whole hidden world of marketing going on behind the scenes, right? Exactly.

And today we're cracking that code with marketing mix modeling or MMM for those who know. You've got your notes and articles ready. Locked and loaded. Perfect. Because we're about to take a deep dive into how marketers really measure what works and what doesn't. It's true. There's a whole science behind those ads and promotions we see every day. Okay.

So we've all heard of the marketing mix, those classic four Ps. Right. Product, price, place. And promotion. But what's fascinating about MMM is it takes those foundational elements, adds a layer of hardcore data analysis, and helps us see which levers actually make the cash register sing. It's like having x-ray vision into consumer behavior. That's the power of MMM. So instead of throwing darts in the dark, hoping something sticks, it's about making those

data-driven decisions. You know, getting the biggest bang for your buck. Exactly. And what's interesting is the concept of the marketing mix itself isn't new. Oh, really? Yeah. It actually dates back to the 1940s when a marketing professor named Neil Borden. Neil Borden. Okay. He compared building a marketing strategy to a chef mixing ingredients. Talk about being ahead of his time, right? Yeah, absolutely. Just like you wouldn't just throw random ingredients together

hoping for a delicious meal. You'd end up with a disaster. Exactly. You need the right proportions, the right timing to cook up marketing success. And while those initial four P's, product, price, promotion, and place are still the foundation, the recipe has definitely gotten more complex.

Right, because today it's about so much more than just the product itself. It's about the entire customer journey, right? Absolutely. From the moment they hear about your brand to that satisfying add to cart click. And that's where MMM swoops in to help us measure the impact of all those touch points. Precisely. It's about understanding not just that someone bought your product, but what influenced them along the way. Did they see a social media ad, grab a coupon, walk past your storefront at just the right time?

MMM helps us connect those dots. It's like piecing together a puzzle where each marketing activity is a piece. And just like any good puzzle, you need the right tool to solve it. In the case of MMM, that tool is data and lots of it. We're talking sales figures, marketing spend, even external factors like economic trends or seasonality. All of that gets fed into a giant marketing equation. Okay, before we get lost in the weeds of this giant marketing equation, let's make this really tangible.

You've got some great examples in your research, real world scenarios where MMM was used to decode what was actually working. Absolutely. And many of them hinge on a key distinction, the difference between base sales and incremental sales. Okay, let's break that down for our listener. It's like the difference between a cake

that's good on its own versus one that's made even better with frosting, right? Exactly. Base sales are your baseline, what you'd sell even without any marketing. Think of it as the inherent appeal of your product or brand. Then you have incremental sales,

those extra sales driven directly by your marketing efforts, like the boost you get from a perfectly targeted ad. So it's about understanding what you would have sold anyway versus what you sold because of your marketing magic. And that's where MMM gets really powerful, right? Absolutely. By isolating those incremental sales, you can start to see which marketing activities are truly moving the needle. And which ones might need a little help. So we've established that MMM helps us separate those base sales from the marketing driven ones. But where things get really interesting and where your research gets super insightful is in seeing how MMM tackles specific marketing channels. Absolutely. It's one thing to know your marketing is working. It's another to pinpoint exactly which levers are packing the biggest punch. And that's where those real world examples you mentioned come in.

Exactly. So let's dive into a big one, media and advertising. I mean, companies pour billions into ads every year, but knowing if they're actually hitting the mark is the million dollar question, right? It's true. And it's a question MMM is uniquely equipped to answer because it goes beyond just looking at how much you spend on an ad campaign. It can actually dissect the timing, the placement, even the creative elements

to see what resonated with your target audience. There's that x-ray vision you were talking about. I've got an example here from my notes that blew my mind a little. It talks about how MMM can track the impact of a single TV ad. It's true. Imagine you're launching a new energy drink and you've got that edgy late-night commercial running. MMM can analyze sales data alongside those precise ad airtimes to pinpoint if it's truly

resonating with your target demographic. Those night owls looking for a boost. So you can actually see if that prime time slot is worth the premium price tag or if maybe a shorter, punchier ad earlier in the evening would give you more bang for your buck. Exactly. And it's not just about TV. Of course, we can apply the same granular analysis to digital ads. Print, even those billboards you whiz by on the highway, MMM, can help you see which messages are making people hit the brakes and which ones are just blending into the background. It's like that old saying, half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half. MMM to the rescue.

Precisely. It takes the guesswork out of those advertising decisions. But let's not forget about those other lurking tactics that are constantly vying for our attention. Oh, you mean like those tempting buy one, get one free offers that somehow always end up in my shopping cart? Exactly. Those trade promotions are a marketing staple. But their effectiveness can vary wildly. That's where MMM comes in to provide some much needed clarity.

Because let's be honest, we've all fallen victim to a good sale. But do those promotions actually drive long term growth or are they just a temporary sugar rush? That's the million dollar question. And MMM can help us find the answer. It can track sales lift during a promotion and compare it to your baseline. So if you normally sell 100 boxes of cereal a week, but during your 50% off promotion, that number jumps to 500 MMM, can help you determine if those extra sales are truly worth the discounted price. Precisely. And it can also reveal which types of promotions resonate best with your audience. Maybe those flashy displays are eye-catching. But it's the coupons that really

drive purchases, or perhaps a bundled offer is the key to increasing basket size. It's about understanding not just the people are buying, but what's motivating them to do so, which makes me think about another crucial aspect of marketing pricing, even as a consumer. I know a small price change, even a few cents, can make me reconsider a purchase. Absolutely. And that's where MM's ability to measure price elasticity comes into play. It can tell you how sensitive your customers are to price changes, giving you valuable insights for optimizing your pricing strategy. We're back with the deep dive, exploring the intricate world of marketing mix modeling, you know. Still cracking that marketing code. Exactly. We've seen how it decodes the effectiveness of ads, promotions, even the impact of those

tiny price tags. It's amazing what you can learn from a few data points. Right. But just when you thought we'd reached peak marketing intelligence, there's another layer to unravel. Oh, yeah. MMM is constantly evolving. It's like it's got this secret weapon.

OK, I'm intrigued. Lay it on me. We call it the Bayesian approach. Bayesian approach. My notes mention something about it being like a constantly updating prediction machine. It's true. It's next level stuff. Think of traditional MMM as taking a snapshot.

Okay. It's a snapshot of your marketing's impact at a specific moment in time. Bayesian MMM, on the other hand, is like watching a live video feed. It's constantly learning, constantly refining its predictions based on the latest data. So as you feed it new information, like maybe a sudden shift in consumer behavior, it adapts. Exactly. Makes his model even more accurate and insightful. That's incredible. It's like having a crystal ball that gets clearer the more you use it. I like that, a crystal ball. Right. But instead of vague predictions, you get actionable insights. And this Bayesian twist unlocks some incredible benefits.

My notes mentioned something about long-term advertising effects. That's a big one. Traditional MMM might miss those because it's focused on those immediate results. But we know brand building and customer loyalty, those things take time. Exactly. Bayesian MMM can actually track that impact with impressive accuracy. It's not just about the immediate sales spike after an ad airs. It's about nurturing those long-term relationships that really drive sustainable growth. And that's what it's all about, right?

Sustainable growth. Absolutely. And here's another game changer. Bayesian MMM helps you identify those tipping points where more spending doesn't necessarily lead to more sales. Because you can only throw so much money at a campaign. At a certain point, you're just, you know. Throwing money away. Exactly. It's about being smarter, not just bigger with your budget. So you're not just throwing more money at a campaign that's reached its peak effectiveness. Right.

You can actually see when it's time to shift gears, maybe reallocate those dollars to a different channel or try a new creative approach. Data driven decisions all the way. But and I think this is important to remember, even with all this incredible data and analysis, it's not a magic crystal ball. It's not going to predict the future with 100% certainty. Exactly. No guarantees in marketing. So what are some of those limitations we should be aware of? One key thing is that MMM primarily focuses on quantifiable data, like sales figures and website clicks.

Hard numbers. Yes. And it can be trickier to measure those more intangible aspects of marketing. Like how someone feels when they see a logo or hear a jingle. Exactly. Brand perception, customer satisfaction, word of mouth buzz. Those things are harder to put a number on. So while MMM can give you incredibly valuable insights into what's driving those bottom line results,

it's important to use it alongside those other marketing measurement tools. Absolutely. Think of it like having other marketing measurement tools. Absolutely. Think of it like having a well-stocked toolkit. You wouldn't rely on just a hammer to build a house, would you? You need a saw, nails, a level. Right. All those tools work together. And MMM is just one tool in the marketing arsenal.

A powerful tool. Absolutely. But it's most effective when used alongside other forms of analysis. And let's not forget good old fashioned human intuition. So it's about bringing all of those perspectives together to create a holistic view of your marketing efforts. I like that. So as we wrap up our deep dive into the world of MMM, what's the one key takeaway you want our listener to walk away with? I want them to understand that behind those ads they see, the sales they encounter,

the products they buy, there's a whole world of data analysis happening. It's like this secret language that marketers are using. And with MMM, we can all start to understand it a little bit better. Decode those messages. Exactly.

It's about taking the guesswork out of marketing and making smarter data-driven decisions. And who knows, maybe our listener will even be inspired to try out some of these MMM techniques the guesswork out of marketing and making smarter, data-driven decisions. And who knows, maybe our listener will even be inspired to try out some of these MMM techniques themselves. I hope so. Knowledge is power. It's been an eye-opening journey for sure. Until next time on The Deep Dive, keep exploring, keep questioning, and keep those marketing

minds engaged.