Today in Digital Marketing - Glimmers of Sunshine Amidst the Online Advertising Storm

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Friday, October 28th. Today, finally, the ad economy storm clears just enough to shine sunlight through for two platforms. Also, an embarrassing leak for Amazon. You'll pay more to ship orders, maybe way more. YouTube is changing how your brand's channel looks. And the layoffs of Twitter have begun. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Finally, a little bit of good news for the online media buying space. After Snap,

Starting point is 00:00:31 Alphabet, and Meta all reported lackluster revenue from advertising this week, Amazon announced yesterday that its ad sales picked up in the third quarter. From advertising, the e-commerce giant generated $9.5 billion. That's a 25% increase year over year. Quoting an analyst from Insider Intelligence, both Google and Amazon have been more resilient to recessionary headwinds in the digital ad market given their tight closed-loop reporting and minimal exposure to iOS disruption of targeting and measurement. This quarter, Amazon held up better than Google, in part due to the added boost from Prime Day in July, compared against a Q3 2021 that didn't feature Prime Day, unquote. He added that the company's ad business is continuing to grow as it expands

Starting point is 00:01:16 into streaming TV and builds out its Amazon Fresh grocery business, which will provide data that will fuel its ad offerings. All that said, Amazon's ad revenue only represents 7.5% of its total net sales, but evidence suggests that it will continue to grow as part of the retail media movement. Amazon is expected to control three-quarters of the U.S. digital retail media category this year. While Amazon's plans to rely on streaming TV for revenue may have been rattled a bit, the company admitted yesterday it accidentally left an internal database filled with Amazon Prime viewing data exposed to anyone on the internet with no password. A researcher found the database, which contained more than 200 million entries of viewing data, like the title of the streamed show or movie, what device it was streamed on,

Starting point is 00:02:14 subscription details, and other internal data like network quality. Quoting TechCrunch, While disconcerting that a company of Amazon's size and wealth could leave such a huge cache of data on the internet for weeks without anyone noticing, based on our review, the data cannot be used to personally identify customers by name. But the lapse highlights a common problem that underpins many data exposures, misconfigured internet-facing servers that are left online without a password for anyone to access, unquote. Amazon, of course, took the database offline after a security researcher provided details about the exposure. In a statement, the company said that, quote,

Starting point is 00:02:53 there was a deployment error with a Prime Video Analytics server, unquote, and that the problem had been resolved, adding that no account information, including logins or payment details, was revealed. The tech giant also noted it was not an issue related to their popular Amazon Web Services. Pinterest announced its third quarter results yesterday, reporting an 8% increase in revenue. But when it comes to monthly active users, the social media app is flatlined with 0% growth year-over-year at 445 million people. Gen Z users grew by double digits. Pinterest also said it saw year-over-year growth in engagement, which was measured by impressions,

Starting point is 00:03:39 saves, and sessions. For the third quarter, the company's net loss was $65 million. Adjusted earnings were $77 million. In the fourth quarter, Pinterest expects revenue growth in the mid-single digits, considering greater foreign exchange headwinds than in the third quarter. This holiday season, UPS and FedEx rate increases are coming to town. We're going to spend a bit of extra time on this, since many of you are e-commerce marketers who rely on both of those providers. Both UPS and FedEx announced their delivery rates will increase by 7% on average. That despite declining volumes. However, the full force of their changes could result in shippers getting even more scrooged. How much more depends on several factors like the services they use, the packages they ship, and the destinations of their deliveries. Retail Dive has a great piece up today about what parcel shipping

Starting point is 00:04:35 experts say customers should consider when evaluating how the changes will affect their bottom line. The 7% average increase doesn't account for surcharges that can be tacked on to the final shipping price. Surcharges like extra fees for residential deliveries, handling oversized packages, or delivering to rural locations. An executive from AFS Logistics noted shippers should be especially aware of fuel surcharges, since they apply to every package, regardless of size or destination. The fuel surcharge percentages are subject to change weekly by both carriers. The rate hikes particularly punish shippers

Starting point is 00:05:15 that need goods moved over longer distances. The article suggests that one way shippers can reduce their exposure to higher zone deliveries is to fulfill orders from facilities closer to the end customer. Both companies are also increasing those shipping costs to rural destinations. For packages shipped to rural zip codes in the U.S., FedEx will charge a $13.25 surcharge per package. For UPS, it's per shipment remote area. S area surcharge will increase to $13.05. Finally, with delivery demand cooling, will there be any relief for shippers?

Starting point is 00:05:54 UPS said in its earnings report earlier this week that it is open to passing along savings generated from its own productivity initiatives to customers, suggesting prices could shift in the shipper's favor. That said, don't hold your breath. 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. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first.

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Starting point is 00:07:06 Be protected. Be Zen. videos. As a result, Shorts content and live feeds will no longer be found under the main videos tab. The redesign will also give YouTube a new way to direct viewers to its TikTok clone, quoting TechCrunch. Now, when users are watching Shorts videos in the Shorts feed in the main YouTube app, then navigate to the creator's channel, they'll be sent directly into this new Shorts tab to watch even more Shorts content. This could help YouTube boost its views for Shorts, as those users will no longer be immediately lost to the creator's long-form content as before, unquote. The company said that the redesign will be available on all devices in the coming weeks.

Starting point is 00:08:07 Well, I think everyone is sick of the Twitter news, so I won't spend a ton of time on this. The deal went through last night. Elon Musk now owns Twitter outright. This means it will be delisted from the stock exchange and also means we will lose some information, notably financial reports, how many users it has, how its subscription products are performing, how their ad products are performing. According to the Wall Street Journal, advertisers are now weighing in as concerns over Trump being reinstated and the potential for Twitter to become a much less brand-safe platform. Group M's global head of partnerships told the journal that letting Trump tweet again would be a red line for some major brands. About a dozen of their clients asked to pause their Twitter ads if Trump returned to the platform. And the firm expected even more brands to be in contact if his permanent ban ends.

Starting point is 00:08:55 Previously, Musk has criticized Twitter's decision to ban Trump. For now, his plans to make Twitter great again remain unclear. One thing that is clear, though, the layoffs have already begun. Musk fired Twitter's CEO, CFO and head of policy within minutes of the deal going through last night. And today, social media is full of reports of Twitter employees being called into meetings and fired. And finally, as we were putting the show together this afternoon, there were some reports that Facebook's marketing platforms had gone down. We're talking about ad manager, business manager, and so on. Their status page, of course, reported that, hey, everything is A-OK, but I think it's

Starting point is 00:09:38 become clear that Facebook has completely forgotten about updating that status page. Anyway, if the platform seemed buggy today, it wasn't just you. We have some friends coming over, so I got to get out of here. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is Steph Gunn. Production coordinator, Sarah Guild. Music licensing by Source Audio, ad coordination by Red Circle,

Starting point is 00:10:08 and not many people know this, but our theme composer Mark Levis is actually one of the world's foremost experts on Twitter. This should have been his moment, but he slept in. This despite telling me last night when the news was breaking, he couldn't miss today. He said, I can't be late, because then

Starting point is 00:10:23 I guess I won't get paid. These are the days when you wish your bed was already made. Indeed, Mark. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. I'll see you on Monday. I've been sleeping all my life But not tonight, no

Starting point is 00:10:41 I am free to be alive. Cause it's my time. Rock this town and burn it down. And set the wind on fire.

Today in Digital Marketing - Glimmers of Sunshine Amidst the Online Advertising Storm

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