Today in Digital Marketing - Google Ads: Which Levers to Pull Now?!

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Monday, October 3rd. I'm Todd Maffin. Today, competing features, confusing settings, the path forward for Google Merchant Center. Also, why is TikTok's parent company running porn ads on Meta? And more importantly, why is Meta letting them? Live shopping attempts to come back. Snapchat goes after adults. And Facebook Marketplace bans the sale of one of its most popular products. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:29 If you've ever had an ad rejected by Meta's AI enforcement bots, you'll know sometimes it has its detection sniffer up a little high. Your nice ad about a boot will get flagged for being sexually suggestive, even though literally the only thing in the ad is a photo of a boot. It gets a lot of things wrong. But apparently, it's also missing a lot, too. Take the violent erotica ads that have been appearing on Facebook and Instagram with limited enforcement action being taken. In order to encourage users to download apps where they can pay to read stories, these ads often contain excerpts

Starting point is 00:01:05 from erotic web novels with young adult fantasy themes. But these ads go beyond racy werewolves. Forbes says the ads it's seen also feature violent descriptions of sexual assault and self-harm accompanied by images and video that appear to be taken from influencers, movies, and TV shows without permission. So who's to blame? Here's where things get wild. Hundreds of the ads are coming from the corporate owner of TikTok, the Chinese tech giant Tencent. One ad promoted a story about a night of terror where a teen girl will be mated to a creature and then featured a shirtless photo

Starting point is 00:01:46 of Brazilian football star Neymar with a stock image of a beaten woman. According to Forbes, the photo was used without Neymar's consent. The ad was for iReader, which ByteDance invested in a couple of years ago. ByteDance is the corporate owner directly of TikTok. The app Mytopia, which is also owned by ByteDance, also ran similar troubling ads. As a result of Forbes' inquiry, ByteDance paused Mytopia's ad campaign and said the ads, quote, do not match our values, unquote. While WebNovel, which is an app owned by Tencent, began running several ads featuring sexually explicit comics last week. Quoting Forbes, While the Chinese tech giants have

Starting point is 00:02:26 invested heavily in removing this kind of content from TikTok and WeChat, they have, at the same time, paid for erotic web novel businesses to create it and promote it to meta users through ads. Meta, for its part, has appeared largely incapable of halting this flood of violent fantasy erotica ads that violate its rules. The company's ad library reveals that while Meta has detected and removed dozens of these ads, advertisers have just put up more. Moreover, Meta's detection appears weak and haphazard, with weeks-old ads still live, featuring text that obviously violates its rules, unquote. Meta has since removed about 200 ads and pages from web novel companies,

Starting point is 00:03:08 but there's still a long way to go. This market extends beyond just apps backed by Tencent and ByteDance. Forbes recently identified more than a thousand ads running from more than a hundred Facebook pages representing China-based web novel apps. Some followed the rules, some didn't. The pages placing these ads often bore classic signs of ban evasion like duplicate accounts, strategic misspellings of words, and little to no engagement. Novel apps have also extended their ads out across multiple

Starting point is 00:03:38 pages, a tactic sometimes used to avoid having a few takedowns cripple an entire campaign. These types of shady ad networks are nothing new. But ByteDance and Tencent allegedly paying to create ads and target them to meta users sure is. Your boot ad though? Come on, knock it off. Big ad platforms are complicated, not just for us digital marketers, but also for the developers who make the platforms. There may be different teams at work, one that works on analytics and one that works on delivery optimization. And although the two are related, they're sometimes built by different people and in different corporate silos. That can get confusing, especially when it seems two parts of the same platform want you to do the same thing, but on their side. Take Google Merchant Center, for instance.

Starting point is 00:04:29 In the last few days, he may have received emails that say, bring in more business for the holidays, add your return policy, or show your shipping info to get more shopping customers. And when you unpack it, it's just a very convoluted system. Jill Saskengales is a Google ad trainer and consultant. She spoke to me this morning. Because on the one hand, you have Google Merchant Center, which holds all your products. And Google is telling you to activate all these features and push all these buttons in there. But on the flip side, we all use Google ads. And there's like additional buttons and flips and switches you have to do on that side.

Starting point is 00:05:01 And so it's just really convoluted and confusing. Like, for example, let's say you're running a 40% off Black Friday promotion as you can add a promotion extension to your ad to advertise that. But you can also add a promotion in Google Merchant Center. And if you add both, they can work on top of each other to show like 40% on top of 40% and show the wrong price. So there's just a lot of duplication going on, a lot of confusion. Like if you have free shipping, you can say that in Google Merchant Center, but you can also say that in Google Ads. And then is your shopping ad going to say free shipping twice? It's just very convoluted. Right. And just so that everyone is sort of understand the distinction, Google Merchant Center deals with products. So the database record there are about

Starting point is 00:05:41 your products. Google Ad Manager is about your ad campaign. So two systems kind of related, but sometimes at odds with each other. Exactly. And so when you connect them together, Google Ads can pull your product information from Google Merchant Center so that you can show shopping ads or Performance Max ads. But there are also free features in Google Merchant Center. So even if you don't use Google ads, your products can show up on Google Shopping for free by having Google Merchant Center. Don't expect much traffic, but you can do that. Is there any kind of cheat sheet or way of knowing which side we should be pushing which buttons on so that there's no conflict or something? Unfortunately, there is not a centralized guide. I have a checklist in front

Starting point is 00:06:25 of me that I actually got from someone who works at Google because I asked him, what the heck am I supposed to advise my clients on this holiday season? And so I guess my most general advice would be in Google Merchant Center, opt into all the programs, check all the boxes, just try to use as many of the features as you can to ensure you're not missing anything important. You have an outstanding Google Ads training program. Do you get into Merchant Center as well in that? Yes, I do. I have Performance Max tutorials, Google Merchant Center tutorials. And actually, I have someone from the Google product team who was our guest at our monthly meet last month. So that recording is available there for members. It was their most popular one

Starting point is 00:07:03 yet. And he shared a lot of insider tips, much more detailed than what I've shared here today about how to get ready with your feeds for the holiday season. Jill Saskengale spoke to me from her office in Toronto this morning. When I say that she is one of the world's best ads trainers, I mean it. She was recently hired by Google to come into their office and train their Google ads employees on their own platform. You can learn more about her training program through our affiliate link, which is b.link slash gatraining.

Starting point is 00:07:37 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.

Starting point is 00:07:59 Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. 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,

Starting point is 00:08:27 and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. Remember when TikTok pulled the plug on live shopping, saying Europe and North America weren't ready for it yet? Well, what a difference a looming Q4 can make. TikTok is reportedly planning to launch live shopping in the U.S.,

Starting point is 00:08:49 but this time they'll be outsourcing it to the live social shopping network TalkShop Live. According to the Financial Times, the company is planning to outsource its operation after its e-commerce experiments in the U.K. didn't take off. Sources say that TalkShop Live will provide the technology and support for live streams hosted by influencers, brands, and retailers that want to sell their products on the platform. As of right now, the partnership is in the early stages, arrangements still being finalized, contracts not yet signed. Meanwhile, Amazon recently announced that it has launched Amazon Live, a live streaming video feature for promoting products on its platform in India.

Starting point is 00:09:28 The e-commerce giant says it will run 15 live streams a day between 10 a.m. and 1 a.m. Amazon Live is currently hosting QVC-style streams across several categories, including electronics, fashion, and beauty. From live shopping to sporting, Snapchat is looking to expand its sports ad offering. The company recently announced a new partnership with the European Football League, La Ligua. I'm sure I'm butchering that.

Starting point is 00:09:57 My apologies. The deal will see the platform host exclusive content like weekly game highlights, brand lenses, stickers, bitmojis and more. The partnership also includes a dedicated Discover show as well as stories and spotlight host exclusive content like weekly game highlights, brand lenses, stickers, bitmojis, and more. The partnership also includes a dedicated Discover show as well as stories and spotlight content that will be posted by the Football League's Snapchat account. In other news from Snap, new research has found that users are happier while using its app compared to other platforms. The study was done by Snapchat, so take that for what you will.

Starting point is 00:10:25 The company says this is because people feel freer to express their authentic selves because they're generally communicating with their closest friends and family in the app. The study also found that when participants saw the same ad across multiple platforms, Snapchat engagement scores were one and a half times higher. Meta is putting an end to free listings for brands selling or renting real estate or selling vehicles on Facebook Marketplace.

Starting point is 00:10:56 Starting next January 30th, listings will no longer be available via Facebook business pages. However, personal profiles can still post them to Marketplace. As a result, affected brands will no longer be able to create listings with the vehicles tab and manage inventory tab. After January 30th, any existing listings posted through business pages will be deleted. All eyes are on connected TV, according to a new report. The study found that 95% of U.S. households are now reachable via open programmatic CTV ads. That is up 10% from last year. Digiday reports in a piece up on their site today that the study's findings are in line with what agency buyers are experiencing.

Starting point is 00:11:40 Digiday adds that these trends indicate some growth in CTV apps and programmatic CTV ad spend, as well as Amazon and Apple gaining market share. Roku still leads the programmatic ad spending market among device manufacturers, but other tech giants are coming up. Samsung took second place, followed by Amazon. Apple wasn't far behind. In terms of ad categories, programmatic ad spend is still dominated by movies and TV shows.

Starting point is 00:12:09 The data comes from Pixelate's analysis of programmatic activity across 300 million devices. All right, and that brings us to the lightning round. Instagram is testing a tool that lets users add multiple links to their profile bio without using a third-party tool like Linktree. Some profiles have been spotted with three links. Inflation won't mean that consumers will spend less this holiday shopping season.

Starting point is 00:12:34 In fact, they plan to spend more, according to a new study. Instead of slashing budgets, they're becoming more mindful of their spending. Four out of five plan to time their shopping to sale periods, and three out of five do intend to shop during Black Friday. A quarter have already started. Twitter has a views count now, but not for videos, for normal tweets. The platform has launched a new views count on select users' tweets, which show the total number of times each of your tweets has been seen, or at least has been displayed, which could be a useful stat for brand engagement.

Starting point is 00:13:09 And Twitter announced today that it is finally rolling out the highly anticipated edit button, but it's going to cost you. It's only going to Twitter blue subscribers in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Subscribers in those countries can now edit their tweets up to five times for the first 50 minutes after posting. If you don't live in one of those countries, no edit soup for you. So a sad thing happened today. Overwatch, which is the video game that I have way, way, way too many hours, is launching their new version tomorrow at noon. So no episode tomorrow. No, I'm kidding.

Starting point is 00:13:47 But what it means is they're shutting down Overwatch 1. They're shutting down the servers. And I have a little squad that I play with. And so we all decided we would get together tonight for one last round. And that is when we discovered they've already shut the servers down. They shut the servers down today. None of us thought this was going to happen. It was actually really kind of sad.

Starting point is 00:14:08 We're really wanting one last game. But anyway, I have a replacement game. Those of you who are on Twitter know that I've been playing way too much of this game. It's called Disney Dreamlight Valley. First of all, shut up. I know it's a children's game, but it's actually really, really, really compelling. Apparently, it's like Animal Crossing, which I've never been able to play, but always wanted to. It has that repetitive loop of crafting and farming and making friends and figuring.

Starting point is 00:14:31 Anyway, my point is it has a very detailed Reddit and a spreadsheet. People are creating like giant spreadsheets to keep track of all of the crafting materials required and all that. And that's the game I love. So I guess that's tonight. And then tomorrow, our squad will try out Overwatch 2. It'll be weird. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Google Ads: Which Levers to Pull Now?!

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