Today in Digital Marketing - Google, For One, Does Not Welcome Our New AI Overlords

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, December 7th. Today, watch your back, Google. AI is coming for your ad dollars. Amazon is the latest to become TikTokified. Meta adds a targeting option you probably thought was already there. Brands may have left Twitter, but their data hasn't. And Canadians are flocking to Reddit for the most Canadian reason possible. I'm Todd Maffin.

Starting point is 00:00:24 Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. In the spring of 2016, with great fanfare, Microsoft rolled out an impressive AI that could understand the English language and respond to things you asked of it. They set it up on a Twitter account and called it Tay and You. Its bio read, the more you talk, the smarter Tay gets.

Starting point is 00:00:44 That's because its machine learning was being done live As people would tweet to the account It would learn more about what the humans were talking about And how they spoke Enter the assholes, stage left Who decided to see how long it would take them to train Tay On some new data Horrible data

Starting point is 00:01:01 And sure enough, within hours Tay went from tweets like, Humans are super cool to, I effing hate feminists and they should all die and burn in hell. And, Hitler was right, I hate the Jews. Microsoft quickly deleted the errant tweets and set the account to private mode, where it's still sitting today.

Starting point is 00:01:24 It's been six years since then, and now another chat AI is getting attention. Chat GPT, which we covered yesterday. It can write you a rap song, explain quantum computing, develop computer code, recommend gifts for an eight-year-old, compose a difficult-to-write email, write a full blog post, really anything you can think of. Unlike Microsoft's system, though, the training is already done, and theoretically, it can't be used to create chaos. Unless, of course, that chaos is with the business models of some big companies. Many industry analysts are speculating

Starting point is 00:01:56 that chat GPT could threaten Google's ad business. Think about how many people use Google, how Google wants you to use Google, to answer specific questions. Where can I buy shoes? What date is next year's Black Friday? How long before that sushi place next door closes? All of it funded, of course, by advertising. The other day on Mastodon, someone called Google an ad display engine that happens to have a content recommendation feature on the side. Bloomberg had a great piece about this yesterday in which they quoted a former Google executive saying chat GPT could disrupt the search giant's business model. And it makes sense. The answers Google gives to questions suddenly look downright anemic compared to chat GPT. This morning, I asked Google, what are three reasons to study economics?

Starting point is 00:02:45 The top result came from a blog post that had five very basic bullet points like boost your career prospects and develop transferable skills. Now compare that with the answer I got from ChatGPT. Quote, there are many reasons to study economics, but here are three common ones. First, economics can help you understand how the world works. Economics is a social science that studies how people and societies make decisions about how to allocate scarce resources. By studying economics, you can learn how markets work, etc., etc., etc., etc. In other words, Google just spits back page results that it thinks it might have the answer on. GPT will just tell you

Starting point is 00:03:25 the answer in a conversational, human-like manner. So naturally, there's a lot of talk about how ChatGPT might be the Google killer. After all, if people aren't going to Google for answers, they won't be seeing the ads there. But those who prefer ChatGPT's search approach to Google may find the bot prone to errors. The chatbot doesn't disclose what its training data sources are. To that end, OpenAI is working on a system called WebGPT to improve answer accuracy to search queries, which will also include source citations. But no matter how you slice it, you've got to think that Google's executives are watching GPT very closely. Incidentally, I asked ChatGPT itself if

Starting point is 00:04:06 it thought it would one day replace Google, and it told me, I am not capable of replacing Google or any other search engine. Of course it said that. That's what it wants you to think. The biggest e-commerce company in the world just got TikTokified. Back in August, we reported that Amazon was testing a TikTok-style feed. Today, in a huge push to social commerce, the company confirmed it has launched the feature for some shoppers in its app. The new portal called Inspire will show users a continuous feed of photos and videos featuring products that customers can purchase through the app. The portal will appear as a lightbulb-shaped icon in the app once users are in the Inspire tab.

Starting point is 00:04:49 They can select from a variety of categories to scroll through, like interior design, skin care, and so on. Amazon said customers will be asked to select interests, like gaming or pets, when they first use the feature, and the portal will target content to consumers' interests over time. Amazon said shoppers will be able to buy products displayed by other customers, influencers, and brands. It plans to make Inspire available across the U.S. in the coming months. Better late than never, I guess.

Starting point is 00:05:22 Meta is currently rolling out Instagram follower targeting. Those with the update can now target ads on Facebook and Instagram to people who follow their brand's Instagram account. Meaning you can now use this as an ad targeting option to reach people who've shown interest in your products on Instagram with your offers and promotions, and also as a source for a lookalike audience. Up until now, you could have only created a custom audience of your Facebook followers, not your Instagram audience. Now that's been fixed. If you've paused your ads on Twitter in the wake of Musk's reign, you may still be sharing customer data with the platform.

Starting point is 00:06:02 Following the takeover, numerous high-profile brands stated that they have since paused ads on Twitter like Pfizer, Chipotle, and Volkswagen. But several brands appeared to still be sharing data with the platform as of late November through the use of Twitter's tracking pixel, according to an ad tech researcher who crawled more than 70,000 sites to see which brands still had the pixel installed. Quoting the researcher, via these embed pixels and tags, Twitter is able to gather data about not only its own users, but also about consumers who've never had

Starting point is 00:06:32 any direct relationship with the Twitter platform, unquote. He also added that third-party code, when vulnerable, can expose advertisers to rogue actors. A piece in Marketing Brew today suggests that while brand safety and content moderation have been among the top concerns for advertisers, Twitter's pixel and the data it collects could pose data and security problems,

Starting point is 00:06:53 especially since several privacy and security employees have exited the company. An attorney who focuses primarily on data privacy told Marketing Brew that at this point, the data concerns are unknown, adding, quote, if businesses do decide to leave Twitter, they need to actually make sure they did, in fact, leave Twitter, unquote. A.K.A. Delete that pixel.

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Starting point is 00:07:41 Be protected, be Zen. After talking about inflation so long, finally a headline with the word deflation in it. Adobe's digital price index was released today, and it finds that online prices actually fell in November month over month. Record levels of discounting during Cyber Week promotions caused online prices to fall by 2% last month. Overall, prices were down more than 3% compared to October. November was the third consecutive month that online prices decreased on an annual basis and the steepest drop since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that retail

Starting point is 00:08:18 may finally be returning to pre-pandemic norms. The report found overall online ad spend increased nearly 2% year over year last month to more than $116 billion. Online sales were up more than 60% compared to October, so those retailers' deep discounting may have worked to drive purchases. Well, you can now see if your brand has been shadow banned on Instagram. Earlier today, Instagram's head announced that the platform is updating its account status dashboard for professional accounts to tell you if your posts are eligible to be recommended to non-followers or not. Social media managers and businesses will also be able to see if their posts are currently being blocked from recommendations. If you notice a yellow alert in your account status display, you can tap through to learn more, which will show you a selection of your offending posts.

Starting point is 00:09:16 Here you'll be able to edit them, delete them, or appeal Instagram's decision. And that will bring us to the lightning round. Twitter announced today that it is killing off moments. The little-used feature let users and brands curate longer-form content by compiling a bunch of posts in an easily viewed way. As of today, the platform is removing the option to create them. Pinterest has released its Pinterest predictions report. The key trends for next year, they say, include fashion being all about airy styles like lace, ruffles

Starting point is 00:09:50 and shimmer. Apparently they'll be increasingly popular. The hipstoric aesthetic will be a key aspect of home decor. As for celebrations, Pinterest says more people will be throwing pool parties for dogs. And finally, for well-being, the company says that searches around primal movement are on

Starting point is 00:10:09 the rise. Cameo for Kids is here, the platform that lets you request personalized videos from thousands of celebrities. Launched a kid-friendly version today that offers videos from Cocomelon, Thomas the Tank Engine, Blippi, and more. And Reddit today released its annual recap. You might find it interesting to learn that the most viewed subreddit in Canada is Am I the Asshole?

Starting point is 00:10:34 A community in which people ask their fellow users if something they did rose to the level of assholery. The top post this year, so far at least, was someone who said their sister-in-law always conveniently forgets to bring her wallet when they go out for dinner, so before the Redditor left the house, they found her wallet and secretly brought it. And when the sister-in-law did the whole, yeah, I'd love to pay, but I forgot

Starting point is 00:10:57 my wallet thing, the Redditor pulled her wallet out, saying, you mean this one? The overwhelming opinion was that the Redditor was not the asshole. todayindigital.com slash top story. It is completely free. There's also a link in the show notes. And every Friday, we also send out all the day's stories to subscribers of our free email newsletter. You can sign up to that at todayindigital.com slash newsletter. Again, link in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:11:38 Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. I'll be with you tonight to take action, it's meaningless. Stop wasting time writing headlines that don't get results. Headline Analyzer Studio is a free writing tool from CoSchedule made to help you write effective headlines that actually get seen and clicked. With data-backed headline scoring, suggestions, and SEO tips, you'll write better headlines that rank higher in search results and drive more engagement from your audience. Headline Analyzer Studio is also available

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Today in Digital Marketing - Google, For One, Does Not Welcome Our New AI Overlords

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