Today in Digital Marketing - Google Giveth; Facebook Taketh Away. Let Us Pray.

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

While Google Ads Giveth, Facebook Taketh Away. What is the marketing connection between Boomers and leather skirts? YouTube's solution to disliked videos — take away the dislike button. And agency executives say this has actually been a pretty good year.• Get a Free 14-Day Trial of the Premium Newsletter (with exclusive content, videos, links, and more) — https://b.link/pod-newsletter Does your brand need a podcast? Let us help: https://engageQ.com/podcastsADVERTISING as low as $20: https://todayindigital.com/ads JOIN OUR SLACK! https://todayindigital.com/slackFOLLOW US: https://todayindigital.com/socialmedia(TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and more) ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Please tweet about us! https://b.link/pod-tweet- Rate and review us: https://todayindigital.com/rateus- Leave a voicemail: https://b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- TikTok: https://b.link/pod-tiktok- Twitter: https://b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: https://b.link/pod-linkedin Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (https://b.link/pod-engageq). Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, while Google Ads giveth, Facebook taketh away, at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. executives say this has actually been a pretty good year. It's Wednesday, November 10th, 2021. Happy International Accounting Day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital. And here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, Episode 502. And we start off today with another episode of...

Nobody asks for this. And as usual, it's Facebook. Well, Meta, excuse me. A major announcement from Meta. The company says it plans to remove more ad targeting options. Quoting the announcement, starting January 19th, 2022, we will remove detailed targeting figures that relate to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation. Examples include health causes, for example, lung cancer awareness, World Diabetes Day, or chemotherapy. Sexual orientation, for example, same-sex marriage and LGBT culture.

Religious practices in groups, like Catholic church and Jewish holidays. It is important to note that the interest targeting options we are removing are not based on people's physical characteristics or personal attributes, but instead on things like people's interactions with content on our platform. However, we've heard concerns from experts that targeting options like these could be used in ways that lead to negative experiences for people in underrepresented groups. The decision to remove these detailed targeting options was not easy, and we know how this change may negatively impact some businesses and organizations. Some of our advertising partners have expressed concerns about these targeting options going away because of their ability to help generate positive societal change

while others understand the decision to remove them. We feel confident that we can evolve our ads system to meet the needs of everyone we serve, unquote. So how does Meta plan to help marketers continue to reach their audience despite this? Some tips from the announcement. Use engagement custom audiences to reach people who have liked your business page or people who've watched your videos. You can then use engagement custom audiences as a seed audience to build lookalike audiences. And location targeting can, of course, still be used to target people within the radius of a store. After the update, Meta also noted that people may still

see content they aren't interested in and that it's working to expand the control that allows people to choose to see fewer ads on certain types of content. So while that's bad news for Facebook advertisers, here's some good news for you Google advertisers. Google has announced a new version of its desktop Google Ads Editor, version 1.8. Here's what's new.

A new view has been created in Google Ads Editor called Overview, which is similar to the Overview page in the online interface. Auto-apply, a new view

under Recommendations allows you to enable or disable automatic application of certain recommendation types. Use this at your own peril, of course. Google Ads Editor now fully supports asset-based call extensions and price extensions. And updates to audience targeting for ad groups using new types of audience targeting, like audience grouped targeting. You can choose which grouped audiences to target. And for some accounts, Google may provide target CPA bid recommendations for new

display video action, also known as video drive conversions, and discovery campaigns. With these features, Google says you should be able to manage campaigns and strategies for all your accounts more efficiently. The announcement contains a number of new advertising updates. In addition to that, if this is something you're interested in, there's a link to the full announcement in today's premium newsletter. Tap the link in the episode notes for a 14-day free trial. Fairy grunge, silky room wear, fake leather skirts. That's what's trending this holiday over on Pinterest. The company has released a set of new insights into rising gift trends on its platform, which could help you to inspire your holiday marketing efforts this season.

Here's what pinners are searching. We're going to break this down by generation. First, the youngest, Gen Zed. Sorry, that's Gen Z for you Americans. Trending aesthetics include fairy grunge. That's up 362 times, by the way. Which includes whimsical elements such as goblin core sweatshirt

and black platform boots, also retro 70s makeup with bright blush and black mascara, and earthy aesthetic rooms with natural elements, including plants, gemstones, and tapestries. To the millennials now, they are more interested in cozy farmhouse ideas this season with candles, wooden photo frames, and baskets.

Cozy sweater vest dresses are trending as well as comfortable silk room wear and soft glam makeup and color eyeliners. Gen X skin treatments. Insert joke here about aging Gen Xers. And beauty items. Also luxury handbags, men's luxury watches, and eclectic minimalist decor. Hey, I can make the joke. I'm in Gen X. And baby boomers. Vintage eclectic home, antique gold jewelry, eyebrow makeup tutorial, and men's beard styles. And those fake leather skirts I mentioned?

Yeah, that's the boomers all over that, apparently. Last but not least, Pinterest reports that interest in tech gadgets is up 45%. There's an 85% increase in outdoor TV walls, and a 50% increase in cool gaming rooms. 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, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Agency people, according to new numbers from RSWUS, it's been a pretty good year for you. Data from the report came from a survey conducted in September and October of this year among 120 marketing, ad, and PR executives. So, smallish size sample, but they're all inside agencies. Here's what the survey found. According to 51% of marketing agency executives, there have

been more new business opportunities than last year. 37% said it remained the same. Fewer than 12% of agency executives say the number of new business opportunities has decreased relative to last year. And in 2021, 38% of agency execs report that getting new business has been easier than last year. Again, that's 38%. 35% say it's remained the same. Whereas in 2020, over two-thirds of agency executives said obtaining new business has become somewhat more difficult compared to 2019. Over the past year, agency execs reported once again that existing clients and referrals are the most effective methods for generating new business. 14 million dislikes. That's how many thumbs down there are on the YouTube video for the earworm children's tune Baby Shark. The second most downvoted video on the platform.

Number one is YouTube's own Rewind video from 2018. The Baby Shark song has a plot, by the way, in case you didn't know this. A whole family of sharks get attacked by some nameless threat. They run away, and then they're safe. Downvoting YouTube videos has always been a kind of meme activity. Word spreads on Reddit or 4chan or Twitter that something's getting downvoted and becomes its own prophecy as even more people go to stick it to the video in question. But that kind of brigading is about to be a thing of the past.

As YouTube today announced, it will hide all public dislike counts on videos across its site. Quoting the announcement, earlier this year we experimented with the dislike button to see whether or not changes could help better protect our creators from harassment and reduce dislike attacks, where people work to drive up the number of dislikes on a creator's videos. Based on what we learned, we are making the dislike counts private across YouTube, but the dislike button is not going away. Creators will still be able to find their exact dislike counts

in YouTube Studio, along with existing metrics if they'd like to understand how their content The disappearance of dislike counts for everyone is actually a big deal. Seeing the number of dislike counts on a video helps viewers know if it's a good video or not. So you may end up watching some really bad tutorials in the future, but at least smaller creators will be protected from dislike attacks or harassment. Raise your hand if you've ever been personally victimized by the e-commerce behemoth Wish. Soon though, bad products from the company may become a thing of the past, as one organization says it will create a standards program to improve Wish's shipping experience, product quality, and refund rates. Problem is, said organization is also Wish.

Yes, their new Wish standards program will also cover customer reviews and compliance with Wish's policies. The new program will offer commission discounts, expedited payment terms, and increased exposure for merchant products in the app to those who qualify. Additionally, the e-commerce retailer is diversifying its merchant base to add more sellers outside of China. Quoting the announcement, Our ultimate goal is to align our merchant success with that of an enhanced user experience. In doing so, we hope to improve

user trust and demonstrate our longer-term commitment to product quality. To enhance product discovery on the platform, the company is also redesigning its homepage to feature banners, deals, brands, and trending products. In the coming months, Wish plans to introduce shoppable videos.

And finally, an interesting piece in Ad Week today asks, to bot or not to bot? Carolyn Giegrich, VP of Growth Strategy at MediaLink, discusses the implications of replacing human interaction in the consumer journey. There's obviously a shift to digital. Robots serving you sushi. Robots writing your copy. With fewer and fewer consumer interactions, it's no wonder there's a decline in empathy. What are the consequences for us marketers?

Angry consumers. According to the World Economic Report from 2019, the decline in human empathy has created global risks in the age of anger. So, should we bot? Gigerich writes that brands entering the AI space should ensure they have a thorough understanding of the potential ethical ramifications of the technology. Next, compare tasks that could be replaced by a bot and those that present a higher risk of being replaced by a bot. The risks should be assessed not just by their negative impact on profit margins, she says, but also by their cultural implications and brand perception. The piece is definitely worth a read. You will find it at adweek.com.

Yes, I deleted Farmville from my phone, not before my wife installed it to see what all the fuss was about, and then uninstalled it like 30 seconds later. Who can blame her, really? Tomorrow is a stat holiday here in Canada. It is Remembrance Day, so no episode tomorrow, and I will see you on Friday.