Today in Digital Marketing - Has iOS 13 Screwed Up Google Analytics?

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

On today’s show: Your Google Analytics data may be all screwed up. And it seems to be Apple’s fault. YouTube tries its hand at AI-based ad optimization That influencer you hired? Are you sure they’re they ACTUAL person you MEANT to hire? And Facebook is killing off Stories. Sort of. Here’s what you missed… today, in digital marketing. Today in Digital Marketing is brought to you by engageQ digital. Can we help you with YOUR brand’s digital marketing and social media? Let’s chat. http://www.engageQ.com or call 1-855-863-6233. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/todayindigital/messageOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's Monday, September 23rd, 2019. I'm Todd Maffin. Hey, happy first day of fall. On today's show, your Google Analytics data may be all screwed up, and it seems to be Apple's fault. YouTube tries its hand at AI-based ad optimization. That influencer you hired? Are you sure they're the actual person you meant to hire? And Facebook is killing off stories. Sort of. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. So this hasn't really hit the news yet, but a few influential people on Twitter that I follow are noticing it. Apple's new smartphone operating system, that's iOS 13, came out last week. While most people are enjoying dark mode and other front-facing changes like that,

what's gone largely undiscussed are the changes made to mobile Safari, the web browser. Without getting too nerdy here, they have once again changed the length of time that third-party cookies are allowed to be stored. Now, why do you care? Because the ad industry online relies on these cookies to retarget, to build audiences, and much more.

One big result so far, some astute digital marketers are noticing a dramatic inflation in the number of unique visitors that analytics tools are reporting. Only they're not really unique. They're probably regular old visitors whose cookies have timed out earlier than they used to. This has a huge potential to mess things up, and something I'm sure we'll be talking about soon. You've heard the old adage, the more fields on your landing page form, the fewer leads you'll get. But that wisdom's been around for a while. Has anyone tested it lately? I think you know where this is going.

Ad Espresso this morning released a new small study that they did testing exactly that. Mind you, small budget, just $1,000. Still, though, they had two lead forms, one with four fields. That's first name, last name, email address, and country. And one with eight fields, all the previous four, plus business type, company size, and how much they spend on Google and Facebook. And the results? The version with just four fields, yeah, did indeed have a lower cost per action and higher conversion rate. So the old advice still stands, fewer form fields equals more form completions.

If you are using YouTube ads to try to reach large audiences for your brand or client, the company has a new campaign type that rolled out this morning. It's called a Video Reach Campaign, and you can use three different asset types in a single campaign. Those types are six-second bumper ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, and skippable in-stream ads. It seems this is going to work pretty similar to how Facebook's automatic optimization system works. That's where you put a bunch of different ad creatives in a bunch, and Facebook tries to figure out

which one will get the best results. Video reach campaigns are paid on a CPM basis. For now, it only works within YouTube's own network, although the company says it'll probably let their video partners in on the action soon. But does it work? YouTube says they tested it with Ford and got 20% lower campaign costs compared to previous benchmarks. Interesting story in the New York Times over the weekend. Pay attention if you use Instagram influencers in your campaigns. Agency people, I'm talking to you.

It seems quite a few legit influencers are seeing imposters swoop in and getting free stuff using the real influencer's name. They've even created email addresses that look almost the same as the real person's. They've set up fake email addresses and then they'll email an agency or a big brand with the usual, hey, I'm kind of a big deal, you should send me free stuff. And turns out, a lot of agencies and brands are falling for this, and indeed sending the fake influencers real products. So how do you make sure you're dealing with the real influencer?

I'd recommend starting your conversation in an Instagram DM with a verified account. That's the ones with the blue check marks. And if someone reaches out to you claiming to be someone big that you might be interested in working with, insist that they send you a DM from that verified account of theirs. The full article is worth a read. It's on the New York Times site. It is called Brands Beware, Influencer Imposters Want Your Free Stuff. Facebook is killing off stories. It's true,

but sadly only in Facebook groups, which is weird because they only rolled that out nine months ago. Looks like nobody really used the feature in groups, so easy come, easy go. Thursday at 9am Pacific is the exact time that they'll be pulling the plug in case you want to get a few in for, you know, old time's sake. And speaking of Facebook, we learned this morning they've bought a little chatbot company called Service Friend. Basically, the app uses AI to make customer service a little easier for brands in Messenger. Nothing weird there. Facebook buys things from time to time, and investing in chatbots seems to be in line with the whole Messenger strategy. Things only get weird when you look at the LinkedIn profiles of the company's founders.

Yeah, sure, they show as working for Facebook now, of course, but they also show they've been seconded to the digital wallet group that is building out Facebook's forthcoming cryptocurrency. So, Messenger, chatbots, digital currency, something's brewing there. Here's something many of us do way too often, stare at the Facebook ads manager and mumble, what the hell is going on here? Ads aren't serving, your previously high-performing audience is tanking suddenly, your CPA goes from amazing to the toilet. What if you could give that account or campaign a full makeover? That's what is behind a pretty solid course by Andrew Foxwell called the Account Recovery Roadmap. I first heard of Andrew through John Loomer, whose Power Haters Club is a great investment, by the way.

Andrew's course is not cheap. It's 350 bucks. But I've gone through the one-hour video, and it is definitely worth it, at least here at our agency. You can find it on Andrew's site at foxwelldigital.com. This was not a paid mention. You can find it on Andrew's site at foxwelldigital.com. This was not a paid mention. And some quick hits to close us out today. Yahoo has changed their logo again. This time it's just awful.

Go look. Don't freak out if your brand's Twitter follower count dramatically drops to zero. It's nothing you did. It's just a bug that seems to be going around today. And hey, Canadians, fun fact, if you snooze someone on Facebook today, they will be hidden from your newsfeed until the day after the federal election. You're welcome.

If you're listening to this on the web and you have not yet subscribed to the podcast, please be sure to do that. Today in Digital Marketing is published every weekday. You can find direct one-click links for your podcast app at bit.ly slash today in digital. That's bit.ly slash today in digital. That is what you missed today in digital marketing brought to you by engageq.com. I'm Todd Maffin. See you tomorrow.