Today in Digital Marketing - How Facebook's Ad Review Process Actually Works

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Starting point is 00:00:28 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, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, the clever way TikTok is helping marketers stay brand safe.

Starting point is 00:01:06 Is Google giving up on AMP? Snapchat finally rolls out brand profiles. Is Twitter's new Spaces feature another nail in Clubhouse's coffin? And the deal of the century for marketers who live stream. It's Friday, May 21st, 2021. Happy Naval Glory Day, Chile. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:01:34 I think it's fair to say that Facebook's had a bumpy ride with digital marketers. Our ad campaigns get denied for seemingly no reason. There's never really been any transparency about how their review process works. Do I get one appeal? Is a human reading that or a bot? How many campaigns are denied by AI? Today, Facebook finally did something we've all been asking for for years. They've detailed exactly how their ad campaign review process works. And normally I don't read large passages of text verbatim,

Starting point is 00:02:01 but I'm going to make an exception here because I expect every single person listening to this podcast probably runs Facebook ads. So here we go. Quoting Facebook. Our ad review system is designed to review all ads before they go live. The system relies primarily on automated technology to apply our advertising policies to the millions of ads that run across our apps. While our review is largely automated, we rely on our teams to build and train these systems and, in some cases, to manually review ads.

Starting point is 00:02:32 While ad review is typically completed within 24 hours, it may take longer, and ads can be reviewed again, including after they're live. Based on the results of the review, an ad is either rejected or allowed to run. If an ad is rejected, an advertiser can create a new ad, either with New Ad Creative or by revising the rejected ad, or requesting another review

Starting point is 00:02:57 if they believe their ad was incorrectly rejected. Unlike the initial ad review, we rely more heavily on teams of human reviewers to process re-review requests from advertisers, but are continually assessing ways to increase automation. like the number of previous ad rejections and the severity of the type of violation, including attempts to get around our ad review process. Advertisers who violate our policies may have actions taken against them, including losing the ability to run ads on Facebook. Reviewing ads from millions of advertisers globally against our advertising policies is essential, but not without challenges.

Starting point is 00:03:45 Our enforcement isn't perfect, and both machines and people make mistakes. When we launch a new policy, it can take time for the various parts of our enforcement system, both automated technology and trained global teams, to learn how to correctly and consistently enforce the new standard." So what stood out there for me? Well, this sentence, unlike the initial ad review, we rely more heavily on teams of human reviewers. They did not say there in the second ad review, the one that you appeal, the one that you

Starting point is 00:04:15 say, hey, I think your bots got it wrong. They never actually say here, it's going to be a human reviewer. They say they rely more heavily on human reviewers, but call me crazy, that sure sounds like there's some bots doing the appeals. Anyway, the newsletter today has a graphical flowchart that shows the exact steps that the system goes through. And remember, the newsletter is free every Friday. Go to todayindigital.com slash newsletter to sign up or tap the link in this episode's notes. So that's how Facebook ensures it's protected. But how do you ensure your brand

Starting point is 00:04:54 is protected? That's the role of brand safety inside these platforms. Often, like in the case of YouTube, they'll handpick some advertiser-friendly channels and content, and if your brand is a little gun-shy, you can run ads alongside that smaller but vetted collection of videos. TikTok has a similar thing, and today we learned a bit more about how it works. Turns out they outsourced this to a company called OpenSlate. OpenSlate puts thousands of organic TikTok videos in front of human reviewers, people who work for the company. Those people then give each video a thumbs up or thumbs down in terms of brand suitability. Then, only those videos which have been given the green light

Starting point is 00:05:35 are placed before and after your TikTok ad, thus ensuring that the content near your ad isn't sensational or offensive or whatever. But that's just ad suitability. Brands still have to figure out the unique culture of the platform. This is partly why TikTok's B2B tagline is, Don't make ads, make TikToks. To that end, they have a small catalog of other campaigns in an ads library and some in-app resources on good video design tips.

Starting point is 00:06:13 One of the most popular live streaming tools used by digital marketers today has a surprisingly good deal on right now. B.Live, which, I mean, everybody I know who live streams uses, now has a limited time lifetime deal available. B.Live lets you live stream to Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn all at the same time if you want to. You can have up to four guests on, unlimited viewers, unlimited number of live stream events, full brand customization. Anyway, usually they charge between $40 and $60 a month,

Starting point is 00:06:40 and you pay that whether you use it that month or not. This week, though, they've created a one-time payment option of $60. Like, literally, you pay that once and then use it forever. You never pay a monthly fee. It also comes with the ability to schedule a live stream, provide a countdown for viewers, it'll record your live stream, and you can edit it right on their site to repurpose the video for other platforms. I have never seen this go on sale like this, but if you do any live streaming for your brand or your clients, or if you think you might in the future, it's worth picking this up.

Starting point is 00:07:13 We have an affiliate link, which is b.link slash live deal, or you can tap the link in our episode notes. Digital marketers are indeed jumping deeply into the vertical video format, but it's not just TikTok. The granddaddy, Snapchat, is more than holding its own. This week, finally announcing the rollout of brand profiles, although they're calling them public profiles for businesses.

Starting point is 00:07:40 They're like pages on Facebook or company pages on LinkedIn, an account that's more reflective of its status as a company. That includes some e-commerce blocks like a product catalog. Quoting Snapchat, with public profiles, you can connect with your customers organically by highlighting useful and engaging content, showcase existing Lens AR experiences, and share shoppable products directly within the Snapchat app, all while delivering insights for your business. Snapchatters can also subscribe to your profile to stay up to date with your content, new product launches, and more. Unquote. He's actually first launched last summer,

Starting point is 00:08:14 but it was only in beta and only to a small handful of selected test accounts. Snapchat says you'll be able to use their management tools through the Snapchat Business Manager. They plan to give a discoverability lift to those account types. Definitely worth considering setting up your own brand profile. You can find more info on setting up your Snapchat business profile on their site, while Snapchat has also provided some key best practice notes for incoming brands. Today's newsletter has a resource guide with best practices and recommendations for those marketers starting out with their first Snapchat brand profile. profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses,

Starting point is 00:09:05 data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Here's one of those stories that seems at first like a small technical thing, but may in fact have broader ramifications. First, the technical thing. Google says it will no longer require sites that publish news stories to have their pages available in AMP format in order to appear in Google's top stories section. So AMP, that's accelerated mobile pages. Those are those mobile-only, very lightweight web pages that preload. So when you tap them, then they're

Starting point is 00:09:42 nearly instantly on screen. Facebook uses something similar. They call those instant experiences. In the past, Google would only put your news story in that highly trafficked part of search results if that story came in AMP format. But, they say once the new page experience update rolls out in about a month, that won't be a requirement. So what does this mean more broadly? Is it possible Google is giving up on the format? Maybe they think they've pushed enough of the web to be mobile-friendly

Starting point is 00:10:11 and they feel they just don't need it. We don't know yet. But it won't be a free-for-all. Publishers that want to be in that coveted spot will still need to be a trustworthy, authoritative source on the topic, have decent inbound links and social shares, and a high article click-through rate. Twitter keeps building out its clubhouse clone, which it calls Spaces.

Starting point is 00:10:34 Now, users can schedule a space in advance. Hosts will get two reminders of their scheduled events, one 30 minutes before it starts, then a final one at start time. Users, too too can get reminders of upcoming spaces they're interested in. There'll be a new set reminder button on the spaces card. But as solid as spaces is, it's still missing one huge chunk. Quoting socialmediatoday.com, discoverability remains the biggest issue for the spaces experience. It's also problematic on Clubhouse as it has been in the past for live streaming, so it's not a unique issue.

Starting point is 00:11:05 But if Twitter wants to truly maximize the potential of the audio social format, it needs to ensure that users are able to find the spaces that will be of most interest and relevance to them. Because as more people begin broadcasting, the quality will dilute very quickly, which could turn users off the option, unquote. Incidentally, Clubhouse downloads actually ticked up a tiny bit this week, probably owing to the availability of Android devices, but the overall trajectory still points downward, and many industry analysts are putting that app on Death Watch. Well, Monday is a holiday here in Canada, so no episode Monday. And the music you're listening to is by the Glenn Foster Group from my hometown of Nanaimo, B.C., Canada.

Starting point is 00:11:53 Find him on Spotify. That's the Glenn Foster Group. Today in Digital Marketing is produced on beautiful Vancouver Island by EngageQ Digital. Production support and fact-checking by Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis. Music licensing by Source Audio. Have a restful long weekend, and I will talk to you on Tuesday. A voice whispered into my ear. Blue monkey, don't look back. He's telling me we've got to get away. A word of warning, it's not safe.

Today in Digital Marketing - How Facebook's Ad Review Process Actually Works

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