Today in Digital Marketing - Is Google's Algorithm About to Leak Publicly?

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Go Premium! No ads, story links in show notes, deep-dive weekend editions, better quality, live event replays, audio chapters, earlier release time, exclusive marketing discounts, and more! Check out https://todayindigital.com/premiumfeedFor information on advertising, our social media, contact info, and everything else, please go to https://todayindigital.com/shownotes➡ Join our Slack at todayindigital.com/slackOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today, Google's lawyers on high alert as a court case threatens to leak their core algorithm. Instagram's solution to low real usage, hard cash. Why media buyers aren't sold on digital product placement. Twitter is close to edit and pin functionality. And here's how you can get your brand's logo on the personal phones of your customers. It's Tuesday, August 2nd. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing.

Are we all about to see the detailed nitty gritty of the Google algorithm? We just might, thanks to a lawsuit by another video sharing platform. The site is called Rumble. It considers itself a free speech platform. The company filed a lawsuit against Google early last year, claiming Google violates federal antitrust laws by preventing fair competition. Specifically, they accused Google of manipulating its search algorithms to prevent YouTube competitors like Rumble from being found in the Google search index. Late last week, Google's attempt to squash the claim was denied by a judge.

Quoting journalist Glenn Greenwald, Rumble will have the right to obtain from Google a broad and sweeping range of information about its practices, including internal documents on Google's algorithmic manipulation of its search engine and the onerous requirement it imposes on companies dependent on its infrastructure to all but force customers to YouTube. Unquote. Watch this space. Here's an idea.

Just pay your customers to adopt your business's new concept if they won't on their own. Today, Digiday reports that Instagram is paying media companies to post Reels. You may recall that Instagram launched a program last year to pay individual creators for posting Reels. Now, apparently, it's expanding. The platform's expansion of Reels payments into the media industry has surprised some media executives. Things like how much money can be made, how payments are calculated, and so on are said to be a little unclear. What we do know is payments are based each month on the number of views a reel receives. For example, a company may receive $200 for the first 1 million views, then $100 for every subsequent 1 million views, up to $1,200. Some media executives say

payouts can exceed $20,000 per month, presumably with multiple reels. Digiday noted that while some executives have described the payment as nominal, others see them as a welcome incentive to produce more reels. Instagram declined to comment. There are a number of streaming giants offering digital product placement with in-scene ad formats that can showcase your brand's products or services within shows based on who's watching and when. Although these streaming platforms have fallen for digital placement, Adweek has an interesting piece up today about why media buyers aren't buying it. Although impressed by the technology, one executive asked, do we collectively agree that a passive digital placement builds a means to drive engagement? A couple of industry insiders also told Adweek that they questioned the effectiveness of passively inserted products into scenes.

The challenge, according to one buyer, will be figuring out how to monetize it, how to charge, and what the scale is. Furthermore, insertions in third-party programming may require negotiations with distributors and unions. All indications, of course, is that the tech will continue to become more prevalent and sophisticated in the years to come. But until then, it might be a tough sell. If you could upload any logo or image directly to a customer's personal phone home screen, what would you put on it? Well, a new up-and-coming social media app lets you do just that. It's called Lockit.

Here's how it works. When someone, or of course some brand, sends you a picture, it instantly appears in a photo widget on your phone's home screen. Then, to send a response, tap the widget, take a picture, it instantly appears in a photo widget on your phone's home screen. Then, to send a response, tap the widget, take a picture, and it will be distributed to your friends' home screens, who also have the app. More than 20 million people have downloaded this app since it launched on New Year's Day this year. Since that launch, Lockett says it's seen more than a billion photos shared. Currently, you can only add 20 friends to the app,

which is branded as just for your closest friends. The developer behind Lockit told TechCrunch that the app is designed to help people stay connected while providing a simple escape from doom scrolling and algorithmic feeds. The company recently raised more than $12 million in funding, which the creator says will go to developing new features. Lockit is also in the early days of introducing a subscription model. While it may not be the best platform to add to your brand's social channels, can you imagine the possibility of your ad placement being someone's home screen? Walmart is expanding its own ad platform. The company announcing it has added five API partners to its Walmart Connect media network,

including its recent integration with e-commerce platform Commerce IQ. The new partners include Intentwise, that's an ad optimization platform, Perpetua, which is an e-commerce ad platform, Quartile, a cross-channel platform, and Sellozo, which is an ad optimization system. Advertisers will soon have access to 14 different platform partners across ad tech, measurement, e-commerce, and shopper marketing. 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. It's been three months since Elon Musk tweeted, do you want an edit button? And despite Elon's machinations around the Twitter deal, we might finally be getting close to editing tweets. According to a reverse engineering expert, the platform is working on a new message that will be appended to edited tweets that have been embedded on a third-party site. The embedded tweet would indicate whether it has been edited or if there is a new version. When a site embeds a tweet and it gets edited, the embed doesn't just display the updated version.

Instead, it shows an indicator that there is a revised version. The two messages are last edited with the date of the change, and there's a new version of this tweet. In short, after years of concerns that editing tweets could lead to negative interpretations, Twitter seems to have solved this problem fairly easily. The same software engineer also discovered that the platform is nearing the launch of its new pin reply feature, similar to other pin options on other platforms. The tool lets you pin a comment or reply to the top of the thread. You'll do that by tapping on the three dots menu on a response and selecting Pin Reply.

YouTube is making it easier to convert your brand's long form videos into shorts as the platform pushes short form video content. Company recently announced a new edit into short feature that lets you take up to 60 seconds from your video and convert it into a YouTube short. Shorts are, of course, the YouTube version of TikTok videos. Brands will have access to editing tools like filters, text and the timeline editor. Shorts created from videos into shorts. We'll link back to the original long form videos so that people watching your short can see the original video as well. This to me sounds a little bit something like what Instagram did with regular videos on the feed that when tapped would go to an IGTV video,

something like that. Anyway, the option is rolling out now for iOS and Android devices. Have you noticed that more and more items in your local supermarket are beginning to have markings like these on them? Well, that's an internationally agreed code, which can be read by a laser. And what it says is exactly what item of grocery this is. And that's a sign of the future. Because in the future your supermarket won't have a checkout like this where the girl has to punch up every item and its cost. In future that will all be done by laser. When every item on the supermarket shelves is given the new code

then this laser system will be able to do all the jobs at present done by light pencils and magnetic strips. The supermarket will have to provide the customer with clearer price labels on the shelves. Checkout should be much quicker for the customers. All the checkout girl has to do is pass the code label over the window and the laser underneath reads out the code. So how's your long weekend? My wife and I attempted camping again. First time we did it with trying to, you know, camp at the back of the car. That was a complete disaster.

So we rented what I thought was just a small teardrop camper. You know, you tow it behind the car. It's just basically a bed with like a roof over it. Maybe I didn't look at the photos close enough on the website, but the one we ended up with was big and heavy. And we were actually worried our car wouldn't tow it. It had a microwave. It had a TV set.

Like, it was bigger than we needed, but still, we had fun. Well, at least we survived anyway. If this podcast is on your daily must-listen list, first of all, thank you so much. And secondly, you might benefit by upgrading your listening experience and signing up for the premium podcast. You will get this show, but with no ads, you'll get immediate access to more than 20 deep dive, full length episodes covering the latest in marketing science.

Plus you'll be getting new ones every other weekend. The audio quality is better. There are links to stories in the show notes. It comes out earlier than the free episode. There are even audio chapters that let you jump between stories. Get $30 off the annual plan by going to todayindigital.com

slash premium feed or tapping the link in the show notes. By the way, this will be your last week. We are discontinuing the annual plan at the end of the week. So this is your last week to save 30 bucks off that annual plan. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. I know that you won't bring me down now. Cause you love me now. You love me. I know that you won't bring me down now. Cause you love me now. You love me.