Today in Digital Marketing - Is This Biggest Threat Ever to Meta's Ad Business?

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, December 7th. Today, terms of service be damned. Europe says Meta's playing a risky game with its ads business. How the consumer trend of bracketing is driving up costs for online retailers. When cross-functional collaboration hurts your marketing department, Microsoft enters the community space, and Twitter decides the perfect place for its advertisers' messages is smack dab on the pages of white supremacists.

Starting point is 00:00:28 I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. We start today with some big potential headwinds possibly looming that Meta cannot continue targeting ads using users' personal online activity without those users' consent, a decision that could limit the data it uses to sell ads. The ruling was reportedly approved Monday by a board representing all EU privacy regulators. It said EU's privacy laws

Starting point is 00:01:01 don't allow Meta's social media platforms to use their terms of service as a justification to permit advertising based on users' digital activity. Now, Meta already lets users opt out of personalized ads based on data from other sites and apps. However, when users join its platforms like Instagram and Facebook, they agree to let Meta track their clicks and taps within its own family of apps. That would change if upheld and could have significant consequences to all parts of Meta's ad business. According to the report, this decision has not yet been publicly disclosed and it won't be finalized until Ireland's Data Protection Commission issues public orders.

Starting point is 00:01:42 Meta will also be able to appeal the DPC's decision as well as the EU decision. A spokesperson for Meta said, quote, this is not the final decision and it's too early to speculate, unquote, adding that European law could allow for other legal justifications for targeting its ads. Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter prompted an exodus of many big name advertisers concerned that hate speech and other damaging content might appear alongside their ads. And those advertisers are starting to be proven right. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that ads for about 40 high profile brands have been spotted on the Twitter profiles of white nationalists in recent days.

Starting point is 00:02:27 Those brands include Amazon, Uber, Snap, USA Today, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to the report, promoted tweets from these brands and organizations, among others, appeared on the pages of at least two white nationalists. Both are young leaders in the hate movement who said their banned accounts were restored recently after the takeover. The post also noted seeing ads alongside white supremacist posts on pages with names like No White Guilt Clips and White Power Ranger. According to a former Twitter employee, the accounts must be flagged to prevent advertising from appearing near them, or they will be treated as ad eligible. And that doesn't seem to be happening. Maybe because Elon Musk completely gutted the platform's safety and trust teams? You know, just a hunch.

Starting point is 00:03:21 Here is your sign to revisit your brand's return policy. By dollar value this year, consumers will return more than a quarter of what they buy. U.S. consumers will send back $280 billion worth of merchandise, according to a new report for Insider Intelligence. That's about a quarter of what consumers are expected to spend this year, which can, of course, be quite costly for merchants. Depending on your brand's policy, you could be on the hook for packaging, shipping, labor costs. So what is driving these returns? The report said two factors are to blame for the increase. First, of course, inflation. And second, something called bracketing, which is where online shoppers buy multiple versions of an item to try

Starting point is 00:04:02 at home and then return the items that don't work or aren't exactly the right size. The study found nearly two-thirds of consumers bracketed their purchases this year. So how can you keep the cost of returns down? Some retailers are making the process more convenient, like curbside returns. Others provide shoppers with more information before they purchase,

Starting point is 00:04:23 and some are starting to charge customers for those returns. Charging, of course, is risky. According to a survey, more than half of shoppers said they wouldn't make purchases at all from online retailers if they charged at all for returns. Some dark clouds started to roll in for marketers in 2023. According to the latest predictions from Gartner, marketing chiefs will face serious challenges in developing brand value and loyalty next year. The firm identified three major trends that will impact CMOs. First, shifting consumer behaviors, amplifying uncertainty with inflation driving cost-cutting behaviors. Nearly a third of consumers are buying more store brands, while almost a fifth are reducing in-person shopping. Gartner says this will challenge established brands to maintain brand preference, premiums, and loyalty.

Starting point is 00:05:16 The majority of consumers and B2B buyers will also increasingly withhold the personal data that is necessary for digital marketing moving forward. Second, cross-functional collaboration begins to yield worse outcomes. Innovation, customer experience, digital commerce, they're all now enterprise-wide marketing priorities that need cross-functional execution. Gartner suggests a cross-functional focus at a company can actually siphon resources away from marketing departments that have struggled to return to pre-pandemic budgetary levels. And third, Gartner believes traditional methods of tracking brand value like brand reach, brand sentiment, and perceived differentiation are at risk. The reasons include disruptive market entrance, heightened audience

Starting point is 00:06:03 expectations, and the fact that it's just plain easier for consumers to learn about brands that aren't previously familiar to them. According to a survey, three-quarters of audiences have searched online for information about a previously unfamiliar brand while shopping, while only 15% said they were loyal to a familiar brand. 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. Microsoft Teams is coming for Facebook and Discord. The company today announcing Communities, a free version of Microsoft Teams for community groups for small businesses, organizations, sports clubs, event planners, and more. The new community option will let groups use several features of Teams,

Starting point is 00:07:10 including group calendars, event scheduling, photo sharing, and video calls. The communities feature in Teams will also include a new events experience that lets users add events to a community calendar, as well as invite guests, track attendance, and chat with attendees through DMs. So far, the features look pretty basic. As The Verge pointed out, unlike Discord, you can't simply jump into a persistent call with your online group, and the community's feature in Teams

Starting point is 00:07:38 seems to be more structured around a rigid form of organization. The new feature will be supported by Microsoft Teams on iOS and Android as of today, with desktop coming soon. And that will bring us to the lightning round. Still with Microsoft, they announced updates to their ads platform yesterday, including video ads are now more broadly available. Auto-generated remarketing lists are now also available. Flyer extensions, which let you showcase your image flyers next to text ads.

Starting point is 00:08:10 Expanded coverage of hotel price ads and property promotion ads. And finally, the ad scheduler now has a calendar view. YouTube has several new updates to report. First, it's giving Shorts creators the option to choose a frame from their clip as their thumbnail within the Shorts creation flow, starting with Android users. The platform has also launched its new automated system for translating content into another language called Allowed. And finally, it's rolling out a new chat option called YouTube Emotes, which will let viewers share graphics within their comments on clips. And Yelp announced a new projects tab yesterday on its mobile app that lets users create, manage, and organize jobs. The company says you'll be

Starting point is 00:08:50 able to use the feature to request quotes from businesses, compare prices, message contractors, and schedule consultations. The company also announced an updated messaging inbox for businesses designed to surface the most relevant information for business owners. Well, it finally happened. TikTok made me buy it. I saw this TikTok comparing a bunch of popcorn makers. I've never liked hot air poppers. They're too loud, and I find that the popcorn they make comes out really moist for some reason. So anyway, this is kind of a cool one. It's basically a flat tray that heats up, and you put the popcorn on it.

Starting point is 00:09:29 And then this metal rod just slowly turns them, and it does a great job. And I saw it on TikTok. Oh, I guess this is not the first thing that we bought because of TikTok. We bought our car because of it. My wife uses a wheelchair, so we need the back seat to be able to come out, and a particular door configuration to let a wheelchair, so we need the back seat to be able to come out and a particular door configuration to let a wheelchair get in, and I was just surfing around TikTok, and this

Starting point is 00:09:50 guy did a review of this Kia, and it was kind of perfect for us. So, there you go. The COVID is mostly through us now. I think we're 99% of the way done. Just a kind of a scratchy throat, a little bit of fatigue. Thank you for your kind wishes. On the upswing.

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Today in Digital Marketing - Is This Biggest Threat Ever to Meta's Ad Business?

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