Today in Digital Marketing - It’s Our First Web 3.0 Blockchain Metaverse Crypto NFT Episode!

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

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Today, think you're building your brand's metaverse? Nope, you're not. The update to Performance Max we were all waiting for. Some nice updates to Pinterest Commerce and YouTube Analytics. Google clamps down on a creepy API that it runs. And is there actually some truth to the old, have you tried increasing your budget advice? It's Thursday, July 7th.

I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Well, as soon as the word slipped past Mark Zuckerberg's lips, every marketing VP in the world seemed to race to create something for the metaverse. That was last fall. Have we done so far? Forrester Research says we've screwed it all up. One of the biggest faux pas, we're not even calling what we've built the right thing. Some brands hired developers to build their own 3D worlds where you could wander around as an avatar and interact with company reps and virtual products, slapped the Our Metaverse on it, and called it a day. But these environments are probably just what Forrester calls virtual shopping experiences, in that these are standalone spaces, not interconnected. For example, if Frosted Flakes decides to build a metaverse and you create an avatar for it, you probably can't take that avatar and wander it around the metaverse for Volvo. Because they're not metaverses. At least according to Forrester,

there's going to be one singular metaverse in which all these worlds reside. And you'll have a single digital representation of yourself that can move throughout. Sort of like if the old school second life is what's to come, which, side note, God help us all if that's our future. The research firm says even 10 years from now, consumers won't have a singular place to move freely between worlds. And they point out one thing which appears to have been lost in all the

hype, quote, just because the technology is available, that doesn't mean consumers will adopt, use, or even feel comfortable with metaverse experiences, unquote. Another problem is the lingua franca of the crypto dude bros have infiltrated this space, and marketers seem to think that throwing in buzzwords tied to Web 3.0 will entice consumers to their spanky new virtual worlds. For example, one news release from Alloyoga about accepting cryptocurrency payments read, quote, Today's announcement is not Allo's first foray into the Web3 space, having partnered with gaming platform Roblox earlier this year, unquote. What? Roblox? Roblox is a game building platform aimed at preteens. It has nothing to do with the blockchain, no connection to Web 3.0, but never mind the buzzwords, man. And, you know, I take it back.

I think I'd rather have Second Life after all. One of the biggest problems with Google's Performance Max campaigns may soon be getting fixed. These PMAX campaigns are mostly controlled by AI. It wants to pick your creative, it wants to decide who to target, and so on. Think of it like a dynamic ad campaign where Google's ad developers went out drinking for hours, came back to the office, and fell on top of the lever marked automation, pushing it all the way full tilt. That in itself wouldn't be a big deal if the campaign performed. Problem is, as we reported in late April, PMAC's campaigns don't

let you distinguish between targets who are located in your target market versus people who are only interested in your target market. That's a big difference if you're a local business that only sells in that geographical area. In one case, a business owner had set Canada as the targeting for their campaign. Google Ads reporting platform claimed all the impressions, clicks and conversions were coming from Canada. But when they looked in Google Analytics, they saw that actually 60% of traffic from this campaign was coming from users in India and Pakistan. Now, though, it seems like changes are being made. One user on Twitter last night tweeting a screenshot showing that for Performance Max campaigns with a Google Merchant Center feed, he was seeing advanced location options for targeting and exclusions.

Not everybody's seeing it, so it may still be rolling out, but it looks like you'll be able to either target people in a region or interested in that region. So just like before, but you'll also now be able to pick people in or regularly in your targeted location. Also, since we're here, Google just updated its ads editor to version 2.1. The update includes table header recommendations, a way to specify what view you want on startup, video conversion campaigns with shopping, and this nice touch, a warning dialogue if you try to copy and paste across accounts. Also, the include display network option is no longer selectable for standard shopping campaigns. If you've ever gotten on the phone with one of Meta's marketing reps, you'll know that most don't exactly come with a lot of helpful suggestions. In fact, there's a good chance you know the ad manager better than they do. The running joke in the industry is that their only consistent suggestion is, have you tried increasing your budget? Well, this is a little awkward.

Turns out they may have been right all along. Some new research from Nielinvested by a median of 50%, and ROI can be improved 50% with an ideal budget. They also noted some misbalances. For instance, while social media delivers 1.7 times the ROI of TV, social sees less than a third the spend of TV. Quoting MarketingDive.com, media spend should be between 1% and 9% of a company's revenue,

with challengers spending more and larger brands spending less. The report also found that overspending isn't as problematic as underspending, which affects digital video, 66% are underinvested there, display, 60% underinvested. Social, 43%.

And even TV, 31%. The report highlights a paradox of emerging media. While brands can't spend big without proving that new media works, spending small amounts makes it difficult to get accurate test results. Unquote. amounts makes it difficult to get accurate test results, unquote. All right, Pinterest has launched a whack of new shopping features, so let's go through them lightning round style. First, Pinterest's API for shopping has added some catalog and product metadata management. Second, product tagging on pins. This allows merchants to make their lifestyle pins shoppable and add products to their scene images. The company says in early testing, pinners showed 70% higher

shopping intent on product pins tagged in scene or brand images than standalone product pins. Third, they've enabled video assets in their product catalog to give pinners a view of the product from multiple angles when making a purchase decision. And finally, there is a new tab on business profiles, letting you show off your shoppable products. Pinterest says 30% of Shopify merchants on Pinterest get their first attributed checkout from their shop tab. 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. Some nice new month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Some nice new tweaks at YouTube for us. First, Shorts, that's their version of TikTok videos,

an update to those analytics in its main mobile app, which should align it closer to their other channel analytics tools. Also, they're adding some additional audience behavior into YouTube Studio. Tapping on See More below the main chart in Analytics will reveal new and returning viewer stats. Also along for the ride, some notes on how different viewer segments are responding to your videos. Socialmediatoday.com, in its coverage of this, notes that, quote, these insights have always been available within your advanced analytics stats, but the update

brings it more upfront, which could help more channel managers better understand viewer behavior, unquote. Finally, YouTube has updated how it presents musicians on the platform. Each artist's page has a new format, a simpler layout, and easier to see links to their main sections. Things are getting precarious out there for us digital marketers with phishing schemes seemingly hitting a peak. One common tactic which far too many marketers have fallen victim to comes in the form of a Facebook private message from some official looking account with the page name page verification or meta security team or something like that. They're usually the same. You've violated some policy and you have 48 hours to fill out an appeal form. You click the link. But to get to the form, you've got to log into Facebook first and give it your six digit two factor authentication code. Problem is, you're not actually logging on to Facebook there. You've clicked a link and you are now giving your info to a web page that looks identical to Facebook's login. But sitting behind it is, of course, a hacker. And yes, even if you have that two-factor authentication on and you need to generate a six-digit code, if you then give

that code to the hackers in Croatia or China or whatever, then they have access to your Facebook account, which means your business manager, which means your ad accounts and all your clients' ad accounts, and their budgets. And I guarantee within minutes, they will clone one of your legit users, delete the real admins, and start running crypto ads using your money or your client's money. I know personally of two agency executives this happened to. One quick side note here, Meta could absolutely stop this in its tracks with one simple change. Require an existing business admin to confirm that login before the person gets access. And maybe give us the ability to say, hey, if they're not logging in from my country or

they're using an IP range known to be a VPN, just block them. Meta could. So far, Meta hasn't. So the paranoid among us, and this should be everyone, have moved to using hardware keys like those sold inexpensively by YubiKey. Meta might not be helping with that part of the security puzzle, but Apple seems to be.

Yesterday, they announced the forthcoming iPhone OS will include something new, something they call Lockdown Mode. It will be optional. You'll have to manually turn it on and will include the following protections. Most message attachment types other than images will be blocked. Some features like link previews will be disabled. Certain complex web technologies

like just-in-time JavaScript compilation are disabled unless the user excludes a trusted site. Incoming invitations, including FaceTime calls, are blocked if the user has not previously sent the initiator a call or request. Wired connections with a computer or accessory are blocked when the iPhone is locked. And a couple more. We will, of course, get more details once the new iOS rolls out. One of the things that blew my mind about Google Ads is that you can target ads to people who have certain apps running on their phone. So if you're, I don't know, a meal planning service, you might want to target people who have recipe apps or apps of competing services. It wasn't just developers who had access to this.

Developers, too, could use a bit of code called query all packages. Packages is how developers sometimes refer to apps. And this would return a list of all the apps on someone's phone. Yeah, creepy. And in the US, particularly, with the right to an abortion being struck down, privacy advocates are rightly concerned that this kind of query could be put to bad use. But starting July 20th, Android app developers that use that API must now submit a declaration on why they want to use it. Google says only apps that need to know what other apps are on the user's phone to perform their function, such as a productivity app, will be granted access. This actually didn't come about directly from Roe versus Wade. Google announced it would take some steps to restrict this API's use back in March of last

year. They pushed the deadline back a few times. Now it seems it's got a hard date. So hot tub update. It's not a good one. No, the deck has not collapsed yet. We got everything kind of perfect. Got it running really nicely. Got a nice cabinet for the chemicals. Looks really sharp. I've got this fancy lighting behind it. Looks nice. We just got a little grip thing for my wife to be able to easier get into the hot tub. Last week, she developed this kind of a small red mark on her skin which grew a little bit she went to the doctor today the prescription you know kind of like a basic medicated cream but also

stay out of the hot tub for six weeks that's six weeks she has to stay out of the hot tub there was no prescription that said I had to stay out of the hot tub so maybe next week the update at the out of the hot tub. There was no prescription that said I had to stay out of the hot tub. So maybe next week the update at the end of the show

will be less about the hot tub, more about our marriage. We'll see. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Thank you.