Today in Digital Marketing - Learn Why You Are Receiving This Podcast

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Starting point is 00:01:10 TikTok's making it easier for you to sponsor influencers. And how much does each click on Google cost now? The answer, from a Google Pro. It's Friday, July 23rd, 2021. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. One of the nice additions Facebook did a few years back was to have a way for people to find out why an ad was in their feed.

Starting point is 00:01:32 The why am I seeing this ad would reveal some rough targeting parameters, and for us, digital marketers, sometimes a glimpse into how our competitors were putting their campaigns together. Were they using custom audiences? Was this more broadly targeted? And occasionally you could spot mistakes those advertisers made.

Starting point is 00:01:51 I recently got served an ad for a company that makes a projected light. When I tapped on, why am I seeing this ad? It revealed that one of their interests targeting was lights, but not projected lights, rather lights the Canadian musician. I guess this company just clicked on every lights that popped up in the suggested list. Many of us have thought, wouldn't it be great if this feature existed for Google search results? Your dream may be answered. This week, Google started rolling out a new About This Result overlay that will disclose

Starting point is 00:02:21 why Google is ranking that page for a given search. Like Facebook's version, this is high-level data only. Some of that data includes which keyword triggered the result, or if Google substituted a synonym, whether an image on the page triggered it, and things like the impact of language and country on the results. Google will also give searchers tips on how to get better results, like negative matching or changing your location. In all the attention around TikTok, reels, shorts and more, you could be forgiven for thinking that Snapchat is just slowly withering away.

Starting point is 00:02:57 But you'd be wrong. They continue to keep growing and growing. This week, their Q2 reported both revenue and daily active users grew at the highest rates in the last four years. Snapchat now has 293 million daily actives. That's up 23% since last year. It was looking tricky a while back after Instagram copied stories and Kylie Jenner tweeted that she didn't use Snapchat anymore. That caused a $1.2 billion valuation drop. But they closed out last quarter with nearly a billion dollars in revenue.

Starting point is 00:03:30 How? Well, partly they took a page from Instagram's strategy book and cloned TikTok. Snapchat calls their version Spotlight. And they're still considered the leader in both AR effects for organic content and for e-commerce.

Starting point is 00:03:44 Do not count Snapchat out. Twitter, too, released its Q2 earnings result this week and was also good news. Steady increases in both users and revenue. This after Twitter's board nearly threw co-founder Jack Dorsey out complaining about lack of innovation and growth. That seems to be turning around now. Twitter's monetizable daily active users is now 206 million.

Starting point is 00:04:09 That's an increase of 11% year over year. Pretty much all that growth has come from outside the US. Most analysts are still in a wait and hold attitude and are carefully watching the company's interactions with India, which has both a lot of people and a whole lot of regulatory issues, to be generous. Twitter's definitely in the middle of a huge change, including new monetization features, a live audio product, a new newsletter subscription product. They even said they'd be retiring fleets next month. That's their take on stories. In terms of revenue, Twitter was up

Starting point is 00:04:41 a whopping 74% compared to previous Q2. Almost all that comes from advertising. But let's not forget, of course, Q2 this year looks a whole lot different economically than last Q2, which was in the heat of the pandemic. You know what else was up at Twitter? Cost per engagement numbers up 42% year over year. Good news, data nerds. Instagram's in-app analytics will now have double the time for insights. Currently, the app shows 30 days of data. They say they're stretching that to 60 days,

Starting point is 00:05:16 and we'll soon have it up to 90 days later in the summer. To be fair, true data nerds aren't really using Instagram's in-app analytics. You're using a third-party tool or some middleware like Supermetrics. But still, for fast glances or to quickly answer a question in a meeting, this is good news. As part of that upgrade, they've also added a new calendar tool within Insights to let you pick your time frame. And reports say soon you'll be able to pick your own start and end dates. Currently, that calendar still restricts you to the 7-day, 7 day, 14 day, 30 day, and so on. We can only assume they'll duplicate this over on Creator Studio, which they've been trying to make a single hub for content stuff.

Starting point is 00:05:50 Right now, it's only 30 days there, too. This started rolling out this week and should get to you soon. To TikTok now, and the company this week launching a new tool to let advertisers sponsor trending organic content. They call them Spark Ads. This will let brand marketers search for TikTok videos that are performing well and put a budget behind it. So yes, basically boosted posts.

Starting point is 00:06:14 They've been testing this pretty widely for the last few months and are releasing it more widely. If you try this and it's asking you to buy coins, like buying hammers in Candy Crush, that's a different thing. You can also promote your own content that way, which is terribly confusing. Like this, the way they'd have it, it costs 702 coins, at least the video views that I picked. Like, what is that in real money? 702 coins? Well, you can buy 660 coins for $13.99 in Canada, so maybe that's 15 bucks? It's really confusing. But Spark ads, which we're talking about here, are in the actual ads manager.

Starting point is 00:06:47 The process you'll need is to grab a code from the video that you want to sponsor or get the creator to give you that code and then input that code into ads manager that will let you pull that video up. LinkedIn launched a similar option last May using real money. 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.

Starting point is 00:07:16 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. Whenever I do my lives on TikTok, and if you've not been there, our TikTok account name is now Today in Digital. One question that always comes up, what do I think the next big thing in digital marketing will be? I think there are two contenders. Ad campaigns enhanced by augmented reality and live streamed e-commerce. Apparently YouTube agrees with the latter. This week said it will begin piloting a way for viewers to shop for products directly from live stream videos. If this sounds familiar, it's because they began a beta test of this, but that only worked for on-demand videos, not live videos.

Starting point is 00:08:09 Quoting TechCrunch, YouTube's video platform for years has been a powerful tool for product discovery, as its more than 2 billion logged-in users per month turn to the service to watch product reviews, demos, unboxes, shopping hauls, and other content that could inspire future purchases. But creators who wanted to sell from their YouTube videos often would have to promote affiliate links to online stores through the video's description or in-video elements like cards or end screens. In more recent years, YouTube also introduced a merch shelf that would allow viewers to shop a specific product list the creator selected. The integrated shopping experience, meanwhile, allows viewers to shop the product shown in the video itself by tapping on a View Products button, which brings up a list of the items being featured. There are lots of startups trying to get into this space.

Starting point is 00:08:54 Bamboozer, PopShopLive, TalkShopLive, Whatnot, and others have raised millions and millions of dollars in angel funding to hopefully be the next great thing. And that brings us to the lightning round. Clubhouse, the app that started the whole live audio thing, is finally out of beta and no longer requires you to have an invite from a friend to join. Is it too little too late? Google has a nice new feature coming to its online spreadsheet. Soon you'll be able to select multiple sheets in one go by holding down shift when clicking them. That'll make it a bit faster to do things like color, group, duplicate, and delete all in one fell swoop.

Starting point is 00:09:34 It's rolling out now. Facebook is adding new pre-approval requirements for medical brands that want to promote prescription drugs. As of August 25th, telehealth providers and online pharmacies will be required to present written certification from the third-party certificate provider LegitScript. Pharmaceutical manufacturers will also have to get pre-approval from Facebook prior to running ads promoting prescription drugs. And even if you do get through all that, your ads will only run to adults in the U.S., Canada, or New Zealand. And finally, TikTok has gained tag brand safety certification, which is a big deal for big and regulated brands. Well, we had a great listener Zoom this afternoon. Google ads expert Jill Saskin-Gales joined us.

Starting point is 00:10:22 She spent six years at Google helping large brands with their campaigns. Now, she struck out on her own as a Google Ads consultant for hire. You can find her at jill.ca. That's J-Y-L-L.ca. She answered lots of questions from me and everyone else in the Zoom, including whether to accept Google's machine learning, how Google campaigns are affected by iOS 14. There was some talk of nonprofits.

Starting point is 00:10:40 And one question was this, what can I expect to pay on a cost per click basis? If I run Google ads, it depends. I would say if you're like just getting started on Google and trying to budget, you can say maybe like $2, $3 per click. But like it really varies, you know, the seat cost per click for your brand name is probably pennies, because there's not gonna be much competition there. And if you work in certain industries, like in insurance, for example, your cost per click could be $50. But if you get a customer, you make thousands, right? So that's why people are often scared of using what we say automated bidding or like machine bidding algorithms because you want

Starting point is 00:11:24 to set your cost per click. But like, you don't actually care what your cost per click is you care what your cost per conversion is your cost per purchase your return on ad spend and so that's why like although you cringe at first like when I used to run an MBA admissions consulting business and CPCs were like 10 to 15 dollars and so especially if like someone clicks on a keyword that's not relevant, like, ah, but it was worth it. I signed a client, I made $1,500. So always keep that in mind. Like, sure, if you sell a $20 product, well, you probably can't afford search ads

Starting point is 00:11:56 for the most part. But if you're selling products that are more expensive than that, you can afford a higher cost per click. What you really need to focus on is either a cost for conversion, your CPA, or even better, your ROAS. The weekly listener Zoom happens every Friday at 1pm Pacific, 4pm Eastern. That's 8pm London time.

Starting point is 00:12:14 If you are a premium newsletter subscriber, you will get a link to the replay if you miss it. The Zoom link to join us is b.link slash listener Zoom. And that link is in the episode description as well. Set it in your calendar right now, friends. Every Friday, 1 o'clock Pacific, go to b.link slash listenerzoom to join us. And don't forget, we are looking for genuine experts

Starting point is 00:12:39 in specific fields of digital marketing for our weekly listenerzooms, and perhaps on the podcast itself. If you would like to be one of these experts on call, tell us about yourself at today in digital.com slash experts. Thank you for your patience this week. My wife and I enjoyed a lovely midweek break outside of Victoria, BC,

Starting point is 00:12:59 perhaps the most scenic location I've ever stayed in. Go look at my Twitter account. If you don't believe me, I've started the month trial of look at my Twitter account if you don't believe me. I've started the month trial of Apple Fitness Plus. God help me. You know, I updated a bunch of my professional photos last week. You may have noticed the new podcast artwork.

Starting point is 00:13:14 You know when you look in the mirror and you're like, wait, that's what I look like? So yeah, hopefully shave a few pounds off with this new regimen. I also got Apple's AirPods Pro, the new in-ear AirPods. Holy crap, the noise cancellation is amazing. I run a loud fan in my office.

Starting point is 00:13:32 I put these in. I actually thought I'd lost power to the fan because the whole sound disappeared. The noise canceling is incredible. This was not an ad. 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.

Starting point is 00:13:55 I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. And I'll talk to you on Monday.

Today in Digital Marketing - Learn Why You Are Receiving This Podcast

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