Today in Digital Marketing - Listen to This Podcast in Four Equal Installments

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. Today, how to buy your way to the guaranteed top of the search results. Instagram's loss is Reddit's gain. LinkedIn buys its way deeper into the creator economy. And we're no strangers to love. You know the rules. And so do I. It's Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021. Happy National Flag Day, Venezuela. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital. We're back after a stat holiday yesterday in Canada. And here's what you missed today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:57 We start with what could be big news if you sell high ticket priced items online. The payment processor Square has acquired the Australian firm Afterpay for $29 billion in stock. Afterpay says it increases sales because it lets consumers pay something off in four interest-free installments. Consumers only pay a fee if they miss an automated payment. Afterpay makes most of its money by charging merchants a bit for the ability to offer that. They say more than 100,000 sellers use its service and has more than 16 million consumers who've taken advantage of their payment plan. This is definitely a play for younger buyers after pay says millennials and Gen Z account for nearly three quarters of all buy now, pay later plans in the U.S. Updates to Microsoft's ads platform.

Starting point is 00:01:47 First, if you really, really want to be at the top of the search results and are willing to pay for the privilege, you can do that now. It's part of the new campaign strategy called Target Impression Share. This is basically the same as over on Google's platform. Microsoft will automatically set your bid based on where you want your ads to appear and your Target Impression Share. You can choose from anywhere, which means you don't care where on the page your ads show up, to top of page, so you'll be in that top block, or absolute top of page, which means that you will be guaranteed the number one position. You can set a max CPC limit, though,

Starting point is 00:02:21 of course, like all caps, that could restrict your reach. You can always A-B test to see if paying for prime real estate is worth the added cost. Also, some new automated extensions will be rolling out to all accounts. Things like pulling in location info from big maps and adding images and videos automatically. That latter one starts early next year. And syndication decorations are really bright new call-to-action buttons that are glaringly obvious. Like, instead of just having a link to your site, you can also now get a big green learn more button or a see it button beside your listing. You can opt out of these automated additions if you like. And if you're using an MCC, they're now releasing manager account level labels. This way you can tag accounts, campaigns, ads, and keywords at that level

Starting point is 00:03:06 and mix and match in analytics to your heart's content. Also some smarter attribution reporting in the form of product conversion goals. Here's how that works. A customer clicks an ad for product A, navigates away without purchasing, subsequently clicks an ad for product B, but ends up purchasing product A. Normally this conversion would be attributed to the ad for product B, but ends up purchasing product A. Normally,

Starting point is 00:03:26 this conversion would be attributed to the ad for product B because that was the last ad clicked. However, with the product conversion goal, you can track this as a conversion for the ad for product A. And finally, their clever unified campaigns tool, which lets you run ads on Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and other platforms all from a single interface, has added Instagram to the mix. Normally we don't cover executive moves on here because those moves don't often impact your day-to-day work as digital marketers, but this one is notable. Reddit has hired its first VP of business marketing. His name is Timo Pels, and he was picked up from Instagram,

Starting point is 00:04:09 where he led global business marketing for the whole platform there, including Stories, Explore, Shopping, Branded Content, IGTV, and Reels. Before that, he led vertical sales and marketing at Facebook. Over at Reddit, he's been tasked with leading the sales team and trying to grow the ads business, both on the self-serve side and the managed accounts. This is, of course, a big move for Reddit, which has struggled to find a foothold in advertisers' pockets. A lot of brands consider the many communities a little unsafe in terms of user engagement and perhaps overall public perception. Others, ourselves included here in EngageQ,

Starting point is 00:04:45 a little disappointed with the self-serve ads platform itself. Reddit does have a huge user base, though, and it will be interesting to see what they've got in store for our ad budgets. A smart acquisition by LinkedIn may hint at the content direction they plan to take the platform. They've acquired the how-to video app Jump Rope. This one app works in all three of their priority areas. Expanded focus on video content, trying to build a more friendly platform for creators, and growing their professional skills development business. The app lets users

Starting point is 00:05:19 create step-by-step tutorials with videos or images and some templates to help communicate each step. Quoting socialmediatoday.com, like all social platforms, LinkedIn is looking to retain its most popular creators in order to maximize user engagement with the addition of new creator tools designed to incentivize posting and eventually facilitate revenue generation through sponsored content and ads. Earlier this year, LinkedIn posted a new job opening for a head of community

Starting point is 00:05:48 focused on supporting LinkedIn creators around the world, which is part of its team designed to establish new opportunities and incentive programs to keep creators posting updates. In March, LinkedIn added a new creator mode for profiles to give users more ways to showcase their presence, unquote. The current Jump Rope app and website will be discontinued on August 20th. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten.

Starting point is 00:06:24 And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.

Starting point is 00:06:51 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. They got off to a slow start. They've been copied shamelessly by pretty much everyone, but the live audio app Clubhouse says it's had a big increase in its user base, apparently adding 10 million users since mid-May. Just a couple of months prior, it reported only 2 million users. Also,

Starting point is 00:07:32 it says since May, it's doubled the number of rooms per day that are happening on the app. One thing it also says it's fixed is the number of app notifications that they spit out, which is great because their notifications are the reason I uninstalled the thing. Yes, I know I can turn notifications off, but the point is I want some notifications of things that are important to me, not a ding every time someone who happens to be in my contact book speaks in a room. That said, Clubhouse app downloads did go down between March and May, probably due to their lack of an Android app at the time and Twitter's splashy entrance into the space. But Clubhouse says since their Android app launched in May,

Starting point is 00:08:11 things are back on the incline. It also recently added a back-channel chatroom and changed its terminology around a bit. Followers are now club members, that kind of thing. They've also added a mid-tier moderation role called a leader that has a little more power than regular members, but not the full enchilada that admins have. And then there's this. The official video for Rick Astley's 1987 hit, Never Gonna Give You Up, the one that is behind so many mistaken clicks,

Starting point is 00:08:48 this weekend surpassed one billion plays on YouTube. The biggest Rick Roll, I don't have to explain what a Rick Roll is, right? The biggest Rick Roll came during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few years back. This kid's float stopped in front of the judges' area, started to do a kid's song And then Never Gonna Give You Up starts up And Rick Astley himself walks out of the float

Starting point is 00:09:14 And starts singing Although probably lip syncing I think my favorite Rick roll was when the San Diego Padres Trolled the Boston Red Sox. In between innings, they started playing the crowd favorite Sweet Caroline. Got right to that point where you belt out Sweet Caroline. And then... And honestly, good for Rick Astley for being such a great sport about this whole decades-long thing. I mean, he is benefiting from the royalties.

Starting point is 00:09:54 I mean, you know, honestly, what artist wouldn't want that? And he celebrated joining the Billion Plays Club by releasing a limited run of vinyl recordings of the hit. It has already sold out. And finally, in case you were one of the eight people who posted a Twitter fleet, today is your last chance to revel in that warm afterglow. The format is going away at some point today. The top bar real estate in the mobile app

Starting point is 00:10:22 will soon start showing you Twitter spaces by people you follow. If you've got a marketing position you're trying to fill or maybe you're looking for that great gig, consider a classified ad. It's just 20 bucks. You can book it online. Go to todayindigital.com slash ads or tap the link in this episode's description. I'm Todd Maffin. Talk to you tomorrow. It's the season for new styles

Starting point is 00:11:04 and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal.

Starting point is 00:11:31 Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.

Today in Digital Marketing - Listen to This Podcast in Four Equal Installments

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