Today in Digital Marketing - Marketers (Still) Aren't Ready for When the Cookie Crumbles

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, June 25th. Today, we've known it was coming for years, so why do marketers feel even less ready for the cookypocalypse than they did before? Also, Pinterest wants your bored content on TikTok, ad agencies are swimming in AI, and Threads gets even more connected to the Fediverse. I'm Todd Mathen.

Starting point is 00:00:23 That's ahead today in digital marketing. And a quick programming note before we get started. Around about the fourth Thursday of every month, most months, we do an informal hangout together. I'll get on a Google Meet and just chit chat. There's no agenda, just a time to meet me, chat about issues in the industry, maybe get some advice from other people, maybe swap some bad dad jokes. It is happening again this month, this Thursday. That's June 27th. That's this Thursday at 12 o'clock Pacific time, three o'clock Eastern time. It is only available to premium members. So if you'd like to sign up, just tap the link at the top of the show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash premium. All right, on with the show.

Starting point is 00:01:16 A new Adobe study of almost 3,000 marketers around the world finds that fewer of our peers feel ready for the end of third-party cookies than did in years previous. Nearly half still depend on them. This is despite expectations that Google would eliminate them this year. When asked two years ago if they were mostly ready for the change, 78% of marketers polled said yes. This year, that number has dropped to 60%. Quoting Digiday, quote, Epsilon has also found a majority of marketers to be still dependent on the third-party cookie and a minority that feel prepared for its deprecation. In a recent survey, Epsilon found 75% of respondents were still very or moderately reliant on third-party cookies, down from 82% in 2020. And only 44% of respondents said they felt very prepared for cookie deprecation in 2024, unquote.

Starting point is 00:02:01 More interesting about the Adobe study, I thought, was the data around how marketers are planning to deal with the data loss. 62% plan to spend more in walled ecosystems like social media sites. 49% said they're moving more on first party data. And 42% said they plan to work with websites more directly rather than go through ad brokers. Instagram is testing new ways to boost engagement in direct messages with chat widgets. These widgets would add tools and indicators to your chats. An app researcher shared an example of these chat widgets found in the code. Current widgets apparently being worked on include a countdown widget, a time zone widget that will show the local time of each chat

Starting point is 00:02:45 participant, and a widget that will let users quickly access pinned content. These could make chats a little more engaging by adding information right within the conversation. For example, on the consumer side, a countdown could remind friends of an event, while a time zone display ensures that everyone knows the correct time. But brands might also benefit from the feature. They could use the countdown widget to create urgency for offers and the time zone widget to interact with customers at appropriate times. There is no official release date for the chat widgets nor a complete list of features yet. Pinterest has added a way to let users create short videos of their curated Pinterest boards to share on social media. This, of course, inspired by video sharing trends on apps like TikTok.

Starting point is 00:03:31 Back in 2022, Pinterest introduced Shuffles, a collage-making app that became popular with Gen Z on TikTok. Users created aesthetic collages and mood boards set to music, which sometimes went viral. Shuffles' success led Pinterest to add a similar feature for shoppable collages. Pinterest users have been sharing their boards on TikTok through screenshots and green screen effects. Pinterest calls this the MeCore trend, noting a more than 500% increase in related searches and a 255% rise in MeCore boards since last year.

Starting point is 00:04:03 If you want to use this new feature, just tap the share icon on any public board to generate a video. Then click add to story or download if you want to share it on other platforms. You can also edit the board's pins or choose a different template before you share it. American ad agencies are all in on AI.

Starting point is 00:04:25 A new Forrester report revealing that 91% of U.S. ad agencies are using or exploring generative AI. This adoption rate is bigger than marketing organizations and the general business sector. Large agencies lead in AI usage with 78% of agencies with more than 200 employees using some form of the tech, compared to 53% of agencies with fewer than 50 employees. Creative agencies are at the forefront, 69% of those using AI. Media agencies are at 57%. More than half of respondents foresee generative AI significantly impacting their agency's operations in the next two years. The report, based on a study conducted with the American Association of Ad Agencies in April and May, identified a few key areas where AI will significantly impact. Content creation at 76%, the agency marketplace at 71%, and consumer interaction at 69%.

Starting point is 00:05:25 Shopify is launching its new AI chatbot Sidekick in early access. First revealed last year, this promises to help merchants create discount codes, generate store reports, and suggest blog post ideas. It is live in thousands of Shopify stores already, but currently limited to English-speaking merchants in North America. Merchants can join a waitlist to try it out. The company says it plans to expand Sidekick to other languages and regions soon. Shopify also announced some other AI features. One suggests taxonomy for products, which could save some time if you're listing lots of items. If the suggestions aren't right, you can manually adjust them. Another tool offers suggested replies for customer chats via

Starting point is 00:06:11 the Shopify inbox. These are currently just suggestions, and merchants must finalize and send responses manually. Also, it is expanding its image generator to mobile apps. Shopify says in the last six months, Shopify merchants have saved more than 1 million AI-generated images. Threads will now let users see and like replies to their Threads posts that came from Mastodon and other federated social media platforms. Before this update, users had to switch between platforms

Starting point is 00:06:45 to see responses to their Threads posts indicated to other sites. With this new feature, users can stay updated on replies within Threads. But the last piece of that puzzle is still not quite in place. To reply to the replies, users will still need to switch to the other platform.

Starting point is 00:07:02 Meta hinted that closing that gap is coming in the future. This morning, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Threads' Fediverse integration is now available in more than 100 countries. That's a big expansion from its initial rollout in just the US, Canada, and Japan. Meta has been planning to integrate with the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub since launching Threads nearly a year ago. The first tests of this integration began in December. And just FYI, we post every day on both Threads and Mastodon, so you can follow us on either platform. On Threads, we are at Today in Digital Marketing. On Mastodon, we are Today in Digital at M-A-S dot T-O.

Starting point is 00:07:52 And finally, Google has decided to save a little money by turning off infinite scroll on their search results page. They initially launched this on mobile after seeing it used on social media feeds. No need to tap a link reading next page. If it detected you reach the bottom, it would just serve you more. Then in 2021, they turned it on for desktop results. It should now be gone on desktop and will be pulled from mobile in the coming months. As for why it's leaving, Google said they expect it'll help them

Starting point is 00:08:12 serve the results faster on more searches and they won't be spending processing time loading results that users haven't explicitly requested. Just another quick reminder, our Google Meet hangout that we do once a month is coming this Thursday, this Thursday at 12 o'clock Pacific,

Starting point is 00:08:32 that's three o'clock Eastern time. Again, we don't really have an agenda. Sometimes we just hang out, we meet each other. Often people get advice on campaigns. It's not usually a long time. It is exclusive to our premium members, but you can become one

Starting point is 00:08:43 if you're not one already. Just tap the link at the top of the show notes that says go premium. All right. I will see you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Marketers (Still) Aren't Ready for When the Cookie Crumbles

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