Today in Digital Marketing - Meet the Instagram Ads Everyone Is Going to Hate

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Monday, June 3rd. Today, in shitification comes to the Instagram feed, how will users react to the new ad format that stops them from scrolling through content? Also, Google slows way down on its AI search results, SEO pros figure out how to get their brand into those results, and Shopify's acquisition could mean a huge bill for you. I'm Todd Maffin. That's Ahead, Today in Digital Marketing. Instagram is testing unskippable ads that prevent users from scrolling lower until they've watched the full ad. These ads display a countdown timer and won't let you browse more content until the ad finishes. You might recognize this from YouTube's free version, which also requires users to watch ads. The ad breaks were showing up in the Instagram feed while watching video posts. It was first noticed by Instagram

Starting point is 00:00:55 user Dan Levy, who posted it to social media. Levy said the app stopped him from scrolling past the ad. He called this a, quote, bonkers move, unquote. Clicking the info icon next to the ad break reveals a message explaining the new feature. Instagram confirmed the test to TechCrunch. Many other users reacted negatively as well, with some threatening to stop using Instagram if the ads persist.

Starting point is 00:01:21 Over the last two years, Instagram has become more focused on video content with features like stories and reels, and is exploring new video ad formats as well. Reports say Google has scaled back use of its AI search summaries after a series of embarrassing hallucinations, quoting satire as fact, and so on. The New York Times says it tested the six queries used at Google's announcement of the new system. Things like, how do you clean a fabric sofa? And what should I use to get a coffee stain out of my carpet? By Friday, only one of the six generated an AI result. Instead, Google returned a regular pre-AI results page. The company's recently promoted head of search wrote in a blog post that the company had slowed down on AI overviews and was trying to go slower with results about health and sources using satire.

Starting point is 00:02:15 Quoting the New York Times, quote, The backtracking was a blow to Google's efforts to keep up with its rivals Microsoft and OpenAI, the maker of the ChatGPT chatbot, in the frenzied race to lead AI. It also underscored the difficult strategic choice that Google faces over whether to embrace AI technology that may not be dependable, or keep its highly popular search engine the same, and risk falling behind its peers. Google had chosen to go slower than Microsoft, which placed more conversational AI into its

Starting point is 00:02:47 Bing search engine early last year. Google, which has significantly more users than Bing, tested AI features for its search engine a year before introducing AI overviews, unquote. So while there's a bit of a pause for now, nothing suggests Google is backing away from its overall goal to have this rolled out to more than a billion users by the end of the year. So with Google scaling its AI summaries back for the time being, that might give marketers time to get ready for the inevitable relaunch with an eye to having their brands appear in that summary text. One SEO pro says he's figured out exactly that. And it turns out it's easier than anyone thought.

Starting point is 00:03:32 First, Cyrus Shepard from Zippy SEO did a search similar to what he expected potential customers to do. Then he took the text of the AI overview, basically just copied that into his webpage. He says if the site was ranking in the top 10 already, it would typically show up as a reference link. Shepard then read Google's patent for the summaries and said he thinks the system is more artificial and less intelligent. Quote, according to the patent, I believe they simply look for pages that closely match the text of their generated answer,

Starting point is 00:04:08 which makes it incredibly easy to game, unquote. But, and this might be a big but, while he succeeded in getting his site into the sources cards, Google actually removed his previously ranked featured snippet. He noted in a social media post that Google is likely changing things quickly and that marketers might not want to consider blindly copying AI results as a good long-term strategy. Easy come, easy go, he said. These things change a lot. Shopify has acquired another one of its platform partners, this time its checkout blocks,

Starting point is 00:04:43 which lets merchants tweak their checkout pages to upsell things, increase conversion rate, and so on. Checkout Blocks, launched just under two years ago, lets you add blocks like AI recommendations, custom content, fields, discounts, and so on. It competes with similar tools. So far, only apparently has about 850 merchants using it. As part of the deal, the cost for the tool set will go from $99 a month to free, but there is a big catch. To get access to it, you'll need to be in the Shopify Plus program.

Starting point is 00:05:16 That costs almost $83,000 US for a minimum three-year term. Shopify did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition. Dentsu has updated its global advertising forecast, predicting a 5% growth in ad spend for 2024, up from an earlier 4.6% estimate. The increase driven by a strong digital ad market, the upcoming Olympics, and American elections. Breaking out digital ad market, the upcoming Olympics and American elections. Breaking out digital ad spending, that's expected to rise by 7.4%, making up almost 60% of the overall market. Growth in retail media and paid social categories, increasing by 32% and almost 14% year over year will support this surge. TV spending is expected to grow by 2.6%, but when you look at connected TV

Starting point is 00:06:06 by itself, that group will be up by more than 24% in spend. Traditional broadcast TV will be down a touch. Breaking it out by geography, the Americas are predicted to grow the fastest at almost 6%. Asia Pacific will see just over 4% growth led by China and India. The European region is expected to also grow by 4%. almost 6%. Asia Pacific will see just over 4% growth led by China and India. The European region is expected to also grow by 4%. That's all for today. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening.

Starting point is 00:06:33 See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Meet the Instagram Ads Everyone Is Going to Hate

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