Today in Digital Marketing - Meet the New “Mega-Thread” Ad Format

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Reddit's new ad format mimics a popular organic post format. LinkedIn will now let you sponsor almost anyone. Microsoft cleans up its Ads UI. And YouTube finally lets you clean those embarrassing moments from your livestream.📰 Get our free daily newsletter📈 Advertising: Reach Thousands of Marketing Decision-Makers🌍 Follow us on social media or contact usLinks to all of today’s stories hereListen to NerdWallet’s Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app. “Future You” will thank you. GO PREMIUM!Get these exclusive benefits when you upgrade:✅ Listen ad-free✅ Back catalog of 20+ marketing science interviews✅ Get the show earlier than the free version✅ “Skip to story” audio chapters✅ Member-only monthly livestreams with TodAnd a lot more! Check it out: todayindigital.com/premium✨ Already Premium? Update Credit Card • CancelMORE🆘 Need help with your social media? Check us out: engageQ digital📞 Need marketing advice? Leave us a voicemail and we’ll get an expert to help you free!🤝 Our Slack⭐ Review usUPGRADE YOUR SKILLSInside Google Ads with Jyll Saskin GalesGoogle Ads for Beginners with Jyll Saskin GalesFoxwell Slack Group and CoursesSome links in these show notes may provide affiliate revenue to us.Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It is Friday, March 15th. Today, Reddit's new ad format mimics a popular organic post. LinkedIn will now let you sponsor almost anyone. Microsoft cleans up its ads UI. And YouTube finally lets us clean those embarrassing moments from our live streams. And a quick programming note, this weekend is my wife and my 10th wedding anniversary. So as you hear this, I'm actually out of town with her for a mini vacation. This episode was recorded yesterday afternoon. For better or worse, one of digital marketing's big trends in the last few years has been the slippery slide toward ads looking more like organic posts. Ads on Twitter once had a sponsored label pretty clear. Now they're nearly indistinguishable from regular posts,

save for a two-letter disclosure in the top right. Google search ads too have toyed with various formats that make them look like unpaid organic listings. Now Reddit is jumping into the mix with a new ad format designed to replicate organic posts that get a lot of traction. Those posts known informally as a mega thread. The new ad format is called a freeform ad and advertisers can combine image, video and text or use a pre-designed template. They will have some disclosure, some light gray text at the top that reads promoted. Reddit says freeform ads outperformed all their other ad types in average click-through rate by 28%. But as always, take these numbers with a grain of salt because the platforms rarely report when other metrics might not be as strong. Freeform ads are available now to all advertisers on Reddit globally.

You will find them in the self-service Reddit Ads Manager. LinkedIn is now letting businesses spotlight not just their employees' voices, but any user's content within the app. This marks a big change from the platform's previous limitation of promoting only verified employee posts through its Thought Leader ads. Now, companies can extend their promotional efforts to include content from customers, industry experts, or any influential figure, even if they are not on payroll. Setting up these Thought Leadership campaigns is pretty straightforward with LinkedIn's Campaign Manager.

You can use new search tools to find and sponsor the exact content you wish to amplify, whether by searching for a specific person or a post. It is worth mentioning that the original creators of the promoted content won't receive any compensation other than the boosted visibility that they'll get within LinkedIn. And those creators can approve or deny promotion requests just in case they're from a brand that they don't want to be associated with. Thought leadership ads are only available for brand awareness and engagement campaigns for now, and will only work with single image or video posts. Microsoft is rolling out a new design for its ads manager. It's more colorful, a little more modern looking, maybe more efficient, though that's often a subjective thing.

Microsoft last updated its UI back in 2020. There is also a change to the sidebar navigation and it incorporates Microsoft's AI chatbot, which can help you do some basic things in the ads manager. For live streamers, whether on Twitch or YouTube, making a big mistake on stream or having something amazing happen or finally winning the boss fight, these moments can be captured by a video format known as a clip. In live stream parlance, a clip is usually about 60 seconds that is taken from the live stream, usually at the command of viewers. One embarrassing example for you, I was live streaming playing Rainbow Six Siege with my squad. Our job was to protect the hostage. I accidentally killed the hostage.

Todd, shoot. Shoot. Did you kill the fucking hostage? Oh, my God. That mistake was gleefully clipped by one of my viewers, and it now lives in infamy on my Twitch site. YouTube has had that as well for a while, and now has a way for you, the creator, to easily find all the clips that viewers have created

from your uploads. You can also find those that you created. From that screen, you can delete those embarrassing moments. Note to self. This is being rolled out starting this week on desktop and mobile is coming soon. YouTube has also introduced some new notifications for channel managers to notify you when products are not displayed in your uploads due to some kind of technical issue. Quoting YouTube, quote, Creators will see a banner in the video details if there are products that are tagged

but can't be served because of tag quality issues, products under review, products that have not been approved, or products that have been deleted, unquote. That, too, is being rolled out this week in YouTube Studio. Stripe, the digital payment giant, is making waves with its annual letter, revealing a business not just thriving, but outpacing the payment space. They logged a staggering $1 trillion in total payment volume last year. That is a 25% increase from the previous year.

Needless to say, they're projecting another cash flow positive year in 2024 and hinting at a future public offering without the immediate need for additional capital. Interesting to note from their update, they say they observed a record number of startups being founded in 2023, particularly in the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands and Sweden. This despite something of a pullback from VC companies. Stripe is currently valued at $65 billion. So I sure hope nothing happened in the last 24 hours. Significant. The Elon didn't buy Meta or something like that because this episode was recorded yesterday afternoon.

Yes, it is the 10th wedding anniversary of me and my wife. We are in Vancouver for a surprise. Well, surprise for her. I have been working on this for a year and a half. I'm not going to tell you what it is until Monday because I'm terrified of it leaking out. I don't think she listens to the podcast. I know she occasionally reads the newsletter, which is essentially the script of the podcast. So I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to say a word other than to say I've been telling her that it's, you know, to be under expect to be underwhelmed.

I've been downplaying it, but it's actually going to be quite huge. I'm so excited. I hope I can pull it off. I'll let you know what it was and what happened on Monday. But as for now, that will do it for the week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories

of the Snunimic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our production coordinator is Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis. Ad coordination by Red Circle and Beehive. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. I will see you next week with all the details. Bye for now.

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. 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.