Today in Digital Marketing - Meta Ads Are So Broken People Are Pulling Their Campaigns

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Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. It is Monday, October 23rd. Today, missing images, glitched out copy, Meta's ad platform appears to be broken, and the company isn't talking about it. Also, TikTok pushes its upload limits. Are shoppable TV ads the dark horse of Q4? And on the ad-free premium podcast, which you can subscribe to by tapping Go Premium in the show notes, Andrew Foxwell on the death of the marketing funnel, how to get Meta to refund your ad campaigns when they glitch out, and the small changes you can make to your conversions API setup that will show you more sales. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. It's never good when

Starting point is 00:01:07 ad campaigns break. Worse when that happens in the lead up to Black Friday. And even worse when the platform this has been happening on has not acknowledged the issue at all. The platform we're talking about is of course Meta, known for the instability of its ads platform. But this bug is a big deal. big enough that major media buyers are pulling back on their Meta spend. The issue is images. Many people are reporting that their ads are being displayed without the associated media. That's a huge deal, of course, but at the time of our production today, Meta had not said anything about it. And media buyers on social media also report radio silence from their reps.

Starting point is 00:01:47 And other bugs, too. Some even on Meta's own ads. One example circulating around social is an ad for Meta, but where the body copy usually is, it just barfs out the variable product.brand. Andrew Foxwell is our Meta ads correspondent. Andrew, what is going on here? This is a thing that started to happen on Friday. So today is the 23rd of October. Have heard zero from Meta about it.

Starting point is 00:02:13 Our rep said there's currently no bug that's been filed, which I think is insane because it's literally affecting like thousands of accounts. So, you know, I wanted to just validate that if you've seen this, it's not showing images. It is a glitch. So it's not happening everywhere in the world. It certainly seems to be happening now within the United States. I've seen reports out of Europe that it's been fine. So unclear how, when this is going to get resolved, but it's still happening in certain accounts and we don't know you know which ads showed with an ad and which ones are with an

Starting point is 00:02:50 image and which ones did not so you know clear as mud per usual from meta which is really frustrating um especially what the time of year that we're at doesn't give me faith going into q4 or going into black fr, rather. That is exclusively on today's premium podcast, which you can sign up to by going to todayindigital.com slash premium or tapping go premium in the show notes today and tomorrow. That subscription is 30 percent off. TikTok is testing, letting brands and creators upload even longer videos than they can now. When TikTok started, videos were only 15 seconds long. Then, then to a minute, then three minutes, then 10. Now, they're trying out 15 minutes for some accounts. Nobody should be surprised, really.

Starting point is 00:03:56 All the apps want to keep eyeballs on their content as long as possible. And longer videos means more opportunity for advertising like mid-rolls. Will we see this grow beyond 15 minutes? Probably. Doyin, the Chinese clone of TikTok, now lets people upload 30-minute videos and has for a year now. No word yet on when this will roll out more widely. One of the quiet digital ad formats is starting to get some solid results. Shoppable ads on smart TVs are standing out among consumers.

Starting point is 00:04:30 A new survey of 1,000 smart TV owners found that 55% recall seeing shoppable ads and half say they've interacted with them. Quoting Martech.org, quote, there was a time, and this is not ancient history, when to purchase a product seen on mobile social media would be necessary to surf to the seller's website and browse a catalog. Now there are, at the least, deep links into the relevant product page internet, is going the same way, with purchases able to be triggered within the ad itself, most often by scanning a QR code, unquote. A few more data points. 51% say they have scanned QR codes to get more product information. 26% said they had scanned QR codes to make a purchase. The most popular products purchased through shoppable ads were clothing, electronics, food, and food delivery. But smartphones are still way out in front, with 82% saying they purchased through shoppable ads on mobile devices. I should note, the survey was paid for by Samsung Ads and its video ads partner,

Starting point is 00:05:41 so it's not like they don't have a dog in this race. But still interesting to see these numbers slowly tick up over time. 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. Instacart, the food delivery app, is becoming more of a consumer data repository with a small side gig delivering groceries. Now, purchase data sorted by product category will be licensed through the ad tech firm, The Trade Desk,

Starting point is 00:06:29 for marketers to reach consumers interested in or loyal to a specific product. The Trade Desk offers a variety of placements, but has some particularly strong bench strength across connected TV and display. This opens up targeting like reaching people who bought your category, but not your brand, or people who did buy your brand, but you want to stay on top of the mind,

Starting point is 00:06:49 or it can also help you reach people who used to buy a lot of your brand, but have lapsed recently. It was only this past May when Instacart released shoppable video ads and enhanced shoppable display ads. Instacart says it picks up from more than 80,000 stores across North America. Instagram is leaning even more into pay-for-reach, the company now testing a fourth feed in the app. Currently, there's the main feed, then a feed of just your followers, then a feed of just your favorites, and now they're testing a meta-verified feed where only people who pay for the blue checkmark will be shown. That costs 15 bucks a month if you buy it through the app. It's a little cheaper on the web. Since it's hidden underneath a tap, which

Starting point is 00:07:36 probably not a lot of people even use to access the other special feeds, it's not clear what significant benefit this gets people who pay for verification. Most likely, this just provides a bullet point on the marketing materials for verification, even if it's not actually that overwhelming in practice. You know, I have actually read scientific proof that the man cold is a thing. Right, guys? Back me up on this. Like, we feel it, don't we?

Starting point is 00:08:08 More? I think it extends to booster shot reactions, too. I had my booster shot on Saturday afternoon and yesterday. Oh, God. Everything was wrong. Like, I was sore. I was hot. I was sweaty.

Starting point is 00:08:23 I was clammy. I was cold. I was kind of all over the map. And my wife? She was fine. I don't know. Maybe it's a man-cold thing, maybe I'm just a wimp. Who knows? I'm Todd Mappin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:08:42 ... ... ... We'll see you next time.

Today in Digital Marketing - Meta Ads Are So Broken People Are Pulling Their Campaigns

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