Today in Digital Marketing - Meta's AI Ad Offer You Can't Refuse (Literally)

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Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. It is Friday, February 7th. This week, big changes to Meta's main ad product. Google's AI is causing traffic to some websites to plummet. The simple URL hack to boost your local listings. And why are Google reviews disappearing? I'm Todd Maffin. All that ahead in our Friday wrap-up of the week in digital marketing. Big changes on Meta's ad platform this week. The company today announcing new updates for its Advantage Plus ad campaigns, handing even more of your campaign targeting decisions

Starting point is 00:00:58 to AI. The company is testing a new setup that eliminates the need to choose between manual or Advantage Shopping Plus campaigns, as Advantage Plus will now optimize all campaign elements automatically. A new label that says Advantage Plus On will show when these AI optimizations are active. Meta is renaming Advantage Plus Shopping campaigns to Advantage Plus Sales campaigns and expanding Advantage Plus shopping campaigns to Advantage Plus sales campaigns, and expanding Advantage Plus to include leads campaigns. All this while Meta is set to implement 5% workforce cuts on Monday. And starting February 24th, Meta will change its default inventory filter for in-content ads. Ads on Facebook in-stream videos, reels, and the meta audience network will move from moderate to expanded inventory.

Starting point is 00:01:50 The current moderate filter blocks ads from appearing alongside sensitive content, while the expanded inventory filter lets ads show in any content that follows meta's monetization policies. This means your ads could show up alongside sensitive content on topics like tragedy or conflict, debated social issues, or objectionable activity. Now, if you've already set a specific inventory filter for your ads, it shouldn't be

Starting point is 00:02:18 affected. Still, it's important to check your default filter setting before launching new ad sets and make changes if needed. To Google's advertising news for the week now, and the company's ad revenue growth is slowing. In Q4 of 2024, ad revenue increased 10.5% year over year, but that still missed analysts' expectations. YouTube's ad revenue is up 14%, though growth also showed signs of slowing. Search and Other, which is Google's largest segment, increased 12.5%. Google's AI might soon choose your ad backgrounds, though my advertiser is getting emails this week from Google about a test where AI will automatically generate background images for shopping ad product listings. There is apparently an option to opt out.

Starting point is 00:03:09 Still with Google for a bit, the company is now letting advertisers book a tagging consultation through the console to set up conversion measurement. A Google rep will guide you and your developer through implementing a Google tag for tracking ad performance, which they say will take about 30 to 60 minutes. Usually these talk-to-a-rep opportunities are thinly disguised sales calls. This one actually might be helpful. And Google also announced it will now use its AI to better prioritize landing pages that align with user intent. Ads that link to confusing or misleading pages will be demoted.

Starting point is 00:03:47 And finally, in Google News, some top people are out. Joan Brady, VP of Partnerships and the Google employee who negotiated the search engine deal with Apple more than 20 years ago, reportedly left at the end of last year. And Stephen Yap, a longtime ad executive, is leaving after two decades to become chief revenue officer at the ad tech firm Perion. Yap most recently served as managing director of the Google marketing platform. All right, two other ad platforms now. including Nestle, Lego, and Shell, accusing them of, well, not advertising on X and conspiring to withhold billions in ad revenue from the platform following his 2022 takeover of the company. Microsoft announced some new Performance Max tools in pilot. They'll soon be able to use

Starting point is 00:04:38 LinkedIn's professional targeting data, including company, industry, and job function signals. Microsoft owns LinkedIn, of course. Advertisers will also be able to adjust conversion values in real time based on factors like location and device usage that'll be applicable to all campaign types. And finally, in our wrap-up of the advertising news of the week, Snapchat is finally jumping on the AI ad campaign train, and it's coming soon. During its earnings call this week, the company revealed it'll test a new smart budget optimization feature this quarter.

Starting point is 00:05:10 This tool automatically adjusts campaign budgets across all assets to maximize results, which is a pretty standard move for AI-driven ad campaigns. But Adweek reports that Snap's version lacks the power of rivals, like Google's PMAX and Meta's Advantage Plus. For now, Snap's version is still a mystery. Little is known about its specifics.

Starting point is 00:05:31 A spokesperson for the company did hint that while it's not quite on par with its rivals, it is, quote, comparable, unquote. All right, turning to social media, we'll start with the meta platforms. Instagram is previewed feature of its upcoming video editing app called Edits. It'll be launching next month in select regions. It'll offer free tools, including creator collaboration options and AI animation for still images. It'll let you create new video content without recording. Instagram also has a new WhatsApp sticker for stories,

Starting point is 00:06:05 which lets you link directly to a WhatsApp chat by providing your phone number for verification. Instagram is also testing a feature that lets you rearrange your profile grid with backend code hinting at an upcoming rollout. And Threads is now outpacing X in engagement. With 320 million active users, a recent survey found more than half of marketers

Starting point is 00:06:25 are already posting on the platform, and nearly a quarter plan to establish a presence this year. Thread's posts are generating more than 73% higher engagement rates than X. Snapchat has a new ad-free option. The platform quietly launched a platinum version of its Snapchat Plus subscription, letting users opt out of all ads for $16 Canadian per month. That is more than double the regular Snapchat Plus price. Snapchat's Q4 report showed user growth and a 14% year-over-year revenue increase, but challenges still remain. The platform added 10 million users, but lost users in North America, raising concerns about long-term profitability. Over at YouTube, despite their shorts push, longer content seems to be winning. A new study finds

Starting point is 00:07:14 U.S. YouTube users now spend 8% more time on long-form videos than last year, with nearly 75% of total watch time going to videos more than 30 minutes long. Brands and creators on YouTube can now see which devices their viewers are using the most. The platform's added a new device-type card in YouTube Studio, available on desktop and mobile, which breaks down watch time percentages for TV, mobile, computer, and tablet across long-form videos, shorts, and live streams. And the platform is partnering with repurpose.io to automate reposting of TikTok and Instagram Reels to shorts. The tool will let users set up an automatic production flow for existing or future content,

Starting point is 00:07:58 posting directly from their TikTok or Reels library to shorts. The company is offering three months of free usage with up to five videos scheduled per day. Speaking of TikTok, it was reported this week that TikTok users are starting to use shop keywords like cute winter boots to protest against immigrant raids in the US. The phrase is a way to avoid censorship while alerting viewers to immigration enforcement activity and providing advice on what to do if immigration officers show up. And LinkedIn's videos for you section

Starting point is 00:08:31 is now available on the web and desktop, which features a vertical video feed. Videos play front and center with captions on the right, and you can scroll through with the up and down arrows. Between juggling client meetings and keeping up with what's changed in the marketing world, who has time to stress about website security? But security is important. What with bots pummeling your brand site by the hundreds every hour looking for a way in. Kinsta provides managed hosting for WordPress sites, offering

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Starting point is 00:09:37 Visit kinsta.com to get this limited time offer for new customers on select plans. Don't miss out. Get started for free today. 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. That's advertising and social media. Let's take a look at what happened in search marketing over the past week. Reports are piling up about missing Google business reviews. Search Engine Roundtable today notes a wave of complaints over the last 24 hours in the Google Business Profiles forum with users seeing their review counts drop. No word from Google yet on what's happening. A new study shows that Google's AI overviews

Starting point is 00:10:38 are tanking click-through rates for both organic and paid search results. But there's a catch. When clients show up in the overviews, both organic and paid click-through rates increase. Still, queries with these AI overviews generally had lower click-through rates from the start, possibly due to zero-click searches. Linking a specific URL in your Google My Business listing can affect local rankings. Sterling Sky tested changing a

Starting point is 00:11:06 law firm's URL from its homepage to the company's niche bus accident page and saw improved ranking due to the page's targeted content. While linking to a homepage is ideal for most businesses, this study suggests that using a niche URL for certain businesses with multiple listings can boost rankings. Google Business Profile has also added a new feature that lets businesses integrate WhatsApp and text messaging for direct customer communication. The integration can help businesses manage inquiries, share information, handle bookings, and provide customer support. Business owners can set it up by heading to their profile and selecting chat options. And heads up recipe sites. Google's updated quality raters guidelines now slam recipe blogs for excessive scrolling. Warning against burying the main recipe behind a wall of ads and filler and unrelated content. The jump to recipe link should be easy to find.

Starting point is 00:12:07 Otherwise, you might get a low quality rating. After all, we're just out here trying to make some bannock, not read a whole saga about the chef's long lost Italian lover. A couple of e-commerce updates. Amazon has added some new geographic options in vendor central sales reports, letting sellers analyze sales by city, state, country, and postal code. This added granularity can be useful for identifying top-performing regions, improving inventory allocation, and enhancing shipping cost forecasting for pricing.

Starting point is 00:12:43 And Google is testing writing product descriptions with generative AI in the popular products carousel in search. While AI-driven copy has already shown up in knowledge panels and local listings, this is the first time it's appeared in such a high visibility section. The popular product section usually has no descriptions at all. A recent screenshot showed that indeed AI generated descriptions are now being added. Some AI updates. OpenAI launched a new AI agent for deep research this week, designed for users looking for more detailed answers from multiple sources, not just a quick summary.

Starting point is 00:13:28 This feature is only available to ChatGPT Pro users. That's not plus, that's pro, which is $200 a month and is limited to 100 queries per month. And reports today say that DeepSeek's iOS app sends data over unencrypted channels, leaving it open to hackers. The data, by the way, is also sent to servers controlled by Chinese-owned ByteDance. Kind of a crazy week for me after Trump threatened tariffs on Canada, where I live. I made a TikTok about how to find Canadian-owned brands in the grocery stores. It went viral. It's up past 450,000 views. And since then, my personal TikTok account went from 400 followers to 21,000 in less than a week. You can follow too. My TikTok handle is just my name, T-O-D-M-A-F-F-I-N, Todd Maffin. Kind of reminded me of our Today in Digital Marketing TikTok account, which went from nothing to 60,000 followers after I did a skit about Facebook ads.

Starting point is 00:14:31 And yes, we have a TikTok account for the newsletter and podcast as well. It is just at Today in Digital. You may notice my voice is a little cracky. I've got some medical stuff going on. So thanks to Steph for filling in last week. She may be doing it again in the near future. We'll see. Anyway, those were the top digital marketing stories over the last five days. You'd have gotten all of this news earlier if you signed up to our email newsletter,

Starting point is 00:14:53 which comes out every weekday at five o'clock Eastern and is completely free. Sign up at todayindigital.com slash newsletter or tap the link at the top of the show notes. Tuesday on our weekly deep dive episode, our meta ads correspondent, Andrew Foxwell, will be here to explain all those big changes to Meta's Advantage Plus campaigns. What they mean for your ad campaigns that are running now. Follow us on social media. We're on Blue Sky, Mastodon, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat and Pinterest. Or go to todayindigital.com slash social or tap the link in the show notes to get those links again. Follow me on BlueSky at toddmaffin.com.

Starting point is 00:15:30 Thanks for listening. Have a restful weekend. The next newsletter is out Monday. I will be back in your podcast feed on Tuesday.

Today in Digital Marketing - Meta's AI Ad Offer You Can't Refuse (Literally)

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