Today in Digital Marketing - Meta's Solution to Privacy Legislation? Meet the New "Basic Ads."

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

Meta has no idea what it does with user data, so says Meta... Google gives Performance Max campaigns some big upgrades... While it sends another product to the Google graveyard... And welcome to the Meta Store, where your personal information may not be safe but you can try on a Quest 2 headset... Go Premium! No ads, weekend editions, story links, audio chapters, better audio quality, earlier release time, and more.Get each episode as a daily email newsletter (with images, videos, and links).HELPFUL LINKS:ADS: Reach thousands of marketers from as low as $20 with our ad options.MORE CONTENT: Email newsletter, expert interviews, and blog posts.HANG OUT: Join our Slack communityEnjoying the Show? Tweet about us • Rate and review • Send a voicemailFOLLOW US:The Show: LinkedIn • TikTok • Reddit • FB Page • FB GroupTod: Twitter • LinkedIn • TikTok • Twitch • InstagramRECOMMENDED:Jyll Saskin Gales — Inside Google Ads Andrew Foxwell — Foxwell Founders Membership • Scaling After iOS14 • All CoursesCheck out the steep "Podcast Perks" marketing discounts we've negotiated for youOthers — AppSumo lifetime marketing deals • Riverside.FM podcast recording siteCREDITS: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 associate producer is Steph Gunn. Ad coordination by RedCircle. Production coordination by Sarah Guild. Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.(If the links in the show notes do not work in your podcast app, visit https://todayindigital.com )Some links in these show notes may provide us with a commission.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today, Meta has no idea what it does with most user data, so says Meta. Google gives Performance Max campaigns some big upgrades, while it sends another product to the Google graveyard. And welcome to the Meta store, where your personal information may not be safe, but hey, you can try on a headset. It's Tuesday, April 26th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here is what you missed today in digital marketing. And we're going to start the day off with a quiz. The global consulting firm Accenture has rebranded its digital arm. It used to be Accenture Interactive, but nowadays Interactive. It sounds a little dated, sort of like saying cyberspace or the information superhighway. So what name did they pick?

Was it Accenture Dot, Accenture Song, Accenture Metaverse, ACTRAC, that's ACC track, or Accent.U? We'll have the answer at the end of today's episode. And we start today with some new reporting from Motherboard that says that Meta, one of the world's biggest ad platforms, has, quote, no idea where all its user data goes, unquote. A leaked internal document obtained by Motherboard suggests that Meta, whose entire business model pretty much relies on data acquisition, admitted internally that its fundamental problem is, one, it doesn't know how much data it collects, two, it doesn't know where

it goes, and three, it doesn't know what happens with it. The company even has a name for this, Data Lineage. Met as privacy engineers on the ad and business product team, wrote the document last year. In the report, the team both sounds an alarm and calls for the company to change the way it handles users' data to avoid running into trouble with regulators in Europe, the US, India, and other countries pushing for stricter privacy constraints. Quoting the document, We do not have an adequate level of control and explainability over how our systems use data, and thus we can't confidently make controlled policy changes or external commitments, such as, we will not use X data for Y purpose.

And yet, this is exactly what regulators expect us to do, increasing our risk of mistakes and misrepresentation, unquote. In an emailed statement to Motherboard, a Facebook spokesperson denied that the document correctly represents how it handles user data because it has put in place, quote, extensive processes and controls to comply with privacy regulations, unquote. Meanwhile, an ex-Facebook employee noted that, quote, Facebook has a general idea of how many bits of data are stored in its data centers, but that the where the data goes part is, broadly speaking, a complete shitshow. One privacy expert states that the document allegedly shows that there is no data protection mechanism within Facebook and that, quote, everything it does to our data is illegal, unquote.

Also mentioned in the leaked report is a new unreleased product called Basic Ads, which is described as a short-term response to international regulations. Sources say that Basic Ads is an internal code name and that the product will show that Facebook can build advertising that is relevant to users while preserving their privacy. Google really wants you to love its most automated campaign type. The company has announced new features to help grow your business with Performance Max campaigns. And here are the new updates. First, new customer acquisition goals.

Acquisition goals will be rolling out in PMAX to allow you to focus bids and optimization on gaining new customers. Advertisers will have a few options, including customer match lists, which let you target ads to your customers using the data they share with you, such as email, phone, name, country, zip code, and so on. Also conversion tags and by using Google's auto detection method. Secondly, there are some new

Performance Max insights coming. There will be two new additions to the insights page. Asset audience insights show which text, image image and video assets resonate with certain audience segments something that i think a lot of us were hoping would be in there from the get-go and diagnostic insights which will flag any setup issues that might prevent performance max ads from showing as well as suggestions on how to fix them and finally the one click upgrade tool will be rolling out as smart shopping and local campaigns are being phased out and replaced by Performance Max. The company says that one-click upgrades to Performance Max will begin rolling out over the coming weeks. Advertisers will see a notification when it's available in their accounts.

While Google adds new tools to one product, it kills another. The Google Search Console URL Parameter Tool is now officially a goner. About a month ago, we reported that the company announced it would be deprecating the tool on April 26th. And hey, guess what day it is. If you try to access the tool, you get a message now that says, this report is no longer available here, with a link to the original announcement. That URL tool allowed site owners to have some control over how Google crawled their site by specifying how certain parameters affect the content on their site. But going forward, you will not need to do anything to specify the function of URL parameters

on your site as quote, Google's crawlers will learn how to deal with URL parameters automatically. So Meta might not know where its user data goes, but according to new research, it does know how brands can optimize their landing pages to improve ad performance, or so they say. The company published its findings based on an analysis of 500 landing page experiences. Five types of destination pages are defined in the analysis of 500 landing page experiences. Five types of destination pages are defined in the study. A landing page, a form-driven landing page, a homepage, a product listing page, and a product details page. So despite each type of landing page having its own optimizations, their research identified

three key factors that increase engagement and conversions. First, speed. They say make sure your destination page loads in less than three seconds. More than half of consumers will abandon a site that takes any longer to load than that. Second, continuity and answers. Meta says you need to have continuity between the ad and the destination page. What that means is that an ad's imagery and messaging and pricing and offers and so on Meta says you need to have continuity between the ad and the destination page. What that means is that an ad's imagery and messaging and pricing and offers and so on should be reinforced on the destination page.

It should look like a seamless single messaging there. Your page should also answer common questions. And third, seems obvious, but you need to design a mobile-friendly interface. According to the study, product information should be displayed in the first two viewports on the destination page. A viewport, by the way, is a screen full. A scorecard is also included at the end of the report to help you create a more converting destination page. A link to the report is available in today's premium newsletter,

which you can learn more about at todayindigital.com slash premium. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or 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.

Just in case the marketing industry hasn't felt enough like something out of a George Orwell novel in the past 48 hours, here's another dystopian update. Meta will be offering an offline experience as it dives into retail. The company is officially opening a physical store. Why, you might ask? Well, it's all part of their attempt to sell the Metaverse. On May 9th, Meta Store will open its doors on a university campus in San Francisco. The company has also added a shop tab to its website.

The brick-and-mortar store will mark the tech giant's first physical retail space. And shoppers will be able to try out all of its hardware products, including Portal, Ray-Ban Stories, and Quest 2. Also, the stores appear to look pretty much identical to an Apple store. Insert Meta has no original ideas joke here. LinkedIn has added a new feature that could help drive traffic to your brand's content. In creator mode, you can now add a link to the top of your profile so that audiences can learn more about you and your brand. With the update, you'll be able to add custom link text to help beat clicks. The platform has also added an option to include your newsletter in the featured section of your profile, which includes a subscribe button. Also, other new updates include analytics for group posts and video trimming on mobile.

Oh, and back to the quiz. What did Accenture rebrand its digital arm as? Well, Forbes reports that the rebrand is the end result of a process that took seven months and a team of six. They say they believe they've come up with something, quote, simple, memorable, impactful, and optimistic. Something our people feel they can contribute to, unquote. And Accenture Interactive is now known as... Accenture Song. So if you follow my Twitter account,

you may have noticed some really kind of weird, out-of-context tweets. Let me explain what's going on. It's gotten a little strange. So a couple of months ago, my wife and I were on the holidays. We're sitting in the hotel room board. I ran across this Twitter space and the title of it said EO. And I thought, wow, this must be like, what, entrepreneurs online or something. So I went in and no, it was not EO. It was not entrepreneurs online. It turns out it was Elliot and Olivia is what that stands for. If this means nothing to you, it meant nothing to me either at the time. These are the people in this Twitter space are shippers, shippers like relationship.

And they are super fans of one of the many Law & Order spino-offs. But more than the fact that they are a super fan, the whole thing about Shippers is that they want, and in fact are obsessed with, the two lead characters getting together. In this case, Elliot and Olivia, both detectives. If this sounds familiar, think of like Mulder and Scully, which I think was like the original Shippers, the original shipping that was done.

So anyway, I stumbled on, I have not watched the show. I've never watched a single episode of it. But they took me in. Anyway, I promised to watch an episode. I live tweeted it. I didn't like it, but I still hang out with them whenever they have a Twitter space because they're just lovely. They're just strangers that I met on the Internet. All women.

And we have this kind of running, I don't know, competition, I guess, because they think that Law & Order SVU is the greatest show ever written, and they obviously are wrong, because Lost, Lost, the show from ABC years ago, is clearly the best television show ever written. Yesterday, I'm pleased to announce that we came to a peace accord in the group. I promised I would watch an entire season, the entire first season of Law & Order SVU, and they promised that they too would watch

the entire first season of Lost. So that is what's going on on my Twitter account if you're wondering what the random non-sequiturs are. By the way, just as our deadline hit alphabet, that's Google's parent company reported their Q1 earnings. It's kind of earnings week. Earnings came in lower than expected. We will have full coverage of their quarterly reports tomorrow.

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