Today in Digital Marketing - Picking Up the Pieces

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Thursday, February 15th. Today, picking up the pieces. What next after yesterday's disastrous day in the meta ad auction? Also, Pinterest adds the collaboration tools you wanted, Instagram adds the filter you didn't, and which platform is about to add a 30% tax to some of your ads? Here's a hint. It rhymes with FEDA. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Be protected. Be Zen. It is all anyone is talking about on DTC Twitter today. The shit that went down on Meta's ad platform. Blowing past budgets. Messing up caps. To get a handle on it all, I am joined by our shit has gone down at Meta Correspondent, Barry Hott. That's me. Barry, you might know from his outstanding Make Ugly Ads Theory, and he writes the Have

Starting point is 00:01:14 a Clues newsletter. Barry, like, what the hell? What happened yesterday? How many marketers are affected? Give us the lowdown. Yeah, so a lot of people saw really inflated costs and budgets being overspent. The weird thing about budgets being overspent is that there is a, if you read Facebook's thing about budgets, it can spend up to 25% over your daily budget. But there's actually a new change, and I think you've probably reported on this before, that that's increasing to 75% over your daily budget. But there's actually a new change. And I think you've probably reported on this before, that that's increasing to 75% over your daily budget. Right. But it'll catch up eventually so that your overall camp. Oh, I see. Now I get it now. So

Starting point is 00:01:53 is Meta saying that this was not actually an overspend? It was just part of our, I don't know what we call this, ballooning of the daily budgets? It's not an overspend in most of these situations. And the other thing I'm seeing that happened seemingly to most people is that this was affecting cost caps. So it seems as if basically the system was ignoring the actual caps and just spending the budget as if everything was lowest cost, which is, you know, really bad and the opposite of the point of using those caps so um yeah i i based on my experience and having seen these before i would expect to see significant refunds in four to i don't know eight weeks from facebook which is fairly easy to do if you have a human being as an

Starting point is 00:02:37 ad rep at meta if you don't though you shared some great information on linkedin about still how you can without an ad rep, get a refund. Yeah, there is a you can go to facebook.com slash business. If you're just looking for the easiest, like anyone listening facebook.com slash business, and then there's like a button at the top to do contact or support or something like that. And then you're gonna have to like, press like five more buttons to eventually get to chat support. If you find my link on Twitter, LinkedIn, I shared the direct link that'll get you straight to the form to start filling out what's going on. And just start, you know, there

Starting point is 00:03:12 is a way to just to get into that chat support and then give them the information, give them the screenshot of the outage. Do not assume that chat support A understands that there was an outage, B even understands that there is a page that meta manages that reports these outages or, you know, under or C understands anything about advertising in general, be kind to them, be nice, be helpful, be patient, but give them all the information that you have about the situation. Uh, give them all the ad account IDs that you have that were affected. Uh, and you might have to give campaign IDs if they're specific campaign IDs affected. But, you know, the important thing is just get it.

Starting point is 00:03:51 Just go copy the stuff that I shared in there, paste it in there, get it sent. That way their system knows that this is a huge widespread problem. Whereas if just one of us reports it, they're going to be like, oh, it was a small issue. Nobody, who cares? We don't need to give a refund. Nobody was upset about this. They don't check Twitter. They don't listen to this podcast. They should. And, you know, they don't they're not involved in the community. So we need to go make noise where they listen. If you're looking for that template, Barry's LinkedIn profile, you'll find it under his name. B-A-R-R-Y. HOT is spelled with two T's. H-O-T-T. Barry, you also write a fantastic newsletter. Tell us about Have a Clues. I very infrequently write. So if you hate newsletters and you just want to, that's it's my new selling point, I think, is like, hey, I'm not going to bombard you. I really

Starting point is 00:04:38 don't care. Last one, one of my recent ones was about like cost caps versus lowest cost and all the pros and cons and nuances of each of them. The next one that I'm going to send out hopefully soon is about agency fee structures. Oh, and how do people find your newsletter? You can Google me, just Barry Hott, B-A-R-R-Y-H-O-T-T, or haveacluze.com. That's haveacluze.com. Barry Hott is our shit has gone down on Meta's ad platform again, correspondent. Barry, thanks for your time.

Starting point is 00:05:09 Thanks for having me, Todd. Still with Meta for a moment. Today, it announced it will start charging a 30% fee on Facebook and Instagram ads when those are created by boosting a post from an Apple mobile device. This fee is what Apple charges the platform. So rather than absorbing it, which Meta has done in the past, they're now just passing the fee along to advertisers. And I'm not going to lie, it was a little hilarious to read their news release today, trying desperately to spin this into a positive. Many small business owners operate their business on their phones, so it's just bad news all around for them. Still, Meta found this slightly convoluted rationale to use, quote,

Starting point is 00:05:52 to support the millions of businesses that use boosted posts on Facebook and Instagram. Advertisers can now go to Instagram.com and Facebook.com on mobile and desktop to boost content and avoid a 30% Apple service charge, unquote. This isn't new, of course. This is the way all websites with revenue-generating mobile apps avoid the fees. Even Apple came out swinging today, saying, quote, We have always required that purchases of digital goods and services within apps must use in-app purchase. Boosting is a digital service, so of course in-app purchase is required. This has always been the case, unquote.

Starting point is 00:06:32 But there is one important change. Advertisers will need to go through a different payment process when boosting posts through the Facebook and Instagram iOS apps. Again, quoting Meta's announcement today, quote, Unlike the previous experience where advertisers were charged after their boosted posts ran, businesses on iOS will now be required to pay in advance and add prepaid funds

Starting point is 00:06:56 to their account to draw from to boost a post. If an advertiser adds these prepaid funds within the Facebook or Instagram iOS app, the Apple service charge will apply. If an advertiser chooses to add prepaid funds from their payment settings using their desktop computers or preferred mobile web browsers, they can then use these funds to boost content from any tool, including from the Instagram or Facebook iOS apps apps without incurring fees. This new payment process and subsequent Apple service charge is starting in the U.S. and additional markets and countries will be subject to this fee later this year. Unquote. Pinterest users are finally getting access to the platform's new business manager, which it teased back in September.

Starting point is 00:07:44 Specifically, it adds new business manager, which it teased back in September. Specifically, it adds new collaboration tools, the ability to reuse existing ad audiences between ad accounts, new asset groups for more segmented audience targeting, and the ability to enforce two-factor authentication. Quoting Social Media Today, quote, the main focus is on collaboration and enabling multiple participants to take part in a pin campaign, which could not only help internal projects, but also when working with influencers by giving you more ways to integrate content in stream. There are some handy updates here, and it could make things a lot easier in your pin creation process, unquote.

Starting point is 00:08:22 The new business manager is available to anyone with a business profile on Pinterest. Pinterest has a training course on using the new tool, and we have a link to it in today's newsletter, which is free to subscribe to. Just go to todayindigital.com slash newsletter or tap the link in the show notes. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack,

Starting point is 00:08:44 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.

Starting point is 00:09:02 Be Zen. And that will bring us to the lightning round. Another possible Google search ranking algorithm update is apparently underway. Google doesn't announce these anymore, so the SEO community sort of self-reports volatility in the results listings. Some people say they're noticing missing featured snippets and other anomalies. If you obsess over your brand's Google position, you might want to check up on your positions. Instagram has a new DM filter letting you see only messages from accounts your brand follows on the app. This is in-app only. It is not a part of any API. So this functionality is likely not part of any third-party engagement tools you use.

Starting point is 00:09:45 Instagram is also rolling out a new filter to put comments from people who've paid for the blue checkmark first in your view. While this certainly could help a little in reducing how much time you spend looking at bot comments, it's likely more of a line item on a pricing table for Meta to convince people to buy said blue checkmark. And YouTube now allows users to remix music videos into shorts, offering options like sound, green screen, cut, and collab. My wife is on a business trip in Vancouver overnight. As much as I miss her, and I really do, our 10-year anniversary is coming up in exactly one month from now. I'm not gonna lie, I do kind of appreciate having a night on my own. How do I spend the night? Do I make good eating decisions? Good decisions with my spare time? No, I do not. I do not. I order Chinese food, which she hates and I love. I love the first bite. You

Starting point is 00:10:41 know how this works. And then I play video games really loudly where I get to yell and not have her come into the room and say, would you please stop yelling so much? So yeah, that is my night ahead. ad slots are currently just $7. Tap the link at the top of the show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash ads. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Picking Up the Pieces

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