Today in Digital Marketing - Poking Holes in Parachutes 🪂

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Wednesday, November 30th. Today, the EU tells Twitter to shape up or ship out. Will the platform be banned soon in Europe? The psychological secret behind Amazon's coupon checkbox. LinkedIn drops a whole bunch of great updates for B2B marketers. Instagram tries to push Reels to a wider ecosystem. And here's why YouTube is crashing today. I'm Todd Baffin. Here's what you missed

Starting point is 00:00:26 today in digital marketing. Despite its reputation for effortless customer experience, Amazon is making it harder for consumers to buy things on its site. And you just may want to consider doing the same. As a consumer, you may have noticed that several product pages on Amazon feature a checkbox that you have to click to apply a coupon. So why on earth would Amazon want to complicate the purchasing process with these coupon checkboxes? Why not just include the coupon automatically? The answer, according to a new Forbes article up today, is that Amazon knows how to create an appealing customer service experience from all angles. By making customers manually check that coupon box,

Starting point is 00:01:05 the e-commerce giant gives them a psychological perception of control. Simply checking that box to apply the coupon gives consumers a sense of power, creating an engaging purchase experience that helps convert browsers into buyers. When a customer feels like they've scored a great deal on a product, it stirs positive emotion, and that coupon checkbox amplifies those warm, fuzzy feelings. So while its customer experience may be seamless, we digital marketers don't have it so lucky right now. Reporting issues on Amazon's ads dashboard created a mess for brands during the crucial Black Friday sales weekend. According to several agencies, Amazon's dashboard began providing inaccurate data to advertisers late Friday afternoon. By Friday night, the ad spends

Starting point is 00:01:52 reported by Amazon were about half of what advertisers expected them to be. Ads were still running, but brands didn't know how much they were spending on ads. On Sunday, the company finally admitted the reporting lag and said the problem had been fixed. Insider Intelligence recently reported on why this is, of course, a marketing headache. Without accurate data, some advertisers quickly ramped up ad spend to meet sales goals. Likewise, inaccurate data about ad spend and sales levels could lead advertisers to believe their Amazon ads performed better than they did. And so so overspending or missing a crucial sales figure could cost agencies clients or adversely affect relationships. In response to the problem,

Starting point is 00:02:33 the spokesperson said that Amazon, quote, will work with our advertisers to ensure they have the best possible experience with all Amazon ads products, unquote. And while that sounds nice, as the report pointed out, accurate real-time data on campaigns during the most critical sales period of the year isn't a nice to have, it's a necessity. As the kids would say, shit just got real. The European Union has threatened to ban Twitter outright.

Starting point is 00:03:08 The Financial Times reporting today that the EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk, saying the platform will be blocked in all of Europe if it doesn't tighten moderation policies and eliminate its arbitrary reinstatement of banned users after Musk relaxed rules prohibiting hate speech and disinformation. Earlier today, the EU's commissioner for enforcing digital laws told Musk that Twitter risks violating the Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to remove hate speech and ban ads targeting people based on political beliefs. Sources say the commissioner also indicated Musk must agree to an extensive independent audit of the platform. In response, Musk reportedly called the act very sensible and assured the regulators of the platform. In response, Musk reportedly called the act very sensible and assured the regulators that the platform's policies will comply with applicable

Starting point is 00:03:51 laws. But most people who watch this space say, don't believe him. After all, it was only a few weeks ago when Musk said he'd formed an arm's length content council to rule on these sorts of matters, sort of like Meta's oversight board, only to completely abandon the idea a few days later. Now, Twitter seems to make policy decisions based on informal polls that Musk tweets out. Today, Twitter said that none of its policies had changed. A bold statement, given the fact that it's completely untrue. Take Twitter's statement that it was no longer enforcing its policy against misleading information about COVID-19. That's not a change in policy.

Starting point is 00:04:31 I don't know what is. As Platformer News said yesterday, quote, the company looks to be in freefall, and rather than pull the parachute, the company's CEO appears to be poking new holes in it. leverages its first-party data by grouping members based on shared professional traits like job title, company, and industry. This means you can continue to target, measure, and optimize without the need for individual trackers across sites. LinkedIn also launched a free tool that lets marketers run campaign tests on a secure virtual device. With the new

Starting point is 00:05:21 system, you can run experiments to gain real-world insights while adhering to privacy restrictions. Next, lead gen forms will now populate with members' work business domain email addresses rather than their personal emails associated with their LinkedIn accounts. The platform has also launched a new recommendations hub to help marketers with automated recommendations. On top of that, LinkedIn has also added new tools for company pages. LinkedIn Newsletter now lets you publish recurring articles and build a subscriber community by sending one-time notifications to page followers and ongoing notifications to newsletter subscribers. Company pages will also be able to add SEO titles, descriptions, and tags to their newsletters. Furthermore, the platform has added

Starting point is 00:06:06 two features to product pages. Products can now be discovered via in-platform search by category, company, or product, and product highlights can be used to showcase specific product content. Finally, LinkedIn has also added some new competitor analytics, like competitors' follower growth, recent post-performance, and engagement rates. While we're on the topic of LinkedIn newsletters, we have started one here. It's called The Top Story. It's free.

Starting point is 00:06:33 It comes out every day around noon Pacific time. It is, as you may have guessed, the top story of the day in digital marketing. Today, for instance, we covered the Amazon checkbox story and the ad issues. It's just the one story, though. So if you want all of the stories of the day that we're covering, you'll want to subscribe to our premium newsletter link in the show notes. But if you just want the top story, you can subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter at todayindigital.com slash top story or tap the link at the top of today's show notes. Want people to read your content? They'll start with your headline, and that's as far as they'll get. If your headline doesn't convince readers to take action,

Starting point is 00:07:20 it's meaningless. Stop wasting time writing headlines that don't get results. Headline Analyzer Studio is a free writing tool from CoSchedule made to help you write effective headlines that actually get seen and clicked. With data-backed headline scoring, suggestions, and SEO tips, you'll write better headlines that rank higher in search results and drive more engagement from your audience. Headline Analyzer Studio is also available as a free WordPress plugin and browser extension, so you can optimize your headlines anywhere you write them. Get the leading edge over millions of existing headlines and maximize the traffic, engagement, and conversions you get from your content. Sign up for your free Headline Analyzer Studio account at coschedule.com slash today. That's coschedule.com. via select third-party apps. Initial partners include B612. No, I've never heard of that app either. Smule, Reface, and more. Instagram noted that this test differs from its content publishing API as the API is targeted toward businesses that consolidate sharing to social media platforms

Starting point is 00:08:38 within their third-party apps. Whereas this share to Reels widget lets mobile apps add the widget for consumers to use. After creating and editing your video in the app, you'll be able to tap share and then Instagram Reels. This will bring you to the Instagram camera and proceed through the post workflow. Yes, YouTube's mobile app is crashing on Apple devices today. It's not just you. Google says it's working on a fix for the bug, which seems to crash the app after about 30 seconds of viewing.

Starting point is 00:09:10 And it's a nasty bug too, as rebooting your phone doesn't even seem to help. Hey, stop gloating, Android users. It's affecting you too, though not nearly as much. Hey, stop gloating, boomers. It's affecting the desktop web interface as well. It looks like the errors started coming in around nine o'clock this morning, boomers. It's affecting the desktop web interface as well. It looks like the errors started coming in around nine o'clock this morning, Pacific time. And finally, Pinterest

Starting point is 00:09:33 announced yesterday that it is officially pulling the plug on its creator rewards program as of today. The program asked participants to create idea Pins, that's its TikTok-inspired video format, based on a monthly theme to earn cash. The platform will, however, still maintain its creator fun. You know, my wife and I have a great relationship. She rarely yells at me. That changed last night, and it was entirely my fault. As some of you who listen to this podcast know, I play Overwatch, which is a rage-inducing game, mostly because I'm bad at it.

Starting point is 00:10:10 Anyway, I was being chased across the map by a Genji. My entire team was ignoring me. And so I yelled, literally at the top of my lungs, HELP ME! We have neighbors. We have a tenant that lives in our basement.

Starting point is 00:10:26 My wife came out immediately like, will you shut that shit up, please? People are going to think we need to call the police. And, you know, she had a point. So anyway, back to The Sims for me, I guess. See you tomorrow. Lord help me Cause I'm feeling at the end of my rope Lord help me Lord help me

Starting point is 00:10:48 Cause I'm feeling at the end of my rope Lord help me Lord help me

Today in Digital Marketing - Poking Holes in Parachutes 🪂

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