Today in Digital Marketing - Silver Sponsorships

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, meet the new breed of octogenarian influencers. Why a big chunk of Reddit will go dark next week. Twitter's ad business continues to crumble. Apple's big announcement today had one hidden pothole for marketers. And a cautionary tale. Make sure you renew your brand's domain name. Or else, well, it's not pretty. It's Monday, June 5th. I'm Todd Maffin.

Starting point is 00:00:25 That's ahead today in digital marketing. Earlier today, Apple unveiled its long-awaited VR headset with an eye-watering price of $3,500 US. They also very briefly touched on their Safari browser. During that short segment, they presented a slide talking about the next version of the browser. That slide read read in part, blocks trackers from loading and removes URL trackers. There was, of course, no more detail on this as the primary audience were developers and the general public, not marketers. But it sounds like the next version of Safari may strip URL parameters off clicks, taking away yet another way to track the success of marketing campaigns,

Starting point is 00:01:05 the origin of web traffic, and so on. I couldn't find any other details other than that brief mention. But once we get more, we will, of course, tell you here. You may want to start scouting retirement homes for your next influencer marketing campaign, as older TikTok creators are in demand by brands. Take Jenny Krupa, for instance, aka J-Dog, a 91-year-old retirement home TikTok star with more than 2 million followers

Starting point is 00:01:36 who gets paid to promote brands, like this one she did for a movie. Today, me and my bestie had a girls' day. We decided to watch 80 for Brady on digital from Paramount Pictures. The movie was so hilarious. She's not the only senior influencer making ads on TikTok. Several companies selling clothing, beauty products, and more are discovering other senior content creators to collaborate with.

Starting point is 00:02:03 The New York Times reporting today that the app is gaining traction with older users. As a result, brands are following them there. According to a spokesperson for an agency that connects companies with content creators, this agency works with Amazon and others to find TikTok influencers over 55. The senior influencers have found success sharing life lessons, yes, fashion tips, cooking demonstrations, videos of them interacting with their grandchildren, and by being funny while also promoting products. Despite opportunities for older influencers to represent brands, competition is relatively low.

Starting point is 00:02:38 According to a spokesperson from Upfluence, a platform that manages millions of social media creators, there are only about 2,700 people aged 60 or older registered on the platform. Just 174 have TikTok accounts. The company says brands often seek out nano-influencers who typically have about 5,000 followers or more, as those can provide a more genuine connection with their audience. Partnering with smaller creators can also be a cost-effective marketing strategy since some of them may feature a product solely because they received a free sample. About half of UpFluence partnerships

Starting point is 00:03:12 offer free products as compensation instead of money. It is Monday and that means Meta Monday and that usually means our Meta Ads correspondent and veteran ad buyer, Andrew Foxwell joins me. Andrew is in Europe doing Europe things. Shane Cicero is in his stead. Hello, Shane. Hello, hello, hello.

Starting point is 00:03:32 How are you, Todd? I'm well. So I have been seeing some encouraging stuff in Andrew's Slack community about reward ads. Can you tell us about that? These are pretty new, aren't they? Yeah, so they've been hopping up in accounts. Meta actually rolled them out back in the end of April, beginning of May. They're starting to show up. It's a little toggle on where you're going to see as you're building out your ads, Meta's going to have this things. Would you like

Starting point is 00:03:58 to turn on rewards? And think of this as so it's one thing Meta is actually saying that they are going to cover the cost of the reward. So it's sort of like what we saw in Q4, where Meta was rolling out like a 20% off discount to encourage people to shop and complete their purchase on, like through the platform. This is just another attempt at that, and another way to engage more users to adopt to purchasing through shops and what does the ad format actually look like from the user's point of view yeah so from a user's point of view it's going to be so it's one they're going to need to they're going to be called to action to sign up for rewards but what it'll show is it's just going to look like an offer that's overlaid right below the Shop Now button within your newsfeed ad. And it'll call to action,

Starting point is 00:04:56 earn 20% rewards or 10% rewards. And if someone is already signed up for rewards, they'll come through, make the purchase, and then they'll purchase through Shops, and then Meta will pay them cash back that percentage in their Meta account, essentially. I see. So it doesn't tap into your rewards program or maybe Shopify because it's not going to Shopify. This is trying to another incentive to keep people on the Meta commerce platform. Correct. Yep. And at this time, so it would not integrate with with any loyalty programs that you have currently active through Shopify or through your site. But it is one of those things right now. Meta is paying that back on their own. Sounds like in time you could, you know, sign up for rewards and then you would actually give that cash back to that user through that platform. This is where we say goodbye to those of you on the free podcast. But for those

Starting point is 00:05:57 on the premium feed, our chat continues with the discussion around the downside to using reward ads and whether Meta is going to take a cut of these ads. Shane Cicero is sitting in for our Meta Ads correspondent, Andrew Foxwell. You can learn more about Andrew's Meta Ads training at b.link slash Foxwell or his Slack community at b.link slash founders. Both of those are affiliate links, but we pay for membership in both and highly recommend them. If you want to hear this full interview and all the others, tap Go Premium in the show notes. Looking to boost your LinkedIn ads? New research has revealed

Starting point is 00:06:33 what drives the highest performance for luxury brands paid ads on the professional network. And some of the conclusions are surprising. Ads where talent appeared after the first three seconds produced a 460% lift above average compared to those where the talent appeared during the first three seconds. While creative with one to two scene changes in the first three seconds led to an 8% lift for ads

Starting point is 00:06:59 with a view-through rate of 100%. The study also found that videos without spoken dialogue outperformed those with subtitles, indicating that music combined with visual storytelling is the primary vehicle to drive the narrative in luxury. Aside from focusing on visual storytelling and music, the report showed that featuring an artisan at work led to a 3% lift in consideration for videos with a 100% view rate and a 10% increase in awareness. Furthermore, showcasing the hero product before providing a full view shot resonated with consumers, resulting in a 5.5% increase in click-through rate. The data comes from VidMob's analysis of 2,300 ads and more than 120 million impressions from luxury brands that ran paid ads on LinkedIn.

Starting point is 00:07:49 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. Repurposing your brand's content into short-form videos might be about to get easier. DUM, that's D-U-M-M-E, a tech startup, is developing an AI that generates short form videos from YouTube content within a minute or two. By using a combination of both proprietary and existing AI models, the company says it can not only save editing time,

Starting point is 00:08:36 but it can also outperform human video editors typically assigned to mundane tasks like cutting down long form content for publication on things like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, or Reels. To get started, you just paste a YouTube video link in and click Generate. The AI will then produce several short videos highlighting moments from the provided content. Processing time and the number of resulting clips depend on the original video's duration. Once that process is complete, creators can download the video clips, which are less than 60 seconds by default, and upload them to any platform supporting short-form content. Dumb relies on YouTube as the source rather than supporting raw video footage to outsource content moderation, meaning if it's allowed on YouTube, it's allowed in Dumb. Since the tech relies on AI

Starting point is 00:09:22 that processes spoken words, it's really not suitable for long gameplay videos or other content without dialogue. Initially, the company plans to target YouTube creators, podcasters, and agencies. They believe agencies will be their best bet for monetizing the product. In an update to last week's story, Reddit's recent changes to its API pricing have now sparked a revolt among some of its most popular communities.

Starting point is 00:09:50 On June 12th, subreddits, big ones like videos, reaction gifs, and earth porn are planning to go private, also known as going dark, in protest of the new pricing structure imposed on third-party app developers seeking to access the site's APIs. This means that participating communities will be inaccessible to the general public during the planned 48-hour protest. This protest comes after several developers of third-party Reddit apps have said the future of their services are threatened by the company's new pricing. The potential shutdown of these third-party apps poses a significant challenge for subreddit moderators who rely on these tools for community management. An open letter signed by several moderators explains that third-party apps often offer superior mod tools, customization options, streamlined interfaces, and other enhancements that are lacking in the official app. The letter also raises concerns about limitations for third-party apps to show ads

Starting point is 00:10:48 and new restrictions that would prevent not-safe-for-work content from being made available in the API. From going dark to going broke, internal documents obtained by the New York Times reveal that Twitter's U.S. advertising revenue for the five weeks from April 1st to the first week in May was down 60% compared to the previous year. During that period, Twitter also fell short of its weekly sales targets, sometimes by 30%, according to the leaked presentation. One internal document forecasts that the company's U.S. ad revenue this month will be down at least 55% each week compared with a year ago. Sources say Twitter's ad sales team is growing concerned that advertisers may be deterred by the platform's increasing prevalence

Starting point is 00:11:38 of hate speech, pornography, and ads promoting online gambling and marijuana products. As the company is observing some growth in ad sales from areas it had previously avoided or prohibited, like gambling in pot. During one week last month, four of its top 10 U.S. advertisers were online gambling and fantasy sports betting companies. The company has relaxed its policies to permit ads for cannabis accessories like bongs, vapes, and rolling paper,

Starting point is 00:12:07 as well as products and services related to erectile dysfunction. Meanwhile, adult content, which Twitter permits, has become a concern among sales staff. When some employees tried to attract interest from advertisers for Mother's Day, they found that sponsored search terms like mom life surfaced pornographic videos, creating a rather unfavorable environment for brand safe engagement. A couple of updates from the ad giants.

Starting point is 00:12:41 First, Microsoft advertising expanded into 23 new global markets today. Those include 14 in Asia Pacific, three in the Americas, six in Africa. This brings the total number of available markets for Microsoft advertisers to 187 around the world. Second, Google business profiles now feature long form videos. Previously, only videos under 30 seconds were displayed in the image section of Google mobile search results, but it appears Google has started showing 30 seconds or longer videos for some listings in mobile search. And finally, consider this your reminder to

Starting point is 00:13:19 renew your brand's web domain. Almost 800,000 Maryland license plates meant to commemorate the War of 1812, which as a Canadian, I am obligated to remind you that's the war in which we burned down the White House. Go Canada, go. Anyway, that license plate URL now directs users to a landing page flashing ads for an online casino and virtual cockfights. The plates feature an illustration of Fort McHenry

Starting point is 00:13:46 and the web address starspangled200.org at the bottom. But instead of a government-operated site, that URL now redirects users to a Philippines gambling site called Globe International. About 15% of registered vehicles in Maryland have the War of 1812 plate that have now become ads for the Philippines, quote, best betting site. So I'm sorry if you've been hearing kind of a crackly, crinkly sound every five or six seconds or so. Here's what's happening. The room where I record this has a hole in the wall.

Starting point is 00:14:33 It's not, it's there on purpose. It's not like an accidental hole or something. It's something to do with building code, something to do with airflow or something. But anyway, it's a hole. There, you can hear it. Yeah, that, that noise, that noise. Anyway, I don't like the hole. So I have taped tinfoil over it.

Starting point is 00:14:49 And normally that's not an issue. But it's a particularly windy day. And for some reason it's rattling much more than it should. With the Apple stuff today, I just didn't have the time to go out and fix it. But I will, I promise. I'm sorry. Talk to you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Silver Sponsorships

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