Today in Digital Marketing - The Case of the Missing $16M Google Ad Credit

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Thursday, August 8th. Today, an apparent glitch promises advertisers millions in Google ad credits. The glitch is fixed, but could Google be on the hook? Also, a report says Google broke its own ad policies for a big-budget advertiser. A new way to avoid Facebook jail and how to sponsor entire LinkedIn newsletters. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing. But first today, a bombshell report from the Financial Times reporting that Google worked with Meta on a loophole

Starting point is 00:00:36 that would let Meta target teenagers with YouTube ads, even though that's against Google's policies about advertising to children. The YouTube ads promoted Instagram to 13 to 17-year-olds, and the report says Google got past its policy because, rather than running the ads to a specific age group, they ran the ads to the age category called unknown. The report said based on data like apps installed and online behavior, that was a category Google knew skewed toward younger people.

Starting point is 00:01:09 According to the Financial Times report, this wasn't an oversight. Its reporting found that, quote, steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised. Still quoting from the piece here, Google won the mandate from Spark Foundry, a U.S. subsidiary of the advertising giant Publicis, and the teams on both sides took precautions banning any direct reference to the age range in writing. Staff used euphemisms in presentations, such as slides with only the words, embrace the unknown, according to documents reviewed by the Financial Times, unquote. Meta is being sued by 33 American states for using manipulative practices toward young users, a claim Meta denies. Separately, the American trade regulator is working on banning Meta from making money from teens, this as part of an existing privacy settlement. Meta is challenging that proposal in court.

Starting point is 00:02:03 Google told the Financial Times it's launched an investigation into the claims and said it would remind their sales representatives that they're not allowed to help advertisers or agencies do end runs around policies. For its part, Meta outright denied that using the unknown category was a breach of any policy. Instagram is changing the primary metric across all its posts and ads. In the coming weeks, views will become the main metric for reels, stories, photos, videos, and other posts on the platform. Historically, Instagram has shown different metrics for reels compared to other types of posts. This change should make it easier for brands to understand how their content is doing overall, especially when comparing across formats. Remember, though, one view is not the same as one

Starting point is 00:02:56 reach. This is, of course, because the same person can view a piece of content multiple times. This move aligns Instagram with Meta's approach on threads, which recently added the ability to tap a post to see its total view count. Similarly, Elon Musk has put an increased focus on view count since taking over Twitter, now known as X. Don't be surprised to see photos of your bricks and mortar location popping up in your Google Ads. The company yesterday said it will start showing photos you've uploaded to your local service ads profile in your LSA ads. Google says that adding photos to your local services ads can help improve your ad ranking.

Starting point is 00:03:39 They recommend uploading at least three to five images to your LSA profile on the profile and budget page. Of course, the photos have to be high quality. Google says they must be relevant to your work. They have to be original and not copied or stolen. And ads won't always include a photo. It depends on the user query and some other factors. So can you disable it? Well, we reached out to Jenny Marvin, the Google spokesperson who made the announcement,

Starting point is 00:04:03 to ask if this is something advertisers can disable if they want. She did not get back to us by deadline. Judging from the direction Google's taken in the past with these types of changes, this is most likely something Google will do to your ads, like it or not. Google says, though, you should like it, because photos generally increase engagement with ads. Your brand can now sponsor any LinkedIn newsletter written by a user attaching your brand to content created by thought leaders in your space.

Starting point is 00:04:35 Newsletters on the platform have been a big focus for a while now. You've been able to sponsor individual articles for some time, but this option will let you promote your brand across all content in a single newsletter. Of course, the newsletter author will be able to accept or decline your sponsorship. You can also turn your sponsorship into a kind of lead gen ad since sponsored newsletter articles that you set up with the lead generation objective will block reading of the

Starting point is 00:04:59 piece until a user coughs up their email address. LinkedIn says there are now more than 184,000 newsletters on the platform. And in the past year, engagement with newsletters has risen by almost 50%. Sponsored newsletters are available now globally. Many marketers who use Meta's platform for work avoid using any of their sites for personal use. I am one of those people. It's not because I don't like Facebook. It's because I've seen far too many people run afoul of Facebook's policy enforcement bots and get locked out. Post a harmless photo of yourself at the beach, and if one of these bots thinks there's too much skin, it can, and often does, ban your account.

Starting point is 00:05:46 Sometimes for a few days, sometimes indefinitely. That means you lose access to your business manager, your ads account, your pixels, and that of your clients too, if you're with an agency. Since there aren't any humans to talk to at Meta, and filling in the forms usually goes nowhere, many people have to resort to spinning up a brand new account and losing all the history and photos of their original account. It happens so often, people even have a name for it. Facebook Jail. These violation penalties, even the ones that don't lock you out, can carry a big price. Brands and creators with enforcement action on their account lose reach on the platform. Now, Facebook has a new way to avoid the virtual prison cell. From now on, the first violation will get you sent to an online training course on good manners and meta's policies. If you

Starting point is 00:06:39 complete it, the violation is removed from your record. The content that triggered it, though, is not. But if you then violate that same policy within the next year, the violation is put back and stays. Meta made clear that there are some kinds of violations where you'll go right to Facebook jail without the benefit of this new program, content like sexual exploitation, the sale of high-risk drugs, or glorification of dangerous organizations and individuals.

Starting point is 00:07:06 This is similar to a program YouTube announced last year, where taking a brief course will remove the warning from the channel, as long as you don't violate the same policy within the next 90 days. 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.

Starting point is 00:07:45 And finally, last night, some advertisers got notices in their Google ad account saying they could expect a $16 million ad credit in their account soon that they can spend on lead gen campaigns. Quoting SE Roundtable, quote, this credit was not related to Google pulling down ad reporting because they had another bug that used the ad account and budget of a different advertiser to advertise the products of another advertiser. Google said it would issue credits, but these credits are not related to this issue, unquote. This morning, the bug was corrected. But is it enforceable? Has Google legally created a contract in which they might be liable for those promised refunds? For more on that, I'm joined by Donald Harris, senior litigator at Dewey, Cheatham and Howe law firm. Mr. Harris is author of the Amazon bestseller Feet to the Fire. How promises made means money kept. He's gone against most of the major platforms in court. Mr. Harris, so did Google create a legal contract with this notification? Like can can advertisers actually collect on this? Nope. All right. Thank you for your time. Donald Harris is senior litigator at Dewey Cheatham and Howe law firm in Atlanta. His

Starting point is 00:08:57 sub stack is called None of This is Real. And Donald Harris was made up. I'd like to ask a quick favor of you in In the fall, we're going to be rolling out an ad campaign and we'd like to get some reviews in the hopper. This only takes you a second. All you do is open up your podcast app right now, swipe over to the show notes and look for the words rate and review us near the top. It'll give you the quick instructions on how to do this. We spend a lot of time putting this together for you every day. And if you get some value out of it, if it helps you keep on top of the industry, a quick review would be super, super helpful for us.

Starting point is 00:09:29 Again, just swipe over to the show notes in your podcast app and look for the text that says rate and review us. That's it for today. I'm Todd Maffin. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - The Case of the Missing $16M Google Ad Credit

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