Today in Digital Marketing - The Court Case Heard Around the (Marketing) World

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, September 12th. Today, Google's big day in court. TikTok shop finally rolling out. B2B influencer campaigns become more visible. Amazon wants to capture even more of the supply chain. And on the ad-free premium podcast, which you can learn more about by tapping Go Premium in the show notes,

Starting point is 00:00:19 a whole whack of updates to the meta platform, including changes to ASC campaigns, an easier path for the conversions API, and a highly engaging organic element is now available on the paid side. I'm Todd Maffin. That's Ahead, Today 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. Be protected. Be Zen. Well, it's here, the giant antitrust case of the U.S. government versus Google. We don't plan to cover the day-by-day minutiae of the case, and in fact, we'll mostly ignore it from this day on until a verdict comes down.

Starting point is 00:01:15 But you might be hearing a lot about it from other sources. So we thought a primer, is it primer or primer? I'm never quite sure. Anyway, we thought a brief on what it's all about might be helpful. First, who is suing and why? The American Department of Justice, along with some states, is suing Google for what they say are violations of the Sherman Act. That is a U.S. federalkeeper for the Internet, unquote, and uses anti-competitive tactics to corner the market on Internet searches and, by extension, the ad business therein. Specifically, prosecutors point to deals Google's made with phone manufacturers to be the exclusive search engine on those phones, notably Apple, which Google pays billions each year to remain as the default search on Safari. But in the end, this is about the money. Ads, that is. And the case is

Starting point is 00:02:11 expected to focus on not just organic search, but also keyword-based text ads served beside organic search results and general display ads served on top of organic search results. For its part, Google is likely to say that competition is easy to access. Just go to their competitors' websites. As for paying to be the default search engine on phones, they're expected to liken the practice to cereal makers paying supermarket chains to put their products at eye level. This is, of course, a little rich.

Starting point is 00:02:41 I mean, have you seen the cereal aisle lately? It's not like Raisin Bran takes up 90% of the shelving. I should note there is a separate federal antitrust case alleging that Google's ad tech stack is also in violation of the Sherman Act. But that is a different case, and that one won't start up until next year. So why is this such a big deal? Google made $163 billion off search ads last year. That's more than half of its parent company's total annual revenue. Historically, probably the closest comparison would be when Microsoft lost its antitrust case back in 1999.

Starting point is 00:03:16 Back then, it was about web browsers. Netscape had been the dominant player until Microsoft made Internet Explorer the default on its operating system and cut exclusive deals with computer manufacturers to be the default on their hardware too. The decision had massive impact. The tech industry had been riding a bubble. It was easy to get financing if you were in the web space. I know because I had one. I founded a dot-com around that time, raised $3 million, and when the Microsoft decision came down, no funders wanted anything to do with us or the industry as a whole. What impact will this have on digital marketing? Potentially a lot. In its latest annual report,

Starting point is 00:03:58 Google warned that aggressive enforcement of competition laws could, quote, increase our cost of doing business, make our products and services less useful, limit our ability to pursue certain business models in a manner that could have an adverse effect on our business, unquote. Quoting Digiday's coverage of this today, the downstream impact is potentially infinite. Consider any professional whose marketing activity, both organic and paid for, employs the use of keywords for search engine optimization, plus any website owner that uses Google as their default search browser in their toolbar. The slightest alteration to how Google

Starting point is 00:04:37 operates will have a widely felt ripple effect given that its share of the search engine market is in and around 90%. Combine this with the fact that optimizing for and bidding on keywords to improve placement in search engine results is the core component of performance marketing. And it's clear the future of the marketing profession and practice hinges upon the outcome of this trial, unquote. So how bad could it get for Google? Google could be broken up.

Starting point is 00:05:07 The Sherman Act allows for the dismantlement of monopolies. The prosecutors haven't said yet what recourse they'd want if they win. It could also just end up in a bunch of fines. Google's paid billions in various fines prior to this.

Starting point is 00:05:20 And of course, Google might win and consider that as approval to extend their business. So as for the timeline, the court case kicked off this morning. Proceedings are expected to run into January at the very least but if previous cases are anything to go by, this will likely be years before there's anything conclusive. Again quoting Digiday,, that's no excuse for complacency. As prosecutors are keen to point out, this is a battle over the future of the internet and its environment for doing business for the decade to come. It's the season for new styles and you love to shop for jackets and boots.

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Starting point is 00:06:38 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. While Google starts the day being sued, TikTok started the day off with the launch of its long-awaited in-app shop. After more than a year of testing, TikTok Shop launched in the U.S. today. Users will start to see Shop at the top of the app, and in-feed videos will point people to products in the shop. The purchase will happen right inside the app using Apple Pay, PayPal, or a credit card.

Starting point is 00:07:22 But not for free. TikTok will take a cut of merchant sales, eventually. How much? For now, they a credit card. But not for free. TikTok will take a cut of merchant sales, eventually. How much? For now, they won't say. An executive told the New York Times that it was, quote, focused on getting the first of all the sellers to add their inventory to the platform, unquote. Obviously, the company is trying to get ahead of any concerns with American lawmakers around how much access the Chinese government might have to American consumer data. TikTok said all user data would be stored and managed in the U.S. Merchants will not be allowed to sell adult products, alcohol or tobacco, and even some types of baby and maternity products will be off limits. The company says it's already signed up

Starting point is 00:08:00 200,000 sellers to TikTok shop. As of right now, about 40% of the US user base has access to the new shop. And the rollout continues. Ever wondered what your competitors are up to with influencers? B2C marketers have had ad libraries to peek on branded content partnerships. They could go to a platform like Meta, search for a brand, and see what ads they're running. Until now, B2B influencer campaigns were still a little off the radar, but not for long. LinkedIn this week is rolling out an ads library for branded content partnerships. This will let you find all campaigns that have used the new branded content tags that the platform released last month. Like many of these new ad transparency features coming out, this is less about altruism and more about legislation.

Starting point is 00:08:50 These kinds of databases are now requirements under the new EU Digital Services Act. Meta and TikTok have already released versions of their branded partnership libraries. LinkedIn recently reported that sharing of original content on the platform increased by 41% last year compared to 2021. Quoting socialmediatoday.com, At those levels, you can expect a lot more creators will be looking LinkedIn's way.

Starting point is 00:09:14 And as X continues to transform its offering, it may well be LinkedIn that benefits the most from a rerouting of business-related discussion. The right influencer in the right niche could be highly valuable in this context, and this could end up being a key tool to boost your efforts. Amazon this morning announced it will soon let merchants deliver to more places than their customers' doorsteps, specifically to stores and warehouses. It's a new program they're calling Multi-Channel Distribution,

Starting point is 00:09:49 and it will let sellers restock all their fulfillment channels from a single inventory pool. Sellers in the program will be able to get Amazon to pick their products up right at the manufacturer's location, handling customs and ground transportation. The program is currently in testing with a small group of sellers.

Starting point is 00:10:07 It also this week announced a broader set of supply chain services. This, of course, builds on their wildly successful Fulfilled by Amazon program for merchants, which is 17 years old now, by the way, and lets sellers keep their inventory at an Amazon warehouse, letting Amazon handle the packaging and delivery. And that will bring us to the lightning round. As COVID-19 cases increase around the world, Meta is blocking COVID-related searches or even just searches for the word vaccine on threads. Users looking for information about the disease will see a blank page and a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instagram is testing a feature that will let users hide their like activity.

Starting point is 00:10:51 This is different than hiding the number of likes your posts have received. Rather, this would hide which posts your account has liked in the past. YouTube is testing out full screen viewing for vertical live streams. The company, of course, playing catch up with TikTok's live streaming. The two interfaces look almost identical. Google has released a critical update for its Chrome browser, fixing a vulnerability related to the graphics format WP. This is not a theoretical exploit.

Starting point is 00:11:20 It's been seen in use in the wild. Users are advised to update their browser. Links to the full details of these lightning round stories are in today's free newsletter, which you can sign up to by going to todayindigital.com slash newsletter or tapping the link in the show notes. Follow us on Mastodon. We're todayindigital at mas.to. You can follow my personal account. I'm tod at hci.social. Thanks for listening.

Starting point is 00:11:46 See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - The Court Case Heard Around the (Marketing) World

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