Today in Digital Marketing - The Day the Music Died

Starting point is 00:00:01 It is Wednesday, January 31st. Today, biting the hand that feeds it. Why is one of the music industry's biggest players pulling out of TikTok? Also, Google had a great quarter, so what's with the share price drop today? The shocking number of brands without any marketing plan at all, and the social media team at Sesame Street, scores big. I'm Todd Mathen. That's ahead on a very busy day today in digital marketing. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack,

Starting point is 00:00:34 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. That music catalog on TikTok you've been mining for your brand's videos is about to get a lot smaller. Universal Music Group is pulling the plug on its deal with the app. They represent some of the biggest names in music right now, including Taylor Swift, Drake, and Harry Styles. And it's clear that there is no love lost between the two. UMG today accusing TikTok of strong-arm tactics in licensing negotiations, quoting their statement, quote, TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay, unquote.

Starting point is 00:01:31 They claim only about 1% of its revenue comes from its deal with TikTok. For its part, TikTok, too, seemed to be all too happy to burn the bridge. Quoting from TikTok's statement, quote, it is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters. Despite Universal's false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users

Starting point is 00:01:58 that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent. TikTok has been able to reach artist-first agreements with every other label and publisher, unquote. UMG isn't just battling TikTok, it's taking legal action against companies over what it says is AI-generated content misuse. Meanwhile, TikTok's parent company ByteDance admits, yeah, it's playing catch up in monitoring how AI is using music. So while those two trade nasty press releases, your chance to use that Taylor Swift song in your brand's next TikTok video expires at midnight. Shopify had a big day today announcing a bunch of new things.

Starting point is 00:02:44 At the forefront is an AI media editor called the Magic Media Editor. This, like similar tools out there now, lets merchants creatively alter backgrounds of product images. There are seven styles available, ranging from minimal to surreal, and you can also generate custom backgrounds. They also upgraded their search functionality with a new semantic search feature. This goes beyond traditional keyword matching, letting customers find products using more natural and intuitive searches. So something like warm clothes for winter will yield a more accurate selection of thermal wear. For merchants looking to showcase product variations, it now supports up to 2000 different. And, I suspect of more interest to advanced marketers, the launch of headless storefronts.

Starting point is 00:03:30 This gives website administrators much more customizability in their store's look and feel. Despite raking in $1.7 billion in Q3 2023 revenue, a 25% increase year-on-year, the company recently laid off 20% of its staff and sold its logistics business to Flexport. Like it or not, more AI has come to Google Ads. We reported on the new Gemini model

Starting point is 00:03:59 being moved into the ads platform to do things like create assets for campaigns. Now that it's been out for a few days, we thought this was the perfect time to do things like create assets for campaigns. Now that it's been out for a few days, we thought this was the perfect time to bring in our Google Ads correspondent, Jill Saskengales. Jill spent six years at Google and today runs a fantastic Google Ads training program. Jill, have you used this new generative AI in Google Ads yet? I have played around with it. Yes, it's only launched in the US and in the UK. So I had to go into one of my American clients accounts to see it. And yeah, had some fun playing with it. And what were the results like? For context, I went in to create a new performance max campaign and used the generative AI capabilities to create headlines, create descriptions, and create images.

Starting point is 00:04:51 And it didn't do that much creative stuff. It wasn't like when I've used ChatGPT or Dolly, you know, create an image of a person on a computer and it creates something crazy. The images were very understated and to the point and literally what I asked for. The text just used my inputs and presented it back to me in a new way. So I was pretty impressed. I would use what it generated. That's interesting. So I guess they've sort of toned it down, knowing that marketers are a little bit, you know, brand sensitive. You don't want it necessarily generating all sorts of crazy talk. I think so. And I guess that's why it was a bit anticlimactic for the headlines. It was like, give us some ideas. And they gave it some ideas.

Starting point is 00:05:28 And it was like, okay, here's what we have for you. And it was basically exactly what I'd written. But you know, it capitalized each letter in the headlines. Interesting to see that, like not each letter, the first letter of each word in the headline, maybe added one or two more words to them. But it was just very straightforward. And so I think, you know, for beginners to Google ads, especially, which is most people who use Google ads, we often forget, I think this will be a really helpful tool. So when you use these automatically generated assets, whether it's a headline, whether it's body copy or an image or so on, and you run it, like let's say you run it as a variation on your ad,

Starting point is 00:06:05 do you get to see metrics on, you know, which image is performing better and what the click through rate on this headline is? As of right now, you get to see Google's determination of how they're reporting. And then depending on the campaign type, sometimes you can see more of that information and sometimes you can't it's sort of it depends is the answer depends on what uh on the campaign type and how much campaign type that visibility gives you i see okay and would you use this for a client i guess is the big question the big question yes i would use this for a client i have tried using kind of other ai tools to generate things and they've been fine,

Starting point is 00:06:45 they've been okay. But given how integrated this is into the workflow, like when you're going to write a headline, there's a button right there that says generate when you go to add an image, like right there, it says generate. I would absolutely test this. It was pretty quick at generating the results. And at least for the one client I tested it in, the images with the prompt I gave it were very on brand and realistic looking and usable. How did you find that that compared to using another tool like you mentioned ChatGPT or Dally to create these ad assets? The workflow was definitely much easier because I didn't have to do much prompt engineering in Google Ads. So what happened when I clicked the

Starting point is 00:07:21 generate button is it would say, you know, describe your business to us. But then it had a suggested pre-populated what you could put there that it had already pulled from the website. So it was just button click, button click, and boom, the results were there. Whereas, of course, with a third party tool, you have to put your prompt together and fiddle with it a few times to get results. It was definitely faster, easier. And then as mentioned, the results were just un-extraordinary. And I say that as a compliment. It wasn't doing wacky things. It wasn't trying to get overly creative. It didn't throw in any of those AI buzzwords that would instantly say, oh, this is AI generated. It just felt very natural, normal. It was like it was making what I had a little bit better

Starting point is 00:08:01 on the tech side rather than trying to come up with something brand new. And I think that's what most advertisers need. We don't need to reinvent the wheel with how we write headlines. There's only so many ideas under the sun. If you had to give it a grade, this feels like maybe B minus. I'd be a little more generous than that, Todd. I'd give it like a B or a B plus. A B or a B plus. OK. All right. Fair enough.

Starting point is 00:08:23 Jill, thank you. Thank you. Jill Saskengales is our Google Ads correspondent. She's here every second Wednesday. You can learn more about her Google Ads training program at our affiliate link, which is b.link slash gatraining. And you can watch the full unedited interview. There is a link to it in today's newsletter, which you can sign up to for free by tapping the link in the show notes or going to todayindigital.com slash newsletter. Man, investors are hard to please. Shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, tumbled this morning, shedding about $110 billion in market value. That was a 6% drop despite posting profits,

Starting point is 00:09:07 despite being up 11% year over year, despite total revenue of $86 billion, numbers that beat analysts' forecasts. So what happened? Well, it's $65.5 billion of ad revenue fell slightly short of the anticipated $66 billion. Yep, that's all it took. There were some silver linings, a 26% increase in Google Cloud revenue, and lots of statements

Starting point is 00:09:35 about optimism, of course. Advertising remains the cornerstone of Alphabet's earnings, making up to 80% of its total income. That said, there was another corner of Google which showed good signs, YouTube, which when broken out saw a significant rise in ad revenue, jumping 15.5% to $9.2 billion in last year's Q4. Subscriptions are another key focus with a remarkable five-fold increase since 2019, totaling $15 billion in revenue last year. YouTube's recent initiatives, like acquiring NFL Sunday Ticket,

Starting point is 00:10:19 have been instrumental in attracting more users and, with them, advertisers to the platform. Another big part of growth? Shorts, its answer to TikTok. It's also been developing new, less intrusive ad formats and creative tools like the new YouTube Create app. 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,

Starting point is 00:10:51 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. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots so when you do always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten and it's not just clothing and shoes you can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics holiday travel home decor and more it's super easy and before you buy anything always go to Rakuten first join free atuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.C-A. Nearly two-thirds of small and medium-sized businesses in the UK lack a marketing action plan. This according to a new study by the Marketing Center.

Starting point is 00:11:48 This leads to what the report terms random acts of marketing, which don't significantly contribute to business objectives. Even more alarming, fewer than a third of businesses generate sufficient leads for growth, and only 40% use CRM tools effectively. Other findings from its survey of 2,000 decision makers, only 27% of businesses set clear objectives when engaging with specialist marketing services like agencies, and only 25% have clearly defined marketing KPIs. Reddit has its first partner for its fairly new conversions API, Telium, a CDM firm.

Starting point is 00:12:25 Quoting from Reddit's statement today, quote, By connecting Telium's customer data management with our conversions API, advertisers can now quickly and easily share high-quality customer conversion data with Reddit to more accurately measure campaign performance. As a result of this partnership, Reddit advertisers can simplify the implementation of the Reddit pixel and conversions API, improve measurement with more accurate, reliable and resilient data, and elevate the optimization and performance of Reddit ad campaigns thanks to better, more accurate signals, unquote. Reddit's conversion API is now open to all its advertisers.

Starting point is 00:13:07 Now that the various streaming platforms are dropping their ad-free plans or jacking the prices way up on them, has anyone thought to ask the viewers what they think? A new report from Disco found that viewers are basically cool with it all now. Only 13% said they were against ad tiers on streaming platforms. This marks a sharp decline from last year's 36% who opposed ads for cheaper streaming options.

Starting point is 00:13:31 This change in consumer sentiment comes as Amazon introduces ads into Prime Video. Their new ad-supported tier, launched this week, is set to automatically reach an estimated 115 million monthly viewers. Viewers have the option to pay an additional $3 for an ad-free experience. Streaming giants like Netflix and Disney are also adapting to this trend. Netflix's ad tier, launched in November 2022, has 23 million monthly viewers, while Disney reported 5.2 million users on its ad-supported tier. Other findings? 88% of adults now have at least one streaming subscription,

Starting point is 00:14:14 41% subscribe to services like Fubo or YouTube TV, and U.S. audiences last year watched 21% more streamed video than they did the previous year. The survey polled 18,000 U.S. adults. And finally, on Monday, Elmo, the beloved red monster from Sesame Street, innocently asked his 457,000 ex-followers, how is everybody doing? Well, the floodgates opened with thousands sharing their struggles from depression to job loss to election anxieties. One tweet starkly summed it up, quote, Elmo, each day the abyss we stare into grows a unique horror, unquote. 140 million people saw Elmo's post. This unexpected outpouring caught the attention of many,

Starting point is 00:15:05 including Sesame Street's marketing head, who directed the four-person social media team to have other show characters like Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch reply from their own ex-accounts. Oscar the Grouch said, I'm not great at listening to others share their big feelings, but my worm Slimy is. You should talk with him if you ever need to chat. And it kind of took off in the most wholesome way possible, share their big feelings, but my worm Slimy is. You should talk with him if you ever need to chat. And it kind of took off in the most wholesome way possible, sparking a conversation about the need for accessible mental health resources. After receiving more than 9,000 responses, Elmo followed up with a tweet emphasizing the importance of asking friends how they're doing. This brought some comfort, apparently, to some people, one user responding, somehow this actually legit makes me feel better. This isn't the first time Elmo has become an

Starting point is 00:15:49 internet sensation. In 2022, his rant about a pet rock named Rocco also went viral. I have to say, though, in researching this story, which I'm a little embarrassed to admit, I spent more time on this than any other story today. We're not going to talk about it. The best part of the Sesame Street character accounts are their pinned tweets. Burt's reads, oatmeal is the best meal. Big Bird's literally just says tweet. Get it? Big Bird tweet.

Starting point is 00:16:22 But the runaway winner is the pinned tweet on the account of Oscar the Grouch. It simply reads, Scram. On the show tomorrow, a surprise new attribution option on Meta's platform. Trends are coming to threads and Adobe takes its toys and goes home. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - The Day the Music Died

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