Today in Digital Marketing - The Facebook Engineering Comedy Hour

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

The busy back-to-school marketing season isn’t so busy this year, and that could spell savings in your ad budgets… digital marketers are NOT abandoning their martech tools in this time of reduced budgets…. And we mark the day — today — when Facebook’s Ad Platform status page is pure comedy. JOIN OUR SLACK COMMUNITY! • Click: http://TodayInDigital.com/slack SPREAD THE WORD: • Tweet It: http://bit.ly/tweet-tidm to preview a tweet you can publish • Review Us: http://RateThisPodcast.com/today ABOUT THE PODCAST: • Produced by: http://engageQ.com • Advertising: http://TodayInDigital.com/ads • Transcripts: See each episode at http://TodayInDigital.com • Theme music: Mark Blevis (all other music licensed by Source Audio) TOD’S SOCIAL MEDIA: • Tod’s agency: http://engageQ.com • LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/todmaffin • Twitter: http://twitter.com/todmaffin • Instagram: http://instagram.com/todmaffin • TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@todmaffin • Twitch: http://twitch.tv/todmaffin SOURCES: https://marketingland.com/marketers-expect-slight-cut-to-martech-budgets-but-new-platforms-still-the-focus-281219?utm_campaign=TodayInDigital.com https://www.marketingdive.com/news/kantar-back-to-school-advertising-drops-70-on-national-tv/584306/?utm_campaign=TodayInDigital.com https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/search-off-the-record/id1512522198 https://status.fb.com/ads --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/todayindigital/messageOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, the back-to-school marketing season isn't so busy this year, Be protected. Be Zen. Today, in fact, when Facebook's ad platform status page is pure comedy. It's Friday, August 28th, 2020. Happy National Grandfather's Day, Mexico. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here is what you missed today in digital marketing. A short episode today, and we start with a trend line that could spell good news for people who place digital ads on social media and in search engines.

Normally, around this time of year, many agencies and brands pull back a little on their advertising, or maybe pause it entirely until after Labor Day. And that's because back to school is a big marketing season, and brands pump lots of money into the auction, raising everyone's prices. What's the good news? That may not be happening this year. At least, not as much. Kantar reports that back-to-school advertising this year has fallen 70%. Now, those numbers are based on national television spending, but those numbers do usually track with other marketing spend, like digital and search and social.

In fact, of the 100 retailers that Kantar tracked last year during back-to-school season, only six are spending this year. They do say it's possible ad spend will increase as more students return to classrooms later in the year or next year. So, as always, watch your CPMs closely. Of those who are advertising, there's definitely a difference in creative. Quoting Marketing Dive, instead of showing happy families shopping for school supplies and clothes or featuring students

dancing in hallways and excelling in the classroom, the ads focus on online ordering, at-home delivery, curbside pickup, distance learning, and going outside. The few ads that show students in school depict them wearing face masks. One effect the pandemic has had across pretty much all of the digital marketing world is decreased spending overall, not just in the ad auctions, but also for the services we all use day to day. Task managers like Asana or Monday, middleware like Zapier, social dashboards like Agorapulse. And the category known as MarTech, that's marketing technology, for the last couple of months have been bracing themselves for lower revenues next

year as agencies and brands scale back their spending. Well, marketingland.com has released some data from a study they recently did, which shows actually may not be as big a hit as people expect. 55% of marketing executives they polled expect their advertising and campaign budgets will take the biggest hit for 2021. Only 18% said big budget cuts would come from spending on MarTech tools. Of those who will be spending on MarTech, 60% said most of that budget will be going to new platforms. 26% said that investment would go to virtual events solutions. I have a weekend listen recommendation for you. Google has a new podcast and it's all about their search engine, specifically how to make your brand's website rank higher.

It is actually a really good listen if you manage your brand's website. It's called Search Off the Record. And a warning, it's hosted by three engineers, three very nerdy engineers. I'm joined here today by Martin and Gary, who are also on the search relations team. Good morning. What do you mean good morning? Do you wish me a good morning or mean that it is a good morning, whether I want it or not, or that you feel good this morning, or that it is a good morning to be good on? Yes, yes.

There's no such thing as a good morning. You said yes. What does that mean? What does that mean, John? You gave me a bunch of options with or in between. So the logical answer is yes, if one of those is true. That's the opposite of logic.

This is the worst day of my life. So far. And it's 4 a.m. Again, the podcast is called Search Off the Record, and it's available in all the usual podcast places. And now, friends, come with me on a brief journey of comedy brought to you by the engineering department of Facebook. Yesterday morning, Facebook's status page reported this. We are aware of an issue that may be impacting ad delivery across Facebook feed. Our engineering teams are aware and are actively looking to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, unquote. All right, that happens, you know, a lot these days, but whatever.

At least it's just the feed and not like across all their products. Then, four hours later, we're aware of a system bug that is causing some people to see incorrect public images for links to externally public available content on posts and ads on Facebook and Instagram. Oh, Instagram now too. And also, like, how does that even happen? Like, wires have got to be crossed pretty bad to swap different images around. Anyway, I'm sure it's nothing big, right? Then, later in the evening, quote,

Earlier today, a bug on Facebook and Instagram caused some people Then, later in the evening, quote, That escalated quickly, didn't it? It's a pretty big jump from we're having ad delivery problems to we are accidentally showing porn. I mean, I don't think it was actually porn, but, you know, something bad. But it's all good now. They ended that update with we fixed the issue

and removed the violating images, unquote. So, that's good. And then, this morning, quote, earlier, a bug on Facebook and Instagram caused some people to see incorrect images in public posts and ads, which regrettably included some objectionable content that violates our policies. We've since issued a fix, but in some cases, people may continue to see incorrect images, unquote. And just as I walked into the voicing booth, quote, we are aware of an issue that may be impacting ad delivery across all our products. Well, I think I'm done with Overwatch.

I know I've said this before, but I fell from platinum to mid-silver this season. It's not my fault. I tell you, once you hit mid-gold, you're screwed. Like, all you get are teams that won't peel, don't know how to counter a monkey, think the solution to everything is double shield bastion. So, it's probably quick play for me, which is nice. I get to play something other than heals.

I have played 1,245 hours on support in this game. If I played this game like a job, you know, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, that's about 8 months of support. So, yeah, I think it's time for a new game. Our theme is by Mark Blevis, music licensing by Source

Audio, ad management by Podcorn, and this podcast is produced by our agency, EngageQ Digital. Find us at engageq.com. Full transcripts to every episode are available on our website, TodayInDigital.com. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful and safe weekend, friends. I'll talk to you on Monday.