Today in Digital Marketing - The Greatest Bait-and-Switch in Business History?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, did TikTok just pull the greatest bait and switch in business history? YouTube has an exciting new metric. God, what has my life become? And Facebook's auto bans are becoming so frequent that hackers are now copying them. It's Monday, September 14th, 2020. Happy Bolivian Cochabamba Day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here is what you missed today in digital marketing. It's the most popular website in the world, so much so that its name has become a verb.

Starting point is 00:00:32 That's how important Google has become in our daily lives. People use it to check the weather, shop for shoes, book airline tickets. But are Google's days numbered? In fact, are search engines as a whole category on their way out? That may not seem so crazy after you hear some new numbers from China. The largest search engine there has always been Beidou, which has a billion regular users. That puts it in second place behind Google in the search engine world. But many Chinese aren't using a website at all for their searches. They're using a chat app.

Starting point is 00:01:04 WeChat, also enormously popular with 1.2 billion users, has morphed into an everything app. You can search, shop, pay for things, message with others. There are many apps like Snapchat's recent efforts. There's news, you can stream music, and a lot more. And that has led a dramatically growing number of people to bypass the traditional web-based search engine to do their searches inside the WeChat app instead. Nearly a third of the app's users say it's their main search engine of choice.

Starting point is 00:01:34 Even the Chinese version of TikTok, which they call Douyin, many of its 400 million users use it to do business, given that it does much more than the TikTok that we have. There is a parallel to this in the Western world, if not nearly as big yet. But think about it. When looking for a product, many people don't Google it. They just search directly on Amazon. Or if they want something used, they hit Facebook Marketplace first. As Search Engine Journal noted this weekend, quote, it's hard to knock big search engines off their perch, but nothing is predictable in digital, and analysts will certainly be keeping a close eye on the petri dish that is the Chinese search sector. Instagram is the latest platform to warn digital marketers that their ad campaigns may start underperforming once Apple's IDFA launches soon in the forthcoming iPhone operating system. IDFA, that's short for Identifier for Advertisers, lets people who own the apps, like Instagram,

Starting point is 00:02:32 track individual user data within their app, including what people do on it, some device technical information, and so on. So what's the issue? Well, Apple plans to pop up a message each time someone uses a new app that has IDFAFA with a somewhat ominous message about ad tracking and privacy, and wouldn't you just like to turn them all off for this app? To be clear, consumers can opt out of IDFA right now in the current iPhone OS, but it's buried in the settings. This would be a pop-up each time a person first uses an app. And people aren't opting out of ads.

Starting point is 00:03:06 They're just opting out of ads personalized to them. But will the average consumer understand this? Having people opt out, of course, would have dramatic effects on advertisers' changes in a way that advertisers can't really measure their return on investment, that's going to be, yes, somewhat problematic for our business, but it's going to be much, much more problematic for all the small businesses, unquote. He added they're trying to work with Apple to change the way it implements these changes. No word from Apple on whether they're receptive to that discussion. I'm sure you've heard the news. TikTok has been sold, not to Microsoft as most people expected,

Starting point is 00:03:57 but to Oracle. Well, not actually sold yet. The Trump administration is still looking at the deal. But did TikTok inadvertently pull a bait and switch? According to a state-owned television network, the Chinese government won't permit TikTok's all-important content algorithm to be part of the deal. A couple of weeks ago, the Chinese Commerce and Technology Ministries slapped regulations on the sale of specific technologies. Included in that list, content algorithms, any artificial intelligence, or push technologies like notifications. So, you know, everything that TikTok uses. Quoting TechCrunch, quote, if this is correct, then it seems that Oracle and its consortium partners will essentially be paying for the TikTok brand name and its access to 100 million

Starting point is 00:04:40 monthly active users in the US. These are regulations, mind you, not an outright ban. So technically speaking, TikTok's parent company would just need to secure a new export license from the Chinese government. But everyone agrees that's not going to get approved. So what did Oracle buy from them anyway, if not the content algorithm? Perhaps the smartest, most accurate such social media algorithm developed to date? Essentially, they bought a customer. Putting TikTok's databases on Oracle servers would be a big gain to their user base.

Starting point is 00:05:10 For its part, TikTok says it's never handed over user data to the Chinese government and never would, and they passed a comprehensive security check by American officials when it bought the Musical.ly app. One thing is certain, this ain't over, folks. One of the hardest parts about getting started in digital marketing is understanding all the acronyms and metrics that we all live in. Bofu, Tofu, ROAS, even the phrase conversions trip some people up. But YouTube is giving us another one to learn, but this one might actually prove to be quite valuable. And it's one I'm surprised the other platforms haven't created yet either. It's called

Starting point is 00:05:48 an EVC, an Engaged View Conversion. It measures conversions, like sales or newsletter subscriptions, that happen after someone views 10 seconds or more of your skippable ad, but didn't click, and then converts within a set amount of days. Quoting Google, quote, EVCs are a more robust way to measure conversions than view-through conversions, an industry standard that measures the conversions that take place after a person views an impression of your ad but doesn't click, unquote. I know they sound the same. The difference basically is that the new EVCs only apply when someone's watched 10 seconds or more of your video, so I guess they're more engaged. These will show up in your ads manager around the end of the year and will work for TrueView, skippable in-stream ads,

Starting point is 00:06:34 local campaigns, and app campaigns. Which brings us to the lightning round. Big news for marketers who use Google Shopping ads. You can now add in-market audiences to your ad set. Stephen Johns, a digital marketing consultant at door4.com tweeted, Got my first ever in-market audience click for a shopping ad with a huge 10% click-through rate, which for shopping is mental. More bugs in the Google Search Console. This time they're seeing delays in the index coverage report.

Starting point is 00:07:04 This only affects reporting, not crawling or indexing or ranking websites. There's also a weird Google bug happening when people try to change the address for a service area business. When you click submit, it just goes back to the old address. The change doesn't take. Apparently, this only happens in one of two cases, adding an address and clearing it for a move or going from a storefront to a service-level business. And finally, if your company uses the Google platform for your email and shared documents, you might be interested to know you can now collaborate with non-Google account users in those documents. Basically, if they don't have a Google account, they can get into a document you share with them by using a PIN number.

Starting point is 00:07:44 I woke up to a crappy message this morning. It's from the Facebook ads team. And it read, for violation of our policies, we restricted your Facebook page. And I thought, oh my God, not again. This time I didn't get this as a business manager notification

Starting point is 00:08:02 or as an email. He actually texted it to me. And look a little closer. And the URL they wanted me to click on was fbbusinesspage and then a whole bunch of numbers.com. So, yeah. Looks like the Fishers are now using Facebook auto-denial messages as their bait. It's been a month now since my wife and I adopted our two kids, Ada and Junior.

Starting point is 00:08:29 They're Roombas. I gotta tell you, having a Roomba is like having a drunk toddler. It's bashing into things, trying to eat stuff it shouldn't eat, then has a temper tantrum and passes out in the middle of the living room. Not gonna lie, I kinda love it. On the show tomorrow, don't count them out yet. Some analysts say brick and mortar retailers may actually have an edge this holiday season. And great news, links in Instagram captions might be tappable soon. Just be prepared to carve

Starting point is 00:08:57 a little extra out from your ad budget. More than 1100 digital marketers listen to this podcast every day. If that's an audience you'd like to reach, advertising options are as cheap as $20. Visit todayindigital.com slash ads or tap the link in today's episode. I'm Todd Maffin. More news from the world of digital marketing tomorrow. Talk to you then. Well, I don't care what the people say, what the people, they say about me. I just close my eyes and move my feet

Starting point is 00:09:25 And keep boogieing to the beat Warm my heart and feed my soul That can move on down the street

Today in Digital Marketing - The Greatest Bait-and-Switch in Business History?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.