Today in Digital Marketing - The Secret Word is: "Memphis."

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, meet the new dynamic ad, one with static assets, some welcome updates to YouTube's analytics, your Facebook pixel might be broken today, and the funniest apology that Twitter has ever put out. It's Monday, March 15th, 2021. Happy Constitution Day, Belarus. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. When done right, dynamic ads, regardless of the ad's platform, generally perform pretty well. Dynamic ads, of course, are those ads where you give the platform a number of different headlines, images, body copies, CTAs, and it tries to find the right combination for each person in your

Starting point is 00:00:40 audience. Which is why Microsoft's announcement today seems, at first blush, to be going backward. The company says you can now force static headlines to run within your dynamic search ads. Yes, pretty much negating the whole point of rotating creative. But there is reason to this rhyme. Turns out in some regulated industries, certain offerings need to have more control over the creative they're presented with. So now you can specify a URL that you definitely do not want the platform to include with a rotating headline, and it'll leave it be. For now, this is only available when you populate your catalog using a feed. It's not part of the general self-service platform, but Microsoft says they're planning on putting it there at some point too. Seems to be a strange bug today on Facebook's ad platform. Now hold on, let me get the Facebook

Starting point is 00:01:33 music out. I have it out here somewhere. Some people have noticed that their pixel reporting has a new domain sending events to the pixel. That could be a big deal. If someone lifts your pixel code and slaps it on their site, it could mess your analytics up. But in this case, the pixel says the domain it's seeing events from? Facebook.com. And in some cases, their corporate domain, FB.com. As DTC marketer David Herman tweeted this morning,

Starting point is 00:02:04 Um, isn't that the point? We noticed it on our clients' accounts today too. Normally there's an easy fix. You just block list the domain and call it a day. Or perhaps a better solution, put your own domain on the allow list. That basically tells Facebook to block any domain that's not on the allow list.

Starting point is 00:02:21 But what should we do with this? We can't block Facebook. Can we? Should we? We can't block Facebook. Can we? Should we? Hello? Facebook? Some welcome updates to YouTube's analytics platform. Their reports will now show you living room data.

Starting point is 00:02:41 That's things like smart TVs, video game consoles, TV sticks, and so on. Data from those sources has always been collected and reported, but now it's broken out into its own category, quoting searchenginejournal.com. Therefore, creators will see no change to overall video performance in their analytics data. Metrics like watch time, views, and revenue are not changing as a result of this update. What might change is click-through rate data. Since Also new in YouTube's reporting, new and returning viewers metrics can be seen in the audience tab within YouTube Studio, and some changes to real-time analytics in the Studio mobile app. Google is doing a training program tomorrow on lead generation. I mean, not lead generation as a whole, but rather how to run lead gen campaigns on Google's platform, of course. They say it'll

Starting point is 00:03:43 cover how to use first-party data to improve lead quality, the lead-to-sale journey, best-in-class practices for a strong user experience, and how to optimize your search, video, and display strategies to capture demand. It's free, and you can sign up at b.link slash google Lead Gen. Quick, what food comes to mind first when you think of the 80s video game character Pac-Man? If you said pizza, you're not alone. Perhaps that's why Pizza Hut today launched an interesting augmented reality campaign tied to Pac-Man.

Starting point is 00:04:19 The way it works is you scan a QR code on their pizza box, and if you have their app, the top of the box will turn into a Pac-Man game that you can play on your phone. The idea is to use AR to mimic those old-school tabletop video game arcade boxes. It will only work if you ordered a large pizza. Nice touch, Pizza Hut revenue people. It's actually the first salvo in a new theme that they're using.

Starting point is 00:04:42 They call it Newstalgia, giving a modern spin to the brand's iconic branding elements. Among the elements you'll see in their campaigns in the coming months, red plastic cups and those Tiffany-style lamps from your dad's study in the 80s. Speaking of retro, remember Pee-Wee's Playhouse? Every episode there was a secret word. When someone on the show said the secret word, everyone on the show, and every kid at home, screamed. Here's an example from when Cher was the guest and the secret word was year. So, Cher, are you having a nice Christmas so far?

Starting point is 00:05:18 Oh, yeah, Pee-wee. Christmas is my favorite time of year. Which brings us to the fine folks at Twitter who had a secret word of their own over the weekend. Memphis. And, like PeeWee, use of that word resulted in pandemonium. But not from kids screaming. Rather,

Starting point is 00:05:38 from digital marketers, brand managers, and other adults discovering that their Twitter accounts had been suspended. Quoting from the funniest tweet Twitter has ever put out, quote, a number of accounts that tweeted the word Memphis were temporarily limited due to a bug. It's been fixed and the accounts have now been restored. We're sorry this happened. Don't forget you'll find a link to our new perks program with exclusive discounts on

Starting point is 00:06:04 marketing tools, training and services at todayindigital.com slash perks. And if you'd like to extend an offer to our listeners, go to todayindigital.com slash promote. It's free to do that. Links to all of those are, of course, in our show notes. Oh, by the way, I changed my TikTok username so you will no longer find me at Todd Maffin. I'm now at Digital Marketing Secrets because I figured that would probably be a little bit better for branding or follower count. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:06:30 We'll see. Talk to you tomorrow. Thank you for sharing. You're welcome, PeeWee. And PeeWee, see you next year. I know I told him a thousand times, let the 808 bang, let the 808 bang, got my hand on my heart like a blade before the game starts. I know I told him a thousand times, let the 808 bang, let the 808 bang.

Today in Digital Marketing - The Secret Word is: "Memphis."

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