Today in Digital Marketing - The Two Letters That Are Blocking Your Conversions

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, August 21st. Today, want to tank your sales? Tell buyers your product uses AI. Amazon's big announcement for sellers. Why audience recommendations are missing from Google Ads this week. And decrypting Reddit's latest hires. Are they about to join the search ads party? I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:27 Don't believe the hype. Labeling a product as AI-powered might actually end up hurting your sales. This from some new research published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management. Researchers showed participants the same products, but with different descriptions. One was called high-tech, and the other used the term artificial intelligence. In every case, people were less likely to buy the product that mentioned AI. So why the hesitation? The study looked at how people viewed products with different levels of risk.

Starting point is 00:01:02 For example, household appliances with AI were seen as low-risk, while self-driving cars and AI-powered medical diagnosis services were considered high-risk. In both groups, most people didn't want to buy the products. The study says this is because people hold AI to a higher standard and expect it to be perfect. When AI makes mistakes, trust in the brand and the product is quickly lost. There are two kinds of trust that play a role in people's perception of AI. One is cognitive trust, which is about expecting AI to be free from human error. The other is emotional trust, which is based on limited knowledge and understanding of AI and is more closely tied to brand trust. People's fear of the unknown and pop culture portrayals of AI as villains

Starting point is 00:01:52 also contribute to mistrust. Companies' lack of transparency about how AI handles personal data certainly doesn't help. The researchers say to ease fears, marketers and copywriters should explain how their AI is helping the consumer rather than just using it as a buzzword. Amazon just made returns easier for customers and cheaper for sellers. The company now lets sellers offer refunds without asking customers to send back the item.

Starting point is 00:02:26 This new program is called Fulfillment by Amazon Returnless Resolutions. Sellers using Amazon's fulfillment services can use the program. It cuts out the hassle and cost of handling returns. Customers get to keep the item and still get a refund, but not all products are eligible. Some items, like hazardous goods or those that cost over $75, cannot be part of the program. As for who can use it, only customers and sellers in good standing with Amazon can use returnless resolutions.

Starting point is 00:02:57 If a customer has a history of abusing returns, they might not be eligible. In that case, the item would still need to be sent back to Amazon. The company says it made this change to make returns more convenient for customers and cheaper for sellers. This program could especially be helpful for international sellers and those with low-cost items. Amazon is not charging extra for the program and says it can help sellers avoid other returns-related fees.

Starting point is 00:03:32 You may have noticed that Google has removed audience recommendations from the Insights tab in its Ads Manager, preventing marketers from using automated suggestions for targeting specific audiences. But don't worry, this is a bug. Quoting Ginny Marvin from Google, quote, audience insights is not being removed. The team is aware of an issue that caused this reporting to stop showing in some accounts and is working to address it, unquote. Industry blogs yesterday reported the absence of this feature, which meant advertisers would have to manually pick

Starting point is 00:03:58 their audience segments, which takes more time. But Google says, not to worry, it should be back soon. Reddit just hired a former Google executive to lead its ad product team. Jyoti Vidhe spent 11 years at Google working on product listing ads and dynamic shopping ads. This suggests Reddit is serious about building a search ads business. Reddit's users often search for answers on the platform, and the company sees this as a lucrative opportunity for advertisers. CEO Steve Huffman highlighted the potential for serving ads against search results,

Starting point is 00:04:37 noting that users have explicit intentions when searching. Reddit is gaining momentum with contextual keyword targeting, which lets advertisers link specific keywords to their brands or products. Huffman has been open about the company's intentions to build a search ads business. The company is hiring more engineers and product managers with search experience and says it plans to start testing new search results pages powered by AI later this year. TikTok is still adding users in Europe, despite reports of slowing growth worldwide. The app now reports it has 150 million monthly active users in the EU,

Starting point is 00:05:16 up from 134 million last August and 142 million in February. Europe has become more important for TikTok as it faces a possible ban in the US. The app's Chinese owners are fighting a sell-off bill in court, but if it passes, TikTok could lose 170 million American users. So, to counter this, TikTok is launching new EU programs including in-stream shopping and creator incentives. TikTok has a billion active users worldwide, with its main markets being the US, Europe, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and Vietnam.

Starting point is 00:05:53 But it's banned in India, where other social apps are growing fast. Losing the US market would be a major blow, so TikTok is trying to soften the impact by focusing on other regions. People will not wait for your website to load, and new data from Forbes Advisor found that these days, users give up after just 8 seconds on average. 38% will wait between 7 and 10 seconds for a site to load. Only 24% will wait for more than 11 seconds. A slow-loading website can be costly. Nearly half of users, 48%, will move on to the next search result if a site takes too long to load.

Starting point is 00:06:35 This is especially true for lesser-known brands, as users are more likely to be patient with well-known brands, like Amazon. Google has long emphasized the importance of fast load times. Since 2010, the company has recommended that sites load in under two seconds. In 2017, Google found that the likelihood of users bouncing from a site increases by 32% when load times jump from one second to three seconds. Kids are getting online at younger ages.

Starting point is 00:07:11 To understand what apps they use, Custodio surveyed 180,000 U.S. families with kids aged 7 to 18. The results show that among 7 to 9-year-olds, Roblox and YouTube are the clear winners. But some also use X and Reddit, which could expose them to explicit content. The study says it's likely they're not actively using these sites on a daily basis, but rather using them to get information about games. Still, parents might not know that they have these installed or haven't thought to block them. As kids get older,

Starting point is 00:07:48 their app preferences change. Among 10-12 year olds, Roblox and YouTube are still popular, but social apps like TikTok and Snapchat start to gain traction. For older teens, 16-18 years old, social apps become even more popular.

Starting point is 00:08:05 Last day of this classified ad, save time and money by ditching multiple social media tools. Fedica schedules posts to 11 platforms like PixelFed and BlueSky while unifying analytics and analysis for Mastodon, X, and more. Fedica gives you insights you can't get anywhere else. Get free cross-platform scheduling at Fedica.com. F-E-D-I-C-A dot com. So since I was a kid, I've had insomnia, chronic insomnia.

Starting point is 00:08:33 And for the last 15 years, I've been on a particular drug to help it. And this drug works. It works really well. But it has two horrible side effects. One is it makes me a zombie in the morning. I'll sleep like 12 hours straight. And at night, after I take this particular medication, it makes me a zombie in the morning. I'll sleep like 12 hours straight. And at night after I take this particular medication, it makes me crave carbs. Like I would eat an entire loaf of white bread just standing in the kitchen.

Starting point is 00:08:57 Those of you who are on this drug know exactly what I'm talking about describing it. So anyway, I started a new one that my doctor has given me and it worked great. I fell asleep wonderfully. But then I woke up at six, which I'm told is what, like, that's a normal people's amount of sleep for someone my age. But I don't know what I'm going to do if I keep waking up at six in the morning. I mean, I guess get some work done earlier. But what do people do? Can I get like a newspaper subscription? I can't. I wanted the New York Times daily, but they don't ship it over here. So anyway, that's a whole new world. But I like it. Anyway, that's it for today. See you tomorrow. Take care and see you in the next episode. That wraps up our episode perfectly. Sounds great. Bye, everyone.

Starting point is 00:09:37 Bye. Have a great day. You too. Thank you. You're welcome. See you next time. See you that. Looking forward to it. Me too. That's great to hear. Absolutely. I'm glad we're on. See you next time. See you then. Looking forward to it. Me too. That's great to hear. Absolutely. I'm glad we're on the same page.

Starting point is 00:09:49 Definitely. It's great working together. It really is. I enjoy our conversations. It's always interesting to dive into these topics with you. I feel the same way. It's always enriching to explore new ideas together. You have reached the message cap for GPT-4.

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Today in Digital Marketing - The Two Letters That Are Blocking Your Conversions

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