Today in Digital Marketing - The Two Words Consumers Want You To Say

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, Facebook lifts a controversial advertising ban, big moves in the digital television ad space, TikTok is going to TV, Pinterest's new placement is equal parts encompassing and expensive, and Twitter may be removing some content from your website. It's Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021. Happy Day of Liberation from the Ottoman Domination Bulgaria. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Lots to get to today, and we start with some good news

Starting point is 00:00:31 from a study of 1,500 American consumers, 57% of which said they stayed loyal to their favorite brands all through 2020. All through the pandemic, all through the social unrest in the US, quoting Marketing Dive, loyalty has been a key priority for marketers for years. But the pandemic's disruptions to supply chains tested the limits of those bonds with their favorite brands.

Starting point is 00:00:55 As shoppers emptied store shelves during the early days of the crisis, many consumers were forced to try other brands and stores, unquote. Even better, when they were asked to form a relationship with a brand, 81% said, sure. So how do they want you to court them for that relationship? Discounts, baby.

Starting point is 00:01:14 70% said discounts are their favorite loyalty reward. 65% said free products. 51% said free samples. But what about those contests you run? Meh. Only 28% of those polled said a chance to win a prize was their favorite reward. But what about all the money you poured into offer personalization? Meh. Only 14% said they wanted to feel like a brand, quote, knows me. 14%. Yikes. So if it's not contests or marketing databases

Starting point is 00:01:48 and you don't want to discount or give stuff away, what can you do to retain your customers? Say thank you. 40% said that would go a long way. And I have to agree. You know, whenever I get something from a third-party seller on Amazon and they have one of those little thank you for your business cards in there, I appreciate it. I know they're mass-produced.

Starting point is 00:02:09 I know they're really there to try to get negative reviews off their profile, but I still like it. And so do many others, it seems. And so we go from good news to, well, Google. The company this morning clarifying that despite reports that it's working on an alternative for the third-party cookie, it's not planning to give marketers a replacement. At least, not a replacement that matches the data we're getting now. Here's what they said, quote, We continue to get questions about whether Google will join others in the ad tech industry who plan to replace third-party cookies with alternative user-level identifiers.

Starting point is 00:02:46 Today, we are making it explicit that once third-party cookies are phased out, we will not build alternative identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products, unquote. So if we're not getting all the data we're used to, what will we get? Well, Google's been working on a system of anonymous buckets of cohorts, something they call FLOC, F-L-O-C. Today, we actually saw a mock-up of this implementation. It looks like the consumer-facing name will be called Web Crowds,

Starting point is 00:03:14 and people will be able to opt in or opt out of it. Premium newsletter subscribers will be able to see a photo of what it looks like. Truth is, between Google's elimination of third-party cookies and Apple's move to let people opt out of tracking easier, and Facebook's somewhat childish overreaction of Apple's move, none of us really know how this will all shake out. Watch this space. A couple of interactive TV developments overnight. First, Roku has bought Nielsen's advanced video advertising business. This tech handles dynamic ad insertion and AI-based content recognition. As part of the deal,

Starting point is 00:03:56 Roku's ad platform, which they call OneView, will now integrate Nielsen's digital ad ratings system. The real play here, of course, is for that digital ad insertion. Television, until now, hasn't really had that ability. Terrestrial TV still doesn't. But with this kind of tech, someone in Florida watching TV online would see a different ad than someone in Alberta. Or people interested in sports would see a sports promotion, while theater fanatics would see an ad for a musical. Or people in their 20s would see a different ad than those in their 60s, which I am personally looking forward to because CNN still thinks that I suffer from mesothelioma. Also with streaming TV, Disney is rolling out a new programmatic business called Disney Real-Time Ad Exchange. This will unify their ad sales among digital and linear programming. Disney says it expects revenue from automated ad campaigns to grow by

Starting point is 00:04:43 more than 80% this year, with programmatic sales making up as much as half of that revenue within three years. Disney, don't forget, also handles the ads for the hugely popular American platform Hulu. When they launched an earlier iteration of this combined ad platform, the number of ad campaigns there quadrupled in the first 30 days after launch. You can target audience buckets based on buyer behavior, household characteristics, and psychographics. And this is all first-party data, of course, that Disney controls, so no third-party issues for them.

Starting point is 00:05:14 But even though people have been abandoning traditional TV for online streaming services, a recent survey by Advertising Perceptions found 51% of advertisers said linear TV is their top priority. Only 16% said social media was their top number one spending priority. And only 15% said that for video sites. So while the large TV platforms move quickly to transition to digital, one up-and-coming digital platform is planning to head to TV.

Starting point is 00:05:48 That platform? TikTok. They say they'll soon be on Samsung Smart TVs in the U.S. later this year. You won't need a TikTok account to watch the videos. There'll be 12 topic categories you can surf through. But if you do have an account, of course, you'll be able to get your own for you and following feeds. Their app will be available for all Smart TV models made after 2018. But will consumers watch? After all, they'll have to put up with giant letterboxes on the sides to fit the vertical videos into a horizontal dimension. To be fair, you can already watch TikTok videos on your TV

Starting point is 00:06:19 now using Apple's AirPlay or any number of TV sticks or adapters. But this will be the first smart TV app specifically designed for television screens. Speaking of my own TikTok account, on which I post daily digital marketing tips and live stream the production of this podcast, I crossed 3,100 followers last night, which, you know, I'm pretty happy with. If that TikTok announcement gets you thinking about testing some of your media spend over there, they want to help you spend that money. Today, they announced what they call a growth summit, what normal people call a webinar.

Starting point is 00:06:56 It's aimed at small and medium-sized businesses and is happening on the 24th. Here's how they describe it. It's designed to help everyone grow their familiarity and understanding of the platform and learn how to set their business up for success on TikTok. An engaging day of unlocking TikTok's magic with creators, experts, and business owners, while dispelling TikTok myths and helping businesses find the answers, inspiration, and confidence they need to get started, unquote. Dispelling myths, eh? I might go just for that. There are a handful of sessions from case studies to getting started to integrating your Shopify store. The URL is a bit of a mind boggle, but here it is.

Starting point is 00:07:35 ReadySetGrowSummit.SplashThat.com. It is, of course, free. Well, Pinterest was busy today with its own webinar, sorry, summit. And as part of that announced some new goodies for us digital marketers. First, a new video ad option called Pinterest Premiere. This will let you buy exclusive video placement in the home feed for a specific demographic interest or category for a period of time. So closest comparison here is probably Twitter's first view product that puts your video as the first video

Starting point is 00:08:07 your audience sees that day. And yes, it is as expensive as you think it is. Pinterest also beefed up its interactive trends tool to give us more detail of engagement behaviors there. And they are rolling out the conversion insights report to more advertisers now. You'll be able to view both promoted and organic pin metrics in a single report.

Starting point is 00:08:25 Pinterest's current active user count, 459 million. This afternoon, Facebook announced it will lift its ban on political ads in the U.S. on Thursday. They banned ads about social issues, elections, or politics after the elections last November to help stop the spread of misinformation, but a lot of legit brands in those spaces got caught up in that massive blanket. Google, too, banned political ads after the election, and then again after the armed invasion of the U.S. Capitol. That ban was lifted a couple of weeks ago.

Starting point is 00:08:58 Submedia are reporting that executives with the Democratic Party said the ban didn't stop misinformation. It just made it harder to communicate with voters. Twitter will be pulling a feature that a few websites may be using. The Likes, Collections, and Moments embeddable timelines will be turned off on June 23rd. Some sites had these. They were a way to embed a tweet thread on their website, but very few. Twitter says that of those people who use embeds, about half of 1% used one of those three. The vast majority who embed Twitter content are embedding profiles or lists. Those will continue

Starting point is 00:09:36 to work just fine on your site. But double check. Make sure you're not using one of those three. That's likes, collections, or moments embeds. And if you are, you should probably pull it before it barfs out an error message come June 23rd. By the way, Twitter had its first test of its new Spaces product. That's their version of Clubhouse. I got into the test. For the most part, it was okay, though there did seem to be a lot of latency, which led to some awkward moments like this. I like that because...

Starting point is 00:10:02 Brian, can you repeat your question? I think he's asking about the... I think he's asking about how we organize all the listeners in the space. But the interface was really smooth. It was right inside the mobile app. And, you know, if they pull it off, it could very well be a huge problem for Clubhouse.

Starting point is 00:10:28 And finally, the social platform Buffer today announced a pretty significant change. You can now manage all your social channels in one place. Previously, you had to connect the same channel for different features. Don't forget, you'll find a link to our new perks program with exclusive discounts on marketing tools, training and services at todayindigital.com slash perks. And if you'd like to extend an offer to our listeners, just go to todayindigital.com slash promote. It's free. All right. That's it for today.

Starting point is 00:10:56 Talk to you tomorrow. Mentos, the fresh maker.

Today in Digital Marketing - The Two Words Consumers Want You To Say

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