Today in Digital Marketing - Those Poor, Unfortunate Goals

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal.

Starting point is 00:00:28 Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. It is Friday, August 23rd. Today, where did it all go? Marketers wake up to a huge gap in Google Analytics data. LinkedIn is changing its carousels. Amazon is having a bad week. And the pizza promotion that lets you dance for your dinner is actually, secretly, a very clever BOGO deal. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing.

Starting point is 00:01:35 We start today with Google Analytics and many marketers reporting missing data in their overview reports for yesterday and today. The issue does appear to be widespread, with multiple users taking to the Google Analytics forum and social media to complain about the problem. The real-time reports seem to be working, but the main overview reports are coming up empty. It is likely that Google will be able to fix the issue and restore the missing data. The fact that real-time data is still working suggests the data is still being collected, just not displayed. But Google has yet to respond to the complaints or provide a timeline for a fix. A future me is jumping in here just before we put the podcast to bed at our deadline.

Starting point is 00:02:08 Some users were reporting seeing their data reappearing. It looks like the issue was just a delay and the data is now flowing back in. Google is moving all merchants to its new version of its Merchant Center platform. The company made the announcement this week saying the switch will happen by September. The new platform is called Merchant Center Next. It has a simpler interface and new tools, including AI-powered image creator. And what the company says is better analytics. Google says the platform will make it easier for businesses to manage how their products appear on the site.

Starting point is 00:02:44 One of the new features is called Product Studio. It uses AI to help businesses create marketing content. The platform also has a new analytics tab with pricing reports and competitive visibility tools. Google has already started notifying merchants about the change. The company will continue to send out emails over the next month. By September, all merchants should be using the new platform. We have a very detailed breakdown of what's in the classic Merchant Center compared to what's in Merchant Center Next. That is in today's email newsletter, which you can subscribe to for free by tapping the link at the top of the show notes or going to todayindigital.com slash newsletter. A nice new format on LinkedIn is bound to increase engagement for those marketers who choose to use it. In-feed carousels can now show multiple video clips that users can scroll

Starting point is 00:03:34 through. The specific video displayed to users first will be based on what users do in the app and what's on their profile. So if you post two videos, one with a talking head and one with an animated infographic, people who've watched animated graphs in the past lots would likely be shown that video in your carousel first. Tapping on a video opens a full screen video feed that looks kind of like TikTok. This feed was introduced in March to keep up with changing user consumption habits. LinkedIn wants to promote its growing collection of user-made videos. The goal, of course, is to attract younger users

Starting point is 00:04:08 who prefer video updates. The site now gets one and a half million new content uploads every minute. With video growing the fastest, video uploads are up 34% from last year. But some think LinkedIn may have missed the point, quoting Andrew Hutchinson from Social Media Today, quote, personally, I think that LinkedIn would be better off adding a dedicated

Starting point is 00:04:30 video feed, which prioritizes live streams in order to showcase live events and industry updates in the app. I'm not sure that TikTok style short form videos really work in the LinkedIn format, because like stories, which LinkedIn also tried out, this more snackable content style isn't really conducive to the kind of engagement that professionals are seeking in the app, unquote. Google is making it easier for big advertisers to manage their ad campaigns across multiple and even competing search engines. The company is launching a new beta program that lets advertisers use Microsoft's automated bidding system within Google Search Ads 360.

Starting point is 00:05:16 This means advertisers can now optimize their campaigns in real time using data from both Google and Microsoft. This uses Google's AI-powered bid strategies, which can allocate budgets across different campaigns. According to Google, advertisers that use this new system can expect to see about a 5% increase in conversions. To get started, advertisers need to check the box that shares Floodlight data with linked Microsoft ad accounts and then enable Microsoft automated bidding

Starting point is 00:05:45 in the bid strategy settings. A surprising ruling in an American court yesterday, an appeals court ruled that an antitrust case against Amazon can move forward. The case claims Amazon's pricings are unfair and hurt third-party sellers and consumers. The court's decision reverses a previous ruling that dismissed the case. The lawsuit alleges Amazon used contracts and policies to fix prices. This meant, says the lawsuit, that third-party sellers can't offer lower prices on other platforms even if they want to. The court found these allegations plausible enough to let the case continue.

Starting point is 00:06:28 The Open Markets Institute, a progressive advocacy organization, endorsed the decision, saying, Although Amazon charges third-party sellers substantial commissions and fees that amount to a tax of as high as 50% of their retail price, the corporation prohibits sellers from offering discounted price on lower-cost rival platforms and their own sites. In other words, online sellers must incorporate the Amazon tax into their prices wherever they market their goods. Further, Amazon compels suppliers to guarantee its profit margins on the sale of their goods. This conduct robs merchants and suppliers of pricing freedom, unfairly impedes the growth of competitors, and ultimately raises prices for consumers, unquote.

Starting point is 00:07:15 Amazon says it disagrees with the allegations and claims its policies are good for consumers. Yesterday also brought some more bad news for the company, the National Labor Relations Board ruling that Amazon cannot claim that drivers and the companies that contract with Amazon for delivery are just independent contractors. It says Amazon is considered a joint employer of those drivers. Quoting Ars Technica, quote, by rejecting its employer status, Amazon had previously argued that it had no duty to bargain with driver unions and no responsibility for alleged union busting. But now, after a year-long investigation, the NLRB has issued what Amazon Delivery Drivers Union has claimed was, quote, a groundbreaking decision that sets the stage for Amazon delivery drivers across the country to organize with the Teamsters, unquote. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would

Starting point is 00:08:18 you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. And finally, would you dance for a free pizza? Well, Pizza Hut hopes you will and is running a new promotion called Pay With Your Trend. It starts when you order a My Box pizza. This is sort of like a bento box that contains a small pizza and two sides. Then you shoot a TikTok video featuring the pizza and any popular trend and publish it with a specific hashtag.

Starting point is 00:09:03 Finally, wait for a message from Pizza Hut with a promo code for a free MyBox. This offer is open to anyone regardless of their TikTok follower count. This is a change from the usual influencer deals where only those with a large following get perks. But there is a catch. It's not a completely free meal. You have to buy a MyBox first to participate. So this makes it more of a buy one, get one free deal. Oh, and it's probably not a promotion that you can participate in. This is only being run by Pizza Hut's division in the United Arab Emirates. And that will do it for the week.

Starting point is 00:09:42 Today in digital marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Stunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our production coordinator is Sarah Guild. Ad coordination by Red Circle. Mark Blevis is the smell of fresh rain hitting hot pavement. And in one week, another name will be back here in the credits. It's a name you know. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful

Starting point is 00:10:06 weekend, friends. I will see you on Tuesday. Are you an ad agency with clients in the retail sector or a retail store or brand that wants to improve your understanding of your customers? Well, you're in luck. This summer, Unnery has started offering retail shopper dashboards for clients in the United States and Canada. Great for brands, retailers, and marketing agencies to be able to visualize customer visits to their own stores and to selected competitor stores as well. This new service is useful for identifying growth of competitors and consumer brand preferences from customers' foot traffic. Contact the Unnery team, that's U-N-E-R-R-Y, by clicking the link in this episode's show notes.

Today in Digital Marketing - Those Poor, Unfortunate Goals

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