Today in Digital Marketing - TodAI Will Whine About Meta for $1 Per Minute. Order Now!

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Friday, May 12th. Today, Facebook Facelift meta unveils its generative ad tools. So, is copywriting a dying profession now? Also, TikTok partners for video shopping ads, where the social platforms themselves are advertising. The latest Google calendar change is a little sus. And meet the influencer who trained an AI on her personality and is charging fans a dollar a minute to flirt with her. I'm Todd Maffin. That's Ahead, today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Well, Meta has officially entered the generative AI ads race with a new AI sandbox for marketers. The company started testing generative AI features for Facebook and Instagram ads with select advertisers. The AI sandbox includes three elements for building ad campaigns, started testing generative AI features for Facebook and Instagram ads with select advertisers. The AI sandbox includes three elements for building ad campaigns. First, text variation. This will use AI to generate multiple variations of ad text that you give it. Second, background generation, which will create backgrounds for your product images from text inputs like sky or table, similar to the way that

Starting point is 00:01:05 DALL-E can do that, and image outcropping, which will adjust your ad visuals to fit different aspect ratios across multiple formats like stories or reels. The company is also adding some new targeting options to Advantage Plus campaigns. Advertisers will soon be able to switch from manual to Advantage Plus campaigns with one click, while catalog ads for Advantage Plus campaigns with one click, while catalog ads for Advantage Plus campaigns will include video elements. It's also including new manual inputs into Advantage Plus targeting to help advertisers reach their audience, along with the new performance comparisons report. These updates will be available in Ads Manager starting this week.

Starting point is 00:01:48 As meta moves toward more automation, TikTok has added a new option for building video shopping campaigns. The company announced yesterday it has partnered with Smartly.io, offering a new way for advertisers to facilitate in-stream commerce. TikTok's video shopping ads streamline the shopping process

Starting point is 00:02:04 by guiding users from a video to checkout within the TikTok app. With Smartly's integration, brands can now sync their product catalogs and offers, automate and streamline campaign workflows, scale creative production, and a few other things. The tool is now available for all commerce and retail advertisers to use in their TikTok campaigns. The TikTok takeover continues. This time, the company is coming for major record labels. The information reported today that TikTok has been pursuing exclusive distribution deals with several artists through its service SoundOn in custom deals that are more typical

Starting point is 00:02:45 of record labels, according to two people familiar with the matter. Some artists have already signed up with SoundOn, which mostly operates as a self-service platform to place musicians' works on streaming sites. But sources say that TikTok's senior managers have been discussing starting their own label. The company confirmed a couple of deals, but denied reports it plans to start its own label, which would put it in direct competition with the music giant partners it has, like Universal Music Group, Sony, Warner, as well as streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. According to current and former employees, the plan is for artists to use SoundOn to distribute their content, promote it on TikTok, and stream it on ByteDance music streaming service, Rezzo.

Starting point is 00:03:28 At a time when the company is already under fire over national security concerns, that could put it at odds with its major music company partners. But those initiatives could also reduce licensing costs in the long run. Want to know where the big players in social media are spending their ad budgets? New US ad spend figures from Vivix along with paid social data from Pathmatics have revealed how major social media platforms are opening their wallets. While most brands increased their investment in digital media last year, their strategies of of course, have differed. YouTube and Snapchat invested more in traditional channels like TV and even print. Pinterest, on the other hand, spent almost one third of its total ad budget on theaters last year, which is 10 times higher than the industry average. I thought this was interesting as well. The data shows that TikTok is actually reducing spending in paid social advertising.

Starting point is 00:04:29 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. 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. So Google recently changed the default setting for adding invitations to its calendar. This in an apparent attempt to block invitation spam, which I didn't even know was a thing.

Starting point is 00:05:04 But it is causing problems for third-party calendar products. Some accuse Google of trying to stifle appointment booking services like Calendly in favor of its own offering. Google recently expanded its appointment scheduling features, adding ways to filter out what it calls invitation spam, specifically the ability to display events only from known senders. But Google recently revised most users' default setting to not show third-party invitations in Calendar unless the booker previously emailed the host or expressly accepted the invitation in an email. The setting change was actually launched late last year as an opt-in, but Google started rolling out this default change in

Starting point is 00:05:45 January. In response to the changes, Calendly, for its part, published a help center message yesterday informing customers about the new default settings and advising how to modify them. And that will bring us to the lightning round. Online prices continue to drop, with prices falling nearly 2% year over year last month, according to Adobe's recent analysis of digital commerce trends. Computers and electronics saw the largest price decreases. Well, no surprise, grocery prices increased by 9%. Meta confirmed it is killing Messenger for Apple Watch.

Starting point is 00:06:21 The app will be removed on May 31st. Apple Watch users will still receive notifications for new messages, but they won't be able to respond to them on the watch. And Twitch launched a new clip editor yesterday that lets streamers produce and share short, vertical video clips. The tool is accessible in the Clips Manager via the creator dashboard, and users can choose between a split view that captures both the game stream and the camera or a vertical snippet. The clip editor also includes direct integration for social sharing to YouTube Shorts. And finally, just in case you're looking for a side gig,

Starting point is 00:06:59 one Snapchat influencer has developed an AI version of herself that will be your girlfriend for $1 a minute. Powered by OpenAI and her own voice recordings, Karen AI has attracted more than 1,000 paying boyfriends who spend several hours conversing with the chatbot daily, where they discuss future plans, share intimate feelings, and even dirty talk. Despite only being in beta testing for a week, the AI girlfriend has already generated more than $70,000 in revenue. And here I thought selling pics of your feet online was lucrative. Well, if you haven't had a chance to check out our new podcast, this weekend is a great time.

Starting point is 00:07:47 It's called Behind the Ad with Todd Maffin. You should be able to find it wherever you get your podcasts or just go to behindthead.page. There is, of course, a link in the show notes. And that will do it for the week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is Steph Gunn. Production coordinator, Sarah Guild. Features producer, Sarah Brooke Christian. Music licensing by Source Audio. Ad coordination by Red Circle. And you know, not many people know this, but our theme composer, Mark Blevis, was one of the world's first generative AI software engineers. It's true.

Starting point is 00:08:29 But even he now can't get into any of the cool new stuff. Every time he hears about a new AI tool, he goes to the website and it's just a waitlist form. It's getting so bad, he's even thinking of leaving the internet entirely. He was telling me the other day, from frustration, first inclination is to become a monk and leave the situation. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. I'll see you on Monday. Always stay together We're done, I'm not pretending Here comes your happy ending You said I'm your one and only

Starting point is 00:09:10 That if it was only you and me We're done, I'm not pretending Here comes your happy ending

Today in Digital Marketing - TodAI Will Whine About Meta for $1 Per Minute. Order Now!

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