Today in Digital Marketing - Use It or Lose It: Grey Gmail Accounts on the Chopping Block

Starting point is 00:00:01 It is Tuesday, May 16th. Today, ghosted by Gmail, why thousands of brand email accounts may be deleted. Also, Amazon is about to jump into the chatbot game, agencies taking big steps toward generative AI, new marketing tools for TikTok, the looming death of cable TV, and Google relaxes some of its ad policies. I'm Todd Mathen. That's ahead today in digital marketing. Google says it will soon start a Gmail purge as it cracks down on inactive accounts. Those who have old Google email accounts

Starting point is 00:00:38 that haven't been accessed in a while are advised to log in every 24 months or risk losing those accounts. This could be especially important for agencies and brands that use basic Gmail accounts as gray accounts, the kind that were used to set up a client's ad account or a Facebook page, but that email account is still listed as the owner. For those wondering about the availability of deleted email addresses for reuse,

Starting point is 00:01:03 according to 9to5Google, those addresses will become inaccessible. The company will start deleting inactive accounts in December. Gmail messages, calendar events, Drive, Docs, and other workspace files, as well as Google photo backups, will also be purged. Google determines account activity based on various things like reading or sending emails, watching YouTube videos, downloading apps from the Play Store, using Google Search while signed in, and so on. Once this new policy is implemented, the company will start removing accounts that were created but never accessed again, and will send several warning notifications to the account's address before sending it to Gmail heaven. The biggest e-commerce company in the

Starting point is 00:01:49 world is entering the AI chat game. Amazon is developing an AI-powered search engine. The company has posted job listings detailing its plans to revamp Amazon search with a new interactive conversational experience that helps consumers find product information, perform product comparisons, receive personalized recommendations, and a few other things. Amazon is pitching these changes as a significant transformation, comparable to the 1990s era when the World Wide Web, Mosaic, Amazon, and Google were founded. The project is still in its early stages. Specific details, of course, remain unknown. But as the company prepares to enter the AI race, it seems a new way to search for products is coming to Amazon soon. behind the curve. A new survey from Digiday published today found that agencies are welcoming the tech with open arms. Nearly three quarters of agency professionals polled said their companies

Starting point is 00:02:51 are already using generative AI tools like ChatGPT. Nearly two thirds said their companies have launched generative AI into their workflow. Only a third said that their agencies have yet to use the technology. And how are they using it? A number of ways, like writing copy, research, content creation, data management, even some video and audio work. In contrast, brands have been slower to adopt the technology. Less than half of brand professionals indicated that their companies use generative AI tools. The majority said they have yet to embrace them. TikTok has a nice new feature

Starting point is 00:03:31 that could get your brand some more reach. The platform is now encouraging users to add a location to their videos and share their experiences with brick and mortar stores. To incentivize users, TikTok is luring them with more views through a new prompt that says, want to reach a larger audience? Add a location.

Starting point is 00:03:55 If the added location is a business, the platform is currently testing in-app prompts to encourage users to leave reviews. Social Media Today points out that this could be another step toward building its discovery potential. Google reports that 40% of young people use Instagram and TikTok to find restaurants instead of Google search. And that could be a big opportunity for TikTok if it can build this out in-stream. 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.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Be protected. Be Zen. Goodbye cable. hello YouTube. The small cable provider WOW in the U.S. is pulling the plug on cable and going all in on YouTube TV, a sign of what's to come for the dying TV cable industry. With more than a half million internet customers and about 120,000 households currently paying for cable TV, the company announced plans this week to migrate its residential TV customers to YouTube TV starting this summer. As part of that, WOW will discontinue marketing and selling its cable TV services. Instead, it'll focus on promoting and selling YouTube TV. WOW also offers bundled pricing options for various streaming TV alternatives. This new agreement, though,

Starting point is 00:05:22 will limit the company to exclusively marketing YouTube's subscription without hardware. Meanwhile, cable TV has bigger problems. A recent report from Variety reveals that pay TV subscribers in the U.S. have reached their lowest levels since 1992. In the first quarter of this year, 2.3 million households cut the cord. That's the largest drop on record. According to the report, pay TV now reaches only 60% of households. Cable TV subscriptions have declined 10% year over year. Satellite TV is down nearly 15%. YouTube TV, though, stands out as the only pay TV provider experiencing growth. In the first quarter, it added 300,000 subscribers, bringing its total paying customer base to more than 6 million.

Starting point is 00:06:13 And finally, Google is relaxing some of its ad policies regarding COVID-19 related terms. Starting next month, Merchant Center will no longer restrict coronavirus-related content under its sensitive events policy. That means shopping ads and free listings containing COVID-19-related terms will no longer be prohibited, and the need for approval via LegitScript or Project N95 will be eliminated. However, Google Ad, the content will continue to be subject to all other shopping policies aimed at preventing harmful content, including adhering to its misrepresentation policy. to be subject to all other shopping policies aimed at preventing harmful content, including adhering to its misrepresentation policy.

Starting point is 00:06:55 I had a scary medical moment today that turned out to be kind of hilarious. Over the last three or four days, I noticed this sort of growth on my gum line on my, like, my front of my teeth. It was kind of a hard growth. It just sort of came out of nowhere. I poked at it. My wife poked at it. We couldn't move it. It didn't hurt or anything. And my father has a history of oral cancer. I used to smoke a little bit. So, you know, kind of scary, right? So I called the dentist. Dentist is like, yeah, you should get in right away. That was yesterday.

Starting point is 00:07:28 This morning I go in. They take x-rays. The dental hygienist takes x-rays. They get a little camera in there. They take a photograph of it. Then the dentist comes in, pokes out a little bit, and says, there, I got it. I got it.

Starting point is 00:07:42 It's gone. I said, that's great. What was it? A popcorn kernel. I felt so stupid. Look, in my defense, it did not look like a popcorn kernel, okay? It looked like something more serious. Anyway, $14. I think that's a deal, personally. This Monday is a holiday, but rest assured, we will not leave you hanging. We are working on an episode of Behind the Ad. I don't want to tell you what it is, but here's a hint. Who's there?

Starting point is 00:08:19 We're here! If you're not already subscribed to our second podcast, make sure you check it out. It's called Behind the Ad with Todd Maffin. You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts or behindthead.page. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. And with a fight to the calm I'll keep looking for my oyster and pearl A million miles from home I will travel to the end of the world.

Starting point is 00:08:50 Yeah. Yeah. Oh, where the poncho come, gonna find my own special girl.

Today in Digital Marketing - Use It or Lose It: Grey Gmail Accounts on the Chopping Block

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