Today in Digital Marketing - What Does Marketing Without TikTok Look Like?

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

How a TikTok ban will affect YOUR ad campaigns and social media reach. New incentives for agencies to use Google ads because, well, the math wasn't mathing. Why is Google adding outbound links to YOUR WEB SITE'S CONTENT?! And if you don't know what the Castlecore and Pickle Fix trends are, it's time you get with it, Boomer!❗Take our survey.📰 Get our free daily newsletter🌍 Follow us on social media or contact us📈 Advertising: Reach Thousands of Marketing Decision-Makers.GO PREMIUM!Get these exclusive benefits when you upgrade:✅ Listen ad-free✅ Back catalog of 20+ marketing science interviews✅ Get the show earlier than the free version✅ Member-only monthly livestreams with TodAnd a lot more! Check it out: todayindigital.com/premium✨ Premium tools: Update Credit Card • Cancel.MORE🆘 Need help with your social media? Check us out: engageQ digital🌟 Rate and Review Us🤝 Our Slack.UPGRADE YOUR SKILLSGoogle Ads for Beginners with Jyll Saskin GalesInside Google Ads: Advanced with Jyll Saskin GalesFoxwell Slack Group and Courses.Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. Associate producer: Steph Gunn.Some links in these show notes may provide affiliate revenue to us.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It is Friday, December 6th. This week, how a TikTok ban will affect your ad campaigns and social media reach. New incentives for agencies to use Google Ads because, well, the math wasn't mathing. Why is Google adding outbound links to your website's content? And if you don't know what the Castlecore and Picklefix trends are, It's time you get with the times, boomer. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead here on our Friday wrap-up show. And stick around to the end to find out why we are giving listeners $100 gift cards. Well, all in all, it's just another brick in the wall.

An American federal appeals court today upheld a law that could lead to TikTok being banned in the country next month. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. this morning ruled unanimously that the law can remain in effect, citing national security concerns about the Chinese-owned app. That law requires TikTok's parent company ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations to a non-Chinese company by January 19th, or its app must be blocked from app stores in the country. TikTok says this law unfairly targets the platform and violates the First Amendment, which protects free speech. The decision poses challenges for President-elect Donald Trump, who previously tried to ban TikTok. Recently, though, he's been on TikTok's side after saying he didn't want to help Meta, which he felt suppressed his ability to communicate

with the electorate. The ban is set to take effect one day before his inauguration. And while he can't cancel the law, he could use an executive order to have the Justice Department just not prioritize enforcement. Quoting a piece from Wired today, quote, in reality, the app is most likely to survive a few more months. A 90-day extension of the deadline remains on the table for the Biden administration. What's more certain to happen is that ByteDance would appeal the court decision today and take it to the Supreme Court, which is expected to take the case and issue its decision later next year, unquote. While all this consumes the news cycle, at least two American

investors are trying to put together a deal with TikTok's Chinese owners to buy TikTok, potentially allowing it to continue operating. So how does this affect marketing? Well, the truth is Meta and YouTube both copied TikTok's popular vertical format so early and so well that the impact on the marketing community could be less than previously thought. Although, if a whole lot of advertisers suddenly have to move their media spend to those two platforms, the increased competition could have an upward impact on ad prices. Also, TikTok's shop has been a huge success, and with catalogs, cappies, pixels, and other technical pipes delicately connected,

replicating that setup on another social media platform's commerce system would not be an easy task. For marketers, it is a reminder to keep your content and ad strategy diversified. In particular, make sure you've got a brand presence on the competing apps, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. You may want to identify and collaborate with influencers who've got a substantial presence across multiple platforms to help you maintain your campaign continuity.

And yes, prepare for a possible uplift in ad prices if TikTok buyers suddenly flee to Meta and other platforms. All right, here's a wrap up of what happened this week in the world of digital marketing. We start with advertising. Meta will require financial advertisers in Australia to verify their identity and licensing starting February of 2025 to combat celebrity scam ads that have been targeting users online. Google Ads is rolling out new policies for dating ads effective March 4th. Advertisers will also need to be certified to run ads in this category. The policies include restrictions on underage dating, mail order spouses, and ads promoting fetishes. Google

Ads is also finally testing some new incentives for agencies to sign up new advertisers after complaints that agency perks sucked compared to direct offers. For example, Google partners were stuck offering a $500 credit, but if you signed up directly with Google, you got $3,000 worth of credit. Microsoft advertisers can now automate insertion order placement in the platform through Prisma. That integration is now live. OpenAI admits it's planning to drop ads into its results soon. The company got $6.5 billion in a funding round in October and has been scooping up ad executives and engineers from Google and Meta. And FullThrottle.ai has launched a generative AI tool called Audience Library that organizes first-party data into audience segments based

on demographics, behavior, and search intent. Only a couple of stories around the search area. First of all, Google's iOS app is now adding clickable search links to text on websites. Yes, like your brand's website. Google says this will help users more quickly find information about mentioned topics, but obviously this will encourage people

to leave your brand's website. You have 30 days to opt out. And Google has now completed its November core update. Originally, it had expected the rollout to take a couple of weeks. Google no longer says what's in any of these updates, but SE Roundtable today said it doesn't contain any penalties. Rather, the update promotes or rewards what Google calls great web pages.

To the world of DTC and commerce now, online sales on Black Friday were up almost 15% over the previous year, but in-store sales couldn't even crack a 1% increase. Jewelry, electronics, and apparel were the top purchases. The popular game platform Roblox has launched a closed beta test of Shopify integration, letting a handful of game developers set up in-game stores. New research has found that high-income consumers often begin their shopping journey in physical stores, gathering inspiration and exploring products,

but they finalize purchases through digital channels. TikTok Shop saw a 165% increase in shoppers year over year during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. Sales hit more than $100 million on Black Friday alone. That's three times last year's total. And Klaviyo's 2024 consumer spending report has shown that while consumers are cautious, they remain willing to spend despite economic uncertainty. About a third have cut back on

discretionary spending since last year, but only a fifth plan to spend less this holiday season. Inflation concerns are still high. 97% of consumers are aware of its impact on costs, and 90% said it will influence their spending. To social media now, and we start with blue sky the ceo there saying the platform might indeed have to introduce ads into the future reversing a previous position she held she says the ads will try to avoid traditional intrusive models all that while blue sky's momentum is building, publishers reporting three to four times higher conversions, yes, conversions, and triple the traffic and engagement

from clicks from Blue Sky. To Instagram now, and a new study by Ravino reveals that 80% of sponsored Instagram posts in November did not properly disclose their advertising status. 80%. Also, I spotted a report on social media this week that Instagram is removing the ability to add music to stories

for creator accounts. Now, this would mirror other platforms' handling of music, which limit commercial use to a limited catalog of songs. Also, Instagram creators can now turn on replies in broadcast channels, letting participants respond to messages and each other's comments. It's actually a pretty popular thing with large influencers these days. And who needs data, right? Meta is axing several Instagram metrics from its API starting January 8th.

Affected metrics will be available temporarily, but they will be removed from reports in Q2. Say goodbye to profile views, video views, and email contacts. No, we have no idea why they would do that either. In TikTok news, 55% of consumers find holiday gift ideas on TikTok. 69% rely on unboxing videos and product reviews to make purchasing decisions. The data came this week from a survey from the marketing agency MGH.

And TikTok is moving closer to testing TikTok minis, small in-stream apps similar to those in Douyin, its Chinese counterparts. These mini programs could enable transactions like food ordering, ride hailing, and ticket purchases directly within the app. Kind of an everything app that sounds like Elon Musk is trying to go for. Threads is now finally displaying alternate feeds at the top of its main feed, letting users switch between following and for you easier. And they totally didn't do this because of Blue Sky's growing popularity. Threads is also testing individual post analytics, letting users see detailed performance metrics like views, likes and follower interactions to help creators understand their content reach. And wrapping up our little mini section on threads,

you can now follow people from other Fediverse servers on the app who interact with your posts. Now, when a Fediverse user replies, you can tap their profile and follow them directly within the app. Finally, a handful of other social media stories to wrap up this week's show. Pinterest's 2025 Trends Report predicts sensory-driven aesthetics will dominate this year. Trends include the fisherman aesthetic with a maritime vibe and sardine tattoos.

I'm not kidding. Searches are booming for sardine tattoos. I'm not kidding. Searches are booming for sardine tattoos. Primary play and castle core will influence home decor and fashion, while pickle fix will see Gen X and millennials incorporating pickles into everything from pickle cakes to margaritas. LinkedIn has a new option that lets premium users select up to five photos to create a rotating slideshow of banner images on their profile. No idea why you'd want this, but there you go. More X metrics are being locked behind a paywall. X can now show you how many followers versus non-followers engage with your brand's posts. Many other platforms, notably YouTube, do this.

The difference is that X makes you subscribe to its premium plan to see this data. And finally, just buy a new phone already. WhatsApp will stop supporting iPhone 5S, 6, and 6 Plus starting May 5th, meaning you will have to upgrade your device if you want to continue using it. But I know that's not you because you're totally up with the times and don't have an old phone. Right? I feel like we're starting to get our footing with this new twice a week schedule. In case you missed it, Fridays will be this show, a full wrap up of all the developments in the digital marketing world of the week.

Tuesdays will be deep dive interviews with platform experts, industry analysts and marketing scientists. We hope this will be a better use of your time. We heard from many of you that you still wanted all the news, but we're finding it hard to listen every day. This Tuesday, our Google Ads correspondent Jill Saskin-Gales will be back for a look at that platform, the recent changes, some of them really big, actually, and what we can expect there in the weeks ahead. All right. Now to give out some money, we want to know what you think of both the twice a week schedule and this new Friday wrap up show format. We want it all the good, the bad, the ugly. Our survey takes 18 seconds to complete. I tested it myself. Here is the link. It's B, the letter B, dot link slash new format.

Please, please take a moment to fill it out. Tell us your thoughts on both the new twice weekly schedule and the format of this Friday wrap up show. Again, the link is B dot link slash new format. And that link is at the top of today's show notes. So just swipe around to find the show notes in your podcast app and tap the link that says take our survey. Another reminder that if you still want the everyday news, just sign up to our free email newsletter. It is at todayindigital.com slash newsletter.

Thank you for your patience as we tweak things, and for listening. I'm Todd Maffin. See you on Tuesday.