Today in Digital Marketing - What Google I/O Meant for Marketers

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, is Elon Musk already steering Twitter in a different direction? New Google tech makes it even easier for consumers to find your brand's products online, while virtual credit cards might make it easier for consumers to buy your product. Search console resources might be hoarded by Google for those who use it, and YouTube gives marketers more content creation tools. It's Thursday, May 12th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Yesterday was Google's big developer conference. They do it annually. Of course, we have lots of news coming out of that. But first, some breaking

Starting point is 00:00:33 news. Is Elon Musk already making moves from the sidelines? Twitter suddenly this afternoon fired a couple of its top leaders with the pending change in ownership, including one that was on paternity leave. The move came today as the platform's consumer product leader tweeted that he was interrupting that leave to share some, quote, final Twitter-related news, unquote, after being with the company for over seven years. He said that Twitter's CEO, quote, asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction, unquote. Soon after, the general manager of revenue and the head of product for its business side also confirmed via Twitter that he was fired by the CEO. That tweet has already been deleted.

Starting point is 00:01:15 The two executives will be replaced by Jay Sullivan, who will take over as both the head of product and interim head of revenue, according to the New York Times. In an email to employees, the current CEO confirmed the departures and said the company is halted, most hiring, and is pulling back on spending, but is not currently planning any layoffs. All right, a whole bunch of Google news to catch you up on

Starting point is 00:01:41 from yesterday's big annual developer conference. First of all, here is your sign to upload your product catalog to Google. The search giant has unveiled new lens tools that make it even easier for consumers to find your product online, but only if you've uploaded those products in a feed through the catalog system. Yesterday at Google I.O., the company announced new enhancements for its lens multi-search tool, which will let consumers conduct a search with just an image. Now, with a new mode called Near Me, consumers will have the ability to discover where they can buy the things they see IRL locally. This means it's even more critical that your brand uploads its product catalog to Google, as well as pretty much any other platform that will accept it, so that your products will appear in this suggested list.

Starting point is 00:02:30 In order for the tool to work, Google scans millions of images from websites and reviews and matches the images to the uploaded image. The company is also introducing a tool called Scene Exploration. This will enable consumers to scan whatever's in front of them, for example, a shelf at the supermarket with their phone's camera to gain insights such as product reviews about the product that they see. You can access the new tools in MultiSearch by opening up the Google app on Android or iOS

Starting point is 00:02:58 and then tapping the lens icon on the right side of the search bar. While Google is trying to make your products easier to find online, it's also making it easier for consumers to buy your brand's products or services. Google has developed a virtual credit card option as part of its efforts to make online payments more secure. The company is adding a feature to Google Chrome's autofill system called virtual card numbers, which will hide customers' credit card or debit card numbers while making purchases online. Basically, it's the same as using Chrome Autofill to enter your credit card info, but with an extra layer of security.

Starting point is 00:03:36 Typically, when you give your card number to a vendor and they misuse it, you need to contact your bank to reverse the charges, cancel your card, and so on. According to Google's president of commerce, that won't happen with virtual cards. He also noted there is a convenience angle to virtual card numbers. Implementing Google Pay or other third-party options can be a lot of work for merchants, whereas Google says its virtual card numbers can be implemented on any site that accepts credit cards. And finally, that president of commerce stated that using a virtual card would not incur any fees.

Starting point is 00:04:09 This means that vendors won't have to give up a cut of their profits, and customers won't have to hand over their real credit cards information. All right, those I thought were the biggest stories in terms of our role as marketers, but here's a quick look at what else Google announced that might be relevant in our space. First, they unveiled a new ads control dashboard, which will let users customize their ad experiences across its apps and sites.

Starting point is 00:04:35 Through this new ad center, which will be accessible on all Google ads, users will be able to like, share or block any ad. And we'll get more insight into who paid for the ad and why that campaign specifically targeted them. This is, of course, similar to how it works on Facebook. Users will also be able to limit ads relating to sensitive topics like alcohol, gambling, dating, pregnancy, weight loss, and even parenting. Google is also expanding its About This Result website insights to general web usage. When you use the Google app, you'll be able to open up a new tab with more information about the source URL, such as a brief description, what the source says about themselves, what others say about them on the web, and so on.

Starting point is 00:05:17 Finally, if you're concerned about what people are saying about you personally, Google is making it easier for you to remove search results that may contain personal information. Quoting Google, When you're searching on Google and find results about you that contain your phone number, home address, or email address, you'll be able to quickly request their removal from Google Search right as you find them. With this new tool, you can request removal of your contacted details from search with a few clicks, and you'll also be able to easily monitor the status of these removal requests. If it's been a while since you checked your Google Search Console, you may want

Starting point is 00:05:53 to log in to make sure that you remain active. Search Engine Roundtable reports today that Search Console may stop collecting data after inactivity by a site owner, even if your site is verified. Google search advocate John Mueller tweeted that, quote, when Google sees that the data's not being useful, nobody using it, then we do stop collecting it after a while. I don't think there's any specific time on that, though, unquote. And yes, he did note that even if your site is verified and, quote, not used at all for a really long time, to me, that seems safe to pause too, unquote, and suggested that it's better to put their processing budget into things that are known to be useful.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Meaning Google will allocate its Search Console processing resources for users who actually use it. And for those of you who don't, no Search Console data for you. 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.

Starting point is 00:07:12 Corey Dobbin, who is the chief strategy officer of the DTC agency Shoelace, today tweeted this, quote, On April 25th, Meta pushed through a change that merges users' privacy settings across platforms. If someone opted out of tracking on Instagram but not Facebook, they are now opted out of both by default. If you saw a performance dip in the last two weeks, this might be why. Unquote. Which brings us to today's quiz. Where exactly did Meta let any of us know about this? Was it A, not on any website, B,

Starting point is 00:07:48 not on any emails, C, not on any news release, or D, nowhere because you don't matter to Meta. Even Corey said he tried digging up documentation on it but couldn't find any. He said the information came informally from a Meta rep who stated that it is, quote, part of our efforts to simplify our user ad controls experience, unquote. I know people from Meta listen to this podcast and read our newsletter. Hell, three of you are premium podcast subscribers. So please, please pass this along to the powers that be. Nobody is asking for the ad controls to be simplified. Nobody.

Starting point is 00:08:32 Read the room, dudes. By the way, highly recommend you follow Corey on Twitter. He's at Corey Dobbin. That's C-O-R-Y-D-O-B-B-I-N. He also has a newsletter called The Marketer's Playbook, which is A, definitely worth the time, and B, not nearly as snarky as I am. A couple of updates to share with you from YouTube. First, the platform announcing it is expanding access to its Clips option, which lets users select and share a small segment of a video. Until now, sharing a

Starting point is 00:09:06 video could only be done via the URL. With Clips, users will be able to share a snippet of up to 60 seconds in length that will play on a loop directly on the original video's watch page. Soon, all channels will have access to the tool. The second update gives its TikTok-inspired feature a major upgrade. The platform is expanding its green screen feature in Shorts to let creators use any eligible YouTube video or short as the background for their clips. YouTube originally added green screen for Shorts last fall, but similar to using the feature on TikTok, users could only upload content from their camera roll as the background.

Starting point is 00:09:44 Now creators will have a much wider range of Shorts backgrounds to choose from, with the original creator attributed via a source link within the Shorts display. TikTok is inviting all Canadian brands and agencies to join the platform at its first Canadian Summit. The 4U Summit will include keynote presentations, new research insights, special guests, and more. Toronto will host the two-day event, with the first day focusing on keynote speakers

Starting point is 00:10:13 and the second day examining key trends and tips, including e-commerce opportunities. You can register online for the Canadian 4U Summit, which will be held on June 1st and June 2nd. You can get to it at 4USummitCA22.SplashThat.com. One more quick Google item before we go. Google actually ended its I.O. presentation yesterday by officially throwing its hat, or should I say its glasses, into the AR ring. Google showed off its new augmented reality glasses that will let consumers see languages translated right in front of their eyes.

Starting point is 00:10:53 However, no details were provided on when the glasses would be available or if the glasses would be available or if they would have any other capabilities. So far, they seem to be a far more practical approach, though, to AR glasses compared to Zuck's Ray-Ban smart glasses. So the electricians came yesterday. They hooked it all up. The hot tub is running. Man, it takes a long time to fill up a hot tub with water

Starting point is 00:11:22 and then to get that hot tub actually hot. It took like six hours to get that hot tub actually hot um it took like six hours to to get it to temperature but it is now bubbling well i have not been in it yet i'm planning to do that later on today um so yeah you know funny thing though i as i mentioned yesterday i was really excited about the lighting um i'm kind of a lighting nerd all the lights are controlled wirelessly in our house and so on and this morning i checked our security cameras because i'd heard this bang last night and I wanted to see what it was. And I saw the camera of sort of the side of the road

Starting point is 00:11:50 where our deck, where the hot tub is, faces. And I see this guy, it's like 9 o'clock at night, out walking his dog or something. He walks right up to the side of basically the deck, like on the sidewalk, and stares at the lighting that I've got. Like for a full minute, stares at it. He looks like he's studying it. He takes out his phone.

Starting point is 00:12:13 He takes a picture of it. And then I realized, oh, wait, that's me. That was me last night tweaking the settings and everything. And yeah, it kind of made me realize that maybe I should back off the lighting nerd stuff for a little while. But anyway, today is the day that we finally get to dive into it.

Starting point is 00:12:35 Hey, don't forget the premium version of this podcast, just like this one, but with no ads, access to deep dive weekend episodes, replays of our live events, better audio quality, story links in the show notes, audio chapters that let you jump between stories and more. Get $30 off the annual plan

Starting point is 00:12:50 by going to todayindigital.com slash premium feed or tap the link in the show notes. All right, see you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - What Google I/O Meant for Marketers

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