Today in Digital Marketing - Why You May Need to Start a WhatsApp Account Soon

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. Hey, it's Todd. Two brief things before we get started today. First, my apologies for this being much later than it usually comes out in the day. I actually forgot to press the upload button. Shut up. Secondly, we are looking for an associate producer.

Starting point is 00:00:36 So if you're one of those people who turns off the podcast when you start to hear me rambling at the end, and God knows, you know, who'd blame you, we have details there on the position. So if that is of interest to you or someone you know, please stick around to the end. All right, let's get on with it. Today, new business tools from Facebook are launching. They're changing how audience targeting works. Google thinks the solution to everything is more ads automation. Brand loyalty is taking a hit and how to prepare for Apple's next big removal of marketing data. It's Thursday, September 16th, 2021. Happy Independence Day, Mexico.

Starting point is 00:01:14 I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 469. And as you'll hear at the end of the episode, what makes 469 special around here? Facebook today announced the launch of a whole bunch of new tools for brand managers. First, all businesses running message ads can now pick and choose which messaging apps people can use to connect with them. So that's Instagram, Facebook, or WhatsApp. And by default, your ad will show the platform the user is most likely to start a chat with you on. Also, businesses globally can now add a WhatsApp click-to-chat button to their Instagram profile, and soon the option to create ads that click to WhatsApp directly from the Instagram app,

Starting point is 00:01:58 so people can start a chat with just one tap. Third, quote requests on Messenger. Currently in testing with a handful of brands, this allows businesses to select four or five questions to ask consumers prior to starting a conversation. Consumers are then able to request a quote from a business on Facebook by completing a short questionnaire on Messenger. They've also updated Business Suite

Starting point is 00:02:23 to let brands send remarketing emails from the platform. That's only in testing right now. And they're also introducing File Manager, basically an asset catalog within Business Suite and post-testing will be there as well. So once again, confusingly replicating the features of Creator Hub or is it Creator Studio? Honestly, does anybody know anymore? Does Facebook even know? But here's the big news. They're testing work accounts,

Starting point is 00:02:52 which will allow business users to log in and use Business Manager without needing a Facebook personal account. Businesses will be able to manage these accounts on behalf of their employees and have access to features like single sign-on integrations. They're testing that now with a small group and expect to expand availability next year. They've also put together a promotional package of sorts, an ad coupon, free access to QuickBooks and Canva Pro for three months. And finally, they will be expanding Facebook Business Explorer to people in the US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, and the UK. What is Facebook Business Explorer?

Starting point is 00:03:36 I have no idea. The link they pointed to in the article was all about Business Suite and made no mention of Business Explore. I googled Facebook Business Explore for you and it generated three hits. Their news release today mentioning it and two news stories also today covering it. It appears Facebook has never mentioned Business Explore, at least by that name. In today's announcement, though,

Starting point is 00:04:03 they said Facebook Business Explore will help connect people with new and relevant businesses all in one easy and centralized place. This will also help businesses reach new customers and drive deeper consideration that can lead to purchases, unquote. So ads, maybe? Is this ads manager? All joking aside, as far as I can tell, it's a kind of sub-feed that gets triggered by users tapping a business vertical that they will see under a business's post, like beauty, fitness, or clothing, and it will show a list of related businesses. Which, you know, is exactly what we marketers want. A fast and convenient way to direct users to our competitors. Most of these changes should be rolling out starting today. Speaking of WhatsApp, today they've announced that they are adding a new local business directory right inside the app. Users will tap businesses nearby

Starting point is 00:05:01 in their contact list and get a list of active business profiles in the app. They can then tap any business to see the full profile. Quoting socialmediatoday.com, that could enable a range of new use cases. And with WhatsApp already being the dominant messaging platform in many regions, the opportunity exists for Facebook to convert the platform into an e-commerce juggernaut, which could power the digital transformation in developing regions and make WhatsApp the essential day-to-day tool for billions of people, if it can get it right.

Starting point is 00:05:34 The template here is the way Chinese chat apps have become functional utilities in that region, with people doing everything from paying for public transport tickets to buying their daily groceries all through messaging apps, unquote. At our agency here in Gage Q, we have hesitated to recommend our clients add a WhatsApp profile, mostly for two reasons. First, just the complexity that's added when you add one more channel to your workflow, but also the backend tools just weren't there. Facebook is clearly trying to change this, and many brands and agencies, like ours, may soon find themselves reconsidering whether WhatsApp is optional anymore.

Starting point is 00:06:14 One other small but important Facebook note today, the company says it's going to change the behavior of one very critical setting in Ads Manager, targeting expansion. This is when you set up an audience and Facebook has a tick box that lets you turn on expansion, basically telling Facebook you're willing for it to go outside your specified audience if it thinks its machine learning can find more or cheaper results there. Here's the change. Targeting expansion will be on by default, they say, starting Tuesday of next week. This will apply to detailed targeting. That's what most of us call interest targeting or lookalikes. It will not apply to location,

Starting point is 00:06:52 age or gender targeting options. So is this a good thing? Here's social media today's take on it. Well, it depends. Some ad buyers and marketers would have very specific subsets that they want to target, and they may get value from having the capacity to keep their ads honed in on specific interests, and they might not get the value that Facebook projects from expanding their audience. But other times, putting your trust in Facebook's automation could deliver much better results, and as noted with less data to work with, Facebook's working to improve its system understanding to show ads to the right users, even without the full insight it's had access to previously, unquote.

Starting point is 00:07:30 Some media buyers are reporting today that this has kicked in already for them, and that checkbox will turn itself back on if you duplicate an ad set, which is turned off. Buyer beware. It started with Apple's iOS 14.5, third-party tracking all but obliterated, so many digital marketers turned to the first-party data they control, like their email lists.

Starting point is 00:07:58 But next week, Apple releases iOS 15, which includes mail privacy protection, which may indeed do the same thing to our tracking that 14.5 did for app behavior. To help us make sense of it all and how you can prepare this weekend, a special episode, I'll be joined by Greg Zakowicz. He is Director of Content at OmniSend.

Starting point is 00:08:22 And we will be walking through the five things he's telling their clients to do in order to prepare for the next loss of marketing data. Here's a clip. What this privacy protection is going to do is Apple is going to hide that. So they're going to not let the marketing companies know that or whatever company it is. They're not going to let them know that Greg opened the email. They're just going to say, OK, we got you. That's great. You can send the email to them, but you can't know if they are going to open the email. The other thing it does,

Starting point is 00:08:53 which I think is less of a concern, but it does have some ramifications, which I think we'll figure out how that plays out over the next couple of years is hiding your IP as well. So there are a lot of companies that can give you kind of real time location based email content. So they don't the content doesn't render until you actually open the message. It's like, hey, Greg, you know, your nearest pottery barn is, you know, streets at South Point. If they don't know that about me going into it, whatever tools are using to render that IP is also going to be hidden. So it makes that local based messaging potentially less relevant as well. The full 30 minute interview is coming this weekend to the

Starting point is 00:09:31 premium newsletter. You've got time to sign up now. It's at today in digital.com slash newsletter, or you can tap the link in today's episode. There is a seven day free trial. So you're welcome to sign up, get the interview and a week's worth of daily newsletters, and then cancel if you want. I don't care. Again, that's todayindigital.com slash newsletter, or you can tap the link in today's episode. 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.

Starting point is 00:10:19 Be Zen. Google's ads platform continues its apparent quest to completely automate their media buying process, quoting the company today. In the new display campaign experience, you'll have all the reach and performance you're used to with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding creatives and audiences. A smooth setup process will allow you to choose between automation or control up front, and you'll have the flexibility to change your automation choices at any time without creating a new campaign, unquote.

Starting point is 00:10:50 A lot of words there, but this basically means that they are going to merge Google's smart display campaigns and their regular display creation into one workflow, which some people might want, others may not. It does mean, of course, the march toward machine learning making decisions for us rather than media buyers continues, a strategy that tends to work better at scale with large budgets, and not so much for budgets that most small businesses are operating with. To consumer brand loyalty now, and a new study from Inmar Intelligence finding that more than 8 in 10 consumers purchased a different brand from the brand they usually do in the past 3 months.

Starting point is 00:11:33 This was a study of food brands, by the way. This was also a study in the US. And why are they doing this? Lower pricing of substitute brands was the reason for two-thirds of that group. And more than half said it was because their preferred brand was out of stock. Of those who switched brands temporarily, 44% said they would make that permanent and would repurchase the new brand even if the original preferred brand was available again. Quoting MarketingDive.com,

Starting point is 00:12:03 Supply chain constraints and out-of-stocks have been a key challenge for food and beverage manufacturers in 2021. This unreliability has driven many consumers to try other brands on shelves. According to the survey, to motivate customers to return to the original brand, the manufacturer must convince them of its higher quality. Considering that a majority of shoppers have faced out of stocks

Starting point is 00:12:28 and been forced to switch brands in the recent months, making this sell will be difficult. Some new numbers from Adobe Digital Insights has found that e-commerce prices, that is to say products sold electronically, rose by 3% year over year last month. That's the 15th consecutive month that online prices rose. The biggest jump was in apparel sales, up more than 15% compared to last August. Why the hike? Adobe says it came from increased consumer demand and supply chain disruptions that came as a result of the pandemic.

Starting point is 00:13:06 In the U.S., inflation rose by more than 5% last month compared to just the previous month. is suing the city of New York over legislation that would force it to cough up customer information and hand that data over to the restaurants in their network. Right now, restaurants that use DoorDash don't get data like customer names, phone numbers, or email addresses. The new law requires food delivery firms to provide that customer data to restaurants unless a customer opts out. Restaurants, of course, want it because they'll be able to market directly to consumers and perhaps cut delivery firms out of the loop.

Starting point is 00:13:50 DoorDash's claim in court is that the law violates customer privacy and is unconstitutional. They're definitely trying to get a head start here. The law was only passed in July. It doesn't actually go into effect until December. You're listening to a podcast, so I presume you like them. Here is one you might enjoy if you do video marketing. YouTube has launched its first ever podcast called The Upload, The Rise of the Creator Economy. I tried searching for it on Apple and Google and Overcast, and I couldn't find it. They have a trailer up, but it's on YouTube. I hope YouTube isn't thinking of putting their so-called podcast on YouTube only, because that's not a podcast.

Starting point is 00:14:37 As the TikTok meme would say, that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. They say they will interview YouTube stars on the podcast who've gone on to create businesses based on their work. It's hosted by journalist Brittany Luce, who also co-hosts the Four Colored Nerds podcast. New episodes are due to be released every Wednesday, starting on September 22nd. Finally, Pinterest is expanding its shopping platform to more countries, adding Austria, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. Quoting socialmediatoday.com,

Starting point is 00:15:12 Pinterest's in-app shopping options provide direct linkage between pin content and product purchase options, making it easier to drive pinners from browsing to buying direct from the app. Shopping on pins is generating strong results for the company as more people switch to online sources for browsing and buying. And by enabling more brands to list their products within Pins, that will help the platform expand its product catalog and maximize shopping activity. Pinterest first launched its shopping tools in the US,

Starting point is 00:15:43 then expanded them to the UK in September last year. Eight months later, it brought Pinterest shopping to Australia, Canada, France, and Germany, with this latest announcement now taking it up to 13 regions that have full access to the platform's suite of shopping options. A couple years ago, I was poking around my podcast player directory, and I stumbled on the Tech Meme Ride Home, which, if you haven't listened, is actually really, really good. They do a daily news show, covers the latest in the world of technology. And I thought, I've got to find the digital marketing version of this.

Starting point is 00:16:20 But I couldn't find one. So, two years ago today, I started this podcast. It's Monday, September 16th, 2019. I'm Todd Maffin. Today, Facebook may be shutting down an important part of link ads. Yes, the music was terrible, I know. Since then, we've grown to 60,000 downloads a month, more than 100,000 subscribers to the Premium Newsletter, an active TikTok account, Slack, Discord discord communities a perks program for premium subscribers and we

Starting point is 00:16:50 have ambitious plans to serve you in the year ahead including a second podcast feed with just the headlines every day for those of you whose digital assistants play news headlines in the morning we have plans to add a premium podcast feed, which will be ad-free and have weekly deep dive interviews with genuine experts in the digital marketing field. In fact, we could use some help. We are looking for an associate producer to work on scripting, promotion, and maybe even sitting in for me when I'm out of town. If that interests you, check out the job description in detail and apply at todayindigital.com slash job or tap the link in the episode notes. Or if you know someone who you think might be

Starting point is 00:17:31 interested in something like that, please, please, please pass it on to them. Again, it's todayindigital.com slash job or tap the link in the episode notes. No matter how long you've been with us, thank you for being on this journey with us. I'll be back tomorrow with more.

Today in Digital Marketing - Why You May Need to Start a WhatsApp Account Soon

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