Today in Digital Marketing - Why You Should Avoid Kreativ Spelling in Brand Names

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, August 15th. Today, sure it's catchy, but new research shows your cool brand name is hurting your sales. Also, Google refunds advertisers for its video ad mishaps. The OG commerce platform eBay has some new tricks for media buyers and the new concept of TikTok agencies of record. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. Quirky branding may spell trouble for your sales. Many brands opt for creatively misspelled or uniquely spelled names to set themselves apart from competitors

Starting point is 00:00:36 or to highlight key messages and selling points. For example, lift with a Y instead of lift with an I. But what impact does it have on consumers' perception of your brand? A recent marketing science study found that using misspelled words in your brand or product name reduced sales by up to a third, as consumers were less likely to choose or buy from businesses with misspelled names versus grammatically correct names.

Starting point is 00:01:01 According to the study's researchers, this is because when a brand misspells its own name, people assume it's a marketing tactic to influence them. This comes across as insincere, and consumers react negatively to the attempt to persuade them and are less likely to buy as a result. The study was first published in the Journal of Marketing. It's called Choosing, that's choosing with a Z, the best spelling consumer response to unconventionally spelled brand names. Not to sound like a personal injury lawyer ad,

Starting point is 00:01:35 but have you been a victim of low quality ads? You may be entitled to compensation. Google is now reportedly refunding some advertisers following a report from analytics we covered last month which claimed the company misplaced 80 of ads through its video partner program which places youtube style ads on third-party sites ad age reported this week that google confirmed refunds and credits but said they were not directly related to the report about below-standard ad placements, a report it called earlier wildly inaccurate.

Starting point is 00:02:09 According to that analytics report, Google's ad standards for viewability were not met the majority of the time, and ad campaigns sometimes ran on low-quality sites that hosted clickbait or even pirated content. The news prompted clients to demand refunds and increase transparency from the tech giant. Some expected regulator intervention. Well, more than a month has passed. That intervention hasn't happened,

Starting point is 00:02:34 leaving Google to deal with the blowback on its own. Despite Google denying the report's accuracy, insider intelligence suggests the refunds show the company is acknowledging the need to rebuild trust with advertisers. eBay recently posted a 35% year-over-year increase in ad revenues, reaching $367 million in its second quarter. Insider Intelligence reported this week that much of that success can be tied to innovative ad strategies, improved measurements, and expanded third-party ads. In terms of that innovation, eBay Ads has made several technological improvements to boost revenues. According to the company, they upgraded their search ranking system to provide better relevance and monetization.

Starting point is 00:03:21 Rather than focusing solely on individual ads, it's adopted a more holistic approach to assess ad performance. This involves considering metrics beyond just return on ad spend and KPIs like incrementality. eBay ads also updated its ad rates and listing standards. Sellers now determine the amount they are willing to pay for a sale and receive suggested rates from the platform. Promoted display ads were also introduced to redirect buyers to store pages rather than specific listings, driving traffic to seller stores. As for measurement, the ads platform introduced Halo attribution, where the company takes credit for ads that drive a purchase of a seller's promoted items, even if it's not the item a user clicked on. In the market space, eBay differentiates itself by not focusing on consumer packaged goods.

Starting point is 00:04:12 Instead, the platform caters to a distinct advertiser base. eBay ads has found the most retail media success in sectors like parts and accessories, fashion, home, garden, and electronics. Third-party sites also play a role as eBay ads purchases placement on Google and is expanding to Bing, helping sellers drive external traffic to their eBay stores. So this is weird. Elon Musk is saying goodbye to an ad product that generates more than $100 million annually in global ad revenue for X, the former Twitter. The platform will no longer let advertisers promote their accounts on the For You feed to boost new followers.

Starting point is 00:04:59 This according to an email sent to clients and obtained by Axios. Again, this ad placement brings in more than $100 million annually. And Elon's cutting it. The placement is called follower objective ads. They're one of the oldest ad formats offered on the platform. They appear as text-based posts within the timeline and include a follow button for the account promoting them. But as Axios points out, follower ads, though easy to

Starting point is 00:05:26 sell, are static ads that lack the multimedia tools like video that X is trying to push. According to a source familiar with the matter, the change was driven by X's product group, not the company's revenue side. An X representative informed advertisers of plans to start phasing out the followers' objective ad unit last Friday. As of today, the followers' campaign is still listed as an advertising option on X's business website, but it likely won't be there for long. Also, Taylor Lorenz, the technology reporter for The Washington Post, reported this morning that X has introduced an arbitrary delay in users accessing links, but only for those websites Elon apparently doesn't like. Every link on X is cloaked by their in-house shortener, which is

Starting point is 00:06:13 t.co. Hover over any link on the platform and you'll see that it will first take you to t.co, then it will redirect you to the place you want it to get to. Most platforms do this. It gives them the ability to track trends, block harmful sites, and so on. But if this report is true, now they're using it just to make life irritating for people trying to get to the New York Times or Twitter competitor Threads.net. Lorenz posted on Mastodon this morning a report from Hacker News reading, quote, go to Twitter and click on a link going to any URL on NYTimes.com or Threads.net. And you'll see about a five second delay before T.CO forward you to the right address. Twitter won't ban domains they don't like, but will waste your time if you visit them. I've been tracking the New York Times delay ever since it was added,

Starting point is 00:07:06 August 4th, roughly noon Pacific time, and the delay is so consistent, it's obviously deliberate, unquote. 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.

Starting point is 00:07:35 Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. As TikTok continues to evolve, more marketers are seeking expertise to master the platform. And an interesting piece up on Digiday today suggests that the industry is creating spinoffs from the agency of record model to have lead agencies just for TikTok. Because of the expertise and cultural awareness required to create content for the platform, capitalize on trends, manage logistics, and so on, marketers and brand executives are recognizing the necessity for

Starting point is 00:08:10 a streamlined approach with a lead agency. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes and business affairs aspects involved in publishing on TikTok, like talent, rights, legal, compliance, all of which can be tricky to navigate. These require a well-versed team that can make effective recommendations, which is not always the case with an agency that's mostly done TV commercials and banner ads. Understanding the creator space is critically important when it comes to TikTok. The rise of influencer marketing has led marketers to want help from influencer agencies. And as a result, one industry insider quoted in

Starting point is 00:08:45 the piece expects the push for TikTok agency of record or lead agency relationships to become more popular in the coming year. Microsoft has backtracked on its timeline for banning ads from unverified advertisers. In June, the company announced that advertiser identity verification would be required for all customers prior to August 1st in order to continue showing ads globally. But now Microsoft is giving advertisers more time to complete verification. All advertisers will still be asked

Starting point is 00:09:19 to complete the verification process when setting up a new account. If verification hasn't been completed, Microsoft will pause ads in the following scenarios. Advertisers whose ads will serve in the European economic area will have 30 days to complete verification for ads to continue serving. Microsoft will also pause ads for advertisers whose accounts have been flagged by its brand safety checks and advertisers whose account has been suspended for policy violations who have not already completed verification. Microsoft said as this continues to roll out across advertisers, the range of ads that may be paused may expand. And one last small items.

Starting point is 00:10:02 Instagram now lets you add music to photo carousels. The platform has expanded its collaborative posting feature, which now lets you invite up to three creators to co-author a feed post carousel or reel. Once accepted, the content will reach the collaborators audience and appear on each account's profile grid. I used to be a really big Reddit user. Like, really, really big. And it was really all due to this app called Apollo, which was great. It was written by or developed by a guy that used to make apps for Apple. And they killed it. Reddit killed it off, basically, when they did the whole API thing, which I'm sure you have been following on this podcast. Anyway, all that to say, over the weekend,

Starting point is 00:10:56 I stumbled across the federated version of Reddit or a federated version, I should say. So kind of like Mastodon is one of the sort of federated replacements for Twitter, Lemmy is one of the federated replacements for Reddit. And it's actually pretty good. Now, it has all of the same problems that other federated platforms have, right? So there's not one single platform. There's a bunch of different platforms. Now, anyone can run their own Reddit instance or Lemmy instance. But that means that communities can be in multiple servers. And one of the benefits of Reddit was that there was one Xbox community.

Starting point is 00:11:34 You could create, you know, Xbox memes, but there's really only one Xbox memes category on the platform. Lemmy's not quite like that because you can have different communities on different platforms. It's not a bad idea, though. I mean, if you really hate the gardening community on one server, you can go to the gardening community on another. So not perfect. But if you are one of those folks that used to use Reddit and have not been on it that

Starting point is 00:11:58 often and would actually like a Reddit-like experience where there's no ads and you control the algorithm and everything and you can pick up and move your account and all that jazz, all of the benefits with federated stuff, look up Lemmy. The server I used is discuss.online. Seems to be pretty fast.

Starting point is 00:12:18 It doesn't go down. I would avoid lemmy.world for a variety of reasons. But anyway, there's something for you folks that are interested in that. Thanks for listening. I'm Todd But anyway, something for you folks that are interested in that. Thanks for listening. I'm Todd Maffin. See you tomorrow. I can be your hero.

Today in Digital Marketing - Why You Should Avoid Kreativ Spelling in Brand Names

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