Today in Digital Marketing - Will Google's Biggest Acquisition Shake Up the Marketing Industry?

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Friday, May 24th. Today, is HubSpot about to sell to Google? Pinterest has summer trends for your content marketing. Amazon's AI-based ads seem to be performing well. And Snapchat gives us exactly what we marketers really want. Crazy clown faces. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today, Today in Digital Marketing. Google's parent company, Alphabet, is said to be close to buying HubSpot, the large marketing automation platform. If it all goes through, it will be the largest acquisition in Google's history. HubSpot is worth about $30 billion. By way of comparison, Google bought YouTube for about $1.6 billion in stock.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Pretty good deal, considering YouTube brought in more than $30 billion in revenue last year alone. So why do they want HubSpot? Well, to compete with Microsoft's lead in the productivity sweet space. Google is in third place among cloud services, but is well behind the first two. Amazon controls about a third of the market, and Microsoft holds more than twice what Alphabet has. Quoting Gizmodo, quote, reports of Google's potential acquisition first surfaced in April, sending HubSpot shares up as much as 11%. HubSpot's financials keep getting better, though analysts are skeptical over weakened demand for its products.

Starting point is 00:01:33 The company swung to a profit of $6 million in the first quarter, with sales surging more than 20% from the year prior. Google's talks with HubSpot are ongoing, and no deal has been reached, unquote. Google is also catching up with Microsoft in the AI race, recently unveiling many updates to its Gemini AI tools. Both companies face scrutiny from European regulators. Pinterest has released an overview of rising summer content trends, offering insight into popular topics that could guide your marketing strategies. We have a link to the pin board directly in today's email newsletter. But what's trending? Well, maximalist fashion is at the forefront. This is featuring rock and roll style, alternative outfits, eye-catching patterns, and unconventional silhouettes, says the company.

Starting point is 00:02:19 Pinterest says users are leaning more into bold fashion as a way to express personalities and break from conventional norms. Searches for tomboy femme increased by 3,900%. There's also baggy outfit ideas in there, rock and roll outfit, leatherware, geek chic, and Y3K outfits. Another trend is 90s beauty. With rising searches for 90s makeup look and 2000s makeup, specific trends include calico hair, heavy highlights on dark hair, 90s layered bob, 90s nail art, and 90s glam makeup. And finally, dopamine home decor is also trending, favoring vibrant and personalized spaces. Key searches there include grandma's core bedroom, tea sets vintage, and vintage plates on wall. Pinterest says it has 518 million monthly active users, 40% of whom are Gen Z. A couple of months ago, Amazon launched a new automated ad product

Starting point is 00:03:29 called Performance Plus. It, like its competitors, uses machine learning to optimize campaigns based on predicted conversion rates. We now have some data on how those ads are performing. These ad products, of course, are a reaction to the AI-driven ad products by Google and Meta. Amazon is trying to claw back some of the ad budget being consumed by those two. Performance Plus operates within Amazon's DemandSide platform. It uses an AI model to predict the likelihood of user conversions every hour. Advertisers set cost-per-acquisition goals. Amazon then handles campaign setup, audience targeting,

Starting point is 00:04:05 and optimization. Ads can run on Amazon site and external publisher inventories. And Amazon says most Performance Plus campaigns so far have achieved 30% to 90% lower CPAs compared to standard Amazon DSP ad buys with similar goals and formats. These are, of course, numbers provided by Amazon, so they do have an interest in only talking up the positive results. We were not able to find any independent studies on this. And finally, on this short episode today, marketing executives of a certain, well, I'll just say of a certain age,

Starting point is 00:04:46 don't spend a lot of time in the Snapchat app. Honestly, I've never felt more old trying to figure out Snapchat's convoluted UI. I think for the most part, most marketing people who have spent time with the brand have done so in one of two places, the ads manager or the Snapchat camera. No, not the one in the mobile app, the virtual camera that extends the crazy face filters into your Zoom meetings. Sadly, the company shut that app down more than a year ago, suddenly returning thousands of Zoom meetings to their soul-destroying realities.

Starting point is 00:05:22 Well, it's back, baby. It's not an app anymore, but it is a new Chrome extension that basically does the same thing. Quoting social media today, quote, so now you can virtually dress up as a frog or a potato once again, which could help to liven up those video meetings that depict you against the same background every day. You can also integrate lenses that you've designed and published so you can create your own entire look. I mean, it does take some patience to learn how to build a lens in Snap's Lens Studio, but it's another option to consider to bring even more fun to your video calls. Unquote.

Starting point is 00:06:00 So that's fun. Here's what's not fun. Changing your email address. Like 15 years ago, I got my own domain with basically just my name dot com. And I used it when I was doing a lot of keynote speaking. And, you know, it's kind of it's like a personal brand domain. And I'd used it mostly for most of my business stuff. Eventually, when I founded the agency, I started using the agency one a little bit more. But, you know, I'm 53. What the hell am I now? 53, 54. I don't even know. I'm in my early 50s. And I'm getting to the point where in a few years, probably going to sell the agency,

Starting point is 00:06:38 might even sell the podcast and newsletter. And I'll probably give up that domain name and even the agency domain name. So I better start transitioning to like my regular dumb old personal email address. That's pretty easy to do on most platforms, but not the big ones. We are an Apple household and my God, that is difficult to do. I had to talk to three separate Apple people. The problem is that my initial, the one I want to switch to, my personal email address, it also had an Apple ID attached to it.

Starting point is 00:07:10 And I'm running into this from time to time as well. I'm running into this with Microsoft and Xbox. Anyway, so I'm trying to do one a day. Honestly, the Apple one took me two and a half hours yesterday to just change my email address. The world we live in, I guess. Anyway, that'll do it for the week. Today in digital marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of this dynamic first nation on Vancouver Island.

Starting point is 00:07:35 Our production coordinator is Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis. Ad coordination by Red Circle. Our agency has an all staff retreat on Monday. So no show then. And I will see you on Tuesday. ad coordination by Red Circle. Our agency has an all-staff retreat on Monday, so no show then, and I will see you on Tuesday. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more.

Starting point is 00:08:08 It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.

Today in Digital Marketing - Will Google's Biggest Acquisition Shake Up the Marketing Industry?

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