Today in Digital Marketing - You’ll Hate This Stupid, Terrible, Lousy Headline, But Will You Listen to This Episode?

Starting point is 00:00:01 It is Friday, March 24th. Today, TikTok's turbulent testimony. What's next after its CEO's lackluster performance? Microsoft and Google both update their ad lineup. The e-commerce category is poised to dominate. And you are not going to like what science says about how to get more clicks. I'm Todd Maffin That's ahead. Today, digital marketing. TikTok's CEO took his turn in the hot seat yesterday before U.S. lawmakers in a hearing that could determine the app's fate in the U.S. In response to concerns about the potential sharing of American user data with the Chinese government, Xu Chu defended TikTok and assured the committee that it would remain a platform for free expression.

Starting point is 00:00:43 It would not be manipulated by any government. But many analysts say his appearance failed to win over U.S. senators as he navigated the questions. Specifically, Chu differed in commenting on whether ByteDance employees had spied on U.S. citizens in the last year. He also questioned the track record of American companies when it comes to user data when asked about a possible divestment from ByteDance. The CEO's pre-prepared testimony stated that Project Texas, that's the company's multi-billion dollar plan to separate U.S. user data from its Chinese parent company, will secure user data in the U.S., making it inaccessible to China-based staff. But when pressed on whether TikTok would ever consider selling user data, he refused to provide a commitment saying he would need to seek further clarification before answering.

Starting point is 00:01:30 The Chinese government once again expressed its opposition to the forced sale of the app. So if it is banned, a sale into local hands may not even be possible. Well, as marketers, we're always trying to improve our numbers. Higher ROAS, lower CPA, higher reach, lower frequency. But one of the most important metrics is the one that gets people off the ad and onto our content, the click-through rate. We've known that there's lots that affects this number, the creative, the offer, and so on. But one of the most important is the headline. Get that right, and you may entice people to check your site or products out.

Starting point is 00:02:11 So how can we move that particular needle up? Well, luckily, we have science to help us with that. Claire Robertson is a PhD student at New York University. She is one of the authors of new research published this month in the Nature Human Behavior Journal. And she joins me now from New York. Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me. So, Claire, listen, it's been a hell of a few years, the pandemic, inflation. Surely your research found that using positive language in headlines drives visits to websites, right? You would hope. But unfortunately, that's not what we found. We actually found the opposite.

Starting point is 00:02:47 We found that including positive language in headlines actually reduced the likelihood that people would click on them. And we found that increasing the number of negative words in a headline made your headline more likely to be clicked on. Why do you think people are drawn to negativity? I think that that is a question that actually goes all the way back to evolution. So in the past, we benefited from having an awareness of the negative things around us, right? So negativity bias in general is a pretty well-established psychological phenomenon. Basically, sometimes this is referred to as the snake in the grass phenomenon. And it just means that the people who were more aware of negative things in their environment, like snakes, were more likely to be able to avoid them and then go on to procreate and pass down their genes.

Starting point is 00:03:44 And this really served us for a long time. We were aware of these threats physically. We were also aware of them socially. So we were hyper aware of people who might try to cheat us. So sometimes I tell people we have our snake detection and our snake oil salesman detection. And both of these things really served us in the past. The problem is, in the online environment, things are really different. These threats are no longer as imminent as they were to our evolutionary ancestors, right? So now we still have this tendency to be drawn to negativity, but it's no longer serving us in the same way. It doesn't help us make good behavioral decisions.

Starting point is 00:04:26 Claire Robertson, her paper is called Negativity Drives Online News Consumption. Our full interview covered everything from how we marketers can use this new research, why they chose Upworthy as their data set, what she thinks of Upworthy's criticism of the research, and much more. That is coming exclusively to the Premium podcast tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:04:46 You can sign up now at todayindigital.com slash premium or tap the link in the show notes. A few ad updates from Microsoft and Google to report today. First, Microsoft has launched a new product that targets shoppers based on the categories they browse while using keywords as a booster for campaign bids. By boosting bids with keywords, advertisers can target ads to customers searching for specific products. Retailers can optimize the site experience for shoppers

Starting point is 00:05:16 through a product taxonomy or product categorization, which helps shoppers find what they're looking for. Microsoft says by layering keywords as a booster in addition to categories, its algorithms can return more relevant ads to meet shoppers' intent. In contrast to traditional keyword targeting, which requires advertisers to research and build a list of keywords for each campaign,

Starting point is 00:05:38 advertisers who use category behaviors only need to test and retain a few high-performing keywords. And second, Google Discovery ads have some new features, including new layouts and feeds. Product feeds are now available to all Discovery advertisers. Retailers can now use lifestyle images and short text with their Google Merchant Catalog to deliver more relevant ads. And advertisers will be able to track how their Google Merchant Center catalog items perform in product feeds against metrics like impressions or clicks. That's coming later this month with product level reporting. Then in the second quarter, Discovery advertisers can get

Starting point is 00:06:16 a more accurate view of their campaign performance through data-driven attribution. And finally, for advertisers who run both Discovery ads and video action campaigns, you can measure their impact using ConversionLift based on geography. 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. You might want to consider selling couches on your e-commerce platform. According to a new report from Insider Intelligence, the future of e-commerce sales will be reshaped in the coming years as emerging categories gain ground and traditional big hitters lose their grip.

Starting point is 00:07:14 While apparel and consumer electronics have historically been dominant categories, data indicates that e-commerce sales will become more evenly distributed across categories. Before the pandemic, apparel and accessories, and the computer and consumer electronics categories, accounted for more than 40% of U.S. online sales. But the pandemic boosted e-commerce sales for categories like

Starting point is 00:07:37 food and beverage, furniture, and home furnishings. According to the report, furniture will become the second largest category for e-commerce sales next year, while apparel will remain the largest category, at least until 2027. Meanwhile, computer and consumer electronics, which were the largest category until 2020, will drop to third place. Health and personal care, also expected to become a significant category due to the growth of essential goods, including personal hygiene and household products. As a result, health and personal care online sales are expected to grow the most among all categories by 2027.

Starting point is 00:08:18 While the robot overlords have been unleashed, OpenAI added support for ChatGPT plugins yesterday, enabling developers to create tools for the AI system. Until now, as you probably know, ChatGPT has been limited to pulling information from its training data. That data ended in 2021. With plugins, the company says the bot will be able to browse the web and interact even with specific sites. OpenAI has made the feature available to a select group of users and has launched 11 plugins for external sites, including Expedia, OpenTable, Klarna Shopping, and a few more. The company also provides some plugins of its own, one for interpreting code and one called Browsing, which lets the bot gather information from the web. The Verge points out that this experimental feature is similar to Microsoft's Bing,

Starting point is 00:09:08 which feeds GPT-4 data from the internet. OpenAI's plugin, though, retrieves more than just real-time data. According to the company, it can also tie into APIs, letting it retrieve knowledge-based information like business documents and personal notes, as well as perform actions on behalf of the user. And finally, while on the topic of AI taking over, retailers are also expecting a robot uprising. A new study has found that retailers anticipate 70% of routine tasks will be partially or fully automated by 2021. In that timeframe, specialty and department stores are forecast to double the use of robots for duties like cleaning and inventory audits.

Starting point is 00:09:55 In the move to automation, some companies expect to shift associates to more customer-facing responsibilities and support business operations. According to the study, the use of AI to improve operations is projected to increase nine times by 2025. If this podcast is on your daily must-listen list, you might benefit from upgrading your listening experience by signing up for the Premium Podcast. You'll get this show, but with no ads. You'll get immediate access to more than 30 deep-dive, full-length episodes covering the latest in marketing science.

Starting point is 00:10:37 There are links to stories in the show notes. It comes out earlier than the free episode. There are even audio chapters that let you jump between stories. Tap the link in the show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash premium. And that will do it for the week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is the intrepid Steph Gunn. Our production coordinator is Sarah Guild. Music rights by Source Audio.

Starting point is 00:11:07 Ad coordination by Red Circle. And, you know, not many people know this, but our theme composer, Mark Blevis, is one of the world's most respected work-life balance experts. It's true, but not everyone is impressed. Sometimes he comes home in the morning light. His mother says, when are you going to live your life right? By the way, we hit a thousand people in our Slack community. Thank you for that. Todayindigital.com slash Slack or tap the link in the show notes if you're not in there.

Starting point is 00:11:55 I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. See you Monday. Outro Music

Today in Digital Marketing - You’ll Hate This Stupid, Terrible, Lousy Headline, But Will You Listen to This Episode?

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