Today in Digital Marketing - YouTube's "Greenlight" Sponsorships May Be a Game-Changer

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

YouTube's newest sponsorship option could be a game-changer... how has COVID affected email marketing... Google clamps down on another industry.... Apple will soon charge money for some podcasts.... And inside a popular TikTok influencer campaign.Get the entire show content, with links and images, as a DAILY email newsletter! Subscribe at TodayInDigital.com/newsletterPodcast Perks: Exclusive Deals for ListenersAdvertising: Perks (free!) • Ads • Classifieds • Brand TakeoversJoin the Community: Slack or DiscordEnjoying the show? Please rate and review us!Follow Tod: Twitter • LinkedIn • TikTok (daily digital marketing tips)Get this as a daily email newsletterLeave a VoicemailToday in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital. Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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. Today, YouTube's newest sponsorship option could be a game-changer. Be protected. Be Zen. It's Tuesday, April 20th, 2021. Happy Volunteer Recognition Day, United Kingdom. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. We start briefly with some new research around how COVID has changed the way brands do email marketing. Half of digital marketers polled said COVID has, indeed, changed the way they run their email campaigns. The numbers come from a new Mailjet study of 760 email marketers. While half said their email strategy had changed, 35% said their strategy had not. 13% it changed, but not because of COVID. And 2%, God love them, had no idea.

So how has it changed? 56% said they've been sending more email since the pandemic began. Only 15% said they've been sending less. And just under half said they've been sending email at a higher frequency since last spring. We knew it would come sooner or later with everything in the world becoming a monthly subscription. Apple this morning announced it would soon launch paid podcast subscriptions. But this sounds more like Patreon than Disney+. Listeners can pay to unlock special benefits like ad-free episodes and early access to episodes. Quoting TechCrunch, the announcement of the new service, Apple Podcast Subscriptions, follows shortly after an industry report

suggesting that Spotify's podcast listeners would top Apple's for the first time in 2021. The first premium subscriptions would come from both independent voices and premier studios, including Tenderfoot TV, Radiotopia from PRX and QCode, as well as larger brands like NPR, Los Angeles Times, Sony Music Entertainment, and others. Unquote. Incidentally, Spotify recently said it would soon offer its own paid podcast subscriptions as well. YouTube this morning detailed its upcoming season of Select sponsorships. Select is YouTube's premium ad product that has more of a curated, higher quality selection of creators. They used to be bundled under the name Google Preferred.

Inside that package are things like NFL games, a video game award shows, and some big name independent creators. They also added a quarterly buy option and gave this example of how a marketer might use it. Quote, for Mother's Day specifically, we've seen surges in interest for things like that special gift, the perfect song for Mom, and more. To help brands align with this moment on YouTube, we are offering a variety of packages, including ownership of Top Mom's channel, What's Up Moms?

And the ability to build your own high share of voice packages across Top Mom creator and celebrity channels, unquote. What I thought was far more interesting was buried in the middle of their announcement. Quoting the company, brands will have the opportunity to put on their studio executive hats with YouTube Greenlight. YouTube Greenlight brings a group of emerging YouTube creators together to pitch an original series idea based on specific advertisers' goals. The sponsorship includes a custom creator pitch session, a fully funded creator original series with integrations,

and paid promotion across YouTube, unquote. You will not find any of these in your ads manager. You've got to connect up with a real human being at YouTube's sales team to line all this up. Heads up if you run marketing for a health insurance brand. Google today said they will soon require those advertisers to be certified before they can run ads. This means only government exchanges, first-party providers, and licensed third-party brokers who have provided documentation showing they are permitted under state law to sell health insurance. This isn't new for Google. They've had a long-standing certification program for online pharmacies,

which limits ads for the sale of prescription drugs to those from licensed pharmacies in countries where those ads are legal. Last year, they introduced a new policy to restrict promotions for official government services like passport renewals, visa applications, or changing mailing addresses to the governments or their delegated providers. Health insurance advertisers can begin to apply for a certification on May 3rd. If you do not complete certification by June 2nd, you will no longer be able to run ads on Google. If you've been poking around TikTok and thought, well, what can our brand do here? Here's an example from a mattress brand. Simmons has partnered with the popular D'Amelio sisters to design a memory foam mattress

and promote it with an online contest. Harley and I worked with Simmons to create our own mattress that one of you guys could win. The mattress comes shipped to you in this super cute box. Charlie not included. The contest offers two winners a bedroom redesign. People enter by posting videos on TikTok of their current bedrooms, along with an explanation of why they need a redesign.

Hey, Simmons. I just started making my room kind of close to how I want it, so this is perfect timing. Hi, Simmons. I just started making my room kind of close to how I want it, so this is perfect timing. Hi, Simmons. This is going to be my bedroom tour thing. Yeah. For your little contest. You want to go there? Yeah. They need to use the hashtag SimmonsDreamRoom in the captions. At the time I recorded today's podcast, videos with that hashtag on TikTok had 6.7 million views. Quoting Marketing Dive, As a newer platform, TikTok is less cluttered with advertising than more established rivals,

giving brands a chance to stand out with creative videos and influencer partnerships. Charlie last year collaborated with Dunkin' on a coffee drink inspired by her favorite menu item and followed that release with a branded merchandise line for the coffee chain. Influencer marketing tends to resonate with younger consumers, with almost half, 44% of Gen Z, saying they have made a purchase decision based on a recommendation from a social influencer. 44% compared with 26% of the general population, according to researcher Kantar. And finally, two quick little items. If you have WordPress and have their Jetpack plugin, it's time to give it an update because they now have on an option to automatically generate captions that go on videos. You know, it's almost as if they're just copying TikTok feature for feature now, but nah, they wouldn't do that.

Did you know we have an active online community full of digital marketers like you? Actually, we have two, so you can pick your flavor, Slack or Discord. Links are in this episode's notes under Join the Community. That's it for today. Talk to you tomorrow. Outro Music