Amazon Turns to Social Apps to Battle Popular Competitors

[00:00:00] It is Tuesday, November 14th. Today, Meta and Snapchat decide it's better to make friends with the giant than Poket. TikTok ads are out of control, results are varied, so why are brands still bullish on the platform?

[00:00:15] A big YouTube reporting glitch is frustrating media buyers, and LinkedIn is not only killing off a content format, it's deleting anything you posted using that format. I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead. Today in Digital Marketing.

[00:02:30] TikTok is indeed positioning itself as an Amazon competitor, but it hasn't been an easy path. Some industry media reports that advertisers are seeing mixed results with TikTok shop. That week says despite the lukewarm results, advertisers are increasingly investing in TikTok's commerce platform.

[00:03:10] Launched in the US in September, TikTok shop lets users purchase products directly within the app, while some brands like cosmetics company BKBeauty have seen a substantial increase in sales, others report only a minimal impact. Those often say the platform's requirement for frequent content creation is a challenging

[00:03:30] investment with potentially low returns. TikTok shop is a direct click to buy system, so this is of course a key attraction for brands, reducing the friction typically associated with redirecting users to external websites.

[00:03:45] Adweek has a great piece about this on their site, and if you play in this space it is definitely worth a read. It's called advertisers are investing in TikTok shops despite mostly tepid results. One other issue keeping TikTok from truly breaking out is the volume of ads.

[00:04:07] Business Insider last week watched 1000 TikTok videos back to back and found that about a third consisted of ads. This included traditional ads, influencer sponsored content and affiliate links, the latter having increased significantly now that content creators can act as affiliates for the new TikTok shop platform.

[00:04:28] Like this high volume, the ads are so well integrated into the platform that they often go unnoticed by users. The platform's algorithm tailors the ad experience to individual users, making ads feel less intrusive and more relevant.

[00:04:42] TikTok did not respond to a request for details on how frequently ads are supposed to appear on the site, but they did say ads should only make up a small portion of the content people see on their For You page.

[00:04:57] Buyers of YouTube's premium ad product, YouTube Select are facing challenges verifying the channels where their ads are running because of what appears to be a widespread glitch. Links which were supposed to lead to the channels where the ads are shown instead direct to non-existent YouTube pages.

[00:05:15] This has been found in both YouTube Select and YouTube TV campaigns. The problems raised concerns about transparency in YouTube's ad practices especially since YouTube Select, introduced in 2020, promises ads on the platform's most popular channels for a higher price.

[00:05:32] Quoting adweek.com, quote, one buyer found that over 60% of the impressions were reported to be on broken links for a one-week $17,000 campaign that ran earlier this year. Another buyer found that 98% of the links across multiple YouTube TV campaigns were broken in reports equating to $3 million in spend, unquote.

[00:05:57] To be clear, as far as anyone could tell, the ads still all ran fine on various YouTube channels. This was only a reporting issue preventing media buyers from seeing which channels those were.

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[00:08:09] And finally a couple of social media platform updates. First, LinkedIn will remove all carousel posts and profile videos starting December 14th. This will also deactivate clickable links within images and videos. Carousel posts, these were introduced in July of last year, were popular for generating engagement,

[00:08:30] but apparently not enough engagement. LinkedIn says a lack of user interest was behind the decision to cut them. If you want to continue posting carousels, you'll need to upload PDFs as a workaround. Profile videos introduced in 2021 and clickable links in images added last August will also be removed.

[00:08:48] And over on Instagram they are expanding the Close Friends feature to now include posts and reels. This lets users share content exclusively with a select group marked by a green star next to the user's names. It was originally only available for stories and notes.

[00:09:06] To use this, select the audience option when sharing a post or reel and then choose Close Friends. Don't forget about our email newsletter. It's free. Every day it has everything you hear in the podcast and a lot more.

[00:09:22] You can sign up by tapping the link in the show notes or going to today in digital.com slash newsletter. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.