Are Podcasts the New TV?

[00:00:00] It is Wednesday, April 3rd. Today we know what will kill TV in the end and it turns out

[00:00:07] you're listening to one. Gmail is blocking some outlook emails. Walmart keeps chipping

[00:00:13] away at Amazon's ad business. X suffers a 30% drop in usage and some new conversion

[00:00:19] tracking from Microsoft's ad platform. I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead today in Digital

[00:00:25] Marketing.

[00:00:27] Well, if you were having trouble getting into your meta ads account today, you were

[00:00:30] not alone. Many of meta services were reported down this afternoon. It started around two

[00:00:35] o'clock Eastern when WhatsApp users started reporting that the app was just stuck on a message

[00:00:40] saying connecting and it wasn't actually connecting. The outage seemed to be worldwide.

[00:00:46] Then reports started coming in saying Facebook, Instagram and Threads were also having problems

[00:00:51] both in seeing content and in trying to create posts. Some marketers reported their ads manager

[00:00:56] was also down. This comes just weeks after another big meta outage where users were kicked

[00:01:01] from Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads. Engineers fixed the issue after a couple of hours

[00:01:07] and WhatsApp wasn't affected for that one.

[00:01:14] Heds up if you use an outlook email address for work? A bug or some kind of glitch might

[00:01:19] be preventing your emails from reaching people who use Gmail. Microsoft has acknowledged

[00:01:24] the issue where senders receive a blunt notification from Google that their email has been blocked

[00:01:30] citing a quote, very low reputation of the sending domain. Unquote. This appears to only happen

[00:01:37] when you're using country specific domains like outlook dot CA or outlook dot code dot UK.

[00:01:43] As a makeshift fix Microsoft suggests you create an outlook dot com alias specifically for

[00:01:50] emailing Gmail contacts. The work around isn't perfect but should be enough to bypass Google's

[00:01:55] spam detection. Google has tightened its email guidelines recently becoming stricter last month.

[00:02:01] Google's criteria for blocking include spammy content or a history of unsolicited messages

[00:02:07] from the senders IP. This isn't Microsoft's first email delivery problem just last month.

[00:02:13] Exchange online users faced similar problems with AOL and Yahoo attributed to anti spam measures.

[00:02:21] Other than the work around Microsoft remains tight lipped about the root cause of the current problem

[00:02:26] and when it might be resolved.

[00:02:32] Walmart keeps beefing up its retail ad business this week opening up to brands that don't usually

[00:02:37] sell products in its stores like cars or financial services. The company's ad platform,

[00:02:43] which it calls Walmart Connect has a number of placements from in store screens to email to sponsored

[00:02:50] products on its own website. Also part of their updates they'll now let advertisers use brand

[00:02:56] terms in search ads and yes that includes your competitors brand names. There is expanded

[00:03:01] measurement of in store sales from online ads. They're letting more brands participate in their

[00:03:07] shoppable ad pilots with Roku and TikTok and they've introduced themselves service support tools

[00:03:12] for overseas suppliers. Last year Walmart's ad division saw revenue spike 28% year over year

[00:03:20] and now sits at $3.4 billion annually not enough to seriously threaten Amazon but almost assuredly

[00:03:27] enough to get on their radar. Edison Research says it no longer considers podcasts to be a niche

[00:03:38] media in its most recent infinite dial study. It found that among people aged 18 to 34

[00:03:44] as many people listen to podcasts as watch TV that is a huge jump. Podcasting, Edison says,

[00:03:52] deserves a larger role in media plans as opposed to test and learn experimental buys.

[00:03:58] 47% of Americans above the age of 12 listen to a podcast once per month or more and when you carve out

[00:04:05] the more marketing friendly 18 to 54 demographic monthly reaches in the low 60% range.

[00:04:12] This is Edison's 26th infinite dial report. Their first back in 1998 found only a tiny number of

[00:04:19] people had ever tried audio streaming over a dial-up connection. In particular, this year's report noted

[00:04:25] that the female audience growth of podcast listenership has been explosive. Monthly podcast

[00:04:30] reach in women had the biggest surge since 2020 and monthly reaches up by more than 15% since

[00:04:37] last year alone. This means the female group is only 3% smaller than the male listening group,

[00:04:43] more than 70% of women listen at least weekly. For the first time, the number of Americans who

[00:04:49] have ever listened to a podcast grew past two thirds of the entire population. We have all sorts

[00:04:57] of charts and tables on this topic in today's email newsletter which you can get for free by

[00:05:01] tapping the link in the show notes are going to today in digital.com slash newsletter. Edison's

[00:05:06] report pulled more than a thousand people in the US age 12 and over.

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[00:06:08] slash easy r-a-m-p.com slash easy current issue by Sutton Bag and Celtic Bank members of the I.C.

[00:06:14] Terms and Conditions apply you have one unheard message hi I was calling current the influencer

[00:06:22] marketing platform but I think I just got redirected to a bunch of people listening to a podcast.

[00:06:29] Well anyways I was calling current because I was told they could help get my brand set up on

[00:06:34] TikTok shop and even build out an affiliate program of content creators promoting my brand

[00:06:40] and even have those content creators go on live streams and promote my product there.

[00:06:46] Wow I could really use current. I also heard that the brands they work with are making millions

[00:06:53] in sales. I guess I'll just go to their website at current.tech

[00:07:00] While that Edison study might have brought good news to podcasts it brought bad news to Elon Musk.

[00:07:05] The Invinidow report found that the number of people using X formerly Twitter has dropped like a

[00:07:12] rock in the last year. Edison says it survey estimated 77 million people used Twitter last year

[00:07:19] when this year closes out they expect that number to be just 55 million a 30% drop.

[00:07:26] This aligns with other third party reports quoting social media today quote

[00:07:30] aptopia reported in October last year that X has seen a 13% decline in daily active users since

[00:07:36] Musk took over the app. Similar web reported that X has seen a 14% decline in mobile and web

[00:07:42] visits since September of 2022. Last month sensor tower reported that X usage has declined 18%

[00:07:49] year over year X refuted this but offered no data to clarify. Unquote.

[00:07:59] Microsoft has a bunch of updates to its ads manager this week first maximize conversion value

[00:08:05] which was previously only available for smart shopping campaigns is now available for all search

[00:08:11] and shopping search campaigns as well. If you have specific ROI goals you can add a target

[00:08:16] row as they're also adding some new URL tracking in the form of what they call the Microsoft

[00:08:21] click ID this ID is added to landing page URLs that help advertisers track conversions

[00:08:28] from their site an important note here on that auto tagging is enabled by default

[00:08:33] for new accounts and where the Microsoft cookie can't be returned due to browser settings like

[00:08:40] third party cookie blocking in those cases if you don't have this Microsoft click ID auto tagging

[00:08:46] enabled your conversions won't be tracked. They're also putting smarter image cropping for audience

[00:08:52] ads and image extensions. This is similar to other platforms that try to automatically crop your

[00:08:57] uploaded images to focus on what they think is the most important part of the image as always

[00:09:02] approach this with caution very often these systems get it wrong you can still manually crop if

[00:09:07] you don't like what it does. And they've added five more languages to their ad platform the new

[00:09:12] languages are Thai Malay Indonesian Filipino and Hindi finally next week they'll stop letting

[00:09:18] you create sub accounts in hotel center and the only way to manage and showcase your lodging will

[00:09:23] be through their new special lodging campaigns after April 8th your sub accounts in hotel center

[00:09:30] will no longer run but you'll still be able to use hotel center to manage your feeds like

[00:09:35] uploading and editing your property feed or verifying your transaction messages.

[00:09:41] Nothing to say here I'll see you tomorrow