Blue Monday

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It is Tuesday, August 6th.

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Today the US declares Google an illegal monopoly, what's next for one of the world's biggest

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_02]: ad platforms.

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Netflix's ad prices keep dropping.

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Apple has another privacy feature your website isn't going to like and why you might

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_02]: have paid for your competitors ads last week.

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Tod Maffin, that's a head today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Historians will remember the time that Microsoft decided to bundle its Internet Explorer

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_02]: browser with Windows.

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And prior to that, there were a handful of third party browsers, Opera, NetScape Navigator,

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_02]: but Microsoft put its then new Internet Explorer into every install of Windows.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_02]: The result was obvious.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Internet Explorer became the dominant browser.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that happened was that put the company on the radar of regulators.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And in 1998, the American Justice Department and 20 states filed a lawsuit against

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_02]: the company for monopolistic practices.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It was messy.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Bill Gates was called invasive and non-responsive at his deposition.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_02]: He argued over the definition of words like ask and we.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_02]: He said the phrase, I don't recall so many times it made the presiding judge laugh.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_02]: In one case, Microsoft submitted a video showing how fast and easy it was for users to

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_02]: install netScape onto their PCs.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But the government submitted its own video, which showed that Microsoft had edited out

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_02]: a long and complex part of the process.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_02]: A company vice president eventually conceded they'd falsified the video.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Microsoft lost its case.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Google's antitrust case, which has been going on since last fall, didn't really surface

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_02]: any eye-popping gotcha moment like those.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But apparently it didn't need any.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yesterday, a federal judge ruled that Google unlawfully held the monopoly in the online

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: search and ad market.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And in particular, called out the payments Google makes to companies like Apple to be the

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_02]: default search engine on those devices.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Those are huge payments, by the way.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: The deal Apple has with Google provides it 17% of its profits.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_02]: If history is any guide, the relief could be divisive.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_02]: After Microsoft lost its case, the court ordered a breakup of Microsoft into two separate

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_02]: units.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_02]: One for its Windows operating system, the other for everything else.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Microsoft appealed and one.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But it didn't win on the merits of the ruling, rather, on a technicality.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: The judge, seemed, had discussed the case with news media while it was still in progress,

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_02]: violating a code of conduct.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So while the main finding still stood, Microsoft did bad things, the breakup order was overturned.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_02]: In the end, all Microsoft had to do was to agree to share its APIs with third party

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_02]: companies and appoint an independent panel of reviewers to monitor that for five years.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Many industry watches at the time said that Microsoft had won, even though it had lost.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So what's next for Google?

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, everyone now moves to the penalty phase where the judge will decide how to remedy

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: the monopoly.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: What exactly that looks like is anyone's guess.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It could order the cancellation of that lucrative Google Apple deal.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It could require Google to split its browser and operating system.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And in just over a month, Google will be backing court for a different anti-chus trial.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_02]: This one focusing on its ads platform.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_02]: The American Justice Department says in that case, Google has an illegal dominance

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_02]: in the digital ad market allegedly boosting its revenue while raising cost for advertisers.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_02]: We have the entire Google court ruling in our email newsletter today.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Just tap the link at the top of the show notes or go to today in digital.com slash newsletter.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_02]: If you run Google ads, you may have noticed that the reporting side of the platform was down

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_02]: for several days at the start of this month.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And one important part of it is still down.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, we have more details on what caused that outage and it ain't pretty.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It turns out it wasn't a bug or scheduled maintenance.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Instead, Google turned the reporting functionality off manually after it was discovered

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_02]: to be surfacing confidential information.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Specifically, some advertisers reported they could see the ad performance data

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_02]: of their direct competitors by searching for their product titles.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And presumably, their competitors could see their data.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: This meant that some advertisers unknowingly ran ads for their competitors.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Here's SEO professional Greg Fin on the search engine roundtable podcast.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_04]: We were saying it wasn't a sort of reporting issue that it was an actual serving issue

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_04]: and they took that reporting on based on the serving issue?

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, there were other products that were being assigned to your Google Ads account

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_05]: from a different merchant center.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Then you were going out and paying for them.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_05]: So bury your run in a sack company and you are having mortis underwear come into your feed

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_05]: and that is causing the issue.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_05]: So instead of just seeing it, they shut the reporting down which in turn makes my life hard.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just like, I just want to see what's happening.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, let me see if there's something out there.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_04]: So the way they would have that is like,

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_04]: me and it sounded like it was like an issue with the reports.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_04]: And now they're going back on.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_05]: And they said they temporarily pause access to certain reports on it.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_05]: So they paused those for products,

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_05]: product groups and list groups, which are the actual like blueprints for shopping campaigns.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Google Vitt acknowledge the issue saying quote,

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: starting on July 30th, a small fraction of advertisers started serving ads for products

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: from other Google Merchants Center accounts and were able to see those products in their ads

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_02]: reporting unquote.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_02]: A Google spokesperson said that be contacting all affected advertisers soon

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_02]: and will hand out credits in compensation.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Though it's kind of hard to put a value on revenue loss if your competitors were able to see

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_02]: how your product ads perform.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_02]: This afternoon, Google reported that most reports were back up with the exception

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: of some competitive metrics.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It also said it has removed the incorrect data from affected accounts.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_02]: More control is being taken from the hands of media buyers.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Meta is removing detailed targeting exclusions for all new campaigns going forward.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_02]: These exclusions let advertisers remove cohorts from their campaigns based on demographics,

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_02]: interests or behaviors.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_02]: For instance, you could run ads to everyone interested in shoes,

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_02]: but exclude people who are interested in high end fashion.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But Meta says it's AI knows better than you do and that costs per conversion go down when

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_02]: those exclusions are removed.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_02]: The company says it'll take a couple of months to drop this into all accounts,

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_02]: and that roll out actually started a couple of weeks ago.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: If your campaign already has these exclusions set up before your account gets hit by this,

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_02]: those settings will still work until the end of January.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Getting to this point though was a little weird quoting social media today quote,

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Meta first announced a change to its ad targeting exclusions back in January.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: When it removed and consolidated some of its targeting options due to lack of use.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Then in May, Meta sent out an alert to advertisers explaining that targeting exclusions would be

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_02]: removed entirely by June 28th, which then clarified had been sent in error and that there

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: were no plans to remove the option.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It then removed them a month later. So those plans changed pretty quick, unquote.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_02]: One important note, Meta is leaving in place the ability to exclude custom audiences.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_02]: This for instance is what lets marketers keep ads away from people who've already bought the

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_02]: product being advertised.

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[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: The reduced ad prices make Netflix more competitive with rivals like Amazon's Prime Video,

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_02]: which launched its ad tier earlier this year with CPMs starting at $26.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Despite having a smaller ad supported audience than some competitors,

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Netflix still boasts the second largest streaming viewership in the US behind YouTube.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_02]: The lower prices coincide with Netflix's push into programmatic advertising.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_02]: The streamers partnering with ad tech firms like the Trade Desk, Google's display in video 360

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: and Magnite to test its new ad server.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Is Apple a villain or a hero? Well that depends on who you ask.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Its customers might tell you each of the hero after crippling the ability for apps to track their

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_02]: behavior online. Advertisers? Well you can probably guess they're feeling on that.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Apple's moved a few years ago to block tracking, shook up the digital ad space,

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_02]: made a set it lost $10 billion because of it. Now, Apple has poised to bring one more

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_02]: good for users, bad for marketers tools of their devices, something it calls distraction control.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It works in Apple's Safari browser and users just need to tap the screen to remove content

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: blocks. Some of these blocks are used by marketers, auto playing videos and content overlays like

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: newsletter subscription signups. The feature has just started beta testing with developers,

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_02]: these choices hold over for future visits to the site, unless some content in

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_02]: that block changes, then that block will come back again. To be clear, this is not an ad blocker.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It'll still need an extension like one blocker for that. Instead, this is closer to what

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_02]: the newest art browser calls boosts, quoting computer world.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Because this new tool might reduce the effectiveness of some of the most annoying on page

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_02]: elements out there, it seems inevitable. Apple will face resistance from the marketing world once again.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps the most controversial part of this involves the economics of running websites.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Many site publishers have seen income yields fall dramatically since tougher GDPR rules came

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_02]: into effect. The impact of these has been particularly tough on small web publishers who, in some

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_02]: cases, have seen incomes collapse. Many of these had turned to subscriptions and mailing lists

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_02]: in an attempt to claw back some of this income and Apple's new feature could make the task of

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_02]: attracting those signups more difficult. That nice little third-party,

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yelp tool you use to manage your reviews or keep your page updated might be turning off soon

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_02]: and you can blame Elon Musk for it. Yelp recently shifted in the platform developers

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: to pay the accounts saying they were using too much of the system's resources. And worse,

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_02]: it only gave the developers four days notice. Developers were given a deck of pricing

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_02]: tiers with base pricing starting at $229 for just $1,000 API calls. Currently that's priced

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: less than $10 for those thousand calls. This of course sparked outrage among developers.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_02]: If it sounds like a familiar tactic, that's because unfortunately it's becoming a trend.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_02]: After Elon Musk bought Twitter, he implemented huge price hikes in the API. That resulted

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_02]: in the shutdown of many third-party apps and tools. Later, Reddit basically carbon-copyed

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Elon's API price hikes and with short notice, hyped up the price for their services as well.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Both platforms said they had to do it because AI sites were coming along in stealing data,

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_02]: but one convenient side effect was the shutdown of many apps which didn't carry ads.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_02]: This forced users to use the platform's own apps, which many users, especially in the case of

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Reddit, consider inferior. Also, I'm yelp tools have already shut down because of the sudden

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and dramatic price hike. The developer of one Mac app called restaurants said Yelp used to let

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_02]: him use up to $25,000 daily calls for free. A model that's been in place for a decade.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_02]: They emailed him Friday with that four day deadline.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_02]: For its part, Yelp said it moved to a paid pricing model in 2019 and has been gradually transitioning

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_02]: developers to a paid plan. It apologized for the way it communicated the change

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_02]: and extended free usage for 90 days. Many developers remain upset over the four-day deadline

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_02]: and the company's handling of the communication. Just a reminder that you can follow us on social

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_02]: media. We are almost everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, threads,

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_02]: mastered on blue sky, Snapchat and Pinterest. Just go to today in digital.com slash social

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_02]: or tap the link at the top of the show notes. Tomorrow, new research shows there is a right and wrong

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_02]: way to show discounted prices on a website and half of you are doing it the wrong way.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Todd Mathan. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.