Curation Nation

[00:00:00] It is Thursday, October 17th. Today, breaking down the latest ad tech buzzword, TikTok doubles

[00:00:07] down on live stream shopping again, Meta's layoffs hit hard across its platforms, and

[00:00:13] Google Ads customizes customizations. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:22] There is a new trend quietly reshaping ad tech, curation. And it's already influencing

[00:00:29] how campaigns are run. Curation is still an evolving concept, and it's not really defined

[00:00:35] by industry standards yet, but it generally refers to private ad marketplaces where ad tech

[00:00:41] companies provide hand-picked publishers and tailored audience targeting. Marketing Brew recently

[00:00:47] reported that programmatic ad tech firms like the Trade Desk, Index Exchange, and OpenX are

[00:00:53] already pitching premium packages tailored to specific publishers and audiences. This includes

[00:00:59] combining tailored ad placements, premium websites, specialized software, and even custom algorithms

[00:01:06] for a more controlled advertising experience. This push for a premium, more controlled internet

[00:01:13] comes as the digital ad industry faces growing scrutiny from marketers over reports of billions

[00:01:18] in wasted ad dollars and ads placed alongside controversial, explicit content. The move toward

[00:01:24] curation represents a break from traditional programmatic advertising, which focuses on wide-scale

[00:01:30] audience targeting across the broad open web. While this model offered large reach, it also led to

[00:01:37] issues like ads being placed on low-quality or made-for-advertising sites. One report found that $10 billion

[00:01:45] in ad budgets was spent on those sites from just September of 2022 to January of 2023 alone.

[00:01:52] Curation aims to limit these problems by directing spend toward more brand-safe content,

[00:01:58] steering away from the Wild West of the open web. But critics warn this could leave smaller publishers

[00:02:03] behind, cutting them off from ad revenue. Plus, even premium publishers aren't immune to challenges,

[00:02:09] raising questions about whether curation can fully address the industry's concerns about quality.

[00:02:19] Apple introduced new tools for brands using its Business Connect service yesterday.

[00:02:23] This service, launched last year, lets businesses manage their profiles across various Apple

[00:02:28] applications like Maps, Siri, Spotlight Search, and so on. Through this dashboard, businesses can

[00:02:34] provide details like their name, category, logo, and website, and preview how their place card will appear

[00:02:40] to consumers. This latest update lets businesses integrate their branding into more Apple products,

[00:02:47] including Mail, Tap to Pay on iPhone, and the Phone app. Business Connect will also open up to all types

[00:02:54] of businesses, not just those with a physical location. I mentioned it was coming to the Mail app.

[00:02:58] Those are branded emails, which are coming later in the year. You'll be able to customize how your

[00:03:03] emails will display in Apple's Mail app. Instead of a standard gray placeholder logo, emails will

[00:03:09] feature the brand's name and logo in the inbox. When opened, it'll showcase a vibrant header derived

[00:03:15] from the brand's logo as well as the business's name and logo. Businesses will also be able to manage

[00:03:20] multiple emails or branded domains like marketing emails versus order confirmation emails. Brands can

[00:03:27] sign up for this feature today and their logos will start appearing to customers later this year.

[00:03:32] The Tap to Pay function will also feature custom icons instead of generic ones,

[00:03:37] letting you display your names and logos during transactions. And next year, integration with the

[00:03:42] phone app will help identify calls by showing customers your name, logo, and even department,

[00:03:48] making it easier for consumers to recognize legitimate calls. Apple says these features will

[00:03:54] be available to most businesses globally by signing up for Business Connect.

[00:04:02] TikTok is pulling out all the stops to boost TikTok shop sales in the US. Well, all the stops except

[00:04:09] wooing online merchants with cash. The platform has slashed its subsidies for retailer discounts,

[00:04:14] a strategy it leaned on during last year's launch and has even tripled its sales commission

[00:04:19] to 6%. But now TikTok is switching gears to keep merchants on board. The information reporting yesterday

[00:04:25] that the platform has been offering coaching to merchants to make it easier to go live.

[00:04:29] Those recommendations include longer and more frequent live streams, even stretching up to 8 or

[00:04:35] 10 hours at a time. TikTok staff have also suggested a strategy called preheating, where sellers tease

[00:04:41] upcoming sales or giveaways in advance to warm up potential shoppers. A former employee also told media

[00:04:48] that TikTok is working on AI-generated scripts so that creators have enough to say on live stream and can sell

[00:04:54] more products. And they're also considering a few gimmicks, like the digital prize wheels found on

[00:04:59] Timu that hand out discounts to shoppers.

[00:05:05] Meta is laying off more employees across various departments, including WhatsApp, Instagram,

[00:05:10] Threads and Reality Labs. Unlike previous mass layoffs, these smaller cuts appear to be part of a

[00:05:16] reorganization within specific teams rather than affecting the whole company. A spokesperson for

[00:05:21] Meta told media this restructuring involves relocating some teams and transitioning employees

[00:05:26] into different roles. This latest round of layoffs follows a series of job cuts in the company's

[00:05:30] Reality Labs division earlier this year. Reports also circulated today that Meta fired more than a dozen

[00:05:36] senior people who had been given a small food stipend because they occasionally, and perhaps

[00:05:43] accidentally, spent that stipend on household products like toothpaste.

[00:05:52] YouTube videos that are up to three minutes long are now getting pushed into the shorts feed,

[00:05:57] a change that has stirred up some confusion among brands and creators. Now the platform has

[00:06:03] confirmed how this affects your previously uploaded brand videos. According to YouTube, vertical videos

[00:06:08] that are three minutes or shorter and were uploaded before October 15th of this year, that is to say two

[00:06:15] days ago will still be categorized as long form content and will not convert to shorts. Only new

[00:06:21] uploads that meet the criteria will be converted to shorts. YouTube says it will take several weeks for

[00:06:27] its systems to adjust to this change. A couple of other smaller updates, the platform is experimenting

[00:06:32] with letting creators upload custom membership badges during the onboarding process on both mobile and

[00:06:37] desktop. This feature was previously limited to mobile. And it is also simplifying the tagging process

[00:06:43] for sponsored content, letting both short and long form videos be marked as promoted on web and mobile.

[00:06:51] And shorts drafts will now also be accessible on mobile devices.

[00:06:59] And finally, Google Ads has customized customizations, renaming the formerly named text assets to

[00:07:07] customizations in the automatically created assets section of the platform. Customizations will let users

[00:07:14] generate personalized ad copy using text from their websites, landing pages, ads, and assets you upload.

[00:07:23] Nothing to say here. I'll see you tomorrow.