Don’t Call It a Comeback

[00:00:00] It is Wednesday, April 24th. Today they're back third party cookies. Will they ever die?

[00:00:10] Stripe makes a big move away from payments. Threads now has more daily users than X and

[00:00:16] a review of Meta's spanky new AI. Spoiler alert, it's not great. I'm Tod Maffin,

[00:00:24] that's ahead today in Digital Marketing. Well, here we are again. Google has once again delayed

[00:00:31] the deprecation of third party cookies. For those keeping track, Google announced all the way back

[00:00:36] in 2020, the third party cookies would be going away by 2022. And they delayed that until 2023.

[00:00:44] And then 2024 and now 2025 what is going on? For more, we turn to our Google ads correspondent

[00:00:52] Jill Saskin-Gales. Jill spent six years at Google ads and now runs the inside Google ads training

[00:00:58] program for practitioners. Jill, we were talking kind of before we started recording on just how

[00:01:03] ridiculous this has become. Can we let's quickly back up and talk about for those who are not

[00:01:09] fully up to speed on it. What are third party cookies? All right. So cookies are not delicious.

[00:01:15] They are little text files that websites leave on your computer with your browser

[00:01:20] so that they can remember information about you. So for example, if you go to a website and it already

[00:01:25] has your username and password filled in, that's from a cookie. Or if you go to a website and it

[00:01:31] has items in your shopping cart from the last time you visited, that's done via cookies. And so a

[00:01:36] third party cookie just means it's a cookie that was placed by a website you're not currently

[00:01:42] on. So for example, if you're on the New York Times website, the New York Times probably

[00:01:48] has Google ads remarketing tag installed on their website. So that would be third party

[00:01:54] Google dropping information with you while you're on the New York Times website. For example,

[00:01:59] or sorry, a first party cookie as opposed to a third party would be if the New York Times itself

[00:02:04] is placing a cookie with you while you're on their website. So to keep you logged in or

[00:02:09] show you articles you've read recently. So all of this cookie talk, we're talking about

[00:02:13] third party cookies. That's a Google has said they're deprecating, they claim they're still

[00:02:19] doing it but it is much delayed. And why are they doing it just kind of read us back to the history?

[00:02:24] I mean, it seems like if Google is essentially an ad business, that would be a pretty important

[00:02:30] technological device for an ad platform. Why would they be pulling it? Privacy? Pretty much.

[00:02:37] Privacy is considered more important. And so all the way back in 2020, you know,

[00:02:42] Google announced something called the Privacy Sandbox and we're going to find a way to make this

[00:02:46] work for everyone. We're not going to use cookies because they're not very privacy safe. We'll find

[00:02:50] a new system that works for advertisers to let you reach the users you want to reach,

[00:02:54] that works for publishers so you can continue to monetize your audience.

[00:02:59] And that protects user privacy. And this is a really ambitious thing to try to achieve.

[00:03:04] And at the time Google laid out all of these different frameworks that was going to test

[00:03:08] you may have heard of Flock or Topics API. And these tests have either failed or just not

[00:03:13] live up to expectations. They've not been able to consistently deliver good results for advertisers.

[00:03:19] And so it's one of the reasons you're seeing this delay yet again is because as

[00:03:24] rudimentary as cookies are, you just have not been able to find a better solution that kind

[00:03:30] of hits all these goals of privacy and good results for advertisers and good results

[00:03:35] for publishers, etc. It does seem to sort of be a seesaw where you move one in one direction and

[00:03:40] then the other is affected. You know like I forget whether it was tops or Flock or Topics now.

[00:03:45] I think it was Topics were basically their solution for a replacement for third party

[00:03:49] cookies was basically grouping people into a couple of topic buckets. And then when you

[00:03:53] would arrive at a website like let's say today in digital.com it would announce proudly,

[00:03:59] hey this person who just arrived is really interested in pantyhose and fish and anime,

[00:04:06] which seemed like even worse privacy violation. It's just trying to bounce a lot of competing

[00:04:14] interest. And of course governments are involved as well with this recent announcement. Google

[00:04:19] announced how they're working really closely with a privacy regulator in the UK. And of

[00:04:22] course the privacy regulators have very different objectives than the other ad networks who

[00:04:27] are relying on this framework as well who have very different objectives than publishers. So

[00:04:31] I mean I don't envy the position Google's in. Google's probably one of the few companies in

[00:04:36] a position that could come up with a new framework but yeah nothing's quite been working

[00:04:40] out right now so once again we have a delay. Does this mean the end of remarketing retargeting?

[00:04:48] It means a fundamental change in remarketing and to be fair even though third party cookies

[00:04:53] are still around, if you're running display remarketing whether it's Google,

[00:04:57] meta, whatever platform you're probably not seeing as good results now as you used to

[00:05:02] because like Apple for example has come up with their own privacy controls for people who use iPhones.

[00:05:08] So remarketing has already gotten less effective than it used to be.

[00:05:13] Unless you're using one of the two more what I call durable kinds of remarketing and that

[00:05:17] is remarketing either based on your own first party data like a customer list that you

[00:05:22] upload to your ad platform that does not rely on third party cookies or

[00:05:26] advertising using a platform's first party data so on Google ads that would be remarketing based

[00:05:32] on how people interact with their YouTube content, on meta that would be remarketing based

[00:05:36] on how people interact with your Instagram or Facebook content and again that doesn't

[00:05:40] rely on third party cookies because those are signed in users that the ad platforms recognize.

[00:05:45] So those two kinds of remarketing are still there and still powerful and you should

[00:05:50] absolutely be using if you're not using them already but kind of the cookie

[00:05:54] reliant remarketing has already gotten less effective and will continue to do so and eventually

[00:05:58] go away when these cookies well eventually get deprecated. And this is of course why we're seeing

[00:06:05] a lot of the retail sites, the big chains, CVS and Walmart and even some smaller companies

[00:06:10] like Lyft and Uber developing their own ad platform because they have that first party

[00:06:16] data that you can essentially lease really. Exactly, you're paying for access to the data

[00:06:23] they have on people. You've seen I think Chase Bank recently announced that they're coming out with

[00:06:26] their own advertising network, a lot of these retail media networks. It's very powerful so on

[00:06:31] one hand it's creating these opportunities for all these other players to come in and

[00:06:36] offer these ad solutions but in the end I think this does really hurt the thousands,

[00:06:41] millions of small businesses out there who rely on being able to come to meta or come to

[00:06:46] Google and just here's who I want to reach and let me reach them. That's getting harder and harder

[00:06:50] and harder and harder to protect user privacy, totally worthwhile goal not trying to knock that

[00:06:55] but it's really competing interests between the ad platforms and the users and businesses

[00:07:01] and sites trying to monetize. It's a lot of cooks in that kitchen, a lot of bakers I guess in

[00:07:06] that cookie kitchen. The Chase Bank one is fascinating to me because you think about

[00:07:09] the amount of purchase data they have through the credit card companies. I mean that is

[00:07:14] that is a real gold mine. Jill, one year from now will we be sitting here across from each other

[00:07:19] and I'll be asking you why they delayed it one more year? I'm gonna put a stick in the ground

[00:07:24] and say yeah I think it's gonna get delayed again. I just don't see it. Keep pushing it on

[00:07:32] down the road. I mean it was first announced 2020 then COVID happened so yeah let's I'll go

[00:07:37] for it. I'll say one more delay is gonna happen next year. All right well we'll be back

[00:07:41] we'll check on that thanks Jill. Thanks. Jill's asking Gail's is our Google ads correspondent

[00:07:46] she's here every other Wednesday you can learn more about her Google ads training program at

[00:07:51] our affiliate link which is b.link slash ga training and you can watch our full unedited

[00:07:57] interview there is a link to it in today's newsletter which you can sign up to for

[00:08:00] free by tapping the link in the show notes or going to today in digital.com slash newsletter.

[00:08:06] All right to other stories now and it was a big day for the payments processor Stripe today

[00:08:14] announcing it would no longer require its customers to use its payment services in order

[00:08:20] to access other tools like fraud detection and invoicing quoting tech crunch quote it

[00:08:26] signifies a shift in how Stripe views its wider platform in the past it took the

[00:08:31] approach that the launch of other services could help lure users to taking its payment services

[00:08:37] now it appears to be willing to explore how it can sell those non-payment services on their own

[00:08:43] in an interview will gay brick stripes chief product officer admitted that users

[00:08:47] had been asking for the company to open its walled garden for some time but he claimed that

[00:08:53] one of the main reasons why it delayed doing so until now was due to it being technically

[00:08:58] hard to create integrations for legacy services unquote Stripe also announced a couple of other

[00:09:04] things today AI tools of course to try to personalize the payment flow and make more intelligent A.B.

[00:09:11] tests they're doubling the number of payment methods to 100 there's a new fraud detection

[00:09:16] tool that uses natural language commands and some more options for its subscription and billing

[00:09:22] products some surprising numbers from threads that's met his attempt to move into the void left by X

[00:09:31] formerly Twitter numbers that show that met his plan might be working quoting business insider

[00:09:36] quote so far in April threads has averaged an estimated 28 million daily active users people

[00:09:43] who've opened the app at least once in a 24-hour period X has averaged 22 million daily

[00:09:50] active users a usage rate that's 21% lower than threads unquote and why you might be tempted

[00:09:57] to think that it's just an anomaly or the tail of swift effect it turns out threads has had

[00:10:02] more daily actives in the US than X since December when threads became Apple's most

[00:10:09] downloaded app today threads is in third place among the free apps X is in 78th place

[00:10:17] this might be why meta seems to be accelerating plans to open the app up for ad placements

[00:10:22] of course those are daily actives not monthly actives in the battle for the less active users

[00:10:28] quoting social media today quote X's monthly active users in the US handily beat threads

[00:10:35] according to aptopia estimates threads us monthlies have been around 100 million for

[00:10:40] the last three months although zuckerberg in February said total monthlys were close

[00:10:44] to 130 million either way X's monthlys are just over 140 million in the US alone although

[00:10:52] users have fluctuated over the last year between 135 million and the current 140 million unquote

[00:10:59] all that said we will likely have more numbers to chew on soon meta reports its Q1 results

[00:11:04] after the market closes tonight rest assured we will have full coverage of that tomorrow

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[00:12:10] see your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details Reddit has added dynamic product

[00:12:16] ads to its ads platform here's how they describe the new format quote ads auto-populate in real

[00:12:22] time with the latest images pricing and product images from an advertisers catalog two new

[00:12:27] targeting options retargeting which serves ads to people based on the products they've

[00:12:32] previously engaged with on the advertiser site and prospecting which serves the most relevant

[00:12:39] products based on what people engage with on Reddit or advertiser sites plus feed and conversion

[00:12:46] placement as well as single image or carousel format ads to reach Reddit users in the

[00:12:50] discovery consideration or decision-making mindset unquote in its announcement it quoted

[00:12:56] Jim Squires one of their executive vice presidents is saying quote Reddit shoppers are worth more

[00:13:00] because they spend more time on the platform in the research and consideration phases of their

[00:13:05] purchase journeys which ultimately drives a more confident and higher value purchase decisions

[00:13:10] with dynamic product ads brands can tap into the rich high-intent product conversations that

[00:13:15] people come to Reddit for unquote dynamic product ads have been in private testing for a few months

[00:13:21] where it claims a new format drove 1.9 times greater ROAS compared to the old school

[00:13:25] conversion campaigns they are now available globally in English German Spanish French

[00:13:30] Italian and Portuguese Reddit also today announced some updates to its mobile app

[00:13:35] which should let comments load faster among other changes

[00:13:39] Reddit's own mobile app is considered to be mediocre at best the company used to welcome

[00:13:44] a host of excellent third-party apps like Apollo but many of those had to close

[00:13:48] after Reddit introduced new and eye-wateringly high API pricing

[00:13:58] meta is the latest entrant in a growing list of companies jamming AI into their apps whether

[00:14:03] users wanted or not if you think i'm exaggerating go look at the comments under Instagram's head

[00:14:09] who was proud to announce that they'd replaced search with an AI prompt field I scrolled

[00:14:15] through about 100 replies not one was positive most of the more long lines of nobody is asking

[00:14:21] for this and how do I turn this off spoiler alert you can't it's been a few days now

[00:14:29] people have put meta's AI to the test so how is it eh not great quoting brian chen from the

[00:14:35] New York Times quote the new bot invites you to ask meta AI anything but my advice after

[00:14:42] testing it for six days is to approach it with caution it makes a lot of mistakes when you

[00:14:47] treat it as a search engine meta announces chatbot as a replacement for web search I'll be blunt

[00:14:53] don't do this meta AI fails spectacularly at basic search queries like looking up recipes

[00:15:01] airfares and weekend activities in my response to a request to look up flights from New York

[00:15:06] to Colorado the chatbot listed instructions on how to take public transportation from the Denver

[00:15:12] airport to downtown unquote when the reporter asked meta's AI about himself it reported back

[00:15:18] that he worked at the verge which not only he doesn't he never has it's also hilariously bad

[00:15:23] at basic math asking it for a fourth syllable word will offer a three syllable word instead

[00:15:29] to be fair gemini and chat gbt also struggle with this kind of query but it's not all

[00:15:34] terrible apparently meta's AI is pretty good at editing existing text again brian chen quote

[00:15:40] for example when I fed meta AI paragraphs that felt verbose and asked for the paragraph to be

[00:15:46] tightened the chatbot trimmed all the unnecessary words when I asked it to improve a sentence

[00:15:52] written in the passive voice the bot rewrote it in the active voice and added more context

[00:15:57] when I asked it to remove jargon from a paragraph written by a text blog

[00:16:01] it rewrote highly technical terms in plain language unquote it's also pretty good at image

[00:16:07] generation and faster too though it has trouble with limbs and fingers and eyes like the other models

[00:16:14] so probably put meta's AI in the same boat as the others as US president ronald reagan once said

[00:16:21] trust but verify

[00:16:24] and finally among the many tropes of tv crime dramas perhaps the most well known

[00:16:33] well certainly the most mocked is this they have a photo of the suspect he's wearing glasses

[00:16:38] we can see something in his glasses if only there are a way to I don't know press a magical

[00:16:44] enhance button let's enhance it enhance section a six enhance the detail and

[00:16:59] turns out we might not be too far from that future adobe researchers say they've developed a new

[00:17:03] AI model capable of upscaling videos up to eight times their original resolution

[00:17:11] they released it as a research preview about a week ago and some industry experts say the model

[00:17:15] can indeed upscale to high definition videos without the common distortions seen in other methods

[00:17:21] this kind of tech is part of a group called generative adversarial networks and they're

[00:17:26] commonly used for enhancing still images but they often falter with videos typically causing

[00:17:32] flickering and other inconsistencies adobe's tech which it calls video giga can

[00:17:38] can maintain natural textures and details so fine you might not realize it's been enhanced

[00:17:44] in particular it can add skin textures and fine hairs that remain stable even during motion

[00:17:50] creating a lifelike appearance without the artificial jitters often associated with

[00:17:54] other upscaling technologies as I said this is just a research preview for now adobe hasn't

[00:18:00] commented on any plans for consumer release don't forget the premium version of this podcast

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[00:18:23] listening see you tomorrow

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[00:18:57] ends june 30th 2024 now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting

[00:19:04] new toyota hybrid with the largest lineup of hybrid plug-in hybrid and electrified vehicles

[00:19:09] to choose from toyota has the one for you every new toyota hybrid comes with toyota care two

[00:19:14] year complimentary scheduled maintenance an exclusive hybrid battery warranty and toyota's

[00:19:20] legendary quality and reliability visit your local toyota dealer today toyota let's go places

[00:19:26] see your local toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details