Frugal Festivities

[00:00:01] It is Monday, September 9th. Today, Frugal Festivities.

[00:00:05] Consumers say they'll spend less and earlier this holiday season.

[00:00:10] Google Sunset's another ad feature. A timeline for a possible Google breakup emerges.

[00:00:16] And handy emails for when your links break. I'm Tod Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:25] More than a third of consumers plan to spend less on holiday shopping this year.

[00:00:30] This according to a new study from Bankrate. High interest rates and inflation are the main

[00:00:35] reasons for the cutback. Only 24% of shoppers say they'll spend more. 43% will spend about the same

[00:00:42] as last year. Older generations are the most worried with 34% of Gen X and 29% of millennials

[00:00:49] feeling the pressure. Gen Z is less concerned with only 21% saying holiday shopping will stress

[00:00:55] budgets. Despite the stress, many shoppers are planning to start shopping early. Almost half

[00:01:02] of those surveyed say they'll start shopping by Halloween. Retailers like Amazon, Walmart and

[00:01:07] Target are already rolling out October sales events. Quoting Retail Dive.

[00:01:12] Quote, Ecommerce will be a key channel this season with 42% of respondents saying most of

[00:01:17] their holiday purchases would be done online. Compared to 23% of shoppers who intend to

[00:01:23] do most of their holiday shopping in stores. Recent surveys also suggest that more shoppers,

[00:01:29] most notably Gen Z, will make their holiday purchases using social media platforms like

[00:01:35] Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. And a report from Adobe Analytics predicts that more than half

[00:01:41] of online sales this holiday season will occur on mobile devices.

[00:01:46] Unquote. We have the full study in today's email newsletter plus five detailed tips on marketing

[00:01:52] during a holiday downturn. That's in today's email newsletter which is free to sign up to.

[00:01:57] Just tap the link at the top of the show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash newsletter.

[00:02:05] Google ads is getting rid of enhanced cost per click bidding.

[00:02:09] The company's emailing advertisers to let them know that new campaigns will not have

[00:02:13] the option to use enhanced CPC starting in October. Existing campaigns will work until

[00:02:19] next March. Then all campaigns using enhanced CPC will switch to manual CPC bidding.

[00:02:27] Google says it's making this change because it has better bidding strategies now.

[00:02:31] Smarter they say thanks to machine learning. Google suggests advertisers switch to maximize

[00:02:37] conversions or maximize conversion value. And if your campaign doesn't have any

[00:02:41] conversion goals, say for instance brand awareness, you can use maximize clicks instead.

[00:02:46] If advertisers don't make any changes, their campaigns will automatically switch to manual CPC

[00:02:53] bidding next March. The American Justice Department is taking Google to court this week over its

[00:03:03] ad tech business. If Google loses it could be forced to sell its publisher ad tech business.

[00:03:09] This would be a huge change for the programmatic industry. I know it's a little hard to keep

[00:03:14] up with the Google versus America lawsuits. This is not the same one which found the

[00:03:18] company to be a monopoly. An update on that ruling in a moment. Quoting ad week quote,

[00:03:23] if Google is forced to sell its publisher ad tech business it could eventually increase

[00:03:28] competition in the market. However given the tangled nature of ad tech disrupting the

[00:03:34] balance between Google's sell side technology and publishers business models could lead

[00:03:40] to some wild uncertainties complications and chaos in the short term according to publishers

[00:03:46] particularly around changing the level of demand and incurring publisher costs.

[00:03:51] Quote even in short term pain there's still winners and losers said Scott Messner founder of

[00:03:56] consultancy Messner media quote the winners are going to be those who have premium offerings

[00:04:01] and can command the attention of buyers and the losers are going to be the long tail of the

[00:04:06] web with relatively undifferentiated supply and lower quality inventory unquote.

[00:04:13] Google's ad server technology is currently bundled with its ad exchange this makes it

[00:04:17] cheap for publishers to use if Google is forced to sell its ad tech business a new owner might

[00:04:22] not be able to offer such low prices other ad servers could emerge to help publishers manage

[00:04:28] their ad businesses but they might be more expensive. So the previous court case which

[00:04:37] ruled Google was a monopoly an update there a US federal judge now says he expects to decide

[00:04:42] on a punishment by next August this is the next step in an antitrust case that could change the

[00:04:48] tech giant and competition on the internet. The judge asked the justice department and states to

[00:04:54] submit a proposal by the end of this year after that he'll hold a new trial to hear evidence

[00:04:59] on how to proceed this trial expecting to take place in March or April the judge says he

[00:05:05] will take into account the changing technology landscape including new competition from artificially

[00:05:10] intelligent chat bots. Google and Microsoft have added AI to their search and open AI's chat bot is

[00:05:16] being used for search proposed remedies could include restrictions on deals that feature Google's

[00:05:21] search engine on mobile devices or even a breakup of the company the department of justice

[00:05:25] is weighing asking for a breakup of Google separating search from businesses like its

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[00:06:34] do it right with popular pays Google is now emailing businesses when it detects a broken

[00:06:41] appointment link in their Google business profile the email is called fix your business Google link

[00:06:46] and it alerts owners to update the link to maintain customer confidence this email if you

[00:06:52] get it will explain that a broken appointment link can hurt your business's online presence

[00:06:56] and your ability to attract customers it provides the specific link that's not working

[00:07:01] and includes a little update link button to make it easier to fix for now Google is only

[00:07:06] sending these emails for broken appointment links it's not clear if the company plans to expand

[00:07:11] this feature to other links in Google business profiles like website links I am aware the

[00:07:18] shows are short of the last few episodes that is mostly because I can't mention maybe was it

[00:07:24] Thursday I mentioned this I'm switching meds and oh my god it's just it's not been fun

[00:07:30] the method I take is for insomnia and I'm switching switching them out and I can get to sleep

[00:07:37] which is great and then I wake up at about 2 30 every morning and man I to be fair if it weren't

[00:07:44] unhealthy to only get four hours of sleep at night and if I had a hobby this would not be an issue

[00:07:51] I don't mind getting up early if I had something to do I don't even have any games I'm really

[00:07:55] playing all that much anymore I kind of gave up on the ESO grind so anyway wish me luck that's for

[00:08:01] sure I have I've almost a couple of times recorded the show using an AI voice but I'm just I'm really

[00:08:08] just not happy with the way AI voices sound so yeah that's why that's why I might sound a

[00:08:14] little tired for the next few episodes alright thanks for listening see you tomorrow