He Likes It! Hey Mikey!

[00:00:00] It is Thursday September 12th.

[00:00:03] Today, if you're not first, you're last in YouTube once you to pay for that privilege.

[00:00:08] Has BlueSky finally added the one feature that tells them back,

[00:00:12] How Gen Z prefers to buy your products and it's SEO like you have never heard before.

[00:00:22] I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:27] In the world of YouTube ads, first impressions matter.

[00:00:31] Google announced today that first position is now available across all YouTube content.

[00:00:36] This ensures that your ad is the first in-stream ad that viewers see.

[00:00:42] The previously first position was limited to YouTube's select inventory.

[00:00:46] That was bookable through Google Ads and Display and Video 360,

[00:00:50] but it was priced at a fixed rate CPM.

[00:00:53] Now the feature is expanding to all YouTube content with dynamic pricing

[00:00:58] through Display and Video 360.

[00:01:01] This is now live for any market with first position.

[00:01:08] As first position locks your ads prime placement,

[00:01:11] YouTube is pushing users for more interactive engagement with its new ad yours sticker for shorts.

[00:01:18] This feature invites viewers to participate by creating their own versions of shorts clips.

[00:01:23] And if it feels a little bit like deja vu,

[00:01:26] it's because it's basically the same feature on Instagram,

[00:01:30] which was also the same feature from TikTok, which called it Doet.

[00:01:34] YouTube has been testing this with select users for the past couple of months,

[00:01:38] and now the ad yours sticker for shorts is being expanded to all users.

[00:01:43] Definitely a good application for marketers since it does ask users to create their own content

[00:01:48] and provide that sweet, sweet engagement.

[00:01:55] Well, despite economic concerns, ad spend in the final months of 2024 looks promising.

[00:02:01] According to the interactive advertising bureau,

[00:02:03] the number of advertisers worried about a slowing US economy has dropped by 11%

[00:02:09] from November of last year to August of this year.

[00:02:13] It also forecasts a 12% increase in American ad spending up from the 9 and 1 half percent growth

[00:02:19] that it predicted last November.

[00:02:21] The marketer says there are four driving factors boosting the ad industry for the rest of the year.

[00:02:27] First, the rise of retail media, these networks like Walmart and so on,

[00:02:32] are leading in ad share with the IAB increasing its growth forecast from 22% to 25%

[00:02:39] fueled by increased spend in consumer package goods and beauty sectors.

[00:02:43] It's not difficult to see why these networks are so highly attractive to brands.

[00:02:47] They have rich first party data and expanding partnerships.

[00:02:52] Second, consumers are prioritizing value particularly for consumer package goods

[00:02:57] and as a result, brands are boosting their ad spend to target cost-conscious buyers.

[00:03:03] Third, political advertising, expected to be more than $12 billion this year

[00:03:08] at about 3% of total media ad spend.

[00:03:12] Much of this, of course, concentrated around the Q4 presidential election in the US.

[00:03:16] This combined with events like the Olympics is boosting linear TV as well, according to the IAB.

[00:03:22] And fourth, connected TV that streaming TV services is also benefiting from an increased ad spend

[00:03:28] with platforms expanding their inventory to capture a share of the almost 29 billion-dollar forecast

[00:03:35] for a CTV ad spend this year.

[00:03:42] This may be your sign to get your brand on the Twitter competitor, Blue Sky.

[00:03:46] The platform now says it supports video.

[00:03:49] The platform announcing yesterday that users can share video clips on desktop and mobile,

[00:03:53] but there is a 60 second cap.

[00:03:56] Videos will auto play by default, but there is an option to turn this off in the settings menu.

[00:04:01] You can also add subtitles and apply labels to manage content like adult material.

[00:04:06] There are some other limitations.

[00:04:08] You are capped at 25 video uploads or 10 gigabytes per day.

[00:04:12] The platform will require email verification.

[00:04:16] It says this will help combat harmful content and spam, and if you keep breaching their community guidelines,

[00:04:23] your video posting privileges might be pulled.

[00:04:26] Videos will also be screened by Hives, AI, and Thorne, a nonprofit that fights child sexual abuse

[00:04:33] to check for illegal content or media that needs a warning.

[00:04:36] This is rolling out gradually so it may not be available immediately to check to see if your account has it.

[00:04:40] Just refresh the desktop site or update your mobile app.

[00:04:48] Gen Z has ushered in a new era of shopping.

[00:04:51] According to a new report from E-Marketer today, here are three standout ways their purchasing journey

[00:04:56] is changing the game from marketers.

[00:04:59] First, the TikTok generation isn't just clicking by on a whim with less cash to splash

[00:05:05] they're scrutinizing every purchase and they're using all sorts of digital tools.

[00:05:10] Think Reddit reviews and mobile apps to vet products before they buy.

[00:05:15] They're also a generation more likely to check out a brand on social media.

[00:05:20] 20% of them do this versus 7% of older shoppers, and 45% will consult family and friends before finalizing a purchase.

[00:05:29] Second, this year 70% of all American Gen Zs will use TikTok monthly.

[00:05:34] They will spend almost an hour per day on TikTok more than any other age group.

[00:05:38] Two thirds say they discover new brands and products on TikTok Instagram is close behind but is in second place.

[00:05:46] And the third, despite their digital prowess, Gen Z hasn't abandoned physical stores.

[00:05:52] According to E-Marketer survey, half of Gen Z recently purchased a product they discovered in store.

[00:05:58] For this generation, physical stores were the leading source of brand awareness across nine product categories including clothing, shoes and accessories.

[00:06:08] In store shopping remains the most common method in fact for Gen Z to make purchases, outpacing websites, mobile apps and social media.

[00:06:18] We have E-Marketer's full report into these email newsletter which you can sign up to for free by tapping the link in the show notes or going to today in digital.com slash newsletter.

[00:06:31] And you thought your throwback Thursday posts were just a trip down memory lane.

[00:06:36] It turns out, meta had different plans.

[00:06:39] Meta acknowledged this week that since 2007 all publicly posted text and photos by adult Facebook and Instagram users have been used to train its AI models.

[00:06:50] Australia's ABC news recently reported that Meta's global privacy director initially denied using user data for AI training during a government inquiry but later admitted it after further questioning.

[00:07:03] David Schubert, a green party senator, pressed Meta's privacy director during the inquiry.

[00:07:07] He said, quote, the truth of the matter is that unless you have consciously set those posts to private since 2007 meta has just decided that you will scrape all of the photos and all of the text from every public.

[00:07:20] Post on Instagram or Facebook since 2007 unless there was a conscious decision to set them on private.

[00:07:26] That's the reality, isn't it? unquote.

[00:07:29] Meta's ironically titled privacy director responded with correct.

[00:07:34] Now, European users can opt out due to local privacy regulations and meta faces a ban on using Brazilian data for AI training but users and other regions can't opt out if they want to keep their posts public.

[00:07:45] Meta's privacy director could not confirm if opt out options will be available in the future.

[00:07:56] Alright, first I'm going to play the entire ad it's only 30 seconds long and people of a certain generation will know this ad.

[00:08:17] What's the stuff?

[00:08:18] Hey, my team.

[00:08:20] When you bring life home, they don't know that kids it's one of those of the personal cereals you've been trying to get them to hear the only one who has to know.

[00:08:27] That is the famous life cereal ad from the 70s and the company announced this week, they are resurrecting it with their first campaign in years.

[00:08:36] Mikey first debuted in 1972. The original ad was actually called three brothers but most people just call it hey Mikey.

[00:08:42] It became such a phenomenon it ran for more than a decade and now life cereal is tapping into new stall jaw which is the blending of nostalgia with a new modern twist.

[00:08:54] And according to the VP of meal occasions at PepsiCo that's life's parent company instead of a simple 70s ad reboot, it will combine familiar elements with a contemporary context as for the famous dialogue.

[00:09:07] It's still the same. The new spot starts airing today across multiple platforms like Disney Plus Amazon YouTube and TikTok.

[00:09:17] This episode is brought to you by popular pays by light tricks. Discover the power of popular pays where top tier influencers and creators meet unparalleled white glove service.

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[00:10:17] Okay, get that finger off the skip button. You do it. I do it to whenever I hear the closing music of a podcast I always hit skip but there's more to come in this podcast let me explain a couple months ago Google announced a rolled out in one of their big shows.

[00:10:31] This thing that was really meant for the education market it would automatically create essentially a podcast a conversation a casual conversation between two people when you fed it notes and I guess the idea is that for for school age people or university students.

[00:10:45] They would put in the notes they've taken and this would be another way of learning.

[00:10:49] Today they released it is called Google notebook LM. I'm sure they'll rename it to something involving Gemini and I'm going to play you what it generated now just so you understand.

[00:10:59] The only data that I gave it was the Wikipedia page for SEO.

[00:11:04] Okay, that's the source that I gave it just literally just the URL for Wikipedia's SEO entry.

[00:11:11] Everything you're about to hear is completely unedited this is what it generated out of that it's it absolutely blew my mind. I think it's going to blow yours as well.

[00:11:21] It runs about 10 minutes or so and then the show will end for real and I will see you tomorrow if I still have a job.

[00:11:26] Where did this all even begin?

[00:11:28] Well, our listeners pointed us to the mid 90s the wild wild west of the internet websites were way simpler back then and search engines all divista infociate those are the big players then.

[00:11:39] Imagine submitting your websites URL and then just stuffing it and I mean cramming it full of keywords hoping something anything would stick seriously that was the strategy keyword stuffing.

[00:11:51] Key word stuffing that sounds messy like a recipe for disaster.

[00:11:56] Yeah, kind of like adding every single spice in your cabinet to a dish and hoping for the best that's a perfect analogy and you know what it kind of worked back then.

[00:12:04] But of course search engines they caught on pretty quick. They had to evolve right imagine searching for say best hiking boots and all you get our pages just repeating those three words over and over again, not exactly helpful.

[00:12:16] No, not at all so that's when this whole battle between SEOs and search engines really kicked off.

[00:12:22] Absolutely it was like a digital dual from the get go.

[00:12:25] Autofista infocic they all started tweaking their algorithms trying to weed out the websites clearly trying to game the system, but then 1998 everything changed.

[00:12:35] Google arrived with their revolutionary page rank algorithm.

[00:12:39] Uh, Google.

[00:12:40] The king or queen of search right, but page rank that's one of the things everyone's heard of but maybe doesn't fully get what's the deal with it.

[00:12:47] It's actually pretty simple imagine a massive online popularity contest.

[00:12:51] Okay. Websites earn votes through links from other sites the more high quality votes a website gets the higher it's page rank and boom the more likely it is to show up at the top of those search results.

[00:13:01] So let's say I had this website right it's all about collecting vintage cameras and a big time photography blog links to me as a like a trusted resource my page rank would shoot up.

[00:13:11] You got it it's all about those endorsements.

[00:13:14] Google recognized that a website's value went beyond just the words on its pages.

[00:13:18] It was about its connections across the web.

[00:13:20] It's reputation in a sense and that's how link building was born which I'm guessing some clever SEOs saw as a way to let's say influence the system a little bit.

[00:13:31] Bingo, and that's where link farms come in picture thousands of websites created with the sole purpose of linking to each other creating this illusion of popularity.

[00:13:39] Imagine a fan club where everyone promised to vote for each other just to rig the system sneaky right.

[00:13:46] But of course Google they were on to them they always seem to be one step ahead.

[00:13:50] So what did they do unleash a wave of algorithm updates to combat these tactics?

[00:13:55] Oh absolutely Google's algorithm updates are legendary in 2010 alone over 500 adjustments were made one of the most well known is the panda update.

[00:14:03] Now the panda update that wasn't just about cute animals right what was the target there?

[00:14:08] No cute animals unfortunately.

[00:14:10] Pandy went after duplicate content websites were copying content from each other even from themselves sometimes just to fill their pages with keywords.

[00:14:19] Panda penalized those sites pushing them down in the rankings.

[00:14:22] So it forced websites to become more original right offer something unique precisely quality of equality.

[00:14:28] But the updates didn't stop there.

[00:14:30] Google continued rolling out these major updates.

[00:14:33] Penguin hummingbird each one targeting different tactics always pushing for a better internet experience for everyone.

[00:14:40] Now hummingbird that won't always stuck with me it wasn't just about catching the cheaters was it it was about understanding what we're actually looking for when we search right you got it.

[00:14:49] hummingbird was a game changer it was like Google suddenly learned to read between the lines like it could understand the context of our searches not just match words on a page.

[00:14:59] So like instead of just searching for pizza it's more like best pizza place near me open now once vague the others got a real intent behind it exactly hummingbird was Google saying hey we're not just a dictionary anymore we're trying to understand what you actually want.

[00:15:13] Which brings us to this really interesting aspect of SEO the ethics of it all we're talking white hat versus black hat.

[00:15:21] What do you make of those terms it does sound kind like a spy triller doesn't the good guys the bad guys all fighting it out in the search results yeah.

[00:15:28] So what exactly is ethical SEO or white hat SEO think of white hat SEO as like building a house with a strong foundation.

[00:15:35] It's about creating high quality content that people actually want to read you know building those genuine connections with other websites making sure your website is technically sound user friendly.

[00:15:46] It's playing the long game building trust and authority over time.

[00:15:51] So less about outsmarting Google and more about actually being valuable to users exactly with white hat SEO you and Google you're both working toward the same goal connecting searchers with the best most relevant content.

[00:16:03] Okay, that makes sense. Now what about the villains what kind of shady stuff falls under black hat SEO black hat SEO that's all about shortcuts manipulation imagine building that house but on stilt hoping no one notices that shaky foundation.

[00:16:18] Yeah, not good. We saw examples in what you sent over a keyword stuffing of course, but also hiding text within the website's code or even cloaking which is basically disguising a website's content from search engines.

[00:16:31] Imagine clicking a link promising amazing travel tips and you land on this jumbled mess of keywords related to travel talk about bait and switch.

[00:16:42] Exactly, that's black hat SEO trying to game the system and you know Google has gotten really good at spotting these tricks.

[00:16:49] And there are consequences for getting caught using these tactics.

[00:16:53] Oh, absolutely Google takes it search results very seriously websites using black hat SEO they risk penalties like a huge drop in their rankings or even being completely wiped out from the search results remember that example from the research about BMW Germany and Rico Germany.

[00:17:07] Yeah, those were big names getting penalized for using some questionable SEO tactics.

[00:17:11] It just shows even huge companies aren't above the rules.

[00:17:15] Google's really serious about protecting the integrity of its search results.

[00:17:19] So it's not just about trying to get a quick win. It's about the long-term health and reputation of your website, too.

[00:17:25] Exactly. And that's why ethical SEO is so important.

[00:17:28] It's about building a website that deserves to rank well, not trying to cheat your way to the top.

[00:17:33] Makes sense. So if I'm understanding this right, SEO isn't a one size fits all thing.

[00:17:39] It's about finding that balance.

[00:17:41] Right. Optimizing for search engines while also creating something valuable for us the actual humans using the internet.

[00:17:47] You got it. And here's another layer to consider mobile search. Everyone in their grandma is browsing the internet on their phones these days.

[00:17:54] Oh, sure. Can't ignore that. What's changed with mobile search?

[00:17:57] It's been huge. Your research actually shows that by 2016 mobile search had overtaken desktop search.

[00:18:04] Over 51% of searches were happening on mobile devices. That's a big shift.

[00:18:09] It forced Google to prioritize websites optimized for mobile viewing.

[00:18:13] They even rolled out mobile first indexing.

[00:18:16] What is that? It's actually pretty simple. Imagine Google's ranking system, but it's putting on a new pair of glasses.

[00:18:23] Glasses made for mobile. Okay. So with mobile first indexing, Google is mainly looking at the mobile version of your website.

[00:18:30] That's how they're deciding where to rank it.

[00:18:31] So if your site looks amazing on a desktop all sleek and modern, but then you go to the mobile version and it's clunky.

[00:18:38] Confusing. Well, Google notices. Yeah. That's up trying to squeeze into those genes from high school.

[00:18:42] Yeah. Not good luck. Exactly. Google knows that a bad mobile experience, that sends people running websites that are easy to use on a phone.

[00:18:50] Those are the ones Google is going to favor. Makes sense. Keep those thumbs scrolling right now.

[00:18:55] Thinking beyond just our phones. What happens when you want it like go global? What about the rest of the world beyond Google?

[00:19:02] It's a great question. SEO changes around the world, just like languages and cultures do.

[00:19:07] What works in one country might totally flop in another. Google might be king in say North America and Europe, but in China. It's all about by do.

[00:19:16] So if I'm a business, right? Yeah. And I want to reach people in China. My Google Optimize site isn't going to cut it.

[00:19:22] Not really. No. You'd need a new game plan. You got to understand the local search engines. Translating content, building those relationships with local websites,

[00:19:29] even getting a country specific domain name could make a big difference.

[00:19:33] So it's like traveling to a new country. You got to learn the customs, right? Don't want to show up speaking the wrong language using the wrong phrases.

[00:19:41] Exactly. International SEO is all about understanding your audience and their digital environment.

[00:19:46] Wow. We've covered a lot of ground today. The evolution of SEO, the back and forth between SEOs and search engines, the whole ethics thing, the mobile revolution,

[00:19:54] and even the global picture. It's a lot to take in. So for our listeners who were like, whoa, where do I even start? What's the one thing to remember?

[00:20:02] For me, it always comes back to people. SEO is about understanding your audience, creating content they actually want

[00:20:09] and making sure your website is valuable and easy to use. Forget about tricking the system or chasing those quick wins.

[00:20:15] Just focus on building something genuine, something trustworthy. That's what matters in the end.

[00:20:20] Love that. And speaking of understanding our audience, one listener sent in a question that I think really gets to the heart of it all.

[00:20:28] They were intrigued by the idea of usefulness as a ranking factor for Google. And honestly, I'm right there with them. What does usefulness even mean online?

[00:20:38] It's the million dollar question. It's tricky because usefulness isn't a static thing. It changes as our needs change as the internet itself evolves.

[00:20:46] So it's not about like checking boxes off a list. It's more about always adapting, always adding value.

[00:20:52] Yeah, exactly. And that's what makes it so interesting. It keeps us on our toes, right?

[00:20:56] Always striving to create content that connects that makes a difference.

[00:20:59] I love them. So to all our listeners out there, we leave you with this. How can you make your little corner of the internet a more useful place?

[00:21:07] What can you create stories, tools, resources that will genuinely benefit others? Until next time, happy optimizing.