Meet the New “Mega-Thread” Ad Format

[00:00:00] It is Friday, March 15th. Today, Reddit's new ad format mimics a popular organic post. LinkedIn

[00:00:09] will now let you sponsor almost anyone. Microsoft cleans up its ads UI and YouTube finally

[00:00:15] lets us clean those embarrassing moments from our live streams. Antiquit programming note

[00:00:22] this weekend is my wife in my 10th wedding anniversary so as you hear this I'm actually out

[00:00:27] of town with her for a mini vacation. This episode was recorded yesterday afternoon. For

[00:00:35] better or worse, one of Digital Marketing's big trends in the last few years has been

[00:00:39] the slippery slide toward ads looking more like organic posts. Ads on Twitter once had

[00:00:45] a sponsored label pretty clear. Now they're nearly indistinguishable from regular posts,

[00:00:50] save for a two-letter disclosure in the top right. Google search ads too have toyed with

[00:00:55] various formats that make them look like unpaid organic listings. Now Reddit is jumping

[00:01:01] into the mix with a new ad format designed to replicate organic posts that get a lot of traction

[00:01:07] those posts known informally as a mega thread. The new ad format is called a freeform ad and

[00:01:14] advertisers can combine image, video and text or use a pre-designed template. They will

[00:01:19] have some disclosure, some light gray text at the top that reads promoted. Reddit says

[00:01:24] freeform ads outperformed all their other ad types in average click-through rate by 28%,

[00:01:30] but as always take these numbers with the green assault because the platforms rarely report when

[00:01:34] other metrics might not be as strong. Freeform ads are available now to all advertisers on Reddit

[00:01:41] globally, you will find them in the self-service Reddit ads manager.

[00:01:49] LinkedIn is now letting businesses spotlight not just their employees voices,

[00:01:53] but any users content within the app. This marks a big change from the platform's previous

[00:01:59] limitation of promoting only verified employee posts through its thought leader ads. Now,

[00:02:06] companies can extend their promotional efforts to include content from customers,

[00:02:10] industry experts or any influential figure even if they are not on payroll.

[00:02:16] Setting up these thought leadership campaigns is pretty straightforward with LinkedIn's

[00:02:19] campaign manager. You can use new search tools to find and sponsor the exact content you wish

[00:02:25] to amplify, whether by searching for a specific person or a post. It is worth mentioning that

[00:02:31] the original creators of the promoted content won't receive any compensation other than the boost

[00:02:36] invisibility that they'll get within LinkedIn and those creators can approve or deny promotion

[00:02:42] requests just in case they're from a brand that they don't want to be associated with.

[00:02:46] Thought leadership ads are only available for brand awareness and engagement campaigns for now

[00:02:53] and will only work with single image or video posts.

[00:03:00] Microsoft is rolling out a new design for its ads manager, it's more colorful,

[00:03:05] a little more modern looking, maybe more efficient though that's often the subjective thing.

[00:03:10] Microsoft last updated it to i back in 2020. There is also a change to the sidebar navigation

[00:03:18] and it incorporates Microsoft's AI chatbot which can help you do some basic things in the ads manager.

[00:03:28] For live streamers, whether on Twitch or YouTube, making a big mistake on stream

[00:03:33] or having something amazing happen or finally winning the boss fight,

[00:03:37] these moments can be captured by a video format known as a clip.

[00:03:41] In live stream parlance, a clip is usually about 60 seconds that is taken from the live stream

[00:03:47] usually at the command of viewers. One embarrassing example for you, I was live streaming playing

[00:03:54] Rainbow Six Siege with my squad. Our job was to protect the hostage. I accidentally killed the hostage.

[00:04:01] Tachuu.

[00:04:08] That mistake was gleefully clipped by one of my viewers and it now lives in infamy on my twitch site.

[00:04:14] YouTube has had that as well for a while and now has a way for you, the creator,

[00:04:19] to easily find all the clips that viewers have created from your uploads.

[00:04:24] You can also find those that you created. From that screen, you can delete those embarrassing moments.

[00:04:29] Note to self. This is being rolled out starting this week on desktop and mobile is coming soon.

[00:04:35] YouTube has also introduced some new notifications for channel managers

[00:04:40] to notify you when products are not displayed in your uploads due to some kind of technical issue.

[00:04:45] Quoting YouTube, quote, creators will see a banner in the video details if there are products that

[00:04:50] are tagged but can't be served because of tag quality issues, products under review,

[00:04:57] products that have not been approved or products that have been deleted. Unquote.

[00:05:02] That's two is being rolled out this week in YouTube studio.

[00:05:10] At Parker, our purpose is simple. We want to make the world a better place by working more

[00:05:16] efficiently by using more sustainable practices. By developing better technologies, we keep moving

[00:05:23] forward with each new idea, innovation and partnership. We're one step closer to fulfilling

[00:05:30] our purpose every single day. To find out more, visit parker.com slash purpose. Parker, engineering

[00:05:39] your success. Putting our podcast and newsletter together can get complicated. We had show notes in

[00:05:45] one place, interview coordination in another brainstorming somewhere else. It's easy to lose track

[00:05:51] of the big picture when you have to open a new window for every detail. With Miro, you can bring

[00:05:57] everything and everyone together in one place, consolidate different points of view and increase

[00:06:03] team collaboration all on one centralized board. For instance, we used Miro to figure out the

[00:06:10] right flow for our newsletter automations. It'll let us get our team all contributing,

[00:06:14] including our ad agency people and save us a ton of time. And its new AI tool which summarizes

[00:06:21] and clusters information automatically was a game changer. Find simplicity in your most complex

[00:06:28] projects with Miro. Your first three Miro boards are free when you sign up today at miro.com slash

[00:06:35] podcast. That's three free boards at miro.com slash podcast. Stripe the digital payment giant is

[00:06:44] making waves with its annual letter revealing a business not just thriving but outpacing the payment

[00:06:51] space. They logged a staggering $1 trillion in total payment volume last year. That is a 25% increase

[00:06:59] from the previous year. Needless to say, they're projecting another cash flow positive year

[00:07:04] in 2024 and hinting at a future public offering without the immediate need for additional capital.

[00:07:11] Interesting to note from their update, they say they observed a record number of startups

[00:07:15] being founded in 2023, particularly in the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Sweden,

[00:07:21] this despite something of a pullback from VC companies. Stripe is currently valued at $65 billion.

[00:07:31] So I sure hope nothing happened in the last 24 hours. Significant. The Elon didn't buy

[00:07:38] meta or something like that because this episode was recorded yesterday afternoon. Yes, it is

[00:07:43] the 10th wedding anniversary of me and my wife. We are in Vancouver for a surprise. Well,

[00:07:48] surprise for her. I have been working on this for a year and a half. I'm not going to tell you

[00:07:53] what it is until Monday because I'm terrified of it leaking out. I don't think she listens to

[00:07:58] the podcast. I know she occasionally reads the newsletter, which is essentially the script of

[00:08:02] the podcast. So I'm not going to say what anything. I'm not going to say a word other than to say

[00:08:08] I've been telling her that it's you know, to be under expect to be underwhelmed. I've been

[00:08:13] downplaying it but it's actually going to be quite huge. I'm so excited. I hope I can pull it off.

[00:08:19] I'll let you know what it was and what happened on Monday. But as for now that we'll do it for the

[00:08:24] week, today in digital marketing is produced by engage Q digital on the traditional territories

[00:08:28] of the new name first nation on Vancouver Island. Our production coordinator is Sarah Guild. Our

[00:08:33] theme is by Mark Blevis ad coordination by Red Circle and Beehive. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a

[00:08:40] restful weekend friends. I will see you next week with all the details. Bye for now.

[00:08:54] At Parker, our purpose is simple. We want to make the world a better place by working more efficiently

[00:09:01] by using more sustainable practices by developing better technologies. We keep moving forward

[00:09:08] with each new idea innovation and partnership. We're one step closer to fulfilling our purpose

[00:09:15] every single day. To find out more visit parker.com slash purpose parker engineering your success.