Meet Your Brand's Deepfake Salesperson

[00:00:00] It is Friday, April 12th. Today, your product sales could be on autopilot after TikTok unveils

[00:00:08] its latest scheme. Roblox branches into the programmatic market. Amazon's not preferring

[00:00:14] its own products over yours anymore. Not as much anyway. And how WordPress's latest

[00:00:19] plugin can predict the future. I'm Tod Maffin. That's ahead, today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:28] I think we all knew this was coming. Eventually, reports say TikTok is working on an app that

[00:00:32] would let brands design their own deep fake AI video avatar that could be turned loose on

[00:00:38] the platform to sell products in videos and live streams. Quoting the information, quote,

[00:00:45] the feature which is still under development would generate a script for a video ad

[00:00:49] based on a prompt submitted by the advertiser as well as an AI generated influencer to

[00:00:55] perform in the video, according to an advertiser who has seen plans for the tool. TikTok shop

[00:01:01] merchants could also use the AI influencer tool to promote their goods, said two other

[00:01:06] people told about the idea by TikTok staff, unquote.

[00:01:10] TikTok's Chinese cousin app, Douyin, has used virtual influencers for a couple of

[00:01:15] years now, some of which have become famous in their own rights, selling hundreds of

[00:01:19] thousands of dollars of merchandise a day. Not bad for someone whose wardrobe and

[00:01:24] look you can change it an instant and don't have to pay. Quoting the MIT Technology Review, quote,

[00:01:30] now all the human workers have to do is input basic information such as the name and

[00:01:35] price of the product being sold, proofread the generated script and watch the digital

[00:01:40] influencer go live. A more advanced version of this technology can spot live comments

[00:01:46] and find matching answers in its database to answer in real time. So it looks as

[00:01:52] if the AI streamer is actively communicating with the audience. It can even adjust its

[00:01:58] marketing strategy based on the number of viewers, unquote. And sure, you can probably

[00:02:04] spot artifacting and other things that give away the fact that they're not real, but

[00:02:07] that's not the point. The people watching and buying from these deep fakes also know

[00:02:13] they're artificial. They don't care. Live streams on Douyin are now the

[00:02:17] app's biggest revenue driver, and TikTok wants a slice of that too. Although its recent

[00:02:22] attempts at live streamed commerce have, at best, been received lukewarmly by Western

[00:02:27] audiences. That's true not just for TikTok, but for Meta and other platforms that have

[00:02:32] toyed with it. In a way, it's similar to this whole WeChat thing. WeChat, of course,

[00:02:37] the Chinese app that people rely on there for absolutely everything from news to banking

[00:02:41] to entertainment to messaging. Many Western platforms have tried to copy it. Elon Musk

[00:02:46] is obsessed with the idea, that's part of why he bought Twitter in the first place. But

[00:02:50] like live streamed commerce, those attempts so far have failed in the Western world. Even

[00:02:56] so, the revenue potential is tantalizing. Last year, TikTok made almost $4 billion

[00:03:03] from consumer spend in the app. Douyin made $270 billion.

[00:03:10] Well, every Friday we check in with our Meta ads correspondent Andrew Foxwell. Andrew has

[00:03:18] visibility into $300 million in Meta ad spend through his Slack community called Foxwell Founders.

[00:03:25] If you are a premium member, you can skip this section if it's not relevant to you

[00:03:28] by just tapping the next story in your podcast app. Or if you're not a premium

[00:03:32] member, just go to the 12 minute 25 second mark. Andrew, yesterday we reported on Meta ads

[00:03:39] being quite volatile CPMs and CPCs up quite a bit. At the time I kind of wrote the story

[00:03:46] in a way saying, there's not much you can do about it. But in a way, there sort of is,

[00:03:50] isn't there? When it comes to things like testing, I wanted to chat with you this

[00:03:54] week about testing and see what people are using currently that they're finding success

[00:04:00] with and whether or not that could sort of stem the tide of this volatility we're seeing.

[00:04:04] There definitely are a lot of things that are out of our control in reference to Meta.

[00:04:08] One of the things, let's just talk about what is in our control is the way that we can

[00:04:13] create better ads. That is something that is in our control. The way that we can walk

[00:04:20] through our own site and through our own customer journey, through landing pages and

[00:04:25] through where we're sending folks. There are pieces to this that are in our control, even

[00:04:35] if the spigot itself is not necessarily in your control or when you're going to, like

[00:04:40] with Meta there. But I think that is important to know. I do think in terms of your story,

[00:04:46] there are, this could be the new normal, there are ups and downs. I think what

[00:04:51] we have heard for a long time is that there is going to be squeezing inventory. Indeed,

[00:04:57] like two years ago this quarter, Cheryl Sandberg told us we're running out of space, which

[00:05:03] is why we now have ads, we have Reels ads that are next to each other and they're

[00:05:08] multi advertiser. They're showing four at once, which makes a case that your creative

[00:05:13] is even more important and the first two seconds of it are even more important. I

[00:05:20] think that we knew this was coming and this is what inventory issues look like,

[00:05:27] especially for high value users in Western countries and in the United States especially.

[00:05:33] And do you think that the introduction of threads once they start running ads there will

[00:05:37] be significant enough to provide a volume of inventory that makes a difference in the

[00:05:43] market when it comes to like CPMCPCs? I think, I mean, threads itself is a, it's just like Reels.

[00:05:51] Everybody laughed at it a couple years ago. It's getting traction. It's there. People do look

[00:05:56] at it. Because of the scale of Meta, anything that is a new incremental place to put ads

[00:06:02] isn't insignificant. Even if they place 2% of impressions there, that's millions and millions

[00:06:08] of dollars or billions of dollars and depending on like kind of what you're thinking of the

[00:06:16] overall ecosystem. So it will provide some relief, but it's not going to be great.

[00:06:23] The thing that Meta knows is they know the valuable customers that are on the platform

[00:06:28] and those people are harder and harder to reach. And when you combine that with

[00:06:33] even a slight percentage of economic softening of people really wanting something. I don't think

[00:06:40] we're in an economy now, especially in the United States just because I can see it and know it well,

[00:06:45] of like if, oh that would be nice to have. We're very much in a, you have to want it

[00:06:52] and you have to see the necessity of it, which is why going through and creating ads with

[00:06:57] hook rates of going through that kind of framework, if you've never heard of it, of talking about like

[00:07:04] problem unaware, problem aware and then kind of going through and convincing them that, hey,

[00:07:11] did they know they had this issue or did they not know they had this issue? But I think there's

[00:07:16] a lot of people that live in that issue of the product market fit isn't that good.

[00:07:22] And they haven't figured out the creative testing and the angles that they're going to take to

[00:07:27] bring people from, are they unaware? Are they thinking about this issue? Are they not thinking

[00:07:34] about this issue and bringing them through where they know and instead of just saying,

[00:07:39] you need a new microphone by this today. So that piece in itself is really challenging.

[00:07:46] And certainly to do creative testing, to go back to your original question,

[00:07:50] there's a lot of different ways to do it. You can do testing in a campaign budget

[00:07:56] optimization campaign. You can do individual tests. The point that you want to always have is

[00:08:02] you want to have some kind of a testing framework for creative. That could be a lot of different

[00:08:07] things, but what you want to try to figure out is how am I going to be constantly infusing new

[00:08:13] ideas and angles into this account as a way to hedge against the challenges that I'm going to

[00:08:18] be facing with it from headwinds with meta? Because we know that's going to be happening.

[00:08:22] So what are the pieces that we can do? And right now, a big discussion point is static ads.

[00:08:27] Everybody goes, everything comes back into circling wind is like static ads are back,

[00:08:34] which is just an image with copy on it itself versus video is what everybody was talking about

[00:08:41] before. And certainly video is still part of the strategy, but you have to be kind of always

[00:08:45] being on the leading edge of making sure you're testing regardless of how, with different

[00:08:50] angles and hooks to bring people in, to bring those that are especially within prospecting.

[00:08:54] Because that's where you start to feel it and start to hurt over time if you aren't doing that.

[00:09:00] I'm in your Slack community, which is incredibly valuable. One of the many courses that you've

[00:09:04] offered there has been a testing framework like you talked about. Can you just give us

[00:09:09] the 15 second summary of what is in that course, what people would get out of it?

[00:09:13] Yeah. The testing course itself is essentially going through all of the different options that

[00:09:18] you have for testing. How do you go about not only testing creatives, which is a can of worms

[00:09:25] in and of itself, but how do you then go about testing audiences and testing different campaign

[00:09:30] types, testing different campaign objectives? And so really the baseline of all this that nobody

[00:09:35] really asks themselves when they want to test is you sit and say, well, I feel like I should

[00:09:38] be testing more. It's just like you said, and you say, I should work out. Well, okay,

[00:09:41] that's great. But what does that actually mean? So what are you trying to accomplish?

[00:09:47] With the test, you want to know what are you wanting to learn? Is it that you want to improve

[00:09:51] performance? Is it that you want to see, take big creative swings and try brand new things that

[00:09:56] are from different angles you've never heard of. And if that's the case, then setting up tests

[00:10:02] to achieve that objective to make sure that you're actually starting from a good point

[00:10:07] as you get going. So that's kind of what we go through in the testing course. And it

[00:10:12] gives you a lot of different options like all of our courses. We go through and lay out

[00:10:15] the options for you. And then you get to determine which one you believe is best based on the

[00:10:19] information given. It's not a prescriptive course, we don't do that at Foxwell Digital because

[00:10:24] I'm a big believer in you show people all the options they can have to be successful and

[00:10:28] they can choose their own path. In your experience of the different things you can test,

[00:10:32] and there are millions campaign optimization, creative audience targeting, blah, blah, blah,

[00:10:38] what, which one of those moves the needle the most? Is it the creative that matters

[00:10:41] the most? Yeah, I mean, the biggest things that you can do right now, honestly, are number one,

[00:10:46] simplify the number of campaigns you have running. So, you know, I mean, we have campaigns that are,

[00:10:50] we have things that are spending millions of dollars like accounts are spending millions of

[00:10:54] bucks a month and, you know, they're running on five campaigns, sometimes three,

[00:11:00] like, you know, this is a different game than it was. And that in combination with creative

[00:11:04] testing and having a system of constantly putting in not just new creative tests and

[00:11:08] reference to hooks and angles I talked about, like, you know, do you have this issue? That kind of thing,

[00:11:14] that kind of testing of people that are unaware, problem aware and thinking through that and

[00:11:18] having that constantly be flowing in. But also, you know, going through and making sure that

[00:11:22] you're testing a variety of different types of creative over time, based not just video or

[00:11:30] not just problem unaware and unaware that kind of aware and unaware. But, you know,

[00:11:34] carousels, making sure that you kind of think about your creative strategy like a soccer field. So,

[00:11:43] you know, the defenders are to kind of like be there at the end of the sales cycle and

[00:11:49] the offense is there to like make sure that you're kind of scoring goals over time. And so

[00:11:53] each of these ads have to do different things. And that's the type of thinking that we want

[00:11:57] to apply. And so those are the biggest changes that certainly if you start to do that can

[00:12:01] make the biggest difference over time. Yes. All right, Andrew, thank you. See you next week.

[00:12:05] Thanks. Andrew Foxwell is our Meta ads correspondent. You can learn more about

[00:12:08] Andrew's digital ads training, including his testing framework course at b.link slash Foxwell

[00:12:13] or his Slack community of senior meta ad buyers at b.link slash founders. Both of those are

[00:12:19] affiliate links and you can find those links at the bottom of our show notes.

[00:12:22] You have one unheard message. Hi, I was calling current the influencer marketing platform,

[00:12:35] but I think I just got redirected to a bunch of people listening to a podcast. Well, anyways,

[00:12:41] I was calling current because I was told they could help get my brand set up on TikTok shop

[00:12:46] and even build out an affiliate program of content creators promoting my brand.

[00:12:52] And even have those content creators go on live streams and promote my product there.

[00:12:57] Wow, I could really use current. I also heard that the brands they work with are making

[00:13:04] millions in sales. I guess I'll just go to their website at current.tech.

[00:13:11] Back to TikTok for a moment. The company this week also announcing some stronger brand

[00:13:15] safety controls for advertisers, specifically category exclusion and vertical sensitivity

[00:13:20] controls. Category exclusion will let brands tell the ad platform to keep their content away from

[00:13:26] content about gambling and lotteries, violent video games, combat sports or youth content.

[00:13:33] Vertical sensitivity is a deeper level of control quoting search engine land quote

[00:13:38] advertisers can use this feature to choose their industry vertical and avoid content related

[00:13:44] to that vertical that they deem incompatible with their brand positioning providing an extra

[00:13:49] layer of brand protection. For instance, a travel brand that typically focuses on nature themed content

[00:13:56] may opt out of appearing alongside content about volcanoes or floods unquote. Those verticals now

[00:14:04] available are pets, beauty, food, fashion, retail, travel, financial services, technology,

[00:14:11] automotive gaming, professional services and entertainment. Also they're moving account

[00:14:17] level controls for all their brand safety tools to be within their ads manager and they also

[00:14:21] announced partnerships with Double Verify, Integral Ad Science and Zephyr to provide post

[00:14:26] campaign measurement of these new controls. One of the big trends in commerce over the last

[00:14:34] couple of years has been the emergence of buy now pay later services. Financial brands like

[00:14:40] Affirm, Afterpay and Klarna offer online sellers the ability to split the consumer's payments

[00:14:45] up into installments usually interest free. It's been a couple of years now. How's the adoption been?

[00:14:52] According to a new bank rate and you gov survey 39% of US adults said that they have used at least

[00:14:58] one BNPL service quoting retail dive quote of the consumers who used BNPL half did so to spread

[00:15:06] their cash flow and 37% used the service to take advantage of low or no interest rates.

[00:15:13] Only 20% of respondents cited retailer promotions as their reason for using the tool. 56% of people

[00:15:20] who used BNPL encountered at least one problem while using the service overspending at 29%

[00:15:27] missing a payment at 18% and difficulty returning products are getting a refund also at 18%

[00:15:33] of respondents were the top problems reported unquote by generation the younger a person is

[00:15:40] the more likely they are to use a BNPL service 55% of millennials have used one there in the

[00:15:46] top spot boomers down at the bottom at 25% a recent adobe report estimated nearly $17 billion

[00:15:53] was spent through BNPL last year that was 14% higher than the previous year.

[00:16:03] The popular online game platform roblox has signed with pubmatic

[00:16:07] to let advertisers buy ads programmatically on their platform. A roblox spokesperson told us

[00:16:13] today the ads appear in the various immersive experiences that are created by users for now

[00:16:19] they're static images on things like billboards later in the year advertisers will be able to

[00:16:24] upload videos for those placements these ads appear in the virtual worlds that are designed

[00:16:29] by the roblox community and designers get a share of the ad revenue when people visit

[00:16:34] their world. Indeed roblox is less a game on its own and more a social platform that contains

[00:16:41] thousands of games and worlds this is the same model used by another wildly popular multiplayer

[00:16:47] game fortnight where people can design worlds and establish buildings and rules for things like

[00:16:53] how gravity works only in fortnight so far the only advertising is from bespoke big name

[00:16:59] and big budget brand deals roblox says it has more than 70 million daily active users

[00:17:06] more than half of which are in generation zed which are between 12 and 27 last month the

[00:17:11] company launched its roblox for brands website which contains more information about their ad

[00:17:16] capabilities you can find that site at brands dot roblox dot com amazon got into heat recently

[00:17:27] after researchers said the site favored its own private label ads in search results now that

[00:17:32] seems to have at least been partially addressed after the european union applied new rules to the

[00:17:38] company quoting the register quote researchers at the university of minnesota found that after

[00:17:43] the e-u's designation of amazon as a gatekeeper platform the rank of amazon products in amazon

[00:17:50] search results compared to competing brands changed substantially the amazon rank differential

[00:17:57] fell from a 30 to a 20 rank advantage while other brand search ranks did not change researchers

[00:18:04] noted that the rank differential can't be definitively attributed to self-preferencing

[00:18:09] other factors like differences in product quality come into play as well unquote amazon did not

[00:18:15] respond to media requests for comment the web platform wordpress this week released a new plugin

[00:18:24] it says can dramatically speed up your brand's website the plugin is called speculation loading

[00:18:30] the idea is that the site would take its best guess as to what link any given user will click

[00:18:36] next and will pre-render that web page javascript and all while the user is still looking at

[00:18:43] the previous page then if they do indeed click the predicted link the website can bring up that web

[00:18:48] page almost instantly because it was already preloaded in the browser as for how they're

[00:18:52] taking that educated guess mostly it's if a user hovers their cursor over a particular link

[00:18:59] this has been tried before but with more of a brute force method many caching plugins and

[00:19:04] some web browsers will cache the first link of search results for instance assuming that's

[00:19:08] where the user will click next if they click something else it just throws out what it preloaded

[00:19:14] when you install the plugin it will by default start pre-fetching other pages on your website

[00:19:19] actually pages posts and archive pages you can adjust the settings under settings reading

[00:19:26] and then speculative loading don't forget to follow us on social media we are almost everywhere

[00:19:34] facebook instagram youtube linkedin tiktok threads mastodon blue sky snapchat and pinterest

[00:19:40] go to today in digital dot com slash social or tap the link at the top of the show notes

[00:19:46] monday a deep dive interview with a marketing scientist who says you might be using numbers

[00:19:52] in your product marketing all wrong she is the co-author of a paper called manipulating consumers

[00:19:59] with the truth and you'll hear that exclusive interview on monday that will do it for this week

[00:20:04] today in digital marketing is produced by engage q digital on the traditional territories of this

[00:20:09] unemic first nation on vancouver island our production coordinator is serah gild our theme

[00:20:14] is by mark blevis ad coordination by red circle i'm todd maffin have a restful weekend friends

[00:20:20] i will see you on monday what's this stuff some cereal supposed to be good for you do try it i'm not

[00:20:27] gonna try it you try i'm not gonna try it let's get mighty yeah he won't need it he hates everything

[00:20:36] he likes it hey mighty