Mobile Gaming Grows Up: Is It the Next Big Ad Space?

[00:00:00] It is Thursday, January 18th. Today, that garbage inventory you've been avoiding might have just turned into a goldmine. Now even science says Google's search results are getting worse. Did Bing's bet on AI pay off in the search wars?

[00:00:18] And the new tracking tech that says old is our industry itself. I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead, today in digital marketing. Do you understand what I'm saying? Does anyone who let your wish come true and want to experience the most beautiful adventure of your life?

[00:00:39] The shopping platform Shopify revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide. With Shopify you only set up your online shop, without programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient integration of such media and online marketplace integration, you can sell and sell through Instagram, eBay and Co.

[00:01:00] It was never easy to reach new target groups. Shopify offers on a single secure platform all tools to build up your online business. Without any tests, and present a business of the world. www.shopify.de.try Simply enter shopify.de.try and start.

[00:01:21] Made for Germany, powered by Shopify. Old ad platforms feel tired, no new ad products, no new audiences. There is one which some analysts believe will finally break out this year. Mobile gaming advertising is gaining traction. Last year mobile gaming ad revenue saw significant growth.

[00:01:43] Applovin, a mobile marketing platform reported a record breaking Q4 last year for mobile gaming advertisers. Traditionally the in-game digital advertising world has consisted of two places. First, bottom of the barrel audience network type placements.

[00:01:59] The kind you end up with when you let the ad platform choose its recommended or automatic placements option. These placements are usually high reach and low CPM, but terrible for conversion and not really good for much more than general brand awareness.

[00:02:13] And second, ads in big budget console games from developers like Nintendo and Electric Arts. Think product placements in movies except they're in games. Recent trends though show a shift. In Q4 last year, mobile gaming apps, particularly casual games, made more money.

[00:02:32] Applovin noted a 10% year over year spending increase from Q4 of 2022 to Q4 of last year. And mobile gamers engaged more with ads as average ad impressions per user rose by 7%. Also tech giants like Microsoft having acquired Activision Blizzard are making significant strides in mobile gaming advertising.

[00:02:56] Activision Blizzard's in-game ad division contributes substantially to their revenues. Well if it feels like Google results are getting worse you are not alone. A new study by Leipzig University and the center for scalable digital analytics and artificial intelligence

[00:03:15] has revealed that Google is struggling against low quality junk sites that dominate search results due to affiliate marketing strategies. Affiliate marketing sites of course use unique links in product reviews and roundups. When it purchases made through those links the referring site earns a commission.

[00:03:35] This practice is widespread even among reputable journalistic sites but it's often exploited by less ethical sites leading to a proliferation of subpar content. The study which analyzed almost 7400 product review search terms across Google Bing and DuckDuckGo

[00:03:54] found that the top ranking pages on Google often featured more affiliate links and lower quality text. And that sites with poor content but effective SEO techniques are more likely to appear first in search results.

[00:04:10] While Google's result showed some improvement during the study and performed better than Bing and DuckDuckGo the general trend suggests a decline in the overall quality of Google searches. Google says it's always working to improve its algorithms and filter out low quality content

[00:04:27] but the effectiveness of these efforts remains in question. While Google tries to weed out the crap they're also adding a bit of bling. The company this week announcing two updates to its search engine. First circle to search lets Android users select images, text or videos on their screen

[00:04:50] through various gestures like circling it or highlighting it or tapping it. The highlighted region will then be searched. This could end up being a pretty powerful marketing tool.

[00:04:59] Someone finds a photo of, I don't know, Usher circles his shoes and up pops a list of places they can be bought. The shoes not Usher. Initially circle to search will be available on select premium Android smartphones including the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro

[00:05:15] and the new Samsung Galaxy S24 series all starting January 31st. The second enhances the multi-search feature in Google Lens which was first introduced in 2022. Multi-search lets users combine image and text searches. People can point the camera at something, upload a photo, add a question about it

[00:05:35] and get overviews that amalgamate relevant information from across the web. Google competitor Bing owned by Microsoft bet the house on AI integrating their chat spot directly into the search engine. They recently rebranded it Co-Pilot but it is essentially a fork of OpenAI's chat GPT-4.

[00:05:58] The idea was that it could provide a wedge into that enormous pie chunk that Google holds in the search market. So it's been about a year since Bing did that. Have they grown their market share any in the search wars? The answer? Not really. Quoting SE roundtable.com

[00:06:17] quote, Bing's market share has only grown less than 1% according to StatCounter. Most of you may not be surprised since our poll shared shortly after Bing chat launched had most of you thinking that Bing won't gain that much market share from the feature.

[00:06:33] Bloomberg reported on the StatCounter data saying quote but Microsoft search engine ended 2023 with just 3.4% of the global search market according to data analytics firm StatCounter up less than 1% since the chat GPT announcement. So as of December 31st, according to StatCounter, here are the numbers.

[00:06:56] Yahoo! Still in there with a 1.1% share. Yandex 1.6%. The giant group of everything else called other 2.2%. Bing is 3.4% market share and Google 91.6%. Let's be honest, retros can be boring. And if you're the organizer, you know it's more than just running a meeting.

[00:07:26] You have to synthesize and categorize themes, get the team involved, assign next steps and make it all a fun safe space where teammates want to participate. Miro is the visual collaboration platform that helps you run effective, engaging and actionable retrospectives.

[00:07:43] We use Miro at our agency to map out a client's messaging for our engagement team. That can be complicated. A lot of if-vents. But making it visual and sharing it directly with our client sped things way up. Plus our side can share spitballing ideas with private mode.

[00:07:59] The client doesn't get to see our thoughts until we've decided on the approach. Whether you work on the marketing side or in product design, engineering or UX, bring your team together on Miro. And your first three Miro boards are free when you sign up today at Miro.com.

[00:08:17] That's three free boards at Miro.com. The MIRS platform Shopeify revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide. With Shopeify you only manage your online shop, without programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient integration of social media and online marketplace, you can sell and sell ebay and co-verbals via Instagram.

[00:08:53] It was never easy to reach new target groups. Shopeify offers all tools on a single secure platform to build up your online business. Test it without cost and present a business of the world. Shopeify.de.try Simply enter Shopeify.de.try and start.

[00:09:14] Made for Germany, powered by Shopeify. Shopeify.de.try is a platform that allows you to use your own internet communication to create and use your own network behavior through their IP address. Those addresses, while fundamental to internet communication,

[00:09:50] aren't considered privacy safe and offer less tracking accuracy compared to cookies. But they are re-emerging as an alternative to third-party cookies for advertisers. IP addresses are often combined with first-party data or hashed emails.

[00:10:05] They do though have gaps, they don't on their own carry any information about the interests someone has or their demographics, and IP tracking doesn't really work if a user is behind a VPN or corporate network.

[00:10:18] Plus privacy looms larger as IP addresses can't be easily reset like cookies in a browser. The piece is definitely worth a read if it interests you. You can find it at adweek.com, look for the article called Marketers' Shift to IP Address Band-Aids Amid Cookie Deprecation.

[00:10:38] You don't have to make YouTube videos for a long time before you realize that one of the most critical pieces is the thumbnail. Get that right, you get views. Get it wrong, you don't.

[00:10:52] Some big creators like MrBeast have people on their teams who just do thumbnail testing and optimization full-time. That's how important it is. Which makes it all the weirder that YouTube itself still doesn't have an A-B testing tool for one of the most important parts of a video.

[00:11:10] Back in June, the company previewed the thumbnail testing tool it was working on. The tool would let you test three variations for up to two weeks, but they didn't have a release date other than sometime in 2024.

[00:11:22] Today the company's liaison to the creator community shared an update on where they are. Thumbnail testing is still in testing. As of late last year, the testing ramped up to 50k channels of various types, sizes and regions across YouTube,

[00:11:37] which is still a tiny number given how many channels are on YouTube. That'll continue until the team feels like the product is delivering what it needs to for creators and then it'll start moving into a launch mode.

[00:11:49] No timeline yet because it's hard to predict how fast or slow tests of this size will go, but as soon as it's ready to launch, YouTube will absolutely let everyone know. Unquote. VEDA has unveiled its new creator management tools within the business suite

[00:12:08] and it's a nice update for agencies and content creators on Facebook. Clearly the goal with this update was to improve the process of connecting with creators, which can reduce time spent on tasks like onboarding them, offboarding them and so on.

[00:12:21] Creators can now more easily grant agencies the necessary permissions for managing their pages through a one-click approval process. The new tools also enhance the payout process. Agencies can direct earnings to their own payout accounts. Definitely helpful for agencies looking to consolidate payments from various products

[00:12:40] like video ads, live video stars, fan subscriptions and ads on Facebook Reels. Some other additions. You can import existing connections from business manager. It's easier to terminate an ongoing relationship with a creator. There are some new insights into a creator's page earnings and so on.

[00:12:59] For creators, there is also a new agency management tool to review and manage requests and relationships. On the show tomorrow, you've got that spam before telling you that your Facebook page is just seconds away from being deleted unless you click this very shady looking link.

[00:13:19] Turns out there is a button to turn those off. Tomorrow on the show we tell you where that button is. See you then. With Shopify you can sell products via popular channels. Whether personal POS system or a comprehensive e-commerce platform.

[00:14:03] Social media and websites like Facebook, Instagram and eBay are also supported. Thanks to the constantly growing selection of innovative functions and the reliable technical support, it's very easy to build your business with Shopify. Whether product presentation or order and payment development.

[00:14:21] Shopify offers everything you need for your business. That's how you can focus on your business. Shopify is free to try and bring your business forward. shopify.de-tri So shopify.de-tri Made for Germany Powered by Shopify