T Minus 3 Weeks: The Beginning of the End for Cookies

[00:00:00] It is Thursday, December 14th, today. The end of the third party cookie starts in just three weeks. Threads makes it to Europe, YouTube makes ads fewer, but longer, and how your company's data may have been shared with open AI without you realizing it.

[00:00:24] I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead, today in Digital Marketing. Do you want someone who understands you like no other? Someone who can be your wish and want to experience the most beautiful adventure of your life with you? The shopping platform Shopify revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide.

[00:00:45] With Shopify you only focus on your online shop, without programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient education and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can sell and sell through Instagram, eBay and Co. It was never easy to reach new target groups.

[00:01:04] Shopify offers on a single secure platform all tools to build up your online business. Tests are free and a business of the world. shopify.de.try Simply enter shopify.de.try and start. Made for Germany, powered by Shopify. Well they said they would do it.

[00:01:26] Then they delayed it a bunch of times. Now it's really going to happen. Google this morning confirmed it will start blocking third party cookies in its Chrome browser starting January 4th. Luckily for those marketers still not prepared for the cookie-less world, Google will only

[00:01:45] be blocking 1% of its users then. Instead of cookies, Google's new system watches the sites people visit, then tries to put them in a number of interest buckets like shoes or traveling or video games.

[00:01:58] Websites can then check what buckets a visitor is in so people will still be subject to the sorting hash but it's a little less connected to individuals. What does this mean for digital marketers? Well hopefully you've been aware that this has been coming and are transitioning away

[00:02:12] from third party ad tracking as a general rule. Other initiatives like Apple's iOS 14.5 also reduced our ability to target with precision. This is part of the reason retail ad networks like Amazon, Walmart and even Instacart have been growing at an impressive clip.

[00:02:31] They have first party data which you can use to target on their properties. Or even better, have your own first party data. Email addresses tied to purchases tied to browsing history all information you can capture on your website or perhaps your commerce platform.

[00:02:49] So if you see a little eyeball logo in your Chrome URL bar in the new year, you are part of that 1% which will eventually and probably faster than we expect grow to 100%. A big day for threads met as Twitter competitor, the app is finally available in the European

[00:03:12] Union. When it launched, it didn't include the EU probably needing more time to address that region's more detailed regulatory requirements. One of which is to let people browse threads without logging into a meta account.

[00:03:26] People who choose that will still need an account if they want to post or engage on the platform. Yesterday we reported threads had started connecting itself to Activity Pub that is the large network that powers Mastodon among other services.

[00:03:39] That integration is now out in the wild with a few accounts, notably the head of Instagram, whose posts on threads you can now see and engage with from your Mastodon feed. Being in Europe of course is a huge deal to the growth of the app, with Meta next

[00:03:55] turning its attention to a deeper Activity Pub connection and fingers crossed an API for us to use it is definitely on the upswing. Pub is reducing the number of ads which appear in a video, which could be bad for marketers.

[00:04:15] Generally the less ad inventory is available, the higher the price to win it. But there is one small saving grace here, the reductions only applied videos watched on an actual TV set. The company this morning announcing it will decrease the number of TV ads but increase their length.

[00:04:35] Quoting that announcement, Viewers expect a different ad experience depending on the content they are watching. When it comes to long form content on TV screens, 79% of viewers would prefer video ads that are grouped together instead of distributed throughout a video.

[00:04:52] Based on this preference we evaluated fewer, longer ad breaks to create a more seamless viewing experience on the big screen. In early testing more than half of YouTube connected TV streamers experienced 29% longer viewing sessions before their next ad break.

[00:05:11] One other change it used to show how many ads were left, now viewers will see the time left until the break ends or they can skip to the content directly. Expect these changes to roll out fairly soon. Also Google is launching short ads globally on connected TVs.

[00:05:27] The viewer experience is about the same on mobile and viewers can use their TV remote to click away from ads just as they would with any other short. If you are interested in trying short ads out, you can get to them through the video

[00:05:39] reach campaigns, video view campaigns and short specific campaigns like YouTube select shorts, first position on shorts and trending music on shorts. Insider Intelligence has put out its digital ad predictions for 2024. First they are expecting some stability in digital ad spend, less in the way of big swings.

[00:06:06] US digital ad spend grew 13.5% during the years of the pandemic according to their estimates from now until the end of their forecast period in 2027 that will drop below 10% for the first time in more than a decade.

[00:06:21] Second with Google's full phase out of cookies set for next year, Insider Intelligence expects a push for mergers and acquisitions among ID providers and they think Apple will finally roll out a demand side platform next year. Third, they expect ad rates for streaming ads will get better.

[00:06:39] Next year Amazon Prime releases its ad supported tier and it's expected to overtake Roku in the rankings of ad spend. Fourth, they expect to see even more major ad platforms become more chummy with their tech.

[00:06:52] This year we saw Google's ad platform play nice with X and Snapchat cutting deals with Amazon. Quoting Insider Intelligence, quote, for the first time since we began forecasting them in 2017, Wald Gardens will lose share of total programmatic digital display ad spend.

[00:07:08] One of the main drivers is retail media, which is taking up an increasing share of ad budgets causing smaller Wald Gardens to try and prop up their ad business by partnering with their bigger counterparts. Unquote. Instagram this week launched a background editing tool to users in the US.

[00:07:30] This will let you change the image background of a photo you upload to stories. Let's say you upload a photo of your product on grass, you can erase that grass and tell it to put your product on a bed of flowers or a red carpet.

[00:07:42] If you're in the US and you have this activated once you upload a photo through the story's workflow, you will see an icon at the top with a person and a box with a plus sign over it.

[00:07:53] Snapchat also this week released a similar tool which lets users create and send AI generated images, though that is part of their paid subscription. Earlier this week we reported on the Pew Center's recent study of where American teens spend their time online.

[00:08:12] One platform we didn't mention just because it was quite low in the rankings is Be Real. Be Real is sort of like Instagram but tries to be more authentic and get away from the packaged and polished images on Meta's app.

[00:08:24] According to that report, 13% of American teens aged 13 to 17 say they use Be Real. This week the company added live photos. The app will now capture a second or two before you actually take the photo

[00:08:37] so you end up with a tiny video which is viewable by long pressing the image. They're also leaning into the trend toward group sharing, adding group chats to the app. Users can only have two of these groups active at any one time,

[00:08:51] again forcing people to be choosy about where and how they spend their time. And they're finally letting people tag friends in posts and repost images that they're tagged in. Be Real says it has 25 million daily active users, quoting social media today,

[00:09:08] quote, 25 million daily app users is a solid engaged base. And as it continues to add more functionality, it's still possible that Be Real could establish a niche communications role and become a more important platform for certain communities. Though it's unlikely to become a major player and

[00:09:28] thus a major consideration for brands, unquote. Let's be honest, retros can be boring. And if you're the organizer, you know it's more than just running a meeting. You have to synthesize and categorize themes, get the team involved,

[00:09:46] design 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. We use Miro at our agency to map out a client's messaging for

[00:10:02] our engagement team that can be complicated, a lot of events. 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. The client doesn't get to see our thoughts until we've decided on the approach.

[00:10:20] 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. That's three free boards at Miro.com.

[00:10:38] Do you want someone who understands you like no other? Someone who can be your true wish and want to experience the most beautiful adventure of your life? The shopping platform Shopify revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide. With Shopify you only manage your online shop, without programming or design knowledge.

[00:11:00] Thanks to the efficient design and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can sell and sell through Instagram, eBay and Co. It was never easy to reach new target groups. Shopify offers on a single secure platform all tools to build up your online business.

[00:11:19] Test without cost and present your business to the world. www.shopify.de.try Simply enter shopify.de.try and start. Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify. Adobe is in trouble with American regulators over its policies around cancelling its software subscriptions.

[00:11:41] Apparently it's been in talks with the Federal Trade Commission for about a year and a half on this, but only recently disclosed it, saying there could be a settlement soon which could cost the money, quote, significant monetary costs or penalties. Quoting Fortune, quote,

[00:11:56] users of Adobe programs including Photoshop and Premiere have long complained about the expense of cancelling a subscription, which can cost more than $700 annually for individuals. Subscribers must cancel within two weeks of buying a subscription to receive a full refund, otherwise they incur a prorated penalty.

[00:12:17] Some other digital services like Spotify and Netflix don't charge a cancellation fee, unquote. The FTC has been trying to make digital subscriptions a little more consumer-friendly. It proposed a rule earlier this year that it must be as easy to cancel as it is to sign up.

[00:12:33] Adobe's also trying to mend fences with British regulators over its proposed $20 billion acquisition of the design tool Figma. And finally Dropbox is finding itself in hot water this week after it was discovered. It was sharing its customers' data with a third-party provider.

[00:12:54] That provider is OpenAI, and the sharing happened. If users used any of Dropbox's AI tools, a Dropbox doesn't make any of their own tools, so they're basically renting the tech from OpenAI. So of course to use your company's documents with AI,

[00:13:09] they would need to send the data over there. The problem is that it wasn't particularly clear that was happening, and the consent toggle was switched on by default. So if your company uses Dropbox and any of your people on the account did anything

[00:13:23] with its new AI tools, it's likely that your data is now with OpenAI. Dropbox says it believes data sent there isn't used for training, though of course that's second-hand information. If you want to turn it all off, go to your account icon in the top right,

[00:13:39] click Settings, choose the tab called Third-Party AI, and toggle that sucker off. Don't forget about our email newsletter. It's free. It comes out every day. It has everything you hear in the podcast and more. Links to more about the stories we cover, videos, charts, illustrations.

[00:14:09] You can sign up by tapping the link in the show notes or going to todayindigital.com slash newsletter. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. From innovative startups to family companies with long tradition, the Commerce Platform Shopify revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide.

[00:14:53] With Shopify you can sell products via popular channels. Whether personal POS systems or existing e-commerce platforms. Social media and websites like Facebook, Instagram and ebay are supported. Thanks to the constantly growing selection of innovative functions

[00:15:10] and the reliable technical support, it's very easy to build your business with Shopify. Whether product presentation or order and payment development. Shopify offers everything you need for your business. This is how you can focus on your business. Shopify is free to try and bring your business forward.

[00:15:29] Shopify.de-try So Shopify.de-try Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify.