The Last B, Well, That’s Not That Simple

[00:00:00] It is Thursday, July 18th. Today, ads are coming to threads but will media buyers care? A shocking development in the agency world? Has Google given up on AI summaries? And why Instagram comments are disappearing after 3 days? I'm Tod Maffin, that's a head today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:24] To start though, our Meta Ads correspondent Andrew Foxwell joins me. Andrew is a veteran Meta Ads buyer and has visibility into $300 million in Meta Ad spend through his Slack community called Foxwell Pounders. Andrew, I mean that Slack group, every time I open it,

[00:00:39] people are talking about advantage shopping campaigns and how they're changing all of the time it seems. What's your take on what's going on with ASCs? You know, I've just had a few days where I was able to take a deep breath a little bit

[00:00:53] and I was thinking about this, like what's going on? And I think what's got to be happening is that there's got to be some disconnect between what's taking, like what different teams at Meta want to do would be my guess. Like because they want ASC to

[00:01:09] be everything default. And they've got to be the balance of what, you know, giving control of the advertiser. And so it's got to be some kind of thing where it's clear because there's all these different changes that are taking place all the time

[00:01:26] and different versions of it that we see all the time. And so it's clear that it lacks direction for one. And it's got to be like some rubbing internally at Meta between how they believe this should be rolled out. Because I think ultimately

[00:01:43] advertisers don't want to have the control completely pulled away, even if the tests show that that's the best thing to do hypothetically to get more conversions through. Like I think there is something that PerformanceMax and Alphabet

[00:02:00] did that wasn't that's an issue. And clearly that isn't, you know, we talk about Google ads in our community too. That's something that we see, you know, kind of a backlash onto some degree. And they're always trying to

[00:02:12] hack like PerformanceMax. And so I just think there's got to be like a mix there. And I would wonder or like a rub there and I would wonder if there's just disconnect between that. And if maybe, you know, the people are

[00:02:26] talking to clients who like look like me, you know, retain control, etc. And then there's the others that are, you know, like, I don't know, it's fully go all in and let's just not like do all the adoptions and

[00:02:38] everything. And you talk to people in Meta. I mean, how many layers are there between the people who talk to us, the media buyers and the engineers? I mean, there's a lot of layers in between that. And I don't think that, you

[00:02:51] know, there's people like we've talked before on this podcast, what got me thinking about us. So I was listening to a previous episode where we talked about how there's all these little teams that are siloed. Yeah.

[00:02:59] And they're not talking to each other. So not just like the Advantage Plus Shopping Campaign team, it's like the person in charge of Advantage Plus Shopping Campaign audiences isn't or like, you know, isn't talking to the Advantage Plus Shopping Campaign creative optimization button person.

[00:03:18] And it's so there's all these little pieces on like that because what you can tell is there's like this massive push to try to say everything's ASC, we're going to keep doing automation. It's the future. And then there's these things that pop up like this week, seeing apparently

[00:03:35] in a, you know, it's been people have told me that their reps have told them that in the last 200, like there's 200 accounts in the last two weeks that have had the ability to send all your traffic to shops and or

[00:03:49] send it all to the website and be able to actually have the lever to like you could have a shops only campaign, which, you know, is like why wouldn't we have this control? But that's the kind of thing that

[00:04:01] they're clearly testing because it doesn't, it seems like this is a real internal debate that seems to be taking place. And just so we can explain that what we're talking about between web and shops is the destination. People click on an ad and they either go to

[00:04:14] your website, like a Shopify site or face Meta's own shops product. Is that what we're talking about? That's correct. Yeah. You know, we're just past Prime Day. We're covering that later on in the show. It turned out to be a record day for Amazon.

[00:04:28] What do you think Prime Day tells us about where at least the US consumer is at? I mean, it's been no, it's no doubt that if you're advertising right now, I think they've been soft this summer. It's been a hard summer both from what we've always talked about

[00:04:41] the last few weeks that you know, of this podcast of Meta being really tough to work with. I think that that along with consumers, I think are deal hunting at this point, right? I really do.

[00:04:53] I think this is going to be the biggest Q4 every year is the biggest one, but I really think people are going to save their dollars until then. So I would expect that we're going to be looking at a soft Q3.

[00:05:06] You know, we're going to be looking at people holding out to say, well, we'll just get that when it's on sale because we know it's going to be on sale. And we know that's the case and that continues, but like I think we will continue to do that.

[00:05:19] So Prime Day really shows that when people are, they love a deal and they're waiting for that deal right now. And I just think that consumers are more price conscious, especially in the United States where we're able to see it more often.

[00:05:34] We have an Amazon channel in the community and of the brands that the people at our channel managers for that manage, for the Amazon channel manage, they manage Amazon agencies. And they said that all their clients had record days, like by a wide margin.

[00:05:49] And so I don't think that's a mistake. Like I think people knew was Prime Day, they go on, they're getting it done. And I think they're going to wait for those deals as things come into Q4. So it's a continued narrative of when things are great,

[00:06:02] they're really good. And when they're not good, they're bad and they're not good at all. And I think everybody at this point, the narrative is, you know, going back and looking at your financials for the year as a business or going back as an agency and saying,

[00:06:16] okay, what can we do between now and the end of the year to create awareness around you and continue to sell? Yes. But also like continue to build the email list and things like that in our own audiences to sort of retrench.

[00:06:30] So that's, that seems to be the predominant narrative at this point in time, but it's been a tough year on brands and agencies. There's no doubt. And consumers don't like instability in the world overall of the US of course coming up on a

[00:06:41] contentious I think would be fair to say election. So yeah, Q3 could be some dangerous signs ahead. Andrew, thank you. Thank you. Andrew Foxwell is our Meta ads correspondent. You can learn more about Andrews digital ads training at todayindigital.com slash Foxwell or

[00:06:56] his Slack community of senior Meta ad buyers at todayindigital.com slash founders. Both of those are affiliate links and you can find those links at the bottom of our show notes. Soon your brand will be able to buy ads on threads.

[00:07:12] Meta's answer to the void left by Twitter. This is of course something that has been saying since they launched. Now industry speculation is that the rollout could come in the next couple of months, but the market might not be as excited as Meta thinks.

[00:07:27] A great piece this morning on DigiDays says the response from advertisers has been tepid at best. The main reason? Advertisers aren't really sure why they need to be there, with many still waiting to see how the platform evolves. Quoting from the piece, quote, that's because a big

[00:07:44] barrier for advertisers to really take the initial plunge with threads is down to the fact that they aren't clear on who the audience is, unquote. The piece also quoted an agency VP is saying, quote, brands just don't see the audience there yet.

[00:07:59] Some of this is not understanding who that threads audience really is. And some of this is lack of faith that an engaged audience is really there, unquote. When ads do launch on threads, Meta will most likely simply add it as another placement option

[00:08:14] as they did with Instagram and audience network and WhatsApp. In that scenario, Meta won't necessarily make any more money since advertisers would be taking their existing spend and just splitting it up into finer wedges. That said, Meta does have a habit of pushing platform wide campaigns more aggressively

[00:08:32] toward the newer placements. So when ads do show up, if you've selected automatic placements, be sure to watch that threads column closely to make sure it's delivering what you expect it to. Wünschst du dir jemanden, der dich versteht wie kein anderer?

[00:08:52] Jemand, der deine Wünsche wahr werden lässt und mit dir das schönste Abenteuer deines Lebens erleben möchte? Die Commerce-Plattform Shopify revolutioniert Millionen von Unternehmen weltweit. Mit Shopify richtest du im Nu deinen Online-Shop ein, ganz ohne Programmiere oder Designkenntnisse. Dank der effizienten Einrichtung und

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[00:09:32] Shopify.de-try besuchen. Einfach Shopify.de-try eingeben und loslegen. Made for Germany, powered by Shopify. 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,

[00:09:53] 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 our engagement

[00:10:10] 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

[00:10:26] 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. That's three free boards at Miro.com. Meanwhile, Meta wants your brand to

[00:10:47] integrate threads more deeply into your brand's website. The company this week introducing a new web intense element to its API. This lets you integrate threads actions into your websites more seamlessly. When users click on a special link, they can then share links to threads,

[00:11:03] add comments and so on. If they're on mobile, the threads app will open if it's installed and users can sign in or create an account if needed. This is similar to how users can share content on other social apps. This is something your web admin

[00:11:16] would need to put into your website either manually or you might be using a sharing plugin for your CMS. It does similar things for Facebook or Pinterest or whatever. And the developer of that plugin will likely add this threads integration as well.

[00:11:33] Many digital agencies spend a lot of time getting themselves prepared to become a B corporation. That's a company that's been certified by the nonprofit organization B Lab for meeting high standards of social and environmental responsibility, accountability and transparency. Some clients insist that the agencies they hire have this

[00:11:54] certification. Depending on the market those agencies serve, not being certified could cut them out of the loop on a lot of revenue. That's why the agency world was shook this morning when B Lab revoked the certification of all Havas agency groups because their sister agency, Havas Media

[00:12:15] recently took on a contract with the oil giant Shell. With more than 300 offices, Havas is one of the largest ad and PR agencies in the world. And it's a big contract. Shell spent nearly a quarter billion dollars on media in 2022. For its part, Havas says the

[00:12:35] agencies that lost the B Corp status never touched the shell account. But B Lab says, quote, the company structure and use of a common brand name across some of its agencies means that the entire group is ultimately required to earn certification, unquote. Is Google giving up on AI

[00:12:57] generated search results? No, probably not. But they might be slowing down. Data collected by Brightedge has found that Google is inserting that AI summary block in fewer than 7% of queries now. It already had been low on June 1st. That number was 11%. Also, it appears they're pulling

[00:13:19] less from Reddit and Quora as they had in the past. Insert joke about eating glue here. Google told media the findings don't reflect what they've seen and criticized the studies methodology, saying it mixed people who've opted into the beta and those who haven't. Brightedge said no, it only

[00:13:36] includes people who opted in, quoting the verge, quote, AI overviews are an important initiative for Google. If people don't like or trust them, they might turn to products from competitors like Microsoft, open AI and perplexity instead, which could be a big loss for the search engine, unquote.

[00:14:00] And that will bring us to the B Corp registered lightning round streaming TV ads hold viewers attention eight times longer than mobile ads and 16 times longer than desktop ads. This according to a new study from an Australian measurement firm, TV ads got almost 10 seconds of active attention.

[00:14:18] Mobile ads clocked in around two seconds. Instagram notes is adding disappearing comments for notes and reels. The comments will float on top of the content in little bubbles and disappear after three days. Users can also restrict who can see those comments like close friends or mutuals.

[00:14:36] And Amazon's Prime Day event broke records this week. According to Adobe Analytics, consumers spent more than 14 billion dollars across Tuesday and yesterday. That is an 11 percent jump from last year's numbers. This is from data that Adobe can see users of its own platform. Amazon didn't release the real

[00:14:55] numbers, but did say it broke records. And finally, I promise to share with you a couple of cool things I find on the Internet. I've been following this really interesting TikTok account. It's of a trucker who who videos him recording deals. So I gather that and I

[00:15:18] didn't understand this about the trucking industry at all, but there's this website that he goes to and these logistics companies post like jobs that he can just grab. So I guess he's a freelance truck driver, right? And it says how how many how full the load is, how

[00:15:34] many pounds it is, how many tolls it has to go through. And then he gets on the phone and negotiates it and records it on TikTok. And I don't know why, but it is just so interesting to listen to a negotiation of this industry that I really

[00:15:49] knew nothing about. What do you need to get this way done? You know, I have a little bit of room to wiggle here. I just, you know, let's come to terms and get this one locked out. No, man, I know it's going to have some toes.

[00:15:59] I'm going to put the toes in there and it weighs 40,000 pounds and eight hundred and forty six miles. I don't know, man. You could think you could do like on thirty three hundred. Thirty three hundred. Yes. No, I definitely can't make a three thousand mark.

[00:16:14] I was willing to honestly, man, I'll just. It really is an interesting TikTok channel. You'll find it at Trucker Shade Room. That's Trucker S-H-A-D-E-R-O-M. I don't know why I've just been watching a ton of negotiations between truck drivers and logistics companies. And it's kind of fascinating.

[00:16:32] So there you go. That'll do it for the day. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. Let's start with the tool you'll use most while surfing. It's called a mouse. Now, a mouse is a handheld piece of hardware which is attached to your computer.

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