Will Google's Biggest Acquisition Shake Up the Marketing Industry?

[00:00:00] It is Friday, May 24th. Today, is HubSpot about to sell to Google? Pinterest has summer

[00:00:07] trends for your content marketing, Amazon's AI-based ads seem to be performing well, and

[00:00:13] Snapchat gives us exactly what we marketers really want, crazy clown faces.

[00:00:21] I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead, Today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:26] Google's parent company Alphabet is said to be close to buying HubSpot, the large

[00:00:31] marketing automation platform. If it all goes through, it will be the largest acquisition

[00:00:36] in Google's history. HubSpot is worth about $30 billion. By way of comparison, Google

[00:00:42] bought YouTube for about $1.6 billion in stock. Pretty good deal considering YouTube

[00:00:49] brought in more than $30 billion in revenue last year alone.

[00:00:54] So why do they want HubSpot? Well, to compete with Microsoft's lead in the productivity

[00:00:59] suite space. Google is in third place among cloud services, but is well behind the first

[00:01:05] two. Amazon controls about a third of the market and Microsoft holds more than twice

[00:01:10] what Alphabet has. Quoting Gizmodo, Quote, Reports of Google's potential acquisition

[00:01:16] first surfaced in April, sending HubSpot shares up as much as 11 percent. HubSpot's

[00:01:21] financials keep getting better though analysts are skeptical over weakened demand for

[00:01:25] its products. The company swung to a profit of $6 million in the first quarter with sales

[00:01:31] surging more than 20 percent from the year prior. Google's talks with HubSpot are ongoing

[00:01:36] and no deal has been reached, unquote. Google is also catching up with Microsoft

[00:01:41] in the AI race recently unveiling many updates to its Gemini AI tools. Both companies face

[00:01:48] scrutiny from European regulators.

[00:01:55] Pinterest has released an overview of rising summer content trends offering insight into

[00:01:59] popular topics that could guide your marketing strategies. We have a link to the pin board

[00:02:04] directly in today's email newsletter. But what's trending? Well, maximalist fashion

[00:02:10] is at the forefront. This is featuring rock and roll style, alternative outfits, eye-catching

[00:02:15] patterns and unconventional silhouettes says the company. Pinterest says users are

[00:02:21] leaning more into bold fashion as a way to express personalities and break from

[00:02:25] conventional norms. Searches for tomboy femme increased by 3900 percent. There's also

[00:02:32] baggy outfit ideas in there, rock and roll outfit, leatherware, geek chic and

[00:02:39] Y3K outfits. Another trend is 90s beauty with rising searches for 90s makeup look

[00:02:47] and 2000s makeup. Specific trends include calico hair, heavy highlights on dark hair,

[00:02:53] 90s layered bob, 90s nail art and 90s glam makeup. And finally, dopamine home decor

[00:03:03] is also trending, favoring vibrant and personalized spaces. Key searches there include grandma's

[00:03:10] core bedroom, tea sets vintage and vintage plates on wall. Pinterest says it has 518

[00:03:17] million monthly active users, 40 percent of whom are Gen Z. A couple of months ago,

[00:03:27] Amazon launched a new automated ad product called Performance Plus. It, like its

[00:03:32] competitors, uses machine learning to optimize campaigns based on predicted conversion rates.

[00:03:37] We now have some data on how those ads are performing. These add products, of

[00:03:41] course, a reaction to the AI driven ad products by Google and Meta. Amazon is trying to claw

[00:03:46] back some of the ad budget being consumed by those two. Performance Plus operates within

[00:03:51] Amazon's demand side platform. It uses an AI model to predict the likelihood of

[00:03:56] user conversions every hour. Advertisers set cost per acquisition goals. Amazon then

[00:04:03] handles campaign setup, audience targeting and optimization. Ads can run on Amazon

[00:04:08] site and external publisher inventories. And Amazon says most Performance Plus campaigns

[00:04:14] so far have achieved 30 percent to 90 percent lower CPAs compared to standard Amazon DSP

[00:04:21] ad buys with similar goals and formats. These are, of course, numbers provided by Amazon,

[00:04:26] so they do have an interest in only talking up the positive results. We were not able to

[00:04:32] find any independent studies on this. And finally, on this short episode today,

[00:04:41] marketing executives of a certain, well, I'll just say of a certain age don't spend a lot

[00:04:47] of time in the Snapchat app. Honestly, I've never felt more old trying to figure out

[00:04:52] Snapchat's convoluted UI. I think for the most part, most marketing people who have spent

[00:04:57] time with the brand have done so in one of two places, the ads manager or the Snapchat

[00:05:03] camera. No, not the one in the mobile app, the virtual camera that extends the crazy

[00:05:10] face filters into your Zoom meetings. Sadly, the company shut that app down more than a year

[00:05:15] ago, suddenly returning thousands of Zoom meetings to their soul destroying realities.

[00:05:22] Well, it's back, baby. It's not an app anymore, but it is a new Chrome extension

[00:05:27] that basically does the same thing. Quoting social media today, quote, So now you can

[00:05:32] virtually dress up as a frog or a potato once again, which could help to liven up those video

[00:05:37] meetings that depict you against the same background every day. You can also integrate

[00:05:42] lenses that you've designed and published so you can create your own entire look.

[00:05:46] I mean, it does take some patience to learn how to build a lens in Snap's Lens Studio,

[00:05:52] but it's another option to consider to bring even more fun to your video calls, unquote.

[00:06:00] So that's fun. Here's what's not fun. Changing your email address.

[00:06:05] It's like 15 years ago, I got my own domain with basically just my name dot com.

[00:06:09] And I used it when I was doing a lot of keynote speaking and you know, it's kind of it's like

[00:06:14] a personal brand domain. And I used it mostly for most of my business stuff. Eventually,

[00:06:19] when I founded the agency, I started using the agency one a little bit more. But you know,

[00:06:24] I'm 53. I don't even know. I'm in my early 50s. And I'm getting to the point where in a few years,

[00:06:34] probably going to sell the agency might even sell the podcast and newsletter.

[00:06:38] And I'll probably give up that domain name and even the agency domain name. So I better

[00:06:42] start transitioning to like my regular dumb old personal email address. That's pretty easy

[00:06:49] to do on most platforms, but not the big ones. We are an Apple household and

[00:06:56] my God, that is difficult to do. I had to talk to three separate Apple people.

[00:07:03] The problem is that my initial, the one I want to switch to my personal email address,

[00:07:07] all it also had an Apple ID attached to it. And I'm running into this from time to time as

[00:07:12] well. I'm running into this with Microsoft and Xbox and anyway, so I'm trying to do one

[00:07:18] a day. Honestly, the Apple one took me two and a half hours yesterday to just change my email

[00:07:24] address. The world we live in, I guess. Anyway, that'll do it for the week today

[00:07:28] in digital marketing is produced by engage Q digital on the traditional territories

[00:07:32] of this new name, first nation on Vancouver Island. Our production coordinator is Sarah

[00:07:37] Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevins ad coordination by Red Circle. Our agency has

[00:07:43] an all staff retreat on Monday. So no show then and I will see you on Tuesday.

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