Full Transcription

[Introduction] – 00:00

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Episode 69 of This Week In Marketing. This is your host Sajid Islam, and today I’ll be going over the notable news and updates in the digital marketing space from the week of August 9, 2021.
[Update 1 – Instagram Rolls Out Limits Feature to Prevent Abuse] – 00:37
Today. First off, we have an update from Instagram. So Instagram this week has rolled out awesome privacy future. Features that you should be aware of on the first one was that the ability for people to limit comments and DM requests during spikes of increased tension. The second one is stronger warnings when people try to post, or potentially potentially offensive comments and the. Three third thing is a global rollout of Hidden Words feature, which allows people to filter abusive DM requests. All in all, our Instagram is claiming that Instagram, as in Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, is claiming that it is their obligation and duty to. Keep the platforms and users safe. I somewhat agree with him. However, at the same time I don’t like the first update. The ability to for people to limit comments and DM requests during spikes of increased tension ’cause it’s a double edged sword. Imagine if your video will to go viral and a lot of people are commenting. It’s gonna be like in the throttle down and as a result you. It will not get that exposure that you were really looking for. I hope they figure out a sweet spot. But with that, let’s move on to the next one, which is from Facebook.

[Update 2 – Facebook Announces First-Ever #BuyBlack Summit] – 01:47

And Facebook is launching their first ever by Black Summit. They want to support black business owners because they have been hit very hard during this pandemic as if no one else has gotten hit hard. I mean, you know, after all, you know there are other ethnic or other minorities here in the states as well. On Facebook decided to do black by black business by Black summit. I’m gonna go ahead and put the link to that summit in our page. So if you want to sign up, please go. By all means sign up. But you know, again, I think you know. Every time I see that you know there is again being a minority myself, I usually do not like this kind of events. I feel like you know what we should be having is just a general level, the plant level, the playing field. I would be very uncomfortable even if they were to do a by Asian or by Indian Summit. But you know, that’s just me, ’cause. We all have been affected some way, shape and form. There are many business owners. That’s why. Anyway, Next up is Facebook.

[Update 3 – Facebook Shares New, Privacy-Focused Approach to Advertising] – 02:54

Facebook has announced new privacy see focus approach to advertising. This is a boatload. I mean, you know, there is so much to cover. Basically it all boils boils down to three things. Facebook had realize that Apple’s app tracking app transparency tracking is there. It’s gonna be here to stay, and they’re taking a big hit for that. So they have to figure out a game plan. Can I just leave on it and stay on it and things like that? So they’re rolling out three things. Number one is they’re calling it a SIM secure multiparty computation. You really should be list reading this thing on our. Show not space, but in short, what show secure multiparty computation is allowing. Does it allows two or more organizations? In which case first is Facebook and the second party is the advertiser itself? They will have separate data, right? They will not have no one party will have. All the data and the data is going to be encrypted in transit addressed and things like that. So you don’t need to know all these technical details of how the data is going to be encrypted in this day and age. It is actually a best practice to encrypt all the data, whether it’s in transit or address. But what’s really interesting, and I like what’s really interesting and what I think is this is where you really need to see behind the veil or try to figure out the meaning and which is why I believe you are listening to the TWIMshow podcasts because Facebook is saying the secure multiparty computation, which is MPC. Allows two or more organizations to work together while limiting the information that either party can learn. MPC is useful for enhancing privacy while calculating outcomes from more than one party, such as reporting the results of an ad campaign or training a machine learning model with the data is held by two or more parties today. This type of reporting requires at least one party. To learn which specific people made a purchase after seeing a specific ad with MPC, say one party has information about who saw an ad and another party has information on who makes a purchase. MPC and encryption makes it possible for both parties to learn insights about how and ad is performing without the need to entrust a single party with both datasets last year. They began testing a solution called private lift measurement, which uses MPC to help advertisers. Advertisers understand performance now at a high level, this sounds great, but I dug a little bit deeper because they had a link and they took us to that, took me to a page where they really showed me how MPC works. All in all, I’m not a big fan of fit. ’cause even if you use MPC, you are gonna send the data over to Facebook and Facebook will always have all the data, right? You as an advertiser we will not have all the data and the other thing that Facebook doesn’t talk about and I believe this is where the leading into is Facebook is basically creating this thing as a way for Facebook page. So what’s gonna happen is that you’re selling on Facebook or Instagram and you’re gonna use Facebook. You will never see the all the details, and they’re gonna show the data to you as a aggregate with averages. So you will always be seeing, you know, here is the campaign. Here’s the average purchase price, which is really not a great idea because you could have 10 people buying $1000 products. Overall, their partial sizes average card values 1000. 10 people could buy like $1000 each, and then you know the rest. 20 people are buying $100 each and you would be getting the average and you would never know really the data. So this is a Facebook’s way of again hiring the data more and more so that you are only playing with average, not if you ask me. Average sucks. Right. Average sucks, but Facebook is pushing this and I think a lot of people are gonna probably jump on it. But if you are smart, I mean, if you have to advertise on Facebook, you advertise on Facebook. What can you do? Right? That’s the law of the land. And you deal with it. Anyway. The next update they have is on device learning, which is strengthened algorithm to form in size, process right on our devices without sending individual data. Has an item such as an item purchase on or our email address to remote server or cloud. I really do not know how this is going to work, but this is all you know really. I think this only device learning is a very. It’s a very aspirational for Facebook. Again at the same time, if they could do on device learning and process a lot of the information sent back to Facebook, they would probably need a lot less computational power or not on their end. Although I doubt that would be the case for which they’re doing the third thing they’re talking about is differential privacy. It’s a technique that can be used. On his own are applied to other privacy enhancing technique technologies to protect data from being reidentified. I mean, what they’re saying is basically with all the data that they collect, they will add a carefully calculated noise. So for example, if 118 people bought a product after clicking and add a differentially private system would add a subtracted random amount. From that number. So instead of seeing 118. Uh, they would either say 120 or 114, so you would never really know which one is the right number now. If you’ve been following this and you know this goes against the whole premise of wild digital marketing rocks, digital marketing rocks. Because I could say I spent $100. These are the five customers came from this ad and hear my sales. No, he’s Facebook is injecting intentionally injecting like you know how they say noise as they’re calling it, right in removing increasing, inflating the number, deflating the number. Well, we already had this problem and that’s why we cell Facebook algorithm, Facebooks analytics sucks. Hello. Facebook. Have you been listening? I love doing it and saying, you know what? We’re gonna inject all this noise so that you never get the right data so you can keep guessing and you gotta keep spending money on our platform. That’s what it’s all coming down to anyway. That’s all from Facebook. With that, let’s move on to the next one, which is from LinkedIn, very short one.

[Update 4 – Video Calling on LinkedIn Is Now a Reality] – 08:59

Is it like now? Video calling on LinkedIn is a reality. Yes, you can actually message anyone and call people. So now making interviews. You no longer have to get on zoom no longer have to do all these things, just do it within app with that Next up is Google.

[Update 5 – Google Search Console May Contain Bot Traffic Data] – 09:15

Google search console like in Google Organic, Google’s John Mueller has confirmed that Google Search Console does not filter out all the pot traffic. So sometimes you will see queries and traffic from the bolts. Why they do it, I do not know. Google already know who the bots are. They could easily filter it out. They do it at the Google Analytics level, but they don’t do it at Google Search Console. So Google search console something you just have to know and do that little bit of math to subtract things and you know, figure out which one of the ball traffics, that’s all. Next up,

[Update 6 – Google Ads attribution models now support YouTube and Display] – 09:49

Google Ad Attribution Model now support YouTube and display model like. Now what is attribution. Attribution is a common issue for search marketers and continues to be married as more of the wave focuses on privacy, right? Attribution is basically the ability to model our visitors or users journey through the web and figuring out which ad should get the credit for the sale. In contrast to what Facebook is doing, Facebook is like, you know, trying to hide everything up and put everything under average Googles like attribution model basically shows OK, here is the ad the user saw this ad went to the Google search. This did this, this, this, this and then they eventually they converted here. So you see the whole live journey and as a result. What you can say is like you know what? My add, even though in a someone sees my YouTube ads but they don’t really convert until they go to my, you know Web page and you need to figure out where your traffic is coming. Because if you know if people are finding out a being aware of your brand on a YouTube page, you wanna spend more money on YouTube ’cause that’s working right rather than saying, oh, everyone comes to my homepage and everyone buys from it. So let me spend more money on my homepage ’cause you see how the data is different, so attribution. So anyway. So now what you tell Google ads is doing is not supporting YouTube and display ads. So all this data driven models are going to be in the. Attrition window. You can go check it out. You don’t really have to do anything with that, but if you are not something, someone who is not looking into attribution, then you should definitely look at it because you know user journey mapping tasks is very insightful. OK. On the same note,

[Update 7 – YouTube Updates Default Settings on Kids Content, Implements New Restrictions on Promotions] – 11:39

On the same plane and different node, YouTube has updated basically new settings for kids. The main things you should want to know is like you know when your kids are users between the age of 13 to 17, upload their video, by default it will be set to a very most secure private. Option. Most private option will become by default will be said. Of course kids can mitigate this default by going and changing the by themselves. They’re trying to tackle overuse with the addition of take a break and get them reminders so that you know children between the age of 13 and 17 don’t stay up all night long and you know use you to all night long. It’s like your TV manufacturer saying, you know, hey, the TV. Hey kiddo, you’re 15 and you’ve been watching. It’s midnight and go. Let me turn off your TV. I don’t know. I find I like what they’re trying to do, but at the same time, I don’t like it because, you know, they’re doing basically this whole this censorship or Big Brother type of thing. Let them do it. Let the parents figure it out. If they’re between the age of 13 and 17, the parents are there. That’s the reason, right? Why should you do it? The TV companies undo that. The car companies don’t say, hey, you are 13 years old and you’re driving around. Let me shut off the car. Go home, go home, go home. And that’s just me. But in what could be a big blow for big kid influences, YouTube is actually removing more and more commercial content from YouTube Kids. What they’re saying is they’re not gonna allow paid product placements if they have any videos that will overlay over overly talking about a product, they’re gonna take it down, things like that, this actually. You know, basically targets people like Ryan Kaji. Again, if you do not know him, he made $29.5 million in 2020. He’s a kilo he’s I think 13 or 14 years old. And yes, he made about $30 million in 2020 from his videos I know and my kids, my children used to watch this video all the time, and I will tell you all have bills doing, is promoting all the different products like McDonald’s. That’s how much child my son learned McDonald’s. We don’t eat at McDonald’s, but he learned about McDonald’s, who watching Ryan’s video. And if if You Tube takes him down, I think that’s gonna be a good thing. I’m not gonna be hurt ’cause my I think you know he all he did was pro pushed products through micro, all these products sponsorships that he had. But anyway that’s all you needed to know about You Tube changes are happening. So again there are a lot of other things that are happening if you’re targeting children. Our case between the age of 13 to 17, there’s some restrictions as well. Be careful and let’s move on to the next one.

[Update 8 – Google Ads Editor Rolls Out New Features: Lead Form Extensions, Hotel Ads & More] – 14:25

And the next one which we have is Google Ads editor has rolled out new features. The new features are lead form extensions, hold hotel ads, and more. If you’re not sure what Google Ads editor is, it is basically a tool that allows advertisers to make changes involved, making it easy to make optimizations and edits across multiple keywords, ads, ad groups, or campaigns easily and seamlessly. It’s not something that you use from the Google ads dashboard or the UI, but this is actually a program that in you install on your computer and you run it and you make changes offline and then you can when you’re ready to make publish it, you can publish it all in one go into the Google app system. It’s a great thing. So the major changes I again, like I said delete from extensions. Previously it was only accessible through the UI. Now you can actually work on leads form extensions through Google Ads editor, YouTube ads which was released in YouTube audio ads which was released in 2020. And was previously only available directly from the UI. Can now all you asking we set up through Google Ads editor and hotel add. Users can now use Google ads editor to manage hotel ads, which are basically feeds ads that help hotel advertisers promote prices and every bit of the properties on any given day. That’s it. With that, the other thing you wanna know want to you should know about is that

[Update 9 – Google Provides More Transparency Over Custom Bidding Process] – 15:39

Google provides more transparency or custom building process in Google ADS 360. Google as 360 is basically Google’s enterprise ads product solution. Most people I know and most people who are listening to this will not be using Google ads, but I wanted to touch it because I have a feeling that this is something that’s going to come down the pipeline to the regular Google ads, which is. But we all are using right, but basically what they’re saying is that Google ads. Automated building strategy advertisers allowing that allowing advertisers to assign a conversion value or a purchasing Google system can then optimize from within its system. It’s a good way to maximize campaign performance and to meet and a lot of people were not using it to add it. Google is now adding floodlight activities which are. Pre created HTML code snipers that can be used to track conversions. So All in all, what’s in saying is that if you are using Google AD 360 and automated bidding system to help you get more sales and have Google machine learning algorithms learn more. You get better insights. They’re gonna help you put. They’re gonna give you some HTML code. You put it on your sides, and then they’re gonna get more data around it, that’s all. OK, Next up and the last one of this week is that

[Update 10 – New Requirements for Google Podcasts Recommendations] – 17:07

Google has now launched a new requirements for Google Post Google Podcast. Before they will recommend your podcast and this is awesome Something an email I also received from them this week, but basically beginning September 21, they’re gonna be a few requirements before your show podcast can be shown as a recommendation. Number one is there has to be a valid callable image. The The image must be accessible to Google. Assured description I include as user friendly short description that accurately describes the show the email address is used to verify show ownership. A link to the home page for this show linking your podcast to homepage will help them discovering presentation of podcasts and Google Services and podcast authors name unnamed issue in Google Podcasts as the author of the podcast, this does not need to be the same, same as the owner. That’s all. So these are small minor changes, but I thought you should know again, this being a podcast show, we are already doing all those things, so we are all good. But I wanted you to know, just in case you missed that email, make sure you do this.

[Closing] – 18:18

Alrighty folks! That’s it for this week in marketing. Now you need to know everything to be in the know. If you’d like to read more, please make sure you visit our show page where you’ll find the links to the articles. Once again, this is your host Sajid Islam signing off until next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

Thank you for tuning in this week. It was a pleasure to serve you all. Hit the subscribe button so that you remember to sign on next week. Same place, same time for another round of This Week In Marketing.

1. Instagram Rolls Out Limits Feature to Prevent Abuse (0:37) – Instagram announces 3  new features to help protect people from abuse :

  • The ability for people to limit comments and DM requests during spikes of increased attention
  • Stronger warnings when people try to post potentially offensive comments
  • The global rollout of our Hidden Words feature, which allows people to filter abusive DM requests

 

2. Facebook Announces First-Ever #BuyBlack Summit (1:47) – As part of its expanded effort to support Black business owners as they deal with the ongoing impacts of the pandemic, Facebook has announced a new #BuyBlack Summit, an all-day event that will provide advice and guidance for Black-owned businesses, to be held on August 24th. Sign up for the event and learn more https://buyblacksummit.splashthat.com/

 

3. Facebook Shares New, Privacy-Focused Approach to Advertising (2:54) – The spin from Facebook is that they are helping to provide more insight within the data limitations in place after Apple’s ATT. And now they are developing a set of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) for ads, which will minimize the amount of data gathered and processed, in order to help protect personal information, while still facilitating insight into campaign performance. They are:

Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) – allows two or more organizations to work together while limiting the information that either party can learn. MPC is useful for enhancing privacy while calculating outcomes from more than one party, such as reporting the results of an ad campaign or training a machine-learning model where the data is held by two or more parties.

Today, this type of reporting requires at least one party to learn which specific people made a purchase after seeing a specific ad. With MPC, say one party has the information about who saw an ad and another party has information on who makes a purchase. MPC and encryption make it possible for both parties to learn insights about how an ad is performing, without the need to entrust a single party with both data sets. Last year, they began testing a solution called Private Lift Measurement, which uses MPC to help advertisers understand performance.

On-Device Learning – trains an algorithm from insights processed right on your device without sending individual data such as an item purchased or your email address to a remote server or cloud. For example, if lots of people who click on ads for exercise equipment also tend to buy protein shakes, on-device learning could help identify that pattern without sending individual data to a Facebook server or cloud. Then, Facebook can use this pattern to find an audience for protein shakes using ads. Similar to a feature like autocorrect or text prediction, on-device learning improves over time. As millions of devices each make small improvements and start to identify new patterns, these patterns can train an algorithm to get smarter so you may see more ads that are relevant to you and less that aren’t. On-device learning data can be further protected by combining it with differential privacy.

Differential Privacy – is a technique that can be used on its own or applied to other privacy-enhancing technologies to protect data from being re-identified. Differential privacy works by including carefully calculated “noise” to a dataset. For example, if 118 people bought a product after clicking on an ad, a differentially private system would add or subtract a random amount from that number. So instead of 118, someone using that system would see a number like 120 or 114.

Adding that small random bit of incorrect information makes it harder to know who actually bought the product after clicking the ad, even if you have a lot of other data.

 

4. Video Calling on LinkedIn Is Now a Reality (8:59) – After adding support for various third-party video providers over the last year in order to facilitate video meetings in the app, last week, LinkedIn quietly rolled out a new, native video option within its messaging platform, which provides another way to connect with users, without the need to download a separate video app.

As explained by LinkedIn:

“From an initial job search to a 1:1 conversation, we wanted to drive the productivity of our members end to end while keeping them safe. By adding video conferencing as a part of the messaging experience, members can connect virtually while maintaining the context of their existing conversation. Now, members can easily schedule free video meetings with their network without the need to download a client or sign up to any service.”

5. Google Search Console May Contain Bot Traffic Data (9:15) – Google’s John Mueller confirmed that Google Search Console does not filter out all bot traffic. John said on Twitter in response to someone suspecting seeing bot traffic in the Performance report, “sometimes it can be from bots – we don’t necessarily filter all of that out in Search Console.”

 

6. Google Ads attribution models now support YouTube and Display (9:49) – Attribution is a common issue for search marketers and continues to be muddied as more of the web focuses on privacy. The ability to model your attribution journeys through YouTube and Display will help marketers determine which channels to invest in and which channels could use a different strategy.

As of August 9, Google Ads has upgraded all non-last click models, including data-driven attribution, to support YouTube and Display ads. In addition to clicks, the data-driven attribution model also measures engaged views from YouTube.

Along with knowing which channels are contributing along the buyer journey toward a final conversion (whatever that looks like for your business), the new inclusions mean that “when used along with automated bidding strategies or updates to your manual bidding, data-driven attribution helps to drive additional conversions at the same CPA compared to last click.”

 

7. YouTube Updates Default Settings on Kids Content, Implements New Restrictions on Promotions (11:39) – YouTube has announced some new measures to assist in protecting young users from questionable content and unwanted exposure on the platform, with new default privacy settings for uploads by young people, and new reminders and prompts to help avoid overuse.

First off on the new upload settings – in the coming weeks, YouTube says that it will upgrade the default privacy settings for uploads from users ages 13-17 to ‘the most private option available’.

So kids can still mitigate the defaults, but by using this as a starting point, YouTube’s hoping to ensure that younger users gain more awareness of the risks involved in such, potentially limiting unwanted exposure in the app.

YouTube’s also looking to tackle overuse, with the addition of ‘take a break’ and bedtime reminders, also by default, for all users ages 13-17. So, again, savvy youngsters can just switch these settings off if they choose – and most of them are far more savvy and attuned to such than their parents. But by implementing new defaults, YouTube’s looking to increase awareness of its various options in this respect, with a view to improving safety.

And finally, in what may be a big blow for kidfluencers, YouTube’s also removing more commercial content from YouTube Kids.

 

8. Google Ads Editor Rolls Out New Features: Lead Form Extensions, Hotel Ads & More (14:25) – Google Ads Editor is a tool that allows advertisers to make changes in bulk, making it easy to make optimizations and edits across multiple keywords, ads, ad groups and/or campaigns, easily and seamlessly. With Google Ads Editor, changes are made offline before being pushed live. Making adjustments offline allows advertisers better control and visibility into changes before pushing them live. This week, Google Ads released a new version of Google Ads Editor with a slew of new features. Here’s what you need to know!

Lead Form Extensions – Previously only accessible through the UI, lead form extensions were released in 2019 allowing users to append a lead form to their ads so that prospects could complete the form without ever leaving the SERP.  Since their initial release, users could only create or edit lead form extensions within the UI. Users can now download, edit, and create lead form extensions within Google Ads Editor. Lead Form Extensions.

YouTube Audio Ads – Similarly, YouTube Audio Ads, which were released in 2020, were previously only available to set up directly within the UI. Now audio ads can be set up through Google Ads Editor.

Hotel Ads – Users can now use Google Ads Editor to manage Hotel Ads, which are feed-based ads that help hotel advertisers promote prices and availabilities of their properties on any given day. Since 2018, Hotel Ads have been available but only accessible to work on through the Google Ads UI.

 

9. Google Provides More Transparency Over Custom Bidding Process (15:39) – Custom Bidding is Google’s automated bidding strategy for Google Ads 360, which enables advertisers to assign a value to a conversion or purchase, which Google’s system can then optimize for within its process. It can be a good way to maximize campaign performance, based on Google’s ever-evolving machine learning processes – but up till now, Custom Bidding has required a degree of technical expertise to implement, due to coding elements.

To mitigate this, and lower the barrier to entry, Google’s now adding ‘Floodlight activities’, which are pre-created HTML code snippets that can be used to track conversions, or other information about transactions.

Through this new process, you’ll be able to choose pre-determined goals for your Custom Bid approach, then export the code for insertion on your site. So there is still a level of technical expertise involved – but you won’t have to understand all the code parameters and build the relevant HTML yourself.

In addition to this, Google’s also adding ‘pay per viewable’ impressions for display and video campaigns, providing more customizable campaign elements, while it’s also adding a new ‘Bidding Insights’ report, which will provide more transparency over its automated bidding processes.

 

10. New Requirements for Google Podcasts Recommendations (17:07) – Beginning on September 21, Google will enforce new requirements for podcasts to show in recommendations on the Google Podcasts platform, the company told podcast owners via email on Thursday. Podcasts that do not provide the required information can still appear in Google and Google Podcasts search results and users can still subscribe to them, they just won’t be eligible to be featured as a recommendation.

The new requirements. Starting on September 21, to be eligible to show as a recommendation, podcast RSS feeds must include:

  • A valid, crawlable image: This image must be accessible to Google (not blocked to Google’s crawler or require a login).
  • A show description: Include a user-friendly show description that accurately describes the show.
  • A valid owner email address: This email address is used to verify show ownership. You must have access to email sent to this address.
  • A link to a homepage for the show: Linking your podcast to a homepage will help the discovery and presentation of your podcast on Google surfaces.
  • The podcast author’s name: A name to show in Google Podcasts as the author of the podcast. This does not need to be the same as the owner.

Author