Heeey team!

Hit reply and let me know what you do when you’re overwhelmed at work.

My reply to myself would be “type through the tears.’ lolol

🫡

​SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF YOUTUBE ADS COULD BE SUBJECT TO REFUNDS TO ADVERTISERS​

This is big stuff, guys. Research published by The Wall Street Journal shows that a bunch of YouTube ads violate their own terms of service. As you may know, YouTube ads don’t only appear on YouTube. Google also shows them on third-party sites where you should be getting the same ad experience (clearly visible space, sound on, etc.). But the researchers at Adalytics say 50% of YouTube ads are showing on those other sites and 80% of those are not meeting the criteria promised.

Google says, “Nah that study did us dirty.” Well their actual words were, “A recent report by a third party used unreliable sampling and proxy methodologies and made extremely inaccurate claims.”

Advertisers are looking for refunds if the results of the research are true.

​BRAND EXCLUSION AND RESTRICTION SETTINGS GIVE MORE CONTROL OVER OUR GOOGLE ADS​

Brand restrictions for broad match “will help you get the additional reach of broad match, while ensuring it is only matching to relevant brand traffic that you’ve specified.”
​Brand exclusions for Performance Max campaigns helps you keep “ads from serving branded queries [you] may wish to avoid on Search.”

​BING’S AI GENERATES BUYING GUIDES AND REVIEW SUMMARIES, AND THEY ADD PRICE MATCH​

Buying guides—such as a school supply list—shows categories and compares products within those categories. Microsoft is also getting a cut, or affiliate fee, for purchases. 👀
​Review summaries are pretty self-explanatory.
​The Price Match feature makes it easier for people to buy a product at its lowest listed price. Microsoft has been partnering with retailers who have a price match policy to make this possible.

​YOUTUBE TESTS DISABLING VIDEOS FOR PEOPLE USING AD BLOCKERS​

Back in May, Google started displaying this message to some people, “Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube.” It then prompts the person to either allow YouTube Ads or try YouTube Premium. Now, people who don’t choose one of those options within three days will be cut off from watching videos on the platform. This is a test, not a rule for all cases.

​NEW TIKTOK FEATURE LETS CREATORS SUBMIT CONTENT LIKE A TRYOUT FOR A BRAND PARTNERSHIP​

The new monetization feature is similar to creator funds, except they’re set up by us advertisers. A pool of money is set aside and creators are able to submit content for a chance at being selected by a brand. Creators then earn money from the pool based on metrics like views, clicks, and conversions.

​THE FTC UPDATED THEIR RULES ABOUT DISCLOSING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN CREATORS AND BRANDS​

The link above is a loooong page with direct, digestible FAQ content. It’s directed more toward the creators, but good people like to be honest. And understanding this stuff will protect your company legally and protect people’s opinion of you.

(This thread highlights some of the FAQs that are asked…more frequently. Like how creators need more than “#ad” in a TikTok caption.)

​NEW CHROME POPUP LETS PEOPLE OPT OUT OF TOPICS AND SITES “USED TO SHOW ADS”​

A new pop-up is starting to appear to people on Chrome. It gives a simple overview of Google’s new Privacy Sandbox method of grouping people together based on interests to give us advertisers some info to work with when targeting. Then, it lets them “choose which topics and sites are used to show you ads.”

OTHER UPDATES

​Google recommends importing GA4 conversion data into Google Ads​

​Google’s creating Privacy Sandbox demos​

​Google Analytics 4 Now Supports Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)​

​Buy on Google for Search and Shopping will be ending in the US on September 26, 2023​

​The Meta Verified subscription package is coming to all regions​

​Meta Marketing API lets you use organic video directly as ad creatives​

​WhatsApp will soon let businesses send you personalized messages​

​Instagram finally allows users to download public Reels​

​Twitter now requires an account to view tweets​

​Twitter will start sharing revenue with creators for ads in replies​

​Snapchat+ hits 4 million paid subscribers

​

ZIGHT​

This is a pretty nice tool I’ve been testing out this week. It’s a screenshot tool, and the heart of it does exactly what other screen captures do. Here are some reasons why I still think it’s worth using:

• GIF screen capture. Most tools our computers automatically use for screen capture don’t create GIFs automatically. So this is very convenient if you want to include GIFs in content showing how to use your product, or whatever other random reason.
• It’s free for one person with a few minutes of video recording and 25 screenshots. So basically, you can sign up and try it out without signing up for a free trial.
• Analytics. You could record a gif, share the URL automatically created for it in a post on social, and then see the analytics for how many views and stuff that gif gets.

11 GOOGLE DOCS TIPS I USE EVERY DAY TO SAVE TIME
​I almost didn’t read this because I was sure all the tips would be stupid. But there are some niiice features highlighted here. I hadn’t really used Smart chips or Building blocks yet, which are newish Doc features. And turns out, they *are* quite useful for me. So give this one a skim if you can.

​ENGAGEAI
​Engage AI enables LinkedIn power users to write insightful comments, breaking the ice and building relationships with prospects in a fraction of the time.

​THE AD INDUSTRY IS GOING ALL-IN ON AI​

This Vox article is a good read for three types of people.

1. People who like to hear revenge stories. Like how the company Publicis “launched a hate-to-say I told you so billboard campaign around Cannes reminding people how prescient they’d been with developing the AI-powered Marcel platform.”
2. People who always hear about Cannes Lions but haven’t been and aren’t 100% sure what it is or want more context around it.
3. People who want to read about conversations like this one: “Can we start to get to a place where—I use Morgan Freeman as a canonical example—if you go and license the IP for his voice, can we use machines to help scale that even further?”

MAICON (Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference)
​July 26-28 Cleveland, OH
​I won’t explain why you care about marketing AI stuff.

​Affiliate Summit East
​July 31-Aug 1 New York City, NY
​Here’s a place to find good fits for your affiliate program.

​MozCon
​August 7-8 Seattle, WA
​MozCon’s a cool spot to hear success stories and get ideas for your strategy. And meet marketing friends.

​Engage
​August 11 Portland, OR
​Look at my PNW marketers representing here. Engage has some cool Speakers this year like Rand Fishkin and Lily Ray.

🩷 VISUAL THREAD OF THE BARBIE MOVIE’S MARKETING WORK​

🆒 NEW STUDY REVEALS BEST WORDS FOR BRAND SLOGANS​

💦 THIS BILLBOARD FEATURES CHRIS HEMSWORTH ACTUALLY SWEATING​

🦾 HUMANE WILL BEGIN TAKING ORDERS FOR ITS WEARABLE AI PROJECTOR ‘LATER THIS YEAR’​

📱 INNOVATIVE EXAMPLE OF AN SMS STRATEGY

😬 AI-GENERATED TWEETS MIGHT BE MORE CONVINCING THAN REAL PEOPLE, RESEARCH FINDS​

👨‍💼 LAWYERS HAVE REAL BAD DAY IN COURT AFTER CITING FAKE CASES MADE UP BY CHATGPT​

🖼️ IMAGE RECOGNITION ADDED TO BING AI

Some of the links in my newsletters are affiliate links. So sometimes I get monies (aka dollary doos, aka sweet sweet dough) when you buy or sign up for some of the stuff I mention—at no extra cost to you.