Full Post List

Nov 20, 2024: We’ve started to see performance bounce back for our clients most in danger of a “pre-election slump” (vindication!), so I’m …

Nov 20, 2024: Google Analytics 4 adds benchmarking data reference metrics that help you compare your business performance against the performance of other …

Nov 20, 2024: Google’s getting ready for shopping szn Google Lens Google Lens can quickly show you product insights tailored to the store you’re in. …

Nov 19, 2024: Samsung and Google are working on smart glasses to rival Meta’s Ray Bans to be released late next year. Gemini would handle AI tasks alongside …

Nov 19, 2024: Pew Research has released the latest update to its data set on US adult social media usage. The trends: YouTube, Facebook up big gap Instagram …

Nov 18, 2024: A survey says trio A study by Harvard Business Review found that 95% of purchasing decisions are emotional, not rational.  Research shows that 40% of …

Nov 18, 2024: [Trump] wants tariffs on imports and intends to shrink the labor pool by reducing migration, both of which economists say could have inflationary …

Nov 17, 2024: The study found that companies that relied heavily on social ads weren’t getting their full money’s worth. This is because so-called “light social …

Nov 16, 2024: Thoughts on building a media network from the NBA Front Office Show that’s also great brand building advice. 🏀 You want to do things really well …

Nov 15, 2024: Why I think 11/6 was a release valve ⚡️ A question is now an answer, attention is freed up, and ad auction pressure is relieved. As I said at the end of Election Campaign Spending Crowds …

Nov 15, 2024: Some insight on Pinterest Performance+ bidding for shopping campaigns: Performance+ bidding optimizes for checkout volume—as many as possible. The …

Nov 14, 2024: Nike: A Cautionary Tale Building a brand is: Expensive in the short run Cheap in the long run But a strong brand can also become a crutch. See: Nike. When you’re …

Nov 14, 2024: Meta is all about Reels, but video is the hardest asset type to produce (I’d accept the argument for audio, but it’s not relevant for …

Nov 13, 2024: I posted on LinkedIn to “pay attention to the details.” Called it a note to self, maybe should have been a note to Costco. Costco recalled nearly …

Nov 13, 2024: Customer service is a chance to create delight and impact. It can amplify or undermine the marketing investments that you say are important As in all …

Nov 12, 2024: According to EMARKETER, we’re almost at peak media with “a plateauing of consumption in the 11 media formats measured.” Americans are forecast to add …

Nov 11, 2024: Turns out Meta has a hidden quality score for ads. According to my Meta rep (who can’t see the actual score), the algorithm analyzes over 500 …

Nov 11, 2024: I ended my post on lessons from Dropout with: Trying to do what the industry heavyweight(s) does but a bit better is not a viable plan. Finding the …

Nov 11, 2024: consumer confidence fell unexpectedly mid-October What could have caused that 🤔 Fall 2024: the vibe got weird #analysis there’s a lot of …

Nov 10, 2024: Seth builds on this sentiment in this great podcast strategy walkthrough. There are 4 decisions you make that determine the future of your business. …

Nov 10, 2024: Choose your customers, choose your future -Seth Godin

Nov 9, 2024: Apple continues its services push: Any verified business can now create a consistent brand and location presence across apps that customers use every …

Nov 9, 2024: data shows consumers remember and engage with emotionally-resonant ads. Marcus Johnson …

Nov 9, 2024: Google giving us more control? With brand guidelines, you can control how your brand is represented in your Performance Max campaign automated assets …

Nov 9, 2024: Bloomberg: Baidu Readies AI Smart Glasses to Rival Meta’s Ray-Bans Meta’s are becoming computers (thanks AI!). And the true vision is in prototype. …

Nov 8, 2024: Turn On, Tune In, Dropout: Business Lessons from College(Humor) Sam Reich, CEO of Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor), sat down with Fast Company to talk about the brand’s journey (video embedded below, podcast …

Nov 8, 2024: Pinterest Pushing Further Into Social Commerce Talked with my Pinterest Ads rep today and got some more insight on a couple commerce features in beta. ROAS Bidding This is a tweak to Performance+ …

Nov 7, 2024: The Federal Reserve has dropped the fed rate target another 1/4 point (0.25%), putting it in the 4.5-4.75% range.

Nov 7, 2024: CapCut has launched Commerce Pro, an AI-powered rapid asset creation studio. Image and video (from a URL) generation In-video product links Voice and …

Nov 7, 2024: It seems Google is testing adding if there was a change to that score because of "competitive pressure" and might even list the competitor that is …

Nov 6, 2024: Now you can ignore everything I put in the big election spending post from yesterday. We will pause ads relating to US elections from serving in the …

Nov 5, 2024: Apple Inc. is exploring a push into smart glasses with an internal study of products currently on the market, setting the stage for the company …

Nov 5, 2024: Election Campaign Spending Crowds Out Your Messaging I’ve been harping about election campaign spending and its impact on marketing expectations this year for a bit now. So here’s an Election …

Nov 4, 2024: How the election outcome could impact how you make marketing decisions in the years to come. Because the context you market within matters. This is as …

Nov 4, 2024: audio makes up 31% of media activity consumption in the U.S. in 2021, but only received 8.8% of the advertising spend Sounds Profitable …

Nov 3, 2024: But one day you’ll be the last person writing words on the web and wonder where everyone went. Ryan Broderick …

Nov 2, 2024: Perplexity (AI) is adding to its competition with Google (and most major tech platforms), trying to carve itself a slice of that sweet e-commerce pie. …

Nov 2, 2024: My team is probably tired of hearing me talk about this stuff, but context is important. Especially when talking to clients. For context, in the …

Nov 1, 2024: Trick-or-Treating With Ad Platform Announcements from October From Google: Performance Max and Standard Shopping ads will now compete head-to-head in the auction instead of PMax getting preference. A sign that …

Nov 1, 2024: Some of your ads feel more expensive lately? This might be why: The Harris campaign has instead focused its digital spending on larger platforms like …

Nov 1, 2024: This post from Jyll is a must read for any paid account manager. As it turns out, when we only show ads when people are searching for exactly what we …

Oct 31, 2024: Meta is developing its AI search engine (and apparently has the “most-used AI assistant in the world”). Now OpenAI is fully launching …

Oct 30, 2024: We always tell clients that what they think is boring is probably what they need to talk about the most. Because it might be a mystery to the people …

Oct 29, 2024: Meta is developing an AI search engine, to be embedded in its Meta AI chatbot. The company has reportedly been indexing the web for at least eight …

Oct 28, 2024: Meta’s plan for growth among younger demos: Discovery Utility Surface content like an entertainment app (social media is basically TV now). Do …

Oct 28, 2024: More than 40% of leading brands secure 10% plus of their annual e-commerce revenue from holiday shopping events like Black Friday and Singles Day …

Oct 27, 2024: Been doing this thing with TV ads lately where I unmute for the last second or, at most, two seconds (the now normalized ad countdown makes this …

Oct 27, 2024: Some homework from Steven Soderbergh: Just looking at something and going, I like that, and then trying to break down, why do I like that? What is it …

Oct 26, 2024: Everything is TV Now Last year the flip happened, people spent more time on TikTok than watching TV. There was an interesting article from Caroline Mimbs Nyce of The …

Oct 26, 2024: Small improvements in our systems translate into large improvements to the customer experience. Rohan Rajiv …

Oct 26, 2024: cranes are a proxy for construction and infrastructure investment. Since both are closely and positively correlated with a growing economy, seeing …

Oct 26, 2024: I might start including this in all analytics reports and dashboards. via XKCD

Oct 25, 2024: U.S. Media Reactions Report finds people overall are being more receptive toward advertising. Nearly half (47%) of people surveyed say they have a …

Oct 24, 2024: The most surprising thing I found about business was the large concern for finance and low concern for service. –Henry Ford Not being concerned about …

Oct 24, 2024: What sticks out attracts attention. Which is kind of the point. Don’t smooth the edges of your marketing. Polished surfaces are hard to hold onto. …

Oct 23, 2024: This is handy Here is a quick look at the differences in post life on some of the major platforms: TikTok: 0-2 minutesTwitter: 15-18 minutesFacebook: …

Oct 22, 2024: Ben Thompson on Meta: Market = time & attention Differentiation = horizontal services that capture more time and attention than anyone This is …

Oct 22, 2024: The Chick-fil-A Play app will launch on Nov. 18 and will feature a variety of content, including an original animated series, scripted podcasts, …

Oct 22, 2024: The differences between the most and least productive companies can be startlingly high. By one estimate, in the US alone the most productive …

Oct 21, 2024: I’m always looking for ways to do keyword research “better,” so I like this A simple technique for more search traffic: Find a …

Oct 20, 2024: If a jacket is made by Patagonia or a piece of hardware is made by Teenage Engineering, you can probably tell who made it the first time you see it, …

Oct 20, 2024: From Forked Lightning: the U.S. economy added 19 million total jobs between 2013 and 2023 but lost 850 thousand retail sales jobs. Retail sector …

Oct 20, 2024: This quote from Ben Thompson triggered a thought distinct nation-states, with their own languages. This is basically what fandoms are. The …

Oct 19, 2024: In line with people “adding luxury and indulgence around the margins,” the self-gifting trend is forecast to grow this year. Most holiday shoppers …

Oct 18, 2024: Survey says… 69% of consumers worldwide say email is their preferred communication channel with brands Highlight" Brands need to be cautious …

Oct 16, 2024: If you don’t schedule time for maintenance, your equipment will do it for you. -Deb Chachra via A Learning A Day

Oct 16, 2024: Consumers continue to focus on value, and are responding to price reductions Smaller form factors — minis — also drove growth, “with travel on the …

Oct 16, 2024: Video is the most compelling form of content: 63% of B2B buyers say that short-form social video content helps inform buying decisions, with 80% of …

Oct 15, 2024: When you are running prospecting ads at a large scale, you often need to “over explain” the benefits and value props in your ad. If this isn’t a …

Oct 14, 2024: Fun listen about Formula 1 as a brand and it’s accidental rise in popularity. Pandemic + Netflix doc + TikTok + creator economy = Formula 1’s …

Oct 13, 2024: We study the macroeconomic implications of narratives, defined as beliefs about the economy that spread contagiously. In an otherwise standard …

Oct 13, 2024: Imagine this but in a pair of glasses like Meta’s Orion: The future of watching football is here 🤯 (via nazwif/TikTok) pic.twitter.com/5tskjSFLFf …

Oct 12, 2024: Glamming up a robot risks overpromising what the robot as a product can actually do.  That risks disappointing customers. And disappointed …

Oct 12, 2024: This post combines two things I like: Dracula and AI. as a rule of thumb, in most companies if one type of information “belongs” to one C-level …

Oct 11, 2024: AI will turbocharge contextual capabilities, and the most important piece of content these days is impressions. Enter Integral Ad Science: The tool, …

Oct 11, 2024: How to Make a Video According to LinkedIn Every platform is a video platform these days (at least that’s what it feels like). That coupled with the growth of video in B2B marketing means …

Oct 11, 2024: Meta is working on “New Brand [Safety &] Suitability Controls”. The big one I know some clients will love: We’re testing the ability …

Oct 11, 2024: B2B advertisers are increasingly turning to social to spread the word. Unsurprisingly, LinkedIn is #1. Followed by Meta. YouTube is riding the growing …

Oct 10, 2024: When a potential customer visits your site, they aren’t trying to talk themselves out of becoming a customer. They’re trying to talk …

Oct 9, 2024: “After years of post-pandemic revenge spending, consumers are becoming more prudent as they face economic uncertainty, still-high interest rates, and …

Oct 8, 2024: Ads With Positive Words Get More Clicks We find that experiencing positive emotion at the outset of an online product search primes emotionally congruent thoughts. This priming makes …

Oct 8, 2024: Learn from the Magic Castle Hotel, LA. (I LOVE this story the Do Lectures shared in their email newsletter, in partnership with Hiut Denim.) It was the #2 rated hotel on Trip Advisor from …

Oct 7, 2024: Ryan Holiday writes about the spectacle: it captures attention, sparks curiosity, and draws people in At his bookstore they built a book tower of …

Oct 7, 2024: Survey says… 80% of respondents said cost savings is more important than convenience, with 42% ranking saving money as their top priority …

Oct 7, 2024: Search Ads Campaign enables sophisticated keyword-based ads which specifically target TikTok's search results page. From a user experience …

Oct 7, 2024: I like this idea from the Alt Marketing School newsletter: Create an Objection Smasher page or post on your site. This landing page should list the …

Oct 6, 2024: The marketing trend of 2024: In: AI (& context) Out: Control Early this year this was based on lots of prediction posts and podcasts (& my own …

Oct 6, 2024: Our culture leans toward the idea that we should intervene and that our results should be visible. To manipulate and control without really …

Oct 6, 2024: a VR headset is about withdrawing from interactions, whereas augmented reality is obviously about adding that layer onto existing reality. And so in …

Oct 5, 2024: My major design goal here was…I wanted to push controls, as much as possible, down the screen. So I want the most frequently accessed things to be …

Oct 5, 2024: that’s really the single core question about the future of Generative AI - is this a new general purpose tool, where one product from one company does …

Oct 5, 2024: I think most companies fear that they don’t have enough of a young person’s perspective.  But…like so many things in this world, it comes down to …

Oct 4, 2024: The manager looks at him and says, “HA! You think I am in the music business? No. I’m in the Iron fucking Maiden business.” The publishing industry? …

Sep 27, 2024: Meta just casually announced an AI-powered AR glasses prototype. Ambient computing accelerates.

Sep 27, 2024: Word spreads because taste aligns…not because of wild interruption. Gabe the Bass Player https://www.gabethebassplayer.com/blog/shaking-the-cans Find …

Sep 26, 2024: Adobe’s holiday shopping predictions are in: major discounts this season–up to 30% off listed prices–as retailers compete for consumer dollars …

Sep 25, 2024: This. If you try to be for everyone, you end up being for no one. Or, as Vonnegut said, “if you open a window and make love to the world, so to …

Sep 24, 2024: Meta reportedly rolled out an ad algorithm update in August. It caused a lot of volatility, but includes some nice sounding features. Conversion …

Sep 24, 2024: We’ve been preparing all our clients for this: The vast majority of political ad spend happens in the month prior to the election.Bottom of …

Sep 24, 2024: Minimum Viable Website: A Thought Exercise If your website had to fit entirely on a phone screen—only one page, no scrolling, no links—what would it say? How would you: Tell your story …

Sep 22, 2024: Thinking about God promotes greater acceptance of Artificial intelligence (AI)-based recommendations. …when God is salient, people are more willing to …

Sep 21, 2024: Roku announced a self-serve ad platform which include two ad types I want to test: Action Ads: Marketers can easily generate interactive video …

Sep 20, 2024: YouTube confirms advertisers can broadly target your paused screentime: “As we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response, we’ve since …

Sep 19, 2024: 85% of registered voters surveyed trust podcasts more than any other news and information source, including newspapers (print or digital), TV …

Sep 19, 2024: Social Savannah’s top… Black Friday strategies / hooks for Meta: Unboxing reaction Price / discounts & deals KPI to measure …

Sep 18, 2024: Another check in the fun fall for marketers checklist: In light of the progress on inflation and the balance of risks, the Committee decided to lower …

Sep 18, 2024: A client wanted some guidance on keywords to use in their social content to help reach their audience. I included this disclaimer / calrification in …

Sep 18, 2024: Meta wants your holiday ad dollars, so it’s rolled out: More prominent promo callouts Expanded reminder ad capabilities Site links for all …

Sep 16, 2024: Posts with a lot of comments look to be more heavily weighted when it comes to what shows up in your Threads feed. That’s over re-shares and Likes, …

Sep 16, 2024: This list of trajectories for future festivals includes some good potential trajectories for brands too. Lightning Rods for Weak Signals Enablers of …

Sep 16, 2024: I work with a lot of real estate clients at Blue Ion, so I think a lot about how the market may change and how we can do real estate marketing better …

Sep 16, 2024: Aim to be effective, but unpredictable. That is, you want to act in a way that AIs have trouble modeling or imitating. That makes you irreplaceable. …

Sep 14, 2024: 6 seconds is the magic number for all kinds of content these days. The average site visitor surveyed said they would wait up to eight seconds for a …

Sep 14, 2024: A good place to find new customers is by looking for already established things that you are similar to. Gabe Anderson …

Sep 13, 2024: New toy alert Generative AI search engine Perplexity said it will launch ads in Q4 Perplexity’s new ads will be video ads and sponsored …

Sep 13, 2024: “newstalgia”—a desire for familiarity combined with novelty Molly Gabris …

Sep 11, 2024: Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment …

Sep 11, 2024: And so, Swift has put up something of a door: access to her costs fans at least $12.99. Here’s the thing about doors though: while they keep people …

Sep 10, 2024: Citing continued inflation and high interest rates, 33% of consumers say they will spend less this year on holiday shopping than in 2023, …

Sep 9, 2024: Despite Apple’s long lead, Spotify Technology SA. and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube have now become the most popular places to listen to …

Sep 9, 2024: Brands can help combat this general fatigue with campaigns centered around solving a problem in an impactful way, especially focusing on infectious …

Sep 8, 2024: What?! The goldfish brain is evolving! Engagement on longer short-form video is increasing across YouTube and TikTok as traditional short-form …

Sep 8, 2024: Google Is A Monopolist? Part 2 Google and the Justice Department are set for a rematch of sorts on Monday when they return to court to argue about …

Sep 8, 2024: SEO approach for blog content from David CH of SaaSPad.co (YouTube link): Write like ChatGPT Not style or tone, but format. Intro paragraph followed …

Sep 7, 2024: This Fall Will Be Fun For Marketers: Part 3 2024 is projected to be a record-breaking year, surpassing $12 billion in political ad spend. …

Sep 7, 2024: If you ask a co-worker to do some research for you, you probably aren’t worried they’ll fabricate it. You’re more likely to worry about things like …

Sep 7, 2024: Consumers and ecommerce brands agree the sector’s outlook is positive. But they part ways when it comes to what makes a good shopping …

Sep 6, 2024: Snapchat will soon start “experimenting” with placing sponsored messages next to chat threads from friends, according to CEO Evan Spiegel. These …

Sep 6, 2024: According to LibSyn, podcast ad CPMs are: :30 second = $18 :60 second = $25 Which means, on average, a minute long podcast ad is at the low end of :30 …

Sep 6, 2024: 🔮 AI-powered voice assistants accessible in cars will boost audio ad performance.

Sep 2, 2024: Low-income consumers feeling a pinch in the economy are leading to lower-than-expected sales for Dollar General Jordan Valinsky …

Aug 31, 2024: YouTube became the first streaming platform ever to exceed 10% of total TV usage in July. Nielsen …

Aug 30, 2024: Growth hacking is just that—hacks, tricks, shortcuts. It’s like lighter fluid. There’s a purpose for both (usually speed and ease). But …

Aug 29, 2024: Building a brand is: Expensive in the short run Cheap in the long run 95% of consumers are likely to revisit a brand after a positive experience …

Aug 29, 2024: This Fall Will Be Fun For Marketers: Part 2 67% of consumers are anticipating marketing fatigue by November 1, 2024. Marketing fatigue occurs when …

Aug 25, 2024: What are your expectations of the circus? We couldn’t get the elephants because we were too busy perfecting our popcorn.  You have to know what …

Aug 25, 2024: Sales and marketing are not just a tax you pay for not having a great product or great service. Great companies do sales and marketing. Sales and …

Aug 24, 2024: Every interaction with a customer is an exchange of trust. You’re either banking trust or withdrawing from your accrued balance.

Aug 23, 2024: “The time has come for policy to adjust,” Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said Friday, in his most anticipated speech of the year. “The direction of travel …

Aug 22, 2024: Chick-Fil-A is reportedly cooking up a family-friendly streaming service I don’t understand this play. Trying to recreate the Disney …

Aug 21, 2024: Apparently that “unknown” age range in Google Ads is mostly teenagers and younger users. Google could use app downloads and online activity to …

Aug 20, 2024: Apple Podcasts can now be streamed from the web. Apple announced on Monday that its Apple Podcasts app is now available on all major web browsers …

Aug 19, 2024: New learnings from The Meta Rep™: If you pause a campaign / ad set / ad, you have 7 days to turn it back on without losing any of the learnings …

Aug 19, 2024: said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a call discussing the results with investors. “Over the long term, advertisers will basically just be able to tell us …

Aug 18, 2024: A new study reveals the promise and limitations of interactive TV advertising. The key findings: 36% stronger unaided brand recall vs. standard video …

Aug 17, 2024: The best way to provide value to your stakeholders is to provide value to your customers. Notice that the wording of this does not confuse those two …

Aug 16, 2024: People may be spending less time on Facebook (just the blue app, not Instagram), but it certainly isn’t going anywhere. The number of Gen Z Facebook …

Aug 16, 2024: This is an excellent guide to Meta’s Audience Segments powering Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASCs) from Foxwell Digital. Includes audience types to …

Aug 15, 2024: YouTube is a powerhouse but also still somehow underrated as a marketing channel (video is the hardest asset to create). But this is very interesting …

Aug 15, 2024: Turns out Meta is removing detailed targeting exclusions and the leaked announcement wasn’t a bug, just a month early. You can still use alternative …

Aug 15, 2024: Sounds like clickbait: an idea so wild it just might work! The idea is that the US would require Google to make its search index publicly available …

Aug 14, 2024: This vibes with what I’ve been seeing in reporting Intent is building, evidenced by improved CTR and CPCs - but conversion behavior isn't there …

Aug 12, 2024: As TikTok and Instagram unseat Google in the realm of local search, I see a realm of possibilities for [things like] Meta Maps and SnapMap. Curious …

Aug 12, 2024: Google wanted advertisers to turn everything over to the algorithms with Performance Max, advertisers pushed back and asked for a peek inside the …

Aug 11, 2024: I love this from Sidekick Books: Award-winning publisher of hybrid and experimental multi-author treasuries and pamphlets. We believe the most …

Aug 10, 2024: So what keeps us going? For some, it’s fear. But for most of us, it’s belief in our actions. And that belief is fueled by visceral signs of impact. …

Aug 9, 2024: US mortgage rates plummeted this week after weaker-than-expected employment data raised the odds of the Federal Reserve cutting interest …

Aug 8, 2024: Last month, the price of a USPS stamp increased 5 cents to 73 cents. A change that may further squeeze businesses looking to minimize shopping costs …

Aug 8, 2024: More Meta insights from my (really good) rep. Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns can handle up to 150 different ads, but what about “normal” …

Aug 8, 2024: How do you set a budget for Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns? According to my (really good) Meta rep, the rule of thumb is: $100 per ad per day ASC with …

Aug 8, 2024: Netflix will charge advertisers CPMs (cost per thousand viewers) between $20 and $30 for some of its ad inventory, the buyers said. Netflix will …

Aug 7, 2024: Originally mentioned back in May, Apple is leaning in to Safari being the anti-Chrome. Safari is getting a new feature. Distraction Control allows …

Aug 6, 2024: A federal judge ruled that Google violated US antitrust law by maintaining a monopoly in the search and advertising markets. The advertising portion …

Aug 3, 2024: This should be fun #Y2K38 (absolutely click through for the animated visual at the very least)

Aug 2, 2024: Great communities thrive on repeatability. The rituals, the culture, the gatherings, and the expectation settings. Rosie Sherry …

Jul 31, 2024: This from earlier provides a good reminder These strike me as great questions to ask from the POV of your customer for each touch point you design …

Jul 31, 2024: Stanislavsky taught his acting students to ask three questions of their characters in any scene: “Who am I? How did I get here? What do I want?” …

Jul 30, 2024: From Apple: Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser I think …

Jul 29, 2024: Google has pulled the plug on pulling the plug on third-party cookies in Chrome. It seems they couldn’t find a privacy-preserving replacement that …

Jul 29, 2024: Now your products don’t have to be in Walmart for your ads to be there. The retail giant said it plans to start offering ad space inside of its …

Jul 28, 2024: pay much greater attention to your style, the visuals, the story they tell. Remember: images linger in the mind long after words are forgotten. Pay …

Jul 27, 2024: IKEA and Home Depot have Halloween decor featured on their home pages. Just heard a grocery store manager say they’ll be getting Halloween candy in …

Jul 27, 2024: Do the same thing as everyone else and get worse results. via Seth Godin’s daily calendar

Jul 23, 2024: Research from Ariyh shows that native ads may have great click rates, but that traffic doesn’t stick around on your site. (Like Google Ads max clicks …

Jul 22, 2024: From Tom Asacker: Ask them if your organization, your culture, is producing the results it is designed to produce? It’s a trick question. A …

Jul 22, 2024: Similar to Google: Microsoft Ads is rolling out a new feature called “brand lists” for Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. Brand lists allow …

Jul 21, 2024: If you’re having different kinds of conversations in the same moment, it’s really, really hard to hear each other. It’s really hard to feel connected. …

Jul 20, 2024: 🚨 🪦 Google to kill off URL shortener once and for all Links shortened with goo.gl will stop working in 2025 You have just over a year to migrate if …

Jul 20, 2024: Stories are our wealth. -Joy Harjo from Secrets from the Center of the World 📚

Jul 19, 2024: was assumed that for a streaming service to work as a standalone business, you needed at least 100,000,000 subscribers. And now the thought from these …

Jul 19, 2024: Paramount might do for streaming TV ads what Spotify did for podcast ads: make it accessible at small budgets. With the new offering, SMBs will be …

Jul 18, 2024: Ad tech giant Taboola has struck a deal with Apple to power native advertising within the Apple News and Apple Stocks apps 🤔 Imagine this is a bridge …

Jul 16, 2024: This is an interesting stat about Prime Day ads: 15 dollars of incremental sales for every dollar of AM/FM radio advertising Audio always. Audio …

Jul 16, 2024: The best ideas are when you’re like, “we can never do this, we’re going to get in big trouble, this is so wrong.” When you feel that, you’ve got to …

Jul 14, 2024: Sacred places are the first places to be destroyed by invaders and iconoclasts, for whom nothing is more offensive than the enemy’s gods. … For there …

Jul 14, 2024: she found it hard to believe that all living things needed to speak. Believe, said the bear. Whether you hear them or not, they need it like they need …

Jul 13, 2024: According to research headlines featuring common words outperform those with complex phrasing when grabbing readers’ attention. Outperform meaning …

Jul 13, 2024: A little trend watching thanks the Gen Alpha’s digital behavior (even though generations are garbage) the bigger the platform—so athletes, …

Jul 12, 2024: YouTube Sees Brand Fans Move From Consumers Of Culture To Shaping It Content creators are the new studios and the Gen Z entertainment paradigm is …

Jul 11, 2024: Apple is targeting to begin mass production of new “AirPods with camera modules” by 2026 … According to Kuo, these new AirPods will feature an …

Jul 10, 2024: Spotify for Podcasters has introduced the ability for podcast audiences to leave comments on podcasts Spotify adding a little YouTube-esque …

Jul 10, 2024: From the 2024 Women’s NCAA tournament reaching a peak of 24 million viewers at the final game, to the UK’s national Women’s Soccer League receiving a …

Jul 9, 2024: From today’s Ben Evans email: A few years ago this would have been expensive and time-consuming if it was even possible - soon it will just be a …

Jul 9, 2024: From MarTech: Steve Ganem, Product Director of Google Analytics, on what’s ahead for GA4 More offline data and more AI continue to innovate and …

Jul 9, 2024: Fun trick for ecomm competitor analysis Landing page research hack. Go to /sitemap.xml on any Shopify store. That gets you the list of each of the …

Jul 8, 2024: People are addicted to escape -Abass Wurie This was said about drugs, but drugs are are just one avenue of escape. via Marginal Revolution

Jul 8, 2024: Meta’s Instant Forms are a powerful lead gen tool, but quality can be low out of the box. Here are some steps from Big Blue to improve …

Jul 7, 2024: Thanks to Gabe the Bass Player, I’m beginning to see that I think of brands like songs. Some are transient hits and others classics. Some are pop …

Jul 6, 2024: The sweet spot is caring deeply about the process while not caring too much about the outcome. -Rohan Rajiv Process over results. This is key to …

Jul 5, 2024: The age of multi-media brands is here findings revealed a strong preference across the board for the addition of sonic to visual logos, and this …

Jul 4, 2024: Good news: Fourth of July gas prices are set for a three-year low Adjusted for inflation, US gas prices are almost exactly where they were in July …

Jul 4, 2024: When it comes to naming in the branding process, we regularly talk about how a name is an empty vessel and doesn’t need inherent meaning to work. What …

Jun 30, 2024: Pinterest will now allow users to create short videos of their curated Pinterest boards, designed to be shared on social media. Pinterest dubs this …

Jun 29, 2024: People want ads that make them laugh Humor is a more prominent factor than purpose, surprise, or novelty when looking at the most popular …

Jun 29, 2024: Robert Greene defining the curiosity gap: People love mysteries and enigmas, so give them what they want. via The Daily Laws

Jun 28, 2024: Love these quotes from AriZona Iced Tea’s founder about the 99 cent cans People say, ‘How do you do it?‘ We make it faster. We ship it better. …

Jun 27, 2024: Next addition to the Google graveyard: infinite scroll Google said this change is to serve the search results faster on more searches, instead of …

Jun 27, 2024: consumers form more negative impressions of and are less persuaded by influencers who disable social media comments. These outcomes are driven by the …

Jun 26, 2024: Eventually, a promo heavy strategy becomes your brand position. See: JCPenney via Bad Machinery

Jun 24, 2024: My Meta rep’s go-to approach for creative differentiation in Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns: Create a few personas Create a few value adds for each …

Jun 23, 2024: Cue the Khaled memes: PayPal announced plans to create a new advertising platform rooted in transaction data generated by its nearly 400 million …

Jun 23, 2024: Of course, there are times where sharing your strategy may be unproductive. Like when signaling to competitors. Seem to want something in which you …

Jun 23, 2024: More on the Google ranking factors leak & why it shouldn’t distract you from focusing on users. People have long divorced SEO from user …

Jun 22, 2024: Google’s search ranking factors leaked & the SEO world has been doing its best Shark Week impression trying to digest the info and tease out the …

Jun 21, 2024: Word is Meta Advantage+ product teams are broken out by feature—like an Audiences team & an Ad Serving team—that ship changes & updates …

Jun 21, 2024: Survey says… Of the industries included, podcasting provided the highest short-term return on ad spend with 4.2x, as well as the highest long-term …

Jun 19, 2024: Instacart plugs retail media data into YouTube Shopping ads to fuel offsite growth There are two parts to the digital ad equation: data + inventory. …

Jun 17, 2024: Disney has 2 new ad types for streaming. The first: boring shopping ads via QR codes. The second has strong old school banner vibes: advergames Quiz …

Jun 17, 2024: What do you get when you mix Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+? Pinterest Performance+ Similar to the others: streamlined creation flows, …

Jun 16, 2024: Retailers and brands with very strong brands and brand positioning are doing well. And those that aren’t or are struggling to define why …

Jun 15, 2024: 28% of listeners say they listen to “all of the ads” on podcasts, the highest percentage among all media channels tested. In part because they …

Jun 15, 2024: Artificial Intelligence: A Definition Walter Sinnott Armstrong with my favorite definition of Artificial Intelligence: “It occurs whenever a machine learns something.” Because learning …

Jun 14, 2024: YouTube is taking its next step in the ongoing tug of war between ad tech and ad blockers. The “server-side ad injection” approach bakes ads into the …

Jun 12, 2024: Now we can all be Mr. Beast YouTube is finally rolling out the ability for creators to test and compare how multiple video thumbnails perform With …

Jun 12, 2024: On Brand: Authenticity & Personality Blake Droesch on the type of brand that won’t be disrupted by AI And other technologies (~25:21): The authentic brand is the one that is going …

Jun 11, 2024: Costco has entered the chat. Costco is building out an ad network built on its trove of loyalty membership data, using its 74.5 million household …

Jun 10, 2024: Following up on my post about how to make a video according to Meta, from Meta: we won’t recommend Reels that are over 90 seconds long If you’re …

Jun 10, 2024: From a Meta rep, creative differentiation isn’t just about designing assets that look different. It’s about creating assets and messaging …

Jun 10, 2024: Anything created before you’re 15 is just the way the world has always been. Anything created between the ages of 15 and, maybe, 35 or 40 is …

Jun 9, 2024: Let’s build a brand with a soul — Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) February 9, 2024

Jun 9, 2024: I think the future, as seen for the last 20 or 30 years, is task-specific UIs that reduce complexity and data overload and focus on what you need to …

Jun 9, 2024: 36% of respondents had the highest attention quality with the version of the ad containing the highest voiceover volume. Keeping an ad creative …

Jun 9, 2024: The resale industry (formerly known as second-hand shops) is growing fast. The segment could double to $82 billion by 2026, according to an …

Jun 8, 2024: Good advice from James Clear There are at least 4 types of wealth: Financial wealth (money) Social wealth (status) Time wealth (freedom) Physical …

Jun 7, 2024: Can you over-communicate with clients?

Jun 6, 2024: I really like this: Marketing’s value proposition for a brand is not growth but differentiation. Differentiation as a way to become visible and …

Jun 6, 2024: This chart is interesting because I feel like brands firmly focus on the items in the middle. Customers just want to be rewarded for being loyal …

Jun 5, 2024: When asked how Dave Matthews Band sells out so many shows… Dave Matthews’ line is always, “we only have 35,000 fans, they just go to every show.” …

Jun 3, 2024: Instagram confirmed it’s testing unskippable ads after screenshots of the feature began circulating across social media. These new ad breaks will …

Jun 3, 2024: I’m always wondering where to draw the line with advertising frequency, so I’ll take this number from Meta and use it as the ad-level …

Jun 1, 2024: I agree with Rushkoff on this: The value of this technology in creative work is not to come up with the ideal commercial product but to show us …

Jun 1, 2024: Average marketing budgets have fallen to 7.7% of overall company revenue, down from 9.1% in 2023 Budgets typically lag the economy, but can be a …

May 31, 2024: LinkedIn has reduced the size of link preview images for organic posts, while maintaining larger preview images for sponsored content. I noticed the …

May 31, 2024: How to Make a Video According to Meta Looking for a video formula? This is The Playbook According to Meta: Logo visible within the first 3 seconds Action within the first 6 seconds Core …

May 30, 2024: Dexa: AI-powered search of podcast content

May 30, 2024: Might grocers' price cuts ease inflation and the current vibe-cession? Target began cutting prices on 5,000 grocery store items Walmart, which …

May 29, 2024: All ads I want to try Around half of streaming viewers have taken some action upon seeing a pause ad … 67% said they’d interacted with an ad that …

May 29, 2024: Google is emailing advertisers to notify them it will soon begin automatically pausing low-activity keywords. According to the email, positive …

May 29, 2024: I posted the other day about sharing your strategy with everyone, then I read a Seth Godin piece that included this bit: When you give away your work …

May 28, 2024: “Running with scissors is a cardio exercise that can increase your heart rate and require concentration and focus,” says Google’s new AI search …

May 27, 2024: Share Your Strategy with Everyone It’s tempting to keep it to ourselves, but making it collaborative can be much more helpful. Especially in …

May 26, 2024: If you use Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping campaigns you may be familiar with the new(ish) audience segments. You may also be confused by a …

May 26, 2024: when corporations talk about values, was it because of ethics? Or aesthetics? Is it a value or a tactic? It’ll come out eventually. One compounds …

May 25, 2024: AI is a sea change. For marketing: Out: Control In: Context In many ways this is a return to an earlier era of marketing, just with a new …

May 25, 2024: Black Friday became the Turkey 5 weekend which feels like it’s becoming Black November with the way retailers are pushing sales earlier, but… …

May 23, 2024: Google Marketing Live continued a recent trend for Google Ads, making it more and more like social ad platforms as far as creation flow and targeting. …

May 22, 2024: Basically me, if you replace philosophy with marketing and the sign with a billboard promoting billboards. via Existential Comics

May 21, 2024: While Google is Meta-fying its ad platform as fast as it can, Zuck+Co might be returning the favor. Site links in your social feed! The site links …

May 20, 2024: I’m fully bought into the gospel according to Jon Loomer When you obsess over targeting, it becomes an unnecessary distraction from what is most …

May 19, 2024: it’s teaming up with OpenAI to add the startup’s technology to iOS 18, the next version of the iPhone’s software Sounds like OpenAI won the gig …

May 18, 2024: Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used. … Functional fixedness is …

May 18, 2024: From The Guardian fraudsters impersonated WPP’s CEO using a fake WhatsApp account, a voice clone and YouTube footage used in a virtual meet Will AI …

May 16, 2024: Benedict Evans’ prediction for WWDC: More will probably be about how it uses LLMs to deliver new features, how much those can be run on the device …

May 16, 2024: About that ad-supported plan… Netflix’s cheaper, ad-supported tier now has 40 million global monthly active users, nearly double the 23 million the …

May 16, 2024: It’s happening Netflix will launch an in-house advertising technology platform, by the end of 2025 … This summer, Netflix will also …

May 15, 2024: A year ago, Google said that it believed AI was the future of search. That future is apparently here: Google is starting to roll out “AI Overviews,” …

May 14, 2024: Expect Meta to remove detailed targeting exclusions. Maybe on June 28, maybe another day. This is one of those features that is mostly a remnant of …

May 13, 2024: Instagram is going small? The platform is introducing a ranking change that will give smaller creators more distribution, replacing reposts with …

May 12, 2024: More Shiny New Ad Toys Meta Marketers get ready: ads are coming to Threads a lot sooner than expected. The tech platform recently told ad execs that they will be able to …

May 12, 2024: Questions tend to be framed from the perspective of making existing audio content reach more people. Nuzum argues the audience should be the core of …

May 11, 2024: Walmart advertisers will be able to match the retailer’s shopper data with Disney’s proprietary Audience Graph tools, helping them target audiences …

May 9, 2024: Consumers have different preferences. It’s ultimately about removing friction in the experience, but what removing friction looks like is very …

May 9, 2024: Podcasts drive consistent growth in awareness, likelihood to seek information, purchase intent, and recommendation. More podcasts in your strategy! …

May 9, 2024: Asked a client how we can provide better service than previous agencies… “Just show up, that’s a good start.” The good news …

May 6, 2024: CapCut users are scrambling since news of the potential TikTok ban broke. Some said they were worried they wouldn’t be able to continue to make videos …

May 5, 2024: Are you building an audience or building traffic? via ComicLab podcast

May 4, 2024: In the simplest terms, stores serve as hubs of fulfillment and support distribution logistics. This is increasingly more important as consumers are …

May 4, 2024: Instagram looks to be experimenting with a new option that would enable you to hide the description and UI buttons on Reels clips, giving you a …

May 4, 2024: It seems to me that in recent times, there has been a great push toward exclusivity and identity. However, the universal problem of the COVID 19 …

May 3, 2024: It’s been a while since I’ve written about the splintering of spending across demographics, turns out it may be keeping interest rates …

May 1, 2024: Everyone can be an ad platform now. This is just the beginning. In it’s first-ever NewFronts presentation, mobile carrier T-Mobile unveiled an …

May 1, 2024: Wild stat from Meta’s creative team (that I heard second hand so grain of salt): The amount of content the average user scrolls a day is as tall as …

Apr 30, 2024: I kind of love this idea: How to transform your Google Ads headlines with anti-audiences To define your anti-audience, think about who’s least likely …

Apr 29, 2024: Meta recommends 30% of your budget be allocated to Advantage+ Shopping campaigns (if applicable). Meta rep told me they think it’ll hit at least 60% …

Apr 28, 2024: Finished reading: How to Say No by Diogenes 📚

Apr 28, 2024: Why “Curious Marketers Club”? In the words of James Clear: There are many recipes for success. There is no single way to win. But nearly all recipes …

Apr 28, 2024: Yup JPMorgan’s pivot to advertising means all companies are adtechs now The crumbling of cookies has shifted value from third-party cookies to …

Apr 27, 2024: YouTube is big enough that it’s its own category when it comes to how people watch videos via eMarketer

Apr 27, 2024: Reddit has launched their Meta catalog and Google Shopping ads clone: Dynamic Product Ads. Very tempted to try these since the forum has taken over …

Apr 26, 2024: The power of influencers continues to grow, but their status as a marketing channel has been recognized and accepted: “authenticity” as a valued …

Apr 25, 2024: So about them cookies Google delays third-party cookie phase-out to 2025 (maybe) For the third time, Google has postponed the anticipated deprecation …

Apr 24, 2024: About that TikTok ban The Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would restrict the video app TikTok, a historic development in government regulation …

Apr 23, 2024: Temu is spending like crazy on advertising “As a result, this increases everyone’s CPA (cost per acquisition) on platforms like Meta and Google …

Apr 22, 2024: A ByteDance ban might be getting closer to reality: The House once again passed a bill that could ban TikTok from the US unless its Chinese parent …

Apr 21, 2024: Market your brand the way your brand’s personality would. What people get stuck on with brand marketing is, “oh, I gotta do billboards or podcast ads …

Apr 21, 2024: Cookieless ad targeting requires marketers to understand how consumers use their websites “We’re never going to get back to what [digital …

Apr 20, 2024: Future Forecast on AirChat, the Twitter + Clubhouse lovechild: people are actually moving away from the big [social media platforms] and looking for …

Apr 20, 2024: The Future G.I. Joe Promised As TV has progressed from ephemeral programming delivered via wires to on-demand catalogs in the ether, the bottleneck has moved from demand to …

Apr 20, 2024: Finished reading: The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth 📚

Apr 18, 2024: “con-trar-i-an n. an investor who makes decisions that contradict prevailing wisdom, as in buying securities that are unpopular at the time.” …

Apr 18, 2024: This is from Seth Godin‘s daily calendar. Logos are not brands. They’re bat signals for the other stans. A form of visual shorthand. It’s not about …

Apr 17, 2024: On Tuesday, the United Nations financial agency published its latest annual World Economic Outlook, projecting among other things that the US economy …

Apr 16, 2024: Consumers are turning to loyalty programs for discounts to help offset persistently higher prices. But interest in free products is declining. They …

Apr 15, 2024: Choose your customers, choose your future. -Seth Godin

Apr 15, 2024: This is where I’m trying to spend more of my time

Apr 14, 2024: Finished reading: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill 📚

Apr 14, 2024: Shorter copy drives more action. It’s science! 3 ways to shrink your copy: Fewer words Fewer ideas (be really clear on your goal) Fewer requests: …

Apr 13, 2024: Anybody can get traffic, but it’s hard to build an audience. -Casey Newton via Sounds Profitable

Apr 13, 2024: Everything is marketing. Unless what you’re doing is unique, it’s really marketing at the end of the day. & Brands are becoming media …

Apr 13, 2024: Is attention the new attribution? The New York Times is partnering with Adelaide, a company that uses signals like eye-tracking data to gauge whether …

Apr 13, 2024: It begins? Ferret-UI offers the possibility of advanced control over a device like an iPhone. By understanding user interface elements, it offers the …

Apr 12, 2024: 🔥 insight from Tom Webster: years ago, in the late 20th century, where I am from, there was a thing called videotape, and there were two different …

Apr 11, 2024: Indicator Bingo March 2024 Inflation is up The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.4 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the same …

Apr 11, 2024: Finished reading: HOLE. by HIROKO. OYAMADA 📚

Apr 10, 2024: Ulta Beauty's Retail Media Move A recent episode of eMarketer’s Behind the Numbers podcast focused on retail media and this tidbit jumped out: Yeah, I am super excited for …

Apr 10, 2024: Audio always I think in-store radio is a place where we’re seeing retailers start to play, I think because consumers are already primed to …

Apr 10, 2024: In response to the Search Engine Land piece about Google Ad Strength that I responded to, Google says Ad Strength is not used in the auction. But! Ad …

Apr 10, 2024: Followers are dead. From the head of Instagram: I understand why people focus so much on follower counts; they’re prominent and they’re easy to find. …

Apr 9, 2024: Meta disclosed Instagram ad revenue as part of the antitrust process. Instagram earned: $11.3 billion in ad revenue in 2018 $17.9 billion in 2019 …

Apr 9, 2024: Google Ad Strength: Garbage or Nah? PPC experts are saying Google’s Ad Strength metric is garbage. Google says: Ad Strength is at the centre of what we’re trying to do is because …

Apr 8, 2024: Zig vs. Zag Lucky vs. Repeatable It’s so important to know the difference between the two when attempting to learn from someone. You want to try to emulate …

Apr 8, 2024: On today’s podcast episode, we discuss which digital behaviors Hispanic Americans over-index on, how they get their news, and what advertisers …

Apr 7, 2024: Shiny New Ad Toys Walmart it is opening up Walmart Connect to brands that have not traditionally sold their products in its stores, such as automotive and financial …

Apr 7, 2024: Finished reading: The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers 📚

Apr 7, 2024: AI and the Complexity of Loss - blog.rinesi.com Highly recommended for anyone interested in the more technical side of AI. And a quote that extends …

Apr 7, 2024: Facebook will play videos in full-screen vertical by default. Plus some UI updates. Think TikTok meets YouTube. via Meta

Apr 6, 2024: Apple Car is dead, meet Apple Robot? With robotics, Apple could gain a bigger foothold in consumers’ homes and capitalize on advances in artificial …

Apr 6, 2024: March’s job numbers are in: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 303,000 in March, and the unemployment rate changed little at 3.8 percent, the …

Apr 6, 2024: Sounds like Google is kicking the tires on an acquisition of HubSpot. This is a really interesting listen on how it fits into their plans:

Apr 5, 2024: Audio. Always. Podcasting deserves a larger role in media plans as opposed to “test and learn” experimental buys. 135 million Americans, 47% of …

Apr 5, 2024: retail media networks could be a driver for programmatic audio as the next essential advertising channel … A Million Ads global CRO Paul Kelly says …

Apr 4, 2024: Good reminder: Ads Optimization is Literal When you select a performance goal in the ad set, the algorithm’s entire focus is getting you as many of …

Apr 4, 2024: 🚨 Meta Is Broken For the second time in just over a month, Meta’s apps, including WhatsApp, and to some extent, Messenger and Instagram, faced outages and intermittent …

Apr 3, 2024: Anyone trying to garner attention these days is essentially a media entity. This means owned media channels are important (and I think will only …

Apr 2, 2024: The AI search engine Perplexity is going to start testing ads Related questions, which include links to sources, account for 40% of Perplexity’s …

Apr 2, 2024: A Brand is Empty, then Full A new brand is an empty vessel. The meaning doesn’t come from the name or the logo, but from what you fill it up with. Your drive. Your reason …

Apr 2, 2024: Looking forward to playing with this new reporting feature from Meta (because I’m a data nerd). With the Engaged Customers Audience Segment, …

Apr 1, 2024: The premise is that creators make content for a brand, but instead of living solely on social media channels, that content lives in 15- and 30-second …

Apr 1, 2024: Social media is a major gatekeeper at this point—the other one is search—so if you’re building a strategy that would be reliant on social media, …

Mar 31, 2024: Finished reading: The Wager by David Grann 📚

Mar 31, 2024: via the Future Forecast podcast: Nowstalgia: hyperfast way of looking at nostalgia of things that didn’t happen decades ago but years or even …

Mar 29, 2024: Friday Bits & Bytes | 032924 Why Marketers need to embrace the funny when it comes to podcasting While there’s no sure-fire formula to being funny, brands that lean into comedic …

Mar 29, 2024: Attention Spans or Filter Quality? Are our attention spans really getting shorter? I hear this said a lot. But I also know people who listen to multi-hour podcasts, read books, binge …

Mar 27, 2024: Wednesday Bits & Bytes | 032724 Ad Market Expands 10.4% In February The U.S. ad market expanded at its greatest rate in nearly two years in February – increasing 10.4% over …

Mar 26, 2024: Tuesday Bits & Bytes | 032624 Exploding Topics: Anti-Detect Browser Anti-detect browsers are web browsers designed to minimize the digital footprint of their users. These browsers …

Mar 24, 2024: Sunday Bits & Bytes | 032424 Welcome to Agency Adventure! Agency Adventure is a custom, desktop video game created by Snapchat to help educate our Agency partners on the value …

Mar 23, 2024: Saturday Bits & Bytes | 032324 Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Interpretation, Calvinist Thought, and Religion in America (Ep. 207) On the continuing denigration of John Calvin: The …

Mar 23, 2024: Building a brand is Expensive in the short run Cheap in the long run

Mar 22, 2024: Friday Bits & Bytes | 032224 Evolving Google Analytics for more insightful measurement To make it easier to compare these actions across platforms, we are aligning how …

Mar 22, 2024: On Top Social Media Referral Traffic Sources YouTube is a sleeping giant—it’s not just a TikTok competitor or a Netflix competitor or a search competitor or a Spotify competitor. SEO as we …

Mar 20, 2024: What We Can Learn from Bad CEO Quotes The CEOs of Kellogg and Wendy’s recently caused a bit of public outcry. From the Kellogg end: We’ve got to reach the consumer where they are, so …

Mar 19, 2024: Tuesday Marketing Links | 031924 IN AN ERA OF COLLABORATION SATURATION, HOW DO BRANDS STAND OUT? 71% of people agree that the story you tell around a collaboration is just as …

Mar 19, 2024: As technology advanced we became increasingly more like computers—adapting to their way of working, of interfacing. The promise of AI is that could …

Mar 18, 2024: Monday Marketing Links | 031824 Cookie Deprecation is Coming - Should Advertisers be Worried? Apple blocked third party cookies for 100% of traffic back in 2020, and most brands see …

Mar 18, 2024: It's A Metric!: First Time Impression Ratio Today’s metric is one I just learned about: First Time Impression Ratio (FTIR) According to Meta, FTIR is: The percentage of your daily …

Mar 17, 2024: Why I Am Not Using “Notes” Disguised as a post about a Substack feature is a reminder that: Most new platform features are attempts at moat building …

Mar 17, 2024: Are you trying to find a solution for a problem you haven’t created yet? A hypothesis is useless without a test. Pick a measuring stick and get going. Iterate over time. You can’t have a return on investment if all you’ve …

Mar 16, 2024: Saturday Marketing Links | 031624 AI Prompt Engineering Is Dead / Long live AI prompt engineering According to one research team, no human should manually optimize prompts ever again. …

Mar 15, 2024: Finished reading: Head Lopper Vol. 2: Crimson Tower by Andrew Maclean 📚

Mar 15, 2024: Friday Marketing Links | 031524 TikTok’s potential U.S. ban stirs marketers, spurs contingency planning Meta could capture between 22.5% and 27.5% of TikTok’s U.S. ad revenues in …

Mar 14, 2024: I like this take on new tech adoption from Douglas Adams. any new technology is received differently by three different groups of people. If you’re …

Mar 14, 2024: “Audio all the time” is one of my core marketing beliefs for 2024, so I always like more evidence that it’s a good idea. 88% of TikTok users agree …

Mar 13, 2024: Advertising is the new subscription revenue for platforms and Apple wants a piece. via Gizmodo Apple just hired a 14-year ad executive from …

Mar 12, 2024: For most of us the key to the great commercial or ad or marketing idea or message lies within something that is already true about what we do. We …

Mar 11, 2024: Finished reading: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner 📚

Mar 11, 2024: 😬 last year, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) published a two-part report finding that 15% of programmatic, open-web advertising dollars …

Mar 11, 2024: Today a client said “it doesn’t matter what we think, let’s try stuff out and see what works.” Music to my ears. Defer to data.

Mar 10, 2024: The Nudge podcast covered irrational prices, noting they essentially act as a hook cementing your brand in people’s minds (Costco’s $1.50 hot dog, …

Mar 9, 2024: What the birth of the spreadsheet teaches us about generative AI There is one very clear parallel between the digital spreadsheet and generative AI: …

Mar 9, 2024: Not great Bob! Advertising still largely fails to adequately represent women with intersectional identities, either relying on stereotypes or failing …

Mar 9, 2024: Are the algorithms starting to turn on generative AI? Google has updated Search to derank spam including: Scaled content abuse (aka made by AI) Site …

Mar 8, 2024: How To Connect To Your Clients' Meta Account One of the most annoying things we have to deal with on a (fairly) regular basis with Blue Ion clients is getting access to various Meta properties …

Mar 8, 2024: It feels like the “new normal” we were promised / warned about during the height of the pandemic is starting to settle in, and it’s …

Mar 7, 2024: The Biden White House is backing a bipartisan bill that could lead to a ban on the hugely popular social media app TikTok in the United States. The …

Mar 7, 2024: Finished reading: Head Lopper Volume 1: The Island Or a Plague of Beasts by Andrew Ross MacLean 📚

Mar 7, 2024: Is the future of radio TV? YouTube is the dominant player in podcasts (now with RSS feed ingestion). The sports podcast network Locked On has turned …

Mar 6, 2024: I’ve said it before, but here’s someone else saying it: Boring is the worst thing your brand can be. via Inc

Mar 5, 2024: How do you maximize your ads' ROI? Better creative. Creative quality is the primary lever we have left for targeting and the only aspect of …

Mar 4, 2024: Stanley is trying to dial back the drops frenzy by borrowing a page from the Taylor Swift playbook and getting people to sign up for the chance …

Mar 4, 2024: Another Podcast’s episode Google Gemini and AI bias unpacks the weights and training data stuff I briefly mentioned yesterday. Hidden patterns in data …

Mar 3, 2024: I’m a big pedal steel fan, so when Jason Isbell started talking about it on the Broken Record podcast I took note. The pedals are so small, and …

Mar 3, 2024: From episode three of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs: Once you give a collection of things a name—the way people’s minds work—they …

Mar 3, 2024: Finished reading: The Last Horse: Prologue by Aaron Tucker 📚

Mar 3, 2024: Finished reading: John Constantine, Hellblazer Vol. 8: Rake at the Gates of Hell by Garth Ennis 📚

Mar 2, 2024: The more you know 💫 Ada Lovelace, the daughter of poet Lord Byron, wrote the first algorithm created specifically for a machine. -Tom Asacker

Mar 1, 2024: In the section of a recent The Email Marketing Show episode titled “Don’t make the mistake of offering discounts upfront!”: You got to really …

Mar 1, 2024: Investment is (slowly) trickling back into ad tech recent activity is a stark contrast to the conservatism of investors in 2023, with speculation …

Feb 29, 2024: Ambient computing is coming Apple has explored the idea of developing new wearable devices — including a fitness ring, smart glasses and even AirPods …

Feb 28, 2024: What happens when the usual forms of human-computer interface get disrupted? OpenAI is working on AI agents that take over your mouse and keyboard, …

Feb 28, 2024: Wendy’s looking to test surge pricing at restaurants The Amazonification of physical retail. I’m interested to see how this goes. I don’t …

Feb 28, 2024: This is maybe not the thing to say in a time of inflation when It’s Been 30 Years Since Food Ate Up This Much of Your Income: We’ve got to …

Feb 28, 2024: after the spike in online shopping ignited by the 2020 Covid quarantine, the e-commerce share of all retail sales had shrunk to less than 15% in the …

Feb 27, 2024: According to the Dotdash Meredith CEO: “if you cannot show performance, you are dead.” The evolution of advertising and how people interact with …

Feb 27, 2024: Spotify has big goals for its ad product The long-term aspiration, as stated by CEO Daniel Ek, is for advertising to generate 20% of the company’s …

Feb 26, 2024: Some quotes from Dave Gerhardt on the Marketing Against The Grain podcast: You say small business, mid market, and enterprise, internal. External …

Feb 26, 2024: From a great Dan Oshinsky LinkedIn post on email metrics: What does a good click-to-open metric look like? In 2023, ConvertKit said the average CTOR …

Feb 26, 2024: In The Abstract: Effectives of Limited Time Promos in Online Retail The paper Examining the Efficacy of Time Scarcity Marketing Promotions in Online Retail from the Journal of Marketing Research has some great research …

Feb 25, 2024: The New York Times is reportedly developing a generative AI tool to enhance ad targeting. The national daily newspaper is experimenting with several …

Feb 25, 2024: Quick Hit Google Bits Google Analytics 4 launches new trend detection insight trend change detection focuses on slower changes happening over a longer time. This gives …

Feb 24, 2024: Walmart on its reported (and now confirmed) interest in buying Vizio: We believe VIZIO’s customer-centric operating system provides great viewing …

Feb 24, 2024: If you want something to outlast a particular profit-driven business cycle, you have to make it yourself and you have to make it intentionally to not …

Feb 23, 2024: Finished reading: John Constantine, Hellblazer Vol. 7: Tainted Love by Garth Ennis 📚

Feb 23, 2024: This, to me, is the evolution of search. The search engine naturally becomes a task execution engine—or a Task Rabbit engine—where you can search for …

Feb 23, 2024: You get what you build. We wrote a dialogue with our music that was a continual growth. We know what we’ve made and we know what our audience is …

Feb 23, 2024: Slack is launching a suite of built-in AI features that serve up summaries of threads and channel recaps, while also allowing you to ask questions …

Feb 22, 2024: Federal Reserve officials continued to worry that inflation could stay stubbornly high during their policy meeting last month. That could keep …

Feb 22, 2024: Rather than an attack on the platforms, we can see this as the culmination of what social networks were built for; in an environment pushed by the …

Feb 21, 2024: ICYMI: What Apple’s iOS 17 privacy shift means for marketers With iOS 17, the company will remove URL tracking parameters from links accessed in its …

Feb 21, 2024: 82,000,000: Number of people in the U.S. who listen to AM radio monthly Audiences have splintered. Audio has reach. Digital hasn’t eaten the world. …

Feb 20, 2024: news agencies and digital advertisers are increasingly capturing attention online through the use of images, which people process more quickly, …

Feb 20, 2024: You are responsible for your site’s chatbot, because duh “In effect, Air Canada suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible …

Feb 20, 2024: Serial Killer or Assassin? Are you a serial killer or an assassin? (In terms of marketing. Hopefully you’re neither in the legit sense of the words.) Serials have a style. A …

Feb 19, 2024: “Old news” but timely as we get more privacy laws & cookies crumble Why Sephora’s $1.2 million settlement with California should be a …

Feb 19, 2024: More from OG journo-blogger Matt Welch: The early readers of those early blogs had an amazing connection with all of us personally in a way that’s …

Feb 18, 2024: 2024: the year of audio research has shown that audio ads outperform video ads in grabbing attention and generating brand recall The ears hit …

Feb 18, 2024: Trying to decide on a color this year? Pinterest has identified five key color palettes that will resonate with audiences this year: Gummy Pink …

Feb 17, 2024: OG journo-blogger Matt Welch on legacy media, like the Village Voice & LA Times: Never could adapt to the new reality. It’s a success curse. When …

Feb 17, 2024: Companies have moved focus from growth to revenue since Fed rates rose above 0. Especially those that care about their market cap & stock price. …

Feb 17, 2024: Finished reading: John Constantine, Hellblazer Vol. 6: Bloodlines by Garth Ennis 📚

Feb 16, 2024: Walmart is in talks to acquire Vizio, which sells a popular line of value-priced smart TVs that include an ad-supported free streaming service which …

Feb 16, 2024: I’ve been waiting for TikTok’s fall, but didn’t see them being their own worst enemy TikTok’s aggressive growth tactics are upsetting partners, …

Feb 16, 2024: Think of some recent digital ads that caught your eye or spurred you to take action: What similarities or themes are there? What about them felt …

Feb 15, 2024: This doesn’t surprise me Retail sales, which captures spending on all goods and food services, fell 0.8% in January That was even lower than …

Feb 15, 2024: I’m turning into a Google bear 🐻 An antitrust trial this fall Shedding services Competition from OpenAI: Develops Web Search Product in Challenge to …

Feb 15, 2024: It’s important to remember that each individual listener actually does experience the record in their own way. Even though the online and streaming …

Feb 14, 2024: Two Anthony De Mello quotes: A village blacksmith found an apprentice willing to work hard at low pay. The smith immediately began his instructions …

Feb 14, 2024: We’re not rational decision makers, we’re rationalizing decision makers. An important fact to keep in mind. We justify a purchase after—not …

Feb 14, 2024: NVIDIA’s new local LLM chatbot seems tailor made to corporate office/knowledge workers Those with compatible hardware can now install Chat With RTX, …

Feb 13, 2024: Soft landing? More like slow landing. CNN spoke with the Atlanta Fed President, who: is anticipating the nation’s inflation rate — which currently …

Feb 13, 2024: Earlier this month I asked if Google was now Microsoft. Magic 8 ball says “Signs point to yes” 🎱 via Inside: A U.S. federal judge has scheduled an …

Feb 12, 2024: Nearly 90% of consumers no longer trust influencers Consumers are becoming fed up with influencer marketing and are starting to seek out …

Feb 11, 2024: An important caveat to the Stanley Drops. They were the fuel, not the fire or the fire starter. The frenzy is “something that was, and still is, …

Feb 11, 2024: Drops: the key to Stanley Mania™️ Stanley hired Terence Reilly, the marketer credited for reinventing Crocs. Reading between the lines of what Reilly …

Feb 11, 2024: Some thoughts on the Vision Pro from Benedict Evans: Any use case that doesn’t land on the pinnacle of current tech—watching sports, gaming, …

Feb 11, 2024: “The buying of time or space is not the taking out of a hunting license on someone’s private preserve, but it is the renting of a stage on which we …

Feb 11, 2024: Podcast consumers prefer funny and entertaining ads but say they currently hear more ads that communicate dry features/benefits … Appealing to …

Feb 10, 2024: the most powerful institutions, brands and people are the ones who are in alignment with their audience. -Seth Godin

Feb 10, 2024: Streamers differentiate on content. The tech is basically all the same and you can only do some many things on the interface front. The “every one has …

Feb 10, 2024: Speaking of chips, Nvidia is feeling the heat from the new crop of startups looking to serve the exploding AI market with custom fabs. Nvidia is …

Feb 10, 2024: Sam Altman’s next galaxy brain idea: Sam Altman Seeks Trillions of Dollars to Reshape Business of Chips and AI 🔒 The project could require raising as …

Feb 9, 2024: Finished reading: Agostino by Alberto Moravia 📚

Feb 9, 2024: Why might the investment in brand marketing be increasing? MarTech: Web analytics is badly broken Apple has led the charge with Intelligent Tracking …

Feb 8, 2024: 36% of marketers worldwide will increase investment in brand marketing this year, a 13 percentage point increase over 2022 & 40% of marketers …

Feb 8, 2024: 🔋 batteries are an “atoms” technology — something that powers our physical world instead of helping us spin a new digital one. So the Decade of the …

Feb 7, 2024: About those indirect competitors So next time you think about how to garner more listeners, think more broadly about where that time will likely come …

Feb 7, 2024: The cookie has crumbled and the replacement isn’t out of the oven yet. At least in the short term, ad platforms are turning to Enhanced Conversions. A …

Feb 7, 2024: Apple enters the chat Apple has released a new open-source AI model, called “MGIE,” that can edit images based on natural language instructions. …

Feb 6, 2024: I love headlines like this Netflix’s Threat Isn’t in Hollywood. It’s YouTube Because they’re a great reminder that your biggest …

Feb 6, 2024: Sounds like the digital ad market is doing just fine Meta’s fourth-quarter ad sales jumped 24% from a year earlier to $38.7 billion, while Amazon’s …

Feb 6, 2024: Come together, right now On my TV ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery team up to launch sports super-streamer Consolidation—aka The Great …

Feb 6, 2024: Finished reading: Prayers to the Nature Spirits by Julia Cameron 📚 God of Coyote, God of Fox, Teach me with your wily walks. Make me clever, make me …

Feb 5, 2024: Apple is asking its developers and partners to describe its forthcoming Vision Pro headset as a “spatial computing” device Currently, VR seems more …

Feb 4, 2024: Finished reading: Demon Wars by Peach Momoko 📚

Feb 4, 2024: Basically a low key year ahead Chief marketing officers (CMOs) enter 2024 with an imperative to drive efficient growth in a volatile environment. …

Feb 3, 2024: Finished reading: Hojoki by Kamo no Chomei 📚

Feb 3, 2024: Hey, it’s me, your friendly neighborhood podcast stan… research has shown that audio ads outperform video ads in grabbing attention and generating …

Feb 3, 2024: So what about those cookie crumbs? Uncookied Chrome users appear to be monetizing about 30% worse than those [users] with cookies users of Apple’s …

Feb 3, 2024: Seemed like Google wanted to be a platform for everything you might need to do on the web. (Which meant more vectors for data collection to fuel the …

Feb 3, 2024: Google Search’s cache links are officially being retired Google claims it’s less necessary now that internet reliability has improved. Google is a …

Feb 3, 2024: If you want to glimpse the future of search, don’t look to Google.

Feb 3, 2024: In what feels a classic Amazon move, Prime Video ads launched with fixed CPMs lower than competitors. With the added benefit of using the existing …

Feb 2, 2024: Finished reading: John Constantine, Hellblazer Vol. 5: Dangerous Habits (New Edition) by Jamie Delano 📚

Feb 2, 2024: Asked: Test or beta? Answered: Google has now rolled out campaign level headlines and descriptions. You can now have the option to associate up to …

Feb 2, 2024: Good news! Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 353,000 for the month, much better than the Dow Jones estimate for 185,000 unemployment rate held at 3.7%, …

Feb 2, 2024: Ads that rhyme, stay in mind The average believability of the proverbs in the non-rhyming condition was 5.26 on a 9-point scale, but 6.17 in the …

Feb 2, 2024: Acast is brining AI to podcast ads Called Collections+, the AI-powered tool pulls podcast and listener data from different sources to automatically …

Feb 2, 2024: New Meta attribution setting: Engaged-view when someone plays your video ads for a minimum of 10 seconds (or watches 97% of the video length if it’s …

Feb 1, 2024: Going one step further on: The grow first, monetize later playbook is what causes louder disapproval of ads. I think personalized advertising quiets …

Feb 1, 2024: Seems inflation makes ad-supported media more appealing 13% of consumers are opposed to ad tiers on streaming platforms, according to the survey, …

Feb 1, 2024: Finished reading: Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie 📚

Jan 31, 2024: Create Google search ads, with AI! The conversational experience enables advertisers to generate relevant ad content, including creative and …

Jan 31, 2024: TikTok tests feature to make every post shoppable as social media giant moves to create multibillion-dollar e-commerce business TikTok looks to be …

Jan 31, 2024: Threads is rising, TikTok is stalling, and Instagram is #1. I’d venture weathering this latest challenger has Meta feeling nearly invulnerable, which …

Jan 31, 2024: You may have heard the Google Ads rule of thumb that you need 30 conversions before changing your bid strategy to Maximize Conversions. That’s …

Jan 31, 2024: Sending a free copy of something to garner attention? Send 2 Make it easy to share. Make it easy to spread. Those who want to share it will identify …

Jan 30, 2024: Wired: Threads? Tired: TikTok? Threads is continuing to grow, having tripled its downloads month-over-month in December TikTok is still a massively …

Jan 30, 2024: Meta has started rolling out its “first generative AI-powered features for ad creatives in Meta’s Ads Manager” Background Generation: Creates …

Jan 30, 2024: From Growth Hacks Weekly: Dangle the carrot! Outcomes > Features The formula is 🥕 + How = $$$ Customers don’t want to know what …

Jan 29, 2024: Add New Jersey to your list of states with privacy laws The bill covers any company doing business in New Jersey that controls or processes the …

Jan 29, 2024: Whenever there’s an economic upheaval, there’s two kinds of dancing that emerges: line dancing and slam dancing. Late 1970s, you had disco …

Jan 29, 2024: Manton Reece on Apple’s EU App Store game: Because of their decades of truly great products, Apple thinks they are more clever than anyone else. …

Jan 23, 2024: Netflix Inc. has acquired the exclusive rights to Raw as well as other programming from World Wrestling Entertainment, marking the video service’s …

Jan 22, 2024: A Costco anecdote: When Amazon was going through a difficult time after the dot com bust, Jim Sinegal and Jeff Bezos met for coffee and Sinegal …

Jan 22, 2024: Costco inspires a crazy amount of loyalty, largely because of their obsession with the customer. You might learn something from this post about the …

Jan 22, 2024: John Lee Dumas of the Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast said on the Nudge podcast that in a post-AI world Trust, and then verify becomes Doubt, and then …

Jan 21, 2024: & an always timely reminder from Ben Evans: Your MPs’ WhatsApp group can be secure, or it can readable by law enforcement and the Chinese, but …

Jan 21, 2024: Ben Evans on reactions to new rules or regulations but also probably on your customers & target audience: when people say ‘no’, they might …

Jan 21, 2024: Third-party cookies have been killed in the name of privacy, but the short-term replacement is the opposite of privacy-aligned: IP addresses Once …

Jan 21, 2024: Finished reading: Big Boy Leaves Home from Uncle Tom’s Children by Richard Wright 📚

Jan 20, 2024: We are underestimating how cheap it’s going to be to copy an existing business in 2024. You’re no longer measuring in decades when a company will be …

Jan 20, 2024: When you have a generic content generator, everything looks generic content generating the content isn’t the expensive part, generating the knowledge …

Jan 20, 2024: Re: Apple paying for training data Meta is in the best position here because of its social graph and user engagement history. Apple’s privacy stance …

Jan 20, 2024: Techmeme Ride Home with some interesting Apple AI bits: has an open source LLM working on deals with publishers for training data research towards …

Jan 20, 2024: Meta is aware of a loophole that lets the message spam tsunami through & engineering is working on a fix. In the meantime, this might help. …

Jan 20, 2024: As interest targeting slowly goes by the wayside in favor of AI and algorithmically driven targeting, the targeting us marketers have the most control …

Jan 20, 2024: Meta expert Andrew Foxwell says the removal of detailed targeting means no more narrowing interest audiences via AND layering. I don’t see this …

Jan 19, 2024: TikTok usage is starting to slow — is TikTok Shop to blame? new data indicates that TikTok’s growth has started to slow, begging the question if the …

Jan 19, 2024: Sponsored article are now available on Linkedin you can now sponsor them for awareness, engagement, or even LEAD GENERATION without sending users off …

Jan 19, 2024: Finished reading: Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 1 by Haruki Murakami 📚

Jan 18, 2024: WhatsApp noted that its 2 billion user base sends 7 billion voice messages daily. via TechCrunch

Jan 18, 2024: Test or beta? Who knows, but hopefully it’s a toy we all get. Google is toying with campaign-level headlines and descriptions. This is all “as seen on …

Jan 18, 2024: Older Homeowners Are Staying Put, Freezing Out Young Families I don’t expect this segment of the housing market to free up anytime soon. …

Jan 18, 2024: The more you know! How Many Words Fit In A 30 Second Voice Over? Approximately 60 words fit into 30 seconds for a soft, relaxed voiceover. For a …

Jan 18, 2024: The incredible shrinking podcast industry | Semafor: dominant podcasting platform had begun switching off automatic downloads for users who haven’t …

Jan 17, 2024: The monoculture is dead. The math is simple: more people are consuming more of everything than ever before, but there are very few hits of real …

Jan 17, 2024: Google Ads match types: Exact Match is really phrase match Phrase Match is really broad match Broad Match is really garbage

Jan 16, 2024: From Meta: We’re discontinuing some detailed targeting options because they are either not widely used, redundant with others, too granular, they …

Jan 15, 2024: Finished dabbling: Mind Management, Not Time Management by David Kadavy 📚

Jan 15, 2024: From Seeing the Present in Past Tense: There seem to be many things these days that we’ve committed to ending or know we can’t sustain, even though …

Jan 15, 2024: The left digit bias the idea that $7.99 seems cheaper than $8, even though $8 is only negligibly different than $8.01 is about more than just …

Jan 14, 2024: Finished reading: Demon Days Treasury Edition by Peach Momoko 📚

Jan 14, 2024: Instacart is an advertising platform that dabbles in grocery delivery, just in time for the Retail Media Renaissance From Bloomberg: Instacart will …

Jan 14, 2024: Finished reading: Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson 📚

Jan 13, 2024: Tom Asacker on “measure twice, cut once” That’s great advice if you’re dealing with a static plan, like building a staircase, but terrible advice for …

Jan 13, 2024: At the edge of the cliff is all possibilities and unknown. You don’t know what’s coming. -Tal Wilkenfeld

Jan 13, 2024: When the press release should have been a tweet but they accidentally used the expanded character count features when writing it. DUNKIN’® INTRODUCES …

Jan 13, 2024: ‘Difficult’ and ‘impossible’ are cousins often mistaken for one another, with very little in common. -Scott Lynch

Jan 12, 2024: Read this tweet now…er… today I used to use the word “now” in my copy. “Buy now” “Join now” “Unlock now” Until I heard Ben Settle, one of the greatest …

Jan 12, 2024: About that potential supply shock from the Suez: Freight prices are set to jump Monday, while longer transit times around Africa are disrupting and …

Jan 12, 2024: I’ve seen this idea proved out in client accounts. UGC-like ads see up to a 29% increase in web conversions (AdWeek). UGC content generates 4x …

Jan 11, 2024: This is interesting: Netflix is seeing strong growth of its advertising-based plan, having recently eclipsed 23 million global monthly active users … …

Jan 11, 2024: Kash’s garden She doesn’t grow plants. The plants grow themselves. Her job is to create conditions for the plants to grow. The soil, the water, the …

Jan 10, 2024: YouTube—the unofficial king of podcasts—is coming for the crown. If you’re a podcast creator, you can use YouTube Studio to upload your podcasts to …

Jan 10, 2024: The arc of clarity bends toward simplicity. -Rohan Rajiv Hike Picasso’s Hill Write like you’re human Be comfortable with “I don’t know”

Jan 10, 2024: This: US credit card balances hit a new record as delinquencies rise in the background + The potential for more Fed rate hikes (could overconfidence …

Jan 10, 2024: A still-in-progress big list of digital ad specs to maximize your creative’s usefulness, minimize your work. Or; how to repurpose your ad assets …

Jan 10, 2024: Customer service is a choice It’s either part of your strategy or you’re paying for your mistake. Great customer service is expensive, but it’s also …

Jan 9, 2024: Big List of Digital Ad Specs As AI continues to takeover many of the tasks that marketers thought made up their "secret sauce," our creative increasingly becomes our most …

Jan 9, 2024: This lesson from Inside Taco Bell’s Innovation Kitchen: “You can change either the taste or the form… but you can’t change the taste and the form.” …

Jan 9, 2024: Vice on the trendy Stanley Tumblers responsible for a $676 million increase in revenue, from 2019 to 2023, for the brand dropping exclusives, like …

Jan 9, 2024: From Exploding Topics: Immersive dining is part of the Immersive Experiences meta trend. Searches for “immersive experiences” have grown by 144% over …

Jan 9, 2024: When I started doing things just for growth’s sake and didn’t let the product simmer within the industry, I started making a lot of mistakes. With the …

Jan 8, 2024: About that Google kicking cookies to the curb thing… Google is phasing out third-party cookies this fall, but some sites will be able to temporarily …

Jan 7, 2024: 🍪 ☠️ The day has come, with Google activating the first stage of its cookie-removal strategy today [January 4] via SocialMediaToday

Jan 7, 2024: Rumor has it the TikTok Shop team is 6 people strong. More X than Meta. The more I hear about TTS, the less I want any part of it.

Jan 7, 2024: From FedEx to airlines, companies are starting to lose their pricing power Consumers may be regaining power in the marketplace It’s a shift from the …

Jan 6, 2024: The current state of shipping & returns: Returns totaled $743B in 2023; reach 14.5% of sales Online sales have a higher return rate, with 17.6% …

Jan 6, 2024: Beware viral trends: It seems people spent the last few days of 2023 encouraging their followers to get to know them better. Or, according to one …

Jan 5, 2024: Black Sheep Thinking: Aim For "No" My goal for you this year is to hear “no” more. Sounds weird, right?   Here’s why… If your aren’t getting reeled back in a bit, you’re not …

Jan 4, 2024: The other TikTok Shop shoe drops From The Information: The company on Wednesday told sellers it will start taking a bigger cut of the sales they make …

Jan 4, 2024: On a list of behavioral science tips from Social Media Examiner: Simplify Complexity: The Cognitive Fluency Principle People gravitate toward …

Jan 4, 2024: Elon/X (unsurprisingly) can’t make up his/its mind about link titles in feed previews. It’s obvious why (it’s not because it “looks cleaner”), it …

Jan 3, 2024: Meta’s big new announcement is…browser history? Facebook recently rolled out a new “Link History” setting that creates a special repository of all …

Jan 3, 2024: This is why you’re like Picasso… As you get good at something, you embrace more complex options (Notion over Apple Notes, leading meetings, etc). As …

Jan 3, 2024: The amateur does not know what to do. The master knows what not to do. -James Clear The master has hiked Picasso’s Hill

Jan 3, 2024: Picasso's Hill As you improve at something, you journey along a curve. You’ve probably seen the memes. I’m sure it’s got some fancy name like "The Complexity Curve …

Jan 2, 2024: 2024 Resolution: Defer To Data Here’s another New Year’s resolution for curious marketers: DEFER TO DATAWhy guess when you can test? The benefit of working in a digital world is …

Jan 2, 2024: 2024 Resolution: Defer To Data Why guess when you can test? We don’t need to rely on our opinions and gut feelings, we can find out what our customers …

Jan 2, 2024: LinkedIn has always been one of the more expensive “social” ad platforms, and it doesn’t look like that is changing anytime soon. LinkedIn ad prices …

Jan 1, 2024: 2024 Resolution: Kill Your Ego The work we do as marketers isn’t about us. As soon as a brand becomes public—with customers and fans—it belongs to …

Jan 1, 2024: 2024 Resolution: Kill Your Ego Here’s a New Year’s resolution for curious marketers: KILL YOUR EGOThe marketing spectrum goes from creator/influencer to agency cog. All ego to no …

Jan 1, 2024: On Algorithms The algorithms always know when I’m having a back flare-up, because I tell them … And I will reinforce those suggestions and …

Dec 31, 2023: Andrew proves his point with the story of Overstock. The O.co rebrand lasted less than a year because 30-40% of their traffic was getting lost. He …

Dec 31, 2023: If you are anything except your exact brand match .com, you cannot or should not refer to yourself as your “raw brand.” -Andrew Rosener I’m not sure …

Dec 31, 2023: The thing that people don’t think about enough is the audience. The audience is the most important part. -Lauren Passell

Dec 30, 2023: I knew Google paid Apple a lot for default search engine status, but seeing it put this way was still crazy: Google pays Apple Inc. 36% of the …

Dec 30, 2023: From Future Party: A new app called Whatever gives users all the tools to plan and ideate dates As message-based social networking takes off, …

Dec 29, 2023: The Streaming Wars are a case study in the impact of interest rates. Pre-COVInflation, money was free so it was all about subscriber growth (the VC/SV …

Dec 29, 2023: 2 theories on why the Great Rebundling is coming: Netflix was the default, everything else (except Disney) felt like an experimental subscription …

Dec 29, 2023: FT: ‘Shakeout has begun’ after $5bn streaming loss for Netflix rivals The Great Rebundling is coming. Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Comcast & …

Dec 29, 2023: Jon Loomer: Are Blogs Making a Comeback? Social devalues links in favor of videos. Search engines are devolving into AI-powered answer engines. Email …

Dec 28, 2023: “The story of Ender’s Game is not this book, though it has that title emblazoned on it. The story is the one that you and I will construct together in …

Dec 27, 2023: Andrew Rosener on LLMs & AI: these things aren’t creating new ideas, they are really good at finding solutions from existing ideas. And putting …

Dec 26, 2023: That heady brew of supply shock meets demand spike (free money!) caused the end of the free money train. But the buzz might finally be wearing off, …

Dec 26, 2023: Hamburger menu in the top right of the screen is one of the worst mobile UX implementations around.

Dec 24, 2023: And yes (like most things), marketing can be used for evil. The very first report linking overuse of tobacco to cancer was published by Sir John Hill …

Dec 23, 2023: If you sell a product for kids/families, you should be running podcast ads. Because survey says: seven in 10 parents whose children consume podcasts …

Dec 23, 2023: Evidence that podcast ads continue to work.

Dec 22, 2023: The Crucial Timing of Ads Through the lens of podcast ads: Budgets shrink in January as brands pull back from the holiday sprint and plan for the year …

Dec 22, 2023: Warner Bros. Discovery in talks to merge with Paramount Global Is The Great Rebundling about to begin?

Dec 20, 2023: Humans Prefer AI-Generated Content, New Research Suggests: AI content - either written entirely by AI or with a final edit by AI - was preferred by …

Dec 19, 2023: At every step, fish are often being processed to some degree. The more processing you get and the more steps there are in that supply chain, the more …

Dec 18, 2023: Mr. Beast launched a YouTube analytics tool. The tool itself may not be groundbreaking (yet?), but that’s not where the real value is. He knows …

Dec 18, 2023: UBS economist Alan Detmeister told the WSJ that the shelter component of CPI inflation can be expected to fall as much as 3.75% by the end of 2024. …

Dec 17, 2023: I’ve heard many references to the incentive misalignment that we see on Google where what the user needs is traded off against what the advertiser …

Dec 17, 2023: Compared to Podcast Pioneers (4+ listening years): Podcast Newcomers are Young Podcast Newcomers Are More Female Podcast Newcomers Are More Diverse …

Dec 17, 2023: This mission “for the benefit of humanity” is incomprehensible. It’s like “don’t be evil” or “zombie flam brittlewurst,” which is a phrase I’ve just …

Dec 17, 2023: An anecdote via Andrew Foxwell on Today in Digital Marketing(https://todayindigital.com/premium/): A company is spending $300k / month on Meta ads and …

Dec 16, 2023: Instagram Chief Offers Insight Into Threads Content Ranking To clarify, having a comprehensive list of every post with a specific word in …

Dec 15, 2023: Called “Active Listening,” CMG claims the capability can identify potential customers “based on casual conversations in real time.” I got the pitch …

Dec 15, 2023: More on Threads’ ActivityPub tests a step towards fediverse and ActivityPub support. So, this is an open protocol for social networks so that they …

Dec 15, 2023: 🚫🍪 On January 4, we’ll begin testing Tracking Protection, a new feature that limits cross-site tracking by restricting website access to …

Dec 14, 2023: Zuck on Threads: Starting a test where posts from Threads accounts will be available on Mastodon and other services that use the ActivityPub …

Dec 14, 2023: How To GA4: Session Source / Medium Previously included in the Hacking GA4 post about search bar filtering, this bit now has its own video so it's getting a post too. GA4 Tip: Search Bar …

Dec 14, 2023: Want to know which traffic sources and mediums are driving what kind of metrics and engagement in GA4 but not sure where to look? You need the session …

Dec 14, 2023: Instagram is considering a new feature called “flipside” that allows users to establish a new, private side to their profile where they can post more …

Dec 13, 2023: 🍪 Cookie Crumbs In light of this (from the linkblog): Google Analytics is improving privacy features in anticipation of third-party cookie deprecation next year. …

Dec 13, 2023: Startups are ideas searching for a business model. -Jonathan Fields Or, as the curious marketer might say, stories in search of their audience. Of …

Dec 12, 2023: Google Analytics is improving privacy features in anticipation of third-party cookie deprecation next year. Protected Audiences (formerly FLEDGE …

Dec 12, 2023: Nuggets from Mickie Kennedy One of the most important things that small businesses ignore is their own story. What they do that’s unique and …

Dec 12, 2023: Not many surprising predictions in this piece, but I’ve been waiting for this: The fastest-growing media channel in 2024, according to Forrester, …

Dec 12, 2023: This would be a welcome Christmas present: prices fell 2.6% [this past October] from a year earlier, marking the fifth straight month prices for …

Dec 11, 2023: I’ve been posting (and thinking) a lot about audiences lately (and how to talk with them) So this Seth Godin post struck my fancy. There are …

Dec 10, 2023: Kurt Vonnegut predicted that we would have to invent our own tribes because we’ve lost that tribal cohesion in industrialized culture. -Dr. Mark …

Dec 9, 2023: That’s the thing about audiences, they never fit neatly into one box or another. In different contexts, in different situations, they want different …

Dec 8, 2023: Chatbots are hot like Hansel (again) ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, is working on an open platform that will allow users to create their own …

Dec 8, 2023: This is one of the biggest things I’ve taken away from recent Google search algo updates: topical relevance. Write about topics related to your brand, …

Dec 8, 2023: Eric Schwartzman on the Myth of Organic SEO and what he learned delving into the realms of black hat and negative SEO: Google is doing updates daily …

Dec 8, 2023: Update on the update on the missing UTM data in GA4: I still see lower level parameters populating for yesterday and the day before. (Storing the data …

Dec 8, 2023: Instagram is a great illustration of the splintering of social media: users now “post a lot more to stories, and send a lot more DMs, than they post …

Dec 7, 2023: Ready advertiser one? (Or maybe .5 since it’s not VR?) Blippar’s AR units leverage both front and rear-facing cameras, launching immersive AR content …

Dec 7, 2023: The thin gray line Google’s big drop is a horizontal line. Ads may be easier to distinguish from organic results again with the return of a dividing …

Dec 7, 2023: Looks like Google realized Signals-based thresholding was annoying to everyone: Google signals will be removed from the reporting identity on …

Dec 7, 2023: Update on the missing UTM data in GA4: As of this morning I can see lower level parameters populating for yesterday (still no data from 11/30 - 12/5). …

Dec 6, 2023: [Simone Weil] says to imagine a farmer that goes down to the farmer’s market. He’s gotta BUNCH of chickens. Look at all those chickens. And she says …

Dec 6, 2023: GA4 Tip: Search Bar Filtering This is either a nice feature I stumbled on today. Or a bug that will get "fixed" soon. Hard to tell with GA4*. Easier Data Filtering in GA4Now for …

Dec 6, 2023: 🚨 GA4 Error Warning Starting on (roughly) November 30, some UTM data has stopped populating in GA4. I can’t see anything more granular than …

Dec 5, 2023: Case Study: Sendero’s Sales Stampede What if your limited edition drop was an offer and not a product? Sendero ran an offer drop that turned into a consolation discount that flowed into …

Dec 5, 2023: Generations are garbage. Most demography is made up nonsense that isn’t true. I think it’s often done to sell consulting services and to make …

Dec 4, 2023: More thoughts related to my previous post: Aim to create moments of delight for everyone involved in crafting the story of your brand, customers and …

Dec 4, 2023: More from how “To Make Your Business Stand Out This Christmas”; or, how to do marketing any time of year: If your employees create a welcoming and …

Dec 4, 2023: How “to make your business stand out this Christmas”; or, (for this part) how to market your business any time of year: Part of the battle to make …

Dec 3, 2023: Search is splintering, social media is changing, and AI is here, which means the playbook needs to be updated. For us who have built content and SEO …

Dec 2, 2023: Scratch and sniff marketing? Snap has filed a patent that… introduces specially-modalized stickers, that when used in a chat, allow the recipient at …

Dec 2, 2023: Inverse animal spirits? More than a quarter of Americans are “doom spending” in order to manage their worries about the macroeconomy and …

Dec 2, 2023: Pinterest’s direct links for ads is out of beta. With other Pinterest ads, it takes two clicks for someone to navigate off Pinterest. For ads using …

Dec 1, 2023: More ads in the same places: YouTube Shorts edition To check if the YouTube Shorts ad format is available on your YouTube Ads account, go to: Create …

Dec 1, 2023: In case you haven’t heard: Consider this your final warning: Google is going to start wiping inactive accounts on Friday, December 1. It only …

Dec 1, 2023: 🚨 Update yo shit Apple fixes two new iOS zero-days in emergency updates

Dec 1, 2023: I’m always saying this: AI is a tool. We can use it for good or bad, it’s us that is good or bad. Or, said this way: AI is neutral. …

Dec 1, 2023: Google Ads added more algorithm signals (robot food) to Performance Max campaigns. Search themes in Performance Max allow you to provide Google AI …

Nov 30, 2023: Jingles all the way The I Want My Baby Back campaign re-affirms the power and longevity of sonic branding, as the campaign hit 1.5 billion media …

Nov 30, 2023: I’m always saying this: AI is a tool. We can use it for good or bad, it’s us that is good or bad. Or, said this way: AI is neutral. …

Nov 30, 2023: I’ve been thinking about this lately: As your fans and customers change you have to make the choice if you’re going to change and develop along with …

Nov 29, 2023: Are you thinking about your audience wrong? There’s the audience you envision and the audience you get. Some brands are well aligned. Some (like …

Nov 28, 2023: Shifting screens Piggybacking off the ads in Prime Video post from earlier, the end of the free money train means streamers are shifting from a …

Nov 28, 2023: More ads in more places: Prime Video edition Starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements. In the U.S., …

Nov 27, 2023: Using a noun in place of a verb turns something from an action into an identity. Example: being “someone who runs” vs. “a runner” But… This …

Nov 27, 2023: You can’t please everyone. From a piece on holiday campaign inspiration: Gap leaned into the nostalgia around their vintage pieces and crafted …

Nov 27, 2023: Ecomm Success Tip: Drops This started life over on the linkblog, but I think it deserves more space so I'm bringing it over here. It started with this tweet from one of the …

Nov 26, 2023: Battery tech is one of the developmental fields I’m most interested in, and this news is why: Swedish battery-maker Northvolt announced proudly …

Nov 25, 2023: Lessons from game design (1) Strategy is making decisions that involve trade-offs. That’s why choices in games are a marker of the strategic thinking …

Nov 25, 2023: More ads in more places: Airplane edition; or, grocery stores in everything United Airlines may start pulling from its treasure chest of passenger …

Nov 25, 2023: What about adding white space when it comes to copy? Emotional messages should be below / at the bottom of the image. The lower part is associated …

Nov 25, 2023: Increasing the white space between products on your site also increases customer favorability of your products and almost doubled sales in the study. …

Nov 25, 2023: A heads up for any social media managers and Reels makers out there: Instagram now allows anyone to download public Reels More Insta going TikTok, …

Nov 24, 2023: Simple Modern recently hit 1 million orders via their Shopify site and one of the co-founders tweeted out the 3 focuses that led to this success. I …

Nov 24, 2023: Speaking of consumers wanting experiences and brand created content, Louis Vuitton (& Co) is delivering. LVMH is building a luxury destination …

Nov 24, 2023: Survey says… consumers would like their smartphones to recognize their daily commute and suggest picking up coffee on the way Sounds like a job for …

Nov 24, 2023: Survey says… influencers aren’t as influential as they once were & the creation of modern content experiences is shown to be one of the most …

Nov 24, 2023: According to Etsy the trends of the season are all about whimsy, comfort, and nostalgia. I consider this a post-pandemic rebound trifecta.

Nov 24, 2023: Sephora’s recent biannual sale snafu carries two good lessons. It may be time to rethink the mass drop model since serve scaling is expensive. …

Nov 24, 2023: Generations are garbage but the rise of dupes amongst younger shoppers is probably a sign of mainstream shopping behavior to come. “Dupes,” short for …

Nov 23, 2023: The OpenAI carnival did give us marketers an early holiday gift, a reminder: In today’s world, the story matters. You’ll either tell your …

Nov 22, 2023: Ah yes, of course. Makes total sense. Only logical end point. We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with …

Nov 22, 2023: From Adweek: Mobile and desktop ad-block rates are experiencing a gradual uptick, increasing by 11% in 2023 from 2021, according to ad-filtering tech …

Nov 22, 2023: If you don’t feel like spending your Thanksgiving arguing about gag orders or OpenAI or Fed rates, I got you covered. Argue about how …

Nov 22, 2023: Generation Garbage I was getting ready to start a series of posts / resources about generations. What does each cohort gravitate towards, what are the preferred …

Nov 21, 2023: More ads in fewer places According to research by Tinuiti, around 31% of U.S. adult consumers currently use ad blockers, a segment that’s been …

Nov 21, 2023: In light of That OpenAI Thing, this was a timely post. a reasonable consensus of experts on NPOs [non-profit organizations] agrees that their …

Nov 21, 2023: Here’s more on pricing (this is turning into an informal Pricing Week). Always place your price below the product, not above it. This approach …

Nov 20, 2023: Speaking of abstraction, it’s partly why frequent flyer programs work so well amongst the business set. The cost is abstracted away from the …

Nov 20, 2023: Pricing is an interesting practice They determined that when the prices were listed with the dollar sign, customers spent less. Conversely, when the …

Nov 20, 2023: This OpenAI stuff is a cluster. The AI race is fast and furious right now. The board’s decision may be the equivalent of a massive in-season superstar …

Nov 19, 2023: Speaking of shopping looking different Hyundai Says it Will Start Selling on Amazon CarMax, Carvana, and the rest of the purveyors of no-haggle, …

Nov 19, 2023: Marketing 101 Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself. -Charlie Munger

Nov 19, 2023: It’s going to be really interesting to watch how AI impacts product development. Especially with Google’s new search feature. Use generative AI to …

Nov 18, 2023: Why do shoppers abandon their ecomm carts? Shipping costs (guilty! Sometimes it’s the only way to figure out how much shipping will cost.) Deal …

Nov 17, 2023: Useful tidbit from The ‘Gram for those that don’t like being phished or hacked: Emails from Instagram will only come from @mail.instagram.com

Nov 17, 2023: 🤯 OpenAI announces leadership transition The board of directors of OpenAI, Inc., the 501(c)(3) that acts as the overall governing body for all OpenAI …

Nov 16, 2023: An audio ads study found that less is more when it comes to copy. Cutting 10 words (per minute) leads to a: 1% increase in consumers scoring an ad as …

Nov 16, 2023: Just heard from a Google rep that it takes up to 7 days for data to properly populate GA4’s attribution models.

Nov 15, 2023: Everyone loves a benchmark. A study found… The average month-on-month growth rate for podcasts is 1.62% But podcasts with less than 1,000 monthly …

Nov 14, 2023: And Snap makes 3 Amazon Reaches Deal to Run Shopping Ads on Snap The end of the free money train means it’s more efficient for these social …

Nov 14, 2023: TikTok Shop enters its knockoff phase. TikTok creators have been pitching apparent knockoffs of products from Apple, Lululemon, and Crocs. leaning on …

Nov 13, 2023: While TikTok tries to make its content and discovery engine an ecommerce platform, Amazon is plugging its ecommerce engine into all the other content …

Nov 13, 2023: I get it, you wish your e-commerce business were selling the way it did in 2020, when U.S. e-commerce revenue surged 28%, and in 2021, when it surged …

Nov 12, 2023: The splintering of social has barely begun. Before long, we might have a slew of new reading tools, with different ideas about how to display and …

Nov 12, 2023: if you turned a browser history — the most neglected piece of the software — into a robust and fully featured machine of its own. It would help you …

Nov 12, 2023: Did you know shopping season is starting? Looks like Google does. Big G has rolled out some new features that could have a bigger impact than just …

Nov 11, 2023: Google mulled offering paid-for no-logging private Search subscription I think there are 2 reasons companies like Google and Meta won’t roll out paid …

Nov 10, 2023: IYKYK ☁️

Nov 10, 2023: Steal This: Intentional Stance I was introduced to Daniel Dennett's concept of the intentional stance via Seth Godin. It reads like marketing strategy 101 for being customer-centric …

Nov 10, 2023: More ads in the same places Meta is turning its monetization focus to WhatsApp, including lead gen ads that launch a WhatsApp chat. Maybe the Reels …

Nov 9, 2023: Not ideal Many car manufacturers are selling car owners’ data to advertisers as a revenue boosting tactic, according to earlier reporting by Recorded …

Nov 8, 2023: The OpenAI as platform company era has begun. GPTs are a new way for anyone to create a tailored version of ChatGPT to be more helpful in their daily …

Nov 8, 2023: Tag, You're It: How to Think About Google Tag Manager (GTM) The Google Analytics 4 era is upon us, and to do GA4 right you're likely going to need Google Tag Manager. There are more ways than GTM to GA4, but …

Nov 8, 2023: Generative AI comes to Google Ads: advertisers can generate all the assets they need for a campaign by simply providing the URL of a preferred …

Nov 7, 2023: Spirit Halloween runs on memes: Memes of the Spirit Halloween banner taking over vacant department stores and of fake, hilarious costumes have taken …

Nov 7, 2023: Luxury is coming out of lockdown: Consumers are now shopping IRL for brand quality and prestige, setting up the US luxury retail market to exceed $75 …

Nov 7, 2023: The biggest challenge a marketer at a big company faces is the specter of industrial short-term thinking. Going along with the bean counters might be …

Nov 6, 2023: TikTok can get people to spend money in the app, but can they get people to shop? users sent over $250 million in digital gifts to live-streamers in …

Nov 6, 2023: So Walmart won Black Friday ads, right?

Nov 5, 2023: Refer-a-friend programs can make relationships feel like transactions, which isn’t ideal. Transparency might be the answer: disclosing the referrer …

Nov 5, 2023: Routine is a core tenant of cult brands, this tip from [Arvid](Accessibility for Profit — The Bootstrapped Founder 261 …

Nov 4, 2023: I am pro blogging (obviously) in part because I think building a brand on someone else’s platform is a fool’s errand. The big selling point of having …

Nov 4, 2023: I recently wrote that the current splintering of social media is maybe time for the rebirth of blogging? Search may be splintering too, but the …

Nov 3, 2023: What if I told you that Meta's new "feature" which tells you how much you can raise the budget before entering the learning phase …

Nov 3, 2023: 20-Trendy-3: The Year of the Splinter 🐀 I've referenced it a few times here and there, but here's my ✨ Trend of 2023: ✨ The Year of the Splinter;or, The Age of UnbundlingThe Age of …

Nov 2, 2023: Who knew?! Intrusive ads that disrupt consumers’ browsing experiences or shopping journeys risk lower engagement and, crucially, lost conversion and …

Nov 2, 2023: Steal This: Easy VIP Experience This is a third hand anecdote, but the idea is brilliant. There is a doctor's office at Johns Hopkins that is very difficult to get an appointment at, …

Nov 2, 2023: This isn’t surprising: November is when that spend really starts to play out, though, with 53% of respondents saying that’s when they’ll exhaust most …

Nov 2, 2023: Google is going Apple and hiding IP addresses. The feature is called IP Protection (formerly Gnatcatcher, which sounds cooler, tbh), and it will …

Nov 2, 2023: Sephora with a timely example of the good and bad of sales. First the good, they’ve created routines and anticipations around their sales …

Nov 1, 2023: The unbundling and splintering continues as BuzzFeed (the darling of modern media brands) looks to sell off prior acquisitions (at a loss) to help pay …

Nov 1, 2023: Big G runs on ads and AI and is still working to combine those 2 to create the future of Google Search. In its earnings call for the third quarter of …

Oct 31, 2023: Happy Halloween! It’s now shopping season… It’s time to talk turkey because brands are gearing up for BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday). But don’t …

Oct 30, 2023: Goblins of GA4: Data Thresholding The Google Analytics 4 transition has been less than enjoyable for many a marketer and analyst. But one of the biggest (remaining) headaches has got …

Oct 30, 2023: An everything is customer service anecdote There is a doctor’s office at Johns Hopkins that is difficult to get an appointment with, but every …

Oct 29, 2023: I’ve said about Meta: There really isn’t a company better at monetizing via ads. Some might be yelling “but what about Google?!” Big G is good at …

Oct 29, 2023: This idea from Adam Grant (~44:16) is (also) great reasoning for why generations as marketing personas should stop. We should stop defining people by …

Oct 28, 2023: AI isn’t going to replace people, but it will replace people that don’t use AI. via Manton Reece The future is centaurs.

Oct 27, 2023: Massive Meta Minithread I’ve collected too many tabs of Meta related stuff, so here it all is. Chat with AI in Messenger This isn’t surprising, especially given Snap’s …

Oct 26, 2023: The more important it is to meet your numbers, the more important it is to stop concentrating on your numbers and start concentrating on the clients' …

Oct 26, 2023: We might have reached peak vertical video: Have consumers started to cool towards short-form video? That’s certainly one read from Google and Snap …

Oct 26, 2023: I’ve been waiting for streaming to make TV advertising easier and more accessible, Amazon is giving it a shot. Amazon Ads announced Sponsored TV, a …

Oct 25, 2023: In R.I.P. Social Media Managers I wrote: Organic social media for brands is dead. And it has been for a while. I’m not the only one saying this. A …

Oct 25, 2023: This is my kind of lateral thinking: Disproving Based on the idea that the majority is always wrong (as suggested by Henrik Ibsen and by John Kenneth …

Oct 25, 2023: Podcasts are coming to TV. This is partly Amazon connecting the dots between existing parts to get more mileage out of content and channels and add …

Oct 25, 2023: Community & Curiosity: Pod Notes The Philosophy of Community™ (~7:10): Can you bring groups together and create a sense of belonging and then you inherit the credibility of bringing …

Oct 25, 2023: According to Sprout Social: Nearly three-quarters (74%) of consumers say they’re likely to reach out to a brand on social over the holidays This is …

Oct 25, 2023: McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle has been getting lodged in brains for 20 years. Why is it so successful? After reading the names of the prior …

Oct 24, 2023: Speaking of TV ads: ‘Pause Ads’ Creep Onto Hulu, Peacock and Max as Streamers Seek New Revenue This is a placement type that opens up TV ads to a …

Oct 24, 2023: According to Martech: Shoppable ads are beginning to make an impact on smart TV audiences, with 55% in a new survey sample recalling seeing shoppable …

Oct 23, 2023: Goblins of GA4: Data Lag Despite solid realtime reporting, it can take up to 24 (and maybe even 48) hours for data to fully populate the reports throughout GA4.    …

Oct 23, 2023: Henry Ford’s “any color as long as it’s black” choice may have been too minimalist, but more, more, more isn’t always better. Studies have found that …

Oct 22, 2023: Meta is bringing generative AI to ads with: Backgrounds for product images Magic crops to stretch one asset across Meta’s many aspect ratios Text …

Oct 22, 2023: A good listen on how to think about the current landscape of AIs and LLMs. Add some Douglas Rushkoff quotes for additional context: AIs are …

Oct 22, 2023: Emotional labor has become a competitive advantage. Our commitment to showing up as a human, even (especially) when we don’t feel like it is …

Oct 21, 2023: Why am I extra bullish on podcasts right now? TV and film producers prepare for potential post-strike production logjam Once the actors’ strike ends …

Oct 20, 2023: More social shifting to messaging as Meta starts testing broadcast channels on Facebook, following the features success on other platforms. …

Oct 20, 2023: Everything old is new again, which is why Media Mix Modeling is the new attribution. measurement has been so hampered by recently enacted privacy …

Oct 19, 2023: Marketing nerds unite! A chewy piece comparing ecomm promo language performance. Thrown in the ring: $ off vs. % off Free vs. Fast delivery Promo …

Oct 18, 2023: Google is further signaling the decay of attribution modeling with the announcement: First click, linear, time decay and position-based attribution …

Oct 18, 2023: Streaming’s big pain point: there’s too much stuff to watch / Despite more available programming than ever, 1 in 5 viewers abandon streaming sessions …

Oct 17, 2023: TikTok doesn’t want marketers obsessing about last-click attribution. In part because TikTok looks really bad when viewed as a direct …

Oct 17, 2023: Steal This: Fake Pork How can you turn an L into a win? The ad above is from La Vie Foods, a vegan food company from France. The translation of the ad below should make …

Oct 16, 2023: An HTTP exploit is being used for DDoS attacks. This means that while patching efforts are well underway, fixes will need to essentially reach every …

Oct 16, 2023: CPMs are dropping across streaming TV platforms and the gap between platforms is shrinking. Could mean more ad slots are coming to increase revenue.

Oct 16, 2023: Who Owns The Brand? From the linkblog (which you can get as a handy weekly email digest): This bit from The Garden Report podcast is bigger than sports. The …

Oct 16, 2023: Imagine that people with disabilities are pioneers anticipating your future. -Yuki Goto OXO Good Grips was created because the founder’s …

Oct 15, 2023: 2 types of curiosity via the ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin (paraphrased): When the shaman holds out the pipe, the anthropologist declines, saying it …

Oct 15, 2023: When groups of people with a shared preference or attitude choose to do something, we see markets and cultural trends. But these people aren’t …

Oct 15, 2023: Daniel Jalkut with the product design dream: If you can take something that people do today and make it doable in more contexts then it is now, you …

Oct 14, 2023: Another principle from the Nudge podcast episode mentioned earlier is to publically demonstrate your ability. It was mentioned as a way to find work …

Oct 14, 2023: I like these 4 marketing principles from the Nudge podcast: Different is better than better Keep your message consistent Price based on value Start …

Oct 13, 2023: This bit from The Garden Report podcast is bigger than sports. The teams are your property as the fans. They’re yours. [The players] are the …

Oct 13, 2023: Social has split into public and private versions. Public is content creation by influencers, creators, and brands. Private is content sharing by the …

Oct 12, 2023: ChatGPT can query the web again. Which means it’s crawling the web. Which means it’s indexing the web. Which means it’s a search engine. Search 1.0 …

Oct 12, 2023: More ads in more places: the metaverse (but not the Meta version) [Roblox has] made a notable hire [from Meta] in its partnerships division, a move …

Oct 12, 2023: The only way to give your fans the gift of an amazing (yet fairly generalized) feeling is to make a very specific, detailed, on-purpose show. -Gabe …

Oct 11, 2023: R.I.P. Social Media Managers The dream job of the social media minded youth is coming to an end. (Yes, hyperbole (and, yes, not actually the dream job. That status is reserved for …

Oct 11, 2023: Marketing is changing, it’s time to adapt. the era of traffic—chasing scale of anonymous pageviews—officially came to an end. The models that …

Oct 10, 2023: Do you use data, or get used by it? “Advertisers prioritize cost over value, sometimes to their own detriment. They chase cheap CPMs.” Metrics like …

Oct 10, 2023: Snapchat+ brings in almost $20M a month for the AR/camera/messaging platform. Meta may offer an ad-free subscription for EU-users to satisfy …

Oct 10, 2023: For Google Ads peeps, looks like Discovery campaigns are being auto-upgraded to Demand Gen.

Oct 9, 2023: The dawn of the age of the ideapreneur Okay, so access to tech won’t differentiate you and prompt engineering won’t differentiate you. What will? …

Oct 8, 2023: 3 developmental fields at the top of my interest list: Chips (especially for AI) Batteries Nuclear On #1, OpenAI is thinking about entering the chip …

Oct 8, 2023: LinkedIn announced AI-powered automated ad campaign creation that “will recommend an end-to-end campaign and automatic optimizations to reach the …

Oct 8, 2023: X (Twitter) is desperate for money since Elon has been scaring off advertisers. If you can’t get paid directly, why not get that money indirectly? …

Oct 8, 2023: [Meta wants] to try to continue to shift advertisers from these lever pulling to creative iteration and creative innovation, and that’s where they …

Oct 7, 2023: 🎉🎉🎉 If you’ve enabled Google Signals for your property, simply disable “Include Google Signals in Reporting Identity” on the Admin’s Data Collection …

Oct 7, 2023: Schwarzenegger​‘s Sales System Figure out what you are selling Figure out the customer Write a simple, less than one-page pitch designed to persuade …

Oct 7, 2023: As in music, so in branding: As a composer/improvisor I am trying to construct a cosmos – give out a vibration and get across a worldview. What is …

Oct 6, 2023: X (Twitter) has stopped showing meta data on links. Now (for me) they look like images with a little domain name tag in the corner. I spent longer …

Oct 4, 2023: The Fed won’t be lowering rates as soon as we/they hoped. (& fed student loans are back.) Economically speaking: Companies need to make their cash …

Oct 4, 2023: Moments of chaos are moments of opportunity. -Don’t Say Content

Oct 3, 2023: After 81% of agency pros told Digiday last year that they purchased advertising on Facebook on behalf of clients in the plast month, just half (50%) …

Oct 2, 2023: Apple has all the pieces for it’s own search engine. It just needs the appetite to give up $8B in guaranteed money from Google each year. AI might be …

Oct 1, 2023: Headline: Gen Z is more likely to be OK with targeted ads — here’s what the numbers say / Shopping habits of the younger cohort differ significantly …

Sep 30, 2023: Product placements can drive searches and purchases, research finds This is why: Apple made it easy to use their products in TV and movies Multimodal …

Sep 30, 2023: A glimpse of the future from the All-In Podcast: The app developers—as they’re called today—are basically building in-stream utilities that are part …

Sep 30, 2023: Google is on trial. AI will reinvent search behavior. Social is closing off, going private, and decentralizing (yeah, confusing). Cookies will be …

Sep 30, 2023: Thinking about starting a podcast for your brand? Will it be narrative or non-narrative? Consider this: When tested for brand favorability, brands …

Sep 30, 2023: The Future OS: Confirmed I posted earlier this week about the new ChatGPT multimodal and how it's a glimpse into the future of how we interact with computing devices. The …

Sep 29, 2023: Consumers are spending less on streaming TV services while increasing their usage of ad-supported options. Peak streaming is behind us and providers …

Sep 28, 2023: Here’s a fun attack vector In practice, this means that bad actors are identifying websites that have an internal search function and are seen as …

Sep 28, 2023: All we have as marketers is trust. If that’s a currency we’re willing to spend, then we get what we buy. -Tod Maffin

Sep 28, 2023: The Future: Consumer Computing OpenAI announced ChatGPT Multimodal.ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speakWe are beginning to roll out new voice and image capabilities in ChatGPT. They …

Sep 28, 2023: TikTok Shop is going hard for the holidays, but not everyone is pumped about it. Quickly, quietly, TikTok is handing China the economic checkmate it …

Sep 28, 2023: The algorithm is the brain behind my opinion. via the Digital Folklore podcast

Sep 28, 2023: Facebook can be sued over allegations that its advertising algorithm is discriminatory This has already happened in verticals like housing and …

Sep 27, 2023: See what I mean? We are the messaging team on TikTok. Our team’s mission is to facilitate meaningful user connections through TikTok’s messaging …

Sep 27, 2023: Social media is splintering into content created by the few and private sharing by the many. Or, all social apps are becoming messaging apps. As it …

Sep 27, 2023: Apple suddenly remembered it had a podcast app and wants to pull a Spotify and YouTube Music by diversifying the (non-music) content you can listen …

Sep 27, 2023: In the world of email marketing, clicks are more valuable than opens. Especially now that many email providers have anti-tracking measures that spoof …

Sep 26, 2023: Speaking of holiday shopping season, it’s not all about the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) madness. According to the new Capterra “2023 …

Sep 26, 2023: Once the online checkout process starts, you want it to be as easy as possible for the shopper. Shopify is trying to help merchants out with its new …

Sep 25, 2023: The era of subsidizing subscriber numbers in a free money, growth-before-everything-else market is over. Streaming TV is is now cable and it will be …

Sep 25, 2023: 5 Ways to Get More Customers Looking to grow your business? Here are 5 to-do's you can use to increase your customer count, according to Hubspot's CMO. Pick 1, do them all, your …

Sep 24, 2023: The person who tells the best story rules their corner of the world. -James Clear Brands are stories

Sep 24, 2023: More ads in more places, Microsoft is rolling out Conversational Ads in Chat. First up: Compare & Decide Ads pull all the relevant data of …

Sep 23, 2023: Update time! Apple emergency updates fix 3 new zero-days exploited in attacks

Sep 23, 2023: I’ve been waiting for this: Amazon brings generative AI to Alexa I think once generative AI models and smart assistants are merged, we’ll view the …

Sep 22, 2023: Remember that Apple announcement about removing link tracking in Safari (private browsing plus iMessage and Mail)? It’s here! It impacts: HubSpot …

Sep 22, 2023: Huh… some TikTok users are now seeing a new prompt appear within their search results in the app, which includes a CTA to expand their search on …

Sep 22, 2023: The Future? ad copy: American men are beginning to realize that it is ridiculous to buy good suits and then spoil the effect by wearing an ordinary, mass-produced …

Sep 21, 2023: Obama’s speechwriter could be talking about marketing here: The most important thing about speechwriting — besides being able to string sentences …

Sep 21, 2023: What do users want from your brand on social? Responsiveness Updates on new products / services Exclusive deals More authentic, non-promo content …

Sep 21, 2023: How Will Marketing Survive AI? Same As We’ve Always DoneIt’s not about the platforms or the tactics (or the snake oil). It’s about meeting the customer: where they arewith a story …

Sep 20, 2023: Google: where the algorithm’s made up and the prices don’t matter The search engine “frequently” changes the auctions it uses to sell search ads, …

Sep 20, 2023: How to write good marketing messaging: Write marketing copy, newsletters, emails, and messages as if to a sister, a best friend, or your mom/dad. And …

Sep 20, 2023: What Can We Learn From Socks? False proxies — Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin — OvercastOvercastI love this question (paraphrased from the link above): Is it a good use of …

Sep 19, 2023: From Social Media Today: 3 Important Social Media Trends of Note for 2023 Hot = LinkedIn Not = X (Twitter) Still Hot = Instagram

Sep 19, 2023: Quick refresher on some brand settings in Google Ads. If you want to use broad match keywords but also want them to be brand relevant, try brand …

Sep 18, 2023: It's A Metric! Hook Rate Are your videos thumb stopping? Do they have the right hooks? To find out, calculate the hook rate. 💡Hook rate is the percentage of video views that …

Sep 18, 2023: Google will now use AI to tell you how to optimize your video ads based on their “data-backed creative best practices”. Basically, …

Sep 17, 2023: There is an expression in Japanese that says that someone who makes things of poor quality is in fact worse than a thief because he doesn’t make …

Sep 17, 2023: Podcasts remain an underrated messaging medium for brands (whether via content or advertising). Over half of business owners are daily podcast …

Sep 17, 2023: More ads in more places: Spotify will let artists pay to appear as homescreen recommendations Surprised this wasn’t an option already.

Sep 15, 2023: Steal This: Your Haters' Words to Your Stans Ears No matter what you do, you'll have fans and you'll have haters. As I said previously: 💡Want cult status? Attract your stans by doubling down on the …

Sep 15, 2023: 🚨 Zero-Day Security Vulnerability Found in Chrome, Firefox and Other Browsers Update your browsers

Sep 15, 2023: (HBO) Max is keeping its ad load light compared to other streaming platforms. Why? buying commercials in a scarce and premium inventory pool has …

Sep 14, 2023: Interesting… Some search results on TikTok now include a snippet and link to Wikipedia. More heartburn for Google. Or maybe not, since they are …

Sep 13, 2023: Marketing strategy: a synopsis Who’s it for? What’s it for?

Sep 13, 2023: You Can't Please Everyone. It's Science! I consider this empirical evidence that you can't please everyone. A bat and a ball cost $110 in total.The bat costs $100 more than the ball.How much …

Sep 13, 2023: 🚨 Password-stealing malware targets thousands of Facebook business Be very careful how you use Messenger. This is a malware-based cookie stealing …

Sep 13, 2023: Trends.co is watching the growth of the “joyconomy,” which is basically just people wanting to loosen up a little bit and have some fun. …

Sep 13, 2023: Biggest surprise (sarcasm) announcement from Pinterest Presents: The platform will be launching a new tool powered by generative AI to bring image …

Sep 13, 2023: Pinterest Presents is happening now. A lot of these “announcements” are kind of old news, but I’m looking forward to trying out quiz …

Sep 12, 2023: Not surprised by these findings at all: More than three-quarters (77%) of respondents head straight to the search bar when they land on an e-commerce …

Sep 12, 2023: Data storytelling is the process of presenting data insights using narration and visualization. This insight is from the Exploding Topics newsletter. …

Sep 10, 2023: Every platform is basically a Shorts platform. Don’t change the content, change the medium of delivery. -Vignesh Kumar

Sep 9, 2023: I recently mentioned some of Google’s post-cookie plans are a bit controversial. Like this one: Chrome’s “Enhanced Ad Privacy.” …

Sep 8, 2023: Apple Boosts Spending to Develop Conversational AI The marriage of voice assistants and LLMs is coming. Siri + Shortcuts + Apple’s GPT is an …

Sep 8, 2023: Not far away—or perhaps very far away—depending on who did the measuring -The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden 📚 A metric on its own is …

Sep 8, 2023: Hitting thresholding issues in GA4? You can try turning off Google Signals, or changing your reporting identity to device based. A heads up, Google …

Sep 8, 2023: Exclusive: ChatGPT traffic slips again for third month in a row Exclusive: this is irrelevant AI like ChatGPT is a feature or tool, not a consumer …

Sep 8, 2023: Update your iOS Apple released software updates on Thursday to address two zero-day vulnerabilities that researchers said were used to deliver NSO …

Sep 8, 2023: Tom Asacker on Brand An excellent synopsis of what branding can be. branding as a continuous, progressive process. One that answers some very simple questions. Who. Who …

Sep 8, 2023: Pinterest’s new computer vision-powered body type technology to make search more inclusive Search and AI (at least for consumer apps) are features …

Sep 7, 2023: The post-cookie Chrome is just about ready, which means the officially death of third-party cookies is imminent. Of course, many of Google’s planned …

Sep 7, 2023: A great listen for illustrating marketing via celebrities.

Sep 7, 2023: There are concepts for everything, and I think it is important in any industry to go beyond those fixed concepts. The major companies often …

Sep 7, 2023: The Procurement Spectrum This episode of The Knowledge Project podcast with Ray Flemings starts off with a hell of a story that transitions into an excellent overview of the …

Sep 6, 2023: Marketing Against The Grain on Sales vs. Marketing 💡Marketing is eating the world.Wrapping up the sales vs. marketing roadshow with one final podcast (maybe (for now)). This time it's Marketing Against …

Sep 6, 2023: The B2B B2C divide is dead. It is now B2P: Business to Purchaser.

Sep 6, 2023: Another day, another holiday shopping survey 38% of Americans plan to start their shopping before Halloween 44% before Thanksgiving 81% will use …

Sep 6, 2023: What can marketers learn from the Burning Man floods? Public perception doesn’t matter (to an extent). Dedicated consumers will keep coming …

Sep 5, 2023: Don't Say Content on Sales vs. Marketing I thought I was going to be done talking about sales vs. marketing last week, but podcasts keep dropping about the same topic. Better yet, they're …

Sep 5, 2023: According to Google, the Cyber 5 shopping period is now Cyber 12.

Sep 5, 2023: Google Discovery Campaigns are becoming Demand Gen (Discovery + YouTube Shorts) starting in October: Starting October through November 2023, your …

Sep 5, 2023: Just got the new Meta ads manager audience setup flow. It’s 2 sections: Audience Controls Set criteria for where ads for this campaign can be …

Sep 4, 2023: What you should also do if you’re a brand doing influencers, is run Google Ads. Because people will look at an influencers post, they won’t buy, and …

Sep 4, 2023: A good question to ask on a regular basis: Are you here for your customers, to give them what they seek, or are you trying to do something to your …

Sep 4, 2023: The era of the Western is here (again). Expectations are the genre will “make a roaring return in entertainment and potentially usurp the superhero as …

Sep 4, 2023: Insight from Jack White When you put something out into the world, the bigger it gets, the less control you have of it. Your intentions and interpretations become less …

Sep 4, 2023: According to behavior science, to boost believability, trustworthiness, and memorability, use: rhymes alliteration simpler words (also makes people …

Sep 4, 2023: The EU is cracking down on “very large tech platforms.” This means: Less personalized ad targeting Algorithm-free feed options Stricter content …

Sep 3, 2023: A winning ecomm email framework (that’s working right now): Company name in the “from” field Great headline (chatty is good) with subhead …

Sep 2, 2023: 45% Of U.S., U.K. Advertisers Have Used Same Ad Approach For Past 5 Years 71% of this group don’t plan to change their strategy in the next year.

Sep 2, 2023: Some Q4 offer planning tips from Foxwell Digital: Keep it simple People want % or $ off Don’t do “up to X% off” sales (consumers know what they want …

Sep 1, 2023: Some email A/B tests to consider running: Subject lines Message text Framing of message (question vs. statement, etc) CTA text Best days for sending …

Sep 1, 2023: Spicy metric hot take: Click rates are overrated if you aren’t driving the action you actually want. I agree. Click rates (and all click metrics) …

Sep 1, 2023: The OG Patagonia? One last story from Morgan Housel to close out the week. Sugar, milk, and eggs were all rationed during World War II. Many food companies adapted to …

Sep 1, 2023: These 5 Prelaunch Secrets can be generalized to 3 ongoing tasks that build strong brands. Learn about your customers: how they function, what their …

Aug 31, 2023: This question from the Growth Daily newsletter is in line with something I’ve been thinking about more and more for brands: How would your …

Aug 31, 2023: More competitor spying! Er, I mean, competitive research and inspiration gathering. Meta Adds Branded Content Campaign Oversight to Ads Library / …

Aug 30, 2023: A Story About JFK Here's another short story that illustrates two recent posts: Sales is marketing (and everything is marketing)It doesn't matter what you mean, it …

Aug 30, 2023: A new podcast ad spend report is out and some big brands are making big moves into the space. HP leads the Movers category, increasing their $1,226 …

Aug 30, 2023: Is a ‘retail-cession’ slowly brewing as the holidays approach? Consumers may just be shopped out. How many of us need new stuff after the pandemic …

Aug 30, 2023: Actual value is commodification. Perceived value is differentiation. via Demand Curve Growth Newsletter 133

Aug 29, 2023: A great story on positioning, storytelling, and marketing via Morgan Housel. Ford had no interest in race cars – his vision was to build a cheap, …

Aug 29, 2023: no one person has control of what the brand is via Growth Daily The company doesn’t even have full control over what the brand is. Brands are …

Aug 29, 2023: A Story About Henry Ford A great story on positioning, storytelling, and marketing via Morgan Housel. I'm not going to indent since it's long, so everything between the lines …

Aug 28, 2023: The salad days of streaming are over. 29% of US internet households are canceling streaming video services to save money 47% annualized subscriber …

Aug 28, 2023: Experian fined $650,000 for not letting you opt out of its spammy emails / The US government found the credit reporting agency in violation of the …

Aug 28, 2023: Cage Match: Sales vs. Marketing Some rivalries have reached legendary status. Lakers-Celtics. Tom & Jerry. The Hatfields & the McCoys. Sales & Marketing. Everyone knows …

Aug 28, 2023: Both X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok are reinforcing the walls around their gardens. The first by stripping most data from link previews and the …

Aug 28, 2023: Interested to see which feed users end up preferring. And how turning off the algorithm impacts ad performance. Meta has confirmed that …

Aug 27, 2023: The expected customer action rate is the most important element of our [ad] auction. Jake Bailey, Head of Industry, Disruptors and Venture Capital …

Aug 26, 2023: On the perils of design by committee: No one has ever not bought a product because of the font. Or the color of a website element. These things are …

Aug 26, 2023: Perhaps the money is not to be made in the rivers themselves, but from the men working them. -The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt 📚 Nvidia is the …

Aug 26, 2023: Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision — even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise …

Aug 25, 2023: Google Search app could soon introduce a new Notes feature SEO angle: less room for your page on the results page Social angle: Google still wants a …

Aug 25, 2023: A nice guide from Search Engine Land for the GA4 crowd. Setting up event parameters in GA4: Everything you need to know / Learn how to set up event …

Aug 25, 2023: Rebrands: A Cautionary Tale Changing Its Name Tanked X’s Downloads in App Store and Play Store So if you don’t know that Twitter changed its name to …

Aug 25, 2023: Gen Z is all about the memes

Aug 25, 2023: It Doesn't Matter What You Mean It matters what they think. Once you put something out there—a brand, a campaign, a product—you no longer control it (hear that, JK Rowling?). It now …

Aug 25, 2023: On-demand audio (paid streaming, podcasts, owned music, etc.) officially has more share of ear than linear (radio over the air, radio streams, …

Aug 25, 2023: The retail reckoning could be coming. With student loan payments returning this fall, retailers have told investors that sales are likely to face …

Aug 24, 2023: Older Adults Make Up Just 4% Of People Featured In Ads That age group [60+] represents 16% of the U.S. population alone. The 60-plus demographic has …

Aug 24, 2023: Part of why I think podcast ads are highly underutilized currently. Nearly 90% of comedy podcast listeners have a parasocial relationship with their …

Aug 23, 2023: The team over at Conversion Rate Experts published a list of 11 effective strategies for selling commodities. Here are the ones I like the most: …

Aug 23, 2023: More ads in more places: TikTok Search edition Introducing the TikTok Search Ads Toggle The Search Ads Toggle leverages advertisers' existing In-Feed …

Aug 22, 2023: Steal This: Divide the Audience Yesterday was about making sure you had a hateable brand, but it's not truly that extreme. You just need to be clear about who you're for. Or, who you …

Aug 22, 2023: The 90s / early 00s are the trend du jour, which is fine. But I take issue with this: the current craze around everything ’90s and early aughts, a …

Aug 22, 2023: College dorms are big business. college students are expected to spend $20B more than last year, reaching around $94B Back-to-college spending has …

Aug 22, 2023: 3 things all brands should keep in mind: Don’t mistake interest for trust. If you promise to deliver a certain product, deliver it. It’s about …

Aug 22, 2023: And my inflation-fighting interest rate concerns might be materializing: more worrying is defaults spiking to levels similar to 2008, given the US …

Aug 21, 2023: Just a reminder that placements through things like audience networks are usually garbage. GroupM is removing MFAs* from its inclusion lists …

Aug 21, 2023: The Best Brands Are Hateable Let's start with an aside, the Sounds Profitable podcast is a great listen for concepts communicated clearly in a short period of time. Making a …

Aug 21, 2023: TikTok continues its everything app approach to expansion by testing the music-streaming waters. It’s a natural extension for a platform already …

Aug 21, 2023: Survey says… Google and Meta are still the go-to duo for marketing spend. Surprises to me in this chart: LinkedIn, Netflix, and Hulu. The first …

Aug 21, 2023: The labor illusion makes us value more highly something that takes more effort. Why do you have to crack an egg to make cake from a box? Marketing. …

Aug 20, 2023: Turns out the last 12 months wasn’t too bad for agencies, with at least half of those surveyed reported revenue gains and many increasing staffing. …

Aug 19, 2023: A good reminder that LLMs are snapshots of human knowledge and expression as filtered through the internet over the span of just a few years. They …

Aug 18, 2023: More (Amazon) ads in more places. Amazon Sponsored Product ads will now appear on Pinterest, Buzzfeed, and more The more looks like some publishers. …

Aug 18, 2023: I’d wondered what Meta’s Multi-Advertiser ads looked like, guess I can now safely opt-out of this placement.

Aug 17, 2023: Tips & questions from Klaviyo itself. Goal: 3:1 return on Lifetime Value (LTV): Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio Post-purchase optimization: …

Aug 17, 2023: Own It Black Friday Cyber Monday panel lightning round: Give a gift card with purchase of $X Email: shorten time between flow events, warm your list …

Aug 17, 2023: More from the Own It conference. How to create an advantage this holiday shopping season (Black Friday/Cyber Monday+): Provide value beyond discounts …

Aug 17, 2023: Prime Day Part 2: Dealectric Boogaloo returns this October Holiday shopping season is already forecast to start early, but this should guarantee it …

Aug 17, 2023: Consumer spending continues to climb month-over-month. July marks the fourth straight month of increased consumer spending, as well as the fastest …

Aug 16, 2023: Just 1% of the Nation’s Homes Have Changed Hands This Year, the Lowest Share in at Least a Decade Is this a positive or negative economic indicator? …

Aug 16, 2023: More Own It insights: Focus on finding the right customers, not as many customers as possible. Use your email and SMS lists differently. They’ll …

Aug 16, 2023: Some interesting takeaways from Jones Road Beauty’s session at the Klaviyo Own It conference: Turned off all TikTok spend Prefer free gift with …

Aug 15, 2023: Google Discovery campaigns will be replaced by Demand Gen (basically Discovery Max, now with YouTube Shorts placements (and more)) campaigns this …

Aug 15, 2023: Just noticed this in Meta Ads Manager today, Meta Shops stats will now be sent to third-party analytics and attribution tools if you have one setup. …

Aug 15, 2023: On Brand Aesthetics If you look and act like all the other brands in your category. To consumers you are the same as all the other brands. Which means you are no brand.

Aug 15, 2023: Podcast ads are doing great. iHeartMedia, Spotify and Acast reported revenue growth between 12% and 31% year over year in their podcast businesses …

Aug 15, 2023: Black Friday shopping intent breakdown across generation: 38% of baby boomers plan to shop on BF 40% of Gen X 18% of Millennials 3% of Gen Z

Aug 15, 2023: Cyber 5 creep is here. Gone are the days of Black Friday kicking off the holiday shopping season. This year: 1/3 of shoppers will start before …

Aug 15, 2023: Branding is all about aspiration, so this technique from Droga5 (via Julian Cole is genius. Don’t ask the consumer, ask their muses. Go to the …

Aug 15, 2023: Consumers want 2 things more than they want speed: Transparency Control A survey found shoppers are fine with longer ship times as long as they got …

Aug 14, 2023: The Google graveyard grows. Starting in early October 2023, any Shopping campaigns using Enhanced CC will behave as if they are using Manual CPC …

Aug 14, 2023: Of Ads & Algorithms: A Meta Rant Meta’s ad optimization algorithm is an idiot savant (which is the case for most algorithms). It’ll give you what you ask for, even if that’s not …

Aug 13, 2023: Disney+ prices are going up…again. Except for the ad-supported options. The Fed’s rate hikes have changed the math and the days of free money are …

Aug 13, 2023: Yelp’s ad revenue rose 14% in part (it said) because of “a change in behaviour.” A shift away from brand advertising and towards performance …

Aug 12, 2023: Moz rolled out a new brand-level metric, which is fine. But this idea is far more valuable: Brand value is highly subjective. It’s most accurately …

Aug 12, 2023: New social platform WeAre8 wants to share ad revenue with the users who watch them. Easier than paying for data. Opt-in consent. And all the signals …

Aug 11, 2023: More ads in more places: Lyft debuts in-app ads to help brands reach riders in transit / Contextually targeted ads will be served to riders And …

Aug 11, 2023: The Consumer Price Index (inflation measure) hit it’s lowest growth rate in over two years. It clocked in at 3% in June. The last time it was lower …

Aug 10, 2023: Steal This: IRL Cart Abandonment Follow Up. Would you rather compete for space in the inbox or the mailbox? (And do you know what tool(s) make this …

Aug 10, 2023: Steal This: IRL Abandoned Cart Follow Up This won't work for all businesses (duh)—at least not shipping a sample product—but would you rather compete for space in the inbox or the mailbox? …

Aug 10, 2023: More GA4 updates: New, pre-built report: audiences. It includes 6 default metrics and any audience you’ve created with at least 1 user in the …

Aug 10, 2023: Slowly getting more regex in GA4 🎉 One of the (if not THE) biggest adjustments Google Analytics users need to make in the GA4 transition is realizing …

Aug 9, 2023: Captcha’s are a data collection method for creating labeled data sets for deep learning training, so is this at all surprising? Bots are better than …

Aug 9, 2023: Shoppers be shopping, but they’re searching for savings. Retailers need to ‘competitively promote’ the rest of the year / Though consumers are …

Aug 9, 2023: 4 Questions for Determining Worth (and therefore pricing): Am I selling information (commodity) or transformation (value)? How much more is the …

Aug 9, 2023: Brands Are Narratives Every brand is a narrative that begins to shape the identity of itself and its fans. Over time, the identity of the fans feeds …

Aug 9, 2023: Brands Are Narratives Early on, your brand shapes its own narrative. But over time the narrative becomes shaped by the experiences and expectations of your fans. Which in …

Aug 9, 2023: “Pricing is branding”

Aug 8, 2023: The size of your funnel doesn’t matter if it points to a site that won’t perform. It’s fun to play with all the shiny, traffic …

Aug 7, 2023: 🚨 New acoustic attack steals data from keystrokes with 95% accuracy When Zoom was used for training the sound classification algorithm, the …

Aug 6, 2023: A group formed by Meta, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and TomTom is releasing data that could enable companies to build maps that rival products from …

Aug 6, 2023: I stand by the opinion that podcast advertising is woefully underrepresented as a percentage of most marketing medium portfolios. Almost 42% of the …

Aug 6, 2023: TikTok’s looking to align its ad targeting processes with emerging data privacy shifts through the addition of a new offering, called PrivacyGo, which …

Aug 5, 2023: What’s hot like Hansel on YouTube? Popular media as a muse: inspired by big media events, like the Barbie movie (aka newsjack mass culture moments) …

Aug 5, 2023: What are the kids doing these days? If they’re between the ages of 6-12, they might be listening to podcasts. Twenty-nine percent of U.S. Kids Ages …

Aug 5, 2023: I’ve been waiting for this since the #BanTikTok fervor. The Record: Lawsuit: ByteDance’s CapCut app secretly reaps massive amounts of user data The …

Aug 4, 2023: 🚨 New variants found of malware that targets Facebook business accounts 🚨 To gain access to target systems, hackers used phishing links, tricking …

Aug 4, 2023: The Drum: Nearly 90% of consumers no longer trust influencers Is this why Pinterest basically avoided (~9:43) the word “creator” in its last investor …

Aug 4, 2023: More ads in more places. Walmart: more self-checkout screen and in-store radio spots Uber: not really new placements (though video is still new-ish …

Aug 2, 2023: The race for a generative AI-powered smart assistant is on. Axios: Google Assistant to get an AI makeover Axios: Amazon wants Alexa to bring AI into …

Aug 1, 2023: What signals are left if these are removed? Is advertising worth it at that point? Meta Platforms has proposed asking all users in Europe to decide …

Aug 1, 2023: Sometimes it’s a good reminder that just because if works somewhere else, doesn’t mean it will work here, for you. But he may be missing …

Jul 31, 2023: As the cookie gods severed their ties to the marketing world, watching as the idols made in their image crumbled, they decreed: “and ye, soon unto …

Jul 31, 2023: For platforms, it’s all about attribution and proving ROI (/ROAS) in a world of increasing privacy. For Google (/YouTube), enter Engaged-view …

Jul 31, 2023: #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt Or maybe it didn’t Search Engine Land: Study: TikTok loses popularity as ecommerce search engine / Amazon’s popularity …

Jul 31, 2023: Sometimes telling people not to do what you want them to do is the right move. Unless they’re already loyal customers / users, then it’s …

Jul 29, 2023: Missed this in Netflix is lowering ad costs bit: Netflix has had preliminary discussions to sell ads through other partners, in addition to …

Jul 29, 2023: Finally! Google appeared to have gotten rid of the notoriously buggy feature that was GBP call tracking.  Had this issue with a client, glad to see …

Jul 28, 2023: self-upgrade tools are also rolling out now to easily upgrade Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) campaigns and Google Display campaigns to Performance Max. …

Jul 28, 2023: Maybe the animal spirits won’t win out this time. “To me the most important signal out of [Thursday’s data] is that households continue to …

Jul 28, 2023: Netflix is courting advertisers with discounted rates: Some advertisers are now being offered placements of $39 to $45 per 1,000 viewers, the WSJ …

Jul 28, 2023: 🎙️Weekend Listens: Lessons from Bud Light, Boring Businesses, and Cop Procedurals Turns out the Bud Light boycott was good for one thing: marketing lessons. Know your customerDon't become a commodity (by definition they are easily …

Jul 27, 2023: Notice a Perspectives filter at the top of Google lately? “Tap the filter, and you’ll exclusively see long- and short-form videos, images and written …

Jul 27, 2023: Meta is ‘is seeking to patent a system for “user identification with voiceprints” for social media networks.’ It’s mostly for 2FA, but ‘these …

Jul 26, 2023: Performance Max now in Microsoft (aka Bing) Ads! The future: all robots, all the time Microsoft Advertising Blog: Introducing Microsoft Advertising’s …

Jul 26, 2023: Are You Curious? If not, this probably isn’t the place for you. I’m curious, about most things, which makes me glad I’m not a cat (the dad jokes are free!). Here I’m …

Jul 26, 2023: How does it serve the user to tell them the price is increasing but not from what / by how much? I don’t remember how much I pay, but now I have to …

Jul 25, 2023: I’m a sucker for new browsers, so guess I’m downloading Arc now. The Verge: The excellent Arc browser is now available for anyone to download

Jun 20, 2023: Steal This: IKEA - Proudly Second Best A powerful message. Delivered simply. Reflecting the customer's reality.

May 25, 2023: I Call My Shot: Post-AI Trends Last week I shared what AI thinks about itself, along with some of my thoughts on both AI and AI's thoughts on AI. Now it's time to put on my tinfoil …

May 16, 2023: Wait, What Happened? Google, YouTube, Podcasts, & Social Google Says, “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?”Social media, nowin your search results! It’s blatantly apparent that AlphaBrass read every headline about …

May 15, 2023: Follow The Money: Where Ad Platforms Spend Their Ad Dollars (+ More Ad Placements) Your Favorite Ad Channels' Favorite Ad ChannelsIt’s always interesting to see where the digital platforms spend their ad dollars. What tactics are the …

May 13, 2023: 🎙️ Weekend Listens: Serving Through Sales Funnels, Stanning for Podcast Ads, Economic Warning Signs, & How to Be Ubiquitous A good listen on how to structure your sales funnels, ad-landing page congruence, and some quick benchmark metrics. I really like this way of thinking …

May 11, 2023: 🤖 What AI Thinks About AI I was recently asked by a client to talk to their team about AI. What it is, what it means, etc etc. Naturally, I turned to ChatGPT and Bing Chat to …

May 5, 2023: 🎙️ Weekend Listens: AI, More AI, Community, Motivation Tricks, & Would A TikTok Ban Be 'Un-American'? 🐙 Generative intelligence can propel productivityListen now (19 min) | A new era of labor efficiency emerges as AI-driven advancements revolutionise …

Apr 27, 2023: Meta’s Very Good Day Meta remembered how to make money and posted year-over-year revenue growth for the first time in a year. This, of course, means an earnings call, …

Apr 26, 2023: AI In Everything, Analytics Give-and-Take, Shoppers' Sharing Preferences, & Livestream Shopping Isn't (Quite) Dead Our AI FutureIt should be obvious by now, but soon The Platforms will be AI everything. They already push for algorithmically-controlled …

Apr 26, 2023: 🚨Meta Meltdown: Check Your Budgets You've probably heard by now, but a Meta bug decided budgets are for chumps over the weekend and went all in like a drunk kid in Vegas. Per Social …

Apr 25, 2023: Meta Goes Twitter, A TikTok Guide, Google's Woes, & The Post-AI Browser MetadonDetails about Meta’s “Twitter clone” are starting to leak. Why the quotes? Because it feels more like Mastodon. 500 character limit, …

Apr 24, 2023: TikTok is Tops, Acura Goes Anime (Again), & A Pinterest-Shaped Opportunity (+ IKEA) The Clock Keeps TickingTikTok may be getting headlines for all the wrong reasons, but it seems to be proving the adage “no press is bad press.” The …

Apr 3, 2023: 🗞️ Herding Headlines 04.03.23 Engage-a-thon 2023The recent trend for social/content platforms has been expansion; free money fueled growth mode. But the Great Tech Reckoning of …

Apr 1, 2023: Retail.Tea.Leaves.04.01.23 Rethinking ReturnsAmazon is testing a new feature in an effort to cut down a returns: adding a ‘frequently returned’ label to products that are just …

Mar 31, 2023: 🗞️ Links & Thinks 3.31.23 Animal Spirits in Ad MarketsAs has been discussed in this space previously, ad spending is cooling off as brands brace for a recession. Which could …

Mar 31, 2023: About Curious Kyle Who the hell is this guy? Hi! I'm Kyle. Not Kyle. That's a bear. I don't know it's name, so it could be a Kyle.I'm a strategist and tech nerd at Blue …

Mar 24, 2023: Checking In On Netflix's Ad Tier The Netflix ad tier has hit the 1 million user mark. Which means it won’t have to refund advertisers anymore. I’m interested how the numbers are …

Jan 30, 2023: ❤️‍🔥 Make Your Brand A Cult If there were a year to transform your brand into a cult brand, 2023 would be it.If you want a brand like Death Wish Coffee, Patagonia, or The Liver …

Jan 29, 2023: 👹 News Headlines & Animal Spirits We may be heading towards a recession (we technically always are, it’s just a matter of time frame), but we don’t require one to come down from …

Oct 24, 2022: The Cookie-pocalypse Deconstructed The fallout from The End of Cookies has already (for the most part)  happened and now various crumbs are being swept up into assorted piles as …

Oct 23, 2022: Generative AI Models are the next creative director Any company that wants to be (even tangentially) an AI company is rolling out generative tools to create images or videos, or turn images into …

Oct 21, 2022: The Age of Unbundling Just as markets boom and bust, they also bundle and unbundle. We are currently in a phase of unbundling.  Everyone that owns a tv show or …

Oct 20, 2022: East vs. West: Attention Platforms Edition The past week or so has felt like the dam breaking in terms of TikTok showing its ambition and illustrating the differing approach of eastern and …

Jun 27, 2022: 💼 Who’s Left Holding the Bag? The market is mixing signals like a middle school dance. Housing prices and mortgage rates are up. Inventory and home sales are down. But the high end …

Feb 23, 2022: The Trinternet Your GDPR-compliant cookie banner is actually a violation of GDPR. And so is your analytics platform. (If you’re using Google.) And so is Facebook …