Meta
- something about retargeting
- Background Generation: Creates multiple backgrounds to complement the advertiser’s product images
- Image Expansion: Seamlessly adjusts creative assets to fit different aspect ratios across multiple surfaces, like Feed or Reels
- Text Variations: Generates multiple versions of ad texts based on advertiser’s original copy
- Will we be able to opt-out?
- Will we be able to approve, or at least nudge, the outputs?
- Business Suite
- Inbox
- Settings
- Chat Plugin
- Customize your Chat Plugin
- Turn off Guest chat
- Trying to inch their way to regulatory approval
- Hoping transparency = user approval (Threads has embraced ActivityPub, maybe more openness is the future)
- Improving AI + increasing privacy makes the secret sauce less secret, so no need to act super sketchy (thought plenty see this as sketchy)
- Some forthcoming platform play
Two Anthony De Mello quotes:
A village blacksmith found an apprentice willing to work hard at low pay. The smith immediately began his instructions to the lad: “When I take the metal out of the fire, I’ll lay it on the anvil; and when I nod my head you hit it with the hammer.” The apprentice did precisely what he thought he was told. Next day he was the village blacksmith.
&
Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistake of all-they are attempting nothing new.
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 booming ad unit rose 27% to $14.7 billion. Meanwhile Alphabet, still the market leader, saw its Google ad business rise 11% to $65.5 billion, boosted by 16% growth at YouTube.
via CNBC
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 less than 10 seconds) and converts within a 1 day window.
New LinkedIn pixel feature: Website Actions
empowers B2B marketers using LinkedIn’s Insight Tag to capture and measure website actions without the need for additional tracking codes on their website.
New YouTube analytics: Playlist Analytics
Does what it says on the box
Threads is rising, TikTok is stalling, and Instagram is #1.
I’d venture weathering this latest challenger has Meta feeling nearly invulnerable, which is probably why Zuck feels confident enough to embrace open source for AI and the fediverse for Threads.
Meta has started rolling out its “first generative AI-powered features for ad creatives in Meta’s Ads Manager”
2 big questions for marketers:
I’m hearing the answer to both might be “no”
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 means no real user data but it has a massive bank account and history of working with rights holders (see: iTunes).
The hardware platform is its killer feature though. It doesn’t need to be the fastest scaling consumer app in history to become relevant, it just needs to ship via software update.
Imagine a day where you wake up, your Apple Watch recognizes you put your AirPods in and starts a personalized podcast via Siri of relevant news, stock updates, weather, and your calendar. Maybe even your recent messages and emails and reminders.
It’s mostly just plumbing and PR at this point.
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. Navigate to:
As interest targeting slowly goes by the wayside in favor of AI and algorithmically driven targeting, the targeting us marketers have the most control over is the pieces we feed the robots.
That means creative.
Your messaging and visual assets are where your true targeting capabilities lie.
Meta expert Andrew Foxwell says the removal of detailed targeting means no more narrowing interest audiences via AND layering.
I don’t see this spelled out in the Meta post about it, but it would make sense under the “too granular” reasoning.
From Meta:
We’re discontinuing some detailed targeting options because they are either not widely used, redundant with others, too granular, they relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive (e.g., targeting options referencing causes related to health, race or ethnicity), or because of legal or regulatory requirements.
Interest targeting is on its last legs. All hail the robots.
From Exploding Topics:
Immersive dining is part of the Immersive Experiences meta trend.
Searches for “immersive experiences” have grown by 144% over the past 24 months.
Immersive experiences have become more accessible, thanks to technologies like AR, VR, and projection mapping.
Videos about immersive experiences have over 515 million views on TikTok.
The further we get from pandemic-era lockdowns, the more the consumer pendulum swings from goods to experiences.
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.
Meta’s big new announcement is…browser history?
Facebook recently rolled out a new “Link History” setting that creates a special repository of all the links you click on in the Facebook mobile app.
A few (non-exclusionary) guesses why:
via Gizmodo
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 revenue it earns from search advertising made through the Safari browser
This is why everyone (Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI) wants a hardware platform. They want to own the access point, because value accrues there.
Defaults are powerful. And the device can set the defaults.
An anecdote via Andrew Foxwell on Today in Digital Marketing(https://todayindigital.com/premium/):
A company is spending $300k / month on Meta ads and it’s all being spent on 2 Advantage+ Shopping campaigns.
Meta (& Google) is an AI platform.
(Still may want to curate your placements)
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 to Feed”.
main IG feed now becoming more of a discovery platform, in highlighting the best trending, primarily video content, while the social elements shift out of public sight.
original posting has continued to decline. And without that, Meta’s apps lose a significant aspect of their appeal, and their power as connective engagement surfaces.
Meta also gleans major value from interaction, and facilitating participation
Battery tech is one of the developmental fields I’m most interested in, and this news is why:
Swedish battery-maker Northvolt announced proudly on Tuesday that it had developed a new kind of sodium-ion battery that’s just as efficient as batteries that use precious earth metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, but is totally free of them.
The electrification of everything means the batterification of many things. In order for that to be sustainable, we need more than one battery formula. Especially when the current formula is just replacing oil with rare earth metals.
Speaking of consumers wanting experiences and brand created content, Louis Vuitton (& Co) is delivering.
LVMH is building a luxury destination right in the heart of Paris, giving aspiring artisans and curious visitors a place to interact with the 280 skilled trades that power the fashion conglomerate’s 75 brands.
hope is access to artisans and the inner workings of how luxury goods are made will increase appreciation of the goods and inspire some to join the ranks.
Immersive experiential marketing meets talent recruitment. It’s like LinkedIn jumping into the metaverse.
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 made the same price feel 9% lower on dental floss and increased sales 35% in a liquor store, in the experimental study.
One of the crucial metaphors ingrained in us as we grow up is:
Down is less and up is more
Metaphors are powerful because they’re essentially the cognitive interface between the brain and the world. Vehicles for experience.
While TikTok tries to make its content and discovery engine an ecommerce platform, Amazon is plugging its ecommerce engine into all the other content and discovery (formerly social media) platforms.
First, Pinterest. Now…
Meta lets Amazon shoppers buy products on Facebook and Instagram without leaving the apps