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 more likely to backfire.

Nudge Podcast: Feel free to ignore this episode

Missed this in Netflix is lowering ad costs bit:

Netflix has had preliminary discussions to sell ads through other partners, in addition to Microsoft. Netflix is reworking its pact with Microsoft to reduce the revenue guarantee.

I still think an in-house solution is their best option, at least long-term.

WSJ: Netflix Reworks Microsoft Pact, Lowers Ad Prices in Bid for Growth

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 consume,” Eric Winograd, senior economist at AllianceBernstein, told the Financial Times. “And I don’t think we should expect the consumer to weaken until the labor market does.”

The Daily Upside: Recession? What Recession?

Netflix is courting advertisers with discounted rates:
Some advertisers are now being offered placements of $39 to $45 per 1,000 viewers, the WSJ reported, compared to a previous rate of around $45 to $55.

The Daily Upside: Recession? What Recession?

Turns out the Bud Light boycott was good for one thing: marketing lessons.

• Know your customer
• Don't become a commodity (by definition they are easily replaced)
• Stay true to your values

Of course, brands should be allowed to change their values, but it has to be done carefully.

Great bits on why need is better than new, how catchphrases = cult status, defaulting to value, embracing the cringe, why you shouldn't fail short, being wrong is better than boring, and why you should follow your conviction.

And a great reminder for marketers:

We're not solving world hunger. We are trying to help more humans believe in themselves in order to do something in business that could lead to financial freedom for them.

Narratives matter. And brands are narratives.

Performance Max now in Microsoft (aka Bing) Ads!

The future: all robots, all the time

Microsoft Advertising Blog: Introducing Microsoft Advertising’s Performance Max

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 mostly curious about marketing—things like branding, strategy, consumer behavior, technology, and ~~~the future~~~.

This place isn’t for specialists. If you only care about influencers or ecommerce or Google Ads you might not like it here (but you might like the linkblog). I want to try to understand it all, the whole box of Legos. And how those bricks fit together to create resilient platforms for brand growth.

I have some specific beliefs about marketing, but we’ll get into those later.

If this isn’t your cup of tea (or coffee or artisanal kombucha or bubbly water), I get it. Thanks for taking the time to check it out. Maybe I’ll see you around the internet.

If you’re still here and (maybe) even more curious than you were at the top, welcome! Maybe toss your email in that box up there so I can slide into your inbox. Or just jump right in.

Stay curious!

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 dig around to compare if I want to.

Don’t use dark patterns to retain customers. Use excellent experiences and delight.

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

A powerful message.

Delivered simply.

Reflecting the customer's reality.

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 futurist hat and gaze deeply into my 8-bit crystal ball.

Here are 4 trends I think will be turbocharged by AI:

1. Search is Dead
2. Social is Dead
3. Personal Algorithms
4. Ambient Computing

I'll elaborate on each of these points more in the future, but here are the subheads:

Search Is Dead

The era of the megalith search engine for all things is over.

Social Is Dead

The era of the traditional social media platform built on users sharing their own content is over.

Personal Algorithms

The era of Her is just beginning. Our current crop of technological "personal" assistants (Siri, Alexa, Clippy, etc.) will morph into truly personalized algorithms that make TikTok's For You feed look quaint.

Ambient Computing

Screens will no longer be the ruling paradigm for tech interaction. And the number of devices used will increase.

Google Says, “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?”

Social media, now in your search results!

It’s blatantly apparent that AlphaBrass read every headline about what trend or app or newfangled thing posed an existential threat to their search business and decided to announce an answer to all of them all at the same time.

YouTube Has Spoken:

Turn off your ad blocker or pay up.

It’s an experiment.

A “new pop-up explains that in order to keep watching YouTube videos, users will have to disable their ad blocker, or make YouTube.com an exception within their ad blocking rules.”

Shifting Screens

Close to 45% of overall YouTube viewing in the U.S. today is happening on TV screens…compared with well below 30% in 2020.

It’s less about screen-specific viewing now and more about platform-specific viewing.

Different apps means different content experiences and expectations. Which screen is just a matter of convenience.

Not sure if this includes YouTube TV or is just the OG YT app. Or if that distinction even really matters.

Pods With Friends

Portable audio doesn’t just mean personal audio, “co-listening” is a common activity.

What ads perform best with co-listeners?

Storytelling*

In case it helps with your story:
“the most common types of moments for co-listening: relaxing, hanging out with friends, cooking, entertaining kids, and doing yoga.”

*always a good decision

RadioCasts

Only a handful of terrestrial radio genres are growing. And talk radio listeners are migrating to podcasts.

So why not give broadcasters the tools to easily turn their programming into podcasts.

(Especially when you need content that doesn’t carry continuous licensing fees.)

One Pin To Rule Them All

Pinterest is combining the various pin types into one creation flow. All the toys, fewer barriers to getting started.

I am not a Pinner, but I like the platform (and advertise on it). I think this is a good change an should hopefully lead to more fun and inspiration and less Instagram-like post type games.

Meta Pays For More Reels

I don’t really care about this headline, other than the fact that it means Meta is still all in on Reels.

And if it’s going to pay more for the content, it means it expects to make more on it.

Reels ad placements are (still) the ones to watch.

Gmail: now with check marks!

Funny how Elon kills off the blue check only to cause a blue check renaissance.

Social Schedule

Finally, the best times to post to social.

So, naturally, you should do the opposite.

And don’t post on the hour.

Your Favorite Ad Channels' Favorite Ad Channels

It’s always interesting to see where the digital platforms spend their ad dollars. What tactics are the tools you use to attract an audience using to attract an audience?

But first, YouTube and LinkedIn jumped to the top of the 2022 spending pack. And Pinterest slid in at #5. (Facebook/Meta and TikTok round out the top 5.) So those are the channels pushing hard for growth.

Increased traditional's share of spend (everyone else shifted harder to digital):

• YouTube
• Pinterest
• Snapchat

Share of spend on television plummeted. This plus the writers' strike (no judgement) aren't a great sign for the poster-child platform of mass advertising.

So, what was weird?

• Pinterest increased theater spend to nearly 1/3 of the budget
• Twitter went big on out-of-home
• TikTok pulled waaaaaaaaay back on paid social (who needs ads when you're getting all those headlines, right?)
• Snapchat focused on paid search

It would be more interesting to see what messaging they’re pushing via those channels.

But still interesting to think about what messaging might work best for you on a platform based on where it’s getting users from.

More Ads In More/The Same Places

Instagram

Instagram is loosening the rules around partnership ads Presumably to capture more revenue and be ever-so-slightly more like TikTok.

Regardless, this is good news for brands that use creator partnerships and user generated content in their marketing.

TikTok

Looks like TikTok is really leaning into the revenue benefits of being a full-screen, advertising-supported content experience. (Plus contextual targeting!)

Pulse Premiere gives brands the control to choose where their ads are placed, adjacent to content from our premium publishing partners in lifestyle & education, sports, and entertainment categories for specific tentpole events as well as evergreen, ongoing content.

Roblox

The metaverse is getting ads. By which I mean, ads are coming to Roblox.

This is one of those announcements that some marketers will ignore and others will get very excited about.

Gmail

Big G is putting more ads in your inbox, including randomly dropped amongst your actual emails. People aren’t happy.

Of course, one answer is to drop Gmail. If Bluesky takes hold (and even if it doesn’t), we’re at the point where everyone should have their own domain.

Not sure how? Derek Sivers has you covered in this chat with Tim Ferriss (starting around 28:14).

Services mentioned:
- Mailbox.org
- Fastmail

If you want to roll your own email server, Derek posted this guide.

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 about a funnel:

A funnel is something that enables a business to do more business with the people that the business owner was meant to serve.

It’s not about scamming, it’s about serving.

More tidbits:

• Match your ad to its landing page (or opt-in page, which I think is a more helpful name) - both text and image
• If you’re collecting emails from cold traffic, aim for a 30%+ conversion rate. Anything below 10% is a big problem.
• What’s a good click rate for your emails? 1%+. 2-4% should be the target. 6%+ is amazing.

2 interesting nuggets in this one.

First, more proof that podcast ads are one of the better digital placements. They are an understood and generally well tolerated aspect of the medium.

33% or survey respondents said they pay more attention to podcast ads compared to commercials seen on other sources (TV, online, etc.)

Affinity for a show or host can be transferred to the brands advertising on the show, which I a big bonus compared to many other platforms.

Second, an interesting rundown of Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) and streaming’s frequency problem.

The problem arises in video on-demand use cases. The full ad load is determined while the video loads, which means the auction only happens once and in a small window. The outcome? So much ad repetition.

starting at about the 23:41 mark

Not that this is surprising, because math, but we're heading towards a dangerous fiscal place as baby boomers continue to age into entitlement programs. Stan Druckenmiller is predicting a financial crisis somewhere between 2025-2035 because of this. Current calculations have social security and medicare doubling from roughly 12% of GDP today to 24% by 2080.

I like the point one of the hosts (Chamath) makes while tempering the doom and gloom:

Economics are a relative problem where you have to weigh countries against each other.

I don't think there's much value in saying because it happened in these moments, it's going to happen the same way here. What people don't understand is that we're a unitary, singular monoeconomy that is anchored by the US dollar.

Sidenote, Druckenmiller is also long Microsoft and Nvidia. Which suggests early mover advantages in the realm of (consumer) AI.

How does something become ubiquitous?

It has to do something useful and meaningful that serves human interests.

This was stated in relation to AI, but seems like a really good first check in marketing (which starts with the product/service itself). Not everything needs to be ubiquitous, but expectations need to be aligned.