Rabbbits Weeekly 02.07.22
RIP FLoC and more updates from the world of digital marketing
This week: Google’s post-cookie planning, the Performance Max future, title tag robo-rewrites, and other changes. Zuck’s no good, very bad earnings call. Shopping in the metaverse (maybe? have we defined that term yet?) and other announcements from non-Meta owned social peeps. Podcasting cashed in on 2021. And finally, more confusion from European privacy regulations.
FLOC is dead, long live FLOC!
Google killed off FLOC and replaced it with Topics. Which is pretty similar. It’s like contextual advertising except the context is you (or what you’re interested in at the moment) instead of the content you are looking at.
Google had to humanize their post-cookies plan (aka less robots and more squishy edges). So, out with FLoC and in with Topics! FLoC was more granular, Topics is (supposed to be) more privacy friendly (whatever that means).
In both cases, your browser (Chrome in this case) guesses your interests based on browsing history and groups you into Topic groups with other users with similar interests. Advertisers then target a topic and the users in that group are eligible to see the ad. (Wildly simplified, but the gist is there.) As of now, users will have their Topics refreshed weekly.
On the technical end, each week a users’ top 5 topics are determined and then a Rando Calrissian is thrown into the bunch for good (privacy saving?) measure and these 6 topics become a roulette wheel for sites/advertisers. On any given site, the user’s topic is randomly pulled from the list of 6. Whatever slot they land on will be the one they’re stuck in for that user on that site for the next 3 weeks. Wash, rinse, repeat. You can really dive into the nitty gritty here.
What will this mean for advertisers?
Usual disclaimer, we won’t really know until the rubber meets the road. But, here are my half baked guesses. It's Facebook interest targeting for display ads. This will shift power from platforms to infrastructure (less half baked, more inevitable. see: Apple app ad performance post-iOS 14.5). IF this works and moves forward, it will be the move in a substantial shift away from the cloud as central to everything (see more below). The ad market will fragment, I don’t see other browsers just saying “sure Google, we’ll get onboard”. Brave has already been playing with this idea for a while (they may already do it?). Data and user behavior could become increasingly important as more choices of where and how to run ads arise, using the platform (browser, network, device) as a foundational targeting parameter.
This is part of a larger meta-trend of tracking federation, which is the fancy way of saying decentralized tracking, which is the fancy way of saying all the work happens on your device / in your browser and just the results are beamed back to a cloud somewhere instead of all your data belongs to us, etc etc.
More Goog News You Can Use
All Performance Max everything. This is the future of Google Ads, may as well get started now. (You can also get data on them in Data Studio)
Did you know you can do marketing on Google without spending money? It’s called SEO. One of the common tasks is writing well-crafted, highly clickable title tags for each and every one of your website’s pages. Turns out, Google doesn’t care about all the effort you poured into them. The search engine will make/choose their own 60%+ of the time.
If you're banging your head on the keyboard in frustration and hopelessness, at least get some value from it. Copy-paste that string of nonsense into your title tags, it doesn’t matter.
Still want to feel like you’re better than an algorithm robot? Here are Zyppy’s Typs (if they aren’t using that name for a newsletter or podcast or something they need to start, just @ me):
Make sure they’re the right length (novel concept, follow the rules and maybe you won’t be penalized). This means 50-60 characters (writing for Google is an exercise in counting-based frustration, maybe that’s why I like haiku).
Don’t use brackets, use parentheses if you must.
Play favorites with separators: Google doesn’t like the pipe | (which is my preferred one, of course), typically replacing it with a dash. So go with the dash and call it a day I guess.
The Goog is testing out content-driven buying guides on mobile.
Facebook Meta
Honey, Zuck shrunk the user base. Facebook achieved a new first, but probably not the one they were hoping for, they lost daily active users in Q4 ‘21. But, they created a new metric to make things look better! They now report on Family Active People, which just lumps users of all their apps together so that Instagram and WhatsApp can wallpaper over Facebook’s decline.
Their financials also report that ad prices increased 24% on 10% more impressions year-over-year. (This number is very different from the 250% increase being reported from Jan 2020 to Nov 2022).
Let’s keep the good news train rolling, Meta expects iOS privacy changes will cost them $10b this year. Not missing a chance to complain about someone else and paint themselves as the victims, Meta’s CFO said Apple is favoring Google, likely because of the large checks Goog writes to Jobs & Co to be the default search engine. Blah, blah, companies with lots of money sniping at each other.
There have been reports that Facebook’s attribution reporting is on the fritz. So, if you use Facebook attribution or any of their other analytics, don’t.
If you’re trying to figure out how to optimize your images for the ‘gram, this quick dive into an (old) research paper might be of interest.
Other Ad Peeps
Let’s take a quick look around the other players and see what’s happening.
Apple is now the most effective mobile app ad platform (not Facebook). (Gee, wonder what could have caused this…)
Snapchat is profitable! (At least for one quarter so far.)
Facebook’sMeta’s pain may be other networks’ gain. (Snapchat is expected to be one to watch this year.)Speaking of Snapchat, it’s time to get your AR-powered commerce on.
Speaking of AR-powered commerce, home decor AR on Pinterest!
Speaking more of Snapchat, TikTok! The most-ripped-off platform is now the 3rd most popular for influencers, overtaking YouTube. Big Red still holds the edge on time spent at 45+ minutes per day (TikTok is flirting with the 40 minute mark). The Tok’s meteoric rise is expected to continue with user base growth that will launch it into the top 3 behind the Meta family of apps (but Big Red still wears the crown here).
The above article mentioned YouTube’s Shorts are lagging behind TikTok, and Insta Reels, but Big Red is (unsurprisingly) shouting about their popularity. (Trigger warning: this link contains mentions of NFTs)
Podcast spending was up big, hitting almost $600m last year, a 20%+ increase over 2020.
To summarize the above items, be prepared for shopping-integration everywhere, continuing growth of video, and aggressive posturing between networks likely centered on creator funds to increase time spent.
To editorialize, it’s time to diversify away from just Google and Meta. Ch-ch-ch-changes are blowin’ in the wind, to mix song lyrics, so better be proactive than reactive.
Regulation
You got your government in my internet!
Your GDPR-compliant cookie consent banner is actually a violation of GDPR. This is what happens when you write a regulation that is confusing from the get go.
The EU continues to take aim at user tracking and targeting and potentially deceptive practices online.