Rabbbits Weeekly: The Season of More
This weeek we play a round of More, More, Less with marketing and related news. Also, Gen Z. Also also, a pretty graph.
More, More, More
In honor of entering the season best described by this gif:
Here is a round-up of recent more, more, more related announcements. And some less, less, less to act as counterpoints.
Meta
More control over your feed. Show more or show less, presumably to train the algorithm in their quest to TikTokify.
Less Bulletin (their Substack competitor (bet you forgot this was a thing)), in the name of keeping more people in their walled garden and reinventing itself as a discovery engine (aka TikTok clone).
More name game shenanigans: Facebook Advertising Policies are now Meta Advertising Standards.
Less metaverse, at least internally.
More in-app browser on Android, in the name of security and experience?
More Reels ad options and algorithm-powered “Advantage” features, and buzzwords.
More links in Instagram profiles (for some creators).
More competitors in your ads. A “you might like” content carousel in your feed but it’s all ads (also Reel music options and AR ads).'
TikTok
More branded TikTok sounds (how do you do, fellow kids?)
More tracking of you across the internet (it’s the pixel thing just like Facebook, so new name, same game).
More live shopping in the US.
More still photos in your feed, bet Instagram feels really silly now (also more editing tools).
More money burned in the name of the high-growth VC fever dream (lost $7 billion last year, but might make money one day soon?).
More violations of Meta’s ad policies (sorry, standards). ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) and some other Chinese tech giants are running violent erotica ads on Facebook and Instagram to promote the iReader app.
More AI generated video (DALL-E and Stable Diffusion are so last week)
More bidding optimization for users that will click on ads in your app
More Recommendations testing via campaign experiments in Google Ads
More tag performance transparency and (allegedly) easier implementation options, especially for conversion measurement
More clarity on enabling features in Merchant Center vs. Ads: default to Merchant Center
Less Store Visits info in analytics
Microsoft
More importing from Google Ads, but only the Performance Max features that map to existing Microsoft Ads features, if you already have a Microsoft Merchant Center store active, and the right tag on your site.
More page features: post templates, clickable links (adding links to other post content types), pinned comments, and page commitments (labels about your business values).
More robo-profiles.
Gen Z (now populating the highly sought after 18-25 age bracket)
More YouTube (and Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Snapchat, Amazon, Google, Twitch, Discord).
Less “mainstream” pop culture. The riches are in the niches, the niche communities and subcultures, that is (specifically in gaming, entertainment, education, fashion, and beauty).
More stress from brands about how to market to Gen Z, apparently direct mail is cool again (like The Future™ cool (again)).
Marketing Grab Bag
More engaged and happier users on Snapchat compared to other social platforms (according to Snap). Because it’s basically fancy texting.
Less talk radio ads, the audience is going podcast.
More insight into the most visited domains from Cloudflare.
Less (forecasted) ad spend growth next year, but more video on demand advertising thanks to Disney+ and Netflix.
(Even) More connected TV. 94% of households are reachable via this channel and the ad market is dominated by Roku, Samsung, and Amazon devices.
More sensible ad impression tracking from Nielsen. They’ll now measure based on you—a person—instead of your TV / device—a cold, inanimate slab of glass.
More ads manager features on Reddit: live chat for direct support, a pixel helper tool, expanded targeting options, and some features that seem pretty standard (read: basic).
More rogue marketing (cause there ain’t no laws when you’re drinkin’ claws).
Æconomy
More re-gifting, or at least thrifting for presents this holiday season.
Less job openings, it sounds bad but it likely means the job market is in better shape.
More shipping problems. Except this time it’s barge traffic on the Mississippi River (thanks severe drought). Which means you should probably get ready for higher food prices (which means you should probably get ready for less disposable income flowing to non-food and essentials).
Less OPEC oil production, in the hope prices will rebound from a steep drop. The White House isn’t happy about it.
More “small luxuries”, less big-ticket items.
Attack Vectors
Maybe close any sensitive work info or company data or just your browser tabs / email before snapping your next BeReal.
The UK is doing…something towards replacing GDPR with their own version of it. But it’s on hold for the moment. To pop-up, or not to pop-up, that is the question.
Alternates & Assorteds
Less marijuana penalties from the feds?
A fictional story (definitely fiction, right, yeah, maybe, probably fiction) about algorithmic money.