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Edition #388 What Wall Street thinks will happen this year and what that might mean for marketers. Investment banks like Goldman Sachs release annual outlook reports, to keep their clients informed and to drum up business ????. This years report from Goldman is titled Heavy Fog. I thought Iād take a peek, from the lens of a CMO. What can their POV on the markets, provide as intel for marketers. After all, businesses march to the beat of… Continue reading
Edition #387 Final thoughts on 22 and the year ahead. Top searches of the year & what is the color for 23? We finished out last years note, sending some NFTs out. Which was a fun exercise. I occasionally pull out my phone, and gaze at my NFT. But seriously, it was fun, make an image, mint it on the Solana blockchain, get folks addresses, send them out. However, I donāt think weāll be doing that… Continue reading
Edition #386 On why content rights will plague ChatGPT, ad growth slows in 23 and universities as the new media companies. ChatGPT debuted last week, to much fanfare, the NY Times called it “social mediaās newest star”. How it works is, you can give it a prompt, and chat with the AI bot. Finding answers, writing scripts, or evenĀ interactive games. Leading to StackOverflow to ban AI-generated answers. Many calling that it may replace Google Search… Continue reading
Edition #385 On Netflix coming into ads too late, Cognizant branded content and personal brands. This week I dive into a few loose threads, the absolute mastery behind Netflixās timing on advertising. Why ROI is an education problem not a technical one. And will Twitter cause a flood of engagement to newsletters. Excuse the long note, weāre a couple of weeks behind š If you like it more, let me know. Maybe we look to make them more… Continue reading
Edition #384
Strategy first decision making, thanksgiving and BuzzFeed earnings.
Heading into Thanksgiving week, Iām reminded of a study we did a few years ago. We went deep on analyzing where and how content was consumed on Thanksgiving, and other things like Super Bowl. One takeaway was how the device engagement changed through the day, desktop tended to be higher in the morning, then adjusted to mobile through the day. Which when you think about it, isnāt too surprising.
But when it comes to large populations of people and their behaviors, it is easy to overlook these things. Populations donāt behave the same as each individual person, which is a common mistake marketers make. This comes amongst this piece from the UK, via Gartner that marketers are looking to analytics teams to find more efficiency. And theyāre right, analytics folks, this is their time to shine. Helping their companies find pockets of opportunity and areas to invest more effectively. But to also frame up data in a way that makes sense - and aids decision making.
This is an area that I think needs continual investment. Especially amongst younger marketers, who have grown up in a world of light analytics provided to them by social networks. In one respect, the analogy of being spoon fed shallow insights from a social network, who spoon feeds little dopamine nuggets is too perfect. Which is a pity. Education is vital, to give marketers & advertisers better skills and capabilities. Yes a new entrant to the market can get started but a lot of money can be lost without that upskilling.
That in itself is not new, this sector changes so rapidly, that there is always a need to upskill on underserved areas, itās just that this is the area for right now.
Notable stories this week
Creators query whether platforms punish branded content and linking out.
How the buy-side of the ad industry is now defining āpremiumā content.
Pixability extends brand suitability analytics to CTV.
Netflix with ads isnāt that bad. < this is a good preview of the experience.
[Cartoon] By bots, for bots. This is too good.
Nike continues decade of innovation with its new Web3 platform .Swoosh.
[Long form] The unbearable lightness of BuzzFeed. Continue reading
Edition #383
Google is fragmenting measurement, Twitter doesnāt get it & social hooks.
One big thing
I mean, every story has been about Twitter this week. The tldr; is, they donāt get it. At least they appear to have no idea when it comes to how to improve the ad product.
Last week I shared a POV around how they need to improve the tools they give advertisers. Doing that, without changing the ad product, could help activate the millions of advertiser accounts - they already have - but are not spending.
Given the wide chasm, Iām not clear where the dissonance is. What does Twitter know internally that we outside do not?
Notable stories this week
Marketers brace to defend their ad budgets in an unsteady economy.
Why Google is building separate data clean rooms for audience targeting and measurement.
Sharethrough launches CTV ad enhancements to drive viewer attention.
Media buying briefing: media agencies look to Web3, influencers to grow content marketing.
Newsletters are booming. Can their ad products catch up?
Patreon adds a long-awaited native video feature.
Twitter has never understood the creator economy.
Bloomberg opens up its first party data to advertisers.
The problem isnāt that Elon Musk owns Twitter - itās that you donāt. And his biggest problem may be its advertisers.
How MrBeast builds amazing social hooks. Continue reading
Edition #382
How to make Twitter ads less sucky, MrBeastās billion dollar valuation and LinkedIns original video push.
One big thing
Elon shared his vision for Twitter ads early Thursday morning, as he completes his buyout of Twitter. And on balance, this is pretty good and paints a positive picture for advertisers. Readers will know Iām a longtime user of Twitter, I even think there was a point in time where I was the top Twitter account in NZ. Granted, NZ is small :)
But so, Iāve used the ad product numerous times over the years. And so have clients. Well, clients are always using Twitter ads. And there was a moment in time where I felt like Twitter Ads had a lot of potential, and that was the number of self serve advertisers they had. But if you asked me today, in 2022. I think the ad product is lackluster.
(How long did they not have frequency caps?! Do they even now?)
Where Twitter needs to invest, is better tooling, and free tools for advertisers. Itās not all about selling ads, itās about engaging advertisers and giving them tools, that help them make advertising decisions.
Take Google Analytics for example, this free tool, keeps advertisers engaged. And then when they look to change the numbers, Google Ads is a shoo-in. Also, all the insights from Google Analytics is a feedback loop, end to end, that Google gets to see. So they can see how their product is doing but also EVERY OTHER ADVERTISING PARTNER on planet earth. Twitter offers no such solution. One of their key competitors is the yardstick, and Google Analytics hasnāt had that much investment in 10 years. Why should they, it helps Google Ads. Twitter can and should have launched a solution years ago. Even TikTok is making moves in this space.
The next area is Twitter Webmaster Tools. Bing has Bing Webmaster Tools, Google has theirs. And this acts as an insight tool for websites on how well their websites are being used in those search engines. Twitter should do the same, for URLs shared, quotes copied/pasted. And then webmasters could make adjustments to make their content more friendly for Twitter.
LinkedIn doesnāt like it if you click out. Facebook doesnāt like it if you click out. But clicking out to interesting articles and links, is part of the Twitter experience. So this is an opportunity for Twitter to really set its ad product apart. B2B advertisers would flock to Twitter if they did a better job of offering them solutions.
The best they have is, promote profile of the CEO. But thatās not everyone. And anecdotally Iāve heard mixed reviews of it. Last year they launched Twitter Site Visit Optimization, I also gave that a try, and found that Twitter was billing for a bunch of accidental clicks. An easy fix, see that a user clicked, and then was engaging back on Twitter within a couple of seconds, oh that must be an accidental click.
The other area that Iāve heard from advertisers is, metrics. And that theyāve found them unreliable over time, and if they pull daily reports, often all the numbers donāt add up. Which of course, just makes advertisers pause.
I say all this, with a POV of, hey these are all really addressable. They still remain opportune. But Twitter needs to take ads seriously and build better tools to help advertisers.
Notable stories this week
Elon shares his vision for advertisers on Twitter.
B2B content marketing problem: readers arenāt robots.
Why LinkedIn is stepping up its original video and audio content ambitions.
Some advertisers were initially all-in on Netflixās ad tier, but many are now planning to buy ads on competitors like Amazon or Disney instead.
How the FT got more than 78,000 replies to a survey.
TikTok denies it could use location information to track US users.
Square sells your data.
Letās stop admiring problems, and start celebrating streamingās progress.
Apple to start charging Facebook for in app purchases when they sell āadvertising boostsā in its app. Unclear if this is meaningful revenue though. Continue reading
Edition #381
First time CMOs are on the up, marketing is soup du jour and Substack.
One big thing
The rate of first time CMOs is up 50% in the past 12 months. Curious.
Iād been having a chat with a marketer, about how Peloton right now is a perfect opportunity for a CMO to cut their teeth. Itāll be challenging but theyāll learn a lot as they tackle the many challenges the business faces. So I wondered, has all the market activity created opportunities for new CMOs to break through?
I looked at all the CMO announcements in the past 12 months. And then peeked their job history on LinkedIn, to see if they were a first time CMO. Using Nasdaq announcements as my source.
It turns out, yes, in the past 12 months, 45% of the CMOs announced were first time CMOs as compared to 29% in the prior 12 months. An increase of 50%. Note a small sample size of 24.
Thatās refreshing to hear in some respect, bring in new blood, fresh perspectives. And there are new opportunities for new folks at the table. 45% of the CMOs named were female, and 55% of the first time CMOs were female.
Itās a reminder, that change creates opportunity and enables people to move up. And thatās nice to see.
That leads nicely into my other observation, it feels like marketing has got its mojo back, companies are leaning more into investing in marketing, view it as a strategic priority. And we heard this repeated at AdWeek.
https://twitter.com/LouPas/status/1582373403914182657?s=20&t=dCYHjVRlRABr1nbP9aah4A
Whatever this back to work recovery is, its still messy and marketing has to work hard, with digital experiences, to bridge customers lifestyle. An anecdote I heard was, at the moment, weekend flights are still high in the US. Every weekend is like a holiday weekend, as people can come back on Monday, and remote work as they go. All of this makes it harder for brands to cut through, and with growth in margins, they have room to invest. Marketing is soup du jour.
Are you seeing the same?
Notable stories this week
Please stop calling it the ānewsletter economyā.
The rise of the VC publisher.
Branded content on Facebook Reels rolls out globally.
Walmart launches new content creator platform.
Who are the Twitter creators?
Semafor woos advertisers with promises of depolarization. Will include content options for advertisers.
How publishers became addicted to the traffic hit from news alerts.
The next Sims game aims to be a ānest generation creative platformā.
YouTubeās providing more creators with access to shoppable links.
TikTok announced a new performance monitoring tool which will charge advertisers based on users attention and engagement.
Everyone wants to sell your attention.
Netflix announces their ad tiers, and previews what ads will look like. Continue reading
Edition #380
Ghost writing VC tweets, CTV and WhatsApps ad in Piccadilly..
One big thing
Mike Shields pokes the box this week - questioning, is CTV big enough? As in most of streaming isnāt ad supported. And that that is, will be eaten up by Disney, Netflix and YouTube. Which is the opposite of how it was with mobile. For years it was going to be the year of mobile, and mobile attention outpaced advertising allocation. Mary Meeker would do her presentation, and yes we were still under. But now we seem to have the opposite.
Whether that is a reality, is hard to know, because measurement of the space is challenged. We also saw Bloomberg this week pull out of open web programmatic. So CTV appears to not be growing and not rushing to programmatic, unlike previous iterations of web advertising. What does this mean? Thereās probably going to be a crunch in the space.
The analogy I give, itās almost like the businesses that pop up surrounding a mall. Not technically part of the mall but benefit from all the traffic to and from the mall. Thatās where a lot of these players are aiming, hey youāve made the decision to buy direct from CTV, why not do some extension over here. And no its not for everyone but it will be enough to sustain some business. IF the measurement challenges can be solved.
The other thing I liked is this BI piece about superstar VC tweets, people freelancing and making good income working with VCsĀ to write witty tweets, I mean why not. This person, writes the tweets, sends via Trelo, and the executive assistants will post them. If itās a banger, it stays up, if not it gets deleted. The point is that, being relevant on Twitter is worth enough to these VCs to do just this. And Iām sure as a creative, its a fantastic brief.
Notable stories this week
Nick Wignall made $3.9k from his Medium posts in the last month.
I made $200k last year ghostwriting tweets for Superstar VCs.
YouTube launches data stories in its analytics. Very neat.
Twitter launches updated Professional Account analytics tab.
Netflix signs up to ratings body Barb in the UK and announces two ad verification partners.
Financial Times profit up after āstrong reboundā from covid-19. Digital revenue up 8% YOY.
Newsletters donāt stay newsletters.
^ Good point.
CMOS are on their toes and not conducting ābusiness as usualā as data privacy regulators get more assertive.
Former Google ads boss launches Web3 search startup.
DeliveryHero launches new own ad network.
Bloomberg Media is shutting of its open-market programmatic advertising.
Are we sure that ad-supported streaming is really that big?
Google will support your first party audiences. Continue reading
Edition #379
On the attention economy, short consideration and Chad Powers.
One big thing
Is the attention economy redundant? I say this gingerly, as someone with many horses in the race. But I pose the question of - is it really adding more to the conversation right now? Or has it done its job.
The Attention Economy really refers to, mind share, what is capturing and cutting through with consumers. Itās been a hot topic though, as weāve been on a bull run of growth in internet usage. People spend more and more time on their screens. And when theyāre online, engaging with brands, that time is quantifiable. So thatās why itās been so exciting, 1) there was a way to measure it and 2) now there was a lot more of it. 3) we were empowered to do something about it.
But that growth has tapered off, with a peak of 417 minutes in Q2 of 2021. With that change, even before then, as growth slowed. Thatās where competition ramped up.
So yes, attention is still valuable, the marketplace is even more competitive. But is the vernacular 'Attention Economy' any better now? With 417 minutes/day ā digital isnāt niche, it is the thing. So should we revert to mindshare, cut through? Probably. But with a digitally-led market, I think attention will stay, but how we think about it will evolve. It has done its job, but will likely evolve, to something next. What this is, lets see.
Notable stories this week
VideoAmp launches second-by-second TV measurement.
YouTube Shorts is sharing ad revenue. Will that mean more money for creators?
Yahoo is on a string of high profile product hires.
Meta is shuttering its Bulletin newsletter subscription service.
How bots corrupted advertising.
Instagram to increase ad load as Meta fights revenue decline.
This person read 100 marketing papers and here are the top 10 they found most interesting.
Muskās āsuper appā vision.
Could Eli Manningās Chad Powers become next Ted Lasso?
[Long read] How YouTube created the attention economy. Continue reading
