Meta has launched a new search tool that tracks branded content campaigns. Advertisers can find the feature, Search Branded Content, in the Ads Library. The feature gives users the option to filter the database by platform, date range of seven days and username. Users also have an option to gain deeper insights into competitor strategies, such as details on their approach, creator-business relationships and campaign frequency. Ads are just one way for businesses to promote a product or service on Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta’s blog post. The ads also work with content from a creator to promote something in a post, story, video or reel. Meta provides information about this type of content by showing a paid partnership label on the post and by including it in the Ad Library. Businesses can use the branded content search option to find posts, stories, videos and reels on Facebook and Instagram that include a Paid Partnership. Meta’s decision to improve transparency around branded content campaigns comes as the European Union initiates on Friday the Digital Services Act, a regulation that puts the responsibility of security and privacy on large platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Large platforms with more than 45 million regional users. Meta defines branded content as ”a post, story, reel, photo, video or other content from a creator who received money or something of value from a brand partner. A creator could be an influencer, a celebrity, a public figure or a publisher. A brand partner could be a business or an advertiser.” The company also said that anyone can search for branded content, with or without a Facebook account, but to see some branded content, you will need to confirm the age and the location of the user by logging into the person’s Facebook account, and making sure the Facebook account is in the same Accounts Center as your Instagram account.
Maplebear -- which does business under the name of Instacart -- filed for its initial public offering (IPO) on Friday, with expectations that shares will start trading on the Nasdaq next month under the ticker CART. The San Francisco-based technology and delivery company reported in documents filed ahead of the company's long-awaited IPO that revenue rose during the first six months of this year. The company reported $242 million in profits for the first six months of 2023, and $428 million in 2022 -- much of it driven by "large basket" orders of at least $75. Instacart says its average basket size in 2022 was $110. Instacart helps its retail partners reach 7.7 million monthly active orders through services such as Instacart Marketplace, Instacart Enterprise Program and Instacart Ads, the company said. The company also said it also entered into an agreement that would allow PepsiCo to buy $175 million of Series A redeemable convertible preferred stock in a private placement. Underwriters including Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan, BofA Securities, Barclays and Citigroup. Baird, JMP Securities, A Citizens Company, LionTree, Oppenheimer & Co., Piper Sandler, SoFi, Stifel, Blaylock Van, LLC, Drexel Hamilton, Loop Capital Markets, R. Seelaus & Co., LLC, Ramirez & Co., Inc., Stern, and Tigress Financial Partners will act as co-managers for the proposed offering, according to a statement from the company.
Konnecto, a prescriptive marketing platform, will tap its pool of more than 10 million U.S. users to provide access to first-party data compliant with data legislation in the United States, such as the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA). It also supports legislation under Europe's General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The company next week will announce the ability to determine customer journeys for a range of industries through its machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technology that created a map of a marketer’s competitive landscape, offering daily recommendations for improving marketing performance. Assaf Allony, vice president of marketing at Konnecto, said “analyzing a market’s competitive landscape and focusing on the market’s conversion journeys lets clients achieve performance goals.” Based on these models, marketers receive daily recommendations driven by competitor conversion analysis which facilitates the guaranteed improvement in conversions promised by Konnecto. For example, a marketer might receive a recommendation to increase their investment in search on specific search engines with a list of keywords to be used in the search-engine marketing campaign. That same marketer might also receive a recommendation to publish content focusing on specific recommended keywords. Haven Life, Mattel, and Samsung work with Konnecto to reveal conversion-based industry knowledge and improve marketing campaign performance. The company’s technology learns by reverse engineering to extract successful customer journeys, uncovering each brand’s conversion market share. Based on this knowledge, Konnecto provides marketers with daily recommendations and guarantees to achieve improved performance goals jointly set by Konnecto and the marketer.
Ad-tech startup LiveRead.io has launched an advertising order-management platform for podcasts. The LiveRead platform, for use by agencies, brands, networks and creators, integrates various processes into a centralized database to simplify video and audio podcast advertising management and allow all relevant parties to view up-to-date information. The platform streamlines media plan creation and insertion orders, automates ad copy delivery instantaneously to a roster of hosts, maintains ad calendars, confirms that ads ran correctly, sends/tracks invoices and payments, audits assets to maintain deadlines, aggregates episode delivery impressions across hosting platforms, according to the company. Early beta users include “The Always Sunny Podcast,” “Good for You,” “The Basement Yard,” “Bad Friends,” “Flagrant,” “Brilliant Idiots,” “BlueChew,” “Miracle Brand,” “Magic Spoon,” Adopter Media and Flagrant Media Group. LiveRead.io cites a case study of a mid-size podcast network in which time spent on accounts receivable and accounts payable was reduced by 88% and errors totaling 1.67% of the company’s annual revenue were identified and prevented, which together produced ROI of 453%, not included time saved on administrative tasks.
A federal judge has thrown out the Republican National Committee's lawsuit against Google for allegedly sending fundraising messages into Gmail users' spam folders. In a decision issued Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta in the Eastern District of California ruled that Google is protected from the claims by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which explicitly allows web companies to make good-faith efforts to suppress “objectionable” material, such as suspected spam. Calabretta wrote that the political committee's allegations against Google, even if proven true, wouldn't show that the company acted in bad faith by sending emails to the Gmail spam folders. Instead, he said the allegations regarding bad faith were “pure speculation.” “Plaintiff argues that the only reasonable inference for why its emails were labelled as spam is Google’s alleged political animus,” he wrote. “This is pure speculation, lacking facts from which the court could infer animus or an absence of good faith.” The decision comes in a battle dating to last October, when the Republican National Committee alleged that Google was “discriminating based on political affiliation and unlawfully controlling the flow of information to the public” by designating fundraising messages as spam. The complaint was referred to a North Carolina State University study that found Gmail Gmail flags around 68% of Republican campaign emails as spam, compared to 8% Democratic campaign emails. Google denied filtering emails for political reasons. "Google designs its spam-filtering technology to make its product better for users — not for any political or partisan purposes. Indeed, effective spam filtering is a key feature of Gmail," the company wrote earlier this year, when it urged Calabretta to dismiss the lawsuit. Calabretta said in his ruling that the North Carolina study provides "some evidence that Google could be acting without good faith,” but also said the study wasn't sufficient in itself to allow the lawsuit to proceed. He added that the study “expressly states there is no reason to believe Google was acting in bad faith.” The Republican committee's complaint included claims that Google violated California's common carrier law (which prohibits telecommunications companies from discriminating when transmitting messages), a state civil rights law that prohibits discrimination, an unfair competition law, and that the company wrongly interfered with potential economic relationships. Calabretta's ruling allows the committee to amend its allegations and re-file the claims relating to unfair competition and potential economic relationships. The other claims were dismissed with prejudice -- meaning they can't be brought again. “No court, much less a court interpreting California’s common carrier law, has found an email service provider to be a common carrier. This Court declines to be the first,” he wrote, regarding allegations that Google had violated California's telecommunications law. He also said California's civil rights law prohibits discrimination based on factors such as race, sex or religion, but doesn't cover discrimination based on political affiliation. Earlier this year, the Federal Election Commission rejected a complaint by Republican groups that alleged Google's spam filter disproportionately rejected GOP fundraising emails during the 2020 election cycle. That agency wrote that Google “credibly asserts that its spam filter is applied on a politically neutral basis and for a commercial purpose.”
In a conversation with YouTube Shorts’ product lead Todd Sherman, the video-sharing platform offers insider tips to creators and brands using the short-form video channel in an interview featured on Creator Insider, a YouTube channel intended to provide information for the creator community. Sherman discusses the use of hashtags and ideal posting times while breaking down the Shorts algorithm and describing upcoming features. According to Sherman, Shorts creators will reap the most benefit from their posts if they focus on audience over algorithm. “On long form, a lot of the times people are choosing which video by tapping on it on their phone, or clicking on it on the web, and that choice is something that drives a lot of engagement,” Sherman explains. “On short-form, people are swiping through a feed, and discovering things as they go. That’s one important difference.” In addition, creators should know that not every swipe in Shorts is counted as a view -- in contrast to TikTok, which counts views the instant a video begins to play. On YouTube, the Shorts view is based more on a user's intent, although the validity of this point is difficult to check due to the platform's choice not to publish any actual calculations for fear of people trying to cheat its system. “What we try and do with a view is have it encode for your intent of watching that thing, so that creators feel like that view has some meaningful threshold that the person decided to watch,” Sherman says. “It doesn't mean it's their favorite video ever, it just means that they are deliberately watching it.” To determine viewer intent, YouTube’s system likely takes into account watch times, re-watches, likes, shares and comments -- how much a user engages with the content. Sherman says creators should think less about what time stamp the algorithm favors and more about the quality of their content, or how long it takes to tell their story. However, he says, Shorts will remain focused on videos that are a minute or less. In terms of an ideal time of day to post, Sherman says that aside from breaking news, creators should not worry about when they post as much as what they post. For creators who feel that their Shorts gain traction and then plateau, Sherman explains the part of the algorithm focused on finding an audience for creators. “Sometimes those algorithms will go and effectively find a seed audience -- find a set of people that may enjoy your video. And depending on how that goes, it may get a lot more traffic or it may taper off,” he says. While hashtags are not necessary for Shorts, Sherman says creators may find them helpful if they are associated with a real-world event happening, for example, or specific topics that may help interested audiences find their videos. Right now, Shorts is the fastest-growing content type on YouTube -- delivering over 50 billion views in the app per day. In the near future, Sherman says, the product will integrate artificial intelligence (AI) elements to further help brands cultivate broader awareness and perception.
Generative artificial intelligence, the technology that powers the ChatGPT chatbot, is starting to show its most popular uses in the behaviors of early adopters, according to a survey by research firm Ipsos. About half (49%) of respondents said they used the technology to search for information, making it the most popular application among people who are testing out the technology. Learning new things also is popular, as cited by 44% of respondents, Ipsos data show. These usage patterns indicate generate AI may be a substitute for internet search, whose results typically show links to other websites that may require further digging or have outdated information. “While prompting may be a more involved process for users than a traditional keyword search, the popularity of question-and-answer uses indicates that the more personalized ‘intelligent’ responses are well worth it in the eyes of users,” according to the Ipsos report. Entertainment is also a major draw among users (48%) looking to experiment with chatbots for recreational purposes, Ipsos said. “The breadth and depth of these use cases paints a picture of a complex landscape where early adopters are hoping that the emerging technology can satisfy their diverse sets of needs,” according to the report. “Segmenting users on their needs provides a compass to help navigate this complex landscape.”
Meanwhile, in New Zealand… an unauthorized, AI-generated version of a news anchor stars in an ad for a gambling app, alongside unauthorized, AI-generated versions of MrBeast and others. Lawyers are desperately trying to get the ad removed from the Internet, but it’s “a bit like playing whack-a-mole,” says a spokesperson for the news anchor. “We are seeing a proliferation of this type of scam material online and we are dealing with this content on a weekly basis. It’s always been a war between the system and those who want to game it. Google has been fighting black-hat techniques since it was born. But generative AI has just upended the battlefield. Bad actors now have access to unlimited ammunition, and there’s only so long the shields can hold out. Back in 2016, when Russians bought Facebook ads to influence the election, people were shocked not only that they could do it, but that they had paid in rubles. As Ben Thompson pointed out in a 2017 post, “how else would the propaganda group have paid? Facebook’s self-service ad portal lets you buy ads in 55 different currencies, including the Russian Ruble.” Thompson has long been making the case for Aggregation Theory -- the idea that, while the control of distribution used to be a competitive advantage, the internet has made distribution free, along with transaction costs. As a result, the big winners aren’t the ones who control distribution, it’s the ones who control supply. We go to Amazon because everything is on Amazon. We go to Airbnb because that’s where the rentals are. We go to Google because all the search results are there. We go wherever supply is aggregated, so supply is forced to go there because we’re there. This model has worked for the past 20 years or so. With transaction costs near zero, Google and Facebook can sell ads to anyone, anywhere, and even microtransactions are profitable. But in order for their businesses to work, they have to make it super easy to buy from them. If a human is in the loop in any way, costs go up. If costs go up, the model breaks down. So what’s next? Keep it easy to transact, flood the zone with AI-generated crap, and lose legitimate advertisers who no longer want to be associated with the garbage heap the internet will have become? Or make it harder to transact, thus making it that much harder for legitimate actors to have their voices heard.? In that same article from six years ago, Thompson reminded us that the biggest beneficiaries of zero transaction costs are not traditional advertisers, who “have the resources to advertise anywhere and everywhere, and indeed, often find that the fine-tooth targeting on super-aggregators isn’t worth the effort required. The folks that do benefit… are those that wouldn’t have a voice otherwise: startups and niche offerings, both in terms of business and politics. Google and Facebook have opened the field to far more entrants, and while that means there are more folks with bad intentions, there are also a whole lot more folks with ideas that were shut out by the significant transaction costs inherent in pre-Internet platforms.” Generative AI might just break the internet, and not in a good way. I can’t wait to find out what comes next.
All summer, retailers have been wondering, will people have any money left after all the concert and plane tickets? Consumers threw around cash in July everywhere as retail sales rose 0.7% (up 2% over last year). Prime Day helped a bit; non-store retailers were up 10.3% over June. And yes, it’s likely that the number of people who shop on Prime Day was big enough to affect July retail numbers. According to Morning Consult, 45% of U.S. adults said they shopped on those two days in July. People bought more and spent more, excited by the bargain hunting. Per Adobe Analytics, online shoppers spent $12.7 billion with Amazon, marking 6.1% year-over-year growth. The median spend on Prime Day was $200. We monitor Christmas in July results because Amazon is the top retailer in Q4. Almost three-quarters of the U.S. told Mintel they will shop with Amazon this holiday. However, spend-to-date is a lagging indicator; it doesn’t necessarily show what consumers will do in a few months. Economists have been warning that August is the target month when people will finally spend down their pandemic-era savings. And it looks like they may have, as last week, JP Morgan’s Marko Kolanovic said its estimate of excess savings built up over the pandemic has now been depleted. The cash cushion might be gone, but the appetite for spending it might not be. Signs point to spending on more things, while also bargain hunting. Even with recent disinflation, value and price continue to be the primary driver of shopping behavior. More money is in consumers’ pockets, and wage growth continues its march up since wages first outpaced prices this spring. Price is the most important factor influencing 69% of decisions when shopping for holiday items, according to Optimove. EMarketer paints a strong picture for the 2023 holiday, predicting sales will be 4.5% higher than last year, totaling $1.3 trillion. As in the past two years, holiday shopping will start earlier. In previous years, early starts were driven by fear of out-of-stocks and media hype around supply-chain issues. This year, 49% of consumers say they will start shopping before Thanksgiving. Their reasons for shopping earlier: to save money (43%), catch the best deals (37%), and avoid the items being out of stock (35%), per Optimove. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic for the end of the year: Consumers say they will spend more, they want to start early, and they are leaning into omnichannel shopping. Retailers who may have been sweating their holiday season with recession buzz back in the first half of the year should get ready to capture demand.