Weekly Marketing Rundown - November 24th, 2023

Weekly Marketing Rundown - April 26th, 2024 Hi everyone, In this week's edition of Kavanah Media's Weekly Marketing Rundown, we'll talk about changes to location targeting on Google Ads, a likely TikTok ban in the United States, and more. Let's dive in.  Google's Two-Hop Proxy Development Raises Concerns and Implications for Advertisers Google is in the process of developing a two-hop proxy for Chrome users aimed at enhancing user privacy, but this move introduces significant implications for advertisers. The proxy, which masks user IP addresses to protect their identities, has three major consequences: First, it restricts ad location targeting to only broad regions predefined by Google, resulting in less precise targeting capabilities. Second, as it obscures user identities, advertisers will face challenges distinguishing between genuine users and bot traffic. Third, Google’s control over the collection of location data may lead to increased costs for advertisers as the company could monopolize valuable geolocation insights. This development is pivotal as the two-hop proxy will be exclusive to Chrome, granting Google a monopoly over this advanced privacy feature. Competing search engines will lack access to similar data, potentially sidelining them in the search ad market and impacting competitive dynamics. Google justifies the use of IP-based geolocation within this framework to comply with local regulations and to enhance content relevance, including geo-targeting for ads. However, while user data will be more private from advertisers, Google itself will still access this data, raising concerns about true privacy. For more on this, click the link below: https://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-ip-masking-439820?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hootsuite&utm_content=editorial TikTok's Potential Sale or Ban: Key Points  President Biden has signed a significant legislative package that includes a clause potentially leading to the ban of TikTok in the U.S. unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, divests its stake within the next 9 months. The requirement for ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok stems from concerns that the Chinese government could access the personal data of millions of U.S. TikTok users. If ByteDance fails to sell, TikTok could face a ban, significantly impacting the platform's operations and its large user and business base in the U.S.  TikTok has ~170 million users in the U.S. and has become a huge piece of many marketers' digital strategies. Barring any big developments, it'll be business as usual for TikTok advertisers for the remainder of the year. However, if the result of this ends up being a ban, most TikTok users will likely shift to watching content on Reels and YouTube Shorts, though some other platforms could certainly compete. TikTok has already said they will be launching a legal battle against this legislation.  For more on this, click the links below: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/congress-biden-bill-ban-tiktok-when-2024-election-rcna148792 https://www.fastcompany.com/91112180/what-u-s-could-learn-indias-tiktok-ban Threads Reaches 150 Million Monthly Active Users  Meta's Threads has recently surpassed 150 million monthly active users, showing significant growth from 130 million in just two months. Meta originally planned to introduce paid advertisements on Threads only after reaching a user base in the hundreds of millions, but recent reports indicate that this could happen much sooner, possibly within the second half of this year. The acceleration in advertising integration reflects Meta's confidence in Threads' growth trajectory and its potential to reach 200 million users by October.  For more on this, click the link below: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/threads-now-up-150-million-monthly-active-users/714239/ Thanks for reading this edition of Kavanah Media's Weekly Marketing Rundown! For more up-to-date insights in digital marketing, make sure to follow us on our social media channels using the link below.  https://linktr.ee/kavanahmedia Author: Sean Ralls Article Published: April 26th, 2024

Weekly Marketing Rundown - April 19th, 2024 Hi everyone, In this week's edition of Kavanah Media's Weekly Marketing Rundown, we'll talk about new updates to Meta Ads, premium placement ads for YouTube shorts, and more. Let's dive in.  Meta Ads Updates from This Week - Meta is introducing 'Instagram Profile Reels' as an ad placement. This would have ads show up within the reels feed of public Instagram accounts.  - You can now access Region-wide reports for Advantage+ App Campaigns - A new Facebook group reporting preset, including statistics such as 'Join group requests' and 'Cost per join group request' For more on this, click the link below: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bramvanderhallen_facebookads-digitaladvertising-digitalmarketing-activity-7185907985959768064-lAw4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop Premium Placement Option for Ads on YouTube Shorts YouTube is enhancing its advertising offerings with the introduction of "YouTube Select Shorts," a new feature designed to help advertisers secure prime ad placements alongside the platform’s top-performing Shorts content. This option allows brands to specifically choose their ads to appear with the best Shorts in five distinct categories: Entertainment, Beauty, Fashion & Lifestyle, Food & Recipes, Gaming, and Automotive. This targeted approach gives advertisers greater control over their Shorts promotions and maximizes exposure to viewers within specific interest niches. YouTube reports that Shorts now attracts 2 billion logged-in users each month For more on this, click the link below: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/youtube-launches-premium-placement-option-for-shorts-ads/713524/ Threads Expected to Have Ads This Year Meta is set to introduce advertising on Threads, its text-based platform and rival to X, earlier than anticipated. Industry insiders have revealed that marketers could start buying ads on Threads as early as the second half of this year, according to information shared with ad executives. This development marks Meta's continued expansion of its advertising landscape just over a year after Threads was launched. While the specifics of how these ads will be integrated into Threads remain under wraps, discussions so far have focused more on the timeline of the rollout rather than the exact details of the ad placements. For more on this, click the link below: https://digiday.com/marketing/metas-threads-expected-to-have-ads-this-year/ The European Data Protection Board Issues Guidance Impacting Ad Platforms The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has released new guidance with significant implications for adtech giants like Meta and other large platforms operating in the European Union. The guidance addresses the contentious issue of "consent or pay" models used by some platforms to obtain user consent for data processing. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has been requiring users in the EU to consent to being tracked and profiled for ad targeting purposes since November 2023, or opt to pay a monthly subscription fee for ad-free services. However, the EDPB views this binary choice as potentially problematic, citing concerns about an imbalance of power between individuals and data controllers. Despite Meta's claims that its subscription model complies with EU laws, the EDPB's opinion challenges the notion that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) explicitly sanctioned such models. The Board emphasizes that the CJEU's ruling did not focus centrally on subscription models and suggests that Meta's interpretation may be flawed.  The EDPB's guidance as of now is simply an opinion, though it is certainly possible that the EU makes that opinion law before too long.  For more on this, click the link below: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/17/edpb-consent-or-pay-opinion/?guccounter=1 Thanks for reading this edition of Kavanah Media's Weekly Marketing Rundown! For more up-to-date insights in digital marketing, make sure to follow us on our social media channels using the link below.  https://linktr.ee/kavanahmedia Author: Sean Ralls Article Published: April 19th, 2024