📰 iOS17 Is Here & More

Meta's new best practices, competitor keyword bidding & more

Cory Dobbin
September 25, 2023

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iOS17 IS HERE — WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

Surprisingly, I’ve seen very little chatter online about iOS17, which was released publicly just last week. It was previously announced that iOS17 would come with what’s called Link Tracking Protection, which would effectively automatically remove UTMs from URLs.

When first announced, there was a bit of panic as this would have a major impact on most digital advertising campaigns, however, it was made clear that this would only really impact links opened in Safari’s private browsing experience.

The real good news, however, comes with the discovery that the common source, medium, and campaign UTMs will not be affected, as they don’t track users on an individual level. What will be affected, instead, are individual tracking UTMs such as IDs. Further, it appears that TikTok and Klaviyo also make the cut, as their IDs aren’t on the exclusion list… yet. Below, you can find a list of the UTMs affected by this change, and if you’d like to learn more, you can find the full breakdown from Ruler Analytics here.

META PERFORMANCE MARKETING ROADSHOW

This past week, Meta held its Performance Marketing Roadshow here in Toronto, and we have a few great takeaways from the event for you. First is the Performance 5 scorecard, which you can use in your accounts to make sure you’re following all of the Meta best practices 👇

Next, a guide on maximizing your Conversions API setup using best practices for both new and existing setups. You can find the 8-page PDF here.

Lastly, we have cost control on ASC campaigns (yes, finally!), which are yet to be ‘publicly’ confirmed, but they were both mentioned at the roadshow as well as to a number of advertisers through their dedicated reps. This is a super exciting update, as it will help further optimize the already strong performance of ASC (for most, anyway), though an exact timeline is still yet to be confirmed.

ASC+ x Cost Caps
From our Meta Partners:
"Timelines are subject to change, but we expect 50% of ad accounts to have access next week and 100% of ad accounts to have access by October 2."
🚀🚀🚀🚀
— Taylor Lagace (@TaylorLagace)
Sep 22, 2023

TWITTER GOING FULLY PAY-TO-PLAY?

In a recent meeting, Elon Musk told the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “We’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the system.” This would be a significant change from currently only charging some users for premium status on the platform. The reason for this, apparently, comes as a means to address bots and spammers on the platform, however, it’s yet to be proven that the already-existing premium status on the platform addressed this issue as originally intended. This is definitely something we want to keep our eyes on, as introducing a mandatory paywall could seriously affect the platform’s users, and in turn, require an adjustment in our marketing strategies accordingly.

Elon Musk says Twitter, now X, could charge all users subscription fees

Billionaire also says platform has 550 million monthly users generating up to 200m posts a day

www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/19/elon-musk-twitter-x-subscription-fees-users-posts

YOUTUBE BRINGS NEW CREATOR FEATURES

YouTube recently held an event for creators where they unveiled some interesting new features. Most notably, a really interesting use for generative AI. In the video below, they give a brief rundown of how to use it, but effectively, it’s an AI prompt that will generate any greenscreen background you want. Affectionately named Dream Screen, this is a super interesting way to take generative AI and allow creators to use it in their content without edging towards the scarier route, which would be entirely AI-generated content. To learn more about the event and this feature, check out Social Media Today’s article here.

bring your wildest ideas to life with Dream Screen 💫 if you can imagine it, you can create it with AI-generated video and image backgrounds. launching 2024.
— YouTube Creators (@YouTubeCreators)
Sep 21, 2023

META INTRODUCES MULTIPLE PROFILES: Facebook will now allow users to create multiple profiles through an easy-to-use built-in feature in the UI — this is interesting, considering I’m pretty sure this used to be against ToS, but what do I know?
SAY FAREWELL TO CASH: In unrelated-to-marketing-but-still-highly-interesting news, an Australian bank with over $250B in assets announced they are officially phasing out cash, and going entirely digital.
USING COMPETITOR NAMES IN YOUR GOOGLE ADS?: Be careful, because if you’re not doing it right, it might have repercussions. Here are my thoughts on that.
GOING ON LINKEDIN BE LIKE: Shoutout to Matt Navarra for sharing this in his newsletter (which you should totally check out). This is exactly what it feels like to log into LinkedIn.

MOVEMBER — THE MO IS CALLING

Agency: DDB Group Melbourne

Movember, the company that encourages men to grow mustaches during November in an effort to raise funds and awareness around men’s health, recently launched a new campaign designed to get people fired up about the coming month. This ad, which will run globally both digitally and OOH, revisits the fun flare that the brand had in its early days, keeping the comic and exciting edge of the event while doing its job: acting as a teaser of what’s to come. The mo’ is calling, and all of these men are answering its call - are you? Not much to complain about here, a fun ad with some character and a clear message.

CHICKEN LICKEN — ROCK MY SOUL

Agency: Joe Public

You can probably guess by the brand name what this ad is about, so I’ll save you the boring stuff, and instead get right into the meat and potatoes: I don’t really like this ad. Well, mostly. There is a lot to like here, from the acting to the set and wardrobe design, and the direction. The problem, for me, is just how long it drags on. In my opinion, they could have cut in Razz Mattazz giving him the Chicken when he first introduced himself, shown him sweating and saying ‘it’s show time’ then cut back to the standing ovation at the theatre. This would have cut nearly two minutes off the run time and had the exact same impact. This ad is creative, well-acted, and comes with an interesting direction, but it still somehow nearly put me to sleep.

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Have a great week,
Cory