🗞️ Digital Marketing Must-Knows

Hello, Marketers. It’s Kole here with all you need to know from last week in the world of digital marketing. And it’s a packed edition!

The AI-powered Search Engine race is on this week! The First-mover advantage is up for grabs between Google & Microsoft. AI has created an opportunity to totally reimagine what search is.

Scrolling and clicking through a dozen or so links on a ‘results page’ could feel pretty old school, very soon.

🆕 From me: Founders and Future Marketers can get my 7-day Digital Marketing Mini-Course (free). Learn 2023 foundational digital marketing strategy. The lessons are delivered to your inbox each morning, for 7 days ☕️ 

Let’s jump in 🪂

Round-Up

1. Google announced ‘Search & Beyond’ event regarding their Search + AI initiatives. In their earnings call, Sundar Pichai said:

“Our long-term investments in deep computer science make us extremely well-positioned as AI reaches an inflection point, and I’m excited by the AI-driven leaps we’re about to unveil in ‘Search and Beyond’”.

The live stream event on YouTube is scheduled for Wednesday Feb 8.

Meanwhile, The Verge reported that some users (briefly) had access to Bing with ChatGPT integrated. Take a look for yourself below.

The Information separately reported that “Microsoft will announce a new version of Bing with a chatbot interface… in the coming days”. They expect Bing to use GPT-4 with real-time information and the ability to cite sources.

Last week I posted a carousel on LinkedIn about how Google has an ‘Innovator’s dilemma’ when it comes to AI. Which could disrupt its current business model. Check it out here.

2. Instagram’s Co-Founders are back. This time with an AI-Curated News App, Artifact. The app is described as TikTok for text.  

• Artifact is a news feed that serves articles personalized to users through machine learning. Like on TikTok’s ‘For You’ page, the AI model is trained to tailor recommendations to the individual.

• The plan is to incorporate social networking by letting users discuss those articles with friends.

• The team is weighing up advertising and revenue-sharing with publishers as business models.

• The iOS & Android app is taking sign-ups for the waitlist.

Read the full article Platformer ↗️

2. Twitter has begun the process of introducing payments to the platform, according to a Financial Times report. Twitter has registered with the US Treasury as a payments processor and is in the process of doing the same at State level. Musk previously outlined his vision for an "everything app". Which would incorporate messaging, payments, and commerce. (Mashable ↗️)

3. Also, Twitter will start sharing revenue with creators from today. (Tech Crunch ↗️)

4. Spotify did a U-turn on its Podcast strategy, shifting focus to an advertising model. Spotify has lost money every year, despite having 450m users. Initially, Spotify wanted to diversify revenue with exclusive podcasts. But now sees becoming the ‘YouTube of audio’ as the path to profitability. Spotify aims to attract 50m podcasters and simply the ad-buying process for brands. (Bloomberg ↗️)

5. TikTok launched video insights to help advertisers analyze creative. Brands can analyze ‘key frames’ by seeing peaks and valleys of engagement. The peaks show the most engaging elements that brands take forward to future videos. And the valleys (dips) can be edited out. There are also useful audience insights. Plus brands can compare their creative to the industry benchmarks. (TikTok ↗️)

More Headlines

• Taboola tests AI-based ad creation tool

• Snapchat added 12m new users last quarter

• Google rolls out account-level negative keywords

• Twitter’s gold business checkmarks could cost $1,000 per month

• Google invested $300m in Anthropic AI, founded by former OpenAI employees

Longer reads:

• Ad Week: As Cookies Wane, Retargeting Protocol Fledge Emerges as Privacy Sandbox Favorite

• CNBC: Amazon’s advertising business grew 19%, while Google and Meta both deal with slowdowns

• Business Insider: TikTokers who thought they'd never try YouTube explain why they're embracing it as it rolls out ad-revenue sharing on short videos

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^_✍🏽 written by Kole Ogundipe