[Ep66/19Jul21] - Google's Ads New 3-Strike Policy & Other Digital Marketing Updates from the Week of Jul 19, 2021

#TWIMshow - This Week in Marketing

1. Twitter Earnings Highlights- First off, on users - Twitter's Monetizable Daily Active User (mDAU) count is now up to 206M, an increase of 11% YoY, and an additional 7 million on its Q1 figure. In terms of revenue, Twitter posted a strong result of $1.19 billion in Q2, a 74% increase YoY. As per Twitter:

“Total international revenue was $537 million, an increase of 69%, or 64% on a constant currency basis. Japan remains our second largest market, growing 40% and contributing $151 million, or 13% of total revenue in Q2. Revenue from Japan declined on a sequential basis in Q2, reflecting typical country-specific seasonality.”

Twitter included this generic note on Blue take-up within its shareholder letter:

“We’ve been encouraged by the initial response and look forward to further innovating and growing this new revenue stream with additional features, geographic expansion, and other offerings as part of our revenue durability strategy.”

Read the Q2’21 Shareholder Letter here: Q2'21-Shareholder-Letter.pdf (q4cdn.com)

2. Snapchat Earnings Highlights- First off, on users - Snapchat added 13 million more daily actives in Q2, rising to 293 million, which represents a 23% increase, year-over-year. On the revenue front, Snap posted a huge 116% YoY increase to $982 million for the period.

Review the Q2’21 Earnings Report here: Q2'21-Earnings-Slides-Final-7.22.21.pdf (q4cdn.com)

3. LinkedIn Offers Free Marketing Certification Program to Help Showcase Your LinkedIn Marketing Knowledge - LinkedIn is allowing professionals to become accredited LinkedIn marketing experts by completing a free course. This program is for professionals who want to show that they not only have experience with social media marketing, but they have specialized knowledge in LinkedIn. The two courses available are:

Fundamentals Certification (Basic): Demonstrates expertise in launching LinkedIn Ad campaigns and tactics. With this certification, you can run successful LinkedIn Ad campaigns that drive business results.

Marketing Strategy Certification (Intermediate): Demonstrates expertise in leveraging LinkedIn Ads for full-funnel strategies, including Brand Awareness and Lead Generation. Once certified, you can create marketing strategies that leverage the full suite of LinkedIn marketing tools.

The process for earning your certification involves first learning about LinkedIn's ad products, via a range of courses available on the LinkedIn Certifications page.

After you've gone through each module - or if you're confident that you know all the key details - you can then take the relevant certification exam, in which you'll have 60 minutes to answer 60 multiple choice questions on LinkedIn's ad tools and processes. You can retake the test up to 3 times, and the certification expires in 2 years. And while you do have 60 minutes, if you know your stuff, you can get it done in significantly less time than that.

4. YouTube Introduces Super Thanks for Fans to Support Creators of Uploaded Videos - Until now, creators on YouTube were able to earn money directly from fans on their live streamed videos and Premieres, via Super Chat and Super Stickers, but fans had no way to support on-demand videos uploaded by creators until Tuesday’s introduction of Super Thanks. It is essentially an expansion of its Super Chat streamer donation feature to regular video uploads, providing another way for creators to generate income from their content. As explained by YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan:

"Since launching Super Chat in 2017 and Super Stickers in 2019, creators from around the globe have wanted us to bring this magic beyond live-streams and Premieres to video uploads. Enter Super Thanks! Fans watching YouTube videos can now purchase Super Thanks to express their gratitude and show support. They will see an animated GIF and, as an added bonus, get a distinct, colorful comment to highlight their purchase, which creators can respond to."

5. 4 Additional YouTube Updates You Need To Know - YouTube announced four new features that will make make way for YouTube to be a more interactive experience for creators and viewers. They are:

1. Comment Translation
2. Polls - Live polls can be used, for example, to ask your audience’s opinion on the current topic of discussion.
3. Subscribers-only chat - A new option to make live chats available only to subscribers can help with moderating the live chat and creating more connections. This feature can be enabled during live stream setup or while broadcasting live – directly from Live Control Room settings.
4. Expansion of Clips feature - YouTube is expanding the rollout of Clips, a feature which has been in testing with a limited number of creators. Clips allow viewers to select a 5-60 second segment of content (both video uploads and streams) that can be shared with others on YouTube and across third-party platforms.

FYI: YouTube is not breaking any new ground with these features. Rather, it’s catching up to what are standard offerings from live streaming competitors like Twitch.

6. TikTok Adds New Features to Live-Stream, Including Live Guests and Q&A Panels - This week, TikTok has added some new elements to its live-streaming options, including scheduled events that you can promote, live Q & A, and a co-streaming option to enhance the experience.

First off, on scheduled events, you can now create an event card for your upcoming stream, which you can then share on TikTok and across other platforms. Users can tap the 'Register' CTA for an in-app reminder, which provides another way to increase awareness and interest in your upcoming streams, which could be great for brands considering the option.

Next up is live guests, which, like other platforms, will display you and your guest in split-screen mode in the live broadcast window. Which is actually not new. All TikTok users with more than 1,000 followers (who are over the age of 16) are able to live-stream, while those with more than 5,000 followers have been able to stream with guests in this mode for some time. It seems that TikTok is reducing this requirement, with all users that are able to stream (i.e. those with 1k followers) now also able to add guests.

And last is the updated Q & A overlay on-screen, which provides another way to engage with streamers in the app. Live viewers have always been able to post questions via the comments, while the Q and A option has been available on selected creator profiles since January this year. This new option combines the two, adding another engagement option for streamers, which will improve the context for viewers, and give those posting questions more individual focus.

7. TikTok Launches New 'Spark' Ads Which Enabled Brands to Tap into Trending Organic Content - TikTok has launched a new ad option which essentially enables brands to sponsor already trending organic content that aligns with their offerings, in order to get an association boost without having to create anything t...