ROUND UP — Updates From All The Big Platforms

Google Tracking, YouTube Analytics, Social Media Best Practices & More

Today's edition of The Marketer's Playbook is brought to you by me and the company I operate: Shoelace — Shoelace is a digital advertising agency that helps brands get more customers online through top-tier ad account management. With transparent reporting, straightforward and competitive pricing, and an entire team dedicated to your account, Shoelace has what it takes to kickstart growth for your business today.

As the CEO of Shoelace, I spend most of my time ensuring that our clients are well taken care of. For example, we recently added free in-house creative services for all clients whenever needed. If this interests you, now's the right time to reach out, as we just opened space for a few more clients. Click the link below to learn more about how we can help you succeed:

WHEN TO POST ON SOCIALS

Sprout Social, a social media management platform, recently conducted a study across 34,000 customers to determine the days and times with the highest engagement by platform. This includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn data.

For the full breakdown, check out the link here: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/

GOOGLE ADS TRACKING ON iOS

While it appears this is slowly rolling out to accounts, Google has announced the release of its new URL tracking parameter for iOS campaigns at the end of June 2023. These URL parameters help you measure the results of your Search, Shopping, Display, and Performance Max ads on iOS.

The first parameter is 'wbraid' — (&wBraid={wBraid} — which will help with attribution on conversion campaigns. The second parameter is 'gbraid' — &gBraid={gBraid} — which will help with attribution on app campaigns.

For more info, the documentation can be found here.

MICROSOFT'S INTEGRATED AI

Microsoft recently announced that they are introducing their AI to Windows in the form of an assistant called Copilot. Windows will soon have a fully integrated OpenAI-powered assistant, with access to the internet for greater flexibility.

Check out the link here for more info. So far, it's looking great, but I can't wait to see what happens when third-party platforms get their hands on this and start building integrations.

0:00

/

META SAYS FAREWELL IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

There's been a lot going on at Meta these past few weeks, but it looks like the action isn't quite over. This past Wednesday, Meta laid off another 5,100 employees, bringing the total for the year to over 10,000. This seems to be a common trend among larger tech companies, who massively inflated team sizes during the windfall of COVID-related commerce.

Next, Meta announced that they will be selling Giphy, which they originally acquired in 2020, to Shutterstock for a staggering $347M loss. According to Zuckerberg, 2023 is Meta's 'year of efficiency,' which I assume is partly the reason for offloading this asset. Hopefully, their refinement in vision can restore Meta's place as a top innovator.

INSTAGRAM'S NEWEST PLACEMENT GETS AN UPGRADE

It appears as though the newest IG placement has been added to the Instagram Marketing API — Search Ads. While Meta rolled this placement out back in March, it wasn't yet available via the API for third-party platforms to access functions such as ad creation and analytics. You can find more information about this update in the documentation here.

STORY SCHEDULING IS COMING TO INSTAGRAM

Though, surprisingly, this took so long, I suppose late is better than never. Meta has officially added story-posting capabilities to their Instagram Graph API, allowing third-party platforms like social media management companies to schedule and post to stories. This could be a game changer for the placement, as greater flexibility will surely come with greater content creation. For more info, check the link below:

MONTANA SAYS FAREWELL TO TIKTOK

In somewhat old but important news, Montana is officially the first state to ban TikTok. According to Reuters, "Montana Governor Greg Gianforte on Wednesday signed legislation to ban Chinese-owned TikTok from operating in the state to protect residents from alleged intelligence gathering by China, making it the first US state to ban the popular short video app."

Could this be the beginning of a more significant trend across more states? It's hard to tell, but it's looking more likely by the day. For more info, check out this article from Reuters:

YOUTUBE INTRODUCES SHORTS ANALYTICS TOOLS

With the great success YouTube has found in adding Shorts to their platforms, they have finally rolled out a new analytics suite to their YouTube Studio for greater insight into Shorts and revenue.

For more info, check out the article by Social Media Today below, which covers the update in greater detail: