LinkedIn Makes Contrarian Predictions; Hubspot Redefines the Open Rate; Video Indexing Is Here; Netflix Makes a Bold Move

Guess what? This week we won't talk about Elon Musk.. much. But:

• Good things ARE happening at Twitter
• Hubspot redefines a core email metric
• Google had quite a few updates and announcements (video indexing is a hot one)
• LinkedIn imparts more advice as it's making a hard push toward becoming a B2B agency (of a sort)
• Connected TV advertising is becoming big business... and Netflix is jumping in.

LinkedIn Makes “Contrarian” Predictions for the Future of Digital Marketing

Do you want to be a seller or a brand? That’s the question a lot of B2B companies should ponder as they plan for a future where Gen Z becomes the “buyer.”

“Organizations that are leaning too heavily on lead gen and demand gen will start shifting more investment toward making their brands distinct, memorable, and sustainable. Those that are already doing so now will be reaping the rewards. (...) The B2B Institute, a think-tank funded by LinkedIn, has formed a core thesis through its extensive research and consultation with top experts: “Brand building is the single greatest marketing investment companies can make to gain a competitive edge in B2B.”

Think of the 95-5 rule; 95% of your buyers aren’t ready to buy today. So how will you build a relationship with them until they are?

LinkedIn Also Wants to Be Your Performance Branding Agency

LinkedIn announced the launch of a new consultancy - B2B Edge - “designed to help you unleash your creative confidence and maximize your long-term brand building.” 

Quote of the Week: Marketers Must Learn New Forms of Empathy

Following a talk at Cannes Lions, LinkedIn’s CEO Ryan Roslansky dropped the following advice:

“Adapt (...) by learning new forms of empathy. The advertising industry understands so well how households buy detergent or cereal. But to grow they’ll need to learn to understand how IT managers buy CRM software or cyber security systems. They’ll need to learn how businesses think and make decisions. It's not easy but it is worth it. For the advertising industry, B2B is where the money is going to be.”

“It’s not easy but it’s worth it.”

His appeal goes to paid advertising marketers (and hey, paid advertising is big business for LinkedIn). I’m not sure if he’s implying that it’s harder to understand B2B buyers vs. consumers of goods. But I do see it being a difficult task in environments where having a unified view of the customers is hindered by siloed sales and marketing operations and lack of data management maturity. 

What does this mean to you? 

Empathy can be learned. And in the business world, you also have to create the environment for it to be expressed. 

Connected TV: Netflix Make Surprise Move in Choosing Microsoft As Ad Tech Partner

Would you like to learn more about Connected TV Advertisings? Let me know in the comments. 

It’s worth paying close attention to how the space evolves. The CTV Ad Spend grew by 25% to $13.4BB in 2021 capturing 7% of programmatic ad spend. It’s expected to rise to $27BB by 2025. These are estimates. Other sources are estimating a much higher jump. A brand new report from Industry Research, estimates industry size will hit $115.8BB. However you look at it, this is the fastest growing sector of the US digital ads market. 

When Netflix started toying with the idea of adding a lower cost, ads based subscription, it seemed obvious that advertisers would expand their CTV spend. With this partnership announcement, it appears likely that Netflix will move in that direction. 

Hubspot Announces New Adjusted Email Open Rate Measurement 

Since Apple’s iOS 15 introduction of the Mail Privacy Protection feature (which can hide your IP address and block tracking), email open rates have become this nebulous measurement. 

Email marketing providers, as they collect more and more data, are starting to build in algorithmic estimates. Hubspot just announced their new formula: 

Adjusted open rate = Unique reliable opens / (Unique delivered - Unique unreliable opens)

What are unique unreliable opens? We contacted Hubspot to get more information but were not able to find someone who would know. If you have a contact who can help us, please reply to this or tag them in the comments. Please! Da people want to know.

Google Annouces a Series of MUST-KNOW Updates 

Google Adds Video Performance Report to Google Search Console, Called Video Indexing

If you want to make sure that videos you’ve added to pages on your website will show up in google search, you will want to check this report. At this time it’s not available to everyone and it’s being rolled out. 

Search console is very useful to track the health of your site and how it performs in google search. Yet it’s often ignored, even by web design companies. So even if you don’t care about video indexing today is the day to get this set up. 

Search Console Insights Now Supports GA4

Although Google has been pushing everyone to move to GA4 in preparation for the sunseting of Universal analytics, Search Console didn’t play with GA4. Now it will. 

The Google My Business App Is No Longer Available

Last year Google rebranded Google My Business to Google Business Profile and did forewarn us that they’d get rid of the app. That day is here. If you want to manage your Business Profile you can now do so via maps and search. 

Google Introduces New Metrics and Dimensions In GA4

You can expect a few new elements, addressing ongoing criticism of GA4s simplified measurements. 

• Bounce rate is back (I don’t like it). However, it will be calculated differently. 
• Conversion rate: “User conversion rate is the percentage of users who triggered any conversion event.
• Session conversion rate is the percentage of sessions in which any conversion event was triggered.”
• UTM term and UTM ad content

Instagram Officialy Launches Marketplace to Match You With Creators, But... 

The marketplace is only available to partner brands for now. 

According to Meta, “78% of consumers say that creators are influential in helping them to discover new brands.” TikTok has released similar data. 

What does this mean for brands?

• Based on our data the ROAs from working with influencers can be 3X that of paid advertising. So it’s a good idea to start shifting some of your paid advertising budget to influencer marketing. 
• This could potentially be a better match-making solution than working with influencer brokerages. So your return on investment could be higher. 
• It will be harder and harder to work with influencers for free. I’ve been speaking about this shift for almost two years now and the trend is here to stay. 

Twitter Launches a New Custom Timeline Experiment With... The Bachelorrete

What does this mean? According to Twitter’s Amir Shevat, “A lot more flexibility in terms of what to show and what not to show (algorithmic choice through a query) + customization of the timeline itself. This is the first step in decentralizing this area.” Decentralizing social media has been a hot topic for a few years and one of Elon Musk's goals. Too bad he lost sight of the actual good he was trying to inject into the company. Someone else will make this happen and it looks like it could from Jack Dorsey's sphere of influence.

A New Campaign Planner From Twitter Will Help With Performance Projections

With this tool, advertisers (paid) will be able to forecast reach, impressions, avg frequency, and CPM against a specific audience, campaign duration, frequency setting, and placement. 

The Twitter “Branded Likes” Feature is Delightful and Now Available to All Managed Advertisers In Certain Regions

The branded likes is one of my favorite Twitter ad features. It allows advertisers to turn the “like” into a custom animation. The feature is playful but not over-the-top. It’s interactive and creative. You can see how brands are having fun while boosting engagement in this Twitter video.