With quarterly earnings now well out of the way, we’re into the part of the year where major tech firms seemingly announce changes to their ad platforms, with both Google and TikTok announcing (lets be honest, broadly similar) changes and improvements this week.
Otherwise, there has been some concerning news coming out of India regarding ‘political’ ads Meta has approved which incite violence; concerning because there are a number of major elections coming up, and the platform has done little to suggest its fit for purpose re political comms.
There have also been a wide range of stories doing the rounds relating to X, Google, TikTok and Open AI. Lots to get on with, so without further ado…
We’re all living in a TikTok world
TikTok announced a range of improvements to its ad platform this week at TikTok World. Given that your correspondent has spent nearly an hour this morning wrestling with glitches, bugs and timeouts to get a few ads live, in my own view this is most timely.
The new tools include advanced targeting options via machine learning (though its fairly vague as to exactly what this means), some new ad formats, and improved analytics. The centrepiece is the introduction of Smart Performance Campaigns, which is essentially TikTok’s take on the Advantage+ campaigns offered by Meta. This will in theory make it much easier for time-poor SMBs to run campaigns on the platform.
As an ad platform (and particularly with targeting in mind), TikTok has made leaps and bounds over the last 18 months, so it will be interesting to see how these new features pan out. Although it can’t all be going smoothly (beyond the obvious issues in the US), with the sad news this week that its the latest firm to announce a round of layoffs.
Google updates Performance Max
TikTok wasn’t the only one announcing new AI-powered ad tools this week, with Google joining in the fun at Marketing Live.
Similarly to TikTok, Google is tweaking its AI-powered Performance Max campaigns, which in theory take much of the work out of campaign setup and optimisation (though I do find that the actual generated ads often leave much to be desired). However, the promise of improvements to this tech is interesting, and it could be time to give it another try.
Meta under fire after approving ads which incite violence towards Muslims in India
You may recall that in previous editions of this newsletter, I’ve mentioned that 2024 is a huge year for Meta and other mainstream social platforms, with multiple elections take place and all the scrutiny that comes with this.
Well, this week there was a major black mark against the platform, with the news that ads were approved in India which spread disinformation and incited violence against Muslims.
The response from Meta that “people should follow the process” (I’m massively paraphrasing but honestly, I’m not even doing them a disservice there) is less than satisfactory to say the least, and is certainly concerning with the UK election just announced, the US election heating up and a fair few others on the horizon.
Further Reading
Brief but interesting from Futurism regarding Google ‘jamming’ ads into its new Gen AI-powered search results. Inevitable but potentially concerning, and I’m curious to see exactly how transparent this all is. Related: How I made ‘Web’ my default search on Google & Google CEO ‘empathetic’ to content creators Search has wiped out
TikTok launched ‘Fan Spotlight’, a feature designed to promote artists and musicians, enabling them to better engage with fans through the app.
Curiously, TikTok is testing 60 minute videos; I say curiously, because YouTube is also pushing Shorts more and more. It’s all becoming the same thing.
OpenAI has announced that ChatGPT now enables you to import files directly from Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, without the need for fiddly third-party plugins.
You probably know this by now as (of course) it was announced shortly after the last edition of this newsletter dropped, but X has fully migrated from Twitter.com to x.com. Although, while I don’t know about you, I fully expect I’ll be typing Twitter.com going well into the 2030s.
And finally, after a raft of ‘celebrities’ have been somewhat embarrassingly caught out, X has also announced that it will be removing the ability to see what tweets other profiles have ‘liked’. It’s good to see they’ve got their priorities straight.
That’s it for another week – if you found this interesting then I would really appreciate if you shared this with your friends and colleagues.
If you’re feeling particularly generous, then I won’t stop you from buying me a coffee. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you next week!