Happy Thursday! It’s been a relatively quiet week in the wonderful world of digital marketing, although Elon Musk has done his best to give commentators something to discuss.
Also doing their bit are Google, which is laid out plans to fight ad blockers as well as being in the news around a rumoured Hubspot acquisition. Good job both!
Elon Musk’s X planning to charge new users to post
Another week, another wild story coming from Elon Musk and the platform formerly known as Twitter. In the latest edition of declaring your big upcoming strategic replies in casual replies to users, this week Musk informed a user that X is planning to charge new users to the platform, ostensibly to prevent bots from taking over.
In terms of solving that problem, there is a solid rationale; bots are one of the key reasons people are turning away from the platform, and with improvements in AI technology one can only assume this is getting worse and worse. Raising the barrier of registration has always been an issue for a platform that, once upon a time, provided anonymity and credibility to those who needed it.
Now though, it can’t help but also come across as something of a cash grab and a publicity stunt – it would be interesting to know, given that Twitter has been around for the best part of two decades and had a heyday long ago, how many genuine new posters the platform even has to potentially charge.
Google is finding ways to block ad blockers on YouTube
One of the big concerns for advertisers on a platform such as YouTube is around the high number of users utilising ad blocking technology (somewhere around 37% apparently). That should be changing soon, with Google making changes that should in theory block the ad blockers, meaning that there are likely to be a few frustrated users in the next few weeks.
I find ad blocking fascinating, and a damning indictment on the state of the advertising industry – the creative that people come up with is so often self-serving that there’s no wonder so many people turn to tools that block it. The funniest thing for me is the number of my peers who seem to also use ad blockers. No further learnings for marketers here, but I implore you that if you’re reading this and blocking ads, you might well be missing out on the chance to learn from competitors. Anyway, rant over!
Google considering Hubspot acquisition
Certain corners of the internet have been ablaze over the past week with rumours that Google is considering an acquisition of the CRM platform Hubspot.
This could, potentially, be quite a big deal in democratising the platform and also in creating better connections between Google’s ad platforms, its workspace solutions and then also first-party CRM data – and that’s before you even think about Gemini AI being in the mix as well.
Early days and it sounds like the regulators might take an interest, but certainly one to keep an eye on.
Further Reading
It feels somewhat odd as a roundup newsletter to include a roundup article, but Connected TV (CTV) is something I haven’t seen a huge number of materials on, despite the fact that for the right business it feels like a good opportunity. Anyway, LinkedIn has pulled together a few (obviously self serving) different thoughts and pieces – worth a look if it piques your interest.
If you’re advertising on Meta and you’ve seen painful price increases on CPMs in the last few weeks, chances are it’s due to some glitches.
TikTok is exploring options around a feature which would enable brands to ‘deploy’ virtual influencers, who would then be able to sell products on their behalf. The world is getting scarier and scarier.
And finally, a great look by The Economist at Generative AI and the implications of its “theft” of content for learning purposes.
That’s it for this week – if you found this interesting then I would really appreciate if you shared this with your friends and peers.
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!