TMW #026 | Google’s last stand in Australia, the Clubhouse revolution, and the confusion of marketing clouds.
Welcome to The Martech Weekly, where every week I review some of the most interesting ideas, research, and latest news. I try to look to where the industry is going and make sense of it all.
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🏠 My work
I was lucky enough to join this all star e-commerce cast in adding a few thoughts on third party cookies in the digital advertising ecosystem. Some great insights from a few heavy hitters over on the Omnconvert blog. Link
✍ Commentary
😡 Google’s last stand with the Australian government. Late last week, like most people working in marketing technology and advertising, my feeds blew up with the imminent threat of Google pulling search out of Australia (or just pulling news publications they don’t want to pay). This was in response to the government moving forward with the news media bargaining code, which will effectively force Google to pay for links shared from news publications. This has been a 6 month long comedy of errors between both parties, as I’ve covered in #024 and #006. The problem here is the place of news media in an environment where about 50% of Australians regularly find news online. Google’s threat is serious, but also not likely to come to fruition as Google’s brand would take a serious hit, it would set a precedent in other international regulation and antitrust cases and would breach a number of terms of services agreements with customers, suppliers, advertisers and the like. But there’s one more thing that’s critical here - It’s Apple’s plans to move into the search engine space. Apple owns the lion's share of mobile devices, with a significant market share of personal computers, not to mention an increasing roster of iOT devices like Apple HomePod mini. Apple is a serious threat to Google and leaving the Australian marketing will do nothing but forfeit more territory to Apple.There’s also a question on misinformation, if reputable news media brands are restricted, the vacuum will most likely be filled with poor journalism, conspiracy news and misinformation, as these sites tend to thrive in the advertising ecosystem Google has created.
So what should marketers and advertisers think of the news media bargaining code? Should SEOs and PPC agencies move into the situation room and plan for a severely diminished Google in APAC? Google does have market power and leverage. For example, Australia’s total population is a little over half of California, just one state in the United States - so it’s not a huge market, but this doesn’t mean it’s not important. Although the Australian government is not “responding to threats'' my prediction is that there will be some serious looking at Google’s alternative solutions. Mind you, Facebook have already launched a news specific product in the UK , which points in only one direction - Big tech is coming to seal the tomb of the news media industrial complex. This is a wake up call for advertisers to start diversifying their spend at the very least and start looking at platforms that can offer similar scale and targeting but without the monopoly. There’s a million ways to target customers with ads on the internet. Denmark’s largest news publication has preemptively left Google’s advertising ecosystem because they wanted to “own their customers’ data: Somehow Google has become the only way to advertise on search and display, but it isn’t. Google’s threat is real, but it will not reach execution. News, Analysis
I also look at the Clubhouse opportunity and where predictive marketing is going. This one is in the subscriber version of TMW. Sign up here to get a link to the full version.
📈Chart Of The Week
What’s the difference between a marketing cloud and a CDP? Sign up here to get a link to the full version and the chart. You won't be disappointed.
📈Chart Of The Week Teaser
What’s the difference between a marketing cloud and a CDP? It’s becoming harder to explain the difference, according to new research from Ad Exchanger, stating that more than 50% of survey respondents said that Microsoft or Salesforce are their CDP. This is interesting because these companies offer marketing clouds, not CDP technology specifically. But also symptomatic of how different technologies are evolving how they position themselves. Many marketing clouds speak to CDPesque features like profile enrichment, aggregation of multiple data sources, and omnichannel activation. But here’s the kicker - pureplay CDP technology companies do not have the existing customer base or marketing budgets to pull off things like Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce event and neither do they have the existing platform scale that the enterprise level companies enjoy. It’s not good enough to say that CDPs need to do a better job educating the market, it’s a mindshare issue not an education one and the marketing clouds are winning this game. Link
📰 Latest Developments
Episerver is now Optimizely. The acquisition happened last year and Episerver decided that rebranding everything to Optimizely makes more sense. This is the power of brand equity my friends. Link
Bloomreach acquires Exponea. I love stories like this, both are personalisation engines and it looks like they decided “we’re stronger together than apart”.” Link
GDPR fines. In the European Union, fines for breaching GDPR rules reached more than $158 million last year. When was the last time you checked your cookies popup? Link
📚 Reading
The personalisation reset. Shaun Roland writes on Mi3 about the state of personalisation in Australia. The view is that if brands want to get out of the trough of disillusionment then focusing on the basics, and the value drivers in personalisation is a good starting point. Link
Are the 4P’s dead? There’s been a bit of an argument this week on the 4Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) and if they are relevant in the internet age. Some very strong opinions here. Link
Podcasting is booming, but not lucrative. A perspective from Axios on the state of Podcasting, is it a viable way for creators to make a living? Yes and no, but mostly no. Link
🔢 Data & Insights
The positive effects of personalisation. A survey of more than 4,000 online shoppers across five countries suggests that personalization of their shopping interactions is an overall good thing. Stats on mobile device use, some demographics and what consumers want brands to do with their personalisation. Link
How should we think about terms of service agreements? One study conducted suggested that it would take 14 years of education to adequately understand the terms of most service agreements. Should this change? Link
Fraudulent Shopify stores. An analysis of 124 thousand stores came up with 25 thousand of those being fraudulent. Link
💡 Ideas
Day one fandom . The concept of a day one fan is someone who was an early adopter of your product or service before it hit mass appeal. A concept is borrowed from startups and indie creators, but I just wonder if it would work in product strategy? Link
Cultural moment encyclopedia. A compilation of the vast majority of global cultural moments, holidays, observances. Couldn’t believe this was for free at first glance. Link
Free courses from IBM. Some great resources here and a few certifications for design thinking courses. Made free due to the pandemic. Link
✨ Weird and Wonderful
An explanation of the Gamestop fiasco. If I put in $10k 6 months ago into Gamestop, on Wednesday I would have made $300k, on Thursday I would have made $900k. A nice explanation of what is going on with the markets right now. Link
What the hell is a “chief meeting designer?” A chief meeting designer is someone who designs meetings to be successful. Yes, it’s a job. Link
Stay Curious,
Make sense of marketing technology.
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Want to share something interesting or be featured in The Martech Weekly? Drop me a line at juan@themartechweekly.com.