[17] Running notes...

Although there were many new products and features announced in the AI world last week, we're going to take a break from those topics in today's article. This week, I touch on various topics that are important to consider regarding marketing and sales performance moving forward. So let's get right into it.

• Meta recently launched their paid verification offering in the US, allowing Americans to pay for that coveted blue check mark, amongst other benefits. This release is really not shocking at all with Twitter being a first mover in this space, but it raises concerns around how businesses will be viewed on these platforms moving forward. For many years, that blue check represented a trustworthy or very public figure or business. Now, anyone can get it, making it even more difficult for business to grow and build trust online. Although I'm not a big fan of paying for trust, it really seems that if you want your company to grow online, either earn the blue check or pay up.
• Did you know that ~40% of web traffic is invalid? That's right, there are various illegitimate sources, such as bots, that generate this traffic, causing companies worldwide to waste billions of dollars on ad spend. Invalid web traffic also skews analytics and metrics, making it difficult for companies to accurately measure their online performance. This is a major issue, making it clear that optimizing ads for clicks is no longer a suitable goal. It's important to optimize and measure conversions, because otherwise, you may be getting cat-fished with amazing web performance.
• Fake reviews have been a problem in e-commerce space for years, but Amazon may have come up with a solution to tackle this issue on their platform. They recently released a new feature on the platform that shows customers how many users have bought a given product in the past week, giving them more transparency and insight into the product's popularity. This feature will make it harder for fake reviews to have an impact in the decision making process for consumers, making the shopping experience more reliable and trustworthy overall.

This week's topics really proved to me why keeping up to date on new findings is so crucial. If you aren't staying on top of the latest trends, you may find yourself stuck working really hard without finding any tangible results.