Wednesday Morning, Issue 9 (12/6/23)

TikTok adds new view-only attribution metric, the cookie deprecation is really happening (in Jan. 2024) and 10 Gen Z subcultures to keep in mind as think about new ad creative.

??? JUST THE HEADLINES:

TikTok rolled out a new measurement tool, called Engaged View-through Attribution, which notes when a user has watched a video ad for at least 6 seconds. This new metric gives advertisers an expanded view into how users who view their ads, but don’t click, ultimately convert, which makes a lot of sense for a platform that’s known for its ability to keep users really engaged in-app.

Google says, yes, the 2024 cookie deprecation is really happening. Correct responses include: a) for real this time and b) didn’t this already happen?, because yes, this Update That Will Change Everything has been promised and delayed since 2020. Digiday's recent interview with Google’s VP of Global Advertising, Dan Taylor, is a great listen, but here are some tl;dr takeaways:

• We’re already living in a not-like-it-was digital advertising world. This will just be a bigger step forward into a less creepy version of using the internet and being served relevant ads.
• This update will start with a 1% deprecation for Chrome users in January ‘24, which will give an early indication of the impact.
• Google has been testing ‘Topics,’ which will give a more broad signal about your interests/online behavior within a set time period based on the sites you visit. Here’s a description of how Topics work, straight from Google: The browser would match a sports website with the topic "Sports.” Then, the browser collects a few of the most frequent topics associated with the websites you’ve visited. These topics are then shared (one new topic per week) without needing to know the specific sites you’ve?visited. The browser will use a limited set of topics selected from a human-curated, publicly visible list. The updated list contains around 469 topics - we limit the taxonomy’s size to reduce the risk of fingerprinting. Additionally, Chrome aims to maintain a topics list that does not include sensitive categories (i.e. race, sexual orientation, religion, etc.).

???? IN THE WEEDS: Document Ads have gotten a few new updates, which I’ve scored below:

1. You can retarget users who view them. ??
2. You can use them for Website Visit and Website Conversion objectives. ??
3. You can run them on Audience Network. ??

?? LOOKING AHEAD: New research from Horizon Media and Blue Hour Studios outlines 10 new Gen Z audience subcultures to keep top of mind as you think about your content/ad planning for next year. Given the larger shift in paid social strategy to thinking more broadly about targeting and more intentionally about creative, this list could be a great guide to thinking about meaningful creative ways in with Gen Z.

Thank you for reading, as always. See you next Wednesday!

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