Marketers (Still) Aren't Ready for When the Cookie Crumbles

With the end of Chrome's third-party cookies coming in months (probably), why are marketers feeling LESS prepared than they did two years ago?

We’re Not Ready — Marketers’ Cookiepocalypse Woes

A new Adobe study of almost 3,000 marketers around the world finds that fewer of our peers feel ready for the end of third-party cookies than did in years previous.

Nearly half (49%) still depend on them. This is despite expectations that Google would eliminate them this year.

When asked two years ago if they were mostly ready for the change, 78% of marketers said yes. This year, that number has dropped to 60%.

How they’re changing

More interesting, I thought, was the data around how marketers are planning to deal with the data loss.

62% plan to spend more in walled ecosystems like social media sites

49% said they’re moving more on first-party data 

42% said they plan to work more with web sites directly, rather than through ad brokers

New Widgets Coming to Instagram DMs

Instagram is testing new ways to boost engagement in direct messages (DMs) with chat widgets. These widgets would add tools and indicators to your chats.

An app researcher shared an example of these “Chat Widgets” found in the code. The current widgets apparently being worked on include:

Countdown widget: Create a countdown in the chat.

Timezone widget: Show the local time of each chat participant.

Pinned content widget: Will let users quickly access pinned content.

How to use these

These could make chats a little more engaging by adding information right within the conversation. For example, a countdown could remind friends of an event, while a timezone display ensures everyone knows the correct time.

Brands might also benefit from this feature. They could use the countdown widget to create urgency for offers and the timezone widget to interact with customers at appropriate times.

When it’s coming

There is no official release date for the chat widgets or a complete list of features.

Pinterest Wants to Be On Your TikTok

Pinterest has added a way to let users create short videos of their curated Pinterest boards to share on social media.

This, of course, inspired by video-sharing trends on apps like TikTok.

History

Back in 2022, Pinterest introduced Shuffles, a collage-making app that became popular with Gen Z on TikTok. Users created aesthetic collages and mood boards set to music, which sometimes went viral. Shuffles' success led Pinterest to add a similar feature for shoppable collages.

Expanding “mecore”

Pinterest users have been sharing their boards on TikTok through screenshots and green screen effects. Pinterest calls this the “mecore” trend, noting a 565% increase in related searches and a 255% rise in “mecore” boards since last year.

How to use it

To use the feature, tap the share icon on any public board to generate a video. Then click Add to Story or Download to share it on other platforms. You can also edit the board’s Pins or choose a different template before sharing.

Advertising and Creative Agencies Love GenAI

American ad agencies are all in on AI.

A new Forrester report reveals that 91% of U.S. advertising agencies are using (61%) or exploring (30%) generative AI. This adoption rate is bigger than marketing organizations and the general business sector.

The Numbers

Large agencies lead in AI usage, with 78% of agencies with over 201 employees using some form of the tech, compared to 53% of agencies with fewer than 50 employees.

Creative agencies are at the forefront, with 69% currently using AI. Media agencies are also adopting AI, with 57% reporting usage.

More than half of the respondents foresee generative AI significantly impacting their agency's operations in the next two years.

Content creation leads the uses

The report, based on a survey conducted with the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) in April and May, identifies a few key areas where AI will significantly impact: content creation (76%), the agency marketplace (71%), and consumer interaction (69%).

Shopify’s “Sidekick” AI More Widely Released

Shopify is launching its new AI chatbot, “Sidekick,” in early access.

First revealed last year, this promises to help merchants create discount codes, generate store reports, and suggest blog post ideas.

It's live in thousands of Shopify stores already, but currently limited to English-speaking merchants in North America.

Merchants can join a waitlist to try it out. Shopify says it plans to expand Sidekick to other languages and regions soon.

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Shopify also announced other AI features. One suggests taxonomy for products, which could save some time when listing lots of items. If the suggestions are incorrect, you can manually adjust them.

Another tool offers suggested replies for customer chats via Shopify Inbox. Currently, these are just suggestions, and merchants must finalize and send responses.

Also, it’s expanding its image generator to its mobile apps. Shopify says in the last six months, Shopify merchants have saved more than one million AI-generated images.

Threads Ventures Deeper Into the Fediverse

Threads will now let users see and like replies to their Threads posts that came from Mastodon and other federated social media platforms.

Before this update, users had to switch between platforms to see responses to their Threads posts syndicated to other sites. With the new feature, users can stay updated on replies within Threads.

Not quite fully baked yet

But… the last piece of that puzzle is still not quite in place — to reply to the replies, users still need to switch to the other platform. Meta hinted closing that gap is coming in the future.

This morning, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Threads' fediverse integration is now available in over 100 countries. This is a big expansion from its initial rollout in just the US, Canada, and Japan.

Meta has been planning to integrate with the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub since launching Threads nearly a year ago. The first tests of this integration began in December.

Find us on Threads or Mastodon

We post every day on both on Threads and Mastodon:

Threads: @TodayInDigitalMarketing

Mastodon: TodayInDigital@mas.to

Google Drops ‘Infinite Scroll’ on SERPs

Google has decided to save a little money by turning off infinite scroll on their search results page.

They initially launched this on mobile after seeing it used on social media feeds — no need to tap a link reading “Next Page;” if it detected you reached the bottom, it would just find you more. Then in 2021, they turned it on for desktop results.

When it’s leaving

It should be gone now on desktop, and will be pulled from mobile “in the coming months.”

Why it’s leaving

Google said they expect it will help them serve the results faster on more searches, and they won’t be spending processing time automatically loading results that users haven’t explicitly requested.

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