The Last B?
Well, That’s Not That Simple.

A major digital agency loses its B Corp status. Is this a warning for other agencies around the world?

What is Happening with Meta Shopping Campaigns?!

Most Thursdays, we check in with our Meta Ads correspondent Andrew Foxwell. Andrew has visibility into $300 million dollars in Meta ad spend through his Slack community called Foxwell Founders.¹

This week:

Andrew and Tod discuss the confusion and internal disconnect at Meta regarding Advantage Shopping Campaigns (ASCs).

There's an ongoing debate at Meta about balancing automation and advertiser control.

Meta advertising has been challenging this summer with soft performance.

There's an anticipation of a strong Q4 with consumers saving for holiday deals.

The upcoming U.S. election adds to the instability impacting consumer behavior.

Be sure to check out Andrew’s Foxwell Founders community of digital ad buyers and his extensive training in the digital ad space.¹

Havas Loses ‘B Corp’ Status After Taking on Shell

Many digital agencies spend a lot of time getting themselves prepared to become a B Corporation.

That’s a company that has been certified by the non-profit organization B Lab for meeting high standards of social and environmental responsibility, accountability, and transparency. Some clients insist that the agencies they hire have this certification.

Depending on the market those agencies serve, not being certified could cut them out of the loop on a lot of revenue.

Flying too close to the sun

That’s why the agency world was shook this morning when B Lab revoked the certification of all Havas-agency groups because their sister agency, Havas Media, recently took on a contract with the oil giant Shell.

With more than 300 offices, Havas is one of the largest ad and p.r. agencies in the world. And it’s a big contract. Shell spent nearly $250 million on media in 2022.

Too big to separate

For its part, Havas says the agencies that lost that B Corp status never touch the Shell account.

But B Lab says:

Threads Ads Are Coming, But Marketers are “Meh”

Soon, your brand will be able to buy ads on Threads — Meta’s answer to the void left by Twitter. This is, of course, something Meta’s been saying since they launched; now, industry speculation is that the rollout could come in the next couple of months.

But the market might not be as excited as Meta thinks.

The collective yawn

A great piece this morning on Digiday says the response from advertisers has “tepid” at best.

The main reason: Advertisers aren’t really sure why they need to be there, with many still waiting to see how the platform evolves.

The piece quoted an agency VP as saying:

Don’t expect big revenue numbers

When ads do launch on Threads, Meta will most likely simply add it as another placement option — as they did with Instagram and Audience Network and WhatsApp.

In that scenario, Meta won’t necessarily make any more money since advertisers would be taking their existing spend and just splitting it up into finer wedges.

Trust, but verify

That said, Meta does have a habit of pushing platform-wide campaigns more aggressively toward the newer placements, so when ads do show up, if you’ve selected Automatic Placements, be sure to watch that Threads column closely to make sure it’s delivering what you expect it to.

Threads Adds “Web Intent” Links for Web Sites

Meanwhile, Meta wants your brand to integrate Threads more deeply into your web site.

The company this week introduced a new “Web Intents” element to its API.

This lets you integrate Threads actions into your websites more seamlessly.

When users click on a special link, they can then share links to Threads, add comments, and so on. If they’re on mobile, the Threads app will open if it’s installed, and users can sign in or create an account if needed.

This is similar to how users can share content on other social apps.

This is something your web admin would need to put into your web site — either manually, or if you’re using a sharing plugin that does similar things for Facebook or Pinterest or whatever, the developer of that plugin will likely add this Threads integration as well.

Google’s Use of AI Summaries Keeps Declining

Is Google giving up on AI generated search results? No, probably not, but they might be slowing down.

Data collected by BrightEdge has found that Google is inserting that AI Summary block in fewer than 7 percent of queries.

It already had been low — on June 1st that number was 11 percent.

Also, it appears they’re pulling less from Reddit and Quora as they had in the past [insert joke about eating glue here].

Google challenges findings

Google told media the findings don’t reflect what they’ve seen and criticized the study’s methodology, saying it mixed people who’ve opted into the beta and those who haven’t. BrightEdge says, no, it only includes people who have opted in.

In Brief

Streaming TV ads hold viewers’ attention eight times longer than mobile ads, and 16 times longer than desktop ads — this according to a new study from an Australian measurement firm. TV ads got almost 10 seconds of “active attention;” mobile ads clocked in around 2 seconds.

Instagram Notes is adding disappearing comments for Notes and Reels. The comments will float on top of the content in little bubbles, and disappear after three days. Users can also restrict who can see their comments, like their close friends or mutuals.

Amazon’s Prime Day event broke records this week — according to Adobe Analytics, consumers spent more than $14 billion across Tuesday and yesterday. That is an 11% jump from last year’s numbers. This is from data that Adobe can see — users of its own platform. Amazon didn’t release the real numbers, but did say it broke records.

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