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Follow Tod: Bluesky, Threads, LinkedIn, and others

The Top Three 🏆

The industry’s most important stories today.

🥇 META GOES ALL IN ON AI USERS

Nobody asked for this: Meta confirmed it plans to add millions of AI-generated users to Instagram and Facebook. These bots will have bios, profile pics, and can even share content.

🤔 Spend money to advertise to AI? Bots have been a social media headache for years, duping human users, pushing junk content, and skewing ad results. more

• Now, Meta is leaning into the bot game, betting on AI to spark major engagement and attract younger users.

• Love it or hate it, this move could redefine social media. Meta is shifting away from friend-focused communities and diving headfirst into social automation.

🥈 TIKTOK PROMISES BAN REFUNDS

Ban or not, TikTok still wants your ad dollars: TikTok is offering ad refunds to ease concerns as it faces a potential U.S. ban. As some advertisers pull back, the app is reassuring major ad firms on how they can get out of ad agreements if the ban goes through. more

• In an email to ad agencies, TikTok said it would refund down payments on ad commitments if it fails to stop the ban set for January 19.

• As the legal battle drags on, attitudes among advertisers are divided:

  • Some are pausing new campaigns.

  • Others are sticking with TikTok for now and are prepared to shift funds to YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, or other streaming platforms if needed.

🥉 AMAZON OFFERS FREE ADS TO DITCH TEMU

Free advertising on Amazon? Sure, but only if you quit Temu. Temu, the bargain site, has become a go-to for popular China-based Amazon merchants looking to expand. Until recently, Amazon wasn't stopping them.

Now, Amazon is offering incentives like free advertising and lower commissions if merchants agree to stop selling on Temu. more

• Amazon has also started removing Buy Now buttons from product listings when it finds identical items listed on Temu for less.

• An Amazon spokesperson said the company has not asked its sellers to sell exclusively on its e-commerce site and that it supports selling across different platforms... Not you though, Temu.

Today’s Other News ☑︎

Everything else that matters.

Online Ads 💻️ 

• Apple will pay $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit over Siri's alleged privacy violations. Users claimed that that Apple recorded private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and shared these conversations with advertisers. Apple denied any wrongdoing but settled anyway. more

• Google Ads is testing showing search ads without ad copy—just photos, no descriptions. This has left some marketers frustrated, questioning how they can trust metrics when ads are so inconsistent. more

• Starting January 20, 2025, new Performance Max campaigns created in the Google Ads web interface will require brand guidelines. Business name and logo assets must be linked at the campaign level, not the asset group level. more

• Google Ads added a new brand control override for Performance Max campaigns to allow Shopping Ads on searches with excluded brands. The option, found under brand exclusions, lets you bypass exclusions for Shopping Ads, ensuring your ads still appear for searches mentioning those brands. more

• Google Ads has launched a new brand report that shows deduplicated reach and frequency metrics across your campaigns. You can sort the data by demographics like age and gender. more

• The UK data regulator criticized Google’s new ad policy, saying it makes it easier for brands to track users without consent. The change, set for February 2025, lets advertisers track consumers via software and hardware, like IP addresses. more

SEO & Commerce 🔍

• In 2024, social media referral traffic to publishers kept declining, with Facebook taking a major hit and platforms like Instagram, Reddit, and Threads sending minimal traffic. The standout? Google. more

• As retailers pushed holiday discounts, shoppers showed up. more

  • Total spending for the holiday season from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 rose nearly 4%, per Mastercard.

  • Online sales outpaced in-store, growing nearly 7%, while in-store sales saw a 3% rise.

Social Media 📱

• This sounds very familiar: Bluesky has added a new Trending topics feature that lets brands and users see what's popular on the app. Found under the search icon, it shows lists of trending and recommended subjects. more

• 🤣 Trumpflation?: X has raised its Premium+ subscription by 30%, increasing the price from $16 to $22 per month (or $229 annually). more

• Looking to market to moms? Facebook is still the go-to platform. U.S. moms spend more than twice as much time on Facebook and Messenger as they do on TikTok. more

Legal & Politics ⚖️ 

• 1 in 4 marketers say the U.S. election outcome has shifted their strategy.

  • While more than half disapprove of companies rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. more

• Trump wants the Supreme Court to let him negotiate a deal to save TikTok from a U.S. ban. In a court brief, he says that only he has the political mandate and expertise to resolve the issue once he's in office. No word yet on what said deal would look like. more

• After its antitrust win, the DOJ proposed sweeping changes to Google, including selling Chrome and ending exclusive search deals with companies like Apple. Now Google has clapped back with a simpler fix: end default search deals for just three years while keeping Chrome and Android intact. more

AI 🤖 

• Marketers are worried AI will kill jobs—just not their own. more

  • 1 out of 2 marketers believe AI will cut marketing roles.

  • Meanwhile, 2 out of 3 indicated they’re not worried about the tech taking their job. 🤔 We listen and we don’t judge.

Marketing Tool of the Day 🔨

Cool stuff we found on the web (not a paid placement)

I admit I cringe a little when I see someone’s “AI notetaker” join a Zoom meeting. (Hell, I even used one for a bit.) Don’t get me wrong — I love the value they have in terms of making great notes, but the whole thing of a bot in a meeting seems so weird.

I’ve been playing with Granola lately — it’s a meeting notetaker bot which doesn’t need to be in your meeting to take notes.

It’s quite clever: It taps into your microphone and sound card, and listens to the conversation. It is Mac only for now.

• No Training: Your meeting and notes aren’t used for AI training.

• No Meeting Bot: Since it taps into your audio directly, this eliminates the need for a “meeting bot.”

• Enhanced Notes: After each meeting, Granola refines your notes, providing summaries and actionable items.

It has a very generous free plan (25 meetings) and is definitely worth a look.

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