The Top Three

🏆 THE INDUSTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES TODAY

🥇 YOUTUBE WATCHING: MORE TV THAN PHONES

🖖 Long live TV: Consumers are now watching more YouTube on TVs than phones, with viewers watching more than 1 billion hours of content on their TVs every day. more

• YouTube has been the most-watched streaming service in the U.S. for the past two years, according to Nielsen.

• YouTube TV has 8M+ subscribers, while YouTube Premium and Music subscriptions have 100M+. These numbers are consistent with last year.

• Google Ads has made several adjustments to its ad products which reach consumers on YouTube; now might be a good time to check them out?

🥈 DROP IN LEAD QUALITY? GOOGLE MIGHT BE THE CULPRIT

Advertisers are voicing frustration over a drop in lead quality for Local Services Ads, with some blaming the recent shift to the new automated ad credits system, which removed the option for advertisers to manually request lead credits for poor-quality leads.

Darren Shaw called Google’s move a "money-grab," saying it started "enshitifying all the leads with a ton of out-of-industry, out-of-city leads that are pure garbage." Now, businesses have to pay for these low-quality leads with no way to dispute them. more

• Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, defended the changes saying the new system results in more credits, not less.

• But Darren isn't buying it: He said he reached out to agencies managing multiple LSA accounts, and they all reported a significant decline in lead quality over the past few months.

• Ginny is following up privately, but for now, it looks like many LSA advertisers are far from pleased with the changes.

🥉 TIKTOK SHOP LANDING IN MEXICO

TikTok is expanding its in-stream shopping push to Latin America, with the platform set to launch TikTok Shop in Mexico this month. more

• Merchants in Mexico were invited to join TikTok Shop in January, with transactions starting in February.

• To sweeten the deal, local merchants were eligible to sign up and be exempt from commission fees for the first 90 days.

Explained: Meta’s Advantage+ Changes

Our Meta ads correspondent Andrew Foxwell joins Tod to discuss the big changes to Meta's Advantage+ campaigns, including the trustworthiness of Meta's AI recommendations, and the impact on advertisers using API access.

• AI-driven optimization is becoming central to Meta's advertising strategy.

• The new “opportunity score” will influence campaign performance.

• Trust in Meta's AI is a concern among advertisers.

• Advertisers may face challenges with audience exclusions.

• API access will also be affected by these changes.

• Advertisers have limited alternatives to Meta for ad placements.

Today’s Other News

📰 EVERYTHING ELSE THAT MATTERS

Advertising 📣

• 😰 Geopolitical chaos shaking up ad budgets: Digiday has a great rundown today about how U.S. President Trump’s tariffs could push marketers into a recession mindset. That could mean brands may cut budgets, shift spending to high-impact channels, or invest in branding to stay competitive. more

• Poppi is addressing backlash over its Super Bowl ad after sending 32 vending machines to mega influencers. Critics called the brand out for elitism, but the prebiotic soda brand clarified that the machines were loaners, not gifts. more

  • Meanwhile, its competitor Olipop added fuel to the fire with posts like: “For the record, those machines cost $25K each lol.”

  • 🎁 Moral of the story: tread carefully when sending influencers free stuff.

Search & GBP 🔍

• Google has confirmed an issue causing some Business Profiles to show incorrect review counts. The company says the reviews haven’t been removed, just a display glitch. They’re working on a fix and will restore accurate counts ASAP. more

Design/Branding ✨ 

• 👆️ The ups and downs of your brand’s creative: Research shows that the direction of your text on your ads and marketing materials affects perception. People are more likely to buy, more satisfied, and rate higher if a brand’s logo or text aligns with the product’s context. more

  • An upward tilt (bottom-left to top-right) conveys activity and energy.

  • A downward tilt (top-left to bottom-right) suggests calm and relaxation.

Commerce 🛒 

• 🔮 2025 outlook: Shopify reported its Q4 earnings today, warning that its free cash flow margin could drop to the mid-teens in Q1 2025, down from 22% in the final quarter of 2024. Shares fell nearly 2%. more

  • Shopify’s revenue in Q4 increased 30% to $2.8 billion, with the company projecting revenue growth will slow to a percentage in the mid-twenties in Q1 2025.

Infrastructure 🚧 

• Meta's layoffs are underway. According to reports, employees across Asia, Europe, and the U.S. started receiving notifications yesterday. The company plans to cut 5% of its workforce, which means about 4,000 jobs could be affected. more

Product Updates 🆕 

• 🖱️ Rage-clicking, begone!: Google Sheets just got faster:

  • Pasting between spreadsheets is now up to 50% faster.

  • Filter conditions can now be set to 50% faster.

  • Spreadsheets now load existing data up to 30% faster.

Bluesky Scheduler

🔨 MARKETING TOOL OF THE DAY

Bluesky is definitely picking up steam, with many smaller brands jumping on board. But some are finding it challenging to work posting into their workflow because their current social media tool (i.e., Sprout Social, Hootsuite, etc.) doesn’t support Bluesky, and so they’re unable to schedule posts.

This morning, I came across this tool called Bluesky Scheduler that might help if you’re in that spot.

It’s a free tool and you can:

• Set your posts to go live at any future time, with at least a 1-hour gap between them.

• Save posts as drafts or schedule them for automatic publishing (up to 20 scheduled posts)

Might be worth checking out if the lack of a scheduling tool is the only thing keeping you off Bluesky! (And if you’re there, follow Today in Digital Marketing or follow me.)

Today’s Trivia Question

🎁 TAP YOUR GUESS AND YOU COULD WIN

Spotted on Social

🤣 THE SOCIAL WEB’S BEST POSTS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS

Steal Our Stack

🛠️ TOOLS WE USE TO PUT THE NEWSLETTER OUT

Google Ads courses: Inside Google Ads: Advanced
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