Google’s sand(box) is starting to get in between publishers’ toes.

Though far from realized yet, Google’s Privacy Sandbox, the company’s ambitious attempt to make the web less invasive while still efficient for advertisers, has found a number of critics in publishers, concerned that some proposals won’t actually marginally help them without an overreliance on ad tech.

Rewind: Google’s long said it’s crushing third-party cookies—just yesterday it kicked the deadline (again) to the second half of 2024—but it still wants to keep advertisers happy, so it’s testing several alternatives that promise some level of audience targeting.

• First there was FLoC, or Federated Learnings of Cohorts, which segmented audiences into thousands of categories based on their browsing history. But some privacy advocates were concerned that these audiences could be small enough to identify individual users.
• So Google scrapped FLoC for Topics, assigning three topics to each individual user based on their internet habits and enabling advertisers to target those individuals based on those assigned topics.

Topic time

Here’s where it gets wonky. When publishers call the API, they’ll only see topics that Google has already assigned to the publisher. Sometimes a publisher only gets one, sometimes seven, with no limits set yet.

However, that’s what publishers already know:

• So, for example, if you’re a news publisher and the API has tagged your readers as interested in news, then that’s the only data point you’ll be able to share with advertisers.
• Conversely, if you’re really into motorbikes and you, as a reader, are assigned the motorbike Topic (stay with us), because USA Today probably wouldn’t share that label, USA Today won’t be able to tell advertisers you might be interested in buying a motorbike even though you’re on their site. They will just see that you are interested in news.

That’s limiting, argued Jeff Burkett, VP of product at Gannett, which tested Topics. Read the full story here.—RB

It’s not exactly the best week to be Instagram. Since Saturday…

• Influencers, meme-page creators, and their fans held a protest at IG’s New York HQ, arguing that the platform’s content-moderation system is “harmful and unjust.”
• In a post on Instagram, the rally’s organizers asked for “transparency regarding community guidelines,” for all users to have “the same content-moderation system,”and more.
• A few days later, both Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian, who have a combined 686 million IG followers, re-shared a post that read, “MAKE INSTAGRAM INSTAGRAM AGAIN. (Stop trying to be TikTok I just want to see cute photos of my friends.)”

Le response: IG chief Adam Mosseri briefly responded to the backlash in a video this week (that basically sounded like this), noting that its full-screen feed is still just a test, and that while photos will remain part of Instagram and the app’s “heritage,” more of the app will become videos over time.

But we wouldn’t blame you if you hadn’t seen any of the above posts until now, because the only thing Instagram shows you these days is a VERY loud Reel of a complete stranger air-frying a peach, of all things.

All of this before earnings yesterday: Which, spoiler alert, missed expectations—Meta’s revenue dropped for the first time ever in Q2, declining almost 1% year over year. Quarterly revenue was $28.8 billion, but Wall Street was expecting $28.9 billion. Apple’s privacy changes, the economy, and rival TikTok are all playing a role in its struggles.

Sound byte: “We seem to have entered an economic downturn that will have a broad impact on the digital advertising business,” said Captain Obvious Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.—PB

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

B2B ≠ boring: Learn how to hook B2B blog readers with an innovative intro.

Shop ’til you drop: There’s no escaping the commerce opportunities on social media, so here’s a crash course to get you up to speed.

Toolbox: Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, check out these 10 tools to up your social analytics game. Then stop by our Twitter Spaces at 3pm for more marketing-tool recs across platforms.

Stay connected: With Customer Link, you can build on existing customer data to improve targeting, increase engagement, and build better relationships with your customers. Find out how.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Looking to hire the best marketers in the industry? Submit your job posting to the Marketing Brew Job Board!

Today’s featured openings:

• Growth Marketing Manager, Education at Morning Brew
• VP, Marketing & Communications at SafeSide Prevention
• Account Manager at Caliber Corporate Advisers

We are looking to chat with hiring managers and job posters—let us know if we can contact you here! You can also see more jobs or post your job opportunities here.

For its 2022 Customer Loyalty Survey, PwC surveyed more than 4,000 Americans about their experiences with brands. Here’s a bit of what they found out about brand loyalty.

Top-line: Roughly one in four (26%) of those surveyed said they stopped using or shopping with a business in the past year.

• Bad experiences with products, services, or customer support “were the overwhelming reasons why,” according to PwC.
• Despite robots increasingly taking over, PwC also found that at least one-third of respondents—depending on the type of business—said human interactions are important to their loyalty.
• But don’t sleep on digital. “More than half of respondents said they’re less likely to be loyal to a brand if its online shopping experience isn’t as easy or enjoyable as shopping in person,” the report said.

Gen Z ain’t loyal: Gen Z and millennials are “generally more mobile” than Gen X and baby boomers when it comes to loyalty, as PwC puts it, but those younger generations spread the word when they do like something.

• 62% of Gen Zers, for instance, said they show loyalty by recommending a brand to friends and family, while 55% of millennials said the same.
• That’s compared to 52% of all generations, 53% of Gen X, and 45% of baby boomers.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Small businesses are seeing organic success on TikTok
• How Panera incorporated sound into its brand refresh
• When an influencer couple breaks up, what happens to their brand deals?