Google is playing matchmaker.

In October, the company debuted a tool it says can help advertisers and publishers reach their overlapping audiences using first-party data.

Called Google PAIR—or, the Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation ()—it’s a “new solution” that can help advertisers target and monetize audiences that are spit out of a clean room, a buzzword that can mean several things but is generally understood to be a privacy-focused way in which two entities can combine data and find similarities.

Who cares? PAIR is just one solution among many that Google is pitching to advertisers and publishers as it tries to *checks notes* rewrite the telemetry of the internet and the infrastructure behind digital advertising. No big deal, right? More seriously, if Topics is a solution to mine and find new customers and lookalike audiences, PAIR is more about reaching and retargeting known customers, Dan Taylor, Google’s VP of ads, explained. (Earlier this year, some publishers told us they weren’t exactly in love with Topics, with some saying that it did little more than tell them what they already knew about their audiences.)

Here’s how it’ll work: A fictional tennis-shoe company with 5,000 customers who’ve opted into receiving emails can work with a publisher who also has an email list (either from paying subscribers or readers of a publisher’s newsletter, for example), throw those lists into a clean room, then target a common audience using Google’s Display and Video 360.

Like many post-cookie solutions, including clean rooms, buyers told us that PAIR may have a scale problem. Read the full story here.—RB

Google and iHeartMedia have settled with the FTC and seven states over allegations they were stingy with influencers.

On Monday, the commission said it believes the two companies paid influencers (in this case, on-air radio talent) to promote Google’s Pixel 4 smartphone in testimonials without ever actually providing them with the phone in the first place.

“Google and iHeartMedia paid influencers to promote products they never used, showing a blatant disrespect for truth-in-advertising rules,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in an announcement.

According to the complaint, Google spent approximately $4.6 million with iHeartMedia and 11 other radio networks to “have on-air personalities record and broadcast endorsements of the Pixel 4” between 2019 and 2020, resulting in “29,000 deceptive endorsements by radio personalities” that ran across the US; Google provided them with scripts that included the following cringey reads:

• “It’s my favorite phone camera out there, especially in low light, thanks to Night Sight.”
• “I’ve been taking studio-like photos of everything…my son’s football game… a meteor shower…a rare spotted owl that landed in my backyard. Pics or it didn’t happen, am I right?”

Ultimately, those were “misleading endorsements,” according to the FTC.

As part of the settlement, Google and iHeartMedia have agreed to pay a total of $9.4 million to Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Massachusetts, which sued the companies with the FTC.

“We are pleased to resolve this issue. We take compliance with advertising laws seriously and have processes in place designed to help ensure we follow relevant regulations and industry standards,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda wrote to Marketing Brew over email; iHeartMedia declined to comment.

Zoom out: Testimonials are a tried-and-true advertising strategy. They’re basically unavoidable in podcast ads, for example. The FTC is making it clear that it expects companies to follow truth-in-advertising rules. However, Google and iHeartMedia are bigger fish than your average DTC brand.—RB

Each Tuesday, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Jenny Frank is co-founder and partner at Daffodil Digital, a social media marketing agency.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I would say that we help brands show up in a more strategic way online, specifically on their social media channels. We help them create and manage a social media presence that maps back to their overall company goals.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Hard to pick just one! Probably when we worked with a new beauty brand based in Hawaii. They were a husband-and-wife team and were such fun clients. We helped them launch their social media presence from scratch. We did a social media strategy, tons of beautiful content creation, and a bit of influencer partnership support over the course of a year and a half. We also helped the female founder create her personal brand online and did a workshop and social media training. Their products are amazing, it was a really fun project. Another incredibly memorable project earlier in my career was the time I went to the Oscars and ran an influencer program for the Dolby Theatre!

What’s your favorite ad campaign? Etsy’s “Gift Like You Mean It” holiday campaign did an incredible job showcasing how one-of-a-kind gifts can deeply impact so many people. They tapped into emotions and hit on a number of important, timely topics, including the pandemic, diversity, and inclusion.

What’s one marketing-related podcast, social account, or series you’d recommend? I love reading Later’s blog. I am always so impressed with how quickly they cover trending topics and social platform updates. In such a fast-paced industry, it can be hard to keep up. Their blog is my go-to for IG news and all kinds of tips, tricks, and hacks.

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

: Get familiar with LinkedIn’s new native post scheduling tool, which will soon extend to Groups and Company Pages.

: Check out the state of search engine optimization and the key metrics for success in this handy infographic.

: And speaking of search engines, Google rounded up 100 gift ideas based on search queries from the year.

Big flex: Economic uncertainty makes staff planning a whole new ball game. Luckily, WorkReduce provides flex talent + managed services to the biggest names in the ad industry. Go from flex to perm whenever necessary. Start hiring.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

As Amazon shifted from bookselling to e-commerce, it introduced a retro campaign featuring a sweater-clad male chorus that sang of the virtues of the retailer’s online catalog. Which agency was responsible for the series of late-’90s/early-aughts ads?

1. Wieden+Kennedy
2. BBDO
3. TBWA\Chiat\Day
4. FCB Worldwide

Keep scrolling for the answer.

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

• Why a DTC wine company started a branded podcast
• Advertisers are asking questions about the data TikTok can collect
• How recommerce is taking on the holiday gift market