This month, Skift announced an AI chatbot called Ask Skift that readers can ping with questions. Answers come from Skift’s 11-year archive of stories and reports, as well as public financial documents from US travel companies. Within its first 48 hours, the bot received between 3,000 and 4,000 questions, Skift’s founder and CEO, Rafat Ali, told Marketing Brew.

We played around with the bot, which was built on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, asking where we should go on vacation this February. It couldn’t answer. But when we asked who Marriott’s CEO is, it replied with John E. Geller, who’s CEO of the company’s timeshare business, Marriott Vacations Worldwide. Close, but Google provided a more accurate answer (Anthony Capuano). When we asked how much Marriott spends on advertising, it pulled figures from 2020 and 2015.

Like most generative AI, it’s advisable to fact-check. But the travel industry site’s investment in AI chat is a zig when it seems like every other publisher is trying to squeeze generative AI for content.

Marketing Brew spoke with Ali about Ask Skift and the company’s AI ambitions.

Read our conversation here.—RB

Ah, slow-loading web pages—online users’ #1 nemesis. One in 3 website visits leave customers frustrated. And frustrated customers, as you might guess, don’t stick around long.

Get your customers up to speed (and industry standard) with Contentsquare’s 2023 Digital Experience Benchmark Report. With data analyzed from over 161b page views and 2,942 websites across 9 industries, Contentsquare’s report covers the biggest factors impacting ROI in 2023.

You’ll learn which KPIs drive the most growth, how frustration factors affect conversion, and how to take advantage of prime online real estate. As if that’s not enough, you’ll also delve into data-driven insights about:

• the most-visited pages in each industry
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Find out how you stack up to the competition. Download your copy of the report.

Meta seems to be working on an app that looks a lot like Twitter.

Earlier this year, a site called MoneyControl caught wind of the new app, noting that Meta “is hashing out a plan to build a standalone text-based content app.” Last week, more details came out thanks to Lia Haberman, who shared in her newsletter that “Instagram’s new Twitter-like, text app may be here as soon as the end of June.”

New in town: Haberman, a UCLA professor specializing in social media and influencer marketing, published a screenshot of the app’s description in her newsletter, ICYMI. The screenshot states that “certain other apps like Mastodon” will be compatible with the text-based app.

According to Haberman:

• Codenames include P92, Project 92, or Barcelona.
• Meta is “hosting secret meetings with select creators to share details.”
• A creator who’s met with Meta told Haberman that a user’s “handle, bio, and even verification will carry over” from Instagram.

Shiny new toy? There is no monetization plan being shared as of now, per Haberman. Jeffrey Tousey, founder and CEO of advertising agency Beekman Social, told us he assumes that’s temporary.

He said the new app could be a useful one for advertisers given its connection to Instagram. “To me, that sounds like a huge opportunity for advertisers, because it sounds like it’s going to transfer all of your followers. If you’re verified, your verification is going to transfer,” he said. “You’re not going to have to rebuild your community. To me, that seems like a huge win for Meta. Now that it’s happening, I can’t believe they didn’t think to do this sooner.”

Without monetization capabilities, Tousey said brands could still join the app organically once it comes out. “From an organic perspective, jump on board and start experimenting and see how your community on that platform is interacting,” he said.

Read the full story here.—JS

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

Elyse Estrada is global CMO of Aleph, a digital-advertising company that connects “advertisers in emerging countries with the world’s leading digital platforms.” Earlier in her career, she held marketing positions at companies including H&M and Foursquare.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? When I worked at H&M, we partnered with David Beckham to create a line of men’s underwear and furnishings. The team in Sweden made a campaign video shot in black and white; it was David Beckham in boxer briefs. My response: This needs a global audience! I wanted to go big; Super Bowl. We knew the cost was high, so to track how well it did, we put a hashtag in the commercial—in the 80-year history of the brand, there was never anything more than the logo in a commercial, so this was a big deal.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? I’m super passionate about people and the people that I’ve developed throughout my career. I really spend a lot of time developing talent, getting to know them, having relationships, and then figuring out how later in life, our careers, we can all come back together.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? Google’s Year in Search at the end of each year makes me cry every single time.

What’s one marketing-related podcast, social account, or series you’d recommend? How I Built This is one of my favorite podcasts because of the real insights and honest stories about the entrepreneurial experience and the passion that founders have when building something. Anything that gives listeners an inside glance and willingly acknowledges that it’s not all rainbows and smiles is fascinating and inspiring to me.

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

Short-form success: This guide to TikTok marketing includes a list of nearly 30 brands that have gained traction on the app.

Around the clock: LinkedIn defines “always-on marketing” and provides five examples for B2B marketers.

Listen up: Four tips for crafting content that keeps your audience’s attention.

Ready for GA4? Google Analytics 4 will soon replace Google Universal Analytics. Fortunately, Parse.ly’s downloadable toolkit can help your team find their footing in this brand-new system. Get it for free.*

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

• A conversation with Tracy Bussan, SVP of brands in culture for Diageo
• This company uses cameras to track fans’ attention at NFL games
• This week in agencies: Shifts at Mindshare, Mojo Supermarket, and more