Indexsy - 😬 Meta’s Massive Fine

GM nerds,
Welcome back to the newsletter that reminds you that for every "it’s so over" there’s a "we’re so back"

Here’s what’s good this week in digital marketing:
→ 2023 CMO Spending Trends 💸
→ Meta’s Massive Fine 😬
→ Lining Up GA4 Gains 📈
→ Optimizing Your Funnel 🔻
→ more, obviously 😤
But first...

Join us for this episode of our podcast as we explore the tactics and strategies of podcast growth and revenue generation with Robert Leonard from We Study Markets. He discusses his main source of income, the role of sponsorships, and his approach to niche sites. We get a glimpse into his take on faceless YouTube content, the potential of podcast websites, and growth tactics. Don’t miss out on intriguing conversations around meeting Warren Buffet, his current asset split, and the eternal debate – real estate vs. niche sites.

This piece on how CMOs are dealing with a volatile 2023. So far this year, marketing budgets represent just 9.1% of company revenue, shifting from 9.5% in 2022. The article presents some good data from Gartner polling and is an interesting update. Here’s what stuck out about CMO behavior:

→ 75% are under pressure to "do more with less" in order to reach profitable growth
→ 86% are making "significant changes"
→ 26% pulling back on search advertising investment
→ but, sure enough, 53% are increasing ad spend on social media

Scan the article for more data and commentary about the Gartner 2023 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey report.

Early details include: synced IG followers, 500 character limit, video up to 5 minutes, and more.

→ But it’s not all sunshine and lollipops for Meta, which was just hit with a massive €1.2B fine for transferring EU data to the USA. They plan to appeal. Pray for Zuck.

→ Worth considering what might changes we might see w/ Twitter Blue under a new CEO, after failing to become the major income stream Elon needed it to be… (so far).

→ TikTok is still claiming to be confident in its plans to persevere in the USA, but Oracle may not be fully on board… TLDR; Oracle hasn’t agreed to anything re: monitoring the app, and TikTok remains wishy-washy on vital questions about its plan to secure the app.

→ Maybe it’s just because there are bigger fish to fry at TikTok, but it looks like marketers will have to keep waiting for search advertising, indefinitely.

→ LinkedIn is launching anti-scam and verification features.

→ Analytics 4’s time has come and with it? A bunch of new things to figure out. This Step-By-Step Guide To Creating Segments And Audiences explains innovations in audience building and creation, which have advanced significantly since UA. The piece also looks into GA4's shift in measuring screen views. Hammering in the distinction between segments and audiences, the article uses examples to show how to create segments and what you need to know about segment builder, unpacking a bunch of new key terms you'll need to familiarize yourself with.

Vahan Petrosyan puts it this way:

"Audience-based conversions are vital KPIs for publishers to know whether they are attracting an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) audience, or just random visitors. In Universal Analytics, this wasn’t available – but with GA4, it is."
→ But it’s not just SEOs who need to prep for GA4… it’s also our clients. This Moz piece explains how to make sure this process goes smoothly.

→ How about What’s Grim at Google? What seemed to be a subtle shift is having major impact on SEOs: