Is Google search shrinking?

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are peak cyber:

↗️ META: $9.61 CPM | ↗️ TIKTOK: $5.11 CPM | ↗️ SNAPCHAT: $9.91 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 🔎 What are people searching for on Google? Spoiler alert: less

• How Meta ranks auction bids 💸

• 📺 Pro Tips: How to buy CTV on Amazon DSP

But first…

🧵 Threads is changing its algorithm. Is that a big deal?

Nothing says “panic” like a major platform announcing a foundational shift in the way its recommendations algorithm works—and that’s exactly what we got this week from Instagram/Threads honcho Adam Mosseri. 

According to Mosseri, the Threads algorithm will be rebalanced “to prioritize content from people you follow, which will mean less recommended content from accounts you don’t follow and more posts from the accounts you do.” 

Why would they do that? One word: Bluesky. In just a matter of weeks, Bluesky’s UX—think old-school Twitter, with better user protections against unwanted harassment—has taken the social sphere by storm. And that’s because it does a few things that Threads currently doesn’t: first and foremost, it allows users to pick their own algorithm, defaulting to a real-time feed of posts by accounts you follow. Clearly, Meta is seeing data that shows Bluesky is a real threat. And that left us with two Big Picture thoughts.

• Threads has far more users than Bluesky (like, by an order of magnitude). But the Boston Globe, the Guardian, the New York Times, and other media outlets report seeing as much as three times as much traffic generated to their sites from Bluesky. (The Globe is also reporting a 4x lift in subscription conversions compared to Threads—which means not just more traffic but incremental revenue.) In part, that’s a factor of Bluesky showing news posts to its followers. But it’s also something even bigger: a decision by Bluesky not to suppress content that links off the platform. Nearly every other social platform suppresses links in order to keep users captive in their own apps.  

• And that leads to our other big takeaway: Bluesky is prioritizing user experience over engagement. We detect just a smidge of passive-aggression in Mosseri’s note. Because while users may say they want more content from their friends and accounts they follow, the data shows that users engage at higher rates with AI-recommended content from outside their networks. Whether Bluesky can compete with Threads in the long-term remains to be seen. But Meta’s decision to show more “posts by people you follow” is more than just a tactical adjustment: it’s a philosophical shift acknowledging that, at least on some platforms, the AI recommendations may have gone too far. Bluesky is leading Threads to give the people what they want, as opposed to just what makes them endlessly scroll. 

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

🔎 Organic search is shrinking. That’s the key takeaway from a new study that looked at more than 332 million Google search queries and came to some eye-opening conclusions: 

• Just 148 keywords account for 15% of all Google searches. The winners are dominated by brand searches. For instance, of these 148 keywords, some of the most-searched included “YouTube,” “Gmail,” “Amazon,” “Facebook,” and “ChatGPT.”

• Zoom out a stage, and things don’t get much better: Just a few thousand queries make up 25% of all Google searches, while the so-called “long tail”—defined as terms that get less than 11 searches per month—account for less than 4% of all search volume.  

• The takeaway, per the study’s author: “Monopolies are winning. Big brands and topics are winning. People are gravitating to a smaller number of less diverse destinations and ideas.”  

Now, some common sense: Google Search has long been a winner-take-all proposition, as SEO and SEM experts know all too well. Still, a trend towards fewer winners means that smart brands will keep their options open. New customers aren’t necessarily less curious—but they are investigating in other ways and on other platforms, from YouTube to podcasts to LinkedIn to (say it with us) ChatGPT. 

🤖 Ever since Performance Max (PMax) was introduced, we’ve been suspicious that it cannibalizes search campaigns beyond what Google claims. Check out this SearchEngineLand deep dive that investigates the overlap issue and how Google actually prioritizes PMax vs. Search for a given search query.

📌 Pinterest Video Ads using direct links will now include an expand button as well as a sound-on button. Pinners can now choose to click to watch video in close-up view or go direct to site with a single click.

📺 Buying CTV through Amazon DSP? If you’re among the agencies with access—like us!—there are some key advantages we’re finding useful:

• “First Access” deals will give auction priority—and lower CPM pricing—for more premium apps like Paramount, Discovery Plus, and Roku Channel.

• By testing multiple campaign versions side-by-side, we’re finding optimization techniques that allow us to bypass limitations on scaling in channels like Prime Video.

• Customizability is key: By digging into inventory options, brands and agencies can weight the delivery of ads towards premium channels and placements.

♾️ Ever wondered what Meta uses to determine competition in the ad auction? The factors are robust. According to one of our reps: “Domain is an identifier in the de-duplication process prior to auction, which ensures that only one ad from the same advertiser enters the auction for a specific impression opportunity. Other identifiers include ad id, campaign id, account id, object id,  app id, page id, and post id.”

Feature Update: Back in May, we told you about Meta rolling out sitelinks for Facebook Feed ads. Be aware: they’re now requiring that we have 4 sitelinks in ads in order to use the feature:

Run CTV Ads on Roku This Q5

Peak shopping season isn’t over yet! Two thirds of consumers plan to shop the week after Christmas, and “Q5” – the period between Christmas and mid-January – has become a significant shopping window.* Roku Ads Manager makes it easy to run self-serve CTV ads and reach shoppers where they’re streaming post-holidays. Get started for as little as $500 and find your next customers on the big screen. (*National Retail Federation, 2023)

Discover CTV performance on Roku

🐘The Elephant In the Room: Our weekly office poll!

New data from Pinterest advises advertisers to expect ad rates to drop during the last week of December — what they’re calling “Binge Week,” a/k/a “Twixmas” a/k/a “Feral Week.” (We’re old enough to remember when everyone was just going with “Q5.”)

Specifically, Pinterest is expecting a -21% reduction in CPMs, +30% increase in oCTR, and -17% reduction in CPCs. In past Januarys, eCPMs have decreased by as much as 40%. This trend will not come as a surprise to anyone who has read our Social Media CPM Study or our real-time CPM-rate tracker, which enable week-by-week predictions based on historic CPM data across Meta, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, and more. But more importantly, while we’re on the subject:

📊 Last edition’s poll results: Which Adam Driver dramatized product review is your favorite? 

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Plush seal 

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Dutch oven 

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Banana slicer

Thanks for reading! We’ll be back next week to fill your inbox with more tips, tricks, and treats from the addressable universe.

In the meantime, stay up to date with the latest performance marketing intelligence by following us on Linkedin, Instagram, and X.