In short
Podcast Episode Summary: Marketing School - Episode #2815
Episode Overview In this episode of Marketing School titled "Is YouTube the best for the next decade? The insufferableness of LinkedIn, Is Reddit the next big opportunity for paid media? If your marketing is a perfect 10, you did something wrong, and Perplexity plans to start running ads in Q4 at a $50 CPM", hosts Neil Patel and Eric Siu discuss various trends and insights in digital marketing, focusing on platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, and Reddit, and reflect on marketing practices.
Key Topics Discussed
- YouTube's Potential for the Next Decade
- Current Status: As of now, YouTube has emerged as the first streaming platform to break 10% of total TV viewing, surpassing Netflix and others.
- Celebrity Engagement: Notable figures like Tom Brady and Ronaldo are leveraging YouTube channels to connect with audiences.
- Debate on Platforms:
- Neil argues that Instagram may be the better platform due to its social commerce potential.
- Eric contends that YouTube remains a strong contender for the next decade, particularly in advertising revenue.
- The Insufferableness of LinkedIn
- Post Analysis: An example of a LinkedIn post attempting to link Olympic performance to B2B sales was criticized for being superficial and insufferable.
- Engagement Farming: The hosts discussed how certain posts are created just for engagement and lack genuine value, particularly when leveraging significant events like the Olympics.
- Reddit as a Potential Opportunity for Paid Media
- Growth of Reddit Ads: Reddit's ad business has shown a growth of 41% in the last quarter, with 91.2 million daily active users.
- Challenges: Despite the growth, Reddit struggles with reaching a broad audience compared to giants like Facebook and Instagram.
- The Fallacy of Perfect Marketing
- Perfection vs. Iteration: The hosts emphasize that striving for a "perfect 10" in marketing is unrealistic. Instead, marketers should focus on iterative improvements.
- Law of Diminishing Returns: Eric mentions Andrew Chen's "law of shitty click-throughs," indicating that strategies need to evolve as what works can become less effective over time.
- Perplexity's Upcoming Advertising Plans
- High CPM Rates: Perplexity plans to start running ads at a $50 CPM, which is considered high and may hinder its success due to insufficient traffic levels.
- Concerns about Traffic: The hosts express skepticism about whether Perplexity can sustain its ad plans given its current traffic metrics.
Key Takeaways
- YouTube vs. Instagram: Both platforms have unique advantages; the choice may depend on specific marketing goals and audience engagement strategies.
- Avoiding Engagement Farming: Quality content is crucial on platforms like LinkedIn, where the authenticity of posts can significantly impact brand perception.
- Reddit as a Niche Opportunity: While it shows promise, Reddit advertising may not be suitable for all businesses due to its audience dynamics.
- Iterative Marketing: Continuous improvement and adaptation are more effective than aiming for perfection in marketing campaigns.
- Market Dynamics: New platforms like Perplexity must address scalability challenges to effectively monetize their user base.
Conclusion This episode provides insightful discussions on the evolution and effectiveness of various digital marketing platforms, emphasizing the importance of strategic thinking and adaptability in marketing approaches. The hosts encourage listeners to engage with the content and consider their marketing strategies' ongoing improvement rather than seeking perfection.
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Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00The question is, is YouTube the bet for the next decade? So I have this screenshot over here from Colin and Samir. And basically, here's what it shows. So YouTube becomes first streaming platform to break 10 % of total TV viewing, right? So you see Netflix. So YouTube's at 10.4%. Netflix is at 8.4%. Amazon Prime Video is 3.4%, 2.7 % Hulu. And so, look, Tom Brady's got a YouTube channel. Ronaldo started a YouTube channel. First day, 20 million subs, right? Oh, Neil's not happy. What are you going to say? Dude, they all have social media channels for Instagram to TikTok. There's not much of a difference.
0:36But the signal says that they see the importance of it. So I think it's the best bet for the next decade with what we have in front of us. I don't think it's the best bet for the next decade. I think it's the best. When I say the best bet, I mean the best bet for social media for the next decade. That's what I think. YouTube hasn't cracked social shopping. I would say Instagram and TikTok are better for a lot of these celebrities because it's social commerce. If you had to bet on one social platform for the next decade, what would it be? Instagram. Okay, I bet on YouTube. So in 10 years, when you're 49, you'll be 49, right?
1:08I'll be 48. Okay. Whoever loses owes what? I don't know. You pick. Okay. Taco Bell. You have to eat Taco Bell. Sure. Okay, great. Instagram is newer than YouTube. Instagram is bigger than YouTube in ad revenue, from my understanding. Is it? Yes. Last time I checked. Brad, what do you think? YouTube for sure that's right YouTube could crush Spotify social media Brad's my tiebreaker okay YouTube ad revenue YouTube's advertising for the first quarter was 8.1 billion they're bigger than Netflix but I think you're right I think IG might be bigger it is bigger 11 once the model stopped posting all the thirst traps then the reach will go down the first half of 2022 In 2022, Instagram did$16.5 billion.
2:04That's 2022, so it's much larger than that. What a good acquisition. What a good acquisition. All right, guys. So anyway, do you want to say something else? You look like you want to say something. No, but assuming Instagram is bigger, it's newer, and with social commerce, Instagram is going to explode. They're going to take a chunk out of Amazon and all these other places. Thanks for subscribing to us on YouTube, guys. There's another thing I wanted to pull up around just the insufferableness of LinkedIn, right? And so we can pull up this post over here from Trung, Trung Pham. So just search for Quincy Hall on LinkedIn.
2:38This is during the Olympics. And man, it hasn't even been an hour since he won the race. So this person posted this. It says, during the men's 400-meter Olympic race, Quincy Hall was in fourth place with 30 meters left, and he still won gold. How? Clearly it was his mindset. The same mindset you need to close deals in B2B SaaS sales. Right. It's just this type of stuff, guys. Not all reach is worth it. And sometimes you just not say these things. I'm confused. What did they say that made him made people piss off on that one? That was just insufferable. Like you're using the Olympics to try to get reach and you're trying to tie the Olympics to B2B SaaS sales.
3:14I agree. It's a nonsense post. Yeah. Has nothing to do with mindset on why you're going to do better in B2B sales. And I'm just saying like, okay, when it's clear that you're trying to engagement farm for both of these posts have a little more judgment you know what i mean because it makes you look bad it the the worst is like when people are passing away like oh my god you know and then people end up saying like you know here's the best thing steve jobs ever did or whatever it's like dude just you're taking manager you're just you're clout chasing that that's kind of what it is yeah yeah but i do believe like if someone passed away and you worked with them for a long time and you learned something you'd be like, look, these are the memories I have.
3:54This is the best last time I'll miss you. Yeah, if you have some good stories to tell, then go for it. Exactly. But I agree with you, especially with the dude who got cheated on by his boss or CEO or whatever it's called. It sucks for him. I hope that never happens to anyone. It doesn't matter how bad a relationship is. It's toxic is people should have just split and just bounced. You know what I mean? Okay, here, here, here. So check this out. He even put it on Substack too. Oh my God, it's a collaboration on Substack. Okay, check this out. So the CEO of a startup I work for seduced my wife in direct retaliation for my pushback into office, directly leading to my divorce.
4:34And it's because of vice president of Amazon. Dude, okay, that's too far. And when I say that is whether he cheated or not, right? I don't have any proof of it. I don't know this story. But to say that someone's up with your wife because they didn't like what you had to say at work, that's really a far stretch this wasn't worth it because his five learnings were when you have a good manager lean in and take advantage of it to spot the snakes three do excellent work even for nasty leaders four don't confront the snakes directly five don't become a snake was not worth it man sorry no it also makes him look really bad he's making a judgment call and saying you cheated because of x y and z reason the reach is not worth it and the real reality is is unless she says why she cheated and why the boss did it.
5:21You don't really know. He's just making an assumption. Yep. Yep. And then someone responds here, Alex Cohen. It sounds like someone familiar, famous. So he responds in a tweet and he's like, there's no amount of money you can pay me to admit this on the internet, let alone write a thread about lessons learned. So anyway, we'll leave that at what it is. Is Reddit the next big paid media opportunity? So it says here, Reddit's ad business grew 41 % last quarter. Marketers still want it to do more. So it's growing in a big way, right? It's hosting about 91.2 million daily active users, right? I read Reddit a lot.
5:53I love it. It's ad revenue in the second quarter totaled$253 million. A minuscule sum compared with the$38 billion in ad sales at Facebook. But I am seeing companies like Klaviyo or Klaviyo, their advertising, and the ad units look pretty interesting. I actually clicked on one of the ads. So I think it's an untapped opportunity, potentially. Potentially. Not for everyone, but potentially. Reddit doesn't have enough eyeballs. I know that number seems big to most people. But you have to remember when you're marketing, you're marketing within a specific vertical or niche. So it's a subsection of that.
6:28And then a subsection of those people see the ads. A subsection of those people will then click on it. So it's really hard to get the volume. And totally, yes, for Reddit, it adds up to a pretty chunk of change. But Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, from everything we've tested, it's easier to convince their users to buy than it is to convince Redditors to buy something. Yeah, I mean, the second part is headline here. Marketers still want it to do more. Really what we're talking about here is reach. They need a lot more reach. But look, I think if you've got a smaller business, it might work out for you.
7:03Meta, X, Pinterest, Snap, a lot of these places are cheap sources for advertising that a lot of marketers tend to ignore that you shouldn't when you're starting off. You know, on the agency owners association call today, we had a guy on the call, Brennan. He was just showing how they run conversation ads and they're actually fairly cheap. Basically, the leads are becoming a really good... Oh, Neil's falling asleep. Sorry, guys. So you pay a couple hundred dollars for a qualified lead. That's actually pretty good. And the offer... What industry? It's an agency offering to travel companies. so agency that is marketing $100 or a couple hundred dollars that's expensive for a lead the ROI for the first year ends up being like a LTV to CAC ratio is like a 10 to 1 for the year so it's pretty good so it's profitable, highly profitable and then the offer is basically a gift card $105 Amazon gift card to get on a call I was like why is the$5 dollars make a difference.
8:10He's like, with psychology, Eric, you should know. I'm like, okay, all right. I don't think there's much difference from$100 and$100. He paid a coach to do it or whatever. I just thought that was interesting. There's so many different ways to skin it and you guys don't have to do every marketing channel that we talk about. Neil and I don't do everything. We just kind of try to double down on what works. I'm not going to try that out. It probably does work well for him or her and they can make a ton of money. You can try the four-day work week. Let me know how that goes. No, no, no, no. We should rock, paper, scissors and whoever loses this has to do a four-day work week.
8:41How about we just have Brad here try the four-day work week? Oh yeah, Brad, you want to try that? All right, Brad's good at it. During the Olympics, I know the Olympics are over now, we were seeing so many people who are trying to create the perfect marketing campaign and perfect ads. They wanted like a perfect 10. Adweek even had an article around this and we were getting hit up by so many corporations before Olympics being like, yeah, we want the most amazing, perfect ad out there. And I would always tell people, there's no such thing as a perfect ad and they're like why well what works now won't keep working you can't just keep using the same thing i have a friend andrew chen who likes to talk about the law of shitty click-throughs so eventually everything goes down yes and you need to look at marketing not as how do you create something that's perfect but more so how do you create something that's iterative and continually gets better and improves yeah never try to optimize for perfect because perfect is in the eye of the beholder right some people are like this is perfect from a branding perspective, but then I would look at it and say, what's my ROI?
9:42Because I'm very numbers oriented. And you need to think of things as iterative when it comes to marketing. How can you make something work, but continually get better? Because if you strive to make something perfect, you'll waste too much time. You won't execute fast enough. And you'll find that you'll spend way more money than you need to. The Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend is where systems get stress tested. Traffic surges, inventory moves fast, and every second counts, you need a platform built for the moment. That's Shopify, the commerce platform behind millions of businesses and 10 % of all US e-commerce.
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10:47Sign up for your free trial today at shopify.com slash marketing school. That's shopify.com slash marketing school. Go to shopify.com slash marketing school and make this Black Friday one to remember. If you don't have an experimental mindset when it comes to marketing, what happens is you end up with all this gut feeling. And what happens is you're not tracking your metrics. You're kind of spraying and praying when it comes to your ideas. And what happens is you get subpar results. And if you don't fix that, that will happen for the rest of your career. So you have to fix that. And a lot of people don't fix it.
11:21They might fix it for a little bit, and then they disappear, and then everything falls apart again. By the way, I have one more over here. Gary Tan tweeted this. So did you know that perplexity is coming in? They're going to charge CPM prices of$50. They're going to start running ads in Q4. So Gary says perplexity users are pretty leading edge, so high CPM wouldn't surprise me. Also, I wonder if there's a new kind of ad unit, one that takes advantage of the LLMs being able to read and write and know more about the user's intention. A much deeper level of targeting is now possible. Are we going to go hard on this initially?
11:54No. Are we going to test a little bit? Probably. But it's exciting. I saw this article. I saw this information be reported by all the stock channels. CNBC. Yeah, CNBC, Bloomberg. They're all talking about it. And there's one big problem with it. $50 CPMs are really, really expensive. I don't think it's going to do well for perplexity. The first thing I did is I went to SimilarWeb and checked out their traffic. Of course you did. What's their traffic? I could be wrong. I looked up similar web for perplexity as well as open AI and cloud. Cloud? Cloud, whatever you pronounce it. Perplexity, similar web.
12:36All right. Let's pull this up. It was less than 100 the last time I checked. There you go. Yep. 51 million visits. Average page use. 51.3. How much has it been compounding by? By 4.66. Their growth rate? Yeah. uh where's the traffic 47 to 51 before that was uh 48 so they had one down month yeah but if you look at the amount of visitors it's not enough it's not enough to build a business yeah one two three, one, two, three. So that's 239. So let's just round to 240. Three, one, two, three, divided by a thousand. So 240 ,000. If they actually fill up all their inventory, they'll make$12 million a month.
13:29144 ,000 a year. Their traffic needs to scale. The problem is it really relies on search engines too. Google can crush them the next day. That's my opinion. Using retrieval augmented generation, they're pulling from search engines, right? Yeah. So that's it. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. Go to marketingschool.io slash agency to join the agency accelerator. Agency owners association. All right. Talk to you later. Bye.
