🗞️ Links & Thinks from 2023.02.15
AI Isn't Magic
One of the primary near-term dangers of large language models like ChatGPT is the combination of questionable accuracy delivered with supreme confidence and the public that receives the answers. BingGPT hasnt even fully launched yet and it is already illustrating this point.
Users are calling it 'unhinged.' Some answers are served with a heaping helping of existential crisis. And some are just wrong, like the answers shown in the grand unveiling demo (same issue Google had).
But can any of this really be a surprise from an algorithm trained on a wealth of internet writing?
Like Reddit, which has created the fun easter egg where prompts containing certain usernames return off-the-wall answers.
So remember:
GPT and other AI chatbots are essentially lossy compression mechanisms for the web. They read the entire web and compress it on demand into a few paragraphs. Like Cliffs Notes, one of the problems of this convenience is that it can’t be uncompressed. The nuance disappears and is difficult to reconstruct.
How Superb Is That Owl?
Digiday posted a fun piece translating the cost of a Super Bowl commercial into metrics from other platforms. So, what does that $7M you spent on a 30-second ad get you elsewhere?
- On Netflix? 127 million impressions
- On Instagram Reels? 2.3 billion impressions
- On TikTok? 1.6 billion impressions
- On YouTube? 2.2 billion impressions
- In newsletters? 280 million impressions
- In print? 56 full-page ads
- On Twitter? Placement below whatever Elon recently tweeted‡
Sometimes it pays to shop around.
Stand Out
But we can learn from the brands that did shell out the big bucks. Growth Daily broke down the 3 winners (according to Twitter). The takeaways:
- Be relatable (and ASAP when it comes to video)
- Break the pattern
- Plant a seed
And here are some non-big game related ideas:
- Be weird (in a way that makes people want to talk about it)
- Show instant gratification in your copy (do the Disney)
- Break the pattern! (Zig when others zag, be a unicorn in a field of ponies, show off your purple cow (if you aren’t picking up what I’m putting down at this point, just keep on with the status quo))
Google Analytics 4 Data Quality
Google continues to ready GA4 for launch, except they already launched it and will kill the previous version on July 1. The new additions are about data quality.
Data quality information will now be provided at the card level (the individual graphs, tables, data section, etc) instead of at the account level. Cards impacted by a limiting rule will show impacted data in an (other) row. Interestingly:
All properties now have a one-click option to create the same report in Explore. The "(other)" row never appears in Explore because it uses raw, event-level data.
I now default to the Explore tab if I have a specific question to answer as I find it easier to navigate than Reports.
Guess Who’s Back, Back Again
So much for disinflation. Inflation is back.
It rose 0.5% in January. 0.2% if you exclude food, energy, and shelter. But I’m waiting for February’s report to see where the trend is.
Just The Headlines
19 Lead Generation Tactics for Marketing Agencies [Infographic]
‡Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first (This is all the proof we need that Elon bought Twitter because it's his favorite game and he wanted more control / to make it more fun to play.)