Meme September: This Month’s Most Meme-Worthy Digital Marketing News

1. X ranked the worst in climate change misinformation

This month, Climate Action Against Misinformation released a report where the organization compared the content moderation policies of several social media platforms. The independent research team studied Pinterest, TikTok, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter). Turns out, X has no clear policies that combat climate misinformation, lacks public transparency, and allows advertisers to promote climate denialism.

X is also shutting down Circles, by the way.

2. Act-On released an ML-powered lead scoring tool

AI-fueled marketing automation platform Act-On released AI Predictive Lead Score. It’s a tool that uses machine learning to fish out the leads that are most likely to convert to closed sales. This data-driven lead scoring method will allow you to focus on more promising prospects and boost conversion rates.

Meanwhile marketers before AI…

3. Mailchimp launched their own AI assistant

Speaking of AI, in the beginning of September Mailchimp announced the launch of Intuit Assistant, which is a GenAI-powered tool for strategy optimization, generating content, and deep personalization. According to Mailchimp’s CEO Rania Succar, the company is “building AI into the platform, not adding it on”. This implies that Intuit Assistant is not a separate option in the menu — it’s deeply integrated into the product.

4. Litmus introduced two new solutions for email marketing

This month, Litmus presented Email Guardian and Litmus Personalize. 

Email Guardian is a tool for automated email testing — it continuously scans sent emails and email templates for unforeseen changes, and notifies Litmus users about them. 

Litmus Personalize is an update for email personalization that includes countdown timers and progress bars, personalized images, real-time sentiment trackers, and early access to AI-powered copy optimization tools.

5. Pinterest is testing a collage app and ad products targeting Gen Z

Pinterest is launching a new feature inspired by their spin-off app Shuffles. Like the latter, the feature will allow users to make digital collages both out of pictures published on Pinterest and their own photos — but the items on these collages will also be shoppable.

Aside from this feature, the company also presented two ad products, namely branded images to swipe through and quizzes. Keep an eye on the updates if your brand is targeting core aesthetic-obsessed Gen Z audience!

6. Google sued over deceptive location tracking

Google must pay $93 million in settlement for tracking users’ location after they opted out. According to California attorney general Rob Bonta cited by The Guardian, the investigation showed that the platform was misleading customers, making them believe they had more control over their personal data — when, in fact, they didn’t.

7. Fyre festival is back

Remember the biggest dumpster “fyre” of a music festival that didn’t happen in 2017? The Fyre festival co-creator Billy McFarland went back from prison and is preparing another event — the first drop of tickets was sold out in August. This month, the entrepreneur also gave a pretty interesting interview to Marketing Brew about the controversy-based approach to promotion:

8. The former director of product innovation at Netflix announced a social media platform for children

Dr. Carla Engelbrecht, the content producer who spent her career developing kids’ educational and entertainment content for Netflix, PBS Kids, and other brands, introduced Betweened. The short video social media platform similar to TikTok is designed for six to nine-year-old users and, like the “real deal”, will have a discovery feed. 

The main goal of Betweened is introducing children to social media, teaching them to use it safely, and encouraging parents to open discussions about the internet with their kids instead of silencing the issues. Yes, there will be ads since the ad-free model is not sustainable — but they will be curated and clearly labeled as sponsored content.

9. Meta’s Horizon Worlds goes beyond the headset

Meta’s VR-based social media app is rolling out web and mobile versions of the platform for some users in early access. This will make Horizon Worlds more accessible for a much larger user base, not just people who own VR headsets. According to the paywalled report from The WSJ cited by CNBC, Meta failed to achieve the 500,000 usership, barely reaching 200,000 users by 2022.

Well, maybe the problem is not the cross-platform accessibility…

10. Google rolled out Limited Ads Serving

This month, Google changed its policy towards new advertisers. Limited Ads Serving is a probationary period for companies that have never advertised on Google before. During this time, users will have limited ad impressions, and the platform will evaluate user feedback, the new advertisers’ identities, and more. This measure is aimed at combating misleading ads. 

The new policy won’t affect all new users so far — if you’re the lucky one, Google will notify you.