Steel Recaps October’s Top Marketing News of 2024

As a service to our clients and partners, Steel summarizes the top stories in marketing and advertising each month. Please reach out to Kirsten Cutshall for more discussion on this month’s marketing news or with anything that is on your mind. We would love to hear from you!

Video Transcript

I am Kirsten Cutshall with Steel Advertising. It is October 31st, and here’s your top marketing news in under 5 minutes.

First up, Reddit is at the top of many Google Search results. Should marketers be taking note?

Many marketers have been looking for new options for their media mix. Reddit may finally be a real option for more brands.Reddit has benefitted from recent changes to the Google search algorithm with as much as a 40% increase in Reddit’s traffic year over year. Historically, the Reddit community was not friendly to advertisers, but in the last year, the climate has changed as Reddit’s interface has begun to look more like the other social media platforms. And Reddit is winning some advertisers looking to prevent cookie-dependence, as Reddit’s ads are focused on topics not identities.

Most importantly, Reddit has introduced new ad formats and targeting options in the last year. In just the last few month, updates have included:

• Keyword Targeting Improvements
• Lead Generation Ads let you capture leads directly on Reddit
• Integration with Zapier for direct CRM connectivity.
• Suite of AI and automation tools

As Reddit grows and diversifies its ad services, it’s shaping up to be a platform for brands to consider to tap into new channels.

Now, let’s shift gears to Roblox, who is starting to take programmatic advertising more seriously.

Anyone targeting Gen Z and Alpha is hotly anticipating better advertising options on Roblox. Roblox has been dipping its toes into the ad world over the past year, but just now Roblox’s programmatic business is getting some attention.

Hiring activity suggests that the platform is looking to really grow their advertising unit in 2025, and Roblox has recently partnered with its first vendor to offer programmatic video ads on its supply-side platform. The programmatic video ads allow buyers to place ads on virtual billboards in Roblox’s immersive environments. The ads are targeted at players 13 and older. At this time, the offering is global in scope and offers few targeting opportunities. PubMatic is the only ad tech platform with an official relationship with Roblox at the moment, but the partnership is not exclusive, and it is only a matter of time until others take advantage of the opportunity.

We have heard rumors that testing is underway on geographic targeting, but we have seen no official confirmation at this time.

And finally, Meta introduces Teen Accounts.

Meta is running a national ad campaign rolling out measures that restrict what kind of content young people can access, who they can talk to, and how much time they spend on special media. The new measures will begin with an Instagram rollout but will eventually be implemented on Facebook and WhatsApp, too.

The move comes after years of discourse regarding the effect of social media use on young people and may be an attempt to get in front of legislators. The new policies include increased privacy, limiting contact and content, and muting words associated with online bullying.

Brands will need to adapt their strategies and create content that aligns with these stricter guidelines. Think, privacy-first advertising practices, age appropriate content and careful wording ads to ensure not to accidentally include trigger words.

So, what does all this mean for marketers? There are plenty of opportunities to connect with audiences in fresh ways, and it may be time to review your online advertising plan.

I hope this helps make your job less scary. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk about these topics or anything marketing. Happy Halloween!