Meta
- This assumes the client already has a Meta Business Manager setup and they can access it (this can be a big assumption). If one doesn’t exist we’ll help create one for/with them.
- We believe that these accounts belong to the client and if they choose to move away from us as an agency, they should easily be able to take the accounts with them. We are working on their behalf, they aren’t renting their advertising from us.
- We set it up so the clients are billed direct by Meta, we don’t charge passthrough markups or CPC fees (see above point).
- Facebook Page
- Instagram account
- Ad Account
- Pixel / Dataset
- Offline limited time promos have the added constraint of physical presence / travel. There may be 3 days left on a sale, but can you get back to this store in the next 3 days? Our brains might even process the sale as being positive ROI on our time investment that got us into that store (unsubstantiated hypothesis).
- Snaps and Stories may have altered the timeline of the internet to 24 hours. Anything longer than one solar day is no longer urgent.
- The internet is an infinite shelf of content, decisions are made in terms of “should I do this now?” 72 hours left in a sale means it doesn’t need to be shopped RIGHT NOW, and is then likely to be forgotten before the expiration date.
- Grounding the promo in something outside the feed or brand’s business goals can stand out as a hook. “25% for 24 hours” doesn’t have a hook (discounts and promos are ubiquitous now, they aren’t hooks in and of themselves). “25% off on your birthday” might trigger “I should treat myself.' “Spring Sale - 25% off” might trigger “I could use some pieces to freshen things up.”
How To Connect To Your Clients' Meta Account
One of the most annoying things we have to deal with on a (fairly) regular basis with Blue Ion clients is getting access to various Meta properties and tools so we can manage their advertising.
This isn’t because of the clients, it’s because of Meta. It’s pretty much always a headache and 3x more clicks than you would think necessary.
Before I outline the process we’ve landed on lately (for now?), a few ground rules we play by:
Now, on to the access!
We’ve found the easiest method is having the client add us to their Business Manager as a partner (official documentation here).
We grab our business ID from the main business settings URL for our agency Business Manager. This is the most reliable way I’ve found to get it in an easy copy-paste format.
We then share that with the client along with the documentation link.
They then access their Business Manager settings, navigate to Partners in the left menu, click the blue “Add” button, and “Give a partner access to your assets.”
The assets that need to be shared may change on a case-by-case basis, but we ask for:
The ideal is to get manage access for all assets, but we just request the highest level they’re comfortable granting us.
Then we wait for them to appear in our Partners list and assign out asset access as needed.
Voilà! Happy advertising!
& stay curious
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From episode three of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs:
Once you give a collection of things a name—the way people’s minds work—they start thinking because those things share a name, they’re the same kind of thing.
Names and genres and labels matter.
The human brain is designed to pattern match and categorize and bucket and metaphor to save on processing power.
(Neural networks are designed to do this for AI models via weights.)
In grocery aisles, “water company” usually means plastic bottles—it’s what shoppers expect. Liquid Death smashes that expectation, so it stands out.
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Ambient computing is coming
Apple has explored the idea of developing new wearable devices — including a fitness ring, smart glasses and even AirPods with cameras — to broaden one of its most important business areas.
This is a mix of Apple targeting products from other brands (Oura, Meta Ray-Bans, Snap Spectacles, etc) and building the product ladder that leads to the Vision Pro as the eventual replacement for the Mac line.
via Bloomberg
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In The Abstract: Effectives of Limited Time Promos in Online Retail
The paper Examining the Efficacy of Time Scarcity Marketing Promotions in Online Retail from the Journal of Marketing Research has some great research (as covered on the Nudge Podcast).
Even the abstract is informative, if a bit unwieldy in that classically academic way:
Time scarcity promotions (e.g., “40% off for a limited time”) are mainstays of online retail marketing. Although positive effects of time scarcity promotions on consumer interest have been evidenced in the brick-and-mortar world, should retailers expect similarly robust effects online? The present research suggests the answer may be no. First, the authors report meta-analytic and experimental results suggesting that previously identified positive effects of time scarcity promotions observed offline may not emerge in online shopping contexts. Then, consistent with the prediction that online time scarcity promotions activate more persuasion knowledge than identical control promotions, the authors detail findings suggesting that providing retailer-exogeneous justifications for online time scarcity promotions’ time restriction (e.g., consumers’ birthdays, seasonal changes) can increase the potential of observing positive effects on consumer interest online. Further, results suggest that the positive effects of including exogenous time justification may be more likely when less time remains until the online promotion’s expiration. However, results stop short of suggesting that online time scarcity promotions will consistently yield superior outcomes compared with identical online control promotions. Therefore, the authors highlight the continued need for careful managerial use as well as further research examining the optimal translation of offline tactics to online retail.
I will now try to translate this into actual human speak, line by line…
Limited time promos / flash sales are popular with ecommerce.
These types of offers have proven success in brick-and-mortar / offline retail, but does that transfer online?
Spoiler alert: probably not.
This is based on a review of pervious research.
Providing a reason for the promo’s limited run can boost the offer’s performance online (e.g., holidays, celebrations, seasons, etc).
This can be boosted further by shortening the offer’s time frame (e.g. 24 hours only).
But these steps won’t make them super promos when compared to other offer types you might run.
We recommend you use these carefully. And more research is needed on the performance of offline tactics for ecomm.
A few guesses as to why flash sales and limited time promos aren’t as effective online:
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Companies have moved focus from growth to revenue since Fed rates rose above 0. Especially those that care about their market cap & stock price.
An easy way to do this is to pass a previously internalized cost to customers. If you can pass the blame, even better.
Thus: Meta is passing on the Apple tax for boosted posts to advertisers
The change stems from a 2022 App Store update where Apple extended its typical 30 percent cut of digital purchases to boosted posts.
You can add prepaid funds to your account via a web browser to get around the App Store tax when boosting in-app.
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