Meta
- 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.”
- something about retargeting
- Background Generation: Creates multiple backgrounds to complement the advertiser’s product images
- Image Expansion: Seamlessly adjusts creative assets to fit different aspect ratios across multiple surfaces, like Feed or Reels
- Text Variations: Generates multiple versions of ad texts based on advertiser’s original copy
- Will we be able to opt-out?
- Will we be able to approve, or at least nudge, the outputs?
- Business Suite
- Inbox
- Settings
- Chat Plugin
- Customize your Chat Plugin
- Turn off Guest chat
- Trying to inch their way to regulatory approval
- Hoping transparency = user approval (Threads has embraced ActivityPub, maybe more openness is the future)
- Improving AI + increasing privacy makes the secret sauce less secret, so no need to act super sketchy (thought plenty see this as sketchy)
- Some forthcoming platform play
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
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:
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.
Two Anthony De Mello quotes:
A village blacksmith found an apprentice willing to work hard at low pay. The smith immediately began his instructions to the lad: “When I take the metal out of the fire, I’ll lay it on the anvil; and when I nod my head you hit it with the hammer.” The apprentice did precisely what he thought he was told. Next day he was the village blacksmith.
&
Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistake of all-they are attempting nothing new.
Sounds like the digital ad market is doing just fine
Meta’s fourth-quarter ad sales jumped 24% from a year earlier to $38.7 billion, while Amazon’s booming ad unit rose 27% to $14.7 billion. Meanwhile Alphabet, still the market leader, saw its Google ad business rise 11% to $65.5 billion, boosted by 16% growth at YouTube.
via CNBC
New Meta attribution setting: Engaged-view
when someone plays your video ads for a minimum of 10 seconds (or watches 97% of the video length if it’s less than 10 seconds) and converts within a 1 day window.
New LinkedIn pixel feature: Website Actions
empowers B2B marketers using LinkedIn’s Insight Tag to capture and measure website actions without the need for additional tracking codes on their website.
New YouTube analytics: Playlist Analytics
Does what it says on the box
Threads is rising, TikTok is stalling, and Instagram is #1.
I’d venture weathering this latest challenger has Meta feeling nearly invulnerable, which is probably why Zuck feels confident enough to embrace open source for AI and the fediverse for Threads.
Meta has started rolling out its “first generative AI-powered features for ad creatives in Meta’s Ads Manager”
2 big questions for marketers:
I’m hearing the answer to both might be “no”
Re: Apple paying for training data
Meta is in the best position here because of its social graph and user engagement history.
Apple’s privacy stance means no real user data but it has a massive bank account and history of working with rights holders (see: iTunes).
The hardware platform is its killer feature though. It doesn’t need to be the fastest scaling consumer app in history to become relevant, it just needs to ship via software update.
Imagine a day where you wake up, your Apple Watch recognizes you put your AirPods in and starts a personalized podcast via Siri of relevant news, stock updates, weather, and your calendar. Maybe even your recent messages and emails and reminders.
It’s mostly just plumbing and PR at this point.
Meta is aware of a loophole that lets the message spam tsunami through & engineering is working on a fix.
In the meantime, this might help. Navigate to:
As interest targeting slowly goes by the wayside in favor of AI and algorithmically driven targeting, the targeting us marketers have the most control over is the pieces we feed the robots.
That means creative.
Your messaging and visual assets are where your true targeting capabilities lie.
Meta expert Andrew Foxwell says the removal of detailed targeting means no more narrowing interest audiences via AND layering.
I don’t see this spelled out in the Meta post about it, but it would make sense under the “too granular” reasoning.
From Meta:
We’re discontinuing some detailed targeting options because they are either not widely used, redundant with others, too granular, they relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive (e.g., targeting options referencing causes related to health, race or ethnicity), or because of legal or regulatory requirements.
Interest targeting is on its last legs. All hail the robots.
From Exploding Topics:
Immersive dining is part of the Immersive Experiences meta trend.
Searches for “immersive experiences” have grown by 144% over the past 24 months.
Immersive experiences have become more accessible, thanks to technologies like AR, VR, and projection mapping.
Videos about immersive experiences have over 515 million views on TikTok.
The further we get from pandemic-era lockdowns, the more the consumer pendulum swings from goods to experiences.
Rumor has it the TikTok Shop team is 6 people strong.
More X than Meta.
The more I hear about TTS, the less I want any part of it.
Meta’s big new announcement is…browser history?
Facebook recently rolled out a new “Link History” setting that creates a special repository of all the links you click on in the Facebook mobile app.
A few (non-exclusionary) guesses why:
via Gizmodo
I knew Google paid Apple a lot for default search engine status, but seeing it put this way was still crazy:
Google pays Apple Inc. 36% of the revenue it earns from search advertising made through the Safari browser
This is why everyone (Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI) wants a hardware platform. They want to own the access point, because value accrues there.
Defaults are powerful. And the device can set the defaults.
An anecdote via Andrew Foxwell on Today in Digital Marketing(https://todayindigital.com/premium/):
A company is spending $300k / month on Meta ads and it’s all being spent on 2 Advantage+ Shopping campaigns.
Meta (& Google) is an AI platform.
(Still may want to curate your placements)
Instagram is a great illustration of the splintering of social media:
users now “post a lot more to stories, and send a lot more DMs, than they post to Feed”.
main IG feed now becoming more of a discovery platform, in highlighting the best trending, primarily video content, while the social elements shift out of public sight.
original posting has continued to decline. And without that, Meta’s apps lose a significant aspect of their appeal, and their power as connective engagement surfaces.
Meta also gleans major value from interaction, and facilitating participation
Battery tech is one of the developmental fields I’m most interested in, and this news is why:
Swedish battery-maker Northvolt announced proudly on Tuesday that it had developed a new kind of sodium-ion battery that’s just as efficient as batteries that use precious earth metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, but is totally free of them.
The electrification of everything means the batterification of many things. In order for that to be sustainable, we need more than one battery formula. Especially when the current formula is just replacing oil with rare earth metals.