Purchases keep the lights on, but what happens after the purchase is what wins hearts and minds.
Many customers buy again out of habit, convenience, subscription inertia, or a lack of viable alternatives. That doesn’t mean they love you. It means you haven’t lost them yet. And the most dangerous thing in retention isn’t churn, it’s false loyalty.
Real loyalty is when a customer defends you, recommends you, and chooses you even when cheaper, faster options appear. It’s not just what they do, it’s what they feel when they think about your brand.
via Buyology
Trust has always been tricky in digital marketing. Building it in a post-AI world only more so.
All the video tips talk about hooking attention ASAFP. But when should you pitch your product?
On that front, short form is becoming long form:
“We’re seeing a trend where some ads are starting to introduce the product much later—like after 40 or even 50 seconds—focusing instead on education upfront. This wasn’t something we saw a year ago,” Chaimovski notes.
via Motion (Education Advantage card)
This is interesting
In a recent update, Google has started indexing and sourcing Instagram content.
Now posts and reels function like blog posts from an SEO perspective.
For professional accounts this could mean approaching it more like Pinterest than TikTok.
attached screenshot from IG announcing the update found online
The streaming wars are over, YouTube and Netflix won.
On average, YouTube has an audience of seven million viewers watching off a TV set at any given moment during the day, more than Netflix’s daily average of 4.7 million, Nielsen said.
&
tuned into YouTube on their TV screens at night this year while 10.7 million are watching Netflix, Nielsen said.
Netflix is TV 2.0. YouTube is the second screen home big screen.
From here on staying in business is about financials.
Because it’s still human to human
in the rush to embrace AI tools, it’s easy for marketers to lose sight of what advertising is truly about—building trust, evoking emotion, and connecting with consumers.
AI can help advertisers generate content faster, cheaper, and at a greater scale than before. But volume alone doesn’t make ads remarkable. As Mirella Crespi, founder of the agency Creative Milkshake reminds us, “The goal isn’t just to make ads faster—it’s to make people feel something.”
Accelerate, not replace. Free up your time for your mind.
via Motion (Authenticity Renaissance card)
Add this to the interesting pile:
Google Shopping ad clicks surge 18% in Q2 as Amazon, Temu pull back
The big low price players dropped spend (thanks tariffs) opening up room in the auction competition for other retailers. And shoppers seemed to like it.
🍵 Reading the tea leaves, people aren’t searching Google Shopping to find products on cost competing aggregator platforms. They either don’t want to buy on Amazon or already searched there and the came to Google.
Amazon (and other platform) discovery doesn’t happen via other shopping channels, it happens before shopping searches start.
Gary Washburn gets it, generations are garbage:
I think it’s stereotypical of people putting millennials, like all millennials should all be hanging out and doing all the same things and listening to Drake and playing video games and posting on Snapchat.
They’re not all the same. They’re different.
Similar demographics do not mean similar psychographics do not mean the same needs, wants, dreams, and aspirations.
Don’t fall for the proxy trap.
Amtrak on creating a viral messaging campaign
We need to be really different and captivate … attention
Similar with a twist is the recipe for algorithmic attention.
Being the same doesn’t stand out.
Being too different might backfire.
Using a familiar hook (Friday! Friday! Friday!) in a new context provides an on ramp to curiosity.
🚂
via EMARKETER