Performance Max now in Microsoft (aka Bing) Ads!

The future: all robots, all the time

Microsoft Advertising Blog: Introducing Microsoft Advertising’s Performance Max

If not, this probably isn’t the place for you. I’m curious, about most things, which makes me glad I’m not a cat (the dad jokes are free!). Here I’m mostly curious about marketing—things like branding, strategy, consumer behavior, technology, and ~~~the future~~~.

This place isn’t for specialists. If you only care about influencers or ecommerce or Google Ads you might not like it here (but you might like the linkblog). I want to try to understand it all, the whole box of Legos. And how those bricks fit together to create resilient platforms for brand growth.

I have some specific beliefs about marketing, but we’ll get into those later.

If this isn’t your cup of tea (or coffee or artisanal kombucha or bubbly water), I get it. Thanks for taking the time to check it out. Maybe I’ll see you around the internet.

If you’re still here and (maybe) even more curious than you were at the top, welcome! Maybe toss your email in that box up there so I can slide into your inbox. Or just jump right in.

Stay curious!

How does it serve the user to tell them the price is increasing but not from what / by how much?

I don’t remember how much I pay, but now I have to dig around to compare if I want to.

Don’t use dark patterns to retain customers. Use excellent experiences and delight.

I’m a sucker for new browsers, so guess I’m downloading Arc now.

The Verge: The excellent Arc browser is now available for anyone to download

A powerful message.

Delivered simply.

Reflecting the customer's reality.

Last week I shared what AI thinks about itself, along with some of my thoughts on both AI and AI's thoughts on AI.

Now it's time to put on my tinfoil futurist hat and gaze deeply into my 8-bit crystal ball.

Here are 4 trends I think will be turbocharged by AI:

1. Search is Dead
2. Social is Dead
3. Personal Algorithms
4. Ambient Computing

I'll elaborate on each of these points more in the future, but here are the subheads:

Search Is Dead

The era of the megalith search engine for all things is over.

Social Is Dead

The era of the traditional social media platform built on users sharing their own content is over.

Personal Algorithms

The era of Her is just beginning. Our current crop of technological "personal" assistants (Siri, Alexa, Clippy, etc.) will morph into truly personalized algorithms that make TikTok's For You feed look quaint.

Ambient Computing

Screens will no longer be the ruling paradigm for tech interaction. And the number of devices used will increase.

Google Says, “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?”

Social media, now in your search results!

It’s blatantly apparent that AlphaBrass read every headline about what trend or app or newfangled thing posed an existential threat to their search business and decided to announce an answer to all of them all at the same time.

YouTube Has Spoken:

Turn off your ad blocker or pay up.

It’s an experiment.

A “new pop-up explains that in order to keep watching YouTube videos, users will have to disable their ad blocker, or make YouTube.com an exception within their ad blocking rules.”

Shifting Screens

Close to 45% of overall YouTube viewing in the U.S. today is happening on TV screens…compared with well below 30% in 2020.

It’s less about screen-specific viewing now and more about platform-specific viewing.

Different apps means different content experiences and expectations. Which screen is just a matter of convenience.

Not sure if this includes YouTube TV or is just the OG YT app. Or if that distinction even really matters.

Pods With Friends

Portable audio doesn’t just mean personal audio, “co-listening” is a common activity.

What ads perform best with co-listeners?

Storytelling*

In case it helps with your story:
“the most common types of moments for co-listening: relaxing, hanging out with friends, cooking, entertaining kids, and doing yoga.”

*always a good decision

RadioCasts

Only a handful of terrestrial radio genres are growing. And talk radio listeners are migrating to podcasts.

So why not give broadcasters the tools to easily turn their programming into podcasts.

(Especially when you need content that doesn’t carry continuous licensing fees.)

One Pin To Rule Them All

Pinterest is combining the various pin types into one creation flow. All the toys, fewer barriers to getting started.

I am not a Pinner, but I like the platform (and advertise on it). I think this is a good change an should hopefully lead to more fun and inspiration and less Instagram-like post type games.

Meta Pays For More Reels

I don’t really care about this headline, other than the fact that it means Meta is still all in on Reels.

And if it’s going to pay more for the content, it means it expects to make more on it.

Reels ad placements are (still) the ones to watch.

Gmail: now with check marks!

Funny how Elon kills off the blue check only to cause a blue check renaissance.

Social Schedule

Finally, the best times to post to social.

So, naturally, you should do the opposite.

And don’t post on the hour.

Your Favorite Ad Channels' Favorite Ad Channels

It’s always interesting to see where the digital platforms spend their ad dollars. What tactics are the tools you use to attract an audience using to attract an audience?

But first, YouTube and LinkedIn jumped to the top of the 2022 spending pack. And Pinterest slid in at #5. (Facebook/Meta and TikTok round out the top 5.) So those are the channels pushing hard for growth.

Increased traditional's share of spend (everyone else shifted harder to digital):

• YouTube
• Pinterest
• Snapchat

Share of spend on television plummeted. This plus the writers' strike (no judgement) aren't a great sign for the poster-child platform of mass advertising.

So, what was weird?

• Pinterest increased theater spend to nearly 1/3 of the budget
• Twitter went big on out-of-home
• TikTok pulled waaaaaaaaay back on paid social (who needs ads when you're getting all those headlines, right?)
• Snapchat focused on paid search

It would be more interesting to see what messaging they’re pushing via those channels.

But still interesting to think about what messaging might work best for you on a platform based on where it’s getting users from.

More Ads In More/The Same Places

Instagram

Instagram is loosening the rules around partnership ads Presumably to capture more revenue and be ever-so-slightly more like TikTok.

Regardless, this is good news for brands that use creator partnerships and user generated content in their marketing.

TikTok

Looks like TikTok is really leaning into the revenue benefits of being a full-screen, advertising-supported content experience. (Plus contextual targeting!)

Pulse Premiere gives brands the control to choose where their ads are placed, adjacent to content from our premium publishing partners in lifestyle & education, sports, and entertainment categories for specific tentpole events as well as evergreen, ongoing content.

Roblox

The metaverse is getting ads. By which I mean, ads are coming to Roblox.

This is one of those announcements that some marketers will ignore and others will get very excited about.

Gmail

Big G is putting more ads in your inbox, including randomly dropped amongst your actual emails. People aren’t happy.

Of course, one answer is to drop Gmail. If Bluesky takes hold (and even if it doesn’t), we’re at the point where everyone should have their own domain.

Not sure how? Derek Sivers has you covered in this chat with Tim Ferriss (starting around 28:14).

Services mentioned:
- Mailbox.org
- Fastmail

If you want to roll your own email server, Derek posted this guide.

A good listen on how to structure your sales funnels, ad-landing page congruence, and some quick benchmark metrics.

I really like this way of thinking about a funnel:

A funnel is something that enables a business to do more business with the people that the business owner was meant to serve.

It’s not about scamming, it’s about serving.

More tidbits:

• Match your ad to its landing page (or opt-in page, which I think is a more helpful name) - both text and image
• If you’re collecting emails from cold traffic, aim for a 30%+ conversion rate. Anything below 10% is a big problem.
• What’s a good click rate for your emails? 1%+. 2-4% should be the target. 6%+ is amazing.

2 interesting nuggets in this one.

First, more proof that podcast ads are one of the better digital placements. They are an understood and generally well tolerated aspect of the medium.

33% or survey respondents said they pay more attention to podcast ads compared to commercials seen on other sources (TV, online, etc.)

Affinity for a show or host can be transferred to the brands advertising on the show, which I a big bonus compared to many other platforms.

Second, an interesting rundown of Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) and streaming’s frequency problem.

The problem arises in video on-demand use cases. The full ad load is determined while the video loads, which means the auction only happens once and in a small window. The outcome? So much ad repetition.

starting at about the 23:41 mark

Not that this is surprising, because math, but we're heading towards a dangerous fiscal place as baby boomers continue to age into entitlement programs. Stan Druckenmiller is predicting a financial crisis somewhere between 2025-2035 because of this. Current calculations have social security and medicare doubling from roughly 12% of GDP today to 24% by 2080.

I like the point one of the hosts (Chamath) makes while tempering the doom and gloom:

Economics are a relative problem where you have to weigh countries against each other.

I don't think there's much value in saying because it happened in these moments, it's going to happen the same way here. What people don't understand is that we're a unitary, singular monoeconomy that is anchored by the US dollar.

Sidenote, Druckenmiller is also long Microsoft and Nvidia. Which suggests early mover advantages in the realm of (consumer) AI.

How does something become ubiquitous?

It has to do something useful and meaningful that serves human interests.

This was stated in relation to AI, but seems like a really good first check in marketing (which starts with the product/service itself). Not everything needs to be ubiquitous, but expectations need to be aligned.

I was recently asked by a client to talk to their team about AI. What it is, what it means, etc etc. Naturally, I turned to ChatGPT and Bing Chat to write the presentation for me.

I plugged in their loose question guidance to generate an outline and then fed each part of that into one of the chatbots to see what they spit out. Any time I used Bing Chat I asked it to research the industry or something similar first.

So, what does AI think about AI?

What Is AI?

AI is all about making machines, like computers or robots, do things that normally require human intelligence. Humans are really good at things like recognizing faces, understanding language, and making decisions based on complex information. But with AI, we can teach machines to do these things too.

How Does AI Work?

AI is all about using algorithms, which are like sets of instructions, to help machines learn and make decisions on their own. These algorithms can analyze data, identify patterns, and even make predictions based on what they've learned.

There are different types of AI, like machine learning and deep learning, but they all have one thing in common: they use data to learn and improve over time. That means that the more data a machine has to work with, the smarter it can become.

AI is already being used in all sorts of ways, from helping doctors diagnose diseases to powering voice assistants like Siri and Alexa.

What Is Generative AI?

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that is capable of creating new and original content, such as images, videos, music, or text, based on patterns and rules learned from existing data. Generative AI algorithms use complex mathematical models, such as neural networks, to generate new content that mimics the patterns and characteristics of the training data.

Of course, there are also concerns about the potential misuse of generative AI, such as the creation of deepfakes or other forms of misinformation.

What's a Challenge for AI Adoption?

One of the biggest challenges is data privacy and security. As AI systems collect and analyze large amounts of sensitive information, there is a risk that this information could be misused or stolen. Another challenge is that AI systems are only as good as the data they are trained on. If the data is biased or incomplete, then the AI system will produce biased or incomplete results.

How Will AI Impact Marketing?

Targeted Ads

By analyzing data on buyer behavior and creating personalized marketing campaigns that target specific demographics.

Past Sales Future Wins

AI algorithms can identify patterns and trends that help target marketing efforts more effectively.

Predicting The Future

Predictive analytics can enable digital marketers to make better decisions about how to allocate their resources and invest in new initiatives.

Increased Efficiency + Reduced Costs

Via task automation, predictive analytics, and early issue identification.

I mean, not bad really. Various queries got really repetitive in the "how will AI impact this industry / marketing," but nothing crazy. Of course, maybe this is all a feint by the chatbots so we don't suspect their true power and motives.

This was the point in the presentation where I revealed the joke and got on my soapbox.

I am of the group that believes...

Current AI = Infinite Interns

Our current models are like having an army of super-fast interns at your disposal, and you should approach them as such.

According to AI, the difference between it and an intern is:

It can perform tasks faster and more accurately than a human intern, especially for tasks that involve large amounts of data or require repetitive actions.

It doesn't get tired or bored, so it can work 24/7 without breaks or distractions, while an intern may need breaks and time off.

It can learn and improve over time as it processes more data, while an intern may have a fixed set of skills and knowledge.

It can handle complex tasks that may be too difficult or time-consuming for an intern, such as analyzing vast amounts of data or performing complex calculations.

The AI Formula

Pattern Recognition + Pattern Generation

Like most systems, you get out what you put in. In the case of generative AIs that means more of the same. A really good rendering of the internet culture version of the thing you asked for.

The large language models (LLMs) currently taking the world by storm (GPT, etc) are really just turbocharged predictive text models. If it sounds human, it's because it was trained on words written by humans.

The near term impact heralded by the chatbots is right:

Increased Efficiency + Reduced Costs

What could you do with infinite interns?

I'll leave off with this parting thought:

The Future is Centaurs

If AI gives you more of the same, how do you stay different?

If everyone uses the same AI, how do you do something different?

If every experience is AI, how do you stay human?

It’s not AI or humans…
It’s AI and humans

Meanwhile, in robots:

• It's Google I/O, which means Big G has announced one billion things with AI. Including Search Chat* and its response to Open AI's GPT models: say hello to PaLM 2
• Chip Wars, reignited: Microsoft is getting in on the custom silicone game with an in-house design tailor made for AI & LLMs (chips are still one of my main areas to watch).
• An excellent AI thought experiment: envisioning LLMs as vast cities. "Think of it as the opposite of the Turing test setup: instead of putting a machine in a context where you can’t immediately tell whether or not it’s a human, build it in a way that’s inescapably, viscerally machine-looking."

*Don’t worry, Google Search Chat will still have ads. I’m guessing this marks the end of keywords. Not now, but soon. We’ve been on a slow march to their inevitable death, but now we’ll actually start to see what the post-keyword future looks like.

My biggest question: will Performance Max campaigns be the only ones eligible to appear in AI-powered Google Search Experiences?

🐙 Generative intelligence can propel productivity

Listen now (19 min) | A new era of labor efficiency emerges as AI-driven advancements revolutionise the workplace

Exponential View by Azeem AzharAzeem Azhar

Chalk this up as a victory for the centaurs (humans + AI).

Here's the paper's abstract:

We study the staggered introduction of a generative AI-based conversational assistant using data from 5,179 customer support agents. Access to the tool increases productivity, as measured by issues resolved per hour, by 14 percent on average, with the greatest impact on novice and low-skilled workers, and minimal impact on experienced and highly skilled workers. We provide suggestive evidence that the AI model disseminates the potentially tacit knowledge of more able workers and helps newer workers move down the experience curve. In addition, we show that AI assistance improves customer sentiment, reduces requests for managerial intervention, and improves employee retention.

Unlocking knowledge from top performers' heads and turning it into a resource for anyone at the company to use, sounds amazing.

Generative AIs aren’t an extension of how we currently interact with digital, they’re a reimagining. We have to change how we conceptualize activities like “search” and “content.”

When interacting with large language models (LLMs (think ChatGPT)), asking “please give me sources” is no different from asking “give me something that looks like things that have sources.” These models don’t have context or semantic understanding, they have incredibly powerful pattern matching turbocharged by historic levels of compute.

Is banning Tiktok “un-American?” by Creative Control

Megaphone.fm

Is a TikTok ban a good idea? How would it even work (at least on a state level)? All good questions. But what about this question:

If the US suddenly starts banning foreign apps on data privacy and security grounds, will other (non-Chinese) countries do the same to American platforms and services?

Plenty of unintended consequences on the table here.

Don't Say Content

What if community wasn’t a strategy, what if a community was part of your business model? What if it was just part of doing business?

Community isn’t something you do at people, it’s something you build with them.

Just because something is old hat to us jaded marketers, doesn’t mean it isn’t new and surprising to other people.

It’s not transactional. The goal is to make people feel or understand that they belong. You belong here, this is for you.

How to motivate yourself or others:

• Focus on outcomes over means
• Keep the goal a little abstract
• But make sure it contains a concrete number(s)
• Early on, focus on how far you’ve come. The closer you get to completing your goal, look forward to what’s remaining

This last point is useful for managers.

For new team members or people new to their roles, reviews and support can focus on how far they’ve come.

For experienced peeps, focus on how close they are to achieving their goals and the gap that remains.

Because incentives matter:

• Too many incentives is demotivating
• A few randomized, surprise incentives is motivating (like slot machines and social feeds)

Meta remembered how to make money and posted year-over-year revenue growth for the first time in a year. This, of course, means an earnings call, which means quotes we'll all try to read like tea leaves.

Like this one:

Mr. Zuckerberg attributed some of these gains to Reels, the company’s short-form video product. Mr. Zuckerberg said that Reels is increasing overall app engagement and that the company believes it is gaining share in the short-form video market.

Despite what Instagram engagement trends are suggesting, Reels are still a prime focus for Big Blue. Don't sleep on the format.

It's weird to hear the company position itself as the open-source friendly tech giant.

He also said that he expects Meta to take a more open-source approach to generative AI than companies like Alphabet Inc., MicrosoftCorp. and Amazon.com Inc. due to their different business models.

It does make sense, but that doesn't make it less weird. (And yes, I know they have a history of being pretty open with their AI research in the past.) Of course, the vision is that they'll set the standard.

For us, it’s way better if the industry standardizes on the basic tools that we’re using, and therefore, we can benefit from the improvements others make.

Speaking of AI, it's use in the TikTok-ification of the OG feed is growing.

How much feed content is determined by AI (as opposed to the act of following)?

• 20%+ on Facebook
• 40%+ on Instagram

R.I.P. social graph?

Meta also unveiled a new plan for revenue generation: a mandatory e-commerce tax.

Soon, the only way to use the native Shops feature on Facebook and Instagram will be via in-app checkout. Which means merchants will be forced to pay the 5% (or $0.40 on purchases less than $8) selling fee or shutter their Shops.

When is soon? 1 year if you're in the US. August everywhere else. Except for 21 countries that can ignore this entirely (for now).

After June 5, all new shops will be required to Checkout on Facebook / Instagram.

Losing your Shop also means losing product tagging abilities and other features (I think basically anything involving a catalog).

This is a big push for social commerce, but I'm still not bullish based on current trends (at least not for all businesses and categories). Even if a (Snapchat sponsored) study found that 92% of people would buy from a DTC brand directly on social. (PDF)

Our AI Future

It should be obvious by now, but soon The Platforms will be AI everything. They already push for algorithmically-controlled dynamically-generated ads, soon those will be hooked up to generative AI and the potential of individually customized one-time ads will be realized.

Also, Google is still flailing left and right to match the other giants’ AI moves.

Hey Bing Chat, Show Me Traffic

Soon you’ll be able to see how much traffic BingGPT drives to your site.

Bing Chat specific referrer strings will start getting passed to Bing Webmaster Tools and other analytics tools (like Google) next month. At least for BWT. External tools should get it at the same time, but “should” is a dangerous word when predicting the whims of the tech giants.

Meanwhile, Google taketh away:

Google Search Console To Drop Page Experience Report, Mobile Usability Report & Mobile-Friendly Tests

Digits for Dollars

Unsurprisingly, shoppers are looking to save these days.

Faced with soaring inflation, which reached 10.4% in February, 80% of consumers in the U.K. now regularly use their smartphones to access stored loyalty cards and coupons while shopping in physical stores, compared to 79% for the U.S., 73% for France and 72% for Germany.

What‘s the benefit for brands? Sweet, sweet first-party data. Just remember that this too is customer service.

Given the current economic climate, consumers have become more willing to share information and connect with brands in exchange for targeted, cost-saving offers and convenient experiences. This represents an opportunity for retailers to expand their understanding of customers to better cater to their needs, preferences and wishes.

Over to digital, what makes ecommerce convenient?

• Gen Z wants easy to use promos/coupons
• Millennials want to store payment info
• Boomers+ want customer service

In general, shoppers find ecomm more convenient than in-store.

Drop It Like It’s Hot

YouTube is adding a new Product Drops feature to livestream shopping. Looks perfect for piquing interest, which should mean more eyes sticking around to see the reveal.

Viewers will be able to see a mystery product tagged at the product shelf and product list until it gets revealed. As the product gets close to its availability date and time, you’ll see a timer bar under the drop title and description. You’ll be able to pin the product to the chat at or after the drop time.

EU = Uh Oh?

If you advertise in the EU, you should read this piece about the potential unintended consequences for brands of the new proposed rules around political advertising.

You've probably heard by now, but a Meta bug decided budgets are for chumps over the weekend and went all in like a drunk kid in Vegas.

Per Social Media Today:

Some ad buyers reported CPMs up 200%-500% versus the previous day, while all ad performance metrics were seemingly affected. Other advertisers also reported their ad sets well exceeding their daily set budgets, with no way to limit the damage.

It's too late to do much about it now, but if you can find a Meta rep you can request some credits to make up for it.

Metadon

Details about Meta’s “Twitter clone” are starting to leak.

Why the quotes? Because it feels more like Mastodon. 500 character limit, decentralized (or whatever that means in Meta-speak), and using your Instagram credentials for your account info (essentially choosing Insta as your Mastodon server).

Here’s why this is really interesting:

With more discussion shifting to messaging chats, as opposed to people posting in public feeds, Channels is designed to lean into this, providing a more private, intimate discussion interface for creators and their fans.

Barcelona sounds similar, though in a dedicated app, with users able to follow others and stay on top of their text updates.

The platforms venture further into the dark forests.

Stop, Collaborate, & Influence

TikTok has released a guide to running a successful creator campaign on the platform.

It boils down to being authentic yet on trend and connecting with the right subculture.

And remember:

Consumer attitudes toward influencers are changing, but not necessarily for the worse. Audiences are becoming more sophisticated and taking an active role in their relationships with influencers. Marketers who listen to consumer perspectives, choose the right influencers and stay flexible in the face of changing tastes will be set up for success.

Google Goes For Two

Big G’s ad revenue has dropped for the second straight quarter. But the bigger story is that Google is on the defensive for the first time in a long time following Microsoft’s BingGPT sucker punch.

OperAI

Opera has released an early preview of what the future of browsers could look like in an AI-powered world. Mostly a blank canvas for future developments, current features include: chatbot integrations and automatic tab grouping.

The Clock Keeps Ticking

TikTok may be getting headlines for all the wrong reasons, but it seems to be proving the adage “no press is bad press.” The youths love their TikToks.

And yeah, it’s also a search engine now:

The splintering continues.

Now THAT’S What I Call Content Marketing

Acura released a (super) short anime series that racked up 275 million views. Now season 2 has dropped.

How short? 4 episodes clocking in at 60 seconds each.

Why it works: anime is popular but is (likely) largely ignored by most major brands. Cars and anime both have specific fandoms that can be reached via niche platforms, which means higher success metrics than general ones.

This is about building brand equity over the long haul. Creating an experience consumers want to engage with in a language that makes them feel part of an in-crowd is a solid formula for brand affinity down the road.

Opportunity Opens A Pinterest-Shaped Door?

Pinterest budgets are being sacrificed at the altar of performance metrics. As brands shift their focus to the bottom of the funnel, the inspiration app is paying the price. Which of course means you could benefit as auction competition lessens.

But…

Investing in brand is one of the best things you can do during a recession. As long as you can keep the lights on, brand marketing can help grow audience and mindshare for less as competitors focus solely on converting existing eyeballs.

Speaking of zigging while others zag:

While many major retailers are tightening their belts, IKEA is going all in. Everyone’s favorite (or least favorite) purveyor of meatballs and flat pack is investing $2.2B in US expansion over the next 3 years. This is apparently how much it costs to open 8 big stores, 9 smaller concepts, and employ 2,000 more people.

Engage-a-thon 2023

The recent trend for social/content platforms has been expansion; free money fueled growth mode. But the Great Tech Reckoning of 2022 has reversed that.

The clearest example is Meta. A long, long time ago, Zuck split out Messenger from Facebook in an effort to capture more real estate on users’ screens (I think, the reasoning is hazy now and never made much sense to me). But now it’s getting rolled back in. More signals in one platform and less incentive to go back to the home screen and get distracted by another colorful digital dopamine drug app.

So consolidate and complement.

LinkedIn, social’s surprise Hansel, is continuing its run of feature additions geared at enticing users to spend more time on-platform. The newest push is (drum roll…) TikTok’s For You algorithm (algorithmically suggested content)! Which makes sense since the overlap of the Venn diagram of your connections and content related to your interests is almost certainly much smaller than it could be (at least that’s the case for me, so many bankers from a past career life).

Elsewhere, Spotify is shutting down its Clubhouse clone.

The company says it will continue to explore live features on its main platform.

There’s no time to try spinning up a new revenue stream generator for these companies. It’s time to try turning the money dial up to 11.

The plan for 2023: more eyes for more time in the flagship app.

Of course, ByteDance is (once again) zagging while the others zig and pushing to make Lemon8 happen. The grand ban plan b.

That Ban Plan

Congresscritters aren’t the only ones fine with banning TikTok. Survey says half of Americans are cool with it.

Unsurprisingly, the older you are the better you think the ban idea is. Same goes the more conservative you are. Ditto for knowing about the China ties and not using the app.

The Cookie Continues to Crumble

Publishers and ad tech tools are facing off once again. This time it’s all about context.

As contextual advertising continues to take the post-cookie lead, publishers are positioning themselves as custodians of attractive data. And ad tech tools are scraping the content to build their own context buckets.

Super blood moons, Mercury in retrograde, and scraping being at the heart of a digital content ownership issue, some things are like clockwork.

Rethinking Returns

Amazon is testing a new feature in an effort to cut down a returns: adding a ‘frequently returned’ label to products that are just that.

And The Everything Store isn’t the only retailer trying to find a solution to the returns problem. But shoppers aren’t here for it. The numbers aren’t great for any brand trying to keep shoppers loyal or tout sustainability:

• 34% of Americans have dropped a brand for introducing paid returns
• 40% for shortening return windows
• 22% say return charges are totes unfair
• 18% just return unwanted items to the trash

So now brands are scrambling for other ways to mitigate the problem.

Livestream? More like Deadstream

From a Wired piece on livestream shopping in the US:

• “I haven’t seen one success case,” says Marina Jiang, an expert in cross-border ecommerce and founder of The Unoeuf Creative Consulting, a social marketing agency. “If there is one proof of concept in the United States, I would be willing to try it myself.”

See.99

Using the 99 price trick in your next sale? Maximize its effectiveness by displaying the original price along with the discount, it’ll make the savings seem larger. Or avoid the tactic all together if your product involves multiple pieces with individual pricing or if you sell high quality impulse buys and little luxuries.

Riches In The Niches

Wanting to start your own ecomm business to test pricing hacks on? Oberlo has 7 niches for you to consider for your fledgling shop:

1. Home office equipment
2. Eco-friendly products
3. Home workout & fitness equipment (noticing a trend? Pandemic shifted behavior isn’t shifting all the way back)
4. Recommerce (noticing a trend? People want to feel like they’re doing good for the planet (unless you’re charging for returns of course))
5. Pet products
6. Home decor (the housing market is likely to make people focus on feathering their nest instead of flying the coop)
7. Menswear (men need clothes too!)

Pay Up; Or, You Know, Soon-ish

Apple Pay Later has finally arrived.

Animal Spirits in Ad Markets

As has been discussed in this space previously, ad spending is cooling off as brands brace for a recession. Which could cause the recession they are bracing for?

Ad spending historically has lagged macroeconomic performance, meaning pullbacks weren’t as apparent until contractions had already occurred. That’s changed as the media buying window has shortened, making ad spending potentially more of a “leading indicator” of where the economy is heading, S&P Global Ratings argues

But some good(ish) news:

The research upheld that a recession is likely to take shape in the months ahead but will be “shallower” than previously thought.

Steal These Ideas

Elevar (a great Shopify app) shared a solid framework for conversion rate optimization in its recent email

1. Identify the biggest drop in your shopping behavior funnel
2. Find user actions that convert highly but happen infrequently
3. Hypothesize and experiment
4. Profit?

Wondering what ads your competitors are running on Google? Soon you may be able to take a peek thanks to the Ads Transparency Center. It doesn’t appear to be live, despite what Big G suggests, but this could be really useful.

Figuring out how much an influencer partnership is worth can be tricky but the new trend toward pay-for-performance could help (just don’t forget the value of branding).

Pay per performance is gaining traction among marketers as the second-most common form of payment used by 56% of marketers. This approach compensates influencers using performance-based metrics, such as sales, clicks, and impressions.

More Ads in More Places

Microsoft’s Bing chatbot is getting more ads / The AI-powered chatbot will start to show more ads — though exactly what those ads look like isn’t final just yet. (Sounds chaotic so far, in the typical new ad platform way, but it’s plenty intriguing.)

“This is how it’s always been done” is an instant red flag for me, so this quote from a piece on ads in audiobooks doesn’t hold much water in my opinion:

“It’s a premium, ad-free, transactional environment, full stop, and so I don’t really see the wisdom of changing that into an ad-supported [space] when there’s already a robust ad-supported ecosystem for audio, millions and millions and millions of people understand that audiobooks are a paid product, and podcasts are ad-supported, so it seems like a very expensive proposition to retrain people.”

rant mode: engaged

Millions and millions and millions of people also understood that you paid a cable provider to pipe a whole bunch of channels into your house instead of paying a channel directly, we all know how that worked out.

Ad supported tiers of other media types are also gaining tractions. You can stare in your rear view and hope the road ahead doesn’t have any curves, or you can be ready to adapt.

Everyone Hates Big Tech

There’s a “new” bill in Congress that essentially caps digital ad transactions at $20B, if a platform goes over that it has to start selling off parts to get back under. It would also prevent these large players from “owning more than one part of the digital ad ecosystem.” I understand what they’re going for with this, but it has unintended consequences written all over it.

Speaking of unintended consequences, turns out the legislation that would allow Joey White House to ban TikTok is a towering stack of them.

The RESTRICT Act contains “insanely broad” language and could lead to other apps or communications services with connections to foreign countries being banned in the U.S.

The bill could have implications not just for social networks, but potentially security tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs) that consumers use to encrypt and route their traffic.

Arkansas sues TikTok, ByteDance and Meta over mental health claims

Meta Is…

Launching "a new set of inventory filters for Facebook and Instagram Feeds, which will provide a simple way for brands to avoid unwanted association with potentially offensive, or otherwise undesirable content.”

“Planning to let European users of Facebook and Instagram opt out of certain highly personalized ads as part of plans to limit the impact of a European Union privacy order”