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What to do when CPMs are scarier than Freddy Krueger
This headline makes sense for 2 reasons today. One, we just came back from a Halloween party… And the second one, the holiday season is approaching, and yes, CPMs are going to be frightening as hell!
So, let’s see what Depesh Mandalia suggests to fight these monster high CPMs.
The first thing to consider are all the variables that impact CPM. Creatives, audiences, campaign objective, ad format and so on. The list is long, so you can head to Depesh’s post to review them in detail.
Now, the best “tactics” you can use to figure out the factors driving up your campaign costs and bringing them down are:
- Run a Video View campaign, using a video without a CTA and one with a CTA. Both, to the same audience. If CPMs are low it’s a good sign that your audience is not the issue if video views are consistent.
- Run similar campaigns but split testing the optimization: WC, LPV, VC, ATC, IC. Go for a $20/day budget for each one. This will tell you if your campaign objective is at fault for raising up the costs.
- Triple check page load times and ensure nothing has changed on site which can bump up CPMs. Keep in mind that Shopify and WordPress plugins can hurt page speed.
- Try testing broad audiences, just limiting age and gender if needed. No Interests, LLAs etc. You might be targeting an overcrowded niche and this will tell you if that’s the case.
- Keep your Page active: It can take 2-4 weeks, but consistent, high quality posts with high engagement can often drop CPMs.
- Check your ad set health: Overlaps, saturation scores and competitor bid levels in the Delivery Insights section.
- Some niches just have jacked up CPMs. So, what Depesh does in this case is warm up the TOF audience with high quality videos and then hit them with direct response ads. It should bring down the CPM by half.
That’s it. A pretty useful checklist to drive down that CPM, right?
CHATBOTS
FB rolls out updates to native Messenger app
Facebook has announced three new updates to its Messenger platform, allowing brands to communicate with their customers via ice-breakers, changes to Click to Messenger ads and more options for users replying to messages from a business.
Ice-breakers: These are some commonly asked questions that you can add to your Messenger profile via the API. It will allow users the option to click on a common FAQs, such as “What are the open hours today?” or “Where is your store located?” to receive a quick and automated response.
Click to Messenger ad: For those with multiple apps connected to the Messenger platform, it is now easier to select which app you want to use for “Click to Messenger ads”. These are the ads which open up a chat in Messenger when users click on them.
There are no exact details available yet on how you can select the apps you want to be connected to “Click to Messenger ads”, but the initial phase of the solution is now available with more improvements to be announced in the coming weeks.
More replying options: Reactions and message replying options which your users can take advantage of during conversations with your business. These reactions will allow your users to add emojis to react to a response from a business. The message replies allow for threaded conversations so your business can see which exact message a user is responding to.
Check out the official FB announcement for more details.
E-COMMERCE
Shopify hits new highs with 45% revenue growth and over 1M merchants
Just a couple of days ago we brought up what dangers Shopify is facing. Long story short, unsuccessful, unsustainable businesses fueled by “goo-roos” can make the company look like it’s growing now but that’s not a solid foundation to be on.
What’s the status quo? According to Q3 report:
- Total revenue: $390.6M, 45% up Y-Y.
- Subscription revenue: $165.6M, up 37% Y-Y.
- Merchant Solutions revenue: $225M, up 50% driven by Gross Merchandise Volume.
- Adjusted net loss for Q3: $33.6M.
So… Shopify recorded a loss but that’s because they are heavily expanding. They are bringing their service in more countries and are also bringing new services altogether.
And that’s kind of the good news. While Shopify is clearly a fan of getting more users on their platform, even if it’s likely someone who just bought a “goo-roo” course that doesn’t actually help, that still means revenue for them. But they aren’t basing their business just on that…
They are bringing more services to get higher revenue per user, they are trying to help users succeed with services like Capital and regular educational content.
The Crew’s Thoughts
rom a user’s perspective, Shopify has shown to be quite reliable. It has its pros and cons, like any other solution but the quality is there for sure.
If you are thinking about it from a shareholder perspective, we do think it gets more complicated. You would have to dig into churn rate and also see how many newbies vs how many established companies use Shopify. You would also have to dissect revenue streams and expenses quite carefully.
In short, “good software” and “valuable company” might be related but are not one and the same.
PS: We kind of have to reiterate this… Courses can be good but most aren’t. Most are “goo-roos” that sell overpriced pipe dreams and repackaged information available for free with a Google search. Do your research before buying any course.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- FACEBOOK: Related domain names are an issue for big companies like FB and they are taking scammers (and their domain name registrar) to court over it.
- GOOGLE: New WordPress plugin SiteKit from Google is now available for everyone. It allows you to get quick insights from Search Console, Analytics, PageSpeed Insights, and AdSense, all in your WordPress dashboard
- EMAIL: Five-step tactics for effective personalization, a deeper relationship to spice up the conversation between you and your subscriber base..
- SEO: Three simple steps to leverage long-tail keywords for local search, intent and conversational language, to help you out with your SEO efforts.
- INSTAGRAM: Rule of thirds, lighting, cropping and 10 more advanced tips & tricks to help you raise your IG Stories game.
- E-COMMERCE: Alex Fedotoff shares his secret sauce on finding potentially hot products before they go viral and everyone starts selling them – Leverage this “first mover advantage”.
BRAIN TEASER
Mr. and Mrs. Mustard have six daughters and each daughter has one brother. How many people are in the Mustard family?
You’ll find the answer at the end of this email.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
When online shopping fails you….
Buying online is awesome. You don’t have to go through hundreds of shops to find what you’re looking for. Plus, you can compare the prices with just a few clicks.
Yet, online shopping has a big downside of its own.
You can’t really see, touch and smell what your buying. Unless you are working in a lab on some crazy projects that could potentially avoid these limitations. Let us know…
Back to our point, you can’t see what you’re buying. And sometimes, what arrives is soooo much different from what you originally meant to buy.
Sometimes you’re just looking for a gym tank and you get a hot dress to show up at your grandmother’s house:
Cool guy, huh?
However, to delight your weekend, we leave you with this post gathering some of the weirdest things that online shoppers got.
Sometimes, unpacking products is NOT exciting at all! It can be a huge turn-off.
BRAIN TEASER ANSWER
There are nine Mustards in the family. Since each daughter shares the same brother, there are six girls, one boy and Mr. and Mrs. Mustard