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SURVEY
Did you answer our survey yet? We have something for you if you do!
We’re pretty sure your business has been affected by this whole COVID-19 outbreak. This could be in measurable forms, or it could just be that your mind is preoccupied with the situation… It’s pretty hard to avoid.
There’s no getting away from the fact it’s an unpredictable period, but we want to shed as much like on the situation as we can for us marketers.
And we’ll have a reward for you too. Everyone who answers the survey and sends us a reply with a screenshot of their submission, we’ll invite to our STACKED MARKETER Insiders group!
So go ahead and answer this anonymous survey.
No matter how much you spend on ads, each answer is extremely helpful! Our goal is that, in less than two weeks, we can analyze the data and identify the most important trends:
- What’s at risk (based on traffic source, vertical and product type).
- What’s booming (based on the same elements).
- What’s unaffected.
- What you can do in each scenario to improve.
This will be posted for free. Whether you are a subscriber or not, you will be able to read the full report and share it with anyone who needs it. We will not lock the report behind any opt-in form.
So, fill in the survey here, share it with others who could answer, and in two weeks time we’ll publish the most comprehensive state of the industry report we can.
Conversation Ads: Does LinkedIn want to say we need to talk?
LinkedIn has announced a new ad format that will allow advertisers to use full-funnel campaigns, along with the option for multiple customized call-to-actions such as product education, webinar sign-ups, or eBook downloads.
A few things to note about this latest offering:
- Messages can only be sent when the users are active on LinkedIn.
- Advertisers can use Conversation Ads, along with other features like Lead Gen Forms and Conversation Tracking, to help facilitate more conversions.
- Advertisers can select campaign objectives such as Website Visits or Lead Generation.
- Detailed click reporting and demographic reporting is already available in the Campaign Manager interface.
Businesses using this new format in beta experienced a 5x increase in CTR. This shows the level of engagement is pretty high with this format that provides multiple chances to click.
The new format can be especially beneficial for B2B advertisers, who tend to have longer purchase cycles and multiple decision makers involved in the purchase process.
Don’t get lost in limbo
When you run email camps, one of the most difficult balancing acts is figuring out the equilibrium between sending enough emails to maximize revenues, but not so many that subscribers start marking you as spam.
The team from Hustle Marketing came up with an easy fix to limit the amount of your messages that are marked as unwanted.
And it’s pretty easy:
- You’re probably sending different flows to your list: Welcome flows, post-purchase flows, product launches and product recommendation flows etc.
- A subscriber that is in more than two flows is basically being bombarded by you.
So, before he gets mad at you, do this:
- Add a tag to each flow.
- Create a subscribers segment that includes these tags.
- Exclude that segment from the next campaign you want to send. This will prevent anyone already inside a flow from receiving too many consecutive emails.
Easy fix, uh?
CORONAVIRUS
$100M on the table, FBA sellers suspended and why you should bet on bidets
In a post from her personal profile yesterday, Sheryl Sandberg announced that Facebook is investing $100M to support businesses hit by the coronavirus crisis.
This will provide aid to over 30k small businesses from 30 different countries. And, as she said, this is just the first step of many that they’ll take to sustain the organizations suffering due to the global crisis.
Who’s eligible? This isn’t clear yet, but as per the official Facebook announcement, they are going to share more details soon.
Amazon
Yesterday, the company announced that it has disabled its fulfilment service for all items coming from third party sellers, with the exception of medical supplies and “high in demand” products.
Basically, all the vendors that use FBA… won’t get their items fulfilled by Amazon.
Why: Amazon wants to focus its effort on delivering essential goods such as medical supplies, household staples and groceries. So, if your products belong to those categories, no problem for you.
Independent merchants can still sell on Amazon, of course, but they will have to rely on their own shipping systems.
SEO
For the webmasters and SEOs, Schema has announced version 7 of its specifications, which contains new structured data types to help with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new “SpecialAnnouncement” structured data type allows you to use date-stamped textual updates and markup to associate the announcement with a situation like the COVID-19 outbreak.
In addition, the “eventAttendanceMode” property is a new modification to the Event structured data type that enables event organizers to communicate to people how they can attend their event.
Affiliate marketing & E-commerce
We found this article from Digiday highlighting how publishers that mostly rely on affiliate commissions are shifting their focus.
They analyzed the likes of The New York Times, Business Insider, CNET and Wired.
The surprise: Last weekend, the second most-read article on The New York Times’ product recommendation site was a guide to the best bidets. Can’t get the relation with the coronavirus? It’s because toilet paper stocks are running low… So, how do you replace it?
What products recommendation posts are getting most traffic:
- Gear, lamps, keyboards, headsets and office chairs to allow for more comfortable working environments at home.
- Emergency kits.
- Gear to help people stay active at home.
- Work from home clothes.
- Unsurprisingly, medical and hygiene products such as thermometers, sanitizers etc.
“The worst thing you can do in business is freeze”.
FROM THE CREW
How have we been doing from this new domain?
You’re one of the 1200 people who receive our daily newsletter from [email protected] instead of [email protected] (our old domain and name.)
To help build that reputation, we want to ask for your help. It’ll only take about 30s and we’ll be forever grateful! Plus, it ensures that you get this newsletter on the dot!
For Gmail users – Move us to your Primary Inbox:
- For mobile: In the top right corner of the app, hit those 3 dots, tap “Move to” and then “Primary”
- For desktop: Go back, then drag and drop this email into the “Primary” tab. It should be the first tab on the left.
Oh, and Gmail also likes link clicks. So if you want to send a virtual thumbs-up to Big G, plus look at the cutest Internet kittens you’ve ever seen, click here.
For you Apple mail users – Tap on our email address at the top of this email and then select “Add to VIPs”.
After you do that, you can give Gmail another boost by replying to this email. We’ll be sure to turn this transition into a case study for you all when we’re done too!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- SEO: The discussion going on here is: Google says that paid backlinks are useless, but can Google differentiate between a paid backlink and an organic one?
- CORONAVIRUS: Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube joined forces to fight COVID-19.
- FACEBOOK: Yesterday, a significant bug resulted in many links being blocked despite being from genuine websites.
- SEARCH: A study found that Yahoo, AOL and OneSearch systematically favours Verizon media properties in the search results.
BRAIN TEASER
“I have a thousand needles but I do not sew.
What am I?”
You can find the solution by clicking here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
“YOLO” is how Dublin approaches COVID-19
Dublin experienced something unique this St. Patrick’s Day as the festival coincided with the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Irish govt declared a complete lockdown to prevent the spread of the outbreak, but that didn’t shatter the spirit of Guinness lovers.
Even with a strict two week lockdown announced by authorities, pubs were crowded with revelers who blatantly ignored the warnings all weekend.
The result? All restaurants and bars were closed on Monday.
But even that didn’t stop the party from going on. A handful of revellers continued to ignore the quarantine and continued the party.
Well, maybe they should have stayed home and followed the rules, but it looks like the love for St. Patrick and beer was more than the fear and panic from COVID-19.
Should we replace the “Stay at home” motto with “Get drunk at home”?