Pinterest tests out some product label features
Everyone’s jumping on board the e-commerce express these days, and Pinterest is no exception. Yesterday, the company told Search Engine Journal that they’re testing some new product label features on the platform. Here’s the overview:
- Labels, including ‘popular’ and ‘best seller’, are being tested on product pins. Though the features are currently being tested with select users, a public rollout could help brands capitalize on the popularity of their product – and it’d make Pinterest look that much more like a comprehensive online marketplace.
- Product ratings are also on the way. Pinterest is planning to add product ratings and shipping information to product listings, which should help marketers and brands convert more sales.
- Shopping recommendations are getting a facelift. The ‘Shopping Spotlights’ section is slated for an update. This will allow publishers and influencers to add longer descriptions and articles about products.
Each of these changes is relatively big for the Pinterest platform. When the features go live, expect Pinterest to feel a little bit more like a legitimate shopping platform – and with the almost-unbelievable rise in e-commerce sales this year, we’d expect these changes to come sooner than later.
A useful guide for leveraging LinkedIn campaigns
How much advertising have you experimented with on LinkedIn? It doesn’t get quite the attention that Facebook or Instagram do – and LinkedIn advertising is used for mostly different purposes – but it can be a great way to bring in leads and raise awareness.
LinkedIn just published a short e-book, titled the ‘Brand and Demand Playbook’, which gives some guidelines to implementing successful LinkedIn campaigns. Like most branded e-book content, there’s a mix of helpful information and salesy content. Let’s cut through the clutter to pull out some of the most relevant insights:
- If you’re looking to increase awareness, a series of video ads is often the best way to go. LinkedIn offers a variety of ad formats, but the company recommends a series of video ads as an effective way to increase brand awareness – you can then run a retargeting campaign based on your video series.
- Single Image Ads and Conversation Ads are great for driving web traffic. But, if you’re looking to drive engagement or video views, carousel and video ads are the way to go.
- Retargeting leads who engaged with a middle-of-the-funnel (MOF) campaign with a direct CTA or Message Ad can convert well. If you ran a MOF campaign, which could be a content download or something similar, LinkedIn recommends retargeting those leads with a more specific call to action or direct message in their inbox.
LinkedIn’s entire guide is a lot longer than we can cover here, but it offers some solid recommendations for running successful campaigns. If you’re already advertising on LinkedIn, this might not be new. If you’re looking to get going, though, these insights are a great place to start.
SPONSORED BY OUTBRAIN
A complete guide for ultimate ads performance on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, including ads and vertical breakdowns
You already know Walmart, Target, and Best Buy won’t have offline promotions this year, right?
In other words – If you sell online there’s a lot, a lot, A LOT of dough to be made in the upcoming holiday season.
Indeed, 66% of shoppers are increasing online spending! This is just one insight from the Cyber Weekend guide created by Outbrain.
This guide contains insights from billions of data points that Outbrain has access to. Here’s a glimpse into its contents:
- The verticals with the highest conversion rates and with the best CTRs.
- Headline keywords that sell. Did you know that the word “deal” in ad headlines can double conversions? Countless more such keywords broken down by verticals where they have the biggest impact.
- What kind of images draw in more clicks based on vertical.
- Which type of content is the best to build hype for the Black Friday – Cyber Monday weekend? And what are the differences between every niche?
- Ads performance around the globe, including countries such as USA, UK, Germany, France, India and more!
- What consumers expect from brands in the COVID-era. And hacks that businesses can follow to satisfy them.
Download for free the Cyber Weekend guide.
That’s just part one though… Dig into those insights, then join Emmy Shiring and Lauren Pica for a live workshop where they go deeper into preparation, insights and a live Q&A.
This workshop takes place on 16th September, starting 10:00AM EST. Register for free here.
SURVEY
Let’s make a trade
We’ve got a trade to propose: you give us three minutes of your time, and we’ll use your input – along with the input of 16k other marketers reading this – to create a report with some awesome insights about advertising in Q4.
It’s no secret that the holiday season is a busy one for marketers. If you’re looking to take a sneak peek into what other marketers are planning for advertising this year, go ahead and give us 3 minutes of your time in our anonymous survey.
We’ve put together some simple questions about what you’re planning for the upcoming quarter, and we can’t wait to see what you share.
At the end of September, we’ll analyze the data and share all the insights in this newsletter, for free! There won’t be any forms or paywalls to access the report – we’ll be sharing it with everyone.
If you’re currently living the agency life (whether you work at one or run one, it’s cool either way), feel free to fill it in with stats from each of your relevant clients.
And share this with your marketer friends – they don’t have to subscribe to fill in the survey or read the report. It’ll be free for everyone on our website!
BUSINESS
Growing a unique type of newsletter to more than 40K subscribers in one year
It’s always fun to hear about unique business models that have the potential to scale. Yesterday, Andrew Wilkinson wrote an inspiring case study on Twitter about a unique type of newsletter – one that’s based around local news.
Sure, we might be a little partial here (if you can’t tell, we’re big fans of newsletters), but this is an idea that could be implemented almost anywhere in the world! Let’s dive right in:
- In 2019, Andrew realized that the local news in his town – Victoria, Canada – could use some work. So, Andrew hired a journalist and started a newsletter that delivered a quick summary of everything that was going on in Victoria at 7 AM each morning.
- The newsletter was a quick, informative read that you could get through over coffee (sound familiar?). And, as it turns out, people in Victoria were craving this type of format. In just about a year, the newsletter hit 40k subscribers – more than 10% of Victoria’s population!
- Brands are lining up for a spot to advertise. Andrew’s newsletter is now bigger than the traditional local paper, and is a go-to source for people in Victoria. As you can probably guess, he’s got a line of sponsors out the door.
But how much did it cost? Andrew answered that, too. In total, he’s spent about $200k on Facebook ads, $60k on hiring a journalist, and $50 on Mailchimp, and he now owns the largest daily audience in the city. On all accounts, that’s impressive.
The Crew’s take: It seems like everyone has a newsletter these days, but the reality is that most just don’t end up becoming successful. Andrew’s idea worked because he found a specific market without much competition, and dedicated a year of time and about $200k in advertising to build the audience he wanted.
Thinking about following in Andrew’s footsteps? If you are, this is probably as good a time as any to plug our free email deliverability guide – make sure your newsletter is making it to people’s inboxes!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
TIKTOK: Vine’s co-founder has some advice for TikTok as they navigate murky waters – if you’re still keeping up with TikTok drama, this is a good read.
FACEBOOK: The Australian government is proposing legislation that would force both Facebook and Google to pay news publishers. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is not having any of it.
TWITTER: Ever see a topic in trending, click on it to figure out what it is, and spend 10 minutes of your life trying to get to the bottom of it? Twitter just announced an update that will add context tweets to certain trends!
GOOGLE: Starting in November, Google will be passing taxes onto advertisers in the UK, Austria, and Turkey. This comes after Amazon made a similar move in the UK earlier this month.
FACEBOOK: This new Ad Library feature will allow you to filter ads by when they were ‘active’. For example, you can search for ads in a date range. Or before and after a certain date.
GOOGLE: Updates are starting to surface for advertising this holiday season, and Google announced yesterday that Merchant Promotions will be faster than ever this holiday season.
BRAIN TEASER
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POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
“We just passed a guy in a jetpack”
es, the title is exactly what you think it is, and this is an actual news story.
Yesterday, two separate pilots in Los Angeles reported seeing a man in a jetpack, approximately 3k feet above the ground, just a few yards away from their planes.
The FBI has since launched an investigation into the potential mystery man behind the stunt, and that’s about all we know at this point – though there has been some unfounded speculation that the person in the jetpack was a mannequin.
As one of the pilots put it, “only in L.A.”