APPLE
Apple’s App Store now has a second ad slot
With iOS 14.5, Apple has created a problem for mobile app advertisers. Now, they appear to be offering a solution.
The company has just announced a new type of ad slot for the App Store: Search tab campaigns.
Here are some specifics:
- Ad location: The new ad slot can be found under the App Store Search tab. “Millions of users visit the App Store Search tab every day to find and download their next app,” according to Apple.
- Creatives you need to upload: None. This new ad format will make use of your existing app’s name, icon, and subtitle. There is no need to add any new images or text or specify any additional keywords.
- Minimum spend: None. You can start running Search tab campaigns with as little or as much money as you want.
- Ad pricing: You are charged per-thousand-impressions (CPM). Apple employs a second price auction, which calculates how much you pay based on how much the next closest bidder is willing to pay.
- How an impression is counted: 1 impression = at least 50 percent of your ad is visible for one second.
- Tracking: Apple uses its own proprietary Attribution API where you can measure installs that originate from Search tab campaigns.
The company has also created a page where you can learn more about Search tab campaigns and how to create them.
It’s fascinating to see Apple come up with this just a few days after announcing ATT.
TIKTOK
TikTok has improved its location targeting
One common complaint among TikTok Ads users is that the targeting capability is terrible.
Fortunately, the company has taken a step in the right direction today by adding DMA geo-targeting support.
DMA-what? A DMA region is a collection of counties that form a distinct geographical area. There are 210 DMA regions that cover the entire continental United States, Hawaii, and parts of Alaska.
So, if you choose to target people in the United States with TikTok Ads, you will be able to be more specific. Instead of targeting a specific state (such as Texas), you will be able to target a specific county or city, such as San Antonio.
This is a big deal if you are an agency with local businesses as clients, or if you have ads that are only relevant to a specific city.
The Crew’s Take: Let’s hope TikTok keeps improving its targeting and becomes a viable alternative to Facebook and Instagram for advertisers.
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Which company do you think you can learn more from?
- A $100M e-commerce brand in the teeth whitening space.
- A $75M newsletter with over 3.5M subscribers.
- A 7-figure yearly e-commerce store in the phone case niche.
They each have some big lessons.
- Snow, the $100M teeth whitening brand, does extremely well with celebrity and influencer campaigns. Plus, they leave no channel untested. This is close as you can get to using all digital channels.
- Morning Brew, a newsletter with over 3.5M subscribers, grew thanks to some well-timed (and well-executed) campaigns any online business can learn from.
- Peel showed how you can stand out in a croded niche like phone cases.
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MARKETING
User retention lessons from Clubhouse
“Clubhouse downloads are falling off a cliff.”
That’s a headline from Business Insider, and it seems to be correct. In April, the app was downloaded only 900k times, down from February’s peak of 9.6M.
Is there a reason people aren’t as interested in Clubhouse these days? More importantly, is all the hype actually worth it?
The Growth.design team broke down Clubhouse’s user experience to find if Clubhouse is a keeper or not.
+ Status and scarcity: The invite-only access makes people value the experience and feel more important. When you add the scarcity of invites to this, you get the perfect mix to draw people into your world.
But what happens once you’re in?
+ Ask without first delivering value: As soon as you sign up, Clubhouse asks you to invite more people. While this boosts growth, it can backfire as the user hasn’t yet tasted the Clubhouse experience yet.
+ Ask again: When you log in, Clubhouse asks you to follow 25 people. This makes sense as it keeps the user active. For instance, Facebook found that if a user added 7 friends in 10 days, they were much more likely to continue to use Facebook. Although it might be too early to ask the user to take action without delivering value first, all major social networks do this – so something is working.
+ No onboarding instructions: Drop-in audio chats are a new thing for people. And before entering a room, they might fear that they’ll interrupt something. Or that they’ll have to contribute to the conversation. This could stop them from joining, and Clubhouse should address these objections.
+ Hard to catch up with the conversation: When you jump into Clubhouse, you have no context about the topic they’re talking about, and what led them there. The app should have some features showing the current topic of the convo, and what led them here.
+ Hard to find relevant content: When you land on YouTube, you’ll be served with relevant content for you from their huge library of videos. This is impossible on Clubhouse though, since the rooms are live. The solution could be to keep the conversation accessible for 24 hours. So, you preserve the FOMO effect while giving the chance for everyone to get value while keeping a healthy relationship with the app.
Growth.design did a great job, and we encourage you to check out their project here. Clubhouse should probably give this post a look before Twitter Spaces does!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
SNAPCHAT: Social networks want a bigger slice of the influencer marketing pie.
Snapchat is no exception. The company has announced a new marketplace that connects brands with Snap’s influencers and creators.
TIKTOK: “Catch us on Clubhouse.” TikTok has announced a four-part series for small business owners. The first is on May 7th.
YOUTUBE: The video platform is focusing more on short videos. YouTube has announced that they will replace the “Explore” tab with a “Shorts” tab on the app’s homescreen.
SEO: Another day, another SEO myth debunked. According to John Mueller, Google does not penalize sites that use Google Analytics.
MICROSOFT: The company has announced that its phrase match change will be made available first in North American markets. No mention of Europe.
YAHOO: It’s been a long time coming, but Yahoo Answers is officially gone. Thank you for everything, Yahoo!
BRAIN TEASER
Two people needed to cross a river. But there was only one boat, and the boat could only hold one person at a time. How did they both get across?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
A Belgian farmer accidentally moves the French border
Take a look at any world map. It looks like countries’ borders are set in stone, right?
Well, in some cases, they literally are. But stones can be moved: And that’s what happened in Belgium and France, where a farmer unknowingly changed the border between the two countries.
Here’s what happened: A Belgian farmer was riding his tractor through the forest. He noticed a stone in his way, so he moved it. Simple enough, right? Not really.
The stone that the farmer moved was an official marker of the border between Belgium and France. By moving it, he made Belgium slightly bigger (and France slightly smaller).
The situation has been met with amusement from both sides. However, the farmer is being asked to return the stone to its original location.
So, Belgians, enjoy your slightly larger country while you’ve got it!