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BUSINESS
$4B Affiliate Business Exit?
The big news this morning is that PayPal has completed its biggest purchase ever by acquiring the shopping and reward platform Honey for $4B.
What is Honey? The company provides a service that helps consumers find deals while they shop online. It works with 30k online retailers and claims to have 17M monthly active users. Honey stated that it has helped these 17M users save around $2B. Talk about creating value for your audience, uh?
It’s basically a coupon tracking company, but it works as a Chrome extension instead of a website and sends an alert to users every time the price of a product drops.
What’s Honey’s business model? It’s kind of like affiliate marketing, although not quite the same as what we’re used to. Honey gets a commission every time a user completes a purchase using the discount offers, but the company also shares a percentage of that commission with its users.
Why did PayPal purchase it? First of all, that’s a lot of shoppers’ data! Twenty-first-century gold.
It’s not just that though. With the acquisition of Honey, PayPal’s reach will expand to 300M users. It will also add another company to PayPal’s portfolio that’s in line with its mission: To make online shopping cheaper and easier.
Or, at least that is what PayPal stated…
Last, but not least, PayPal’s network of 24M merchants will gain the ability to offer targeted and personalized promos to consumers, boosting their chances of acquiring new customers.
So, this acquisition will benefit merchants as well.
The “Zero Friction Shopping Experience” Facebook wants you to build
We’ve always known that Facebook values the experience you offer to your users, and that customer experience often influences your CPMs.
Now, Facebook wants to help businesses improve themselves, so they shared this Zero Friction Future post talking about the need for businesses to remove all friction from their shopping funnels. Basically, get rid of all those flaws that interfere with the shopping path:
- Slow websites.
- Improperly working websites.
- Broken links, discount codes, etc.
- Poor shipping experience.
- Every new step in the shopping journey that slows or lowers the quality of the shopping experience.
This shopping friction results in a loss of €100B to European merchants alone. And, according to FB stats, 76% of European consumers said they would move away from a business that doesn’t meet their customer experience expectations.
Hence, Facebook shared 7 steps to reduce friction in this Zero Friction Shopping guide. It’s pretty long, so if you want to find Facebook’s advice on how to improve your shopping experience, you can check the whole guide here.
SPONSORED
📢 Disney Streaming Services, Groupon, Stubhub and more to speak at Affiliate Summit West 2020
The wait is over! The Affiliate Summit West 2020 agenda is now LIVE.
It’s jam-packed with dozens of tactics from the brightest and most prominent names in the industry. ASW wants YOU to feel inspired by their visions of the future of affiliate marketing.
A range of beginner, intermediate, and advanced topics will be covered that will help take your business to the next level. TOP TIP: Filter the agenda by level and pass type, so you can see the sessions right for you. A snapshot of what you can expect:
- Leveraging LinkedIn and LinkedIn Ads for Trackable Results
- End Of The Amazon Associates Era? What Might Be Coming Next
- $6.2 Billion: Taking the Pulse of Performance Marketing in the U.S
- Get That Bread: Leverage Influence with Affiliate Marketing
- 2020 Vision: Coupon Trends to Keep an Eye on This Year
- SEO Live Site Reviews: Deep Dive In to Help Solve Your Search Issues
PLUS influencer marketing, social media, incrementality, mobile, conversion, customer acquisition, SEO, coupons, voice search, website audit, brand loyalty, PPC and more will be covered! Top industry experts you can expect to hear from include:
- KEYNOTE SPEAKER Tim Burd, Co-founder, AdLeaks
- Kelli Farley, Influencer Marketing Manager, Jane
- Chris Johnson, Client Services Director, Groupon
- Aaron Weigum, Director, Performance Partnerships, ESPN+ Disney Streaming Services
- Christina Weaver, Global Senior Affiliate Marketing Executive, Lovehoney
- Jana Seitzer, Founder, whiskynsunshine.com
We’re confident you will leave with PLENTY of ideas you can convert into actions.
Hundreds of affiliate marketers have registered THIS WEEK from companies such as Conde Nast, Nasty Gal, Groupon, TIDAL, and Snapchat. So why not join them? REMEMBER – WHAT THE AFF readers get 25% off ALL passes THIS week.
Register here with your code WTA25OFF.
CHATBOTS
Getting your Chatbots ready for January 15
ManyChatters, we are sure you are already aware of the changes coming into effect on Messenger from January 15th, 2020.
Today, ManyChat released a detailed and extensive guide on the policy changes, explaining why these changes are happening, all about message tags and how to make sure that you are ready for January 15th.
In this detailed guide, they suggest 3 ways to prepare yourself:
+ Prepare your existing flows: Go through all your existing flows and tag messages that might be sent beyond the 24-hour window. If there is no tag that fits with a message, replace it with an SMS or email step instead.
+ Collect your customers’ emails, phone numbers and their consent: Failing to request and record consent will lower deliverability and can result in penalties. This will allow you to access your audience and send them content that doesn’t fit any applicable tags.
Remember to collect phone numbers from your new subscribers during their first interaction with your bot. This will allow you to reach out to them outside of the 24-hour window.
For your existing subscribers that are not already in a sequence, utilize the +1 Follow-Up message before it’s binned on January 15th. Send out a Broadcast requesting their contact information and consent.
Since you only get one shot with the +1 Broadcast, it’s best to tie the opt-in with some sort of promotion. Once they opt-in, send it to them via SMS.
+ Go omnichannel: Embrace the luxury of omnichannel marketing by gaining a deeper understanding of Message Tags, email and SMS steps. Take advantage of Multiple Channel Broadcasts to maximize your reach and minimize your spend.
The default option for a Multiple Channels Broadcast for those who have interacted with your bots within the last 24 hours is Messenger. You can then move to email opt-ins and then to SMS opt-ins. Each user will only receive one message on one medium, which depends on which conditions they meet first.
If you are interested in a longer and more detailed read on each of these steps, check out this ManyChat guide.
ROUNING UP THE STACK
- SECURITY: Just another day, just another data leak. No biggie! But if you are a one of the 2.2M users of Gatehub and EpicBot, you might wanna check this out and consider changing your login details.
- SEO: New data is coming to Search Console which will offer retailers insights on the performance of product rich results in Google Search.
- ANALYTICS: If you are running or planning to run Call-only campaigns, here are some ways to track inbound calls to their source at the keyword and campaign levels and identify your best campaigns.
- FACEBOOK: A new set of brand safety tools which will enable advertisers to control where their ads appear across Facebook’s delivery networks.
- SNAPCHAT: What are Gen Z’s shopping behaviours? Snapchat has a lot of data on Gen Z, and they shared a report discussing this topic. Useful for the approaching holidays.
BRAIN TEASER
Four years ago, Meg put a nail on a tree in order to mark her height. If the tree grows 10 inches per year, and currently the nail is 5 inches lower than Meg, how much has Meg grown over these four years?
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.
Can you multitask at these 90s games?
Enjoy being frustrated but oddly satisfied at the same time? Come on, be a sport!
Because we’ve got a game that we just can’t help but share with you.
It’s a web-based game called Codevember, in which you play the arcade classics Tetris and Snake at the same time with the same controls.
Tetris on the left, Snake on the right.
But here’s the fun (and not so fun) part: When you lose in one, you lose in the other.
Both these games could already be pretty challenging, but unsurprisingly the difficult level skyrockets when you’re playing them at the same time. It can feel pretty impossible to clear lines in Tetris while simultaneously avoiding the confines of your box in Snake.
But here’s a pro tip: Tap more than once in the same direction to move pieces in Tetris without messing up your snake’s progress. You can also instant drop in Tetris so you don’t totally go off course with your snake.
Too much inside info has already been revealed for now! Try your hand at the game. It’s fun. Good Luck!
BRAIN TEASER ANSWER
Five inches. Trees grow at their tops.