E-COMMERCE
You can now add upsells and subscriptions to Shopify Checkout
Shopify’s latest update has us feeling pretty, pretty, pretty good about the e-commerce platform headed into the wildest time of the year.
What did they announce? Purchase and upsell apps are now available in Shopify Checkout, adding additional ways to maximize revenue for brands using Shopify’s e-commerce platform. Here are some more details about the update:
- There’s never been a better time. Demand for subscription features is on the rise, and the recurring payments market is expected to reach $478B by 2025 – a drastic increase from $15B in 2019. It’s time for many e-commerce brands to start considering recurring revenue models.
- The customer experience will be smoother than ever. Shopify said that there’s been increasing demand for post-purchase upsell apps. With this update, you can now upsell customers with a single tap that doesn’t interfere with the overall purchase flow.
Shopify released this update just in time for Q4 and the holiday season. If you’re looking to tack on some extra revenue (and you work with Shopify), it might be worth considering some of these new features from Shopify as ways to better serve your customers with products they’ll want.
Go check out the full announcement here to get all the details from Shopify.
ADVERTISING
The money or the bear?
Side-by-side advertising tests are always fun to take a look at. We got a great example of such a test recently when Aaron Orendorff posted the results he’d been seeing from two separate ads he’s been running for the agency Common Thread Co.
Both ads were about 40 seconds, used similar visual graphics, and were created for the same purpose – this was a true test of creative versus creative.
The difference? One ad had kinda-funny clips of money raining down on people in the background. The other featured a bear with nunchucks. Can you guess the winner?
The ad featuring the bear with nunchucks won on all accounts. It had more engagement, a lower cost per outbound click, and a lower CPM. Here are a few lessons we can pull from this:
- Absurd content works. If it’s absurd in the right way, of course. We’ll talk more about positivity and virality a little further down in this email, but it’s important for great advertising.
- Agency advertising is hard. Aaron mentioned in his Twitter thread that even with heavy engagement, it’s still a grind to convert a viewer into (eventually) a client. That’s why, if you’re marketing for an agency, maximizing your ad spend is crucial.
The Crew’s take: Don’t assume that ridiculous content will always work, though. The success of your ads depends on a number of factors. If you’re debating between conventional and absurd, don’t just assume – test them both!
SPONSORED BY TRENDS
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Have you heard the saying “Ideas don’t matter, it’s all about the execution”? We think that’s not quite true.
Great execution of a bad idea won’t lead anywhere. What you need is actually three things: a good idea, at the right time, with a good execution.
With Trends, you get a weekly premium report digging into the hottest business uhm… trends, plus access to their database of research and a community of some of the smartest, most ambitious entrepreneurs.
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Here’s what some people already achieved with this powerful combination.
- Jason Francis started a business along with his brother based on a Trends report. With launch costs of under $2k (including trademark applications), they made $400 in revenue in the very first week with $0 ad spend.
- Through the Trends community, Justin Kielsen landed enough clients for his new video advertising agency to quit his 6-figure job.
- Harvey Hodd found angel investors, a partner and customers for his blueprint.store business that paid 100x the membership fee at least.
To put it bluntly: If you want to take advantage of the hottest business opportunities, Trends is the whole package. And it only costs $1 to try. We have yet to see a better return than this…
Positive ads mean positive ROAS
Content packaging is the concept that Aaron L Spikes used to scale his Facebook campaigns to $375k. And it’s super simple:
Keep the algorithm happy by creating content that gives a positive experience to the user. These ads should also be designed to trigger buying behavior.
Now, there are a couple of pretty obvious questions that result from the above statement:
1) How can you keep the algorithm happy?
- Your creatives must signal a positive emotion: Facebook’s main goal is to keep people coming back to the platform. And by generating positive emotions in the users, you’re helping Facebook achieve its goal.
- Your ads must signal virality: The more engagement your ads get, the better will be the performance.
2) How do you drive buying behavior? You have to show the right content to the right user at the right time. To do this, adapt your content based on which stage of the funnel the user is at:
- Top of the funnel: This is about showing the problem the users want to fix. This is probably the toughest area to balance creating positive emotions with selling.
- Middle of the funnel: Most marketers here use testimonial ads. What works better for Aaron in this stage though, are purchasing experience creatives and user-generated content. Unboxing videos are an example.
- Bottom of the funnel: Here, you can be more straightforward with discounts and clear calls to action.
And that’s it. The most important point to bring home here is probably the first concept: Create a positive experience for the user and the Facebook advertising algorithm will thank you with juicy traffic and a better ROAS.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
BIG TECH: Clario just put together a cool – and scary – report on which companies know the most about you. Surprise, surprise: Facebook and Instagram top the list.
FACEBOOK: Do you have a productive Facebook ad that’s been less productive lately? Ads Alchemist recommends changing the age range by a year to help target the right users again.
TIKTOK: They’re serious about music – TikTok just announced a significant agreement with Sony Entertainment, a sign that the platform will continue to explore ways to grow in the music industry.
SEO: Scrambling to get your pages set up for Black Friday? Check out Google’s official advice.
SNAPCHAT: Want to know how to create great Snapchat ads? Who better to ask than Snapchat themselves – the company just posted a useful guide on their site!
BRAIN TEASER
The more you take of me, the more of me you leave behind. What am I?
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.
Step aside, Despacito
The true song of the century has just claimed the number one spot for most views on YouTube. Yeah, you guessed it – it’s Baby Shark.
Oh, is that not what you were thinking?
In any case, it’s true: Baby Shark is now at 7.47B views, while Despacito sits at 7.39B. It’s a close race, but Baby Shark has the edge for now.
If, for reasons incomprehensible to us, you actually want to listen to either of these songs, you can check out Baby Shark’s record-setting video here and Despacito’s previously-record-setting video here.