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SNAPCHAT
Snapchat: New placements and creativities
For all of you affiliates out there leveraging Snapchat’s low CPMs and relatively lenient policy enforcement, the multimedia messaging app is launching new features to help advertisers: Their own mobile ad network and more creativity to enhance the experience.
Snapchat wants to build its mobile ad network
Later this year, Snapchat will roll out its own mobile ad network. The company will let apps like Tinder and Houseparty host Stories inside their own products and users will be able to share these stories from the Snapchat camera with Stories Kit (another feature that will be launched in the near future).
After FBs long string of plagiarised features, Snapchat has finally drawn some blood in the battle with its Instant Stories. In fact, this move essentially copies the Facebook Audience Network functionality.
It aims to address the revenue problem stemming from its blocked growth. On the advertisers side, they want to reduce the issue of lack of scale that has been known to advertisers away.
According to the CEO, Evan Spiegel, marketers shouldn’t be discouraged by the low volumes:
“In the United States, Snapchat now reaches nearly 75 percent of all 13 to 34-year-olds, and we reach 90 percent of 13 to 24-year-olds. In fact, we reach more 13 to 24-year-olds than Facebook or Instagram in the United States, the U.K., France, Canada and Australia.”
In all fairness, the volume looks pretty significant. It’s certainly not on FB’s scale at the moment, but remember that FB is already saturated with ads. Giving Snapchat a chance might not be such a bad idea.
Now, shall we do a sweepstake on how long it takes FB and Instagram to implement the same feature, adding their stories to their Audience Network?
Boosting users’ engagement
Snapchat announced other features as well, although this time they’re focusing on keeping their current audience more engaged rather than trying to grow the size of that audience. All being well and good, that does mean they’ll be able to squeeze more out of their users with ads.
Let’s have a quick look at the new features:
- Snap Games: A platform that allows for multiplayer gaming in real-time with original and partner-developed games exclusively made for Snapchat.
Snap Games will offer advertisers six-second ad spots in the platform, which is accessed directly from Chat for fast and intuitive gameplay.
- Stories Kit: This will allow users to share their stories in other apps.
- Dynamic scanning and enhanced AR: Movement tracking, new interactive templates via Lens Studio, landmark manipulation, and object scanning. This will bring Snapchat stories to life.
- Snap Originals is expanding its mobile shows with a range of scripted dramas, comedies, and docuseries targeting a variety of audience interests.
Snapchat’s Unique Reach
Maybe Snapchat isn’t as big as Instagram, and their algorithm probably isn’t as developed as Facebook’s, but Snapchat does lead the way in one key area… Unique users.
What do we mean? A significant portion of daily Snapchatters are exclusive to the platform so Snapchat is the only channel we can reach these audiences.
Here’s some data to back this claim up:
- 38% of daily Snapchat users in the USA and France can’t be found on Instagram on any given day.
- 67% of daily Snapchat users in Germany can’t be found on Facebook.
- 78% of daily Snapchat users in Saudi Arabia aren’t on FB.
- In nearly all listed regions, 50% of Snapchat daily audience can’t be found on Messenger.
- 75% of Snapchat daily audience, except for Saudi Arabia, can’t be found on Twitter. This isn’t surprising. Twitter is a totally different product than Snapchat which targets a different audience.
- When it comes to Youtube, 50% of their daily audience in Australia, Canada, and the US cannot be found on the video platform.
This is due to the fact that Snapchat offers some unique core benefits: People can communicate visually, play with augmented reality and consume made-for-mobile content.
All of this leads to the conclusion that Snapchat is a good option if you want to reach out to this exclusive audience.
Plus, as we’ve already mentioned, Snapchat policies aren’t as strict as Facebook’s at the moment.
The Crew’s Take
The buzz around Snapchat is pretty huge now, and many affiliates have already jumped in and started pushing CPA offers.
Remember, the early adopters are usually the ones that reap the most benefits. This has happened on almost every marketing platform going due to the lenient regulations and lower level of competition.
Of course, this traffic source isn’t scalable as Facebook or Google, but it could be the perfect space to push offers that have already proven to work on other platforms.
Just remember, Snapchat users have a different mindset and the platform has a unique tone of voice, so don’t discount that factor when jumping into Snapchat.
REPORTS
Global Ad blocking behavior 2019
Thanks to the rise of those noisy, interruptive and deceptive ads, user frustration has been on the rise and so too has the use of ad blockers.
More than 47% of all internet users now use ad blockers, and this has been a problem area for marketers as well as ad-tech platforms.
Google is trying to tackle this issue by launching their own ad blocker, which will go live globally later this year, as well as more tools for webmasters such as the Ad Experience report.
How significant is ad blocking in 2019? Where is ad blocking being utilized the most?
More than 80% of people between the ages of 18-44 use some sort of ad blocker. The APAC(Asia-Pacific) region leads the rankings where ad blocking is concerned, while adoption is still static in other markets.
Top reasons for ad blocking?
- Too many ads – 48 percent.
- Annoying or irrelevant ads – 47 percent.
- Ads contain virus or bugs – 38 percent.
- Too much screen space – 37 percent.
- Increases page load times – 33 percent.
- To avoid video ads before playing a video – 29 percent.
- Compromise of privacy – 26 percent.
Ad overload is the main concern in South American countries, whereas things such as privacy and battery drain are the top reasons among Middle East users.
Though it’s not changing how people discover brands, ad blockers cite social media, review sites and mobile apps to a higher degree.
Have a look at the complete Infographic here.
Cold traffic funnel: Turning $6.5k into $52k
The last time we featured this guy, it was an April Fool’s Prank. This time it’s the real deal though – Dimitri Nikolakakis shared a FB sales funnel he used to scale a clothing brand from $30k to $120k/month. Even more impressive – $50k of this revenue came from cold traffic.
Let’s see the strategy he used to convert those cold visitors into hot buyers:
Top of the funnel
It started by targeting cold traffic with a meme video. The video was entertaining, light-hearted and fun.
At the top of the funnel, according to Dimitri, the goal shouldn’t be to close the sale, but rather to try and build virality and drive engagement at a low price.
However, to make these more relevant, the people in the videos were all wearing the brand’s own clothes.
Middle of the funnel
They build a custom audience and a lookalike audience of all the people that watched 75% of the meme video.
Then, they retargeted these audiences with a video that explained the concept of the brand. This video was more serious: It revealed the brand story and inspired viewers to get involved with the company mission.
To make their marketing experience a more familiar experience for these viewers, the people in this video were the same people wearing the same clothes as in the initial video.
Bottom of the funnel
At this point, they promoted offers to the video viewers’ lookalike and retargeted audiences that had viewed more than 75% of each video.
Obviously, they offered the same items of clothing that appeared in previous videos.
By now, prospects were familiar with the brand and the clothing, leading to a higher ROAS at the BOF.
After converting the prospects, they introduced other product launches and offers to raise the customers’ lifetime value.
Dimitri says that these campaigns took the brand from $30k/month to $120k/month in a short time.
It looks like the hardest part of this case study is actually producing the videos. The FB strategy used looks really simple, yet very effective. It could definitely be a useful strategy, especially if you’re trying to build a brand.
Updates to Cross-device conversions for consistent reporting. Google’s human search quality raters
Google Ads has updated its attribution reports to bring more consistency to reporting. Plus, a Google-guidelines document which they share with their human ‘quality raters’ to evaluate your web content.
Let’s look at the paid aspect of things first:
Cross-device conversion data in Attribution reports
Starting May 1st, cross-device conversion data will be included in all attribution reports in Google Ads.
Metrics such as Total Conversions, Conversions Value & Last Click Conversions will be available.
What does this mean?
Currently, cross-device conversion data is only available in some reports and is completely ignored in others. This leads to conversion metric calculation inconsistencies and flawed analysis when looking across different reports.
PS: Cross-device conversion data will only go back as far as May 1, 2019. For data prior to that date, cross device conversions will still only show in those reports where they are currently available: Devices, Assisting Devices, and Device Paths.
Here’s a complete list of Reports and Metrics that will be updated to include cross device activity from May 1st.
Google’s guidelines doc for their ‘human’ Search Quality Raters
Did you know? Google contracts over 10,000 search quality raters worldwide to evaluate its search results.
These evaluators are provided with real terms that are searched on Google, which they use to analyze and rate the quality of pages that appear in the top results.
Quality raters cannot alter Google’s results directly though. A rater marking a particular listing as low-quality will not cause that page to be banned or lose ranking.
The data is instead used to improve Google’s search algorithms. In the long term, quality raters’ data will have an impact on low-quality pages but the algorithm changes also impact pages that weren’t reviewed by humans.
“Google is clearly fighting the war against clickbait, and they are asking raters to rate sites as low where the title is too sensational or doesn’t match the actual content. If it is in the guidelines, Google is looking for a way for their algos to counter clickbait, either currently or in future algos.”
What are these guidelines that Google shares with their Quality Raters?
It’s a 164-page set of guidelines used to help human ‘quality raters’ evaluate online content and provide feedback to Google.
Curious to know what these guidelines are and why your pages are classified as high, medium, low or not meeting the guidelines? Download the full document here.
PS: The doc is from July’ 2018, which is the last time these guidelines were updated.
Zoom In
Google feels that looking only at a website’s reputation and not at actual content creators is one of the key areas where many sites fall down.
If you are accepting contributions from those with low or bad reputation, it might not be a great sign for your website rankings. This is becoming even more important in a world of fake news and conspiracy theories. Hence, you might want to do your due-diligence before working with such contributors.
This doesn’t apply to just written content either. Videos and social media post shouldn’t be ignored.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
World’s biggest divorce settlement
Well, who just landed at the No. 4 spot of richest woman in the world?
Amazon’s first lady, MacKenzie Bezos!
And who’s the most proud of this feat? The WTAFF Crew writers!
Why?
Well, MacKenzie started her career as a writer, so you could argue that we are on the right track!
This settlement doesn’t exactly leave Jeff on the bread line though – He still retains 75% of his existing stake in the stock of Amazon, a business with an overall evaluation of $900B.
That’s like taking a few buckets of water from the ocean.
“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness. Happy to be giving him all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of our Amazon stock plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.” – Our First Lady!
You can sleep well tonight, Jeff! The Forbes list top spot is still yours!
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