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GENERAL
Shopify was down!
In case you somehow missed it, Shopify was down for about one hour yesterday! Maybe less, hard to know exactly when the incident first happened.
This includes storefronts. That’s why we’re bringing this up.
If you noticed a drop in sales, you are probably already on top of things. If you haven’t, better check and also double-check your FB ad accounts are also fine.
We all know Facebook doesn’t like it when you send users to an error page!
How a “guru” can BS you
If you read our newsletter on a regular basis you’ll already know that we recommend being careful when it comes to gurus pitching their products and courses.
Depesh Mandalia talks in his Facebook Ads Experts Academy about how easy it is to create false data.
You don’t even need to fake screenshots. Setting false values in your pixel or making test transactions which get pixeled do the job as well.
The latter led to a screenshot Depesh posted that shows a ROAS of 2228.
So before you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a course, be sceptical towards the guy selling the course.
Steven Black summed it up very well, saying in the comments:
“People that are good need to share themselves, people who are great are shared by everyone else.“
Reddit slowly becoming appealing to advertisers
We’ve brought up Reddit as a traffic source before, but if you’re a relatively new reader, here’s what you need to know.
Reddit ranks 5th in Alexa’s rankings for the US, ahead of Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and other big names. So it has traffic.
Where it is still struggling a bit is making users interact with advertisers. They’ve brought a major redesign, and it seems to be helping.
The other issue with Reddit is that its users are more tech-savvy and don’t fall for “cheap” advertising methods. And each subreddit has its own culture to a great extent.
So for an advertiser, it’s great if you understand your niche and want to target subreddits that are relevant. It’s not so good if you want to promote iPhone sweepstakes.
We strongly recommend exploring it if you have your own niche brand, whether it’s e-commerce or any other service.
Facebook’s new purpose for business pages
Good news!?
Facebook knows that your organic page reach has dropped. By a lot! We all know that there’s a decent chance FB is not too fussed by this, because you end up paying for your reach through ads instead.
Well, it’s not (just) Facebook’s diabolical plan. More businesses have pages and this increased demand for space in the News Feed is running into a supply issue as growth numbers slow down in the US and EU.
So Facebook is redesigning pages.
They’re bringing about changes to help local businesses. Not your online store, unfortunately!
New design on mobile, Recommendations will be more prominent on Pages, buying tickets for Events straight through FB, jobs tool for local businesses and adding a Local section in the app, where users can browse local businesses.
In other words, not much for those with an exclusively digital presence. For now.
Paying through Messenger, directly from your checking account?
Maybe, in the not too distant future.
Facebook is trying to partner up with a few banks, like JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and US Bancorp to allow users to view their checking account balances, get alerted about potential fraud and see nearby ATMs.
This would be a step to allow payments, to businesses, directly through Messenger from a checking account.
It’s pretty clear Facebook wants as much use as possible out of all its apps.
Sure, it will take more time to test things out and make sure everything is secure, but payments are on the list.
Doing payments and general e-banking through their apps would be a nice addition to their services, that can increase the number of ad impressions they can sell.
Many advertisers report on Video Views not populating
If you were running videos and gathering a custom audience, check if it’s updating.
Ryan Skelly noticed that his views are no longer populating from FB, only those under one minute from Instagram.
He asked the Facebook Ad Buyers group about it and many other group members reported the same issue, and not just now, but for the past few days.
Seems to be a Facebook bug, not an issue with an isolated account so check that your campaigns aren’t affected by this!
Updates from FB about Lead Ads
David Schloss got an update from his FB rep and Depesh shared it in the Facebook Ads Experts Academy group.
It sounds like Lead Forms got a nice upgrade.
First off, you can now use them with three new objectives: brand awareness, reach and traffic. The idea is you can capture intent higher in your funnel, and move them to a purchase quicker if they are very interested.
There are also two new templates available, that are best for different goals.
“Collect Contact Info” is a template that allows you to provide a simple form with a context card and questions. The “Get New Customers” template, however, allows you to provide a richer Canvas experience along with your questions.
In other words, you can do much more and better selling with the second version.
There are also a few updates with regards to reporting and tracking. You can now see the platform (Facebook or Instagram) that generated the lead.
You can also add hidden fields in your forms that users won’t see but that will be passed to your CRM. Like your typical e-mail submit form.
Pretty cool updates if you’re doing leadgen!
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Here’s the hottest traffic source for Japan!
Are you tired of Facebook banning your ad accounts? We might have a new traffic source for you, at least for the Japanese market.
A Japanese advertising agency has started selling ad space on the armpits of attractive young women.
The models displaying the adverts are pictured grasping overhead handles on trains.
It’s tough to estimate average CPM and CPC, but with $88 for one hour of exposure, the ads aren’t cheap.
In case you’re interested, you better hurry up before autumn months arrive and young women begin to cover up to keep warm.
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