APPLE
iOS 15 is out. Here’s what’s changing for marketers
Apple has just released iOS 15 for the iPhone, iPad, and iWatch. This new version brings lots of new features for users and a few headaches for marketers.
Here are a couple of reasons to break out the aspirins:
- The Mail app will block tracking pixels. This feature will not be enabled by default. Instead, users will have to select whether they want to “Protect Mail Activity” or “Don’t Protect Mail Activity.” (You can guess what most people will go for.)
Furthermore, if Apple users subscribe to its iCloud+ service (priced at only a buck), they’ll gain some additional privacy protection. And cause marketers some additional aspirin-worthy problems:
- Privacy relay, or Apple’s version of a VPN service. If a user with privacy relay enabled visits your website, Apple will hide their real IP address.
- Hide my email. Basically, this allows users to create an unlimited number of emails. Apple will then forward any messages arriving to their real email address.
How to prepare: Stay calm and don’t freak out. If you’re into email marketing, consider this change when calculating your overall open rate.
Also, if you notice a high number of iOS users coming from the same IP address, it’s not a fluke. It’s most likely one of Apple’s Privacy Relay servers.
CONTENT MARKETING
UGC > Influencer > Branded content
User-generated content is the strongest Avenger… at least when influencer and branded content are your other options.
That’s the gist of a Stackla survey of 2,000+ consumers.
Here are some of the stats to back this up:
- 80 percent of respondents said UGC strongly influences their purchasing decisions. This was 8.7x more than influencer content and 6.6x more than branded content.
- When asked what type of content they want to see on an e-commerce site, 72 percent answered “real customer photos and videos.”
- 80 percent of people said they would be more likely to buy a product online if the store had real customer photos and videos.
Behavior > opinion: All of this is fine and dandy, but as the saying goes, “watch what people do, not what they say.” Stackla asked one behavior-based question: why did people leave an e-commerce site without purchasing?
The answer: 64 percent of Gen Z and 60 percent of millennials said they left an e-commerce site without making a purchase because the site lacked customer photos or reviews. Those are not small figures.
What you can do about this: Try experimenting with user-generated content (UGC) in your ads, home page, and product pages. Check to see if it improves your overall conversion rate. You can thank us (and not Tony Stark) later.
SPONSORED BY VISTO
Catch your competitors naked
Facebook media buyers are saving thousands of dollars on testing using the Visto spy tool.
They have one of the biggest Facebook affiliate ads databases in the market.
They make it easy to hack your way through the ad jungle and quickly find exactly what ads are working.
How?
With their newly released Visto Lite plan. It comes with their industry-famous 1-Click Smart Filtering, and powerful search functionality based on landing page text, redirect path and more… all for a very attractive price.
It’s perfect if you want to find the best ads but don’t need the internal landing pages of the offers. That’s where the regular Visto plan comes in.
With Visto Lite it is simple to identify the ads of your competitors with the highest ROI. But also discover new competitors you didn’t know you had, and new trends in your niche.
Text search filters. Landing page text search filters. Affiliate verticals filters. Affiliate offer filters. E-commerce filters.
They have so many filters you can get as precise as a surgeon when looking for ads.
And for the next 7 days, you can get Visto Lite (with its full capabilities) for a fraction of the cost forever (as long you don’t cancel).
Get your hands on your competitors’ campaigns now and start enjoying marketing with an edge!
ADVERTISING
Unconventional. Unexpected. Memorable
If you’re here, you probably run most of your campaigns online. However, these examples of guerrilla marketing campaigns might spark some inspiration for your next breakthrough.
Sahil Bloom shared a list of successful ones on Twitter. And these are our favorites:
– The Blair Witch Project: Prior to the movie release, the creators released “missing” posters showing the photos and names of the main actors, creating curiosity around the legend.
Did it work? The Blair Witch Project production cost was $500,000, and it generated $250M in box office revenue.
– Go bullish: The Gold Toe underwear brand put a pair of its (size XXXL) underwear on the famous Wall Street Bull. It went completely viral.
– Monstrous marketing: Before the launch of a new King Kong-themed park attraction, Universal Studios’ smart marketers thought about leaving some huge King Kong footprints and a crushed car on Santa Monica’s beach.
– Photobomb: During the 2019 Golden Globes, a woman handing out refreshing Fiji Water strategically photobombed celebrities’ photos. The viral effect was immediate.
– Date a superhero: Marvel, before the launch of the Deadpool movie in 2012, created a Tinder account for Deadpool himself. Users that swiped right were directed to a page to get the tickets.
– The Liberty Bell prank: In 1996, Taco Bell paid $300K to place ads in 6 major newspapers. They used them to announce they were buying The Liberty Bell in an effort to help the national debt. And the name of the bell would become “The Taco Liberty Bell”.
The prank generated $25M in free publicity. That’s an 83x ROAS.
Hopefully, these push you to create some other viral campaigns. After all, the principles are the same.
You want to create a campaign that is:
- Unconventional, like putting a pair of panties on Wall Street’s iconic symbol.
- Unexpected: You wouldn’t expect to find Deadpool on Tinder.
- Memorable: The buzz created around such campaigns persists in customers’ mind, so they feel familiar with the brand.
But be careful: People might misunderstand your message. Make sure that when you go viral it makes your brand popular. And doesn’t kill it, instead.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
BUSINESS: Trends analyzes economic signals to uncover consumer trends before they arise. And they helped more than 17,000 entrepreneurs uncover business opportunities in new booming markets before everybody else noticed. Here’s a niche that is set to grow almost 5x by 2027.*
GOOGLE: Web stories can drive traffic even if you’re not an English-speaking website, according to Google.
ADVERTISING: New rules create new dynamics. Here’s how the ATT change gives Apple more control over your ad dollars.
AMAZON: Is voice shopping the next big thing in India? Amazon hopes so.
CLUBHOUSE: Remember Clubhouse? They’re (still) alive and well. And they’re currently working on cool features, like this one on inviting people to audio rooms.
TWITTER: Twitter agreed to pay $809.5M to settle a case in which they were allegedly concealing slow user growth figures.
*This is a sponsored post.
BRAIN TEASER
You see a boat filled with people. It has not sunk, but when you look again you don’t see a single person on the boat. Why?
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.
First World Problems
There are a lot of first-world problems, but we believe we have found the winner.
According to a survey conducted by the Motley Fool, 70 percent of millionaires are worried about leaving “too much” money to their children.
The reason for this is that millionaires are concerned about their money being “used irresponsibly” or “causing beneficiaries to be lazy.”
Some Redditors attempted to be helpful by offering their Venmo as a solution to the problem.
All jokes aside, this is a real problem. Leaving someone millions as an inheritance is equivalent to them winning the lottery (and we all know what happens to lottery winners).
Nobody wants their hard-earned money to be squandered by their heirs. However, this is one of the few “good problems” that almost every person wants to have.