SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook Ads reduces targeting options. YouTube removes dislike counts
Here are two major announcements from Facebook and YouTube:
- Facebook will remove a few detailed targeting options that users deem “sensitive.” Beginning January 19, 2022, you will not be able to target people based on interests related to their health, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion and political affiliation. Examples include targeting people interested in “same-sex marriage,” “Jewish holidays,” or “LGBT culture”.
- YouTube will make the dislike count on all videos private. The reason for this, according to YouTube, is to better protect creators from harassment.
How these changes might affect you:
- Facebook Ads: This will be a step back in targeting if you sell products to people of a specific ethnicity, race, or sexual orientation (such as LGBT t-shirts, for example). However, you can try other Interests that are still in line with your audience, or, if your account has enough data, you can test a broad campaign and let the algorithm do the work.
- YouTube: This may be good news for you if you release controversial videos that receive a lot of dislikes. If the majority of your videos had good like/dislike ratios when compared to competitors, you may need to find new ways to stand out (like getting a bigger percentage of likes per-1000-views, for example).
MOBILE APPS
What were the most downloaded apps in October?
It all depends on who you ask.
There are two main sources to consult if you want a reliable answer to this question: AppFigures and SensorTower. The two companies recently published their October reports on the most downloaded non-gaming apps.
What the reports agree on is that TikTok and YouTube were the top two most downloaded apps on Apple’s App Store. Instagram and Facebook ranked first and second in Google’s Play Store, respectively.
What the reports disagree on is who took the first spot in “overall downloads”. According to SensorTower, TikTok took the top spot. According to AppFigures, that’s Instagram (TikTok ranked second).
In any case, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp ranked in the top five everywhere on both the SensorTower and AppFigures lists.
Spotify is the newcomer to the list, according to AppFigures, taking 10th place in overall downloads.
The case for podcast ads: The AppFigures tidbit is interesting. Two weeks ago, Spotify announced their quarterly earnings, with ad revenue increasing by 75% to $376 million.
When combined with these Spotify download numbers, we can see the potential for podcast ads to become a strong paid marketing channel in 2022.
SPONSORED BY MAGAZINE GOLD
How to build a massive list for a tiny cost, like Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble
All businesses must put more focus into building their email lists. This means your customers will be bombarded by discounts, gifts, and other generic (often boring) offers.
You don’t need quizzes, e-books, discounts, giveaways, webinars, or free trials to get email subscribers.
What if you could do something more interesting, like a magazine? Brands like the ones we mentioned in the headline already use this thanks to Magazine Gold.
Magazine Gold lets you offer a full-year subscription to your audience’s favorite magazines as a gift.
Magazines can work better than discounts because they appeal more to top-of-funnel users, and they don’t harm your AOV. They can provide up to double-digit conversions boost! It’s not only about new subscribers…
Companies also use Magazine Gold as an incentive to boost loyalty and retention.
The magazine issues are delivered with your own branding elements, so with 12 issues a year you get 12 more touchpoints to communicate with your audience.
Discover how to use this alternative incentive to grow your list.
SEO
9 things you might not know about Google Search Console data
If you wrestle daily with Google Search Console, here are some facts you should be aware of shared by Andrew Charlton. Hopefully, they’ll shed some light on the data that Google Search Console shows you:
- The position of an URL in the SERP is only recorded when an impression is generated.
- If you only operate in one country, your data will be skewed by default. Filter your data by country.
- The position of an URL is calculated on the left (primary side) top-to-bottom and then on the right side.
- If more than one page ranks for the same query, Search Console records the best rank. And when it averages the position, it aggregates data from the best position across multiple queries.
- If there are elements like a knowledge panel with multiple links, they’ll all be recorded as the same position. This approximation can be misleading.
- On the landing page report, Google aggregates landing page data by the canonical URL. This means there can be a discrepancy with Google Analytics.
- When you implement a lot of new pages, your average position can go up as new pages rank higher.
- Since Google removes rare queries from the table data, clicks aggregated in the chart totals are different from the clicks summed by all queries in the table.
- If you filter queries by “containing”, anonymized queries will be removed from chart totals. This makes it difficult to get absolute values for defining brand vs non-brand data.
Did you find something new among these?
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THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
If you’re a creator, watch out for these red flags with advertisers
Over the last 3.5 years, we’ve worked with over a hundred different brands, and while 97% of the companies we talk to (whether we work together or not) are awesome, we’ve also experienced some ridiculous things that you can bookmark as red flags.
1. Trying to change the agreed rate shortly before the publishing date. It only happened to us once and it made it clear we’re not going to work with that advertiser.
2. Shows up late for a scheduled call without even knowing your newsletter name. It gets more absurd when you know the following:
- They got in touch asking for more information.
- We sent over our media kit, suggesting we can also have a call.
- We scheduled the call at their convenience.
- They were 30 mins late and oblivious of the media kit.
- Tried to lowball on pricing.
Our advice: Explain how much you are willing to go down on price, under what conditions, and if they don’t accept, just politely end the call.
3. They insist they have an amazing affiliate program where you’d make 3x more than flat price.
To put it simply, if their product is so good that an affiliate program pays more than the flat rate, they should pay and take the extra upside. This is just a common tactic to try and get free promotion.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
MARKETING: Attest found that 51.5% of US consumers say sustainability is “very important”. And 62.5% said they would boycott a brand found guilty of “greenwashing”. Clearly, attitudes to sustainability are changing – how will this impact your brand? Find out with the free sustainability trends report for 2022.*
ADVERTISING: It’s here. Google Ads Editor gets a version bump.
COPYWRITING: Here’s one important aspect of copywriting that nobody talks about, SMS copywriting. Joe Cunningham goes into greater detail about what an effective SMS campaign looks like.
GOOGLE: You’ll now have a better idea of which visitors are real and which are, well, Google bots. Google has just released a list of Googlebot IP addresses.
EMAIL MARKETING: You don’t have to use Revue to collect email subscribers from Twitter. Here’s a helpful tip on how to use Zapier to transfer your Revue subscribers to your ESPof-choice.
GOOGLE: The search engine just won big (saving $4 billion) and lost big (being fined $2.8 billion).
FACEBOOK: The Wall Street Journal continues to slam Facebook, this time by leaking information about how the company allowed stolen content to thrive on their platform.
SEO: We might get instant indexing on Google after all. The company hinted at future plans to implement it.
*This is a sponsored post.
BRAIN TEASER
There is an ancient invention still used today in some parts of the world which allows people to see through walls. What is it?
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.
Vaccines with benefits
You’ve got to give it to the Austrians, they’re a creative bunch.
First, Vienna museums decided to publish museum artwork on OnlyFans. And now Austrian brothels are offering free entry if you get vaccinated.
A brothel in Vienna is giving away vouchers to anyone over the age of 18 who agrees to be vaccinated at the on-site clinic. The voucher provides guests to a 30-minute “session” with a lady of their choosing (if you know what we mean).
“Come for the vaccine, stay for a little something extra,” the (un)official slogan goes.