SOCIAL MEDIA
How did Snap and Pinterest do?
‘Tis the season, and two social media companies had their quarterly reports yesterday: Snapchat and Pinterest. Let’s have a look…
Snapchat
- Revenue: $911M (up 62% YoY, beating expectations).
- Daily Active Users (DAUs): 265M (up 22% YoY).
- Average revenue per user: $3.44
The report was a mostly positive one for Snapchat, but its stock fell after hours. Why? Two things: First, it’s been a slow start to Q1 because of political events in the United States. Second, Snapchat warned that Apple’s upcoming iOS privacy changes “present another risk of interruption to demand.”
- Revenue: $706M (up 76% YoY).
- Monthly active users (MAUs): 459M (up 37% YoY)
- Average revenue per user: $1.57
Pinterest noted that it’s seeing great momentum in international ad markets, and the uncertainty that surrounded Snapchat’s report wasn’t present in this one.
The Crew’s take: The numbers look solid for both Snapchat and Pinterest. Ad revenue is higher than ever, and as both platforms continue to improve their targeting, expect that growth to continue. With iOS 14 privacy updates, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Google Ads gets a helpful update
There’s a new update to Google Ads that should make it easier to match your ads to the right keywords in Google Search.
Here are the details:
- Google’s phrase match feature is getting an upgrade. Previously, Google’s broad match modifier–which let you target more relevant searches–wasn’t great at respecting the order of words in a search. For example: it would treat “Boston to NYC moving services” the same as “NYC to Boston moving searches.”
- With the new update, order of words is respected. Now, Google’s algorithm understands that “Boston to NYC” and “NYC to Boston” mean very different things. It also contextualizes different kinds of searches, eliminating ones that aren’t relevant to your targeted queries.
The full details get pretty technical. But, the bottom line means that Google is phasing out its older “broad match modifier” feature, and expanding phrase match to make it better at understanding the intent behind searches.
If you’re a Google Ads nerd and want all the details, the full announcement is here.
BUSINESS
What to look for when hiring your first marketer
Hiring your first marketer can be tough.
This issue of the MKT1 Newsletter, however, can be a good starting point. They provided a long list of questions to ask when hiring a marketer.
But, most importantly, they provided a structure to understand if the marketer you’re evaluating suits your needs.
The biggest mistake founders make is hiring someone who has too many firsts. In this case, the learning curve is steep. You should make sure that your future marketer has some experience in at least one of two of the following areas:
+ Executing marketing plans: You need someone who can figure out what needs to get done, make a plan, and roll up their sleeves and actually do it. There’s very little chance a marketer has hands-on experience in different marketing areas, so you need someone who will be able to figure it out.
+ Owning marketing strategy: Evaluate your hire’s understanding of how all areas of marketing work together and their ability to set strategy for your business specifically.
+ Working at an early-stage startup: If the person only has experience at a late-stage company, they may struggle to roll up their sleeves and execute.
+ Marketing with your business model: Making the transition from B2C to B2B can be a challenge, but even having experience with your exact business model is valuable.
+ Managing people: Ideally, the first marketer you hire can grow into a leadership role. So, if they’ve never managed people, it can be hard for them to manage a team and execute at the same time.
+ Owning the marketing sub-function you need most: Do you need someone specialized in growth marketing, content marketing, or product marketing?
First, analyze the skills of your existing team, the business model, and your current growth strategy.
Then, determine which marketer makes the most sense. But aim for someone who is an expert with at least one functional area of marketing (product marketing, content, or growth) and proficient in another.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
GOOGLE SHOPPING: Beware! Big G is taking action against sites that show a different price at checkout than the one provided through Google Merchant Center.
INFLUENCER MARKETING: Here’s a great thread from Taylor Lagace on how he scaled a brand from 0 to $1M with influencer marketing. It’s worth a read for some of the tactics he shares!
SOCIAL MEDIA: If you’re wondering how to leverage Clubhouse for your business, check out this explainer article from Social Media Examiner.
GOOGLE: Amid disputes, the company launched Google News Showcase in Australia! Publishers participating in the program will get a monthly fee to curate the articles.
AMAZON: Affiliates can now use Mobile GetLinks. According to the company, a new way to share affiliate links on social media and direct messages.
BRAIN TEASER
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
The only video game that never ends
Ever played a game called AI Dungeon? It’s available on desktop and mobile (you can check out the desktop version here), and it’s an AI game that generates the story as you go.
You give it a prompt, it uses GPT-3 artificial intelligence to generate a (sometimes) cohesive story. It’s a pretty cool concept.
Now, a text-based game like AI Dungeon is one thing – but the goal is to go further than that. With AI, storylines in major games could have countless branches, and smaller production costs.
We’ve just got AI Dungeon for now, though. Enjoy it!