E-COMMERCE
Stripe will offer buy-now-pay-later checkout via Klarna
Whenever two of the world’s biggest fintech companies team up, we take notice. This happened yesterday when Stripe and Klarna announced a partnership.
How the partnership will work: Stripe users in 20 countries will now be able to offer Klarna, one of the largest buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) providers, as a payment option to customers.
If Stripe is known for one thing, it is its speed/no-hassle policy. As expected, Stripe won’t ask you to go through any application, underwriting, or onboarding process to start with Klarna.
Why add BNPL to your checkout: Because of conversions. According to Karna’s research, businesses offering their buy-now-pay-later product see an average increase of 30% in conversion rates and a 52% increase in average order value.
What’s in it for Klarna? Your fees will go up. If someone pays you with a credit card through Stripe, you’ll pay around 3%. If the same person pays in Klarna installments, you’ll pay around 6%. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
It’s up to you to decide: Will the potential increase in conversions and the average order value make up for the higher fee? Decisions, decisions…
Availability: Check this page for a list of countries where Klarna + Stripe will be available, as well as a visual representation of the payment flow.
TIKTOK
TikTok partners up with Zapier to make responding to leads faster
If you snooze, you lose.
TikTok has announced a partnership with Zapier, allowing advertisers to use Zapier to transfer leads from TikTok Lead Generation directly into their CRM of choice.
Why this matters: How fast you respond to leads can make or break a deal. According to studies, if you respond to a lead within an hour, you are seven times more likely to qualify it. Let that sink in.
How things were before: Previously, you had to manually download CSV files if you wanted to access the leads generated by TikTok’s lead generation campaigns.
Be honest, you haven’t done that every hour of the day. We didn’t either. That’s why automation tools exist, and TikTok has just integrated with one of the most popular ones.
SPONSORED BY MERCURY
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You want Mercury, a bank built for e-commerce businesses.
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The first thing you want is unlimited virtual debit cards. You can create them instantly! And if Facebook decides to randomly cut off a card, you can spin up a new one instantly.
And then we are pretty sure you want to connect your account to Stripe, Shopify, PayPal, & Amazon… right?
Well, the process is seamless.
Do you need an FDIC-insured US bank account even though you don’t live in the US?
Again. You. Got. It.
Oh, and you didn’t hear about the cherry on top: Do you want to send international wires from your phone or laptop, without stepping foot inside a bank branch?
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Surprised?
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MARKETING
Turbo Boost growth ideas to acquire your next 1000 customer
Imagine pouring gasoline on a flame.
You get that big blaze for a few seconds, and then the fire dies down.
That’s what a Turbo Boost growth idea is: A one-off event that temporarily accelerates growth. Think about a PR event or a SuperBowl ad.
You get a good amount of new customers. And then your growth goes back to normal.
Ali Abouelatta and Lenny Rachitsky listed seven types of Turbo Boost growth ideas along with 60 successful examples from the past.
If you were looking for gasoline to set your growth on fire, you’re served:
– Launch a mini product: This is about launching a non-core offer that gets attention.
Calm is a meditation app: And their precursor was a website called “Do Nothing For 2 Minutes.” This website received 2 million unique visits and facilitated 100,000+ email captures in 10 days.
This worked because it gave people an instant and fun solution to a problem: getting distracted.
– Run a captivating limited offer: Run a unique promotion and give people a reason to pay attention. The trick here is tying the offer to an event happening in society or your industry.
Coinbase: During this summer’s Dogecoin craze, Coinbase added this currency to its platform and launched a sweepstake giving away $1.2M in Dogecoin to celebrate.
This worked because it surfed a sentiment that was already popular in the crypto world.
– Pick a fight: Take something that your audience doesn’t like about a competitor, and start a fight. This creates controversy and eventually draws attention. People love scuffles after all…
WePay: The sign-up of this PayPal competitor grew by 300% when it dropped a block of ice with the message “PayPal freezes your accounts” during the PayPal annual developer conference.
The media was already interested in PayPal’s practice to freeze accounts, hence the coverage was assured.
If you’re looking for more Turbo Boost growth ideas, you can find the other four types in this post, along with 60 examples.
SPONSORED BY VIDICO
One video formula to boost business
375,000+ views, 5.8k hours of watchtime, average view time 56s out of 60s.
When Cascade turned to Vidico to create video ads, they didn’t expect such results. But Vidico has the formula to create videos that win customers. And humor is one of the keys!
Want to get similar results for your video ads? Get your personalized video creation offer by completing this free VidiFit quiz.
THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
How to edit (and what not to do)
We’ve spent the last 3.5 years editing content almost every single day. And we’ve learned that good editing is, more often than not, the difference between good and great writing.
The problem: Most people can’t edit well. Here are a few tips for better editing and great content.
Editing your own writing
- Wait at least 12 hours (24-plus is ideal) before editing your own stuff.
- Scan it once and make edits to the obvious errors. Here, evaluate if the structure needs changing.
- Let some time pass, then read it in detail, word by word, making detailed edits.
Editing other people’s writing
- Remember that you don’t have a monopoly on style. Don’t nitpick every single word and phrase because it’s not exactly how you would have written it.
- With the above in mind, follow the same steps you’d use to edit your writing.
- If you’re confused about something, ask the writer before changing it. This creates trust and respect between both of you. Don’t assume, ask.
- If you’re new to working with a writer, leave edits as comments on a Google Doc so the writer can see what you’re changing.
A final tip: If you’re editing someone else’s writing and you believe that this someone is a good writer, your edit document shouldn’t look like an apocalyptic war zone.
If you find yourself changing multiple items per sentence, they’re either a) not a good writer, or b) it’s bad editing.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
EMAIL: Do you use email for your sales? Then you need to try out this tool that will help your cold emails always land in the inbox, with a 50-80% open rate, and get over 15% reply rates. It’s free to test, check it out here.*
SEO: We don’t blame you, Google’s quality rate guidelines are long and sometimes confusing. Here’s a blog post that demystifies some of the guidelines Google published a few days ago.
FACEBOOK: Kiddos were right, Facebook is becoming a platform for old(er) people. Here is a data-driven graph to back this up.
PPC: Which large companies spent the most on paid search ads? Here’s a hint: it’s the ones who own the ad platforms.
E-COMMERCE: If you hate Shopify, you’ll probably appreciate headless commerce. Here’s the most recent startup to receive seed funding in the space.
FACEBOOK: Reactions > likes on Facebook, according to a leaked document.
SEO: Next time you want to use a generic name like “admin” for your blog posts, think twice, according to Google.
AMAZON: Guess who’s the latest to imitate Clubhouse? Amazon. They plan to do it with a twist by creating a platform where anyone can become a live radio host.
*This is a sponsored post.
BRAIN TEASER
What’s black when you get it, red when you use it, and white when you’re all through with 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.
Professor teaches government: Viewing website HTML code is not illegal
Apparently, knowing how to read HTML source code can land you in hot water with the government.
The Missouri governor intends to sue a journalist and a cybersecurity professor for “exposing the Social Security numbers” of school employees.
The only problem is that those Social Security numbers were hidden in the website’s HTML source code.
Available to everyone: Shaji Khan, a cybersecurity professor involved in the investigation, must have felt like a first grader when he explained to the governor that those SSNs were sent to “every visitor on the website.”
In other words, viewing them was as simple as pressing CTRL+U on your keyboard (if you’re reading this on a desktop browser, try it now. No worries, we won’t sue).
Some people compare this case to saying that you “hacked” a play by reading a script. Or Coca-Cola accidentally printing its full recipe in the ingredients list and then accusing anyone who reads it of corporate espionage.
Let’s hope that this case ends well…