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Will this API update resolve the death of cookies?
Facebook just released an update that will (hopefully) make a lot of marketers very happy: Server-Side API. Some advertisers already had this option available, but for those seeing this for the first time, let’s take a look at what it means.
“The server-side API (for web) allows advertisers to send web events from their servers directly to Facebook.”
This means that you can process server-side events such as browser pixel events.
Still not clear on how exactly you can take advantage of this?
You will be able to fire events like invoicing or purchases without the user actually having to be on a web browser. Basically, rather than being based on events fired by user activity, it uses events created on your end. Got it now?
We have this post from Lourenço Maciel that actually outlines some of the benefits:
- You don’t need to redirect customers to a thank you page to get a proper conversion attribution.
- You can attribute monthly subscriptions, transfers, ManyChat events, etc, without depending on offline conversions.
- Pages will load faster because you don’t have to implement the Pixel code on your website.
However, these server-side API are not quite as easy to implement as the Pixel events. That being said, according to some opinions we’ve heard floating around, this could be a solution to combat the cookie crumble started by Chrome, Mozilla and Safari.
Thumbs up for Facebook!
BUSINESS
Tech giants’ acquisitions on the FTC’s radar
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is back in the news, and this time they’re not just taking aim at a single tech platform. The FTC is going after all the acquisitions made by big tech giants over the past decade.
The top five tech companies (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft) are on the radar and will be reviewed to ensure there weren’t any potentially anticompetitive acquisitions of nascent or potential competitors.
To name just one, Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram or WhatsApp, might have been disallowed under the theory that they were nascent competitors.
The reason? Well, these tech giants have been involved in buying out future competitors before they have a chance to grow to that level. Some of these transactions were never reported or reviewed for the nature of their acquisitions.
Apparently, it’s gonna be a very broad investigation which will include a review of data obtained, licensing and the ability of a business to approach or make an appointment on another organisation’s board.
“This initiative will enable the Commission to take a closer look at acquisitions in this important sector, and also to evaluate whether the federal agencies are getting adequate notice of transactions that might harm competition. This will help us continue to keep tech markets open and competitive, for the benefit of consumers.”
According to a conference call held by the FTC, the investigation could also lead to enforcement actions. In extreme cases, this could even mean the potential unwinding of some of these acquisitions.
What is the FTC specifically looking for? It’s seeking detailed information and documents regarding their acquisition strategies, voting and board appointment agreements, agreements to hire key personnel from other companies, and post-employment covenants not to compete.
Well, this move by the FTC could make it much more difficult for these tech giants to acquire potential future rivals.
SPONSORED
🌎 Break Big Tech’s marketing walled garden on this 24 hours LIVE stream with Ryan Deiss, Nick Shackelford , Russell Brunson and more for free!
Let’s cut the filler and go straight to the thriller… Have you ever been:
- Slapped by social media policy with zero explanation.
- Blindsided by search-engines’ algos and had your site delisted.
- Shut down by video hosting websites for mysterious reasons.
- Sent to spam by email platforms even though people were happily waiting for your messages.
- Paralyzed by conflicting advice from “goo-roos.”
You know what we’re talking about, right?
Then Rich Schefren’s Coalition To Save Internet Business 24-hour livestream is a must attend. When? Wednesday, February 19th, Starting at 7:00pm Eastern, 4:00pm Pacific.
Register your FREE spot right here!
You will get to hear from:
- Russell Brunson – Clickfunnels founder with a following of 2M+ entrepreneurs, sold over 450k copies of his marketing books.
- Ryan Deiss – One of the world’s leading digital marketers; owner of Digital Marketer, Inc. and host of the Traffic and Conversion Summit.
- Nick Shackelford – Led large teams and small in paid media, for brands like PepsiCo, Apple, Ministry of Supply and Diff Eyewear.
- Dennis Yu, James van Elswyk, Maxwell Finn and many many more!
Break out of the “walled garden” Big Tech has created and learn to make your business thrive with their help. You can ask your questions to Rich LIVE on stream. This chance doesn’t come around often…
All you have to do is sign up to reserve your seat here, for free.
E-COMMERCE
Hitting $150k/week at 3.7x ROAS
Here we have a case study shared by Bradley Hillier. Some points have already been discussed in other case studies we’ve shared, but let’s try to focus on the new things.
Some background stuff:
Ad spend: $45k
Revenue: $150k
ROAS: 3.7x
Purchases: 2.4k
Niche: Outdoor activity e-commerce store.
Point 1: Creatives. This section addresses the problem of creative burnout and offers some suggestions to avoid it:
- Change thumbnails to refresh your videos.
- Add headlines on top of videos. Meme style to make it clear, but be careful about text percentage.
- Use Carousels, split images into three sections and use a fourth image as a CTA.
- Throw top performing creatives into Dynamic Creatives campaigns to find new variations.
- When using Images for retargeting, throw in different headlines.
Point 2: Campaign structure. This is something we’ve seen already, so we’ll keep it brief.
TOF: A Conversion campaign optimized for Purchases including five ad sets targeting different Interests and LLAs.
MOF: Here, they used UGC content and targeted Facebook and IG pages engagers and Video Views. Site visitors were excluded.
BOF: The tip here is: If you’re spending more than $10k, then just retarget ATC, ICs and all hot audiences en masse. If your budget is lower, go more granular by breaking down your Custom Audiences into different time windows: 3 days, 5 days, 10 days, etc.
Advanced BOF: This is about making customers come back. So, target all of them with Thank You videos, Refill Ads, Re-order ads etc.
Point 3: Scaling. What worked well for Bradley was taking the best performing ad set and duplicating it into a new CBO five times and increasing the budget. Try to use large audiences, but if you don’t make sure to keep an eye on ad fatigue.
That’s all! If you want to see the exact audiences involved and some more creative tips, check out the full post here!
ROUNING UP THE STACK
- SECURITY: After yesterday’s ePayments facts, some bad actors tried to take advantage of the situation with phishing operations.
- CORONAVIRUS: Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest mobile trade show, receiving more than 100K visitors from 200 countries, has been canceled this year due to health and safety concerns.
- WHATSAPP: It’s a new milestone for Whatsapp as they reached 2B users on the popular messaging platform.
- GOOGLE: New annotation cards have been added into the Google Ads interface, making it much easier to navigate through the “Change History”.
- INSTAGRAM: Announcing the launch of a new IG feature which lets users appeal their disabled account decisions right within the app’s log-on screen.
- SEO: Step-by-step process on how to use Google Optimize to auto-customize your ad copies and webpage content to maximize the revenue potential.
BRAIN TEASER
I stand when I’m sitting, and jump when I’m walking. Who am I?
You can find the solution by clicking here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Psy-candy shops are about to go public
Maryjane companies going public are old news now. The next big thing to hit the market (and it’s already happening) is psychedelic companies.
Oh yes! Read here:
Thanks to the recent blessings by the FDA, which introduced a formal way for these companies to conduct research on previously disallowed substances, the stairway to public listings is now well and truly open.
Mind Medicine Inc. will be the first one to get listed on Toronto’s NEO exchange, potentially as soon as the first week in March.
While the company is not yet generating any revenue, it’s targeting an ambitious valuation of around $50M.
Well, we don’t know what the future holds but this definitely sounds like a great step in the right direction. And no, we don’t mean a great step towards better parties, but more as an alternative treatment for otherwise unmanageable health issues.
Talking about the future, expect some heavy changes to start happening at WHAT THE AFF too! Don’t say we didn’t warn you!