E-COMMERCE
Google <3 Shopify sellers
It’s an exciting time to be a Shopify seller.
Pinterest announced last month that it will make Shopify sellers more easily discoverable on their platform. And now, Google is doing the same thing.
What Google is doing: With this update, Google is making it easier for Shopify merchants to be discovered on Google’s products. Simply put, if you sell on Shopify, you’ll be able to easily list yourself on Google Shopping, Search, YouTube and Images.
The Crew’s Take: It looks like Shopify wants to cement itself as the go-to e-commerce platform for businesses. And it seems to be working – it would be difficult for self-hosted platforms to replicate these integrations.
Facebook is trying to bring shoppable livestreaming to the masses
Facebook no longer wants you to just watch videos – they want you to buy stuff while you’re watching them.
Starting May 21, the company will host a series of shoppable livestreaming events in partnership with a few big brands.
How will it work: You’ll be able to watch the livestreams by either visiting the brand’s Facebook page or by clicking on the “Shop” tab on your Facebook feed. If you see something you’d like to buy in the video, you’ll be able to do it right from the app.
A calculated start: The live events will be around three industries: Makeup, apparel and skincare. The reason? According to Yulie Kwon Kim, director of product management commerce at Facebook, it’s because those categories are highly visual.
Other big players are doing it as well: A week ago, we reported that TikTok is also collaborating with Walmart on a live shopping event, following a successful first pilot.
What this means for you: Keep an eye on this space. Livestream shopping is huge in China, Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia. It’s a matter of time before it spreads to the west. Big platforms like TikTok and Facebook are actively pushing this trend.
The Crew’s prediction: As larger brands get traction with shoppable livestreams, smaller e-commerce companies will follow suit.
SPONSORED BY ONE VA AWAY
How to gain the luxury of time in a week – the lazy way
Ask Hannah Hageman.
“John Jonas, you’ve created a CEO out of me. I am up at 8pm trying to figure out what I can have them (her virtual assistants) do before I go to bed so my business can be built literally while I sleep. And it’s FUN! I can’t believe how much we’ve gotten done in just 3 days!! Big things are coming!”
Who’s John Jonas? And can you really build a business while you sleep?
John Jonas spent the last 15 years of his life creating a system that helped hundreds of thousands of other entrepreneurs to build an outsourced business structure that allowed them to free their time and live a more balanced work-life.
This system is called the 7-Day One VA Away Challenge. The goal is to make you able to delegate in 7 days. And find virtual assistants (VAs) for an astonishingly good price.
Here are some things you’ll learn at the end of the challenge:
- How to build an outsourcing business structure that works FOR you instead of one that DEPENDS on you.
- The #1 problem you’ll run into with your VAs (and how to avoid it).
- Find out the best starting salary that will attract talented VAs.
- What’s WRONG with the traditional approach to hiring a VA (And how to do it the right way).
- Red flags you should know when it comes to evaluating a VA candidate’s response and their profiles.
Time is a limited resource.
SNAPCHAT
Snap your biz!
Diversifying your acquisition channels has been a common topic recently. And one platform that’s attracting many advertisers is Snapchat.
Snapchat can be a gold mine if you market to younger people, with the 15-35 age group accounting for 78 percent of Snapchat users.
And if you want to get started, here’s a breakdown of the several ad formats available. Whether you want to generate sales, leads, or app users.
+ Single Image or Video Ads: These provide the most traditional ad experience on the platform. They match the Snap Story experience and can therefore be used to generate advertisements that appear to be native to the app.
Since these are short videos, you can combine a series of them to make a longer video.
+ Collection Ads: These are useful for displaying a group of products. They feature four tappable tiles, and you can use them to create a funny and frictionless shopping experience. It’s a way to give the user the chance to browse through your product without leaving the app. And give them a chance to buy.
+ Story Ads: These allow you to place a branded tale in the Discovery section. When the users tap on your tile, they jump into a collection of 3-20 Snaps to see more of your content. If you have a longer story or sales script, these ads might be a great choice.
+ Lenses AR experience: These allow you to exploit a classic Snapchat experience that has drawn a large number of users to the platform. Use this format to create an interactive ad leveraging AR.
+ Commercials: An high-impact option that allows advertisers to run non-skippable videos for six seconds. And they can last up to three minutes and appear within Snap’s curated content.
+ Filters: Chances are you know about that dog filter that became popular recently. That filter was created by Snapchat, but it illustrates the concept of this ad format: creating a branded filter and have as many users as possible to use it.
They are effective for awareness campaigns. And they give you a chance to get into the conversations the users are having while generating UGC.
Here you can find the whole list by Snapchat. And if you click on one of them, the company even shows how some brands use it.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
AMAZON: Wondering which Amazon products are going viral? Amazon launched a new “Internet Famous” page which lists all of the platform’s current trending products.
PRODUCTIVITY: Get ready to 10x your Google Docs/Sheets productivity. The search company is about to launch some really cool productivity hacks.
ADVERTISING: The Association of National Advertisers released the top 5 KPIs that are “most important” for advertisers and the 5 “most popular ones”. Hint: There’s quite a significant difference between the two lists. What people say matters and what actually matters are two totally different things.
TWITTER: This may come as a surprise to some, but it turns out that most Twitter users don’t mind being served relevant ads.
GOOGLE: The search engine’s AMP feature is gradually becoming obsolete.
PINTEREST: It appears that Pinterest was not very successful with Story Pins, so they decided to create a 2.0 version of them called “Idea Pins.”
ADVERTISING: If you’ve been caught up in the doom-and-gloom of post-cookie tracking, don’t despair; there are still many ways to track users using first-party data.
BRAIN TEASER
Turn me on my side and I am everything. Cut me in half and I am nothing. What am I?
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.
Bitcoin pizza
Have you lost a bunch of money on Bitcoin in the past few days? Don’t despair, there’s a consolation prize now: Bitcoin pizza.
Get a full stomach, support Bitcoin: This tasty pizza is not only going to make you full, but it will also make you feel good. The profits will go to the Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund, supporting open-source projects.
Can you pay using bitcoin? Uh…not really. One person joked that if they were to pay with Bitcoin, the transaction cost will be more than the cost of the pizza. They may have a point.
The project has some skeptics as well, with Will saying “Will the pizzas be expensive, wasteful and have slow delivery just like #Bitcoin?”.
Regardless of your thoughts on Bitcoin, we’ll take any excuse to buy some pizza.