META
Instagram is testing new ad placements
If launching new ad placements was noisy, we’d have to wear ear protection…
Meta is introducing two more ad placements for Reels in addition to the other four placements introduced this month.
Ready, set, Reel: After a Reel ends, a skippable video ad 4–10 seconds long will play automatically. The original Reel will start playing again after the ad.
Instagram is also testing image carousel ads, which are horizontally scalable ads containing 2–10 images shown at the bottom of Reels content.
Seems like a lot, no?
Hold on, there’s more: Meta is also testing several new Instagram ad placements, including…
- Ads in Explore home and on public profile feeds.
- Multi-advertiser ads, which let you target high-intent shoppers with suggestions.
- Augmented reality (AR) ads that give shoppers a chance to try your products out in their surroundings.
Why we care: Meta is hoping to compensate for lost revenue by adding more ad load. That could be good or bad for marketers, depending on how these ad placements affect users’ experiences.
Still, it creates opportunities for you to test new placements before anyone else.
Just pay attention to frequency. Nobody wants to see too many ads, too often.
Speaking of ads…
MICROSOFT
Performance Max import, intent-based targeting, and more
How do you say “big holiday season” without actually saying it?
If you’re Microsoft, you say it by dropping the biggest ads update only weeks before…
Google + Microsoft: You can now import Performance Max campaigns into Microsoft as Smart Shopping Campaigns and Local Inventory Ads… very nice.
Narrowing down: The Audience Network got some new features, including:
- Intent-based targeting. You can extend your shopping feed to customers that have displayed intent in your product and reach them throughout Microsoft’s Audience Network.
- Feed filtration improvements that let you make category selections at all levels, exclude items from your catalog, and more.
New markets added: Microsoft is expanding the Audience network to 66 new markets across five continents.
Plus, Smart campaigns are available to new markets including Ireland, Singapore, New Zealand, Netherlands, Italy, France, and Germany.
… And new products, too: Microsoft added several formats and additions, like…
- Data exclusions for automated bidding—currently in open beta.
- URL tracking.
- Microsoft’s globally available Asset Library.
- Doctor and clinic ads—currently in closed beta.
Phew, we’re done… For now.
Let’s take a trip. To Los Angeles…
SPONSORED BY DTCX
Unfiltered DTC lessons from $2B founders
The most challenging time of the year is about to start…
How would you like to beat your wildest sales expectations by December 31?
DTCx is taking their smash-hit virtual conferences in person in Los Angeles for three days. And this year, 250 leaders will gather to prepare for a tumultuous Q4.
This is your chance to network with and learn from DTC pros like Lo Bosworth (founder of Love Wellness), Alex Collis (Director of Operation at Princess Polly), Aaron Spivak (Co-Founder of Hush), Hamid Saify (SVP of Digital Retail), and others.
Here’s what to expect:
- Founders’ lessons from brands doing a combined $2B+ in sales.
- Hands-on workshops with your favorite brands and tools.
- Food trucks from the best spots in LA.
- A boozy brunch.
- Giveaways: DTCx swag, AirPods, Bluetooth speakers, and more.
After this event, you’ll have five or six DTC killers in your network you can rely on, plus advanced customer retention strategies your competitors will wish they had.
EMAIL MARKETING
How to boost your sales margins with a bounce-back email trick
Hooray! You got a shopper to buy your product.
… But the first acquisition costed more than what you earned from that first sale.
What if you could turn your first-time buyers into repeat buyers immediately?
Michael Galvin’s insightful post in The Copy Campus Facebook group suggests a simple yet effective email sequence that can double or even triple your conversion value.
It’s called the bounce-back flow.
It’s an email you send to new shoppers five minutes after they buy your product.
Why it works: The shopper just made a purchase, so they’re still engaged.
What’s in the email: The content of the email combines an incentive, such as a discount, with a deadline.
The result: High open and placed order rates.
To make this work, you need to show them specific products that are:
- Low-cost, so they don’t think too much about taking action.
- Best sellers, because you know these products work.
- High-margin, since they generate big profits, which is the main goal.
Michael also mentions a few examples of brands that leverage bounce-back emails successfully.
For example, The Jellybee bounce-back email features a one-hour window to claim the discount offer, plus a GIF of a ticking clock to amplify that sense of urgency.
And offers new customers a specific, best-selling product, making the decision easy.
Super efficient trick, right? Try implementing this email into your first-time buyers email flow and see whether your results improve. Let us know how it goes!
SPONSORED BY MINISOCIAL
Scale your BFCM campaigns with licensed UGC assets, get started in just 10 minutes
Whether you market on Meta, TikTok or YouTube, your ROAS depends on the quality and authenticity of your video and image ads.
That’s why leading brands like Native and Imperfect Foods rely on minisocial to pair up with micro-influencers and get fully-licensed UGC assets in 10 minutes or less.
You get high-quality creative for accessible prices, so you can scale your brand or business predictably and effectively.
THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
Going smaller, not bigger, can make you more money
Laastari Lähiklinikka is a chain of health clinics in Finland, typically located in shopping malls and other populated areas.
Yep, you read that right… a health clinic located inside shopping malls.
These clinics are known as retail clinics. They’re where people go and pay a fixed fee to get whatever they need.
Laastari generally charges something like 25 to 45 euros per visit.
At a general hospital in Finland, you’d typically pay at least 100 euros for the same care.
How can Laastari Lähiklinikka afford to charge such prices and still stay profitable? By niching down.The clinic focuses on a limited set of the most common illnesses, and administers the most common vaccinations.
By specializing, they can charge lower prices. Plenty of clinics around the world adopt similar practices.
What it means for you: You don’t need to do it all. Sometimes, by niching down and charging less, you can attract more customers than ever before—and make more money doing it.
Consider cutting down your product offering to a few core functions. If you choose those functions well, you may be well on the road to a new and improved business model.
Want to learn more about pricing models and how they can help you make more dough?
Then you’ll want to check out our latest report for Stacked Marketer Pro members. You can read it today for just $7.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Managing paid, social, and content marketing teams on the same platform is difficult. Every team works in their own unique way. Height enables cross-functional teams to work together more efficiently across the whole company, without restrictions. Create your free workspace.*
GOOGLE: Don’t trust their recommendations? Well, Google wants to prove their recommendations work by letting you compare your base campaign to a recommended campaign so you can measure results. Let the contest begin!
NEWSLETTERS: Bye, Bulletin. Facebook is shutting down their newsletter platform to keep more content—and more users—on the platform. Makes sense, seeing as Meta recently announced their intent to focus on a new discovery-type feed.
SEO: And the unlikely winners of Google’s core update? Copycat articles. Google’s Danny Sullivan shares tips for improving rankings for original articles by showing the research is yours, asking copycat websites to cite to your source, and so on. Ugh.
INSTAGRAM: Why have one link in bio when you can have two or three? Instagram has expanded its testing of more than one link in user profiles, which means the feature may soon be available worldwide. We’ll see!
PRIVACY: Hitting pause. The UK’s new data protection bill—which was intended to replace General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—is now on hold because the government needs time to “rethink.” Guess we can expect pop-ups for a while…
BNPL: Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is going offline. Klarna and Affirm are creating their own “banking-type models” and releasing BNPL debit cards that allow users to split payments. Interesting…
*This is a sponsored post
BRAIN TEASER
Under pressure is the only way I work, and by myself is the only way I’m hurt.
What am I?
You can find the answer here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
The future looks kind of… wobbly
Here’s a piece of unsolicited design advice.
If you’re building a luxurious floating home, make sure you check every item on the list:
- Oceanfront home? Check.
- Futuristic, smart-home design? Check.
- Eco-friendly? Check.
- Gravity-resistant? Errrr…
Otherwise, your floating home may crash onto an adjacent dock at the end of its unveiling.
… Like this unfortunate futuristic house did.
As we marketers like to say… test everything!