E-COMMERCE
Shopify has a bunch of new stuff
The Shopify folks are an interesting bunch. They can be silent for months, and then, boom, a quadrillion new updates will come at once.
That’s what happened with Shopify Unite, the company’s annual conference, where Shopify announced tons of new stuff. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the announcements:
- You’ll pay no fees if you have a Shopify App and make less than 1 million per year. Previously, the fee was set at 20 percent.
- Your online store will get more modular. Shopify has announced “Online Store 2.0”, which focuses on making it easier to customize your store, store themes, and plugins.
- Expect new checkout apps. Shopify has just made it possible to extend Shopify checkout with third-party apps. Developers will get access to the post-checkout flow and be able to create apps for this.
- Payment gateways will get more flexible. If you’ve tried to integrate third-party payment gateways, you know how painful that is. Shopify announced they’ll allow payment gateways, as well as third-party developers, to create Shopify apps to make this process easier.
- Awareness ads. If you want to promote your Shopify app using ads, Shopify has introduced “awareness ads”, which will be similar to Facebook’s awareness ads.
Whew. That’s a lot. And we haven’t even begun to cover everything, so head over to the blog post for the complete list of announcements.
Facebook’s Substack competitor is live
It’s all about newsletters, and everyone wants a piece of the action.
Facebook is the latest to enter the ring with its newsletter platform. It’s called Bulletin, and it’s officially live.
Not part of Facebook: Bulletin lives on its own domain as a separate platform. It only uses Facebook’s infrastructure (Facebook Pay, your Facebook account so you don’t enter your email, etc.)
Some notable names are part of it: Some of the few are Malcolm Gladwell, Erin Andrews, and Mitch Albom. Only two writers are international: The majority of them are from the United States.
The Crew’s Take: Despite Facebook’s claim that Bulletin is a separate platform, we imagine a future in which Facebook will use its massive reach to promote various Bulletin newsletters.
After all, this is its primary competitive advantage over competitors such as Substack, which has the infrastructure but lacks discoverability.
SPONSORED BY ONE VA AWAY
How to outsource your way to a bigger business and more freedom for yourself
In just seven days. Yeah!
You probably know that by delegating some of your daily tasks, you’d have more time to focus on the strategic areas of your business. Or just more time to spend for yourself.
But you’re probably scared of hiring the wrong person. Let’s be honest, it’s a risk to put parts of your business in the hands of a stranger.
Enter the 7-day One VA Away Challenge.
It’s a hiring method created and honed by John Jonas for over 15 years that shows you where to find and how to easily hire high-quality remote staff.
This system helped thousands of entrepreneurs to find hard-working and reliable virtual assistants for an astonishingly good price. On the first try!
At the end of the 7-day One VA Away Challenge, you’ll have added a new hire to your business. And you’ll have more time, creative energy and resources to scale your company.
COPYWRITING
How to write the best headlines on the planet
The best advertising minds on the planet have been debating headlines for centuries. (Seriously, the first print ad was written back in the 1400s.)
You scroll past hundreds of headlines every single day: The articles in your Facebook feed. The first text you see on a TikTok. The titles of YouTube videos. The ad copy on Instagram Stories.
The winning headline, of course, is the one you end up clicking. Here are some principles for writing headlines your readers will devour:
+ Your headline is 80 cents of your dollar.
When David Ogilvy dished out the above advice, he claimed that five times more people will read your headline than your content or ad. In the era of digital advertising, that number is much higher.
A viral post on Hacker News, for example, could mean that millions of people scroll past your headline before deciding to click. The difference between an average headline and a great one is huge.
+ Treat your headline like a cliffhanger.
Many good headlines offer a problem, and subtly suggest a solution – one that’ll require you reading the content to discover. Check out a headline from The Verge:
Microsoft made a giant climate pledge a year ago – here’s where it’s at now
Or another one from The Verge,
Stadia’s biggest (timed) exclusive won’t be exclusive anymore
The formula: An initial problem -> A cliffhanger follow-up teasing a solution.
Follow the cliffhanger principle in your headlines, and readers won’t be able to resist clicking for more.
+ Be very specific.
Sometimes, pure specificity is the best route to drive traffic. Sites like Insider and BuzzFeed thrive on these types of headlines. For example, a popular headline for the current top article on Insider’s Lifestyle section read:
A couple paid for their $45,000 dream wedding without going into debt
There are no tricks here – the content is described in specifics. Granted, it does leave you wondering how the hell someone was able to cough up so much cash for a wedding, and whether there’s any chance you can do the same.
But, that’s why it’s probably performing so well. In a world of murky-at-best headlines, specificity is refreshing for readers.
By the way: This is a much shorter version of a post in our community, called Insights. There’s a lot more content like this in there. We’d love to see you on the other side.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
GOOGLE: Reminder, reminder. Google will end support for the broad match modifier in late July.
E-COMMERCE: International is the name of the game. WooCommerce is expanding their WooCommerce Payments to six countries.
INSTAGRAM: Linking outside of Instagram is always a pain. Now, the social network is slowly letting anyone share a link in their stories.
ADVERTISING: Audio advertising is getting hot(ter). Spotify Audience Network is expanding to the UK, Canada and Australia.
E-COMMERCE: The e-commerce fulfillment space is getting hot. ShipBob gets $200M funding, and is now worth $1B.
INSTAGRAM: The social network wants to show you more ads. Instagram is testing “more like this” when someone clicks on an ad in their feed. This could be a spying tool if your competitors target you…
APPLE: If you want to get more app users in Asia, we’ve got some news – Apple Search Ads are now available in China.
BRAIN TEASER
How many bananas can you eat if your stomach is empty?
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.
Space balloons in the stratosphere
If you thought flying to space is too expensive, we got some news for you: Space balloons.
Unlike airplanes, they won’t cost you millions, but a “mere” $125k.
It’s already possible: A company named “Space Perspective” has already made this possible and they hope to make their first flights next year.
Why fly to space: Well, what’s a cooler place to take an Instagram story from than outer space? Kidding aside, the Space Perspective founder thinks this will make humanity “feel connected”, due to them being able to view the entire population in plain sight.