[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
SNAPCHAT
The nutra affiliates’ new playground!
This is interesting. Some of the naughty affiliates out there have started turning heads on Snapchat. Why do we feel it’s affiliates?
Because ads and offers are awfully similar to those on Facebook… We’re talking about fake celebrity-endorsed magic-solution type ads.
Just check out this screenshot here. The reaction from Chrissy Teigen is equally familiar and just blames “the company”, in this case, the offer owner.
Zoom out:
Facebook and Google have been cracking down hard on all this stuff. And Snapchat seems to be the new territory for such ads.
The app was championed as a super brand-friendly medium up until recently. Not surprising, given that FB was less strict a year ago. If FB allows it, affiliates won’t bother with a smaller platform like Snapchat.
When naughty affiliates went looking for a new home, Snapchat welcomed them in one way or another though. Because FB kicked them hard!
The Crew’s take:
Being less experienced than FB and much more in need of revenue, Snapchat probably can’t compete with FB on compliance. Maybe Snap doesn’t even want to, given its results.
Also, there are people who started teaching Snapchat Ads in the affiliate space… We can’t say for sure, but we have a feeling it also has to do with the increase of such ads on the platform.
Must mean the ROI reminds everyone of “the good ol’ days” when >200% ROI was nothing uncommon. Don’t go off celebrating just yet because…
There are 3 things that are clear:
- Snapchat is the place nutra affiliates are flocking to and they use the same angles.
- The mainstream media is already on it and will pressure everyone, especially Snapchat to solve their compliance leaks.
- This won’t last long. Snapchat needs revenue, but not at the cost of users and bad press.
Redefining the marketing funnel with search intent.
It’s not long ago that Facebook’s Ads Manager took a break and drove hordes of marketers crazy. Right before Black Friday!
Yesterday, it happened again. Many advertisers reported performance and delivery issues. Basically, Facebook has been spending money as usual. But stats seemed way off. And the only data updated in the Ads Manager was the ad spend!
Nothing about conversions…
While it’s still not clear why this happened and how widespread the problem is, many people are complaining about the performance issues on this post.
What about you? Did you have under-delivery and performance issues? What Gods do you pray to in these times?
SEARCH
Twitter’s beta app testing all new features
Marketing funnels are everybody’s favourite thing. And we all believe that, for building a successful online business, we gotta build funnels and measure them linearly.
But maybe funnels don’t run linearly. At least they don’t when it comes to search marketing. Where people don’t follow a straight path from awareness to consideration to purchase.
So how exactly are the marketing funnels changing?
Google looked at thousands of users’ clickstream data as part of an opt-in panel. And found that no two customer journeys are exactly alike. In fact, even within the same category, journeys take multiple shapes.
Let’s explain this with user journey examples from 4 different niches.
Beauty and Fashion:
- A user searches around to learn more about different kinds of makeup.
- Narrows their search to a particular brand.
- Compares it with other brands.
- Heads in-store to make the purchase.
Total touch-points: 125.
Electronics:
- A user wants to buy a particular pair of headphones.
- Researches about various headphones.
- Checks out their favourite brands.
- Narrows down on a couple of them.
- Goes through various Google and YouTube reviews and product tests.
- Determines whether their first-choice brand meets specific criteria.
- The brand capable to stay on his radar throughout the journey gets the sale.
Total touch-points: 175.
Travel:
- User finds a flight deal with most affordable airfare.
- Researches about travel time, airport information, in-flight experience.
- Finds more about luggage, passport information and tourist attractions.
- Ends up purchasing a different deal altogether.
Total touch-points: 500.
FMCG:
- The user is looking for a perfect candy bar.
- Begin their research.
- Types of candies. Specific retailers. Shipping logistics.
- Eventually, heads in-store to buy.
Total touch-points: 20.
The Key Takeaways:
- Align marketing to business outcomes: Be everywhere. Consumers expect your brand to assist them through your funnels. Measure the touch-points. Look past impressions, clicks, and online conversions and connect your media to revenue, gross margin and profits. Understand the user intent, interactions and signals for driving long-term growth.
- Stop marketing to the average: Be useful and value oriented. Optimize your media, both for relevance to the consumer and lifetime value for the brand. Understand your customer journey so that you are paying to acquire the best customers and not the customers your competition didn’t want.
- Automate whatever possible: It helps to deliver experiences that are quick and frictionless. Understand the user intent using machine learning and automation. Find missing/unexpected connections between business goals and the habits of your key customer segments.
AMAZON
Amazon enables dynamic bidding, bid adjustments for Sponsored Products ads.
Jeff Bezos is a king. After conquering the e-commerce space, he is going to take over the advertising market too.
In fact, while Amazon is earning a bigger market share in the advertising market, it’s even improving its advertising platform.
What are the new changes?
Amazon added more bid management features for Sponsored Products ads in its advertising interface. An automated bidding option and a page placement report.
The updates take a page from the Google Ads interface, so paid search marketers will be familiar with both.
But what are these updates about?
The new bidding tool includes an option to set your own bids. Alternatively, you can choose the automated bidding. This option uses the machine learning process to determine the likelihood of an ad click to convert and adjusts the bid accordingly in real time.
In addition, Amazon is letting advertisers set placement bid adjustments for Sponsored Products ads for the top of the search page and for product page placements.
Bid adjustments can range from zero to 900 percent. As with bid adjustments in Google Ads and Bing Ads, your bid is multiplied by the bid adjustment you set.
The Crew’s take:
Amazon has momentum. Ad spend is growing. And they keep updating the advertising platform to attract more and more advertisers. And we have to expect more updates.
Jeff Bezos is an ambitious entrepreneur, and the war with Facebook and Google will see one of these three companies bleeding.
Yet, as advertisers, we should focus on what works more for our wallets and let these big guys fight it out. We just need to stay aware and take advantage of the next big trends.
E-COMMERCE
Hiring for Shopify and entering new markets.
We like to spend 27 of our 24 hours wandering in Facebook groups and news websites. That’s just how The WTAFF Crew rolls!
Sometimes we find something interesting. Other times we just waste our time.
But today we found two interesting websites for e-commerce owners: One could help you hire the right person for your Shopify store. The other is about entering a 100M population market.
The right hire for your Shopify store.
Storetasker is a marketplace that promises to solve the outsourcing problems of Shopify owners in a simple way.
There is a wide range of services you can choose from: Accounting, Design, Photography, Marketing, Store set-up and Virtual assistance.
It already has 5000 live customers. So it has some traction…
We haven’t used the site and we can’t be sure it’s as good as they pitch themselves. Still, Storetasker shows a lot of positive reviews from fellow Shopify store owners and is a Shopify partner too.
Maybe, it’s worth a try! If you happen to give it a shot, do let us know your thoughts!
If it helps you have some free time, cool! Cause you should use this time to explore a new market. A very big one.
Sceptical about entering new uncharted territory with PayPal and other e-payment solutions? How about COD? This one could be the right COD platform to expand your business:
COD Tool to enter the 100M Philippines market.
Payo.asia is a full-service platform that allows you to enter the Philippines market with many features:
- COD payment.
- Last mile delivery.
- Full integration with Shopify.
- Real-time tracking system.
In addition, they also provide local warehousing in Manila to take care of all your local fulfilment needs.
Well, if you have been thinking of extending your e-commerce base to a market of 100M people and were looking for some additional support, this might be it. You can connect with Ofri Kadosh, from the Ecom Empires group.
Again, not something we can vouch for but we thought you might find it useful!
SPONSORED
Become a top 1% Facebook expert!
Even with the tough privacy scandals in 2018, Facebook remains the 2nd strongest advertising platform out there. Hell, it’s even the strongest for certain businesses!
The issue is that FB is often a closed box, at least for affiliates and dropshippers. There is one way to better understand the ins and outs of Facebook.
And that’s Facebook’s own Blueprint programme and exam.
Blueprint exams are created to prove advertisers are well aware of all the latest features, tools and best practices when it comes to Facebook Ads.
And Markeko has created the ultimate study guide used by 5K+ people to help prepare for the next FB Blueprint Certification exam.
How is this helpful? Well, if you’ve checked Blueprint courses, you’ve seen they are just extremely long. Markeko’s guide saves you time in studying for the exam or just in understanding what Facebook really expects of its advertisers.
Whether or not you plan to actually take the exam, this guide will give a very useful overview on how Facebook wants its advertisers to use the platform. You know what they say… “Give FB what it wants and it will give you conversions!”
The guide is free to download right here.
If you’re more advanced and plan on taking the FB exam, you can check Markeko’s courses that prepare you for the exam with sample questions and video explanations.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Guess who’s on the dark side of the Moon?
Our little guy, of course! What? Didn’t you see that coming?
Well, he’s met with the Chang’e-4 robot that China sent to the dark side of the Moon not long ago.
And you can see the first ever pictures taken by it and sent back to Earth right here.
What we can say for sure is that the Moon is not made of cheese, just in case anyone had doubts. Still, the pictures give us a mixed feeling: beautiful as well as scary.
Check them out!
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]