This is just the beginning of the conflict
If you thought that after the iOS 14 updates are rolled out, things will just get quiet, we have a feeling you will be wrong.
According to MacRumors, Facebook is preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple over what they deem to be an unfair approach to privacy and default apps.
Apple is no stranger to such a battle. Epic Games also has its own battles with the App Store owner and they might not be the last.
We don’t expect any quick resolution, if Facebook does go ahead with the lawsuit. And, to be honest, we don’t expect any magical solution that makes life easier for advertisers. We’re just spectators while the giants fight.
As a side note, Facebook’s Oversight Board made its first set of decisions. Unsurprisingly, it overturned many decisions Facebook initially made. This didn’t improve Facebook’s image, to say the least.
AMAZON
Amazon updates its dropshipping policies
This isn’t completely new, but Amazon’s put out a clearer breakdown of what is allowed and what isn’t.
What’s not allowed:
- You cannot buy from another retailer and ship without the shipment identifying your business as the seller or anyone else appearing on the packing slips, invoices or external packaging.
- You cannot ship orders that contain packing slips, invoices, external packaging or any other information that indicate a seller name other than yourself.
When can you dropship on Amazon? When you are the seller of record, remove any information about a third-party from the package, and when you are the one responsible for accepting and processing customer returns.
In short, you can dropship if you take all the responsibility and control, and the end customer doesn’t notice a difference. This sounds very much like Amazon, and nobody is surprised.
At least there are now some clearer guidelines to follow.
SPONSORED BY CHASE DIMOND
The free weekly newsletter from a $50M e-commerce email marketer
2021 should be the year of converting rented audiences into owned audiences. If you don’t, your business is often at the mercy of algorithm and policy changes from the big platforms.
The best medium for a direct connection with your audience? Email!
Ecommerce Email Marketing by Chase Dimond is a free weekly newsletter where you can find:
- Campaign ideas
- Actionable email marketing tactics
- Interviews
- Guides
All geared towards helping you drive more engagement and revenue from your email channel.
This year especially, it’s crucial that you own your audience (stop leaving this to chance).
Join 6,529 marketers & get Chase Dimond’s email secrets weekly. Sign up for free here.
E-COMMERCE
Lessons from scaling a store to $1M in under 12 months
This is a case study shared by Tyler Garner in the Facebook Ad Buyers group. He shared plenty, so we’ll get straight into the details.
Store context:
- US-based
- Health and supplement industry.
- Landing page conversion rate: 8%
- $53 average order value (AOV).
These are some of the moves that helped to scale the store:
- AOV booster: Initially, they were using quantity upsells to increase AOV. Then, they replaced their 2-pack option with a 1-pack subscribe and save option. This boosted the AOV while keeping the CPA (cost per acquisition) the same.
- Authority amplifier: They embedded their Facebook users’ comments in the landing page. You can find more info on how to do it here.
- Solution-oriented: When they launched the first ads, the headlines were focused on the product. But when they tested solution-focused headlines, conversions got a boost. The Crew’s tip: If you want to test it, be careful with Facebook policies.
- Social proof notifications: They used social proof notifications of real people buying to boost the conversion rate. However, test this, because in some cases it can backfire.
- Social listening: Constantly control the messages, comments and emails from your customers. Discover what they want and build your offer around their needs. Also, add the most frequent questions they ask to your landing page.
- Scaling: Make sure to have at least 5 winning creatives and 8 winning audiences before starting to scale. Also, set up automated rules. Tyler shared some in his post.
And here are some setbacks:
- Chargebacks: They used to have the “auto-complete” feature for shipping information. This brought many users to insert the wrong address, causing them to ask for chargebacks.
- During the election period, they experienced a rise in CPM. To fight it, they focused on proven audiences, reduced the budget and worked with previous customers to increase the AOV. After the CPMs were down, they went back to scaling.
These points sum up Tyler’s post. But you can check the whole content here.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
TELEGRAM: You can import your chat history from other apps such as WhatsApp, LINE or KaKaoTalk into Telegram.
FIREFOX: Version 85 of the browser cracks down on so-called “supercookies” to prevent cross-site tracking. Guess which social media network likes this the least?
GOOGLE: Doing local SEO? Then these Google Maps trends are something you have to check out!
TWITTER: You will soon see a “Newsletters” item in the Twitter web app. Talk about moving fast!
BRAIN TEASER
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
The most expensive gaming rig ever that you can also drive?
Those are the vibes we got from Tesla’s Model S refresh.
Sure, it has upgraded performance and range. It also looks sleeker. Heck, maybe it even has better build quality (which was a regular complaint when compared to other luxury sedans).
However, the Internet focused on the fact that it can play video games. Oh, that kind of explains GameStop too, among other things. But, we digress.
So what are the specs of this electric console on wheels? We’re not completely sure.
There is a 17” screen with a 2200 x 1300 resolution as the main display. There should be wireless controlled compatibility according to Tesla. And, a 10-teraflop computer.
To make a comparison, the PS5 offers 10.28 teraflops and Xbox Series X offers 12. That’s not the only thing that matters for performance, but it is one of the metrics. We shall wait and see!