META
New ad automation tool optimizes creatives and audiences
Your campaign to-do list just got a little shorter…
Meta announced they’re releasing Advantage+, their ad automation tool, to advertisers worldwide.
Fewer steps, smaller spend: Advantage+ removes manual steps from ad creation and automates up to 150 ad combinations at once, maximizing your ad performance and lowering spend.
Meta says its two new features will help small businesses in particular save time and money:
- Advantage+ creative selects ad creatives that users are most likely to engage with.
- Advantage audience creates a personalized audience based on your Facebook Page information and optimizes over time to reach the best possible customers.
Why we care: It’s crunch time for many businesses swimming against inflation, crisis, and privacy regulations.
According to studies conducted on 1,300 small businesses, the costs of customer acquisition through ads rose significantly after Apple’s changes.
Artificial intelligence (AI) advertising is becoming more popular—and it could help your ads land exactly where they’re supposed to, while increasing performance and lowering costs.
Speaking of lowering costs…
E-COMMERCE
Are online prices falling?
Gravity never felt so good.
According to Adobe Digital Price Index, e-commerce prices were down by 2% in July compared to June.
It’s been a while: That may not look significant, but it’s the first price decrease since before the pandemic started.
Out of 18 categories, 14 have shown a downturn in pricing, including:
- Electronic gadgets, with the biggest yearly drop (9.3%).
- Toys are close second (8.2%).
- Apparel had the biggest monthly price decrease (6.2%).
Not everything’s cheaper, though: Online food prices leaped 13.4% compared to last year, and pet products jumped by 12.6%.
Why we care: It’s still too early to predict if this is deflation or simply a sign of people spending less on pleasure and more on essentials…
But the Adobe Digital Price Index research can help you gauge whether you’re overpricing or underpricing your products.
By the way, if you’re in e-commerce, we’ve got two tips for you…
SPONSORED BY STACKED MARKETER PRO
How e-commerce stores can collect as many as 1,600 prospect emails in a single day
When we interviewed 181 e-commerce founders to learn their favorite acquisition channels, we discovered brilliant tactics for growing email lists in the process.
Cameron’s Seafood, a store doing $300K per month, has great success with giveaways. They generated 1,600 email subscribers in one day.
Here’s the system they follow:
- They use indirect competitors and influencers to promote the giveaway.
- To win prizes, users have to enter their emails.
- To get more chances to win, users have to take actions like visiting a page or inviting friends to submit their emails too.
Periodic giveaways with big awards also worked wonders for The Gentleman’s Lounge, a brand that sells men’s grooming products.
They have a pop-up on their website where you can opt in for a chance to win a year’s supply of beard oil every month.
Want to discover—and try out—more tactics like these?
Inside Stacked Marketer Pro, you’ll find tons of insights from our interviews with 181 e-commerce founders.
Come take a walk on the Pro side.
CONTENT MARKETING
6 dangers to look out for if you rely on automation
Yes, automation software is awesome.
But as Luke Carlino points out in this post, being too dependent on automation can have unfortunate and sometimes even fatal consequences for your business.
He argues there are six dangers you should pay attention to when using automation.
Let’s stay frosty…
1 – Automated Bidding: While it’s convenient to let an algorithm do all the bidding, don’t leave this feature unattended.
Lack of human input and the wrong automated bidding strategies have cost companies countless dollars. Make sure yours is not one of them.
2 – Setting and forgetting: Your automation software is like another employee and you should treat it as such—especially in an ever-changing industry like digital marketing.
Make sure your tools are constantly optimized for best performance and up to date with the current marketing trends.
3 – Automated messaging: Companies short on time and money usually rely too heavily on automated messaging.
However, with these tools there’s always the danger of sending too many messages, irritating customers, and even slowing down website performance.
4 – Losing brand voice: Relying too much on automation can make your brand message feel inhuman—or worse, out of touch with your customer.
Never run ads, creative assets, customer support, or sales messages without editing them carefully—or hiring a copywriter or editing to look them over for you.
5 – Vanity metrics: Some automated metrics look cool but actually don’t mean much. Stay on top of your real return on investment (ROI) and return on ad spend (ROAS) at all times to avoid unpleasant performance surprises.
6 – Automating non-automated stuff: Things like cybersecurity, customer engagement, and social media posts should never be automated, even if they can be. Just… don’t do it.
Long story short, use automation as a tool… but don’t rely on it too heavily. All tools require skill and maintenance to use them well, and automation is no different.
FROM THE CREW
Subscribe to the ultimate newsletter bundle and enter the chance to win a $1,000 Amazon gift card
We know you like our newsletter because of all the useful news, advice and our no-fuss approach. But we wanted to do something more for our readers…
So we got thinking and came up with an idea: What if we recommended our favorite free marketing news sources?
We’re giving you the opportunity to subscribe to four amazing newsletters, plus the opportunity to win an Amazon gift card.
THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
How to improve your product’s perceived value with comparison
A few years back, someone on Reddit posted about a scam they encountered in China.
The Redditor and their tour group entered a store selling pearls.
At first, the salesman showed the group an array of obviously fake pearls and asked them, “What’s wrong with these pearls?”
Of course, people were quick to point out that they were fake.
The salesman showered them with compliments, telling them how smart they were for identifying the fake pearls.
Lesson over, the salesman brought out the “real” pearls. These were also fake.
But because of the setup, the tourists were more likely to believe that the second group of fake pearls were real.
Here’s how you can use this in marketing without scamming people: There are two principles at play.
The first one is manufactured liking, and the second is comparison.
Here’s how to use each in your marketing:
Manufactured liking: When people feel smart, seen, and recognized, they’re more likely to buy. You can do this in your copy. Write things that your customers agree with, and avoid talking down to your audience.
Comparison: By showing a visibly worse alternative before presenting your product, you’re increasing its perceived value—and boosting conversion.
Enjoy these psychological insights? We’ve got a boatload more in our latest Stacked Marketer Pro report, which you can preview here.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
GOOGLE: After a whole lot of fuss, studies show that Google’s most recent product review update was “incredibly mild” towards ranking changes compared to its March update. So if your website got hit, it probably didn’t get hit hard. Here’s hoping.
MARKETING: Data harvesting and marketing are inseparable. But a lot has changed in web scraping over the last few years. This discussion provides some creative answers for scraping in 2022, and suggests a few tools as well.
GOOGLE: See you in court. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing to sue Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company. Why? For illegally dominating the digital advertising market.
AMAZON: … Meanwhile, in a separate episode of tech Law and Order, Amazon is suing a Rhode Island company for allegedly selling fake reviews and “artificially inflating sellers’ feedback.” Looks like the fight against fake reviews is heating up. Gather reviews accordingly.
BRAIN TEASER
What is in the middle of India?
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.
Drink wine like an Italian
Why bother drinking like an Italian when you’re not Italian?
Well, drinking wine in Italy has a unique decorum to it.
Knowing how to do it properly will win brownie points among your Italian friends. And who doesn’t have at least one?
This guide explains the rituals native to Apennine enologists, such as:
- Mangia, because there has to be food like olives and bruschetta.
- Va piano, which means enjoying every sip. But like, truly enjoying it….
And no, there’s no mention of holding a glass three-finger style. Salute!