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E-COMMERCE
The day that gets more sales than Black Friday and Cyber Monday put together
It’s called Singles’ Day. And if you haven’t heard about it, it’s because it originates from China. It was started in 2009 by Alibaba. You might have heard of them.
The date chosen was 11th November, and in China young singles celebrate by treating themselves with gifts – it’s almost like the anti-Valentine’s Day.
More companies have followed Alibaba’s lead and the special day is spreading around Asia.
If you are selling stuff in Asia, get ready for another big shopping day on your list, alongside Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
And to help you out, Facebook dedicated one article for its advertisers to get ready for the holiday. Check it out right here.
GENERAL
Why the “Supreme” logo isn’t trademarked
We all know many affiliates don’t care about trademarked logos in their ads… But sometimes you want to be compliant and need the rights to use it.
For example, if you’re building out an e-commerce store.
One very popular logo these days, when it comes to all sorts of merchandise is the “Supreme” logo.
We’re actually not that sure why it got popular to begin with. Guess being from Europe and not into fashion doesn’t help us here. Still, one reason it’s staying popular and widespread is probably because it’s not trademarked.
And not because the company didn’t want to… It’s because they apparently aren’t allowed to do so. They are not the first ones to use the style, and it’s not unique enough, but you can check this article for a more detailed explanation.
That made us think about 2 things.
One, can we do something with the “Supreme” logo? The answer is no, and we don’t really like it so much either, as iconic as some might consider it.
Two, there might be more popular logos and designs that aren’t trademarked out there, that someone can capitalize on.
Including the “Supreme” logo – not all of you guys are as oblivious about it like us, so maybe you can actually make something out of this piece of information!
Skype’s “stalking” feature.
It must be one of our least favourite features from Messenger and WhatsApp – and now it’s making its way to Skype too.
It’s called “read receipts” and it’s the thing that shows a checkmark when the other person has seen your message.
Because we don’t get enough messages on Skype, the last thing everyone needs is others nudging them more often because they’ve seen their message.
Luckily you can disable this but we thought we’d let you know about it because it’s turned on as a default!
Pinterest reaches 250 million active users
OK, so if you wanna try out other traffic sources, Pinterest should be on your list.
Yesterday brought us another reason why that is the case – their monthly active users increased by 25%, and reached 250 million now.
Not bad at all.
The company is seeing nice growth, got more funding, $150 million to be exact, and is preparing to go public in mid-2019.
With its nice growth and its appeal to e-commerce brands, this is a traffic source to not miss!
Facebook adding blocklists
Advertisers can now see where their ads might appear on in-stream videos, including those in Watch and Instant Articles, before, during or after a campaign, so they can block specific publishers or content categories from those placements.
Welcome to 2018, Facebook!
The problem is that advertisers can only block publishers they’re aware of. Ads can still appear against unsuitable content from publishers they don’t know.
You can only block a publisher post-impression when the damage already has been done. Afterwards, all you can do is limit the reach.
For advertisers it would be ideal to use whitelists to control where their ads can appear. Facebook is not a big fan of that since it limits its ability to monetize videos.
They recently took the decision to make it easier for creators to monetize their videos in Watch, which increases Facebook’s monetizing options, but at the same time increases risks to brand safety.
So far the whitelist option doesn’t exist, but let’s see if advertisers will be able to shift enough attention to this topic to make Facebook rethink this option.
Ad accounts disabled when not used
Sooo, Facebook has staged an intervention with all its ad accounts hoarders and told them “No more!”.
In other words, if your ad accounts are inactive, they will get disabled by Facebook. It’s been a massacre in most FB groups, everyone reporting this.
The rule Facebook seems to go by is 60 days of inactivity will bring you a disabled ad account.
But we’re not sure what inactivity means.
In our Business Manager, we had a handful of accounts we never used, and they got disabled.
That said, the accounts we ran ads on in the past 2 years but not in the past 60 days are still fine. “Activity” might mean more than just spending money.
Could mean having an active Page associated with the ad account. Could mean Pixel activity. Could mean role changes. Maybe it’s a combination of everything.
Bottom line: You can’t hoard ad accounts anymore. Use’em or lose’em.Here’s a video that perfectly illustrates what’s it like to run FB Ads these days.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
What Monopoly teaches you about Business
If you’re like some of us and have a group of friends that enjoy hanging out together but don’t enjoy going out a lot, you may or may not have played your share of Monopoly.
Now whether you’re fond of it or not, you should know the game wasn’t originally intended to be “enjoyed” like your usual fun board games.
Instead, it’s based on a game called “The Landlord’s Game” which was meant to teach people about money and the negative effects of one person taking all the wealth for themselves while other people have nothing.
Thus, we looked a bit into what life lessons it can actually offer. And you also get some tips for getting better at the game.
1. Don’t buy more things than you can afford, but also don’t bet all you have on one single asset.
If you buy lots and lots of property across the board, you most likely will go broke once you land on other players’ properties a few times and had to pay their rent.
On the opposite side, only buying one property and stacking it with hotels isn’t a good choice either, since the likelihood of others landing on that specific one is too low.
Like in all things in life, finding a good balance between the extremes is a good strategy.
2. Read your opponents, and never underestimate them. If you know a bit about the people you’re playing against, you might find it easier to know how to beat them.
3. In the same vein, practice your people skills. Monopoly is a face-to-face game, your ability to interact and make deals with people may greatly affect the outcome.
4. Most expensive does not always equal best.
You might be tempted to buy the properties with the biggest possible payouts, but if those are also the most expensive ones to maintain, you might dig yourself a hole of frustration and failure.
However, if you buy a couple of cheaper ones that people land on more frequently, you are guaranteed a constant cash flow. In Monopoly and in a real business, cash flow is important!
Clearly, if you want to get better at business, you should start playing more Monopoly. On a more serious note, those lessons are some basics for your business life too.
And just like in Monopoly, If you have some good strategies, you can take a brief moment of luck and turn it into a big victory.
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