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BUSINESS
The COVID-19 roller coaster. Tips to run an empire from your kitchen
125+ Stores in the 7-8 figure range share how COVID-19 is impacting their business
How’s it going out there for e-commerce stores? Andrew Youderian asked 125+ store owners, all with at least seven figure revenues, how they are being affected by COVID-10. Here’s what came from it:
- Median decline in revenue has been around 10%.
- 13% of stores are seeing no changes in revenue.
- A quarter of businesses have seen 50% or greater decrease in revenue.
- One in 10 has seen revenues dry up by more than 70%.
- One in eight merchants have seen an increase in revenue of 50% or more.
Well, as we already know from a bunch of other studies, the results are pretty mixed. Some are surfing the waves, while others are sinking below them. It all depends on what you sell.
However, get ready for the release of The Crew’s report, containing much more data than these spicy insights!
What affiliate offers are converting?
We got what’s going on for e-commerce, but what about affiliate marketing? Adcash got in on the party and tried to gather the ideas and opinions from some of the leading affiliate marketing experts and influencers. Here are some handy tips:
Amy Cheung: There are fewer advertisers bidding on traffic so, if you pivot to offers that are actually converting, you can gain an advantage.
Servando SIlva: Focus on evergreen verticals such as gambling, dating, streaming. News sites will be getting much more traffic than usual, which is great if you run native ads.
Emanuel Cinca: Affiliates have the most adaptable business model. So, if you change your offers from “wants” to “needs”, you can get ahead.
The post goes on, with more insights from other industry experts along with a list of the offers that are currently converting well.
Stay at home, but stay productive!
Some of our readers might already be familiar with working from home, but others might be feeling a bit lost right now.
For those of you that have been forced to replace their work suit with sweatpants, Outbrain has some tips for you to stay productive and get stuff done in the comfort of your own home.
Very useful, even if you manage a #workfromhome team, plus there’s some Zoom backgrounds you might want to add to your video-calls.
E-COMMERCE
Managing out-of-stock products on your e-comm stores
With the world in uncharted territory, the e-commerce industry is also facing difficulties due to the supply chain being hit by COVID-19.
Logistic and productive systems are enduring several difficulties right now, so your store could be out of stock for a while.
- What should you do to stop your product pages being a frustrating experience? And how can you avoid being penalized in SERPs?
Here are some options for handling product pages for items which are either discontinued or out of stock:
+ Option 1: Avoid 404 redirects. Well, you might have the supplies back soon and you want to sell these products. However, removing the pages and then putting them back online will confuse crawlers, and by the time these pages start ranking again the product could well be out of stock once more.
+ Option 2: 301 redirects. These are permanent redirects, and you might want to avoid them. After all, the product still exists and you don’t want to permanently remove the page. 301 redirects are only suitable when you have decided to discontinue the product definitely.
+ Option 3: 302 redirects. If you temporarily redirected Product 1 to Product 2, people would still be able to search for Product 1 on the site, but they would then be redirect to the similar Product 2. This can seem deceptive and is likely to harm conversion. Don’t follow this road.
+ Option 4: ItemAvailability Schema. You can use the [availability] property in product-offer schemas to set options, including InStock, InStoreOnly, OutOfStock, and SoldOut. By doing this, Google might display this information as part of your organic results.
Alternatively, you could use a [Notify Me] button that expands into a quick, single-field email form that gives visitors an immediate alternative.
You could also allow users to filter out-of-stock products on your site. Your customers will be able to see the full list and know which products you normally sell, but they can also filter out any unavailable ones to search bots so they continue to pass link equity to all products.
FROM THE CREW
Do you like Stacked Marketer? Tell us why by replying to this email and we’ll invite you to our FB group
We’ll keep this short… We’re looking to gather more testimonials for this daily newsletter so we can refresh our website a bit.
If you send us a nice testimonial reply to this email, telling us what you like about Stacked Marketer, we’ll send you an invite to our Stacked Marketer Insiders group on Facebook.
Here’s what you have to do:
- Send 3-4 lines explaining what you like about these emails and why they’re a must-read for marketers.
- Include your first name so we can credit the testimonial. Last name and company are optional but we will add them when we use the testimonial.
That’s it!
Several new feature announcements from Pinterest
Amidst this chaotic lockdown, Pinterest has gone ahead and announced the launch of several new features to give retailers more new ways to be discovered on the platform.
So, what’s new?
+ Verified Merchant Program: A blue checkmark badge to signify businesses that are verified on the platform. This makes their products eligible for distribution across Pinterest shopping experiences, including ‘Shop the Look’ Pins and related product carousels.
Such verified merchants will also be eligible for “high-intent shopping experiences and metrics such as conversion reporting.
+ Conversion insights: Access to organic and paid conversion insights to accurately measure the platform’s impact on your website visits, checkouts, and sales across multiple attribution windows.
+ Catalogs updates. Pinterest Catalogs will allow you to upload a product catalog for ads and Shoppable Pins. They are optimized to reduce the time from feed ingestion to Product Pin creation.
It includes new metrics, near real-time feed ingestion, user experience enhancements and the ability to schedule feed uploads.
+ Dynamic retargeting. Dynamic retargeting has now been extended globally. This feature has been in beta for US markets over the last few months, but businesses can now globally retarget exact or similar products that users search and save on Pinterest.
Here’s what Pinterest recommends to take advantage of the above features:
- Become eligible for increased distribution and access to new measurement and analytics tools through the platform’s Verified Merchant Program.
- Upload all your products to Catalogs to generate Product Pins, which display price, availability and product descriptions while linking directly to your e-commerce page.
- Use Shopping Ads to promote your products to reach more Pinners and optimize performance once you’ve set up your product groups within Catalogs.
- Take advantage of dynamic retargeting to reach users who previously visited your site, but didn’t purchase, as they continue to browse home feed.
Read the official announcement for more details here.
Do you watch motivational videos?
If you follow us on social media, you might have seen this already…
And if you don’t follow us, SHAME ON YOU… Come on, who doesn’t need a dose of laughter at times like these? Check the latest video. It’s freaking motivational:
While you’re there, maybe you would be kind enough to share the posts to your marketing friends. You know, those ones who appreciate this marketing humour and might also enjoy a good laugh.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- TOOLS: Use these virtual backgrounds to cheer up your coworkers in your next Zoom or Skype meeting.
- GOOGLE: Google has expanded the number of accounts you can run and manage via its Report Manager, going from 10 to 200.
- INSTAGRAM: A new ‘Links’ option under business profile settings is being tested, allowing you to add a new quick link to send to users so they can purchase gift cards or make donations.
- TRACKING: Where is the marketing world headed without third-party cookies? The role Privacy Sandbox, IP blindness, Privacy budgets will play.
BRAIN TEASER
I am the beginning of the end, and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place.
What am I?
You can find the solution by clicking here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
If the virus doesn’t stop you from going out…. Spoilers will
We’ve talked several times about how advertisers should adapt their campaigns to fit the current situation, with around 30% of the world’s population currently in lockdown.
But if you were looking for some specific examples, we found a company that totally nailed it.
And that’s Netflix, with their #STAYTHEFUCKHOME campaign.
Yes, it’s easy when you’re Netflix, the most consumed product after toilet paper at the moment, but this campaign is genius!
The video is more interested in spreading the right message rather than getting more clients. Basically, it’s a tactic they’re using to get people to stay at home
What are they doing? They’re putting up billboards around the city which include spoilers for the end of their most popular shows.
The message is clear: Stay at home or we’ll tell you if Raquel from Money Heist (La Casa de papel) is alive or not.