TIKTOK
Yet again the most downloaded app in the world is TikTok
The Appfigures app download charts for February 2022 are out, and TikTok is again the clear winner.
More details: Appfigures is an app reporting platform with a huge data set that makes it possible to publish monthly rankings on the most downloaded mobile apps in the world.
According to February’s report, TikTok got 17 million downloads from Apple’s App Store and 24 million downloads from Google Play.
This resulted in 41 million “combined total” downloads, propelling it to the top of the most downloaded apps charts. Instagram came in second with 39 million total downloads.
Why we care: As marketers, we go where people are paying attention. TikTok is increasingly where that attention is at the moment.
The app was the most downloaded app both worldwide and in the US in 2021, and if things continue this way, we can expect the same in 2022.
Google Analytics 4 has a new homepage and a few other cool features
If you’ve noticed something different on your Google Analytics homepage, you’re not alone. Google has announced a new homepage for Google Analytics .Here are some of the changes:
It’s all about you: Unlike previous versions, this homepage will show metrics customized to you. You’ll see tabs such as “Because you view frequently” or “Recently views”. The “Overview” tab will show metrics relevant to you based on your behavior in Analytics.
Predict your top channels: Which of your marketing channels will perform best in the near future?
In its Analytics Template Gallery, Google has released a template that should help you answer that question. Go to Explore -> Template Gallery -> Use Cases -> Predict top spenders to get there.
iOS 14 campaign measurement: Within Google Analytics 4, you can now see more granular campaign details for GBRAID and WBRAID. If these words sound like gibberish, here’s an explanation.
SPONSORED BY SEMRUSH
Uncover the biggest opportunities in Search for 2022 with this free global analysis
Blink and you miss it – that’s the pace of digital marketing these days. You have to be agile and adapt to tons of changes every year.
We have some good news. This report from Semrush will answer some of the most important questions for the world’s biggest traffic source: Search!
It’s not just surface level, this goes deep. Thanks to a wide range of tools and reports, Semrush has been able to investigate, analyze, and document market-specific data to help you answer questions like:
- How suitable are pre-pandemic tactics in today’s climate?
- What is the new state of Search for the world’s most active markets?
- And will Search ever be the same?
All that and more packed into The State of Search 2022. It analyzes all of the world’s leading markets and contains everything you need to plan your post-pandemic growth strategy. For example:
- E-commerce websites got 23% less organic traffic in 2021 than in 2020.
- Informational keywords made up 60% of the unique searches, followed by transactional ones at 19%.
Plus more jaw-dropping stats. And it’s free to download.
Uncover the biggest Search opportunities of 2022.
SEO
Is SEO a stable growth channel?
Organic traffic can fluctuate dramatically, in the long and short term.
These fluctuations can be generated by external reasons, like algorithm updates or user behavior change. But also by internal reasons: you implement a new feature on your website or publish other content.
So, the question comes naturally. Can companies rely on SEO as a growth channel?
Kevin Indig tried to address this question by analyzing the organic fluctuations of seven different websites: Allbirds, Trello, Chewy, Hacker News, Uber Eats, Atlassian, and The Spruce.
The main takeaway? No site is safe from fluctuations. The smallest fluctuations are in the range of -31% to +83% (Hacker News), while the higher tops off at -350% to +770% (Atlassian)
Fast-growing sites see the strongest fluctuations: The reasons can be different.
Stronger growth can be related to ranking for more keywords, which increases the chance of being hit by an algorithm update. Another reason can be that certain companies see more fluctuations because of the way they produce content (user vs company-generated content)
Large websites experience strong fluctuations too: The reason can be the high competition in the SERPs as well as Google testing out different SERP constellations.
Conclusion: Is SEO a stable growth channel? In the short-term, no. In the long term, yes!
Obviously traffic fluctuations don’t make your life easier, but here’s what you can do:
- Manage expectations across the board that organic traffic can fluctuate.
- Know when fluctuations are caused by internal or external factors.
- Be aware of how common traffic fluctuations look like in your vertical.
SPONSORED BY TRENDS
4 shortcuts this freelancer used to scale his business to a 7-figure agency
Trends member and agency owner Jim Huffman helped UrbanDaddy scale their e-commerce business to $10M in ~18 months. Also, Universal Standard grew to mid-8 figures thanks to their work.
As their clients grew, so did his agency revenue.
But growth wasn’t casual. In this article Jim Huffman shared 4 crucial steps an agency can follow to avoid getting stuck in the “bad clients and small projects” limbo.
Try Trends for just $1 to read the full story.
THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
Are some of your email subscribers in deep slumber or are they just taking a nap?
When you manage an email list, especially a big one, one of the first tasks is segmenting your subscribers.
And the first type of segmentation you do is buyers vs non-buyers. That’s not enough.
You should identify unengaged subscribers, so you can try to reactivate them again before they fall asleep and you’ll never see them again.
Here are three re-engagement segments that we use for our newsletter, and that we recommend everyone should set up:
New inactive: Someone doesn’t open any of the first 5 emails, at least in our case. Going on the sleeping analogy, maybe they were already asleep when they signed up. You can try to wake them up from the siesta with a re-engagement email.
Old inactive: Someone who stopped opening for 20+ emails. Decide where to draw the line based on your sending frequency. If you send three emails per day, you probably need a higher threshold.
They are subscribers who already fell asleep. The chances of getting them to engage again are low but it doesn’t mean you should not try.
Apple Mail Privacy Protection users: With the new Apple Mail features, you can’t use opens as an engagement metric as much as before. If someone uses Apple Mail Privacy Protection, they show up as opening 100% of their emails.
That’s why you must segment them as “Who opens 100% of but never clicks.” Draw the line at under 3% CTR, maybe even less depending on the email types you send.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
ADVERTISING: Google and Microsoft pause their ad sales in Russia. They are not the first tech companies to do this. Twitter and Snap have already taken similar actions.
META: They join the ban as well. “Advertisers within Russia will no longer be able to create or run ads anywhere in the world, including within Russia.” according to Meta’s announcement. This is a step further from their previous restrictions.
AMAZON: Is Amazon eating away your conversions? This report done in the UK suggests this could be the case, with 43% of people ditching online checkouts to go to Amazon instead.
MICROSOFT: Repetitive work gets boring for many marketers. Fortunately, you’ll now be able to easily extract images from your site so that they can be used in your Microsoft ads.
SEO: Well, well, well. It turns out if you unhide your content for the user, your rankings could really improve. This example from Dan Shure shows how hiding content from the user (even if rendered in HTML) could hurt ranking.
META: Spammers dominate Facebook Gaming live streams, according to this report. And it seems this might have helped the live streaming service from Facebook climb above YouTube Gaming by hours watched.
BRAIN TEASER
Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?
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.
These hackers are not asking for money
We previously reported that Nvidia has been breached, with hackers stealing up to 1 terabyte of proprietary data.
The hackers have returned with some demands. And, no, they don’t want money.
They request that Nvidia improve the speed with which their graphics cards mine cryptocurrencies.
No, we’re not joking.
More specifically, the hacker group requested that Nvidia remove a feature known as LHR (aka, lite hash rate), which limits hash rate in mining by approximately 50%.
It’s now Nvidia’s turn.