Facebook will limit how advertisers can reach minors
Why they’re doing this: Officially, Facebook wants to provide young people with a “safer, more private experience”. Unofficially, the reasons are pressure (from government officials) and PR.
Here’s the limit: In a few weeks, advertisers on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger will be able to target people under 18 (or older in some countries) based on age, gender and location only.
There will be no more interest or behavior-based targeting, which is based on what those people installed, browsed, or were generally interested in.
The Crew’s take: We’re not sure if this will have any practical impact on advertising performance. Even if your targeting is set to general, Facebook will still use its AI-magic to show your ad to the most relevant people.
Will this change mean that Facebook will suddenly turn all of this off and only show generic ads to young people? Based on the company’s track record, we would say anything but “yes”.
Influencer marketing is about to get a whole lot easier on Pinterest
If there’s one thing Pinterest wants you to think about while you’re on their website, it’s shopping!
To that end, the company has announced that it’s making their “Idea Pins” shoppable.
If you’ve been living under a (Pinterest) rock, Idea Pins are the Pinterest equivalent of Instagram stories with no expiration date. Most people use these pins to share interesting product ideas.
Marrying Idea with Product Pins: With this change, Pinterest now allows creators to tag products in their Idea Pins. If the creator has an official relationship with the brand that owns the product, the brand can “approve” the tag, and the Idea Pin will be labeled as a “paid partnership.”
In both cases, the creator can include an affiliate link to the product and receive a commission for each purpose.
How can e-commerce companies benefit from this: Pinterest has just monetized a significant portion of their content inventory. If you have an affiliate program that’s performing well, you could find relevant users with high engagement and offer them a deal.
SPONSORED BY LIVESTORM
Is Facebook planning to get rid of text on their platform?
That caught your attention, right? Well, this is just one of the insights you can find in Livestorm’s free report: The State of Video Engagement in 2021.
Livestorm is an end-to-end video engagement platform that enables organizations to create engaging meetings and events at scale.
In this report, you’ll get the full analysis of the state of video and expected trends. The future of video goes beyond how companies will market themselves, but also includes how companies will operate internally.
Here’s a sneak peek of what you can expect:
- How video will change employee onboarding and training.
- How to generate customer insights live during a video event and use them to strengthen the relationship with your audience.
- What is video engagement and how it helps businesses create genuine connections with prospects and customers alike.
- The infinite options that augmented reality (AR) will bring to video, like standing face-to-face with a full-grown grizzly bear in its natural habitat!
Read the free report and discover how video engagement is changing the world and your business.
ADVERTISING
Retargeting lessons from Monday, Nespresso, and Airbnb
There’s a common belief that people hate retargeting ads.
Wrong!
They hate poorly-made ads.
And the ROAS on your retargeting campaigns might be proof. But Josh Gallant from Unbounce shared how to make your retargeting ads more personalized, less invasive, and most importantly, more profitable.
+ Personalize your message: You have probably seen Monday ads at least once in your life. The example shown by Josh Gallant is from a Monday ad targeting real estate agents.
The creative has three keywords (Portfolio management, Property listings, Property pipeline) that make you instantly understand who this ad is targeting.
And the image shows prospects what the platform looks like when it’s in action.
By personalizing dynamic Facebook Ads specific to real estate, Monday increased conversion rates by 50%.
+ Always on: The goal of Nespresso was to create an “always-on” tool that delivered personalized messaging via Google Display Ads to users that visited their website.
However, this would have meant creating 200-300 creative assets.
The solution? They developed a design template that includes dynamic elements which can be changed using an HTML structure. The logo type, images, claim, and CTA change according to the visitor.
The dynamic ads were even customized based on the action taken by the user on the website, like “page viewed” or “added product to cart”.
This move increased the conversion rate of Nespresso by 57%. And while this strategy may be beyond your capabilities, Nespresso’s campaign emphasizes the importance of tailoring your retargeting ads based on users’ behavior and needs.
+ Go global: When Airbnb started using dynamic display ads for retargeting a global customer base, they reported a 3X increase in return on ad spend and a 47% lowered CPA.
They capitalize on the search intent of users by retargeting folks whose search behavior showed they are planning their next trip. The copy speaks to prospects specific concerns or interests: “Traveling to Paris this summer? Find an Airbnb with air conditioning.”
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
PPC: Beginning October 1st, your Google Ads bill will be 2% more expensive if you serve ads in Italy or India.
INSTAGRAM: Reels are getting longer. Instagram has just doubled the maximum video length to from 30 to 60 seconds.
GOOGLE: Review stars on Google are back! At least in the US.
FACEBOOK: It appears that Facebook made a minor, but important change to their documentation that will eliminate many advertisers’ headaches; after you change your web events, you’ll no longer have a 72-hour pause.
TWITTER: It’s official: Nobody likes FloC. Even Twitter, which tried it out a few weeks ago, has now removed FloC support.
INSTAGRAM: The social network wants to turn its “Explore” tab into… TikTok.
SEO: Know of any Google speed ranking factors? The Page Experience update will replace them all, according to John Mueller.
BRAIN TEASER
It’s at the center of gravity and you can find it in Venus, but not Mars. What is it?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Here’s how you’ve been irrational lately
In the past week, you’ve probably:
- Thought an event that happened in the past was more predictive than it actually was
- Still stuck to a plan that appeared to be failing
- Thought that a high expectation of something will lead to high performance
If you’ve experienced any of this, don’t worry, you’re not flawed; you’re just a human being with irrational cognitive biases.
Here are the 3 biases that describe the things above (in their respective order):
- Hindsight bias
- Plan Continuation Bias
- Pygmalion Effect
Sahil Bloom published a Twitter thread with a total of 20 of them. One piece of advice after you finish reading them all: don’t feel bad. Feel enlightened.