Facebook is getting rid of 28-day attribution
The marketing world got a big announcement from Facebook yesterday that sounded like it was supposed to fly under the radar, but of course it’s all that advertising Twitter has been talking about – so we’re talking about it too.
What’s up? In an email sent to advertisers, Facebook announced this:
“starting October 5, we will be defaulting your click-through attribution window to 7-days and phasing out the 28-day window option”
The email announcement made this out to be no big deal, but it has the potential to cause a lot of problems for some marketers out there. Here’s what it all means:
- The phasing out of a 28-day window could cause some businesses to lose out on important data. As Duane Brown points out on Twitter, clients with big-ticket products (think $1k and more) could see a loss of some data, as customers sometimes take more than 7 days to decide.
- 28-day data is becoming less important in general, though. With the arrival of iOS 14 and general updates to privacy regulations, 28-day tracking has become less common – likely the reason Facebook is making this move. In truth, you may not have a need for anything outside of the 7-day window.
You can check out some more discussion on Twitter below Gil David’s tweet here. There are some interesting points to be had in the discussion, so go check it out!
If nothing else, this update from Facebook is simply a headache for some marketers – as if we needed more on our plate before the holiday season!
Setting up Shop
This week, Instagram launched a couple of guides to setting up your e-commerce store on its Shop platform. Located on a mini-site called “The Season for Shops,” Instagram is offering advice to both marketers and businesses on how to set up shop for the holiday season.
There’s almost nothing better than getting advice straight from the horse’s (or in this case, multi-billion dollar social media giant’s) mouth. Here’s some of what’s included, along with a link to each guide:
- Why you should set up an Instagram Shop. The guide explains that setting up a shop on Instagram can offer customers an easy and convenient way to purchase your products this holiday season.
- Tagging products in Instagram posts and Stories. If you’re looking for best practices on tagging your products in your content, check this one out.
- Creating collections for Instagram shops. Ready to dive into how you can optimize your store? This guide from Instagram outlines the best ways to add collections to your store.
- Let’s start advertising. This piece is packed with Instagram’s advice on how to set up and run successful Shopping Ads for your products.
- Getting technical. Instagram lays out the best ways to create custom audiences for maximizing your revenue via ads.
Those of you who are already dialed-in with Instagram marketing probably won’t need to spend hours looking at these guides, but they’re great if you are considering dipping your toes into the water.
Happy advertising!
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MARKETING
How to grow a startup by giving away products for free
It’s been a weird year for entrepreneurs. And many, like Stephen Cognetta, have been struggling to figure out unconventional ways to grow a startup during a pandemic.
Stephen’s company is Exponent, a firm that helps students prepare for their careers.
He had two choices: Double-down on his business model, or open up their products, meeting the users where they were.
Since the pandemic has made it harder for students to develop a career, he chose the latter: giving away some of Exponent’s features for free.
The choice turned out to be a good one. Engagement on the platform tripled, users grew, and revenue followed the same trend.
And in this article, Stephen suggests that more companies should follow this strategy. However, there are some points to consider before:
Revisit your company mission: A company shouldn’t only maximize wealth, but even create a product that users love. For Exponent, giving away its features for free meant making an impact on the student population. While at the same time growing its user base.
Maintain a value ladder: When giving products away for free, consider how it affects your business. Give products or services in a way that users can still follow a path to becoming an avid customer that recommends your products to others.
Leave room for reversibility: This is the best way to grow – and it’s not just about giving away products. For every step you take in your business, make sure it’s reversible. Test the waters before sailing with the whole ship.
For relationships: Exponent’s move to give features for free allowed the company to create relationships with thousands of students, organizations, and got them invitations to virtual events.
The move basically turned into a marketing and PR tactic, resulting in larger revenues – a win-win for Stephen.
As Stephen said, one of the most paradoxical things in business is that giving away more materials can often build a user base that trusts you and wants to pay for more of your products.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
MICROSOFT: From Reddit to (now) Microsoft, brand safety has been a hot topic in the marketing world lately. Yesterday, Microsoft announced a partnership with IAS for increased brand safety.
SEO: Yes, FAQ schema matters – a recent study showed that FAQ results in SERPs get, by far, the most clicks.
FACEBOOK: If you’re into NLP (natural language processing) and AI, this is a good read. Facebook has just open-sourced an AI, NLP model that both searches for and interprets content.
YOUTUBE: Impressive or scary? A new study has found that 26% of adults in the United States get their news from YouTube.
BRAIN TEASER
In Vienna, Austria, you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why not?
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.
What are you in for?
Being a restaurant owner in England just got a whole lot harder. As of yesterday, the new coronavirus laws in the country require restaurant owners to “take all reasonable measures” to prevent customers from dancing on the premises.
As Dan Barker writes on Twitter, these sort of conversations may soon be a thing:
“What u in for?”
“Couple of lads did the foxtrot in my coffee shop.”
And yes, allowing customers to dance is a serious offense, resulting in a fine of 1k pounds – or up to 4k if you are a repeat offender.
So, to all the restaurant owners in England out there, make sure to remove Mr. Brightside or Michael Jackson from the playlist and maybe replace it with… Mozart? Nobody’s dancing to Mozart nowadays, right?