Today in Digital Marketing - A Pandemic of Product Returns?

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Is your lack of stock hurting your SEO? What are consumers doing with their holiday gifts now? Why returning them, of course. UGC gets tantalizingly close to taking over TV. As does TikTok. Go Premium! No ads, more stories, and extended deep-dive weekend episodes — https://todayindigital.com/premiumADVERTISING as low as $20: https://todayindigital.com/ads JOIN OUR SLACK! https://todayindigital.com/slackFOLLOW US: https://todayindigital.com/socialmedia (TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and more) ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Please tweet about us! https://b.link/pod-tweet- Rate and review us: https://todayindigital.com/rateus- Leave a voicemail: https://b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- TikTok: https://b.link/pod-tiktok- Twitter: https://b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: https://b.link/pod-linkedin Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (https://b.link/pod-engageq). Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Does your brand need a podcast? Let us help: https://engageQ.com/podcastsOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal.

Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, is your lack of stock hurting your SEO?

What are consumers doing with their holiday gifts now? Why returning them, of course. UGC gets tantalizingly close to taking over TV, as does TikTok. And on the Premium Podcast, with more stories, no ads, and expert deep dive episodes, why people are blocking your SMS marketing messages. It's Wednesday, January 5th, 2022. Happy National Bird Day, United States. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, Episode 534. In spite of COVID-19 pandemic concerns, holiday sales in 2021 appear to have grown. According to a MasterCard Spending Pulse report,

holiday retail sales grew 8.5% and online sales grew by 11% compared to last year. Holiday shopping isn't over yet. 51% of consumers are still shopping for whatever they didn't get for Christmas. That's according to a report from RetailMeNot that surveyed more than 1,000 respondents. Here's what else the survey found. 48% are looking for better deals and sales after the holiday,

and 38% say they plan to return a gift that they didn't want. What are consumers shopping for after the holidays? The report found that almost half of the respondents are likely to spend money to maintain their New Year's resolutions this year. Saving money is the top resolution at 44% for 2022, followed by exercising at 35%. How do inventory levels affect your Google ranking? Google search advocate John Mueller was recently asked on Twitter if stock levels affect the ranking of an e-commerce product page. Mueller implied the answer is no.

A user posted the question and explained that they ranked number one for eight months, and now that the product has been out of stock for three weeks, they slipped to rank number nine. Quoting Mueller, that seems unrelated, at least for normal search. I don't know how product search or Google Shopping handles that, though, unquote. Another Twitter user claimed that they have dealt with websites whose rankings have dropped when stock has dropped widely. They go on to explain their theory that when a product has a high percentage of product out of stock, quote, it makes the website look low value, unquote, and therefore

would rank lower. Quoting Mueller again, what difference does it make if you have one or 100 on stock or if you have green widgets out of stock while someone is searching for blue widgets? I can't imagine how search engines or even humans would want to use that for ranking. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches,

and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. All right. Well, if you're still not convinced about the role of UGC, that's user-generated content, in your marketing plan, consider this. U.S. consumers are now spending almost as much time watching user-generated videos on social media platforms as they are watching traditional television. This according to a new report from the Consumer Technology Association

that will be released at the annual CES industry event. About 2,000 respondents took part in the survey, which analyzes trends among content creators. Here's what the analysis found. Traditional TV consumption is taking up 18% of overall media consumption time, and user-generated video content is taking up 16%. Teens aged 13 to 17 devote 56% of their media time to UGC. In case you're wondering, people over 55, that number was only 22%.

TV and subscription-based video aren't going anywhere yet since traditional media still accounts for the majority of consumption time. But I don't think you need to be Karnak the Magnificent to know that will change. Speaking of user-generated content, TikTok has a new partnership that will make the app available almost everywhere. Atmosphere TV announced a partnership with the video streaming platform today. Atmosphere provides streamed video content for more than 18,000 commercial venues like Burger King, Taco Bell, doctors' offices, gyms, and more. According to the announcement, the free ad-supported streaming platform reaches 20 million unique visitors per month. It's not clear how the algorithm will work,

but I am looking forward and also a little bit scared to see what the side of Taco Bell TikTok looks like. And finally, for years, Google's company tagline was, Don't be evil. They quietly dropped that a few years back. Oh, and in a completely unrelated fact, according to SEC filings, Google is giving four of its top executives a pay bump from $650,000 to $1 million,

just weeks after announcing to staff that it would not even adjust salaries for inflation. Completely unrelated, I tell you. So my apologies if I sounded a little rushed today. We just picked up our cat. I love him already. He's cuddly, he's soft, he, we just picked up our cat. I love him already. He's cuddly. He's soft.

He's everything we wanted in a cat. Obviously, there's a picture of him on my Twitter account at Todd Maffin. So we are going to go introduce him to the dog and have a bit of new cat time. Talk to you tomorrow. It's the season for new styles and you love to shop for jackets and boots.

So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.