Today in Digital Marketing - Amazon's New Program for Merchants May Be a Game Changer

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, November 2nd. Today, Amazon merchants may soon get a bucketload of cash with almost no strings. Snapchat partners up on augmented reality. Everyone's back at the office, so why is worker productivity plummeting? Has Facebook's content algorithm gone too far? And good news for people who hate marketing on their smartphone. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Are you afraid of ad fatigue? New research published today shows that consumers are more likely to respond to advertising

Starting point is 00:00:31 if they see it across multiple screens. The study tested combinations of linear TV, connected TV, and mobile for recall, retention, search intent, and purchase intent when advertising was viewed across single or multiple media screens. It also found 4 out of 10 consumers remembered the spot better when they had seen the same spot across those devices. While all media combinations drove awareness, connected TV and linear were the most memorable media combinations. The study also found that not only does a multi-screen approach increase ad attention and retention, but also increases purchase intent. Intent increased nearly 15% when the combination of all three had been used.

Starting point is 00:01:16 According to the report, the order in which the screens are used impacts ad effectiveness. Leading with linear TV on a cross-platform campaign lifted purchase intent by 25%. Streaming first resulted in a 15% increase, while mobile first reached just 4%. Similarly, the report found that unaided brand awareness and search intent also increased with multi-screen campaigns compared to using one platform. Ad fatigue is still a problem. More than a quarter of viewers polled felt that they had seen too much of a brand when they were exposed to multiple ads. The study suggests that brands wanting to avoid this need to diversify their platforms once they have exhausted the bigger screen options. The study came from Spectrum Reach and Magna Global's survey of more than 1,500

Starting point is 00:02:06 consumers. Snapchat this week made a couple of big moves in its continued push towards social commerce. Yesterday, the company announced a new shopping partnership with BigCommerce, which will let its merchants display their products in snaps. BigCommerce merchants in the U.S. are now able to automatically integrate their store to Snapchat, as well as sync product catalogs and create immersive Snapchat ad campaigns. The integration also lets merchants

Starting point is 00:02:32 track and measure Snap campaign performance through the use of, of course, the Snapchat Pixel. On top of that, the company announced today it's also teamed up with the world's largest e-commerce company. For more on that, I'm joined by Matt McGowan, Snapchat's GM in Canada. Matt, tell us about this partnership. It's an AR integration? We partnered up to basically bring the best of Amazon fashion's eyewear to the Snapchat generation, those on the Snapchat platform, via this virtual try-on experience.

Starting point is 00:03:06 Right. So as eyewear for now, how connected is this to, say, product catalogs? Like if a price changes or something goes out of stock, can that integrated AR snap catch up? There is a direct connection between Amazon and Snapchat, and that sort of thing is updated in real time. Amazon used Snapchat's Lens Web Builder platform to build this out. Can you tell us a bit about that? Snapchat offers free-to-use software that creatives around the world are leaning into more and more.

Starting point is 00:03:33 And this software, it basically helps the merchandiser, the person selling the goods, create a virtual good that can be tried on via the Snapchat camera. Is this a tool that the average small business owner could use? Or are we talking like an enterprise tool here? It's a great question. We see small businesses across the planet as well as enterprises, you know, marketers using it. So I would say it's used by both.

Starting point is 00:03:58 Matt McGowan is the head of Snapchat in Canada. The shopping lenses will be available through the Amazon Fashion profile on Snapchat, in Snap's Lens Explorer across the For You and Dress Up tabs, as well as in the Snapchat Camera Lens Carousel. American workers have become less productive, and no one knows why. According to new numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, productivity dropped at its fastest rate since 1947 in the first half of this year. This is interesting considering that this comes after many employees have returned to the office

Starting point is 00:04:35 after working from home during the pandemic. Quoting the Washington Post, when productivity slows, economic growth dwindles, the drop-off is particularly concerning to economists and employers as the U.S. economy flirts with recession. It's unfolding as employers struggle to find workers amid a national tug-of-war over the future of offices. Burnout is high.

Starting point is 00:04:57 Engagement is low. People are working more hours, but they're doing less with them, unquote. The Post pointed to a few theories as to why this has nosedived. First, the job market. Employees gained leverage amid the labor shortage, with many exercising their power by participating in the Great Resignation or just setting more boundaries at work. Another theory is that workers are in a productivity funk. The decline in productivity comes after a strong 2021. Worker productivity grew nearly 5% in the first quarter of last year. That was one of the highest rates in years.

Starting point is 00:05:34 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. Amazon is adding cash advances to its financial services and the beneficiary, online sellers.

Starting point is 00:06:14 Yesterday, the e-commerce giant announced it had teamed up with Parafin, a U.S. financial services company, to offer a new merchant cash advance program. Amazon says eligible businesses can access between $500 and $10 million to grow their businesses without fixed terms, credit checks, late fees, or extensive paperwork. The company will offer its sellers cash advances based on a fixed percentage of their gross merchandise sales until the loan is paid off. Unlike a traditional loan, merchants won't have to make minimum payments, pay interest, or put up collateral, but they do have to pay a fixed capital fee. The program has already started to roll out to select U.S. businesses with plans for expansion next year. It's all going down in the DMs. Yesterday, Meta announced a new business messaging accelerator program

Starting point is 00:06:58 to give brands more DM tools. The company has teamed up with business advisory group Plug & Play to build a new innovation hub for brands to connect, transact, and service their customer base through direct messaging. As part of this initiative, Plug and Play will now introduce meta messaging training. The platform will run its first three-month accelerator program through the end of 2022. All right, a couple of short stories for the lightning round today. Instagram for boomers is getting better. Some users have noticed a design improvement to the web interface of

Starting point is 00:07:34 Instagram that features a navigation sidebar with links to pages like search, explore messages and notifications instead of having those unlabeled buttons at the top, which could be a handy update for you desktop marketers. Meta received accreditation for content-level brand safety on Facebook from the Media Rating Council yesterday. The accreditation covers the platform's content-level brand safety and suitability controls, content monetization policies, and partner monetization policies. And Shopify has acquired Remix, a startup developing an open source framework similar to Next.js.

Starting point is 00:08:09 Shopify's president says the company plans to bring Remix under the hood of Hydrogen, its framework tool for building storefronts. And finally, it's another episode of Nobody Asks for This. Honestly, just kill me now. It's meta. Of course it is.

Starting point is 00:08:27 They have confirmed that they will be ditching human curated Facebook news stories and will entirely lean on, wait for it, algorithms. Facebook news is a dedicated tab inside Facebook that shows local and international news relevant to each market. Most of those surfaced articles were already determined algorithmically, but there was a big section at the top curated by humans called Top Stories where most of the eyeballs went.

Starting point is 00:08:56 Well, soon Meta's robot overlords will take over that section too. The changes will reportedly be implemented early next year, meaning everything people will see in Facebook's news section will now be determined by algorithms. What could possibly go wrong? Well, I'm spending more time on LinkedIn these days. Now that Twitter appears to be turning into a giant dumpster fire. And I've started posting our lead story there on LinkedIn, along with a few extra bits of content.

Starting point is 00:09:29 So if you're on LinkedIn, be sure to follow me. The direct link to my profile is near the top of the show notes today. Or you can just search for my name on LinkedIn. That's T-O-D. I spell my name with one D. And the last name is Maffin. That's spelled like muffin, but with an A. M-A-F-F-I-N. So be sure to follow and come back tomorrow. I refuse to follow. Don't come back tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:09:53 That is not what I said. You'll be lying behind the kind that just gives up. If you hang with sheep, only you'll accompany me.

Today in Digital Marketing - Amazon's New Program for Merchants May Be a Game Changer

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