Today in Digital Marketing - How Influencers Drive Social Commerce Sales

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, how your brand can use influencers to boost social commerce sales, Shopify's new tool targets high intent buyers, while buy now pay later merchants question if those fees are worth it, Google tests a new search ad format, and Twitter's new policy could penalize your brand for copy and pasting. It's Wednesday, May 11th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. And just a quick word before we get started. The electricians are here for the hot tub,

Starting point is 00:00:28 which means you might be hearing some banging and talking and drilling noises. I have no way of handling that in post-production, so onward. Our first story, should your brand be investing in macro or micro influencers? Digiday has a great piece up today on how influencers drive social commerce sales. The article is part of a series examining how the creator economy has evolved amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that the pandemic prompted consumers to turn to online shopping, but a growing number of those online purchases have happened via social media. eMarketer forecasts that social shopping will reach almost $46 billion by the end of this

Starting point is 00:01:07 year. According to the piece, this can be credited to influencers and content creators as a result of their viral posts and reviews. Between 2021 and 2025, social media purchases are expected to double. Retail social commerce sales increased on average by 33% from 2019 to 2021, reaching more than $36 billion last year. Although the annual growth rate is expected to decline to 25% by the end of this year, the market is expected to hit almost $80 billion by 2025. eMarketer reported that 35% of all internet users in the US purchased something on a social

Starting point is 00:01:46 media platform in 2021, while almost half of all social media users aged 18 to 34 made at least one purchase through social media. Facebook was the most popular social platform last year, with more than 56 million consumers making a purchase on its site. And yet, social commerce still only accounted for 4% of American e-commerce last year. So how much of an impact do influencers have on social shopping transaction? The article suggests that influencers have an impact at all levels, whether your brand is working with a micro-influencer or someone who has more of a viral following. But working with nano and micro-influencers might have higher engagement rates with their users since they're more likely to engage with them directly via direct messages or comments on posts. So what works if you are

Starting point is 00:02:35 going to hire a micro-influencer? It is all about posting volume. According to Lindsay Hittman, the president of the marketing and content monetization platform BrandCycle, quoting Hitman, some of the micro-influencers we work with are posting to their Facebook groups and Instagram 20 to 30 times a day, and that allows them to test a lot of different products, test a lot of different price points, test a lot of different brands, unquote. Hitman also suggests it might be easier for micro-influencers to understand what makes people stop mid-scroll. An influencer or celebrity may focus on limited releases or new launches from cutting-edge brands that correspond with their persona, whereas micro-influencers, I don't know if you can hear that, that's the drilling,

Starting point is 00:03:21 will focus on relatability and post about sales or promotions as a result macro influencers tend to promote fewer products on a daily basis limiting conversion opportunities quoting hitman again from a brand perspective it all depends on what their goal is is it a branding play or is it a conversion play we find that micro influencers can convert at a much higher rate so if it's a conversion play you We find that micro-influencers can convert at a much higher rate. So if it's a conversion play, you go to the micro. If it's a branding play, you go to the macro. Shopify has unveiled a new tool that can give your brand better targeting options.

Starting point is 00:04:00 Shopify Audiences lets merchants select products in their catalog that they wish to show to shoppers who have a high intent to purchase their products. Shopify says that by using machine learning, the tool builds an audience of high intent buyers tailored just to your business. According to the company, audiences can help you find new customers by generating an audience list for digital ad platforms like Facebook ads or Instagram ads. You can export the audience list to your Facebook ads account and then launch ad campaigns that target that audience, unquote. Onch Shopify Plus merchants can sync Shopify audiences with Facebook and Instagram. The company added it will soon expand to other platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Microsoft advertising, and more. Do you offer your consumers a buy-now-pay-later option?

Starting point is 00:04:54 Today, BNPL is a multi-billion-dollar industry. But Retail Dive reports today that currently none of the major BNPL competitors are profitable, including Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay. In order to keep up with surging consumer demand, BNPL providers are spending large sums to add new tech and hire more staff. And according to Retail Dive, some BNPL merchant clients are beginning to question if they're paying hefty fees to these financing companies for sales they would have gotten regardless. A recent report estimates that BNPL financing will account for almost $438 billion of global e-commerce transaction value in the next three years, up from $157 billion in 2021. BNPL transactions accounted for 4% of North American e-commerce sales in last year, compared

Starting point is 00:05:43 with 1.5% in 2020. Growth, however, appears to come at a cost. As several BNPL providers spend money to remain competitive in the industry, they are increasing their expenses much faster than their revenue, leaving them in the red, according to reports. The reports also suggest that losses show no sign that it's slowing down anytime soon. 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.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Be protected. Be Zen. It appears that Google is testing a new search ad format, a swipable image carousel. An SEO optimizer spotted the ad Carousel yesterday, which features large images, like really large, on a mobile screen that you can swipe through and learn more about. The ad also includes a Shop Now call to action, and the ad label includes the name of the brand. No official announcements have been made by Google regarding this product. And just a quick word, Google is having its developer conference today, IO, they call it. There aren't often-related announcements, but there are some things that occasionally kind of dive into our world, so we will be covering those tomorrow. Now, later this month, Google will be doing its annual huge marketing live day. That is where they reveal new ad products and map out their marketing offerings for the next year.

Starting point is 00:07:20 Jill Saskengales and I will be doing a live unofficial Google Marketing tailgate event. We'll be doing it live. You can join us, ask questions, hang out with us as we watch it. The URL will be b.link slash Google tailgate. This happens May 24th at 8 a.m. Pacific time. That's 11 a.m. Eastern time zone. Again, the link for May 24th at 8 a.m. Pacific is b.link slash Google tailgate. Premium subscribers, you will be invited to an exclusive after show where we will have an in-depth discussion of what mattered. That will happen a couple of days later as well. Twitter says it is attempting to put an end to spammy tweets.

Starting point is 00:08:01 The solution? Copypasta detection bots. The platform has launched a new copypasta duplication and content policy with more specific rules around copy and pasted tweets. Quoting Twitter, copypasta or duplicative content can be a block of text, an image, or a combination of content that has been copied and pasted or duplicated by any means across the platform. While copypasta or duplicate content is a tactic for propagating a message and is used for a wide range of purposes, it can be repetitive, spammy, and disruptive. Duplicative content can also be used to artificially amplify content,

Starting point is 00:08:36 suppress information, or manipulate Twitter's trends, top search results, and conversations across the platform. So what happens if Twitter detects your brand duplicated a tweet? Potential penalties include making tweets ineligible for amplification in top search results and on trends, not recommending tweets in timelines of users who don't follow the tweet author, downranking tweets in replies, or excluding tweets and or accounts in email or in-product recommendations. Not to worry, though. To be fair, most brands don't engage in this.

Starting point is 00:09:10 This is mostly a political protest thing. But you may want to be aware of it in case your next ad campaign thinks it's awfully clever duplicating content. First, an apology to those of you who tried to show up to the happy hour today. I was trying to do something clever and start using this new platform that was going to be really, really cool, but I messed it up. And yeah, as a result, there is no happy hour. I'm really sorry. I promise it won't happen again. So do set it in your schedule every Wednesday at 1 o'clock Pacific, 4 o'clock Eastern.

Starting point is 00:09:44 We will hang out and I won't try to do anything clever. By the way, more than 800 digital marketers are now in our Slack community. You should join as well. It's free. You'll find great advice on campaign setup and scaling. Jobs get posted there. People use it to get advice. It's free to join. Just tap the link in the show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash Slack. So yeah, hot tub update. I think we're on the last update because I think it's almost done. I filled it up with water today. It didn't collapse to the ground.

Starting point is 00:10:12 It is on a deck that's on a second story, so I've been nervous about that. The electricians are in there doing it as we speak. So with any luck, it will be up and running maybe within the hour. Hopefully by the end of today and then comes the most fun part and that is picking what lighting I'm going to use I'm actually really excited about that sorry, talk to you tomorrow

Today in Digital Marketing - How Influencers Drive Social Commerce Sales

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.