Today in Digital Marketing - Save Now, Pay Later: The GoFundMe of Retail Shopping

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. Today, the big tech platforms have spoken out at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. thing? New experiments for Google Ads? New free courses for LinkedIn marketing? How are your brand's plans for Galentine's Day coming along? And on the premium podcast with more stories, no ads and expert deep dive episodes, tap the link in the notes for info. The forecast is in, ad spending will be up. And that's bad news for all of our budgets. It's Thursday, January 20th, 2022. Happy birthday, January 20th, 2022. Happy birthday, Queen Matilda of Belgium. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital,

Starting point is 00:01:10 and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 544. Here's an update on yesterday's story about the American legislation being considered to ban a whole bunch of targeting in digital ad campaigns. In case you missed the show yesterday, a proposed bill would prohibit advertisers from using user data or demographic points as targeting options and would be a complete game changer for all digital marketers if passed. Google has responded to the proposed

Starting point is 00:01:35 bill in a blog post called The Harmful Consequences of Congress's Anti-Tech Bills. The company says the legislation would undermine the technological leadership of the U.S., degrade security and privacy, and completely break features that help small businesses and consumers. The tech giant warned that the proposed legislation would lead to lower quality search results. For instance, it would be prevented from highlighting business information when users search for local businesses, showing directions from Google Maps and search results, integrating its products like Gmail, Calendar, and Docs, or answering urgent questions.

Starting point is 00:02:13 For example, if you were to look up stroke symptoms, search may not be able to provide you with immediate and clear information and will instead direct you to a mix of low-quality results, unquote. The latter there seems like a mix of low-quality results, unquote. The latter there seems like a bit of a reach, but clearly Google and the others are in a bit of a panic over the whole thing. This past holiday season, the fintech darling of the e-commerce world seemed to be the BNPL services, buy now, pay later. But now that the bills are starting to roll out,

Starting point is 00:02:45 things are looking a little shaky. More than a third of American shoppers who use BNPL services have missed a payment deadline. A new study found that 57% of those consumers reported overspending on purchases, sometimes in multiple accounts, on the promise of delayed payments, and 36% have missed or made a late payment at least once. BNPL companies often advertise themselves as risk-free alternatives to high-interest credit cards, but research indicates the prospect of delaying payments for free can lead consumers to accumulate debt. 41% of respondents report having multiple BNPL accounts

Starting point is 00:03:27 open simultaneously. 69% of those who report overspending used multiple accounts. And since most buy-now-pay-later companies don't perform credit checks, they are more likely to attract consumers with lower credit scores. In fact, 45% sought out the payment method because of

Starting point is 00:03:46 poor credit history and sometimes ineligibility for traditional credit cards. That said, service usage unlikely to drop in 2022 despite some consumers seeming overwhelmed. 62% of respondents expect their usage to increase this year. The analysis surveyed 1,500 consumers and was done by the insurance firm Breeze. While Buy Now, Pay Later is putting some consumers into debt, another service provider is trying to help them save. And if your business is looking to expand payment options for consumers, here's a cool idea.

Starting point is 00:04:26 An online SaveNow buy later startup called Accrue Savings has just raised $25 million in a funding round led by Tiber Global Management. With the company's payment tool, consumers can save money toward a purchase from various retailers and earn rewards along the way. Here's how it works. If a shopper wants to save up for, say, a new mattress, they can set up a payment schedule through an accrued savings account,

Starting point is 00:04:51 which is linked to their bank account. As the consumer makes payments, they are able to solicit contributions from friends and family to complete their goal. And the company also contributes to the purchase when they reach certain milestones. Once the shopper reaches their savings goal, the funds are loaded onto a virtual debit card that will be used for that particular purchase. Consumers don't have to pay fees. A crew makes money through card interchange fees, typically 1% or 1.5%, and the performance fees that merchants pay. The company currently has 15 retailers and plans to grow

Starting point is 00:05:25 as businesses seek to offer a variety of payment options. 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. Google Ads is rolling out an updated experiments page that will make it easier for advertisers to test campaigns. Advertisers will no longer have

Starting point is 00:06:05 to create a separate campaign draft, and changes made to the original campaign will be automatically synced to the experiment. Here's a look at what you can expect. First, you can more easily create and manage experiments. You'll select a campaign, create a custom experiment for it now in one step. You can specify how long you'd like it to run, how much of your original campaign's traffic and budget you'd like to use. Performance can be monitored in the new experiments page while it runs. With a single click, you can apply those changes to your original campaign. LinkedIn is adding three new courses for marketers as part of its on-demand learning center. Here's a look at the new courses.

Starting point is 00:06:44 First, Building an Organic Presence with LinkedIn Pages. Here's a look at the new courses. First, building an organic presence with LinkedIn pages. This is a basic course, about 20 minutes to complete. You'll learn how to create and maintain an active LinkedIn page, which you can use to develop your brand's voice. Second, a course called building a full funnel content marketing strategy. They put this at intermediate level, takes about a half an hour or so. The goal of this course will be to teach you how to achieve a balance between organic and paid content to guide your audience through the customer journey. Another basic course, a shorter one, 10 minutes long, called Creative Design for LinkedIn, will show you how to design visually compelling content that engages LinkedIn users. Those courses are, of course, free because, you know, they're promoting LinkedIn. You can access them through your LinkedIn account.

Starting point is 00:07:28 By the way, LinkedIn Learning is the catalog formerly known as lynda.com. LinkedIn acquired them some years back. Most people don't know this, but you can get access to the entire catalog for free through most public libraries. Just get a library card number, log into your local library's website, look for their digital library section, and see if lynda.com is there. If it is, your library system has already paid for your membership. So how's your planning coming along for the next big promotional season, Galentine's Day? Yes, Galentine's. If you're not familiar with the day, Galentine's Day happens on February 13th, the day before Valentine's Day, and celebrates female friendship, originating from an episode of Parks and Recreation. Last year, Good Housekeeping reported that searches for

Starting point is 00:08:16 Galentine's Day increased 400% since 2015, while searches for Valentine's Day have actually decreased by 55%. How are brands jumping on the Galentine's Day bandwagon? Well, girls weekend getaway packages, greeting cards and merch, giveaways, social media posts. Laugh if you want, but Seinfeld's fictional end-of-year holiday called Festivus actually gained traction in the real world, and some people celebrate it instead of Christmas. Well, thank you for the concerned messages and DMs and so on. I'm feeling a lot better.

Starting point is 00:08:59 Boy, after I recorded the show yesterday, I just crashed. I went to bed and fell asleep. The only sort of lingering thing after my booster shot is my arm is still really sore. It hurts so bad, like much, much more than the other ones. And it's still hurting two days later. Oh, well. Jamie H., Dave B., Jocelyn R.,

Starting point is 00:09:17 those three people are the latest to upgrade their listening experience by signing up for the premium podcast feed. You get weekend bonus episodes with experts in the marketing space. Plus, that podcast feed has no ads. Thank you. tap the link in the episode notes. And by the way, change the website today. So todayindigital.com new theme looks prettier, I think looks a little bit more modern. Check it out. Let me know if you like it. Or as they famously said on the show fame some years ago, if you like it, tell me. If you don't, lie. Talk to you tomorrow. What's so hard? Why complicate? All you want is yours to take

Starting point is 00:10:08 I've given all I am To you every day Can you believe this is all I have?

Today in Digital Marketing - Save Now, Pay Later: The GoFundMe of Retail Shopping

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