Today in Digital Marketing - Surprising Losses Continue Among Popular Platforms

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Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, a big platform continues to shed users. Is Wayfair's new digital ad campaign decent or desperate? What does Gen Z really want from your marketing? And Facebook groups are slowly becoming subreddits. It's Friday, November 5th, 2021. Happy National Redhead Day, United States. I'm Steph Gunn from EngageQ Digital, sitting in for Todd Maffin, and here is what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 499. Pinterest today reported a decline of 10 million monthly active users in Q3 this year, bringing the platform's monthly

Starting point is 00:01:05 active users down to 444 million. And Q2 numbers were down by 24 million before that. So who's to blame for the slowdown? Quoting the company, we believe the deceleration and growth was primarily attributable to a continuation of the pandemic unwind. As lockdowns eased, people have embraced life outside their homes, a trend that caused a dramatic decline of our year-over-year growth rate of monthly active users in Q2 and Q3, as consumer preferences shifted away from our core at-home use cases. It can be argued that Pinterest business growth is less dependent on usage growth than other social networks. The platform has more opportunity to earn money from shopping in addition to advertising, since its focus is to encourage action with each pin rather than just

Starting point is 00:01:57 to reach as many people as possible. But while users were down, revenue was up. Quoting the company again, Revenue grew 43% year-over-year. We saw increased demand from large retail advertisers, as well as growth in our international business. Shopping engagement remains robust, with the number of pinners engaging with shopping services up more than 20% quarter-over-quarter and 60% year-over-year." Although this isn't to say that Pinterest should be completely excused for its more recent hiccups, in fact, lockdowns and other measures

Starting point is 00:02:33 were driving usage higher, not lower, for the majority of social apps. Speaking of third quarter slowdowns, the e-commerce giant Wayfair this week reported a 19% sales drop in Q3, but that was tempered by a small gain in the number of active customers. So they've been trying some new things out. The most recent being Wayfair On Air, which we told you about earlier this week. It's an immersive video commerce experience that aims to showcase products. The second being that Wayfair is inching its way toward a physical retail presence and laying the groundwork for a more omni-channel expansion. And the third, Wayfair is using a widow and a puppy in a sentimental new

Starting point is 00:03:19 holiday ad. The 2021 Wayfair holiday ad is titled The Host and features an older man's commitment to keeping the family tradition of Christmas alive after the loss of his wife. Here's a clip. Dad, are you sure you're up to host? Yeah, we want to keep it the way it always was, right? Wow. right? Wow, you know what? I really don't know if it's the ad that's making me sad or Wayfair's desperate attempt to pull on your heartstrings as sales sink. Either way, someone is cutting onions. If your holiday campaigns are hoping to target Gen Zs, you should probably accelerate your social media work. 87% of that group say they will use social media for inspiration this season.

Starting point is 00:04:13 This from a recent McKinsey survey. It also found that 58% of consumers overall say social media will directly affect their holiday shopping decisions. And 60 to 70% of respondents are shopping across channels for most holiday-related categories. So, what platforms should marketers use? Facebook was rated the most influential platform with 67%, saying it will influence their behavior the most. 57% answered YouTube, 52% said Instagram. And looking at Gen Z specifically, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are their most influential, likely sources of inspiration. As for who the holiday 2021 shopper is and what they want from you, quoting the survey, Shoppers are already embracing the omni-channel experience.

Starting point is 00:05:02 And since they're worried about stock running out, they are seizing opportunities to buy sooner rather than later. They're also more willing than ever to switch brands or retailers, especially when items are unavailable. Shoppers are anxious about empty shelves. Approximately 40% of respondents say they expect to shop and spend earlier than they did in 2020 because they anticipate shortages, longer shipping times, and unexpected supply chain challenges. to shop and spend earlier than they did in 2020 because they anticipate shortages, longer shipping times, and unexpected supply chain challenges. Finally, retailers will need to work harder to gain and retain loyalty. Among the 60% of consumers who have faced out-of-stock products in the last three months, only 13% say they waited for an item to come back in stock. About 70% switched retailers or brands instead.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Unquote. This survey was conducted by McKinsey & Company, and we have a direct link to it in today's premium newsletter. 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.

Starting point is 00:06:15 Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Remember, you can win $100 cash by taking our second annual listener survey. The survey is up at todayindigital.com slash survey. It will take you max two minutes to complete. And as a thank you for filling out the survey, three of you will win $100 cash. Again, the URL is todayindigital.com slash survey, or just tap the link in today's podcast episode notes. With organic reach at an all-time low, some social media managers are turning to Facebook

Starting point is 00:06:54 groups to break through the clutter. If that's you, you might be interested to learn that Meta has announced new features for managing Facebook groups, including new tools for admins, subscription-based paid subgroups, real-time chats for moderators, support for community fundraisers, and more. Here is a deeper look into the new tools Facebook groups will offer. Quoting the announcement, You can now pin announcements and choose the order in which they will show up in a new featured section at the top of groups. Community chats will allow admins to create a chat for the admin and moderator team.

Starting point is 00:07:29 This one is similar to functionality for Reddit moderators. You'll be able to create community fundraisers to raise money for group projects and create paid subgroups that members can subscribe to for a fee to gain exclusive access to more content, experiences like coaching or networking, or deeper conversations. Perhaps the most of interest, the new groups will let you even sell merchandise you've created by setting up a shop in your group. The expanded text ads, ETAs, that have been standard in Google search will soon be phased out. ETAs and their predecessors, standard text ads, have been the default since Google ads was

Starting point is 00:08:13 launched, but this change represents a step in a completely new direction. As we've covered here before, search ads will now default to responsive ads. If this is new to you, Search Engine Land has a great outline on their site today on how to prepare your accounts. Quoting the piece, ensure that every ad group has at least one responsive search ad. Be sure to use unique copy in every variation of headline and description.

Starting point is 00:08:39 If not, Google might use repetitive combinations, which can negatively affect your performance. And finally, make sure you do your best to get at least a good or excellent score on responsive ads without being too repetitive. Use as many keywords in headlines as you can, unquote. And not to worry about the machine learning doing all of the work, Google reminds us that for those worried about the loss of control in the switch from ETAs to phased out, Google says they expect you'll get better ad performance. Time will tell.

Starting point is 00:09:22 My husband and I have a 40th birthday party to go to tomorrow. He is the first of our friends to turn 40. Time will tell. the cake in which I will be putting 40 suckers in the cake and then writing 40 sucks on it. And I also can't bake. So I'm sure that the cake is going to suck too. And one more final plug for the listener survey. We are giving away three $100 cash prizes for completing it. It only takes about two minutes to do and we will be forever grateful. The survey link is todayindigital.com slash survey. And there's also a link in the episode notes too. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by Engage Q Digital on the traditional territories of the Stunamuk First Nation on Vancouver Island. Scripting and production support by me, Steph Gunn.

Starting point is 00:10:18 Podcast music licensing by Source Audio. And our theme composer, Mark Levitz, is the packet of cheap seasoning that elevates ramen to something edible that's it for me have a great weekend you do have one more day stuck with me on monday todd returns tuesday i'll talk to you then Bye.

Today in Digital Marketing - Surprising Losses Continue Among Popular Platforms

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