Today in Digital Marketing - This Podcast Episode Was Created Especially For You

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. It is Friday, December 1st. Be protected. Be Zen. And a new patent filing reveals a possible upcoming ad product, the working Scratch and Sniff. And on the ad-free premium podcast, which you can learn more about by tapping Go Premium in the show notes, Andrew Foxwell is here with a look at how Black Friday sales were, the damage you're doing by extending those sales, new options for Reels ads, and more. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing. New research reveals a surprising insight in online shopping, and it could change the way you position your products. The study published recently in the Journal of Marketing

Starting point is 00:01:17 Research found that shoppers who are on mobile devices preferred personalized recommendations. These users are more likely to choose items that are presented as just for you or based on your preferences. For example, they preferred a wine described as suited to your taste almost 20% more than a popular choice. That might sound obvious, but what's interesting here is the study also found the opposite is true when someone is using a desktop browser. Desktop users were more drawn to popular and non-personalized recommendations, like a list called bestsellers. If you try to use the here's what we recommend for you on desktop users, you'll probably lose sales. Why the difference?

Starting point is 00:02:05 The researchers think it's because of the personal nature of smartphones, which store intimate details, from messages to photos. When using their phones, people tend to focus more on their personal tastes and emotions. That might explain why the study found this effect only happened when people were using their own smartphone. When they used someone else's to shop, that effect disappeared. Quoting the RE Newsletter, quote, when we use our phone, we feel immersed and insulated from the world around us. This makes us focus more on our emotions, opinions,

Starting point is 00:02:38 and beliefs, and increases our awareness of our personal preferences and feelings. This makes us act in ways that express these interviews. So when we're buying online, we're more likely to choose unique options that are customized for us. Unquote. It's not just for sales. Consumers were 41% more likely to support a charity they were told was chosen especially for them rather than a more popular option.

Starting point is 00:03:05 Some retailers already do this, the study noted. Companies like Rezac Studio and Old Navy mix personalized and popular recommendations for both platforms. The study is called Phone and Self, How Smartphone Use Increases Preference for Uniqueness. You can find it in the Journal of Marketing Research. And we have a direct link to the study in today's email newsletter, which you can sign up to for free by tapping the link at the top of the show notes. Advertising on podcasts is getting cheaper. The audio hosting platform Libsyn reports that the average CPM for a 60-second spot was just under $23 last month. Compare that to the same month last year, and that's about 7% lower. The three highest CPM categories in November, based on delivered advertising,

Starting point is 00:03:54 were kids and family at $27 CPM, arts at $26, education at $25. While CPMs might be dropping a bit year over year, interest in the space is not. According to IAB research, U.S. podcast ad revenue is projected to be up 25% over last year, reaching $4 billion by 2025. In a news release, Libsyn said it believes brand safety technology has matured enough to allow risk-averse brands to dip their toes into the podcast waters, and more granular controls over geo-targeting may also help there. You can find a link to historical monthly podcast CPM rates on AdvertiseCast's website, and again, we also have a link in today's newsletter. Reddit is launching two new ad formats.

Starting point is 00:04:47 In 2021, Reddit introduced conversation placement, targeting users within conversation threads where they are most engaged. Now, after more than 60,000 of those campaigns, Reddit today announced carousel ads and product ads within conversation placement. Carousel ads allow up to six images or GIFs, each with a link. Early tests show a 44% increase in click-through rate, according to the company.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Product ads, which were launched earlier this year, target users in their research phase. Reddit says smaller businesses in particular have found success with conversation placement. The company this week also changed its logo and introduced a new font, all said to be in preparation for an expected IPO in the coming months. They are still recovering from the black eye they gave themselves earlier when they jacked up API prices and forced many beloved third-party apps like Apollo out of business. Carousel ads and product ads are now available in conversation placement to all Reddit advertisers globally. We are beginning to see just how committed TikTok is to dominating the online shopping space. An interesting report in the information this week looks through the lens of a makeup brush business that's doing quite well. It's called BK Beauty,

Starting point is 00:05:59 and its owner told the publication that orders from TikTok now make up about 35% of its business. And last month, it shipped more orders than it did in all of 2019, 2020, and 2021 combined. Part of the path to these numbers has been through influencers who are signed up through TikTok's creator affiliate program, which launched earlier this year. But the real promise is coming from its occasional live streams, which its employees host. Quoting from the information.com, quote, BK Beauty has also signed up for several live streaming campaigns TikTok has offered. Those campaigns reward accounts for hitting certain sales goals while streaming by sending traffic to live streams and offering their shoppers extra coupons or bigger discounts.

Starting point is 00:06:47 TikTok has been footing the bill for most customer discounts so far, paying brands the full price of items sold. This strategy will likely cost TikTok more than $500 million in e-commerce-related losses this year. The discounts TikTok offered each shopper depended on both the user and the product they were looking at. First-time buyers got higher discounts, and best-selling products received the steepest discounts. Unquote. One thing the beauty brand figured out quickly, the more polished they made the live streams, the worse they performed in terms of engagement. Supporting the industryized truism

Starting point is 00:07:25 that the more laid-back and informal the stream, the better the results. Americans are increasingly engaging in doom spending due to financial stress. A new study found that over a quarter of Americans are shopping excessively to cope with concerns about the economy and foreign affairs. Key worries include inflation, which saw the consumer price index rise by 3.2% in October, rising living costs, unaffordable housing, and inability to afford luxuries or even necessities.

Starting point is 00:08:00 This idea of doom spending is akin to doom scrolling on social media and is made easier by how little friction there is on many online commerce platforms. Take the one-click purchase pioneered by Amazon as an example. This doom spending trend is particularly pronounced among younger generations, with 35% of Gen Z and 43% of millennials admitting to such spending habits. Credit card debt in the U.S. hit a record high last quarter, nearing $1.1 trillion. The study was by Intuit Credit Karma based on a survey of more than 1,000 Americans conducted last month. 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 00:08:57 Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Meta is suing the American trade regulator, the FTC, challenging that agency's authority to enforce privacy regulations. This all comes from FTC allegations that Facebook violated an agreement they had that the app would not monetize data it collects

Starting point is 00:09:20 from users under 18 years old. Meta accuses the FTC of exercising, quote, structurally unconstitutional authority, unquote, particularly in what Meta says is the agency's dual role as both prosecutor and judge. But they're not getting a lot of sympathy. One lawmaker, Frank Pallone Jr., said, quote, it speaks volumes that Meta would rather launch

Starting point is 00:09:42 a frivolous lawsuit against the agency, tasked by Congress with protecting American consumers, especially our children, than do the serious work needed to reform their platforms. This is a stunt intended to distract from the serious concerns regarding Meta's social media platforms and business practices, unquote. Meta is asking for a jury trial. And finally, there are a surprising, no, worrying number of fart videos out there. On YouTube, there are more than 26,000 compilation videos of, and I can't believe I'm saying this, the best farts. But lucky for the unfortunate viewer who swipes up to a flatulent TikTok, at least there's no smell alongside that video. Well, maybe not for much longer, thanks to a patent filed by Snapchat called Olfactory Stickers for Chat and AR-Based Messaging. Their patent imagines special stickers that,

Starting point is 00:10:46 when used in a chat, allow the recipient at the other end to experience certain scents. This is achieved by the recipient interacting with the sticker on their screen through a tap or a rub, triggering the release of the associated smell. They have drawings in the patent application showing imagined examples of the interfaces needed to pull the actual smell off. This filing is more about Snapchat trying to own the software side of things. But if this comes to be, can you imagine? Perfume companies? Bakeries? Movie theaters with popcorn? This could be huge. I, for one, look forward to the day when Meta's learning phase goes haywire and starts shooting out the smell of a decaying chipmunk corpse, then to give me two cents credit back for the error. Good times ahead. Is there a doctor in the house?

Starting point is 00:11:43 So, eyeball update. I went back to my retina specialist. For those of you who are not following this story, I tore my retina two weekends ago, which is not painful. I mean, the procedure to fix it is not pleasant. But anyway, yesterday was my two-week checkup. She poked all sorts of weird things into my eyeball and gave me as clean a bill of health as someone with a recovered torn retina can have.

Starting point is 00:12:07 It means that I can resume normal activities. Lifting things in particular was off the list. I can do that now, which means I can lift the hot tub lid. I can finally get into the hot tub. We did a marketing chat hot tub live stream yesterday on our TikTok account at Today in Digital. But my wife still can't get into the hot tub because she just had surgery. Boy, the timing on this has been terrible. But thank you for the well wishes.

Starting point is 00:12:32 The eyeball appears to be on the man. Follow us on social media. We are almost everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads, Mastodon, Blue Sky, Post.News, Spoutable, Snapchat, and Pinterest. Wherever you are, we are too. Go to todayindigital.com slash social or tap the link in the show notes. And that will do it for the week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital

Starting point is 00:12:57 on the traditional territories of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Our production coordinator is Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis. Music licensing by Source Audio. Ad coordination by Red Circle. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. Have a restful weekend,

Starting point is 00:13:13 friends, and I will see you on Monday. Oh, he might be down for the count. I'll set you up with the left and finish with the right Knock you out and leave you dead on the floor And it feels like I'm drunk I'm going out of my mind

Starting point is 00:13:32 After 15 rounds I can't take no more Well, it looks like this fight is over Ow! It's the season for new styles like this fight is over. Ow! 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.ca.

Today in Digital Marketing - This Podcast Episode Was Created Especially For You

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