Twitter Tests New Feature to Limit Sharing of Unread Articles
- Twitter announced that it will test a new feature that will prompt to encourage users to read an article before sharing.
- The new feature will only appear for U.S based Android devices for now.
- As per the Twitter Support team, the platform will only check if the user has clicked the article link on Twitter and not anywhere else on the internet.
- Twitter aims to empower healthy and informed public discussions with this new feature.
Twitter to experiment with a new feature that prompts users to read articles before sharing, is the latest effort to curb the spread of misinformation on the platform.
Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it.
To help promote informed discussion, we're testing a new prompt on Android –– when you Retweet an article that you haven't opened on Twitter, we may ask if you'd like to open it first.
— Support (@Support) June 10, 2020
Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour commented upon the announcement of the feature testing,
“It’s easy for links articles to go viral on Twitter. This can be powerful but sometimes dangerous, especially if people haven’t read the content they’re spreading. This feature (on Android for now) encourages people to read a linked article prior to retweeting it.”
This Is An Old Ongoing Problem
The problem of users sharing news based on headlines is not new. A 2016 study from computer scientists at Columbia University and Microsoft found that 59% – nearly two-thirds of links posted on Twitter by users are shared without opening the articles.
During the pandemic, the social media giant has issued many misinformation warnings to curb the spread of any fake news -that includes one against the U.S President Donald Trump. This move led to Trump issuing executive orders targeting social media companies.
Will It Impact The Bots?
Twitter has tried many times before to spot the spread of misinformation. Like Facebook and other social media platforms, it has come scrutiny for the content it promotes.
Twitter’s solution is not banning retweets but tries to nudge the users to rethink their actions on the social network. Recently, in May it launched a feature that allowed users to limit who can reply to their tweets. It also rolled out another feature to hide specific replies to tweets.
However, the main problem is ‘bots’. According to a paper published in AAAI, “Increasing evidence suggests that a growing amount of social media content is generated by autonomous entities known as social bots.”
For instance, recently, new research reported that roughly half of the twitter accounts that discussed ‘Reopen America’ were bots. The AAAI paper also estimated that between 9%-15% of active Twitter accounts exhibit social bots behavior – nearly 49.5 million of its 330 million users. This new feature will impact the bots and might make it difficult to retweet any content.
Exit Lockdown. Enter Reality – What Comes Next?
10 weeks. 70 days. 1680 hours. Far too many Netflix binges to mention. Meaningless stats at any other time, but in the context of the coronavirus, it’s a stark reminder of our time in lockdown. It’s strange to think that we’ve spent over two months in self-isolation, practising social distancing and learning how to re-interact with everyone around us.
Businesses have moved online, companies have shifted their models, employees have become tech evangelists quicker than anyone would have anticipated. In essence, we’ve been living a do or die mentality during this pandemic, so now that economies around the globe are beginning to open up, what comes next?
I could put my Nostradamus hat on again and make a load of predictions, but really, what’s the point in that? No-one knows what lies ahead, the situation is changing too quickly, with multiple factors at play and an unpredictable virus that doesn’t want to play by society’s rules. The only thing we can be certain of right now is uncertainty, as annoying as that is to admit. We can’t control the environment in which we operate, but we can look at what’s happening to use as a barometer for the trends currently shaping our industry.
The Golden Ecommerce Opportunity
“While the world falls apart, the stock market – and especially Ad Tech – keeps on pumping”. Considering the ripple effect that has been felt throughout every sector, at first glance, this may seem like a stretch, however, the sentiment on Wall Street surrounding digital media, and by extension, Ad Tech is undeniably positive.
Facebook reported flat revenue year over year in April, not usually a cause for celebration, but amid nationwide lockdowns, investors are confident in the platform’s ability to rebound. Similarly, Google and Snapchat beat analysts’ expectations, however, a tougher Q2 is expected. It’s a realistic snapshot of the peaks and troughs that have become commonplace during the pandemic, and as consumer behavior patterns continue to change, the major walled gardens will find new and more innovative ways to gain market share.
You only need to look at how the duopoly has applied itself during the crisis. Gold stars all around. Announcements from Facebook have come thick and fast over the past few weeks, with everything from their Giphy acquisition to the launch of Messenger Rooms and its sister app, CatchUp for video calls, creating a buzz. And amid the fluff – their Bitmoji-inspired Avatar app is a prime example – came what we were all waiting for: a real and very viable move into online commerce.
Facebook ‘Shops’ will allow small businesses to build online stores on both Facebook and Instagram, and in the future, will extend this feature to its Instagram Direct, WhatsApp, and Messenger platforms. Products can also be tagged during live broadcasts, and if Zuckerberg’s estimations are accurate, with some 800 million people already engaging in live video sessions daily across Facebook and Instagram, the opportunity here is huge.
According to Deutsche Bank’s Lloyd Walmsley, Shops has the potential to drive as much as $30 billion in incremental revenue – the bulk coming through further advertising opportunities. This makes sense when you consider Facebook’s rationale in enabling eCommerce across all of its platforms in this way; the closer the consumers are to checkout, the more willing advertisers are to spend. That’s probably why Bezos is laughing all the way to the bank as Amazon’s ad business continues to skyrocket. Of course, Amazon isn’t immune to the fallout either. Investors were told in no uncertain terms to ‘take a seat’ during the Q1 earnings report, amid challenging trading conditions, a pullback from some advertisers, and pressure on price. Still, with a reported 44% growth in Q1 and continuing strong traffic to the site, Amazon will be a thorn in the duopoly’s side for a long time yet. Google, much like Facebook, is looking to guard against this Amazonian invasion. The platform recently added organic listings to its Shopping site, offering retailers exposure to millions of daily shopping searches, while users will have access to a wider range of purchase options. On the surface, it’s likely to gain Google’s market share and advertising dollars over time and has the added bonus of taking aim at Amazon’s convenience model by competing on variety.
Even ‘smaller’ companies are looking to get into the retail game. Criteo continued its move away from retargeting, launching a self-serve ad platform for its retail media network. It’s particularly shrewd given how valuable retail media is right now. As eCommerce continues to surge in lockdown, traditional media budgets are being funneled this way to capitalize on the opportunity in real-time. The ‘Always On’ Mentality at the outset of the coronavirus, programmatic was one of the first to be hit. Brands paused their online campaigns; the default ‘easy’ option, as opposed to reviewing their other marketing channels. However, programmatic has proved to be adaptable, resilient, and flexible in the wake of continued challenges and pressures. It is already rebounding, and I believe digital and eCommerce will take an even larger share of overall advertising in the long run.
Still, even prior to this, publishers were being cautious with their investments and not capitalizing on the programmatic opportunity quickly enough. Of course, change has now been forced at every level. Digitization is a requirement and businesses no longer have the luxury of waiting things out. The nature of operating in 2020 is that you have to be ‘always on’. Adapt. Review. Adapt. Review. There’s no room for complacency.
For my part, I’d say on balance, I’m a pretty optimistic person. Look for the opportunity, acknowledge the risk, but be ready to take action, and that hasn’t changed in the past three months. What we’ll all need to be careful of as things begin to move again is abandoning the ‘critical change’ mindset we have adopted as standard during the pandemic.
Jeff Bezos “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”
It’s probably more morbid than I would have put it, but he has a point. No more stasis. Let’s make every day count.
Ayman Haider
CEO at MMP World Wide – Board Member at IAB MENA
Wassim Mneimneh is a CEO at MMP Worldwide and a board member at IAB MENA. A dedication of a lifetime to career in advertising with a passion for tech, and focus on driving the transformation, implementation, and conversation on the value of programmatic and its ability to rebuild trust and safety for the media industry.
How Email Marketing Will Help Your Business Grow in 2020
Does Email marketing still exist in times of social media, artificial intelligence, chatbots, videos? A thought to ponder.
If you feel email marketing has lost its charm, then you are far away from the truth.
The truth is, email marketing is growing and email campaigns are still the best strategy for brands and businesses.
Here it is, Why?
Image Credit: Oberlo
As per data by Statista(2020), In 2019, the email users were 3.9 billion users and are expected to grow to 4.3 billion users in 2023, which is half of the world’s population. This clearly shows email marketing is an opportunity that should not be missed.
The above infographic on Email Marketing Stats 2020 provides facts and figures about the email market which is still robust and one of the best marketing strategies.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is more effective than SEO, affiliate marketing, or social media because it has a direct line with the audiences. It helps you connect with your leads, nurture them, and convert them into customers.
Image Credit: BackLinko
However, with the growing fervor of TikTok Facebook, Snapchat, will this old school tactic still work?
Emails have a better reach than social media and converting a prospect into a buyer. This shows email leading social media. Email is 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined. (McKinsey)
A third of customers who have subscribed to the retailer’s newspaper is a direct result of email marketing messages. (E-marketer)
These numbers are nice to know but you are still wondering, how are email marketing campaigns important in 2020?
Well, that’s what the next chapter is all about.
How Is Email Marketing Important In 2020?
With the booming popularity of social media and search, the importance of free emails in email marketing is higher than ever.
Let us comprehend the value of email marketing in 2020.
1. Everyone uses Emails:
Young people use email for several things – social media and personal expenses, mailing lists, and brand promotion or business. So, everyone has a valid email address.
2. Emails are easy to design and create:
An attractive and eye-catching email campaign for a small business budget with a reputed email marketing service provider can create wonders and similar to big brands.
After finishing designing the newsletter or free emails, businesses can quickly start to use email campaigns for promotion.
Image Credit: uCookies
3. Email marketing links all other channels
Email campaigns are a direct line of communication with the audience and a suitable way to promote marketing strategies.
Social Media
Most email service providers have footers with social media icons at the bottom that includes links to LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram. Subscribers can access those links and share the campaigns by clicking on it. Also, brands can share the reviews, posts on the social feed so subscribers can connect with the brands online.
For instance, the example of Urban Outfitters is a visually appealing email that highlights their most-liked Instagram posts. Also, note the share buttons at the bottom of the email.
Image Credit: Really Good Emails
Content Marketing
77% of people prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email campaigns. To start with, first, a sizable email list is to be prepared. There are several ways to do this like giving something away for free or offering a newsletter update, videos, research report, infographic, or valuable content.
Make good use of content with interesting pictures and custom RSS feeds. For instance, the US outdoors always include interesting content in their email campaigns.
Image Credit: Emma
Webinars:
Brands can promote webinars on emails to their subscribers who are genuinely interested to hear and respond.
Performance Analysis
Email service provides information on how to improve future email campaigns and learn about subscribers. However, this will be a paid service.
Analytics aids in keeping a track of active and engaged subscribers and identifying trends as well as new markets. This data can help in retargeting campaigns and use marketing resources in the right way.
Capitalizing On The Data Collection:
Email marketing is one of the most scrutinized marketing methods in the post GDPR world. 78% of people say they are likely to trust companies with their personal data if they use it to personalize their experience through different channels like emails.
Emails give access to understand subscribers’ behavior and learn about their habits and interests to create customized email campaigns. Personalized email campaigns can be created by conducting surveys to collect quality data from active subscribers.
4. Encourage more subscriber participation:
Marketers gain the trust of the subscribers when they encourage more participation from them and let them control their inbox. Put a preference center link at the bottom of the email campaigns and prompt new subscribers to fill it.
A preference center allows the subscribers to tell the brands on how often they want to be emailed and what type of content they prefer. Below is an example of a preference center by Brooks Running.
Image Credit: Emma
5. Stay updated with automation and technology
Email service providers always give access to the latest automated features to give an enriching experience to the audience in the following areas:
-Segmentation
-Post-sales communication
-Re-engagement
-A/B Testings
Best Email Marketing Campaigns
With in-depth details on the importance of Email marketing, in the next chapter, we will see the best email marketing campaign examples.
1. BuzzFeed
Email Marketing Campaign: “Buzzfeed Today” Newsletter
Newsletters are Buzzfeed’s top sources of traffic. Buzzfeed has amazing, punchy, and short subject lines. They have awesome preview text that compels the reader to open the email.
If their subject line is a command, the preview text is the logical elaboration of the subject line.
Image Credit: Mail Floss
Their newsletters are from politics and daily news to DIY and cooking. They cover different audiences as they know exactly what to recommend to whom because of their email segmentation.
2. Amarso
Email marketing- another way to approach the cart abandonment.
If your product is enticing then put it at the center of your email marketing campaign directed at the customers who shopped but didn’t purchase. In this two-step email marketing campaign, Amarso is doing the same thing.
The 1st image is sent to the shoppers after an hour of shopping for those products whereas the 2nd image is a reminder of Amarso’s amazing products seen a few days back.
Image Credit: MailFloss
3. Airbnb
Short, Crisp and Communicative Feedback Survey in their Email Campaign
Their email campaign is short, crisp, fresh, and minimalist with a clear objective. Their emails are straight to the point and with a clear CTA. The email campaign looks good and engaging. In every email, you will get guides to different cities.
Image Credit: Mail Bakery
Email Marketing Platforms or Email Service Providers (ESPs)
There are many email marketing platforms but obviously, there is no single ‘best email service provider’. The best option depends on the objectives, goals, features, and list size of the marketers.
In this chapter, I am reviewing five of the top Email Service Providers. The features, pricing, pros, and cons of each email marketing platform are highlighted to help the marketer choose the best option for you.
1. Mail Chimp
Image Credit: Formget
Features
-It is the most popular and leading email marketing platform.
-It has an excellent dashboard with prebuilt templates, reports, lists, and more.
-There is email automation, better integration, optimization, and analytics.
Pricing
-A forever free plan allows 12,000 mails every month to 2000 subscribers.
-There are 3 packages based on features and the number of subscribers.
-Essentials for $9.99, standard for%14.99, and Premium for $299 are email marketing plans.
Know more about pricing
Pros
-It is best for small and medium-sized businesses at an affordable cost.
– It can handle large volumes of emails.
-The messages can be sent to email clients as well as for promotion on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
-It has easy to use WYSIWYG editors and can access reports on the open rates clicks, spammed, unsubscription.
-It has friendly customer service and excellent email analytics.
-It helps you to customize the tools for your business with over 300 integrations.
Cons
-The regular updates and reconfiguration disrupt the entire working system as users have to understand and adapt to the new changes.
-Apart from the chat function, phone support is not provided.
-The individual addition of email contacts is cumbersome and has limited segmentation features.
-Emails sent via Mailchimp often goes to the promotion tab of Gmail or spam at times.
2. Mailjet
Image Credit: Formget
Features
-It has the best real-time dashboard and is preloaded with free responsive email templates and newsletters
-There are advanced reporting features like to track deliveries and know user actions.
Pricing
It has a free email marketing trial for 30 days for 6000 emails a month and 200 emails a day. There are 3 Packages like Basic, Premium, and Enterprise plans for each month.
Free email marketing trial for 30 days for 6000 emails a month and 200 emails a day.
Know more about pricing here!
Pros
– The dashboard is incredibly innate and the drag and drop editor option allows users to create different email templates.
– It provides a report that shows usual data including bounces, clicks, and so on.
-It is Reasonable and economical pricing compared to the competitors.
-It’s an all in one platform to send, track, and deliver marketing and transactional emails without any additional cost.
Cons:
-There are limited designs for email templates and cannot store images.
-Unsubscribing inactive users from the list is tiresome using Mailjet’s removal interface.
-The segmentation options are limited. Eg. One can run a campaign but cannot set conditions like whether a recipient has/unopened/bought the product.
3. Active Campaign
Features
– It has an intuitive email template builder and advanced marketing automation
-It has features like segmentation, machine learning, CRM and sales
-It has the best campaign tracking, free image hosting, email funnels, and autoresponders.
Pricing:
There are no free plans available but an email marketing test run can be done for 14 days. Active’s pricing packages are affected by two factors: contacts and features. It has 4 packages available – Lite for $9, Plus for $49, Professional for $129, and Enterprise for $229.
Know more about pricing
Pros:
-The dashboard shows the full history of your contacts and gives access to real-time reports that features display tracking of essentials like geolocation, clicks, opened rates, unsubscription details.
-It has great integrations with other tools like Facebook Ads, Gmail suite, websites, and more.
-The Lead scoring helps to prioritize accounts for the sales team and has dynamic content.
-It offers a free migration service. Unlike other tools, Active Campaign doesn’t charge you to move data from one email marketing tool to another.
Cons:
– The pricing isn’t the lowest but it is worth the value.
– The layout is not user friendly and many good features cannot be accessed seamlessly by the users.
– It becomes difficult to handle large volumes of emails.
4. Klaviyo
Features
–It helps e-commerce marketers to build, measure, and optimize email campaigns.
-It has a hassle-free dashboard that showcases all the recent campaigns based on revenue, days, and more.
-The segmentation of the platform is excellent based on the behavior and transactional data.
-Start your campaigns with pre-built email templates that can be customized.
– Use an autoresponder to send automatic emails to the audience.
Pricing
It offers a free trial of up to 250 contacts and can send 500 emails. The plans are devised based on the number of contacts. Pricing increases with the number of contacts- the maximum pricing option is up to $1700 per month for up to 146,00 contacts and a minimum of $25 for 500 contacts.
Know more about pricing
Pros
-It is easy to set up and user friendly.
-Enhance the eCommerce business on integration with Shopify.
-Create Personalized product recommendations for post-sale engagement.
-Visually transform email workflows and sign up forms to collect leads.
-Access to marketing automation to follow up with customers after they abandon a purchase.
-Integrate with the Facebook custom audience and create a comprehensive marketing campaign.
Cons
– The pricing is aggressive and high for smaller businesses.
– For beginners, the interface can be challenging initially.
– Limited customer chat support and no phone support.
-It can be difficult to use while integrating with Magneto and checking analytical information.
5. Gmail
Features:
-Everyone’s favorite Email marketing tool.
-A free, advertising-supported email service offered by Google.
-It’s a part of Google G Suite with 15 GB storage, color-coded inbox, and filters.
-Appropriate for all types of businesses.
-GMass extension can be used to send personalized and mass emails to every email address in the Gmail account.
Pricing:
It is a free service.
Pros:
-It is free, stable and fast
-It provides 99.9% spam and virus protection.
-It has Integration with the whole Google suite.
-Secured web platform and can be customized to an extent keeping it clean and simple.
-Integrated with Hangout that helps to directly reach the customers via call or chat.
-Excellent handling of large attachments and volumes of emails.
-A business email address can be used by logging into a Gmail account.
Cons:
-It might not work easily with a few desktop software or enterprise applications.
– There is no backup of emails in the inbox.
-It is connected to Google Drive storage, therefore, if it is full then it creates problems in receiving emails.
-Many client emails get sent to spams.
-It collects mail from the hosting server and will not collect email quickly.
Why do many use Gmail for email marketing?
- It has spam filters that reduce the risk of domain spoofing, phishing, and other malevolent practices.
- It has great features and saves time in searching for mails and referencing old mails.
- Gmail users are highly engaged which is the key point in email marketing.
How to use Gmail to send a newsletter?
GMass turns your regular Gmail account into a powerful email marketing platform. Without GMass, Google’s platform allows you to send email marketing campaigns to limited people in your G-suite.
Using GMass helps you send emails through the world’s highest delivering servers and gives the highest open rates. It also includes features like
GMass provides access to following email marketing features to your Google or Gmail account:
-Open tracking,
-Click tracking,
-Mail merge
-Message Personalization,
– Mass emails or bulk email service
-Scheduling.
-Create a mailing list
Best Practices To Follow For Email Marketing
Wrapping Up
The importance of email marketing has grown over the years. With all the insights provided in the article, here are a few takeaway points:
-Email is easy to integrate digital marketing campaigns.
-Email marketing gives a scope to build personal relationships with users.
-Email marketing is constantly evolving implies that email marketing strategies should also change with time.
-Technological innovation continues to improve email marketing and the way subscribers are engaging with emails is also changing,
-This proves that email marketing is here to stay and email marketing automation is the new trend that is catching up. Time to up the game and think about the new techniques and strategies for your next campaign.
Learn more: Facebook Is All Set To Launch Its Toolkit For “Email Marketing”.
Influencers Share Their Secret to Earning Big Bucks on Social Media
Key Insights
- Affiliate marketing and paid advertising are one of the top revenue sources but the real bread and butter of influencer income is brand sponsorships reveals a survey of 69 digital stars by Influencer.co
- The survey results were gathered at the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic that has changed the consumer and digital landscape.
- The result highlighted that influencers have diversified income sources and can help them earn even in an economic downturn.
A goal is a dream with a deadline.
– Napoleon Hill
Making a living out of online business is a dream that is now achievable. For many, it is a dream turned reality but with a fair share of struggles. A survey of 69 influencers conducted earlier this year by influencer platform Influence.co highlighted myriad ways available for creators to make big money in 2020.
The results gathered before the pandemic outbreak reveals Brand sponsorship as the top moneymaker with 78% of creators calling it the main source of income. 58% of creators highlight paid advertising like YouTube AdSense also amongst the top three sources of income. However, this category has been dropped off recently as advertiser demand has run down due to the pandemic.
Image Credit: Influence.co
However, influencers have leaned on alternate revenue streams and moved away from sponsored posts as brands have paused/postponed influencer campaigns in 2020. 41% of survey respondents have named commission-based revenue as a key income driver followed by affiliate marketing (39%). Respondents also pointed to physical merchandise (26%) as one of the top income sources.
These are income sources where influencers are paid a fee for e-commerce sales that they drive from their social accounts.
Below is the breakdown of income sources that is listed by influencers as primary revenue sources in the survey.
1. Brand Sponsorships (78%)
78% of influencers surveyed listed brand sponsorships as a primary source of income.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYwIRyWgHqY/?utm_source=ig_embed
H&M has the largest followings as women reflect H&M style all by themselves as a part of the influencer campaign. H&M partnered for its fall 2017 collection with two influencers -fashion blogger Julie Sariñana and model Ela Velden. Sariñana promoted the clothes on her own Instagram account as she loved them.
Brand sponsorships are mostly sponsored posts on social platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. The most reliable way of making money and the main source of income has taken a hit in the last few months mainly because:
- Advertisers have trimmed their budget to save costs.
- Brands are facing economic headwinds caused by the pandemic.
As reported by Business Insider, the frequency of sponsored posts has dropped down on Instagram and 22% of creators have lowered their rates due to slow demand.
As this category is affected by the economic downturn, brands are partnering with influencers to conduct live streaming as consumers at-home interest in real-time videos have spiked.
2. Paid Ads (58%)
The second-highest source of income listed by influencers in the survey with 58%.
Different Paid Ads Options on YouTube
Image Credit: Marketinghy
Influencers can directly earn through ads that play in their videos across platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
Instagram says that Live creators have seen a 70% increase in video views during the pandemic. It now prepares to launch new tools that enable video creators to earn money that includes badges that viewers can purchase during Live Instagram videos and the introduction of IGTV ads.
YouTube’s Partner Program allows influencers to earn money by placing ad breaks within the content on their channel. Ad revenue earned directly through Google placed ads is the main source of revenue and the rate YouTube pays creators depends on factors like video watch time. And viewer demographics. And if a video climbs millions of views then creators receive a big check from YouTube.
For instance, YouTube creator Groth told Business Insider that normally his channel earns $9 and $12 for every 1,000 views. BI also reported that YouTube creators earned from $3600 to $40,000 off a video with 1 million views.
3. Commissions (41%) and affiliate marketing (39%)
Affiliate marketing has been a popular source of income for influencers and 41% of influencers surveyed pointed out commission on sales as a top source of income.
Image Credit: Influencer Marketing Hub
Another popular revenue source for influencers.- fashion and lifestyle influencers on Instagram, Tech reviewers on YouTube, and media publishers like The New York Times that generates affiliate income on its review site, The Wirecutter.com
In this type of arrangement, creators can earn a commission on sales made through a promotional code and affiliate marketing where they promote products with a trackable link.
Image Credit: Influencer Marketing Hub
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZQolWBB5Eu/?utm_source=ig_embed
In March 2020, the category saw a rise in revenue as many companies shifted their focus to e-commerce sales due to lockdown policies whereas April was a mixed bag as some brands like Walmart, Victoria Secret suspended their services.
4. Event Appearances (29%)
Event Appearances and Speaking engagements are big revenue streams for some YouTube creators who have diversified their businesses.
A recent college grad and YouTube creator Ruby Asabor (170,000 subscribers) have presented for events of universities like NYU and Rutgers in the US. She is a motivational speaker and recently many events and tours have been canceled owing to the pandemic. She explains in her video how the business has changed due to coronavirus and events are postponed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlG26M1a2gk
5. Physical- Merchandise sales (26%)
Image Credit: CNN Money
26% of the influencers points out physical merchandise sales as a source of revenue. The ‘merch’ trend has picked up in recent years. While some have built online direct sales to consumers and others have partnered with retailers like Walmart and others.
Stevin John with Blippi dolls
Image Credit: YouTube
Blippi is a popular YouTube star who makes educational videos and has more than 21 million subscribers. The man behind the creation is Stevin John. Recently, Jazwares LLC which makes toys has created a line of items “My Buddy Blippi” which includes figures, plush toys, and toy vehicles. It aims at helping children count or learn colors by putting accessories inside numbered or colored boxes. The products will be released through Walmart and Amazon.
The North Start for the toy industry is Ryan Kaji, an 8-year-old who is the face of YouTube channel ‘Ryan’s World.’ According to Pocket. Watch, retail sales for Ryan-branded products had hit $200 million in 2019.
6. Digital Product Sales (16%):
Fitness influencers on Instagram and YouTube witnessed a spike in engagement and direct-to-consumer sales due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Many fitness influencers sell fitness digital membership programs in the form of app or classes or websites. For instance, Rachel Brathen, aka Yoga Girl, is a Swedish yoga teacher and a New York Times’ best-selling author. She leverages her Instagram account to preach and encourages yoga lifestyle and sell classes from anywhere in the world.
Image Credit: Grin
As reported by Business Insider, a fashion stylist, and influencer, Audree Kate Lopez has nearly 30,000 followers and conducts an online course Fashion Fundamentals for college students.
7. Followers donations(6%)
Image Credit: TikTok
Many influencers receive donations or gifts via live streaming through membership platforms and social media platforms respectively. Take a look:
- Influencers receive donations from followers through Patreon or Buy me Coffee.
- TikTok, Twitch also has features to donate to influencers in real-time.
- In April, Facebook announced the rollout of its star monetization program, where fans can send virtual stars to a live-streaming creator worth $0.01 each.
- YouTube content company launched the “FBE Super” Membership program using Patreon’s Memberful platform. It offers three paid tiers for fans to contribute either $5,$10, or $15 a month to receive exclusive live streams, discounts, or an opportunity to be cast in episodes.
Read more: 26 Stellar Video (YouTube) Advertising Examples To Take Creative Inspiration From!
Dubizzle Launches Their Own Self-served Advertising Platform
During these tough times of epidemic, the world has seen a new phase of the market. It has evolved tremendously with new technology and techniques. As all the customers are spending more time online, businesses must promote their products on multiple online platforms.
Image credit – Twitter.
To help marketers promote their products online to the right audience in UAE, Dubizzle has come up with a unique way of running campaigns. Recently, Dubizzle has launched an attribute on its website, called “Campaign Manager”.
With the Campaign Manager feature, now it would be even easier to create and launch campaigns on the website. It will help people to target the right audience, and achieve the best output in sales for their products.
Dubizzle is quite popular among people of the UAE. It is a multipurpose website. People use the website to buy/sell products and real estates, they use it to search for jobs and even for promoting their products. It helps users grow their businesses by online promotions and sharing the essential details with the right audience.
Image credit – dubizzle
It has nearly 4,000,000 active monthly users! With the help of Dubizzle campaign manager, it is now even easier to connect to the right audience. It is a self-service advertising platform. Hence, will help you to pick the right audience and target them for your product sale and promotion. It has the largest in-market audience, across UAE.
When selling your car, there are a few quick fixes you can do to ensure that you’re getting the maximum return on your pre-loved possession.
Here are a few tips that will help you secure a good price for your car: https://t.co/tPVqSHYKV9#CarSelling #CarSellingTips #UAE Cars pic.twitter.com/Jn8R5f18No
— dubizzle (@dubizzle) June 3, 2020
The Campaign manager helps you to keep track of your activities. You can check daily reports generated by analysing the data of your ongoing campaign. All of it can be done by spending the right amount on the advertisement. You can even personalise a suitable budget for your campaign.
Posting an ad that will generate a lot of interest and lead to selling your item or service quickly may not be an easy task as it seems.
Here are some tips to help you post a great ad on dubizzle: https://t.co/xhv7xK20wt#Classifieds #selling pic.twitter.com/xZiARSA6wY
— dubizzle (@dubizzle) June 2, 2020
Register Now: https://business.dubizzle.com/advertisers/self-service/
How Google’s Page Experience Will Change the Face of SEO in 2021
Google announced a new ranking algorithm -Page Experience- designed to evaluate web pages based on the user’s experience.
Will this impact my traffic and SEO? Yes.
But the good news is — it will be rolled out in 2021. Google said it will provide six months’ notice beforehand. So, there is ample time to prepare for it.
What is Page Experience?
Page Experience measures aspects of how a user perceives the experience of interacting with a web page. Simply, it means if Google thinks that the user experience is poor on your pages, it may not rank those pages as highly as of now.
Here is an example that Google doesn’t want users to experience.
Image Credit: Search Engine Land
In the above GIF shared by Google, the user was trying to click on “No, go back “ but because of an install bar pop up, it pushed the whole page down and led the user to click on “Yes, place my order” accidentally.
The purpose of this Google Page Experience update is to ensure that the sites that rank on top are not creating experiences that users hate. This shift is a step to a big change in SEO.
Google has a detailed developer document on the page experience criteria. The new Page Experience update uses the existing Google ranking factors -page speed, mobile-friendly, safe browsing, HTTPS, presence of intrusive ads, and now also layout shifts Google is refining metrics around speed and usability and these refinements are under Core Web Vital.
What are the core web vital?
They include real-world, user-centered metrics, that give scores on aspects of pages such as load time, interactivity, and the stability of content as it loads.
The core web vitals and existing Google ranking factors make the new Page Experience algorithm.
Image Credit: Google
Image Credit: Search Engine Land
These are the core web vitals factors:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures the Loading performance and should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page starts loading.
- First Input Delay (FID): Measures the user’s interactivity with the page and pages should have an FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability of a page which means pages don’t have jumping buttons. The page should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.
Additionally, a web page should not contain malicious or deceptive content, mobile-friendly, content easily available to users, and should be servers over HTTPS.
Preparation for this update
Google is adapting its algorithm to closely align with its aim of showing the sites first that the user likes. According to Google, changes will not happen before early next year, so no immediate action is needed.
This update will use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), page experience metrics for scoring purposes if you have an AMP version of your page.
Good content will still be the most important factor despite a poor page experience.
“While all of the components of page experience are important, we will prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar.
A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.”
The future will say how big will this update be, till then start preparing for it as sites will get better with this update.
Roundtable with Industry experts
Here are the tweets from the roundtable that Google had with industry folks – Glenn Gabe and Aleyda Solis:
First, the update will be page-level like some other algos (https, mobile-friendly, etc.) But if there are many pages that have the same issues, they can all be impacted. Hard to say yet how much impact that would be. Could be lightweight, maybe stronger. But again, page-level. pic.twitter.com/4yiu49vKp7
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 28, 2020
The Page Experience update will combine the new core web vitals with previous factors like mobile-friendly, https, mobile-popup algo, etc. I asked if those would be changing strength-wise. They didn't have anything to share about that. My guess is no, but anything is possible. pic.twitter.com/2EG4uXfhDa
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 28, 2020
If a new core web vital is added in the future, it should not shock anyone. It won't be out of the blue. The metric will be written about, talked about, documented, etc. pic.twitter.com/GjA9okmmYb
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 28, 2020
If a page has an AMP alternate that is shown to the user, then Google will take the AMP page into consideration to assess the page experience signal, since it’s the one that the users see.
…
— Aleyda Solis 🇺🇦 (@aleyda) May 28, 2020
…
* The signals taken into consideration for "page experience" will evolve and be updated yearly.
* And a confirmation: The new Page Experience as ranking signal won't be happening until next year, so there's enough time to improve things if there's the need 🙂
— Aleyda Solis 🇺🇦 (@aleyda) May 28, 2020
Learn More: Every 2020 Google SERP Feature Explained: A Visual Guide
On His Hustle As An AdTech Entrepreneur, Industry Insights, And More: Interview With Digitalks Founder, Mohit Jain
Mohit Jain has been working in the AdTech space for over a decade in various capacities, the recent being the founder and chief consultant in his own venture- Digitalks in Dubai. He is passionate about data analytics, and particularly enthusiastic about the endless possibilities with the integration of technology and marketing. He has spent the last 15 years working focused on digital advertising & data and has worked with some of the biggest & brightest agency names in the MENA region.
Today he shares with us his thoughts and insights about not just the latest developments in AdTech, but also his hustle as an entrepreneur at Digitalks.
Mohit, firstly, tell us what made you take the leap from your already established career to starting your own venture, Digitalks?
I have just loved working with the agencies throughout my career span and that’s where I learnt the skills which made me whatever I am now but at some point, the work became quite repetitive, dealing with similar challenges over & over again, enormous work pressure and 14 – 16 hours working days was impacting work-life balance. On top of that, I wasn’t able to develop new skills to keep up with the pace of the industry. That’s when I decided to take this leap and take control. I am very glad I took this decision at the right time.
What unseen opportunities do you aim to tap with Digitalks?
I don’t know about unseen but I am trying to position Digitalks in between a world that sits between Marketing & IT i.e. Ad Tech. I think of us as “technical marketers” who understand how marketing communications succeed in the digital world and who can code at the same time and tie both worlds together with the help of data and that is why we call ourselves “Data Whisperers”.
Speaking about AdTech, what recent developments are you most thrilled and concerned about? You can cite one example for each.
Frankly, I am more concerned about how advertisers make use of existing AdTech they have access to.
Agencies are great in promising bells and whistles and sharing incredibly beautiful stories using words such as big data, artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, etc but they fail miserably in fixing the foundations and most basic things in their AdTech. I’ll be very happy if they can simply just use Excel and Google Analytics properly to their full potential, to begin with.
How much importance or budget do today’s Advertisers give to data compared to their marketing budgets? Do they have separate budgets allocated for data alone (similar to marketing budgets)?
The true fact today is that the budgets for projects related to data come out from overall marketing budgets. Unfortunately there are not many advertisers who set budgets aside specifically for data specific work in the region we operate in but the situation is rapidly changing. Businesses seek more accountability and this can be only measured by data so things are already shifting. I believe that Covid-19 pandemic is going to further strengthen the budgets in this direction.
Is DMP mandatory for all the Advertisers who are spending their budgets across multiple platforms. Isn’t that a costly affair for small & mid-sized Advertisers?
DMP is an enterprise technology and definitely not for SMEs. In my opinion, DMP is a dying technology which is severely impacted by walled gardens from Google & Facebook, the war of browsers against cookies, GDPR & similar laws, and most importantly it is dying because DMP ad tech companies oversold & overcharged advertisers to a great extent and then they failed miserably in delivering the business results.
Marketers often get confused between DMP & CDP. Can you please simply state the difference between them both and which one should the Advertisers pick first?
Both of these terms can be confusing for someone who doesn’t work with these platforms closely. The confusion is understandable as both technologies claim to collect, unify, segment and activate customer data across digital channels. In simple words, think of a DMP as a big database that collects addressable “cookies” of your prospects & customers and provides a capability to push this data to outside activation platforms so you can reach them with the right message wherever they are or use this data to personalize their experiences on your website or app. On the other hand, think of CDP as a “data pipe” to pass your own customer data to multiple places depending on the use cases such as when someone fills up a lead form on your website you want to send this data to your CRM, to your email marketing vendor, to your SMS vendor, Google’s & Facebook’s of your world so you can target these users online and then also trigger a workflow to your contact centre partner in India so they can schedule a call with your sales team.
What’s your take on Google disabling the third-party cookies in Chrome? How is it going to affect the data industry of advertising?
It does mean the honeymoon is over for some companies and it is going to impact the audience sizes available in your DSP based on interest and affinity however as the biggest budgets are going to Google, Facebook, Amazon and new social channels such as Snap and TikTok – these guys have built their companies on data they own so I am sure nothing is going to change for them as they will figure out a way however for consumers it does mean more “privacy”. I think it was a very smart move from Google as they prepared themselves clearly to tackle this situation before they announced the change to the world. They gave themselves a 2 years deadline too. Cookies track consumers on the web but things would really change when this rule will be applied on mobile apps as well where cookies are not present and the glue is the device ID of the consumer which is a more powerful piece of data than a cookie. It would be interesting to see how the future will unfold on this front.
Should Advertisers keep buying third-party data from DMPs for their campaigns on programmatic? Is it really worth spending those additional dollars on this data?
It depends on what is your objective. If you are a CPG advertiser looking for mass reach, then these 3rd party datasets can be useful but if you are a performance-driven advertiser then in my experience these 3rd party datasets don’t bring the results they seek. 3P data bought from a DMP or through a DSP is more or less the same but the data volumes of a DMP-based 3rd party data could be higher depending on how that segment was configured.
Coming back to your company Digitalks, how do you plan to increase your verticals and business overall? Is there any expansion plan on cards?
We are a talent-driven business and expansion for us means bigger team sizes. A lot of companies prefer the “hire fast fire fast” approach but that is not my style.
I am not too concerned about the business as there is too much work out there if you know what you are doing. In addition, I don’t want me or my team to end up working 18 hours a day.
What would you suggest to the young Digital Advertising professionals who are looking to build their career around data science? Is there any specific course or education that you would want to recommend to them to enhance their skills?
I think the first piece of advice I give to young professionals entering into the world of data is to understand where they want to start first. I see 3 very broad categories-
- Folks who focus on data collection and who can code, build data pipes, build data lakes, work with APIs, etc
- Folks who can take this data and give it a shape in the form of a report, dashboard, analysis, etc
- Folks who can go beyond and use this data in machine learning, artificial intelligence, statistical modelling and beyond.
At some point when you keep working on multiple projects, the lines become blurry and you start learning skills outside your core focus area naturally. Once you determine where you want to start then choose a course of your choice. There are so many providers out there that the choices have rather too many and confusing to choose. Coursera, Code Academy, EDX, Udacity, Udemy, Data Camp, Pluralsight, etc… the list goes on and on. However, folks who are interested in developing skills more focused on digital advertising & surrounding ecosystems than I highly recommend CXL.com. In all cases, newcomers should first start using the free training courses from Google, IBM, Harvard, Coursera and other technology providers which provide specific pieces of training related to their platforms.
The last question- During this unprecedented Coronavirus phase, brands are becoming conservative about their marketing strategies and spends. How do you think this will affect the overall Digital advertising industry? Does data have a role to play here to help the marketers float through?
The need for measuring every dollar spent is always critical but now due to the CoronaVirus situation, this demand is at its peak. Data has played a great role and will continue to do so in bringing this clarity to advertisers. The advertising budgets were already shifting to online but I think CoronaVirus will work like jet fuel and will speed up the journey of all advertisers who were missing out and will also fuel more money coming to online channels from offline channels.
More and more consumers will go online and as a result demand and supply both will increase however I think brands will be more driven to spend on performance campaigns than just branding campaigns. That right mix between branding & performance will make or break sense from a brand’s advertising budgets. Data will continue to proliferate and how advertisers make use of this data will be the only differentiator left between a successful brand vs average brand.
Guide On EVERY Type Of Digital Ad Out There. Case Studies Included.
What is Digital Advertising?
Digital advertising, paid advertising, or paid marketing is an online advertising model for advertisers to target potential buyers based on their interests or intent. This Digital Advertising took birth on October 27, 1994, when the online magazine ‘Hotwired’ decided to set aside a portion of its website for advertisers to raise some money. The banner ad space had a message in rainbow font, “Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will.” From 1994 to 2020, digital advertising has come a long way. In 2021, the amount spent on worldwide digital advertising is estimated to touch USD 375 billion (emarketer report estimates) with Google, Facebook, and Amazon, the three largest advertising platforms contributing to 43% of the market share. Here we have provided 10 best digital advertising ideas in 2020 post coronavirus (COVID-19) but be prepared to make changes in your sales funnel to meet global digital challenges. Digital advertisers get ready for a new normal in digital advertising in 2020. After all, change is the only constant in life.
Increase in Online Spending Over the Years
Ad spending in the digital advertising market has been showing an upward rise since 2018. From USD 283 billion in 2018, it is expected to reach around USD 517 billion in 2023.
Image Credits: eMarketer
The Importance of Digital Advertising
There is a wealth of available data to impact your online advertising decisions. With digital spends getting closer to traditional ad spends, it’s without doubt, every company or brand must have a strong online presence. Very large companies with more than USD 10 billion in annual revenue spend around 11.6% and companies with annual revenues between USD 500 million to USD 1 billion spend around 8.5% of their marketing budget on digital advertising. Some of the 2019 big digital ad spenders are Comcast (USD 5.75 billion), Proctor & Gamble (USD 4.39 billion), Amazon (USD 3.38 billion), AT&T (USD 3.52 billion) and Samsung Electronics (USD 2.41 billion). While on one hand, ad spending increased, on the other hand, the demand was augmented by the addition of ad platforms.
Image Credits: eMarketer
Image Credits: eMarketer
- More money is being spent on digital v/s traditional advertising channels with digital ad spend expected to reach 60.5% of total media ad spending by 2022.
- India’s digital ad spend grew at a rate of 24% (2018 to 2019), becoming the fastest-growing digital advertising market in the world, followed by Russia at 22.5%. Both are home to large populations of increasingly digital and mobile users.
- Marketing budgets range from 8% to 16% of total revenue (B2B Products 8.6%, B2B Services 8.7%, B2C Products 9.8%, and B2C Services 15.6%).
- In many countries, 85 percent of internet users are accessing the internet on mobiles.
Types of Digital Advertising
There are different types of digital advertising available to a company or product or brand. The best ad campaigns are often a mix of two or more types of paid marketing or digital advertising. From Display Ads to SEO to PPC and more, here are the top 10 online advertising options available to a digital advertiser to execute a winning ad campaign.
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Display Advertising
What is display advertising?
Online display advertising means advertising a company or a product on websites. Display advertisements run across any website that wishes to monetize their content by selling ad space on their page. Display ads are mostly image-based ads shown on web pages within the Google Display Network (GDN is a network of websites that allow space on their web pages for Google Ads) or on a search result page. It is used to redirect the user’s attention to the company’s product. Display ads can be paid for based on three different metrics: cost per thousand impressions (CPM), cost per click (CPC), and cost per action (CPA), also known as cost per conversion.
How is the Display ad used?
Online display ads on a website, can be on the top, bottom, or right side of a page depending on the web page layout. The types of online display ads are banners, landing pages (LP’s), and popups. The types of banner ads online that appear on Google Display Network are Flash, animated GIF, and Static Banners. The most popular Display ad options are Google Shopping (allows shoppers to browse a variety of products based on their search query) and App Campaigns. The types of online Display Ads include Overlay ads, Interstitial ads, Rich Media ads, and 360° Display Ads. Display advertising and paid search advertising are the two most used forms of online advertising.
Why is display advertising important?
- Display ads are more affordable and reach a larger audience. They are used by advertisers to promote clothes, hotel chains, public events, etc.
- Website visitors who are re-targeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert on your website.
- Display network offers advertisers contextual targeting by keywords, placement targeting by sites, topic targeting by relevance and demographic targeting based on age, gender, preferences, location and language.
- 90% of agencies and marketers believe that display ads help with branding.
- It leads to increased website traffic, and increased sales.
- These display ads can be effectively used by businesses of all sizes.
Image Credits: Pinterest
Coke’s most successful Display Ad case study
When Coca-Cola’s popularity decreased among Millennials, the brand developed the ‘Share A Coke’ campaign specifically for a Mexican audience to raise awareness and increase sales and brand love. For the campaign, Coca-Cola found the top 100 searches on YouTube and created short ads with the names of the most-searched artists, athletes, and trending YouTubers.
Coca-Cola’s website received almost two million visits during the campaign, and more than 51 percent of them came from mobile devices. View KPIs increased by 4,000 percent, and the cost per view decreased to 2 percent ofthe initial estimated budget. Additional metrics included
- 1.7 million users reached
- 81 million media impressions on display
- 175 million social media views
- 3.2 million views for the TV commercial
- CTV average of 3.98 percent during the campaign
- 80 percent of target reached
- 51 percent of website traffic from mobile devices
- 44 percent of Mexico shared a Coke
- Awareness increased 11%
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Native Advertising
What is Native Advertising
Native Advertising called ‘recommended content’ or ‘promoted stories’ is a monetized type of advertising on a website except slightly differing from display ads in a way that attempts to mimic the format of the publisher’s content. Native advertising comprises 6 main types of ads online: in-feed (which is ad units in a content stream), recommended links, sponsored search results, promoted product listings, traditional display banners with native content, and custom integration. Most of the native pricing is on CPM basis for the campaigns.
How is the Native ad used?
Since Native advertising is designed specifically not to look like an ad, it is almost everywhere and hard to ignore. It’s designed to look like and blend with the rest of the content on the page. As a result, users interact 20-60% more with native ads than traditional banner ads. As per Google Ads, in the last four years, the search for native ads has been growing in numbers. You may notice this ad type at the bottom of a blog or a FB post. It could appear as ‘recommendations’ or ‘other people also liked’ with suggested examples for users to click on.
Why use Native Advertising?
The in-feed content in Native advertising, can include videos, animations, or carousels of images. When native ads take on the looks of the content around it, they actually become non-disruptive ads. They are found in social media in the form of sponsored posts. Also, since these ads are interactive they are the best for brand building through trust by engaging with a customer. It is an up-coming ad type mostly used by new media companies. Today native ads constitute about 20% of all advertising revenue.
Image Credits: Wordstream
The Native ad case study
Image Credits: Propeller
- Campaign: Asian Beauties from Neverblue
- Ad Copy: Would you date an Asian Woman?
- Campaign period: Mar 30, 2019 – Apr 7, 2019
- GEO: USA
- Total spent: $934
- Total Revenue: $1397
- Net profit: $463
- ROI: 50%
The advertiser worked in two stages:
– In the first stage he started with a CPC campaign to get at least 50 impressions for each ad zone. After that, added these zones to the blacklist regardless of the CTR (by clicking Zone Limitation «Exclude» in the account settings) to redirect traffic to zones that weren’t tested yet. Started with $50 and got $58 for 11 conversions. So, the profit was $8. Then decided to scale this campaign to CPM.
– In the second stage he created a CPM campaign and targeted zones with the CTR higher than 0.7% (Zone limitation “Include” in the personal account). Then he blacklisted all the under performing zones. After all the testing, he had 8 zones, with two of them generating 80% of the profit. He spent $884 and got $1339 for 255 conversions. The profit — $455
3. Search Advertising
What is Search Advertising?
Search advertising or search engine marketing (SEM), or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is the process of advertising on search engines. Search ads are text ads displayed on Google’s search result page. Worldwide Google handles over 75,000 search queries per second. It enjoys a worldwide ranking as #1 search engine, ahead of its competitors Yahoo, Bing, and Baidu. Thereby, moving up one spot in Google’s search results can increase CTRs by up to 30.8%. Google shows your ad in the same format as other search results except that it earmarks it as an ‘Ad’. SEM is mostly combined with SEO (Search Engine Optimization is the organic and not paid form of advertising. Here, advertisers use SEO tactics, like creating keyword-friendly content, back linking, meta descriptions, etc.).
How is the Search Advertising used?
There are two search ads formats, viz. text ads and product listing ads.
- Text ads appear as ‘Ad’ above or on the right side of an organic search.
- Product listing ads (PLAs) mostly seen on e-commerce websites, show the image, price, description and link of your product when a potential customer is searching for a product based on a keyword.
These advertisements are found on search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. They are purchased based on the most relevant keywords a potential buyer uses to search for a product or service. However, recent shifts in PPC strategies are showing an increase in PLAs and ‘Semantic search’ (find meaning and or intent in the words) slowly replacing a direct keyword search.
Why search advertising?
- Paid search advertising allows advertisers to place their products/service in front of people who are already looking for the product/service.
- Since the ad is shown to potential customers who are searching for a similar product or service, there is a high chance of the user clicking on your product and converting it into a sale.
- With Google searches at 3.5 billion per day, search ads reach a larger target audience.
Image Credits: Seer Interactive
Case study of a Search Advertisement
- Client: Automotive Industry
- Goals: Reduce cost per sale from Google AdWords & Reduce monthly spend while generating more online sales.
The advertiser began with identifying the highest value conversion points, restructuring the account to only target keywords and products that would best drive the selected conversions. By understanding the way consumers buy, they could target consumers looking for specific products. They allocated an additional budget towards increasing the bids, to increase the average search position, earn a larger click share, and win the highest value auctions.
Image Credits: Web Talent Marketing
The Results:
- Increased Online Sales by 73% vs. prior year
- Deduced Cost Per Sale by 57% vs. prior year
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Social Media Advertising
What is Social Media Advertising?
Social advertising is the use of social media sites to run an advertising campaign. By Q4 of 2019, the total number of social media users had crossed earlier estimates to reach 2.95 billion users worldwide. In 2020, that number is expected to surpass 3 billion.
Image Credits: Oberlo
How is the Social Media advertising used?
As per a recent study by Statista, the social media advertising segment amounts to USD 105,863 million in 2020 and is expected to have an annual growth rate (CAGR 2020-2024) of 6.0%, resulting in a market volume of USD 133,756 million by 2024 (not taking into account the recent coronavirus (COVID-19) implications on global trade).
The Social Media Platforms available for Advertising
Most marketers are using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in their marketing campaigns.
Image Credits: Xpert Digital
The other emerging platform is TikTok with 500 million active users worldwide. As per CNET, by end 2019, TikTok crossed 1.5 billion downloads, becoming the third most downloaded non-gaming app of the year, after WhatsApp and Messenger. Facebook and Instagram followed in fourth and fifth places. While grocery retailer Kroger was the first to run an ad campaign on TikTok, famous brands like TacoBell are now using TikTok.
Image Credits: Visiture
Social ads charge advertisers on a CPC, CPM and other basis. However, the pricing will depend on the different types of ads like photo ads, video ads, stories ads, carousel ads, slideshow ads, messenger ads, collection ads, snap ads, tweet ads, sponsored content, etc. Here is a quick cost comparison between the three top platforms to give you an overall idea of pricing but of course your company, your product and your brand will determine the ad budget and the social media platform allocation to maximize the profits and return on investment (ROI).
Image Credits: Webfx
Image Credits: Webfx
Image Credits: Webfx
Why is advertising on social media sites important?
- 97% of marketers use social media.
- 78% of marketers using Social Media outsell their peers.
- Social Media ads help to build brand awareness.
- The social media ad spend has risen to USD 89 billion in 2019.
- It helps to build a clientele henceforth bettering Brand Loyalty.
- Improves conversion rate.
- Reduces marketing costs as it is cheaper than traditional marketing.
- Rise in search engine rankings.
Case Study of Bajaj V’s Social Media Ad
- Campaign: SonsOfVikrant
- Objective: Promote Bajaj V – The Nation’s Bike
A ten day social media campaign run by Bajaj Automobiles, touched the minds and hearts of the whole nation as INS Vikrant one of India’s aircraft carriers was scrapped and its steel was melted and used to create the Bajaj V.
Result: Bajaj V gained 0.7 Million USD worth of free media coverage in just one week of the launch. It created 160 million impressions, reaching out to 32 million overall. And the most important one, Bajaj sold 11,000 bikes on the first day of launch. It got 984,862 views on Youtube and more than 23,000 views on Facebook.
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Video Advertising
What is video advertising?
Video advertising is a process of running online display ads that have video within them to promote a company, product or website. These ads play before, during or after a video stream on the internet. 57% of marketers are now including video marketing in their digital marketing strategy.
How is the Video advertising used?
There are different video ad formats. The main ad formats used by YouTube, the largest video hosting platform, include TrueView Ads, Non-skippable video Ads, Bumper Ads, Outstream Ads, YouTube Masthead Ads. For more details, read about YouTube here. Video ads can be purchased on a cost per mille (CPM) basis, but are also typically priced on a cost per view (CPV) basis, allowing advertisers to pay for the ad only if someone watches or interacts with it.
Why is video advertising gaining popularity?
- Being the most engaging form of online content, video ads have higher recall.
- Video will remain a key driver of advertising expenditures on display, projected to account for 31% of overall display ad spending next year.
- More than 50% of consumers like to watch videos of the brands they support.
- In 2019, video ads saw an increase in ad spending mainly in the fashion and retail industry.
- Almost 88% of video marketers are happy with its ROI.
- As per a study by Forbes, videos get shared 1,200% more than text and links combined.
- Mobile ads on YouTube get the viewer’s attention 83% of the time.
- Everyday people watch 1 billion hours of video on YouTube.
- 90% of the potential buyers have discovered new products on YouTube
- Companies and brands like LEGO or Coca-Cola have started uploading video content on their respective brand channels.
Image Credits: Examiner
Case Study of a Video Ad
- Campaign: Meri Maggi
- Goal: Brand image
A classic example of a video ad used to regain brand image was by none other than Maggi Noodles. When the product got banned in India in 2015, its sales dipped from INR 250-300 crore a month to in between 5%-10% in various states.
In November, when the company re-launched Maggi after the five-month ban, it had 10.9 percent of the market share, which climbed to 35.2 percent in December. The relaunch campaign did include press ads and an extremely touching video launched across different platforms.
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Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
What is PPC advertising?
Pay per click (PPC) ads are ads that advertisers only pay for when a user clicks on them. PPC ads are usually text ads but sometimes includes a small image. Google AdWords and Bing Ads both use a pay-per-click model.
How is the PPC advertising used?
This type of advertising is used to direct a potential buyer to your website. It is important to have a PPC landing page that is optimized for conversions. Google has now removed PPC ads from Right Hand Side so they now appear on the top of the page only.
Image Credits: WordStream
Why PPC advertising?
- PPC marketing is done through Google Ads, the worlds’ largest search engine thereby boosting the traffic to your website.
- It can deliver a large number of impressions and clicks because of the large amount of traffic, especially on Google, leading to an increase in sales.
- This type of advertising is highly successful if the advertiser has rightly focused on relevant keywords and the quality of the landing page for a higher quality score.
- Advertisers can make changes to optimize the campaign to improve the quality score which helps to increase the ROI.
- Helps to control the ad budget.
- Can improve brand recognition with remarketing.
Case study of a PPC Ad
- Campaign: Dental Clinic, London
- Goal: To increase the number of leads their ads were generating while lowering the cost per lead.
The strongest USP of this UK clinic, was the doctor a native Polish speaker. So the marketing team targeted the niche audience of Polish speakers living in London close to where the clinic is based, to create ads and select keywords in the Polish language pointing to a dedicated landing page. Constant refining of the keywords and target audience was required.
Image Credits: Exposure Ninja
Results
- In the first 50 days, the number of conversions increased considerably, up 409% from 20 to 107.
- Conversion cost came down to £7.41 from £44 (when client managed own campaign)
- The conversion rate also improved — up over 207% — from 4.38% to 13.44%.
7. Remarketing Advertising
What is retargeting advertising or remarketing?
Remarketing (or retargeting) is a type of online advertising that allows you to serve targeted ads to people who have already visited your website earlier. A remarketing ad allows you to strategically position your ads in front of the target audience as they browse Google or its partner websites, to increase brand awareness and to remind the user to make a purchase.
How do retargeting ads work?
It is a cookie-based technology that follows the user around the internet, by serving ads on the websites and platforms which the user visits most often in order to remarket to him/her again. Retargeting is required since almost 98% of users leave the website without converting on the first visit. Thereby, these 98% users need to be reminded or targeted about a product /service of interest once they leave the website. Here’s how retargeting works:
Image Credits: ReTargeter
Why Retargeting Ads?
- Retargeting increases the conversion by 150%.
- The average CTR (Click Through Rate) for Retargeting Ads is 10 times more than display ads.
- Remarketing Ads have a CPC (Cost Per Click) which is 50% that of the PPC search ads.
Case study of a Retargeting Ad
- Campaign: Jabong
- Goals: To increase transactions by acquiring more high-quality customers who are more likely to convert or make a purchase & to improve app activation rates to drive traffic to the Jabong.com mobile app and control user acquisition costs.
Jabong the e-commerce website has successfully used Facebook’s dynamic ads to retarget potential customers by showing them products they have looked at on both Jabong.com’s website and app, allowing the brand to customize ads to every individual.
Results
By Personalised Acquisition using “Retargeting” and creating custom advertisements Jabong was able to:
- 2X increase in customer acquisitions
- 5X increase in app activation rates
- 40% lower user acquisition cost on mobile app
- 30% lower cost per order
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In-game Advertising
What is In-game advertising?
In-game advertisements are ads that may exist within computer games on desktops/PC, mobiles or tablets. In-game advertising is a digital advertising strategy provided by game developers to boost their revenue. Game developers earn money and get paid by showing the ads to the users.
How does In-game advertising work?
The ads which become a part of the user experience in a 3D game setting through virtual objects, such as, billboards, posters, or bus stops, help to improve the game app engagement and also the retention rates.
The different types of in-game advertising include –
- Dynamic In-game advertising that can be inserted or removed in real-time, inside of Console and PC video games is charged on CPM or cost per thousand impressions pricing model.
- Console Integration in the form of square tiles in the Xbox Live dashboard has a higher CPM rate.
- In the Static In-Game Advertising model where advertising is programmed directly into a game, it is normally a flat fee anywhere starting with USD 50K.
- Advergames are developed for the purpose of promoting a company, brand, or product which can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Image Credits: eSoftload
Why the growing popularity of In-game Advertising?
- 62% of smartphone owners install games within the first week of purchasing a new phone.
- Games can be designed with the sole purpose of advertising a brand.
- It offers advertisers an option to position the product in the game, to reach the right audience with the right message.
- Market for in-game advertising on all devices in the US alone, to touch USD 3 billion in 2019.
- The ad spend in all games grew by 16% in 2019.
- Retargeting in gaming apps is generating revenue uplift of over 50% among paying users.
Case study of an In-game Ad
Image Credits: Gamification Plus
- Campaign: Nike Epic React
Nike named their shoe ‘Epic React’ and created a game named React Land to promote this new line of shoes in four cities. This was Nike’s idea to use gamification to attract a young target audience. After putting on a pair of Epic Reacts and creating an avatar, the player is transported to React Land, a virtual world where he/she navigates as the main character by running on a treadmill and using a handheld button to jump. In the 3-minute game, players can choose to explore a floating metropolis in China, a super soft panda land, the Fuji Mountain, a view of Santorini, a jumping frog in France and many more. After the success of this ad, Nike announced a share value increase of 7%, putting it back in direct competition with Adidas in the sneaker market.
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Email Advertising
What is email advertising?
Email ads are interactive ads that appear in the Promotions and Social tabs of the email inbox.
How do email ads work?
Email ads are ads sent to a user via the web mail. It can include an image, video, or embedded forms. These ads are cheaper than most others. It aims to create leads, to enhance relationship with the customer, to encourage loyalty, and to grow repeat business.
Image Credits: Bannersnack
Image Credits: Bannersnack
Why Email Advertising?
- Email ads help to reach affinity audiences.
- Can customize the target audiences in Display campaigns by applying keywords.
- Offer an option of automated targeting to reach potential customers whom you wouldn’t otherwise reach, at around the same cost per person.
- You can reach people on the Display Network basis demographic categories, like age, gender, income, hobbies, etc.
- Dynamic remarketing ads are possible but the targeted Gmail ads must have a minimum of 100 active visitors or users within the last 30 days for your ads to show.
- This ad type is good for promotions, new features, and discount offers.
- An Email ad looks organic prompting the user to click.
Case Study of an email advertising campaign
- Campaign: Wok to Walk
- Goal: Local customer creation, Brand Awareness
Imaage Credits: Neil Patel
Image Credits: Neil Patel
Wok to Walk, a health food company, sent a newsletter with a subject line that invited recipients to call, make inquiries and order a meal. This email generated an open rate of 18.1%. Next step they checked the statistics and selected email subscribers who didn’t open the previous email.
The same email was sent – but the subject line was changed to better suit this new segment by including a phone number, making it easier for people to call even if they didn’t open the email. This second email received 7.7% additional subscribers, resulting in a higher level of email engagement.
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Mobile Advertising
What is mobile advertising?
Today with mobiles becoming a quintessential part of our lives, mobile advertising is growing in importance. Mobile advertising is placing ads to run specifically on mobile devices such as cell phones, smartphones, tablets, and wearable technology with the use of enhanced campaigns. Marketers often combine mobile advertising with other digital advertising channels like display advertising, search advertising, social media advertising, and video advertising.
How do mobile ads work?
Mobile advertising is targeted. It allows the advertiser to personalize the content for a specific audience. When Samsung wanted to promote its Galaxy S6 smartphone, they created an interactive mobile ad for people to experience what the company was talking about with a demo on their smartphone. The other winning mobile ads are Ruffles potato chips, GAP remix logo launch, Nissan Rogue SUV launch, and Starbucks.
Image Credits: Mobile Ads
Why is mobile advertising or mobile marketing important in 2020?
- Global mobile ad spending in 2019 reached USD 190 billion.
- In India, mobile ad spending is expected to rise from approx. USD 460 million to USD 1.73 billion in 2021.
- 29% of the time is spent on desktops and 71% on mobile devices
- 80% of internet users own a smartphone.
- 70% of B2B buyers increased mobile usage over the past years.
Case Study of a video ad
- Campaign: Pay Attention
- Goal: Create Awareness
In 2018, cosmetic brand Avon India aimed to raise awareness about breast cancer among women in India through its #PayAttention campaign. Avon had a breast self-examination (BSE) video for women to help them identify the signs of breast cancer.
Results
- 15 % SOV and awareness in breast cancer
- Reached over 1 billion people of India at USD 25k
- On social media, Avon reached out to 917 million on Facebook, 101 million on Twitter, 109 Million through PR stories and 29 influencer videos with 36 million impressions.
- #PayAttention was top trending hashtags around Breast Cancer Awareness in India.
- 200,000 interactions were created on FB and near 185,000 interactions on Facebook posts.
Conclusion
The coronavirus (COVID-19) has disrupted our world, our thinking, and our way of doing business. This impact will surely be felt by every company, big or small. Once the global crises passes, there will be renewed spending on digital platforms to adapt rapidly to the new normal. This new normal stage requires new advertising strategies and new execution plans across all channels. With a fair idea on paid advertising, it’s time to get ready to leverage the right ads for your company or brand when the time is right. How to establish new goals to maximize the ROI, how to rework ad budgets, how to re-prioritize the channel amplification, how to pivot from the standard content marketing plan, how to target all devices buyers use, are all questions a digital advertiser will need to be prepared with. There will never be a right or wrong answer but always an in-between that is the ‘right fit’. We have only put you on a fast track to think on the right lines to restrategize your digital advertising campaign. Time to work on it further!
Summary
Coronavirus (COVID-19) will bring about deep changes in digital advertising. Ad revenues, social media, e-commerce will impact Google Ads, Social Media ads, affiliate earnings and publisher advertising earnings. Digital advertisers will require to get ready for a new normal in paid advertising from 2020. In this blog, we have tried to contain maximum information and some relevant statistics on digital advertising. There will never be a right or wrong answer but always an in-between that is the ‘right fit’. We have only put you on a fast track to think on the right lines to restrategize your digital advertising campaign. Time to work on it further!
Google’s Native Advertising Solution- Discovery Competes With Facebook
Discovery ads for the UGG brand cover Discovery feed, Gmail, and Youtube.
Image credit: Google
Key Insights:
- Google is positioning Discovery ads as a better way to reach online shoppers.
- 86% of online consumers are on a lookout for shopping ideas as they watch videos or content across the web.
- 90% of users discover new products and brands on YouTube Watch Next.
- Discover reaches hundreds of millions of consumers using the Google Search App.
- One campaign overs three giant Google products- Discovery Feed, Gmail, and Youtube.
Last May, Google announced at Google Marketing Live that ads are coming to discover. As a part of that, the Google Discovery ads were previewed for the Android and iOS feed, as well as Gmail and YouTube, and they are now finally rolled out to all advertisers globally last month.
With a single campaign, advertisers can reach 2.9 billion users across multiple Google surfaces- YouTube Home and Watch Next feeds, Discover feed on the Google Search app, and in Gmail Promotion and Social tabs. This approach to audience totals is similar to Facebook who started reporting usage across its ‘family of apps’ last year. Facebook reported 2.99 billion monthly active people (MAP) as of March 31. In simple words, Google is offering reach on par with Facebook.
All ads feature visual-rich product photography and are labelled.
- YouTube: Ads include an interactive carousel format and appear as users scroll through the Home and Up next feed while looking for new videos.
- Discover: Ads appear along with sports and personalized updates. The feed is available on Android, iOS app, and mobile web at google.com.
- Gmail: As per Google, ‘time offer’ appears as shoppers are checking the latest product deals in the Promotion tab of their inbox and are marked with a green badge that appears on the top of the feed like an email.
Unlike search ads, no need to type the query manually but Google is leveraging its understanding of what customers are interested in.
Thanks to Google’s unique understanding of customer intent, you’ll be able to show more relevant, meaningful ads to people when they’re most interested and ready to learn more about your products and services.
Why should Advertisers use Discovery
Google recommends for advertisers looking for:
- Drive conversions with their media
- Reach new customers with their media.
- Reconnect with their valuable customers.
Early Adopters of Discovery Ads
Early adopters like Deckers, iProspect, and M&M Direct have seen excellent results-driving customer action with Discovery ads alongside their existing media.
Lifestyle apparel brand Deckers worked with digital agency Jellyfish to promote the UGG brand’s 2019 holiday guide using Discovery ads. Deckers used repurposed high-quality images from its social campaigns and saw a revenue return of 10 times of its original ad spend. It plans to implement Discovery ads across the rest of its portfolio including HOKA and Teva.
Michelle Hernandez, senior manager of Omni-digital marketing at Deckers said,
“While Discovery ads don’t appear on social platforms per se, they offer rich, visually engaging experiences filled with meaningful content that excites and inspires consumers as they scroll through new content on YouTube, Discover and Gmail. This is where more and more consumers are engaged and spending time.”
Head of Acquisition, MandM Direct on Discovery Ads
Image Credit: Google
In early 2019, digital marketing agency iProspect tested Discovery ads with several large clients and reported a reduction up to 48% in cost per action compared to social ads.
iProspect senior director of paid search Christina Malcolm said, “We’re finding that Discovery ads are an interesting ad type that blurs the lines between traditional search, display, and social activations, but which can target different audiences and hit conversion performance goals.”
If you have failed to notice the Discovery ads in the feed yet, then that’s because Google is treading lightly. Currently, there is only one ad slot – in position three-on the Discover feed as Google is aiming high-quality bar and only showing the ads with best image assets that are relevant to users. However, the company also confirmed that more ads are likely to be rolled out.
How to get started with Discovery campaigns
Image Credit: Search Engine Land
Discovery ads are set up in Discovery campaigns with two ad formats: Discovery carousel ads with multiple images and Discovery ads with a single image.
Image Assets: Google scans your website for images that meet the size requirement, upload images, or select from the Shuttershock library. The key is to have high-quality images.
Headlines and Description: Discovery ads serve a combination of headlines and descriptions automatically. One can enter up to 5 headlines and 5 descriptions.
Geographical Targeting: Google shows a weekly impression estimate based on geographical targeting.
Call To Action Option: Google can automatically choose the call-to-action text in your ads or there are 10 other options such as ‘Apply Now’, ‘Shop Now’, and more available to choose from.
Finally, Discovery ad campaigns can be targeted by location, audience, or demographics. This is Google’s automated universal campaign and smart bidding is required. In its Discovery ads tips page, Google notes that advertisers should “Choose an average daily budget at least 10 times the value of your target cost-per-action (CPA) bid and wait for at least 40 conversions before making changes to your campaign.”
Read more: Every 2020 Google SERP Feature Explained: A Visual Guide
Where Do These Global Companies Stand At The End Of Q1: Performance, Insights, And Statistics
We bring you insights and earning calls on various media companies, publishers, agencies, brands, and tech companies performing on a quarterly basis. The iteration focuses on media companies’ financial performance in the 2020 first quarter and taps all the vital data.
Q1 2020 earnings and performance
Though the waters are choppy ahead, we are optimistic that the worst is behind us and have learned to live with the new normal. Consumer habits are changing and the future is more accelerated towards the digital economy. The media landscape has changed especially the TV front and the focus is on opening businesses again with advertising driving the demand.
Q2 Outlook
Q2 advertising for publishers is estimated to be significantly down as much as 25-30% Y-o-Y and for some even 50-55% down. Few companies like Facebook, Snap, Dotdash expects Q2 revenue to be flat or slightly up Y-o-Y. Here are a few key points to consider:
- Google revenue declines by 15% year- over -year, though search activity increased. Advertising spends decreased due to coronavirus recession. However, other advertising mediums are growing like connected TV, ads in video games, or ads in video conferencing.
- International TV ad sales are down by 30-35% Y-o-Y whereas programmatic revenue decreased by 40-45%.
- Performance ads are down year-over-year and demand from industries like restaurants, travel, retail, auto, and luxury has declined.
- Some advertisers seek opportunities and increase spending in financial services, insurance, telecom, technology, streaming services, and app downloads. Gaming and streaming are gaining a strong foothold and permanently taking a share of our time and wallets.
- CPM’s down by almost 50% giving an advantage to advertisers for huge bargains. New and existing advertisers are looking to acquire new customers at a lifetime low value.
- With no new live events expected on TV till September/October, it will boost the growth of CTV.
- Attribution for marketers is easy as most sales are online than in-store. The animation is expected to be robust in Q3 and Q4.
- 90-95% workforce for media companies are operating from home and CMO’s can justify spending using data-driven advertising with trackable ROAS.
Let’s take a look at the financial report card of the global giants.
The Trade Desk
The opening remarks from the trade desks on the present scenario are as follows – Programmatic’s greatest feature is ‘Agility’. One can easily start and stop the programmatic campaigns, unlike linear television. Early April witnesses advertisers stopped/pause ad spend in certain verticals especially travel and remained active in health, technology, games, home, and garden.
However, by mid-April year-over-year spend decline stabilized, and as the month progressed things started improving. Advertisers were trying to adapt to the present environment. For instance, restaurants changed their messaging to “We are open” or “We deliver.” Consumer products focused on pantry loading and travel companies planned to waive off cancellation fees for bookings. Basically, advertisers started to strategize on how to run businesses on the other side of the pandemic. Now, every company is trying to work out an advertising strategy to connect to consumers and gain share once the economy gets going.
CTV is a clear winner as linear TV’s life is shortened. Unlike traditional TV ads investment where brands and agencies commit billions of dollars without knowing the content and audience, they have the freedom to be more deliberate, liberal, and agile on CTV.
Roku:
- Pandemic has accelerated the shift to streaming by viewers due to excellent content and value.
- In the short term, the video advertising business has slowed down due to budget cuts and low spending by advertisers.
- In the streaming business, active accounts grew roughly 38% Y-o-Y with an increase in new accounts of more than 70% Y-o-Y.
- Streaming hours grew roughly 80% in April and the increase in streaming hours per account is approximately 30%.
- It is estimated that ad business will grow at a slower pace and gross profit margin will be lower than expected for the year.
- The behavioral changes of TV ad buyers are positive in the long-term and more people are expected to stay home to control spending in the light of economic hardships and the shift to streaming business will grow further.
Google:
- In March there was a sudden slowdown in ad revenues owing to COVID 19 and lockdown orders. The first two months of Q1 reflected strong growth. Google search and other advertising revenues generated $24.5 billion, up 9% Y-o-Y.
- After the 2008 crisis, the Google search can be adjusted easily-quickly turn-off and back on which is cost-effective and ROI based. At the inception of the coronavirus crisis, users’ interest was more for information on the virus and non-commercial topics providing less opportunity for monetization.
- Q2 looks difficult for the advertising business.
- YouTube advertising revenues were up 33% year-on-year to $4 billion however there were different performance trajectories for direct response and brand advertising.
- Direct response continued to grow throughout the quarter but brand advertising growth grew for the first two months of the quarter and declined in March. This resulted in the slowdown of Youtube ad revenues by the end of March.
- Similarly, networking ad revenue was $5.2 billion, up 4%Y-o-Y for the first 2 months of the quarter, and declined in March in the low-double-digits year-on-year.
Spotify:
- Ads are a small part of the business, nearly 10% of the overall revenues. Therefore it is less impacted compared to other businesses.
- From a long term perspective, it will be an opportunity to move from linear to on-demand due to COVID 19 crisis.
- It is suspected that advertisers will move from pure reach to more measurable ad formats -mostly analog ad formats.
- The conjecture on advertising and consumption front is what is already happening of linear shifting to digital.
Learn more: Spotify Adds $1.7B To Market Cap In 23 Min Post A Deal With Joe Rogan, World’s Leading Podcaster.
Rubicon:
- The first half of April’s revenue was roughly 30% down until it showed signs of stabilizing in the second half.
- CTV continued to grow at a slower rate in April with a Y-o-Y increase of nearly 10%. Ad slot availability grew by roughly 25% compared to pre-COVID 19.
- Being an omnichannel SSP there has been diversity in ad categories and even more after the merger with Telaria. Certain verticals were highly impacted like travel in entertainment but e-commerce, technology, and direct-to-consumer were benefitted.
- Upfront deals are canceled and focus is shifted to spend from linear to the spot market that programmatic serves.
Microsoft:
- Reduction in ad spend affected Search and LinkedIn business and assumes that the advertising spend will not improve in Q2 as well.
- Search revenue ex-Tac increased by 1%.
Apple Advertising:
- The economic slowdown and uncertainty on business reopening have impacted the advertising business – which is the sum of App Store search ads, Apple news, and third party agreements on the advertising front.
- This slowdown and uncertain future will have a strong effect on the Service business for the June quarter.
Verizon:
- Owing to the COVID-19 crisis, ad revenue declined by 10% in the second -half of March and the rate of decline only increases in April.
- Industry forecasts a fall of 20-30% in digital media and Verizon media results are likely to be similar.
- It also experienced a decline in advertising and search revenue due to hold back or cancellation of campaigns by advertisers and users searching for fewer commercial terms providing less opportunity for monetization.
- Finally, some staggering numbers were seen- 200% up on gaming, 40% up on video, and 10 times up on the collaboration tools. 800 million calls a day, is double the amount on Mother’s Day, the biggest day of the year.
Netflix:
- Increase in subscriber growth in March and is a pull forward for the rest of the year leading to an assumption that subs will be light in Q3 and Q4.
- Filming is stopped globally except Korea and Iceland.
- Customer services are fully restored with 2000+ agents working remotely.
- With the lockdown orders coming into effect in LA, animation production is up and working from home whereas the post-production of 200+ projects is in pipeline remotely.
- Series writers’ rooms are operating virtually.
- Netflix has invested in Open connect, a pioneering cache system that puts content library as close to members’ homes as possible. This enables ISP’s to run their network efficiently and at a lower cost. However, some countries networks may face issues due to the increasing usage of the internet.
Omnicon
- The company doesn’t collect weekly revenue numbers by the agency and roll them up at the Omnicom group level.
- Q2 downfall is expected in double digits and year-on-year revenues will be down.
- The future is challenging but the company expects to get many of those people back as they move into the year ahead.
Learn more about the quarterly performance of other media companies: Financial Report Card Of The Global Giants And Industries In COVID-19
