Digital Marketing

Innovation In Google During The Tough Times Of COVID

While most of the brands are struggling to survive during the tough times of pandemic, Google has set its goals right for the whole year. It is innovating itself without any trouble. Every month Google targets to enhance itself, according to the growing demand of the society. Google makes sure, that it fulfills the need of its users by providing them with exactly what they desire.

Recently, Google introduced two new features for its search portals. One of the features is designed, and dedicated to the Black community. The feature will help in the upliftment of the community in society and will aim to end the injustice against them.
Due to the rise of anger in the community against the centuries-long injustice experienced by the community, several brands came forward to show their support towards the community. Google was amongst them.

#BlackLivesMatter!

To fulfill his promise, the CEO at Google, Sundar Pichai recently added a feature to the map and Google search listing.

This feature is launched to empower the Black community. The feature will highlight businesses owned by the Black community helping them grow. However, only those members can avail of the benefit whose business has verified profiles in the US. Also, the business must be owned by a member of the black community.

Those businesses highlighted under this feature will be marked by an image(as shown below). The symbol will signify that the business is owned by a member of the Black community.

It is said that the step was taken to provide a financial boost to the community. It is a foreseen step to finally end the orthodox discrimination towards the community. Google is also partnering with U.S. Black Chambers, inc. To provide better features like Analytics helping the businesses groom and blossom.

In a statement regarding this following statement was issued by Google:

“As part of our $300 million commitment to support under-represented entrepreneurs, we’re integrating the attribute into the digital skills training programs we offer Black business owners through Grow with Google Digital Coaches. And through Google for Startups Accelerator for Black Founders, we’re starting our work with the first cohort of 12 startups.”

Google is keen to develop the feature even more and is seeking ideas internally. According to the management, they have already received more than 500 creative ideas to get this model to develop more brilliantly.

The company is also working on better and much strict “Policies against hate and harassment”

“About this ad”- More power to the user!

With a more transparent approach towards their users, Google has launched a new feature popularly known as “About this ad”.

To implement this feature Google will be launching new tools. It will help the users gain information about the advertisement they are receiving. It will help enhance security and will increase user privacy on the digital platform.

According to Google spokesperson, the vision is designed for a “thriving internet where people around the world can continue to access ad-supported content, while also feeling confident that their data is protected”.

“But in order to get there, we must increase transparency into how digital advertising works, offer users additional controls, and ensure that people’s choices about the use of their data are respected not worked around or ignored.”

Read More: Google Ends All Gossips: Revealed Fee Structure For Advertisement Tools

For a long time now, tech giants like Google are have faced a lot of criticism. Most of those were linked to their explicit behavior when it comes to money and user privacy. After being criticized and called upon several times by different government authorities for blind approach in the business during the usage of advertisers’ money, Google has finally decided to be more transparent with its business policies and proposals.

Therefore, Google shared a list of pricing for its tools used by advertisers for the advertisement. It was a huge step by Google, since before this release, advertisers were kept in the dark about the spent of their share of the money, and the profit earned by Google.

The tools for which Google revealed the prices include, DV360, Google Ads, ad manager, and its publisher tech.

The revealed prices are as follows:

These prices were revealed by Google in a series of articles and blog posts.

The prices are in the ratio of percentage for a $1 amount spent by an advertiser on an advertisement, divided between the publisher and Google.

• Google tech: Publishers – 69%, Google – 31%
• DV360: Publisher – 87%, Google – 13%
• Ad Manager: Publisher – 82%, Google – 18%
• Google Ads: Publisher – 86%, Google – 14%
• Ad sense by Google: 68% share taken by Google of the total spent by the advertiser.

Google has never been so transparent in regards to its prices, the sources say that this new transparent face of Google is due to the ongoing legal hearing conducted by the state attorney general and the Department of Justice.

Read More: Google Updated Its Demand-Side Platform With DV360!

Innovation has always been the motto of the company. To make sure that the advertisers at Google are equipped with the best tools available in the market, it recently launched its new self-service toolkit known as Display & Video 360.

The tool is launched to change the landscape of the advertisement. Display &Video 360 is a gift to its advertisers by Google.

Earlier, advertisers used the tools to make a hypothetical projection while running an online marketing campaign. The most crucial question that bothered the advertisers was the amount of audience that they will reach with the campaign. To make sure it’s no more a hit and try show for the advertisers, Google launched DV360.

With the DV360, the advertisers can now create a new campaign and check its reach to the audience as the tool provides a duplicate view of the campaign. The duplicate view will help the advertisers view the exact or say a more accurate number of audiences that they will reach with the campaign. Hence, no more blind bets!

The tool has better forecasting capabilities, giving the advertisers a glimpse of the future for their campaign. It is also a better solution for the media planners as it provides them with a large proportion of benefits as better access to the tool as they always have a larger role to play.

The most crucial answer answered with the tool is, “how many unique people can I expect to reach with my overall campaign across any open auction display and video inventory as well as YouTube?”

According to Anudeep Pedditi, Programmatic Manager, OMD NZ:

“Once we commit to a reach objective, neither underachieving nor overachieving is an option. Display & Video 360 gives media planners the accuracy they need to effectively plan across all our programmatic campaigns.”

The Tools main aim is to provide the following features to its advertisers:

• • • • Focus

      • Options For Buying

      • Optimization And Reporting

      • Security

      • Conclusion

Read More: How Google’s Page Experience Will Change the Face of SEO in 2021

Google will launch a new algorithm for its page experience and design. The new model will be based on user experience.

The new algorithm will surely affect SEO and web traffic. Therefore, to make sure that the advertisers are not affected by the changes, Google has announced that they will apply the changes in 2021. They have promised to inform upfront, at least six months beforehand.

An early reminder will help advertisers to prepare themselves for the changes.

However, Google made it clear that the new algorithm will be even stricter in ranking the web pages. If the user experience of a web-page is poor, Google will not rank the page on to the top list.

Google has also published a detailed document dedicated to the page experience criteria.

The new algorithm will consist of some core vital features. This feature includes the following:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures the loading performance of your webpage.
• First Input Delay(FID): Measures the user interaction with the page.
• Cumulative layout Shift: Checks the stability factors of your webpage.

The Accelerated Mobile version (AMP) will also play a major role in the ranking of your page, as will be a metrics for the page experience.

Also, good content will always play a lead role in the page ranking.

As per a statement:

“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.”

Hence, entrepreneurs, startups, and businesses should be well prepared for the new changes.

Read More: Every 2020 Google SERP Feature Explained: A Visual Guide

Have you ever imagine the amount of traffic Google experience in a minute, month, or year?

Well, here are some fun facts, every second there is an approximate of 63,000 search queries entered on Google search.

Also, near to 2 trillion searches are conducted every year!

Isn’t it amazing? However, you might ask, why does it matter?

Let us understand!

Google holds an approximate 72% market share of search engines. To make sure that your webpage is listed on the top of the list of Google search results you must have an understanding of Google SERP (Search Engine Result Page).

What is SERP? And, what all it provides to the advertisers on Google?

The Search Engine Result Page of Google has gone through a lot of changes according to the user view. It has become much more dynamic, relevant, personalized, and helpful.

Now the search engine of Google is equipped with several enhancements that use structured data. The search page consists of visual enhancement, better index, and optimization for the website. You must be aware of all these changes if you are planning for a better organic ranking for your website.

Here is the new enhancement for the search page of Google:

• Direct answer Box
• Rich Snippet
• Rich cards
• Knowledge Graphs
• Knowledge Panels
• Local Pack
• People also ask
• Image Pack
• Site Links
• Twitter
• Newsbox

You must be equipped with the knowledge of these for better results in organic ranking.

Read More: Rejoice Small Retailers: Selling Products is Now Free On Google Shopping

MSME’s got adversely affected due to the widespread of COVID-19. Several small and medium scale businesses have lost their source of income due to the sudden breakthrough of this epidemic. 

Therefore to make sure that these businesses sustain the effects of the crisis, Google is allowing small retailers to list their products for free on Google Shopping.

Explaining this decision, Bill Ready, President of Commerce at Google cites the fact that it is difficult for struggling businesses to pay for Google shopping listings at this time.

“And as consumers increasingly shop online, they’re searching not just for essentials but also things like toys, apparel, and home goods.

While this presents an opportunity for struggling businesses to reconnect with consumers, many cannot afford to do so at scale.”

Earlier, Google charged its customers as Pay per click (PPC). It can also be seen as a tactic by Google to compete with Amazon in the market of e-commerce.

Read More: Privacy Sandbox By Google Shows Backdoor To The Third-Party Cookies.

Two years ago, Google announced that it will discontinue the usage of third-party cookies in its browser, which is Google Chrome. Since the announcement, several speculations surfaced, to understand its effects on internet traffic and advertisement. However, Google seems determined about the elimination, and this year Google announced “Privacy Sandbox” a step towards the replacement of third-party cookies.

It is developed to provide a secure browsing experience to its user.

According to a spoke person from Google, “This is an early-stage concept, and we don’t have more details to share right now, We plan to publish updates and progress in GitHub as part of the process.” 

The concept uses a new algorithm designed by performing “Bit Request Signal Experiment”.

Privacy Sandbox was launched in August. The idea was to innovate ad recurrence and behavioral advertising. It aimed to help them work on the web without using third-party cookies. A mega event was organized, 163 giant tech organizations like Apple, Facebook, Axel Springer, The Washington Post, Criteo, The Trade Desk, and even Google participated. All are requested to share their views via. World Wide Web Consortium or GitHub to help the project succeed. 

However, according to the Google developers, it is still in its initial stage and there is a lot of work that is needed to be done in this field.

Read More: Google pledges $800 million to coronavirus relief, including Ad credits

Google CEO Sundar Pichai explained:

“As the coronavirus outbreak continues to worsen around the world, it’s taking a devastating toll on lives and communities. To help address some of these challenges, today we’re announcing a new $800+ million commitment to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic.”

The commitment includes:

• WHO and other health organizations will get $250 million for advertisement.
• MSME’s and NGO’s will get $200 million. 
• An additional $15 million in cash will be granted by Google.org to non-profits to bridge the gap between SMB’s.
• Those small businesses that are already active for a year with Google advertisement will get the help of a total of $340 million in Google ad. They will receive the credit in their accounts and can spend it by the end of 2020.
• The academic and research institutions in the field of COVID research will get $20 million.
• Financial support will be provided to the organizations to increase the production capacity for life-saving equipment.

However, not everything went great for Google during this tough time of COVID:

Read More: Google Cuts Marketing Budgets by 50%, Freezes Hiring.

Key Points

• Budget cuts and hiring freezes across marketing and across Google.

• For the second half of 2020, Google is cutting its marketing budget to 50%.

• The cut is due to the reduced expenditure on advertisement by the brands during the time of the crisis.

• The development comes in less than a week from where Google is scheduled to discuss Q1 2020 results on 28th April.

According to a statement released by email: 

“There are budget cuts and hiring freezes happening across marketing and across Google…We, along with the rest of marketing, have been asked to cut our budget by about half for H2.”

A company spokesperson said in an emailed statement to CNBC,

“As we outlined last week, we are re-evaluating the pace of our investment plans for the remainder of 2020 and will focus on a select number of important marketing efforts….We continue to have a robust marketing budget, particularly in digital, in many business areas.”

…we continue to invest, but will be recalibrating the focus and pace of our investments in areas like data centers and machines, and non-business essential marketing and travel.”

Read More: Google Withhold Programmatic Data, Advertisers Pulls Back Ad Spend

As quoted by Digiday, the Head of Display at the U.S based retailer said,

“Google’s ad exchange didn’t make the list primarily because they’re not willing to give us any transparency or data around not only their take rates on our media sped but also anything we could already pull from our demand-side platform.”

“We’re seeing Google’s ad exchange become slightly less of the total pie,” said Jay Friedman, president at programmatic agency Goodway Group to DigiDay.

”I don’t have a percentage but it’s less but not significant.”, he further added.

The advertisers registered their doubts and raised concerns regarding the non-transparent behavior of Google. However, this must have been resolved after the release of the price list for its advertising tools by Google.

Google Is All Prepared To Compete with Amazon In E-commerce Market.

Google is all set to reveal its new initiative to fight the dominant Amazon in the e-commerce business.

After a series of serious attempts made by Google, to end the monopoly of Amazon in prior consecutive years, that is in 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2019. 2020 seems to be severely crucial as more customers are turning towards the online market every day, due to the COVID virus spread across the world.

Google announcement was a clear indication in the direction of its plans to spread its roots in the online market. Google has declared to charge lesser sales commission from the sellers on its platform and will also let third-party sellers like Shopify to use its platform.

Currently, the commission rates of Google’s online sales platform range from 5 percent to 15 percent depending on the category of the product.

Google might dominate the field of knowledge and information when trying to search for information. But, when it comes to searching and buying goods online, Amazon is the first choice of consumers. Due to consumers’ first choice as e-commerce, Amazon is spreading its wings in the advertisement market, which is a clear threat to Google’s core source of earning.

Google has taken several hits during these years while competing with Amazon. In a seven-year-long battle with Amazon, Google introduced several products to compete with Amazon. However, none of them succeeded. One such attempt at Google was Google Shopping Express! The service launched in 2013, offered one-day delivery for groceries. The users can take an annual membership for $95 and can avail of faster service. However, Google ended up shutting down the project.

After its failed attempts with Google Shopping Express, Google decided to convert it into Google online Mall. The Google online Mall included retailers like Best Buy and Target. In 2017, Google partnered with Walmart. This deal was supposed to bring many fortunes to the Google online market, but unfortunately, the partnership ended too soon.

However, never giving up Google, added a buy button to its search engine. The online-button allowed the users to directly purchase the search engine, with the help of their credit and debit cards.

For an effective competition strategy with Amazon, Google brought in Bill Ready. Bill Ready was a former executive at PayPal.

The announcement in April came as a piece of happy news for the retailers. Now, retailers can list their products for free on Google online market listing. However, early the sellers had to buy the ads to get their products listed with Google. By this step, Google is expecting to attract huge audiences!

Mr. Ready, in an interview, described the position of E-commerce across the world. According to him, there is a wide range of audiences who are shopping online for their needs. Although, there is just a handful of platforms entertaining all of them.

“We want to make sure selling online is easy and inexpensive,” said Mr Ready. Follow

According to Google spokesperson, the changes will be visible to the people in the USA. Those who are already listing products on Amazon can use the same listing on Google, that is, without making any changes to the format.

The aim of Google is to take over Amazon, or at least, for the time being, be the biggest competitor. However is a 20 minutes long conference, Mr. Reddy shy out to take the name of their competitor, even for once.

Even when asked the question to name the largest rain forest in South America, Mr. Ready decided to dodge the question.

Although, he stated:

“Consumers benefit from a diverse and thriving ecosystem of sellers.” Adding that, “There is no one player that can serve all the needs of consumers.”

Everything the Q2 2020 Financial Results of Tech Giants Have to Say

Big Tech giants have revealed their quarter financial performance in these turbulent times. Here are the Q 2 financial performance, insights, and earnings details:

Alphabet

Google’s parent company Alphabet beat the expectations for its Q 2 earnings despite a dip in the advertising. However, it marked its first year-over-year revenue decline in its history as the pandemic slowed the economic activity and advertisers pulled back their spending. Though there is a slowdown in the advertising growth, Google pointed to newer long-term opportunities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, YouTube, and shopping. For the rest of the year, in anticipation of slowdown, the company has cut marketing spend by half and also freezes hiring.

Google is also facing antitrust investigations of its search and Android business and is expected to result in a legal action that could cover issues from search to digital advertising space in the coming months.

By the numbers:

 

• $2.6 billion declines in year-on-year advertising revenue.
• Google’s total quarterly revenue $29.9 billion of $38.3 billion is from advertising.
• YouTube ad revenue increased 6% to $3.8 billion.
• Google Cloud sales grew 43% to $3 billion.
• Total Net income reported $6.96 billion compared to $9.95 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Response:

Though there is a slowdown in the advertising growth, Google pointed to newer long-term opportunities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, YouTube, and shopping. 

For the rest of the year, in anticipation of slowdown, the company has cut marketing spend by half and also freezes hiring. Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google said,

“We continue to navigate through a difficult global economic environment.”

Consumers are returning to more commercial search queries and advertisers are gradually increasing their search spending towards the end of the quarter. However, Ruth Porat cautioned,

“We believe it is premature to gauge the durability of recent trends, given the obvious uncertainty of the global macro environment.”

Google is also facing antitrust investigations of its search and Android business and is expected to result in a legal action that could cover issues from search to digital advertising space in the coming months.

Amazon

The e-commerce giant delivered some eye-popping numbers during Q2 beating earnings expectations and reported a double-digit revenue year over year. With the flurry of online orders amid the coronavirus pandemic, sales soared by 40%. The online grocery sales tripled Y-o-Y and the grocery delivery capacity by more than 160%. The demand for online shopping sky-rocketed and to fulfill the demand, it hired 175,000 more people in the period.

By The Numbers:

• Revenue reported is $88.91 billion vs. $81.56 billion expected, the strongest and unexpected annual growth in years.
• Amazon spent $4 billion on coronavirus related measures as promised in Q1 and expects to spend another $2 billion during Q3 towards COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing service grew 29% compared to 33% in Q1.
• Amazon’s Other’ category that primarily consists of the advertising business ( a small slice of Amazon’s total revenues) was up 41% Y-o-Y and subscription services that include revenues from Prime membership also up 29%.

Response:

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement, 

“This was another highly unusual quarter, and I couldn’t be more proud of and grateful to our employees around the globe.”

As reported by CNBC, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said consumer demand in the pandemic shifted from consumables and groceries to categories “not so profitable” and normal mix of products. He said,“Amazon could ship a lot more.”

 Amazon will conduct a Prime Day shopping event in the fourth quarter. 

Facebook 

Despite the Congress probe, pandemic, and an anti-hate boycott from advertisers, Facebook beats all market expectations, revenue grew by 11%. This speaks volumes about the strength of the company’s appeal to marketers despite serious challenges. The top 100 advertisers’ that boycotted Facebook over its hate speech and misinformation policies constituted less than 20% of Facebook’s ad revenue. However, the boycott by large advertisers couldn’t rally small businesses who are reliant on Facebook.

By The Numbers:

• 3.14 billion monthly users across all apps(Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Whatsapp), compared to 2.99 billion in the previous quarter.
• 1.79 billion Daily Active Users on Facebook, up 12% year on year
• 2.7 billion Monthly Active Users on Facebook, up 12% year on year.
• Revenue: $18.7 billion, up 11% year on year.
• It has more than 9 million active advertisers.

Response:

The company said in a statement, 

“We are seeing signs of normalization in user growth and engagement as shelter-in-place measures have eased around the world, particularly in developed markets where Facebook’s penetration is higher.”

Mark Zuckerberg said on a call with investors,

“Some also seem to wrongly assume that our business is dependent on a few large advertisers. The biggest part of our business is serving small businesses.” 

Two new initiatives were announced for small businesses- Facebook Shops and in-messenger commerce.

“This really is primarily focused on small businesses, individual entrepreneurs. Small businesses are the biggest part of our business, not large businesses.”

The company forecasts its revenue growth rate for Q3 of about 10%. while taking into account ongoing headwinds including macroeconomic uncertainty, ad boycott (formally began in July, after Q2 ended), regulations around ad targetting, and measurement.

Pinterest

Pinterest revenue grew 4% on user growth and advertisement. Users who started using Pinterest during Covid-19 continued to have engagement even after lockdown restrictions eased out at a few places. It reached a milestone of crossing more than 400 million monthly users, witnessing a strong growth from users under 25 who grew twice as fast as users over 25. The total advertising growth accelerated year over year in Q2 and small and medium-sized advertisers emerged as a key driver that made up nearly half of its revenue. New features like Shop Tab and the ability to shop from boards are worked upon to make content search easy for the Pinners.

ByThe Numbers: 

• Total daily video views (organic+ paid) grew over 150% year over year.
• Catalog from business increased in Q2 by more than 350% from Q1.
• Revenue from conversion optimization or oCPM, shopping ads, and auto bids continues to grow faster than overall revenue, and attributed conversions grew 2.7x year over year. 80% of CPC revenue is going through the auto bid.
• Users visiting shopping only surfaces grew more than 50% in the first half of 2020 and product only searches grew 8x. 

Response:

As per CNBC, the company said,

“People needed Pinterest in Q2. They needed a service that helped them adjust to radically changed circumstances — one that inspired them to cook at home, build vegetable gardens, plan activities for their kids and set up remote offices and home gyms, to name just a few typical COVID-19-related use cases we saw during the quarter.”

Advertisers have increased budgets on Pinterest because of its strong commercial intent where advertisers get their traction without displaying ads with any controversial content.

Omnicom Group

Omnicom revenues decline 23% due to a decline in spending by the clients. In order to offset the decline in revenue 6,100 jobs were cut across its network, froze hiring, eliminated salary increases, implemented voluntary pay cuts across its agencies, and participated in government subsidy programs in 35 markets. It also shed 1 million square feet of real estate space as it terminated leases across markets in order to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. It is expected that these actions will result in the repositioning costs for the quarter of $278 million that will generate approximately $500 million in annualized savings.

Advertising revenue decline as the revenue of the programmatic business decreased where it offered principle-based buying options for clients.

By The Numbers:

• Reported revenue was $2.8 billion, down $854 million organically, or 23% from Q2 2019.
• Advertising business declined 26.6% and Third-party service costs which fluctuate directly with changes in revenue declined by approximately $400 million.
• Revenues declined in all disciplines except healthcare which grew 3.2% organically. 
• CRM execution and support include events and field marketing businesses, which declined 27.6%.
• CRM consumer experience declined 25.6%, and PR declined 14%,

Response:

CEO John Wren said on the earnings call, 

“The quarter posed extraordinary challenges. he effect of COVID and related lockdowns were unprecedented.”

The main reason for declines in Omnicon’s services was because the client from travel, retail, auto, and other affected verticals paused or cut spending whereas technology and telecom fared better.

After a tough and bad Q2, the company looks forward to the second half. The recovery may not be immediate but the impact will vary regionally and by vertical.  Wren said,

“We think the worst is behind us, with Q2 being the worst point for year-over-year revenue declines.”

The company added a few new clients like Air France’s global agency of record account and Clorox’s media business in the United States.

Apple

Apple reports a slow down in revenue growth as the demand and supply was impacted due to the pandemic. However, it had reported a better quarter than Wall Street expected, showing growth across all product lines including iPhones and reflected growth across all geographic segments.

By The Numbers:

• Revenues rose 11% to $59.7 billion against the estimated revenue of $52.6 billion.
• Apple reported iPhone revenue of $26.42 bn, a growth of 1.66%.
• The biggest growth was in iPad revenue at $6.58bn up from $4.48 bn.
• Apple reported service revenue of $13.1 bn against $11.5 bn the same period in the last year.

Response:

Apple CEO Tim Cook during a call said, 

“Amid the most challenging global environment in which we’ve ever operated our business we’re proud to say that Apple grew during the quarter.”

The company’s subscription service and Apple Tv+ also performed well as most people watched content under lockdown. Apple did not issue guidance for the third quarter. 

Read  more on Q1 results: Where Do These Global Companies Stand At The End Of Q1: Performance, Insights, And Statistics

Advertisers Lose An Approximate Of $130 Million In Fraud Dubbed As Hydra

In a revelation by Protected Media, a security firm based in Israel, advertisers lost an approximate of $130 million in an advertisement fraud. They have named the accused as Hydra, and there is an ongoing search operation target to find the accused.

However, Google and other advertisement tech firms are looking for the accused, but yet no one knows who is behind this million-dollar fraud.

Hydra!

The given name is perfect for a criminal community. Hollywood movies often have such names for their villains.

Although, it is indeed a villain in the real world which is responsible for fraudulent activities and stealing of $130 million; valuable hard-earned money of the advertisers.

The problem is, it still exists and has not been identified.

Rachel Nyswander Thomas, COO of TAG said, “Hydra is an accurate name because the impressions are being sold through many networks and being diluted — there are many heads to slay.”

The statement certainly raises concerns. 

It is said to be creating fake app traffic. The traffic goes undetected by humans, ultimately costing them money for nothing.

Even though it was detected nearly a year ago by Asaf Greiner, CEO at Protected media, it is hard to catch the people behind the fraud scheme. These are clear signs that the fraud scheme is no ordinary fraud that advertisers or tech firms have faced in the past.

Reportedly, it portrays itself as mobile phones to create small amounts of traffic and then diverting the ad-traffic into the areas where enormous money is getting invested.

There is an ongoing search operation in progress; “Operation Abolish Hydra.”

However looking at the scenarios, it will take some outstanding measures to get to the root of such clever fraud techniques.

There is an ongoing fight against fraud, piracy, malware, and the absenteeism of transparency in the world of digital marketing. 

To fight such malpractices, and eliminate the risk of fraud by these malpractices, American Affiliation of Promoting Companies (4A’s) and Affiliation for Nationwide Advertisers (ANA) and IAB created TAG. The leadership council of this community contains names like ad platforms, companies, and advertisers at the side of, Facebook, Google, NBCUniversal, GroupM, and Dr. Pepper Snapple Community.

Even when Google checked things with its Advert Traffic Quality team, it confirmed the fraud is costing people their money. Although, according to Google, it has only lost the least volume of marketing from the scam operation.

In the meantime, TAG launched the operation, “Operation Abolish Hydra.”

The operation allowed digital ad sellers to report any fraudulent activity to TAG. Therefore, ultimately helping in the detection and control of this fraud.

Rachel Nyswander Thomas, COO of TAG said, “What is more modern is the diploma to which or no longer it is specializing in in-app inventory and that or no longer it is hiding in more modern ways.” 

In a statement Asaf Greiner, CEO at Protected media acknowledged:

 “Promoting platforms are ashamed of being victimized and they’re threatened by it.”

Also, “They’ll compile true into an express where an advertiser asks them to pay them abet. Most CMOs need to specialize in their subsequent job. It would no longer find excellent on anybody’s resume.” 

A Google spokesperson stated the following while addressing the issue:

“We commend Accurate Media for sharing facts on the Hydra ad fraud blueprint and participating with the broader exchange, which is distinguished to minimizing effect.”

 He also acknowledged that “The largest takeaway from this case is the need for all mobile app developers to put into effect app-adverts.txt records data to mitigate app spoofing risks.” 

A spokesperson from TAG said:

“It will lift time to construct a culture of possibility-sharing.”

Further stating that “We stamp original to this as an exchange. However other people are initiating to possess an extensive consciousness that or it is no longer almost about taking half in whack-a-mole yourself.” 

Minis Are Here, Miniature Third-Party Apps In Snapchat

Snapchat Minis, bite-sized third party-apps built within Snapchat rolled out on Monday. Snapchat first previewed Minis, a lightweight, built on HTML at the 2020 Partner Summit back last month.

Four out of seven Minis debuts across the platform. These mini-apps are going  live:

Meditation tool Headspace, studying collaboration tool by Tembo, an interactive messaging tool Prediction Master and Let’s do it, a mini-app by Snap.

Other minis apps -festival trip planning by Coachella, Atom’s movie ticketing, and student’s schedule planner Saturn are yet to go live.

The Easiest Way To Meditate Is With Headspace Mini

Headspace mini is a part of the initiative “to help support the mental health and emotional wellbeing of SnapChatters, said a Snap spokesperson. 

Why it matters

The user base of Snapchat is one of the youngest on the social. Media as it reaches more under 30 years old who are coping up with missed schools, job loss, and socialization in the pandemic.

Details

Users can access minis within the chat and can also check-in the sessions with friends. Users can choose from the six meditation sessions of three-four minutes. According to research conducted by Snapchat, late last year reveals that young audience consults friends first about mental health issues over parents. This new tool is even more crucial at present as it will help users (especially the young audience) to deal with a range of mental challenges in the pandemic. A Headspace spokesperson said in an email to The Verge,

“By putting these useful resources front and center where friends already meet and share, we believe Snapchat can play a unique role in empowering friends to help each other through difficult times.”

Will It Replicate WeChat Success?

Even though it’s a new and fresh concept in the U.K and the U.S, this mini-App model is famous in Asian Markets. For instance, Tencent’s WeChat has over 1 million mini-app programs that allow users to perform various tasks. Also, mobile payment services Paytm and PhonePe in India has rolled out several services like flight booking, movie tickets, or ordering a cab.

Snapchat has said previously that Tencent, an investor app in L.A influenced it to replicate the WeChat-style super app. It is a win-win situation for both parties-Snapchat and developers who are making the mini-apps. Snapchat can boost user engagement and developers can access a whole new set of audiences. Facebook, last month, had a little success over replication of the WeChat model through chatbots on Messengers. 

Now, it remains to be seen, what is the audience response to the mini-app model as Snapchat gains inroads to the U.S, U.K, and other markets. 

Your Ultimate Guide to Understanding Gaming Advertising

Of the wide economic disruption caused by the pandemic, the global gaming industry is thriving. With people sheltering at home, gaming is surging. Nielsen survey reveals that 82% of global consumers played video games and watched video game content.

The global video game market is estimated to be worth $159 billion in 2020. However, marketers are facing a distinctive challenge of activating in an environment different from traditional media. Recently concluded weeklong NewsFronts presentation discussed marketers’ approach towards the growing gaming and esports industry.

Esports has gained momentum due to the tech-savvy and digitally-advanced millennials. Currently, it is very popular and is the new epicenter.

How To Activate And Maximize Brand Visibility?

Gaming is a fragmented market. Marketers can approach in different ways to tap into the competitive industry by partnering with influencers, buying on platforms, or directly going to gaming publishers.

As per Adweek reports, Douglas Veney, influencer and esports marketing manager at Nestlé, said they have partnered with influencers to drive engagement with fans. 

“We can really take it from the influencer level and then build upon that approach to move into … more platform level things that are a little bit deeper down the funnel for that.”

Contradictory, the Hershey company finds influencer marketing space is highly crowded and is hard to attract attention. Another challenge for the company is to find a cost-effective strategy to run an always-on campaign in the gaming space since a similar gaming audience can be found on YouTube at a lower cost.

Another interesting case to study is on Horizon Media’s Scout Sports and Entertainment group partnered with esports team FaZe Clan who helped Burger King introduce its new plant-based burger to a young audience with its three-step approach.

The holistic three-step approach – a YouTube taste-test video, followed by a Fortnite live stream where Burger King discounts were offered, and a meet-and-greet at a local Burger King restaurant. 

Nico Amantia, senior account executive at Scout Sports and Entertainment told Adweek,

“That holistic, three-pronged activation allowed us to spread awareness digitally, but also have that face-to-face interaction with fans and really give them something back, which really allowed us to have a very successful campaign.”

Understand Its Implication:

One thing is clear that gaming and esports are an upward trend with a massive audience reach. According to eMarketer, 2020 U.S. gaming ad revenues are expected to reach $3.67 billion, and esports ad revenues are estimated to reach $214 million.

Although it is watched in a TV-like environment, it cannot expect the same response from a 15 min pre-rolled ads in the gaming world. David Messinger, CMO of Activision Blizzard quoted in Adweek,

“The major mistake that people make is to take the assumptions about other forms of media and try to take it into the world of gaming,”

Marketers should look to a long-term transformation -take time, approach things properly, and build on the bets to reap the benefits as gaming and esports ads are still in the nascent stage.

Messinger further added,

“Someone who comes in and starts today may feel like they’re behind, but they’re really at the beginning of what the future is going to be.”

 

Read More: Mobile Gaming Industry Bank On People Locked Inside Homes Due To COVID-19.

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?

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?

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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

 

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.

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%.

 

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.

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. 

 

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%)

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.

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.

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%)

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!