Facebook Is All Set To Launch Its Toolkit For “Email Marketing”.
Facebook is not planning to leave any stone unturned in business aspects. Guess, Facebook doesn’t want to just limit itself to the bounds of the social media platform. Recently, it entered the e-commerce market with its “Shops”. In a piece of recent news reported, Facebook will also be partnering with online food services, Zomato and Swiggy.
To make things more interesting, Facebook is all set to start email marketing. For that, Facebook is creating its tool kit which will provide its user with a realistic and enhanced experience in email marketing.
They have already started testing their tool kit for marketing. However, Facebook initiated these test on pages which have few small and medium-sized businesses.
As it’s a tool by Facebook, the users will have high expectation in regards to performance.
To make sure they deliver, the Facebook toolkit will be enabled with SMBs. Hence, It will help the user to create individual contact lists, or they can upload it via spreadsheets.
Further, they will be able to compose and send the emails by using the easy-to-use Facebook marketing toolkit. Therefore, all this can be done directly from Facebook, with an option of performance-tracking.
The Businesses who are already participating in these tests can access the tool through the inbox in their pages, the tab will be marked as Marketing emails.
A spokesperson for Facebook said in an email, “We’re testing new email marketing tools with a small number of businesses to help them more efficiently notify their customers of changes to their services and operations. We’re evaluating whether these tools are beneficial for people and businesses before deciding whether to expand it further.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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
How Can We Maximize Ad Revenue Per Session For Publishers?
Marketing has seen a high rise in trends over the years and evolution has led to new ways of getting your product out in the market. Of all these, the internet has played a major role in bringing about these changes. The digital transition of marketing gave birth to digital marketing. But digital marketing isn’t all about creating content and channelling it on the available platforms. It has a major aspect that involves running ads and optimizing its own efficiency. This is called performance marketing. So before we proceed further let’s understand what performance marketing is.
What is performance marketing?
Performance marketing is the process of combining data-driven marketing campaigns with advertising platforms. Earlier it was nearly impossible to understand the performance of any campaign run but with the advent of performance marketing, one can not only measure the impact of your campaigns but can also use the data to optimize performance and get better results. Running advertisements is a very complicated process and there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into account when executing these campaigns. So today we will look at some key factors which can help maximize the ad revenue per session for publishers.
How can publishers maximize revenue per ad session?
Content is king: One of the basic lessons that one needs to keep in mind while running an ad campaign is to create meaningful content. Even if the content is simple but lacks quality or value, it will not be able to penetrate the Market. To maximize the ad revenue per session, it is extremely important to create user-centric content that people relate to. This will increase retention and help build a loyal fan base. There are multiple types of content in long forms such as blogs and videos and there exists short-form content such as tweets and Instagram posts. A proper analysis of what engages the users and keeps them hooked to your website is extremely important. Once you’ve identified your best form of content, focusing ad budgets can help you get the best bang for your buck.
Sticky Ads: While it might sound like a vague idea with so many options available that offer better statistics and results, but, sticky Ads have been around for a long time and they are here to stay. After surveying and talking to hundreds of advertisers, it was concluded that despite all mediums, sticky Ads remain a favorite for many. Simply because of its easy accessibility and presence it gets a lot of users clicking it. While people believe that sticky Ads are not as effective as others, experts have a different opinion and believe that these ads drive a very high percentage of the website to your website.
Choosing the correct metrics: For any ad campaign to be successful, especially when it comes to running paid advertisements on digital platforms, it is extremely important to set a list of metrics that need to be focused on. The narrowed the list the better results one can expect. These metrics are a mix of quantitative as well as qualitative factors and by combining them together the campaign can be made efficient. Your major factors are dependent on some key points. The most important question to ask yourself when setting these standards is, “What is the goal of the campaign?” It is the most important point. Additionally, several other things should be noted down such as the challenges one might face while executing the plan, how can testing be done for the ad campaigns, and what is the scope for automating the process. Once you find answers to these questions, you can easily set goals and improve your ad campaigns.
Target audience: While we are setting our goals or end results or even setting the plan of action for the ad campaigns, the most essential component of the plan is the consumer. The target audience plays the main role in your campaigns and is also responsible for the strategy and execution. It is very important to understand the target audience and to create content based on the overall outlook and demographics of your audience. In the case of multiple types of audiences, a proper classification for each audience category can help you optimize performance and get the best results. Also, there are two categories of audiences, one that is active and the other one is passive. Identification of the active audience can help you capitalize on the same and help increase efficiency through better results.
Ad placement: For many advertisers, ad placement can be a tough task and needs a lot of time and thought before they can decide the same. But, the extra spent is worth it because ad placement is essential to getting the user’s attention, and no matter how good the creative if the ad placement is poor, you will not get the conversions you seek. The best way to get maximum impressions is to place ads based on user interaction with the page. This is possible using AXT and is an optimal way to make the most of your ad spends. Additionally, dynamic ads can help you get the user’s attention in long-form content such as blogs where there is a lot of text scrolling down. In such cases, the ads are displayed dynamically based on the time spent and length scrolled.
So, these are the five key factors that can make all the difference in the world when it comes to optimizing your ad spends. If you are looking to optimize your campaigns and get better returns on your investments get in touch with us today at Adscholars. We are a team of driven individuals and will help you get the best results in your desired advertising budget.
Google’s Native Advertising Solution- Discovery Competes With Facebook
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.”
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
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
Advertisers Perception Survey: Publishers Positive About Policy Changes
Some publishers are constantly criticizing the changes made in Google ad policies. Although, according to Advertisers Perception Survey of the SSPs, the new policies don’t hurt the publishers in any practical manner.
The report included more than 150 digital ad sales and operational professionals. These websites include approximately 3 million visitors per month.
With Google ad policies switching to the first-price auction, nearly 4% of publishers claim that they are negatively impacted. Around 47% states that they see a positive change in business with the change in policies. Whereas, 43% states that it won’t change anything.
Similarly, Google ad policies changed the rules for unified pricing recently. A similar ratio of 4% of publishers saw negative impacts on business. 30% of publishers found the change appealing and experienced growth. Rest of publishers felt that the change won’t affect their business.
Advertiser Perceptions President and Chief Strategy Officer Kevin Mannion said: “Publishers tend to view [Google] with a white hat.” Publishers trust Google due to its innovative approach, end-to-end integration, and for the constant updates/access provided to the Adx demand pool.
Google ad managers demand is continuously increasing among its user. The reports of the third quarter from last year show the strengthening hold and leap in the position of Google in the market.
“Google is more dominant here than in any other ad tech category,” said Mannion.
Google ad manager and Amazon Publisher services compared on the bases of their fondness.
Almost 60% of publishers preferred Google while only 12% were in favour of Amazon.
The other preferred top 10 SSPs like OpenX, SpotX and Verizon media managed with a share of 3% to 6% publishers who think these solutions are the best.
When it came to the user database, Google Ad manager share was the largest at 81%. Around 46% claimed to be using Amazon Publisher Service. The other 14 SSPs have a portion of nearly 11% to 35% of the publishers who were reviewed.
Google locks up its spot of being the finest due to its technological progression. As per 78% of publishers, they pick Google due to “superior technology position.”
Since last year Google’s stature has increased among its publishers. Now, 90% of publishers think that Google Ad manager is a better solution, as compared to 79% last year.
Preference of SSPs among large to medium publishers.
Publishers are differentiated among large, medium and small publishers based on their user database. Google Ad Manager and Amazon Publisher services are preferred among all scale of publishers.
Publishers get compared on the basis of large and medium publishers. The results of the survey made by Advertiser Perceptions of SSPs highlighted some important influential factors.
To understand the working of stacking, and ranking of SSPs based on their popularity, let us take an example of Index exchange.
Index Exchange ranked third among all users. Nearly, 44% of large publishers are using it. Being popular with 44% of large scale publishers is extremely wonderful. However, it’s less preferable among small publishers(14%).
This leads Index Exchange to the third position of the stack.
Verizon media was ranked seventh among the large publishers, whereas it was ranked fourth among the small publishers.
There are other factors that can decide the ranking of SSPs.
Small publishers are those who have less than 20 million unique visitors. Small publishers use nearly 4 SSPs. However, any large publisher with more than 20 million unique visitors uses 6 SSPs.
Rebranding product can cost the user database.
Rebranding the product is not easy, as brands develop with time slowly earning their status in the market.
An example of a brand losing its popularity with rebranding can be seen by observing the decision of Verizon Media. Verizon Media rebranding Oath Media cost a massive loss of user database.
Similarly, AppNexus rebranding itself to Xandr Monetize has seen a tremendous loss of publishers. From 43% it came down to 19%.
Mansion said, “Verizon media is on a rebound.” People perception towards it is improving. There is a net 10 to 20% increase in its market leadership and its technology vision respectively.
OpenX also fell 11 points for its technical superiority. This year OpenX has lost nearly half of its users who thought that it is a market leader. The percentage decreased to just 36%. OpenX is the third most likeable solution according to the report.
This has nothing to do with the factor of rebranding.
Pre-pandemic point of view.
This survey took place in February, which was the starting of COVID pandemic.
During the epidemic users demands from the SSPs for the innovation has increased. The market is reshaping itself, publishers are appealing to SSPs to step up and portray cleaner advertising.
Publishers want to SSPs to work on the following factors:
- Bad ad troubleshooting – 64% of publishers view this as crucial.
- Prevention of counter-fitted inventory via ads -64% considered this crucial.
- Blocking of fraudulent traffic- 68% publisher demands it as a crucial step.
“Publishers tell us that they aim at zero tolerance for fraud and bad ads,” Mannion said. “They want their SSPs to be their trusted partners toward that end.”
Identity Resolution Platforms Helps Marketers Tackle Consumer Data Crisis.
Every new electronic gadget in the market is now getting more user interactive helping users to personalize as per their needs and choices. Therefore, with the help of Identity Resolution Platforms, marketers can connect their customers with the things they need!
Today every customer is using multiple smart devices in their daily life. Maintaining a collection of data usage for each device is elusive. This is where Identity Resolution Platforms come into the picture. They accumulate consumers based on their identity. Likely, based on IP, they make sure that the marketers can approach them in a much efficient manner.
This not only helps the marketers but also help the government to make sure the compliance is followed. For example, helping in compliance with the privacy of consumers by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
According to an Annual Internet Report released by CISCO, the number of smart devices connected to a single IP is going to increase tremendously. The number will be three times more compared to the global population by 2023. These include devices like Smart TV, speakers, wearable, and other home management solutions. By 2023, the consumer share of the total market will increase approximately 75%.
Similarly, consumer demand for much more personalized and interactive devices is increasing. Therefore, the whole market can’t be evaluated in a single parameter. This requires a much wider approach to the market.
Today, consumers are sharp-witted, they grant permissions to applications and brands of their choice. According to a survey made by Forrester, nearly Three-quarter of people wants the brands and application to know in advance why they are making a call.
Situations like these make marketers thrive for goal orientation and perfection. They must familiarize themselves with consumers’ online and offline behavior and even know who the customer is?
Winterberry Group surveyed half of the total marketers. According to their survey, audience matching and identification on cross-platform is marketers’ highest priority. Every time a customer interacts with a brand he is assigned with a different identity(Key) element. This identity can be an IP, email, or a physical address like MAC, mobile phone number, a digital tag, or a cookie.
So many customer identities is a challenge faced by marketers. They struggle To keep a track of their customers. Nearly, 71% of marketers acknowledged that they lost the trail of their consumers with time. They were unsuccessful in maintaining a record of their online and offline customers. Thus, marketing campaigns struggle and fail to provide accurate data for their customer.
The identity resolution market projected to cross $2.6 billion by 2022.
Several platforms maintain databases for households or individuals’ data. This database is based on the user’s first-second-or third party data. These data sources help marketing companies to overcome the problem of consumer tracking and record keeping. US marketing is anticipated to disburse $2.6 billion on the identity resolution project by the year 2022. This will be a 122% increase in the time frame of four years. The money will be consumed potentially so that the customer gets the best experience. whereas marketing campaigns will be conducted successfully, keeping the choices of their customer in focus.
According to Forrester, two-third of marketers accepted that with identity resolution policies in place, they have started seeing strong returns in their investments. They also accepted that with Identity Resolution Platforms their customer data is secure, and profiles are easily traceable.
With an emerging market, many brands are applying Identity resolution strategies to their business. However, businesses are still facing significant challenges in their success models, maybe because consumer details are dispersed throughout the business. Many of it often resides in a vault that is jamming marketers’ potential to establish and encourage relationships.
A consumer might use variable identifiers to look-up something on one gadget (i.e., login name or desktop cookie), call on different (i.e., mobile), and then purchase something from the supply (i.e., credit card or loyalty ID). All of these identifiers will be stored in a different vault with the contrasting collection and parallel requirements.
Marketers also lose data, these likely include location, and third-party cookies. Application developers and Google provide security so that these data can’t be traced or stored.
Location Sciences is a company that helps in verifying the location data. They have estimated that since September 2019, with the release of iOS 13 on iPhone it is impossible to track users’ locations when mobiles are inactive.
To resolve this issue for marketers Identity Resolution Platforms has developed solutions like Merkle’s Merkury. This can help brands to stock data as first-party details in graph format.
However, retailers create graphs from the second-party data. They receive these data based on their agreements on data-sharing.
One such vendor is Neustar, it is a second-party data marketplace. It uses first-party-data from different brands employing a common, anonymous identity valuable. Engaging businesses can create plans, trigger, and compute customary audience inventory to either pick or censor customers across addressable media.
Oracle Data Cloud Cooperative is a similar example that collects data from more than 1500 retails partners. In return, these retail partners get a model that can predict the best approach for the audience. It can even help in guessing the next best thing that can be pitched to the user.
Users providing misinformation and Strict government policies increase the challenges for marketers.
As people are getting smarter they have also started to understand the data linking techniques of marketers. Customers sometimes themselves enter a piece of wrong information, for example, typing their name incorrectly! just to make sure that they can’t be traced by that data. This makes the job of marketers even dreadful.
Winterberry Group and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) Data Center of Excellence in a joint report stated that marketers have complained, that due to strict restrictions on user data access and re-usage policies their jobs have become relatively difficult. Due to the increasing pressure of government in the field of user data privacy, and the implementation & introduction of new reforms in data privacy laws, they can’t access value data with ease.
The compliance rate of GDPR for marketers range from 8-42%. GDPR was implied on marketers in May 2018. In January 2020, CCPA became effective and the brands that won’t comply will be facing fines.
Apple Rises On The Frustration Of Publishers On Apple News.
For several months Apple is seeking participation from publishers in its premium program. Apple initiated this project a year ago aiming to create audio files of the stories published on its News+ platform. Apple thinks that this will be a great leap in the future of news reading. Nearly four separate publishers have listened to this approach now.
Apple declared that it’s going to handle the production costs. In a statement, Apple said that they will compensate the publishers of audio content in the same way they compensate their Apple News+ publishers for their written content. According to sources Apple pays around 50 % of the revenue amount to publishers which users spend in the duration of 30-days on its Apple News+ platform.
With its approach of audio content on Apple News+ Apple fancied to stay trending in the innovation market. The reason for the adoption of this format is a profound influence by other service providers. Many private websites started publishing podcasts(a digital audio file). It’s the new trend taking over! Therefore, you can imagine why Apple wants it so severely.
This decision received miscellaneous reviews from publishers.
Associates from publishers, who are in conversation with Apple for this project stated that Apple seeks permission to initially choose files for conversion. Most likely, this will be done as per the user’s interest.
They further stated that publishers are in conversation to handle any other obstruction that may subvert the deal. One of the issues which arise relates to the freelancer writers’ articles. Freelance writers compose many articles written in Apple News+. These articles forbid third-party re-usage to users similar to Apple.
Apple is making a huge effort to make this deal happen. Apple wants to lift maximum responsibility to make sure other participants don’t strive, still, Apple faces criticism on several fronts.
Many worry about the compensation, and some just think that it’s not feasible; as listening to audio takes more time than reading an article.
In a statement, an associate from the publication involved in the conversation with Apple stated, he heard Apple stating the following:
“All the publishers who were part of Texture are going to get into an arms race.”
No declaration for the release of the audio files can be provided.
Even Apple has declined to release any official statements regarding this!
It may not be the best time for Apple to fulfill the desire of releasing audio stories for its Apple News+. Many publishers have registered dissatisfaction regarding the amount of money they make using Apple News. In a quarterly earnings call, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple announced that they have an increase in their active monthly user. The number has increased to 125 million, which is indeed a wonderful number of audiences. Last year the number of users registered was 90 million. By these reports, you can calculate the tremendous growth in the user base of Apple News+.
With a huge increase in audience, publishers should be getting 50% share of users’ monthly expenses, still, why are publishers showing disappointment with Apple regarding money?
The answer to this could be the Last official announcement made by Apple regarding its users of Apple News, which was 48 hours after the product was launched. In this announcement, Apple stated that they have achieved 200,000 subscriptions in just 48 hours. According to a publisher, they just receive $20,000/month, they affirmed this while talking to a channel.
Several publishers shared similar experiences, describing the payment process of Apple News as “horrendous.”
As per the Alliance for Audited Media, publishers can count every download of their issue as a circulation number. The reason for this implies due to the media and ads which remain the same in both the versions.
Increasing speculations, Bloomberg in February reported, Liz Schimel, who was leading the News platform of apple resigned from his job without even completing a year with the organization.
No doubt that the demand for audio formatted content is increasing. Today, SpokenLayer is a star name in producing and distributing audio contents. They stated that their client base has gone wide in just four years. Before, the numbers neared Zero and now they are distributing Audio content over 12 distinct platforms.
Giant techs like Amazon, Google, and Spotify are already leading the audio content game in diverse genres. In some cases, publishers are getting funds directly from Google for composing their audio content.
Ecommerce Industry Bet High On Performance Marketing In This Pandemic.
Manufacturing units always trusted retailers to sell their products in the market. Retail stores proved themselves worthy of manufacturers’ trust. They met the demands of the market and earned money for the manufacturers. Marketing teams working for verticals like CPG, apparels, and electronics made sure that they portray a brand vision to the topmost funnel of the market. Resellers handled profound funnel and generated permanent customers from window shoppers. They resellers used performance marketing strategies to achieve results.
Coronavirus forced humans to stay inside the houses. Many are depending on e-commerce for our necessities. Even before this outbreak, e-commerce was an effective part of our lifestyle. Manufacturers were well connected with their buyers directly. The marketing tactics focused on performance promotion leaving behind their old methods or brand construction.
We are looking forward to a larger and broader e-commerce culture. Those who invested in planting the seeds of e-commerce platforms are now reaping the fruits of their success due to the rapid growth of e-commerce sales. The people who backed off are now regretting their decisions. It doesn’t matter if your e-commerce is leading the market, evolving, or starting at the bottom of the pyramid, getting connected with the right audience is even easier with the help of the right ad channels. Ad channels prove beneficial in converting the demands of users in sales, developing new ways to enhance the flow of supply by reducing the gap, and bonding a seller and buyer.
Retailers focus on advanced performance marketing channels for marketing.
E-commerce advertising took a big leap, with Amazon and Walmart offering their marketing channels. E-commerce advertisement becomes the third-largest channel of the online market, helping the manufacturers to connect with its customers via advertisement.
The inheritance of data based on customer purchase and auction, search triggered ads are providing wonderful results. They are better and faster-growing options compared to any paid search and social media platform.
By advertising directly to the customers, manufacturers evolved a new strategy called “encouraging the consumer to the edge” where they get compelled to make purchases. It doesn’t matter from where he makes that purchase, ultimately the manufacturer benefits from it directly.
It’s easier than ever to market your product with E-commerce advertising. Amazon and Walmart provide opportunities to manufacturers with limited budgets. They can make an impact on the market with their products and can achieve targeted businesses. Millions of customers are rushing and scrolling through these websites daily. Hence, it doesn’t matter if your product is in the front line or at the centre row you can get a clear view and encouraging sales.
Meanwhile, well-prepared manufacturers expanded their benefits from current crises. Ad channels can help them advertise their products helping them reach the right audiences.
Few tricks and tactics for manufacturers:
As the manufacturers and their marketing teams shift their focus on performance-driven marketing strategies, there are few tricks and tactics which they can apply in their strategy.
Staying focused on the bottom funnel of the market.
Connecting to their customers can help performance marketing teams generate better sales. They should understand customers’ needs and desires. Encouraging them for new purchases and giving them options for purchase coupons, promotions, limited edition notification, fear of missing out (FOMO), and other triggers to get their customer’s attention.
The performance market is a step by step process and an integration of all three platforms ie. social, commerce, and search. Therefore, the customer should be provided with information on every step of his purchase. Moreover its the path of guidance that is needed to be provided to the customer for his purchase with the help of all three channels by the performance marketing teams. This purchase process can be completed in hours, can take days or even months.
Applying a short-term approach to performance marketing.
Marketers have to understand the difference between brand marketing and performance marketing. Brand marketing is a long term goal that tends to achieve the future perspective of the customer. However, Performance marketing is more about today.
Performance marketers must check the feasibility of their brand growth, and aspects that may decrease their sales. They should keep recycling the waste which can cause blockage in the perfect flow of sales.
Performance marketing is all about focusing on customers.
Performance marketers should help their customers in the navigation of the purchasing ladder. They must understand the psyche of the customer and understand the problem faced by their customer. They must come up with effective solutions to help their customers.
With these steps, they will be able to convert a window shopper to a lifetime buyer.
Effects of Covid-19 on the e-commerce market.
Due to the current crisis, several new customers have shifted their focus to e-commerce platforms. They are entering into a new lifestyle and will retain this even after the crisis ends. Due to this fact, several manufacturers are seeing this as an opportunity to move to the e-commerce market. They are also opting for performance advertising themselves a push in the market.
Publishers Withdraw Ad Inventory From The Market To Protect Ad Prices
Generally, conventional wisdom says a publisher would sell more ad units at a lower price in a weak market. However, publishers are doing the opposite and pulling their inventory to take a short-term revenue hit and protect their inventory price from falling further. This will help their business in the long run by not falling into the trap of price cuts which would be difficult to win back.
Programmatic advertising market operates under an auction system, lower advertiser demand, and higher web traffic to publishers site has pushed programmatic ad CPM’s down by 10%-20%. Since buyers are now more loyal to price than brands, publishers are preventing prices to tank further to a point of devaluing their inventory over the long term. While some publishers are reducing their inventory in the open market to keep the prices from falling further, others are using ad slots to push internal subscriptions or eliminating ad slots from the pages. For instance, Buzzfeed is getting rid of display ads that receive lower viewability scores.
Unfortunately, the publishers are acting independently and not considering the impact on the broader market. They aim to protect their own inventory prices from falling low as they fear it will take a longer time to return to the previous levels especially if advertisers are buying at a bargain now and unwilling to pay more later when things are back to normal.
As quoted by Digiday, Andy Ellenthal, CEO of the ad sales reporting platform STAQ shares a similar opinion and said, When advertisers return to their normal spending amounts, “they’re going to absolutely remember that a publisher was 25 cents [per thousand impressions] in April of 2020.”
As per the above STAQ graph, the average U.S. display ad CPM in the open auction has fallen from a high of $1.34 on March 1 to $0.91 on May 3.
Even though average CPM has bottomed out on April 8 at $0.83, Andy Ellenthal believes CPM’s will not experience a U-shaped recovery but more of an L-shaped recovery, a slow and steady upward trend. This means publishers whose CPM has fallen least will have to cover the shorter route to return to previous prices.
DigiDay interviewed a few publishing executives and one publishing executive said,
“I’ve got to manage my supply to keep it in balance with demand, and demand has fallen so fast that now we’re trying to get ahead of the game. How much supply can we take off the table to control the CPM without actually truly hurting our business more than it’s hurt now?”
A second publisher executive said that the removal of one ad unit across their sites is equivalent to more than 1 billion monthly impressions. It is a generous number but not significant enough to move the market. Media Math’s DSP sees more than 180 billion impressions each day.
On this Ethenall said,
“These publishers always have to strike a balance between fill and yield. Chances are they are not going to fill 100% of their ad slots right now. If you have a billion impressions that go unsold anyway, what’s the value of them if they’re only pulling down pricing for your better impressions?”
Many publishers have adjusted their floor price to a minimum level at which the inventory can be sold. However, the lower ad demand has made the publishers pull inventory and protect prices as inside programmatic advertising, everything revolves around “Price.”
One of the publishers used to increase floor price by 15% every two weeks since the beginning of Q1. However, in the second half of March, a significant number of impressions went unsold. The publisher could have reduced the price to sell his inventory but he didn’t and said, “in no way do I want to drop my floors to 25 cents because I don’t want crappy ads coming in.”
Lower the ad prices, the higher the chances of giving in to undesirable advertisers who can jeopardize the ability to attract genuine advertisers. Publishers use this opportunity of lower demand to seek out prospective advertisers, but they are wary that lower CPM can alleviate advertiser’s interest in doing programmatic direct or private marketplace deals.
Publishers are also looking at this opportunity to experiment repurposing of impressions that can boost their other businesses and become less reliant on advertisers. For instance, if a publisher can see that house ad proclaiming its subscription product can attract more subscribers and yield than those impressions to advertisers, they would monetize on house campaigns and not take revenue from programmatic advertising.