September 11, 2018: Amazon tests new attribution tool, Facebook sees usage decrease (again), Instagram is reportedly developing standalone app for shopping, Facebook rebrands Canvas ads as ‘Instant Experiences, and we cast a brand spotlight on Revolve
Here’s what’s worth knowing this week:
Amazon’s All-In Attribution Game Plan
The story
Amazon is testing a suite of attribution tools designed to help advertisers compare whether ads on its sites perform better than those hosted on rival networks. Advertisers that sell on Amazon are being invited to pilot the tool, and they can analyze the effectiveness of display, search or video ads outside of Amazon based on pageviews, purchase rate and sales.
Why is Amazon doing this?
Like Google & FB, Amazon is trying to take credit for the success of ads outside its own platform, whether they’re on a rival or publisher site. Google already offers advertisers attribution capabilities to measure their Google campaigns, as well as their Amazon campaigns. Now, with Amazon’s Attribution tool, marketers will be able to compare their Amazon product pages versus their own sites to measure ROI and campaign effectiveness.
Industry POV
“This move will encourage brands to drive more ads to Amazon because they’ll have attribution parity. Brands will see how much better their Amazon product detail pages convert compared to their own site. From an ROI perspective they’ll be hard pressed to justify driving traffic elsewhere as a result.” – Connor Folley, former Amazon executive and founder of search ad platform Downstream
STC POV
To date, Amazon offered zero analytics based on any outside advertising activities driving sales on Amazon — the only thing you could see with Amazon’s measurement tools were the things you did in Amazon’s ecosystem. Now that you can actually measure sales impact across media channels off Amazon, it’s likely you’ll see brands making a bigger investment in driving ads and other paid media to Amazon. If influencer marketing is driving traffic to Amazon, you can now measure and track that impact.
Americans’ Complicated Relationship Status With Facebook
The story
A new study from Pew Research found that 74 percent of American users have taken one of the following three actions to change the way they interact with Facebook in the past year. According to the study, 54 percent of American users have adjusted their privacy settings, 42 percent have taken a break from checking their accounts for a few weeks, and 26 percent have deleted the app from their phones.
Tell me more.
In light of recent scandals, for young users on FB, it’s better safe than sorry. According to the study, more young Facebook users (ages 18-29) have adjusted privacy settings and deleted Facebook from their phones than older users.
STC POV
Let’s be honest, the study’s findings aren’t surprising — Cambridge Analytica wasn’t exactly a great look for Zuck & Co. For awhile now, there has been increasing negative sentiment and growing mistrust around young users when in comes to Facebook. It’s important that marketers working with influencers on FB understand these shifts in user behavior and adjust strategies where appropriate.
Shopping With ’Gram
The Story
Instagram may be planning to launch a standalone app specifically for shopping. The Verge reported that “IG Shopping” will allow people to browse items from businesses and merchants they follow, and buy them directly within the app.
Tell me more.
Based on the info provided, Instagram Shopping would highlight items from businesses you already follow on IG — a move that would nicely compliment a pre-existing shopping feature; Shoppable Stories.
What’s IG Saying?
Officially, nothing. However, sources familiar with the development say Instagram believes it is well positioned to make a major expansion into e-commerce. In the company’s most recent earnings call, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said that more than 25 million businesses already have Instagram accounts, and 2 million of them are advertisers. Four in five Instagram users at least follow one business.
STC POV
Creating a standalone app would allow the company to provide a dedicated home for an increasingly popular activity on Instagram while also expanding opportunities for revenue. While it’s good for marketers to know this is coming — it’s too soon to tell if the pros will outweigh the cons. Like direct messages and IGTV, will the stand-alone app attract users to achieve adoption, or will it need to be a set of features also available in the Instagram native app? Only time will tell.
Facebook’s Canvas Instant Experience Ads
The Story
Facebook’s Canvas ad options have had quite the glow up with a new name, some new back-end tweaks to improve load time and performance, and new creative template options to make them easier than ever to implement.
Meet Instant Experience Ads.
Aka Facebook Canvas ads’ better looking, more functional, long lost twin. As explained by Facebook, “Instant Experience better reflects what this ad solution offers people. Over the past year, the number of Instant Experience campaigns has more than doubled and Instant Experiences are loading faster than ever – now 15x faster than standard mobile websites – to seamlessly connect people to businesses.”
What else?
Facebook’s also rolling out a new variant called “Instant Form,” allowing users to quickly and easily share their contact info to learn more about your offerings.
STC POV
Facebook is taking the steps to reduce the creative load required for successful mobile ads on Facebook — as well as making it easier to repurpose IGC in these ads. Additionally, it’s easy for advertisers to work with third-party tracking pixels to get more detailed data and insights — since Instant Experiences now automatically adds the Facebook Pixel to campaigns. Cue the retargeting.
Brand Spotlight: Revolve
The Story
How?
Championed by chief brand officer Raissa Gerona, Revolve’s influencer strategy has been nearly 10 years the making — starting with sending free clothing to early bloggers in 2009, followed by hiring its first influencer relations team in 2014. Fast-forward to 2018 and the company’s regular IG campaigns tap about 70 influencers each, who receive everything from event invites to free product to actual money in exchange for posts that use certain hashtags. ICYMI: Coachella.
What’s Revolve saying?
“We saw influencers as a direct pipeline to our customer. Our question is always: Are these people resonating with who we want to resonate with?” said Gerona. “We focus on millennial female consumers, and none of them are looking at magazines anymore, so we looked to who that customer was listening to.”
ICYMI
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