Facebook Launches Trip Consideration, Search Owns Referral Traffic, Fyre Festival Founder Guilty [Subject-to-Change]

March 13, 2018: Facebook launches “trip consideration” dynamic ads and video chat for Messenger Lite, Search emerges as #1 source of referral traffic, Fyre festival founder found guilty for wire fraud, and Mark Pritchard calls for an end to archaic mad men model

Here’s what’s worth knowing this week:

Table of Contents

Bermuda, Bahama, Come On Pretty Mama

Travel advertisers on Facebook now have a new way of targeting aspirational vacationers. Last week, Facebook released Trip Consideration, a new extension of its dynamic ad platform which will target users who are in the early stages of considering a trip. Trip Consideration lets you automatically show ads across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network to people who are likely to have a trip – identified based on their behavior. Think targeting based on reservation abandonment, destination details and other indicators of intent.

What it means, IRL: Is this the marketing holy grail of right person, right place, right time? Trip Consideration provides marketers with a new opportunity to deliver hyper-relevant & personalized content to consumers at the consideration stage – something that so many tools claim, but marketers still struggle with. And, given that 68% of millennials found ideas for their most recent trip on Facebook, Trip Consideration is likely to provide immediate value to marketers in the space. Consider this a test on whether Facebook decides to expand to other verticals.

Make it work: Partnerships on partnerships on partnerships. With social media platforms like Facebook & Instagram beating out traditional tourism advertising sources for millennials, travel & hospitality brands have the opportunity to be turning to these platforms to amplify high-performing influencer generated content. In doing so, brands should also be collaborating with influencers to create or co-create new, original content, and then distribute via Facebook’s new ad format.

The Video Chat Saga (Cont.)

The battle of video chat domination intensifies. To compete against Apple’s Facetime (and Google’s Duo, Microsoft’s Skype, Amazon’s Echoview, etc.), Facebook introduced video chat in Messenger Lite, a slimmed down version of Messenger for Android intended for people with older devices and/or slower Internet connections. The feature works the same way as in it does in its sibling app – open a conversation or choose a contact to talk to, then tap the video camera icon at the top right corner of the screen to initiate a new chat.

Considering the rapid adoption of Instagram Stories and the initial rise of Snapchat, this indicates a bigger shift towards connecting face-to-face via unscripted, in-the-moment video. Where Youtube remains the leading live streaming platform (for now), it’s been largely untapped for content creation by the typical consumer because the production cost is comparatively high. Which means, there’s a huge opportunity to be gained by capitalizing on how your brand fits into consumers and influencers’ daily lives, and creating shareable videos around that.

Don’t Call It A Comeback

Facebook’s recent algorithm changes have some big winners. According to a new report from Shareaholic, Search has re-emerged as the #1 source of referral traffic, beating out Social as the top driver of traffic in 2017. Since 2014, Search has paced behind Social in share of visits, but drove 34.8% of visits in 2017, compared to 25.6% from social.

Within Social, Facebook was the category’s biggest loser – with share of visits dropping 12.7% in the past year. But hey, Facebook’s loss is Pinterest’s gain as their 1.5% percentage point increase in share of visits represents the highest percentage of growth, as well as brands’ and publishers’ biggest opportunity to increase market share. As such, brands should still be investing in long-form blog content, as social referral traffic – especially on Facebook – is diminished.

#ProductPlug: Mavrck’s new macro-influencer workflow automation enables marketers to scale their blogger programs to new heights – and dynamically measure conversion events in the process. Check it!

And None For Billy McFarland

Things aren’t looking too good for Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland, who has recently plead guilty to wire fraud and will recieve a sentence between eight to ten years. ICYMI, his #FraudFest cost 80 investors more than $20 million back in June. Case in point, #YAS. If influencer marketing, still in its nascent stages as an industry, wants to be taken as seriously by marketers – there needs to be standards and consequences to fraud – of all kinds.

As much as the fraud conversation of late has been focused on brand safety, influencers too, have to do their homework. One partnership with a brand or event engaging in fraudulent behavior can ruin an influencer’s entire reputation and, despite recent crackdowns, it is still too easy to game the system. Both sides need to be responsible and accountable to the partnerships they pursue.

Who Runs The World?

Women and men alike are having candid conversations about gender equality – despite being around for more than 100 years, International Women’s Day reached peak interest in the last year, and is likely to continue in 2018. Of the many brands looking to capitalize on the movement and the moment of the day, some fared better than others.

Despite the growing conversation, social movements are not necessarily a marketing opportunity – consumers and employees will see right through it unless you’re a company who’s been fighting for the same values of that movement for decades. Instead of changing your brand for the day, do it because it aligns with your values and company policies. A movement is not – and will never be – a new communications pillar for brands to profit. If there is a day to contribute to the conversation, do it in a thoughtful and altruistic way.

Quoted

“We need P&G people much closer to the consumers they serve and we need fewer project managers and more brand entrepreneurs. This means renewed partnerships to work with agencies, not through them. We’ll pay for what creates value for consumers, and discern what work should be done by P&G people versus agency people” – Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gamble

The world’s biggest advertisers are having to rethink how they work with agencies – bringing more work in-house and project-based to reduce production costs and non-working media. The goal? Invest in working media, efficiently. In doing so, greater stress is placed on in-house teams to be entrepreneurial and efficient in how they build the business. This is where influencers – many who are brands in their own right – can be strategic partners in bridging that talent and skills gap.