Why College Athletes Are a Co-Branding Gold Mine

Why College Athletes Are a Co-Branding Gold Mine

by Jane Smith Branding

As college athletes have been appearing increasingly in the marketing world, it is clear that the landscape of sports marketing has shifted completely. No longer are these athletes limited to the exposure and branding that their universities allowed for; instead, they now have the freedom to enter into deals with outside businesses to promote their own image and personal brand. As an athlete myself, I have observed the significant changes brought about by NIL, both within my own experiences and through the journeys of my fellow teammates.

What Is NIL?

So, what exactly is NIL? Standing for name, image, and likeness, it acts on how college athletes can now receive compensation for representing different marketing promoters. This new and fresh effect of NIL rights on the marketing environment is apparent, according to a Forbes piece “How Brands and College Athletes Can Navigate Name, Image, and Likeness Marketing.” The article emphasizes the enormous potential for marketers and athletes to form successful partnerships and negotiate this new setting.  College athletes are now empowered to associate themselves with businesses that share their beliefs and objectives because they have influence over the personal brand journeys they take. This not only improves their reputation and relationship with fans, but it also gives businesses a special chance to capitalize on the zeal and power of collegiate athletes, boosting their marketing initiatives. The article encourages both businesses and athletes to think about long-term goals and mutually beneficial relationships, highlighting the significance of authenticity when handling NIL marketing. This is consistent with my experience as an athlete who has seen the transforming benefits of NIL on prospects for personal branding and marketing.

My Experience

Being an athlete, I have been educated about the appeal and gain that one could acquire by signing with a brand. From seeing Angel Reese becoming the highest paid athlete to a few of my own teammates make a steady income, it gives a lot of hope for the future and what one could potentially accomplish. Athletes now have more control over their personal brand image thanks to their capacity to bargain endorsement deals and explore brand collaborations. I have had the privilege of witnessing my teammate, Jack Dalhgren, a talented swimmer, be endorsed by TallSlim Tees. Even though it doesn’t directly correlate with swimming, he has been a loyal customer of TallSlim Tee’s for quite some time. Essentially, he is responsible for posting on various media platforms promoting TallSlim Tee’s to reach his audience and represent their brand. Fortunately, I help run his social media accounts to help boost his image and likeness. Part of my job is to keep up with trends on TikTok or come up with an original post to assist his success within the company. It not only has allowed him to enhance his personal brand and connect with his followers, but to expand his brand. His partnership has inspired not only me, but also other swimmers and athletes to pursue goals of potentially creating deals.

Traditionally, brand deals were dealt to professional athletes or established celebrities. However, the introduction of NIL opens up a world of possibilities and dives into the wealth of untapped talent. By offering these individuals to promote their products and services, it is an effortless way to increase visibility and awareness which leads to remarkable success on both sides of the parties.

As athletes continue to showcase their talents and skill sets, their likeliness from fans grows exponentially. This creates a fantastic opportunity for athletes to leverage their personal brand and connect with business for mutually beneficial marketing partnerships. Working with college players also adds a touch of sincerity and relatability to marketing projects. Athletes serve as role models by exemplifying commitment, tenacity, and cooperation. Their recommendation can have a substantial impact on how customers behave and what they decide to buy. Businesses can make use of this impact to expand their clientele and boost their reputation.

What Brands Should Do

So, what can your business do to start their first or expand on co-branding with college athletes?

  • Familiarize yourself with the landscape! Get comfortable with the rules within NCAA, NAIA, etc. This will help navigate the process effectively.
  • Target the type of athletes you want representing your brand. Take a deep dive on athletes’ values, target audience, and overall goals for your company.
  • Start reaching out and engaging in conversation. Set clear objectives that will be beneficial for all.
  • Be transparent and straightforward about your intentions.
  • Keep it fun!

Overall, the rise of NIL rights for athletes has ushered in a new era of marketing opportunities for both players and companies. Athletes now have the freedom to manage their own brand journeys, forming alliances that are consistent with their goals and values. Due to this development, businesses now have an excellent opportunity to capitalize on the allure and impact of college athletes, build fervent fan bases, and increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. Personally, I am eager to witness NIL’s continuous development and influence.

Contact True Interactive

To build your brand online, contact True Interactive. We have deep experience especially in all forms of online advertising.

Photo by Emma Dau on Unsplash

Why Meta Reported a Strong First Quarter for 2023

Why Meta Reported a Strong First Quarter for 2023

by Patrick Wool Meta

Meta’s ad business is back on the upswing, and AI is a big reason. On April 26, Meta reported its first increase in sales in nearly a year because of an improvement in its advertising business. This happened because Meta’s short-form video feature, Reels, is gaining more engagement thanks to Meta’s use of AI to target Reels more carefully to its user base. More engagement means more ad revenue. 

What Meta Announced 

Meta reported revenue of $28.6 billion, up 3 percent from a year prior and ahead of expectations of nearly $27.7 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet. That snapped a streak of three quarters in which Meta’s revenue had declined from the year prior (The drop was the only time that has occurred since the company went public in 2012.) The 3 percent increase is an improvement from the 4.5% drop in revenue that the company posted in the final quarter of 2022. This is a notable turnaround for a company that spent the better part of 2022 regrouping after Apple’s consumer privacy controls ate into Meta’s ad revenues.

In his formal comments on the quarter, CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributed the growth largely to the popularity of Reels, which is Meta’s answer to TikTok’s influential short-form videos. He said that Reels are growing quickly on both Facebook and Instagram.

“Reels also continue to become more social with people resharing Reels more than 2 billion times every day, doubling over the last six months,” he said. “Reels are also increasing overall app engagement and we believe that we’re gaining share in short-form video too.”

He also said that more than 3 billion people use at least one of Meta’s apps each day.

Meta daily active users

Zuckerberg attributed the uptake of Reels to the way AI makes more personalized Reels recommendations for Meta users to watch, which, in turn, encourages advertisers to create targeted ads.  

He observed, 

Our investment in recommendations and ranking systems has driven a lot of the results that we’re seeing today across our discovery engine, Reels, and ads. Along with surfacing content from friends and family, now more than 20% of content in your Facebook and Instagram feeds are recommended by AI from people, groups, or accounts that you don’t follow. Across all of Instagram, that’s about 40% of the content that you see. Since we launched Reels, AI recommendations have driven a more than 24% increase in time spent on Instagram.

Our AI work is also improving monetization. Reels monetization efficiency is up over 30% on Instagram and over 40% on Facebook quarter over quarter. Daily revenue from Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns is up 7x in the last six months.

Meta Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, introduced in 2022, are automated shopping campaigns that use machine learning by dynamically serving your ads to audiences most likely to convert while better utilizing your advertising budget. The product eliminates manual ad creation steps and according to Meta, “automates up to 150 creative combinations at once.”

Why the Meta News Matters

This news matters for two reasons:

Meta’s growth amid a challenging economic climate is also good news for the entire digital advertising industry. It’s a sign that advertisers are willing to continue investing in their brands during economic uncertainty.

What Advertisers Should Do

  • Experiment with products such as Meta Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns to understand how AI is influencing the advertising landscape.
  • Be open to trying other new Meta ad opportunities depending on how you engage with your customers and prospects. For example, Mark Zuckerberg told investors on the April 26 earnings call that Meta is building out business messaging “as the next pillar of our business.” He noted that last quarter its click-to-message ads reached a $10 billion revenue run-rate. Since then, the number of businesses using our other business messaging service — paid messaging on WhatsApp — has grown by 40 percent quarter-over-quarter.

At True Interactive, we advocate for our clients that invest in Meta and other platforms. We will continue to monitor developments and adapt our ad strategies as needed.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed in the ever-changing world of online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Image source: Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

2023 Advertising and Marketing Predictions

2023 Advertising and Marketing Predictions

by Kurt Anagnostopoulos Advertising

Gather around advertisers, pull up a comfortable chair, and take a look at our advertising and marketing predictions for 2023! We take on some big topics, ranging from the rise of AI to the impact of the economic downturn. Oh, and TikTok and Twitter, too. Check out our predictions, and let us know yours!

The Economic Downturn Will Present an Opportunity

— Kurt Anagnostopoulos, co-founder

This is a time for companies to make smart decisions about their marketing spend. We’re clearly in an economic downturn. Over the next six months, the downturn will intensify although not to the extent of the Great Recession of 2008. When downturns occur and uncertainty happens, inevitably some businesses scale back on their marketing spend. History has demonstrated time and again that during lean times, the cost cutters lose out to the businesses that continue to invest in their brands. Companies that stay the course will come out the other side of the recession ahead. If you are smart about how you market and price yourself, you can leave your competitors behind when times are tough. It’s not necessarily about doubling down on marketing, and it’s not about cutting at the other end of the extreme. It’s about spending wisely.

A mentality of spending wisely could hurt the major ad platforms such as Google and Meta. They’ve become more expensive. With advertisers seeking to spend more wisely in 2023, Google and Meta might price themselves out of the running in favor of platforms that deliver better CPCs and performance for the money. An agency such as True Interactive can help businesses navigate the landscape by leveraging platforms in a more cost-effective manner.

The water is too murky to see too far out beyond the next six months. We need to see how things are going to play out for the second half.

Artificial Intelligence Will Need People More Than Ever

— Mark Smith, co-founder

You cannot spend a minute on LinkedIn these days without seeing someone talking about ChatGPT, the generative AI tool that makes it easy to do everything from write content to code. It’s understandable that ChatGPT has gained so much attention. OpenAI released the tool publicly in November 2022 and made it easy for anyone to use it. The public responded. But ChatGPT is just one in a growing number of AI tools being used to do everything from manage customer queries to create royalty-free music. Right now, a number of executives are experimenting with these tools to do the heavy lifting for them – the writing, image generation, and so on. But soon, the novelty will wear off. And everyone will realize what we know already: AI cannot do your work for you. People need to be involved managing AI like any other technology. If you use Google’s myriad advertising tools as we do, you likely understand. Our experience has consistently shown that automated ads powered by AI underperform without people involved to monitor and modulate them when necessary. The same is true of generative AI. These tools are slick, but they make mistakes, and they are notoriously biased. They are nowhere near the point of being self-sufficient. In 2023, some businesses will learn the hard way that AI alone is not the answer to making smart investments in digital marketing. They’ll realize that people matter more than ever.

Google Ads Will Get Costlier

— Beth Bauch, director

2023 could prove to be challenging for businesses highly invested in Google Ads. I anticipate more automation by Google, resulting in less control for marketers.

One of the most common suggestions in the “Recommendations” tab in the Google Ads platform is to convert keywords to “broad match,” away from the more traditional “exact and phrase match.” Exact and phrase match keywords are meant to only match to searches that contain your keyword, making search queries highly relevant. Broad match keywords allow your ad to show on searches that are related to the meaning of your keyword and can include searches that do not contain the keyword terms.

While we have seen some success when testing broad match keywords with Googles automated bidding strategies, we have also seen some significant failures resulting in high spend and poor conversion rates. So, you need to proceed with caution when using broad match. One of the ways we improve the quality of search queries is by adding negative keywords to prevent our ads from showing on searches that are irrelevant.

However, whereas in the past we had access to view all search queries matching our keywords, Google now limits that visibility, only showing the top search matches. This makes it more difficult to block irrelevant traffic resulting in more spend on searches with low conversion rates.

And poor-quality traffic is very costly, especially as we have seen significant increases in the cost-per-click (CPC) of both brand and non-brand keywords in 2022 – as high as 50 percent increases for brand terms alone year over year. For some clients, we saw rising CPCs even though we were not seeing an increase in competition on brand keyword bidding when reviewing the Google Auction Insights report. This is an indication that Google has raised the base price for participating in a specific auction, regardless of competition.

As Google looks to rebound and increase its profits, I expect to see even higher advertising costs for Google Ads in 2023.

TikTok Will Extend Its Influence

— Bella Schneider, senior digital marketing manager

With the increasing popularity of TikTok, I predict that the brand will expand and improve its ads manager to be more comparable to Facebook Business Manager. Currently the platform is lacking in a few areas, and if TikTok is to compete with some of the larger social channels, then it will need to make adjustments to allow for easier advertising on the platform.

Meanwhile, thanks to TikTok, I predict the world of video will dominate the advertising space. More and more video content is starting to look and feel similar to the videos displayed on the TikTok native platform. Whether it’s dances, trends, or challenges, I predict that advertising will shift towards this style of video content.

Does Twitter Have a Future?

— Max Petrungaro, account manager

I have a difficult time seeing advertisers return to Twitter as long as Elon Musk is at the helm. When Musk bought the company, things immediately started poorly with most of Twitter’s top advertisers putting their ads on pause or stopping outright. In December 2022, the situation for Twitter deteriorated, with advertising spend being slashed by more than 70 percent. Twitter tried to combat this by offering incentives to the companies that would keep advertising, but I do not believe that this will be enough to overcome the polarization that Elon brings to the table.

With most of its revenue coming from advertising, and top spending advertisers not showing ads and/or slashing budgets, there may not be a Twitter by the time 2023 is over. As long as Elon is associated with Twitter, I believe that more advertisers will start to focus their advertisements on other popular platforms, like TikTok.

Customer Data Platforms Will Have a Big Year

— Héctor Ariza, senior manager

As the push for tighter data privacy in the digital world gains momentum, I expect 2023 to be a big year for customer data platforms (CDPs). With stricter data privacy regulations being imposed by governments around the world, and the imminent cookie-less era looming, companies and advertisers are already exploring privacy-enhancing technologies in their search of a more secure, yet accurate way of tracking user activity online.

Still, whatever the alternative to cookies and existing tracking methods may be, it will likely rely heavily on data aggregation/modeling. Thus, first-party data will become ever so more important in the digital advertising world. CDPs allow companies to manage what data is used, where it is used and how it is used more easily. These systems also help with data consistency across marketing/advertising platforms and reduce the risk of mishandling customer data.

Retail Ad Networks Will Lean into Mobile Even More

— Tim Colucci, vice president

One of the biggest stories in advertising in recent years is the rise of advertising networks managed by retailers ranging from Amazon to Macy’s to Walmart. Amazon’s own ad business has become so big that it is challenging the Google/Meta duopoly. These networks have succeeded because they tap into first-party data shared by people searching and shopping on their sites. The next phase of growth will happen when they more effectively integrate consumer shopping data from physical stores into the first-party data they use to sell targeted ads. This is why retailers that operate physical stores and ad networks will invest more into their mobile apps. With self-service mobile apps, in-store shoppers give retailers data about their interests in real time in a faster and more efficient way than they do by having their purchases shared via point-of-sale technology. Look for retailers to make it easier for consumers to search and purchase on their apps – and for advertisers to run ads via self-service such as sponsored listings. Walmart has an edge on most retailers in that regard. Given Walmart’s influence and resources, I expect the company will lean into its competitive advantage while Target tries to play catch-up.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed in the ever-changing world of online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Lessons from the 2022 Holiday Shopping Season

Lessons from the 2022 Holiday Shopping Season

by Kurt Anagnostopoulos Retail

How was your holiday sales season? For many retailers, the holiday shopping season felt as close to a return to normal as could be hoped for. This does not mean everyone had a great retail season; but some of the disruptive forces from 2020 and 2021 abated, such as supply chain woes and the impact of Covid-19 on in-store shopping. Instead, retailers managed against some of the variable conditions that affect shopping every season, including the state the economy and weather conditions. Here are some major takeaways from the 2022 holiday season:

  • Economic uncertainty has influenced spend – but by how much? U.S. retail sales grew 7.6 percent during the holiday shopping season, according to a Mastercard report. This was higher than the 7.1 percent growth that Mastercard had predicted in September but lower than the 8.5 percent growth achieved in 2021. Online sales grew 10.6 percent, slightly less than the 11 percent increase last year. Mastercard attributed the lower rates to consumers’ experiencing economic uncertainty. But given just how much uncertainty is in the air right now – including an ongoing war in Ukraine and a looming recession – the slowdown was really nowhere as bad as it could have been.
  • Retailers that offered price deals did especially well. Remember in 2021 when retailers were reluctant to offer discounts and deals because the supply chain crisis had hurt their inventory levels? That’s an example of an unusual problem that abated in 2022. Inventory levels returned to normal in 2022, and retailers even experienced excess inventory – which happens just about every year. So, they offered more discounts. According to Salesforce, the average U.S. discount rate stands at 19 percent, with the global discount rate at 18 percent an increase of 6 percent globally and in the U.S. year over year. Discounts increased two weeks after Cyber Week, rising 11 percent globally year over year and 14 percent in the U.S. as retailers tried to entice last-minute shoppers ahead of the shipping cutoff window.
  • Fall sales might have caused a returns problem. In 2022, retailers such as Amazon, Target, and Walmart continued to offer holiday sales in the early fall, continuing a pattern from recent years. Cyber Week was pre-empted by sales such as Amazon’s Prime Days II and Walmart’s Deals for Days. But then returns nearly doubled the week after Cyber Week compared to the previous year and have remained high since then. Salesforce says that the surge in returns could be attributable to people purchasing gifts earlier in the season and then returning them to buy something else on discount. This data underscores how much work retailers still need to do in order to synchronizes pre-Cyber Week sales with consumers’ buying habits and sentiment.
  • Social continues to fuel online shopping traffic. After hitting all-time highs during Cyber Week, social traffic referring to retailers’ sites grew 23 percent year over during the holiday shopping season, representing 12 percent of all mobile traffic, according to Salesforce. The U.S. is leading this trend, with social traffic growing 28 percent over the first three weeks of December.

Takeaways

  • Online advertising is as important as ever. Consumers surprised analysts by spending more than predicted even during a recession. Businesses that kept their brand names and merchandise visible were best positioned to win. Retailers that scaled back their online ad spending because they feared consumers were going to spend less ended up missing out.
  • Social media advertising in particular is essential. Industry watchers have been speculating that social commerce – or the actual purchase of a product on a social app – might be ebbing a bit. But commerce resulting from advertising on social apps appears to be alive and well.
  • Retailers need to focus on value, not deals. Consumers will continue to respond to deals amid uncertainty – but retailers need to be careful. Discounted products and lower-priced alternatives to name-brand products attracted consumers. But as noted, overselling deals throughout the holiday season may have backfired on retailers when consumers returned products in their quest to find better deals than they were offered.
  • Retailers need to be nimbler with their ad campaigns. As we saw, consumers continued to demonstrate an uncanny knack for surprising retailers, in this case buying more than expected and apparently being aggressive about trading up with holiday deals. We suggest capitalizing on tools such as Google’s demand forecasts on the Insights page. This predicts upcoming trends relevant to your business so that you can adjust your budget and bidding strategy to capture spikes in demand. Additionally, use Performance Planner to understand how these changes to your advertising spend will affect your predicted clicks, conversions, and conversion values. In addition, Product-specific insights are now at your disposal at the account level in the Google Ads products tab. These insights let you spot underperforming offers, identify products with missing feed attributes and compare your bidding strategy with your top competitors’.

Contact True Interactive

True Interactive has deep experience helping clients plan and implement shopping campaigns online during all seasons. We can help you, too. We understand how to create nimble search campaigns and multi-channel ad outreach to target consumers with the right message at the right time. Contact us to learn more.

Lead photo by Kayle Kaupanger on Unsplash

How First-Party Data Helps Advertisers

How First-Party Data Helps Advertisers

by Mark Smith Advertising

First-party data is more important to marketers than ever, according to a newly published survey by Acquia and Vanson Bourne.

The two companies surveyed U.S. and U.K. marketing executives about their growth strategies going into 2023. The study found that:

  • Marketers are creating first-party data strategies to generate insights for personalized content as web browsers prepare to phase out third-party cookies.
  • 88 percent of those surveyed say gathering first-party data is more important to organizations than two years ago.
  • But only 35 percent “strongly agree” that their organization is “fully prepared for the cookie-less future.”

The above suggests that marketers understand that first-party data is important. But they need help tapping into the value of first-party data.

First-party data is information that your business collects from customers. Examples:

  • Data tracked from visits to your website.
  • Customer feedback
  • Surveys
  • CRM data
  • Social media accounts
  • Subscription-based emails or products

By contrast, third-party data is data that your business collects from potential customers based on their browsing habits across the web. Third-party data, which is typically bought from another company, is based on third-party cookies that track consumer behavior. But privacy controls from Apple and Google are making it increasingly difficult for businesses to use third-party cookies. Apple eliminated third-party cookie tracking on its Safari browser, and Google will do the same on its Chrome browser (the most popular browser in the world) in 2024. In addition, a privacy control enacted by Apple in 2021 makes it easier for people to opt out of cookie tracking on Apple devices.

In a more privacy centric world, advertising that uses third-party data is going to be less targeted. It won’t become useless, just less effective. How can first-party data help a business, though? Here are a few ways:

  • Retarget customers. In addition to retargeting customers with ads, a marketer can use first-party data collection to send out personalized emails, for example like cart abandonment reminders.
  • Target new customers based on data you collect about your current customers. Based on data collected from your site visitors, social media following, and email subscribers, you can pinpoint other demographics and geographical locations likely to be interested in purchasing your products. You can use this \ information to build out campaigns that target fresh audiences.
  • Understand you customer’s journey. First-party data can give you insight into all the ways a customer interacts with your brand, assuming you combine web analytics with other forms of first-party data such as customer surveys and email outreach.
  • Improve the buying experience. You can identify how smoothly or problematic the conversion and purchase process is after your advertising takes a customer to your site or app. Are they clicking through? Are they completing a transaction after that? Why, or why not? For instance, are customers abandoning your site at the shopping cart?
  • Develop new products and categories. Using first-party data from surveys and questionnaires, you can identify gaps in your offering and create new products and categories to match customer demand.

First-party data does not get collected and used in isolation. Businesses can make their online advertising more effective by building campaigns based on their own first-party data and:

  • Someone else’s first-party data. For instance, Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers have been building online advertising businesses based on their own first-party data. Meta’s broad targeting ad program consists of an automated targeting approach that reportedly produces better results for Facebook and Instagram ads than more refined, more niche audience approaches  do.
  • Workarounds to third-party data such as Google’s own Sandbox, which is Google’s own effort to develop alternatives to third-party cookies. However, the Sandbox is very much a work in progress. Learn more about third-party workarounds here.

Businesses can also continue to rely on third-party data and accept less effective results. But the clock is ticking. When Google phases out third-party cookies in 2024, everyone will be entering a new world.

At True Interactive, we can help businesses improve their advertising as they transition to the use of first-party data. For instance, we know how to work with all the major platforms that rely on their own first-party data, such as Amazon and Walmart. And we can work with businesses to create more targeted campaigns based on first-party data collected from analytics tools such as Google Analytics. Contact us to learn how we can help you.

Three Takeaways from Cyber Monday 2022

Three Takeaways from Cyber Monday 2022

by Kurt Anagnostopoulos Retail

The numbers are in: Cyber Monday was a success. And not because inflation made purchasing volume seem bigger than what it was. No, demand fueled a big day for anyone selling online.

According to Adobe Analytics, Cyber Monday generated $11.3 billion in sales online. This is 5.8 percent more than consumers spent on the same day last year and a reversal of fortune. Consider that in 2021, Cyber Monday generated $10.7 billion, which was actually a drop from 2020. Meanwhile, Salesforce said Cyber Monday online sales hit $12.2 billion in the United States, representing an 8.3 percent increase over 2021.

Cyber Monday SalesAll told, about 196.7 million shoppers made purchases during the five-day holiday period from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday known as Cyber Week, the National Retail Federation said on Tuesday.

Adobe said that the Cyber Monday figures were based on more transactions overall – not spend boosted by inflation. At the peak, people were spending $12.8 million per minute on Monday.

According to Adobe, top sellers included games, gaming consoles, Legos, Hatchimals, Disney Encanto, Pokémon cards, Bluey, Dyson products, strollers, Apple Watches, drones, and digital cameras. Toys as a category saw a 452 percent boost in sales versus a day in October.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t this the year when inflation-wary shoppers were going to rein in their holiday spending? Wasn’t this the year when Amazon’s Prime Day I and II, Walmart’s Deals for Days, and Target’s virtual Black Friday sales throughout November were going to cannibalize Cyber Monday sales?

Not so fast. As it turns out, consumers were spending during the holiday promotions before Cyber Week but also holding out for deals – as they always do. And they did something else: they did their homework. Consumers knew that retailers were carrying excess inventory after two years of experiencing inventory shortages. They knew the deep discounts were going to happen. And so, they waited. As Tech Crunch reported, “Deep discounts — retailers perhaps anticipating needing to have something more to lure shoppers — have played a big role, too, as have the sheer availability of goods after shortages of the years before.”

Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights, said, “With oversupply and a softening consumer spending environment, retailers made the right call this season to drive demand through heavy discounting. It spurred online spending to levels that were higher than expected, and reinforced e-commerce as a major channel to drive volume and capture consumer interest.”

In addition, mobile influenced Cyber Monday shopping, accounting for 43 percent of all online sales. But it should be noted that the 43 percent share was much lower than Thanksgiving Day, when mobile accounted for 55 percent of purchases. That’s because people are back to work in Cyber Monday and using their desktops more.

So, what can retailers learn from the results?

  • The retailers that stayed committed to their online ad spend won. By keeping their brand names and merchandise visible, they were best positioned to capture the Cyber Monday traffic. Retailers that scaled back their online ad spending because they feared consumers were going to spend less ended up missing out.
  • As always, a strong blend of desktop-based and mobile ad spend was key to winning Cyber Monday traffic. True, the mobile traffic fell from Thanksgiving Day, but 43 percent is still a sizable number, and a well-balanced ad strategy was the way to go.
  • Winning Cyber Monday requires a strategy for winning Cyber Week. Demand was uniformly strong for the entire period of Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. Advertisers that managed their budgets with an eye toward driving traffic and sales for the entire Cyber Week captured a “Cyber Monday bonus.”

Bottom line: if you kept your holiday advertising strong and ignored the naysayers, you won Cyber Monday.

Contact True Interactive

True Interactive has deep experience helping clients plan and implement holiday shopping campaigns online. We can help you, too. We understand how to create nimble search campaigns and multi-channel ad outreach to target consumers with the right message at the right time. Contact us to learn more.

Lead image source:
https://pixabay.com/vectors/cyber-monday-neon-sale-ecommerce-5240883/

Why Walmart Connect Expanded Its Advertising Partnerships

Why Walmart Connect Expanded Its Advertising Partnerships

by Tim Colucci Walmart

As the 2022 holiday season kicks into high gear, retail analysts are watching closely how much consumers will spend during a time of inflation. But it’s equally fascinating to understand how people shop. Walmart Connect, Walmart’s fast-growing advertising arm, believes that holiday shopping online – indeed all shopping online — will increasingly happen via social media, television commerce (t-commerce), and livestreaming. That’s one reason that Walmart Connect has expanded its advertising partner program to encompass social apps such as TikTok and streaming platforms such as TalkShopLive.

What Is the Walmart Advertising Partner Program?

Walmart Connect wants to help businesses advertise across the digital world beyond Walmart.com. To do that, Walmart Connect’s partnership program works with platforms to help brands scale, automate, and optimize their Walmart Connect advertising. These include partners that make it possible for Walmart Connect to expand self-service advertising through an application programming interface (API). Those API partners can be found here.

The partnership program is becoming more important to Walmart as it positions itself as a strong retailer-based ad platform alternative to Amazon Ads. And Walmart says the program is increasingly delivering value. For example, when BirdRock Brands turned to Pacvue (an enterprise software suite for eCommerce advertising) to scale its manual Walmart Sponsored Products campaigns, BirdRock was able to help design a campaign that ultimately experienced a return on ad spend 11 percent greater than its target, and an 83 percent increase in sales quarter over quarter.

What Did Walmart Announce About Its Advertising Partner Program?

Walmart has added a slew of advertising partners known as innovation partners. According to Walmart, these innovation partners will provide test-and-learn opportunities with formats such as social, entertainment, and live streaming throughout the entire holiday season. The newly expanded offering includes additional touchpoints and channels to reach customers wherever they are with new ad formats:

  • TikTok: this partnership provides an opportunity for advertisers to connect with potential shoppers on the red-hot TikTok platform. As Walmart noted, more than 50 percent of TikTok users say they watch ads on their feed instead of scrolling past them. The first-to-market pilot between TikTok and Walmart Connect will provide advertisers with the opportunity to serve in-feed ads on TikTok. This will leverage TikTok’s sound-on full screen video format together with Walmart Connect’s targeting and measurement.
  • Snap: the partnership with Snap enables advertisers to buy ad units including augmented reality, Collection Ads and Snap Ads through Walmart Connect and take advantage of the Walmart Connect’s geo-based measurement. This is the first time advertisers can buy Snap ad units through Walmart Connect and get in front of the unique Snapchat audience (75 percent of 13-34 year-olds in the U.S.), who hold over $1.9 trillion in spending power.
  • Firework: this partnership enables supplier-funded shoppable livestreams and short shoppable videos on Walmart.com/live. Walmart Connect is testing how brands can leverage Firework’s capabilities to create premium, engaging, mobile-first video experiences and, to start, has partnered with Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble.
  • TalkShopLive: Walmart Connect is expanding its relationship with TalkShopLive to partnership enable supplier-funded shoppable livestreams on Walmart.com/live, TalkShopLive’s platform, brand and publisher sites, as well as across the web. Walmart Connect is testing how brands can amplify their content and connect with shoppers at scale. To start, it has already executed livestreams with Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and Samsung, among others.
  • Roku: Walmart wants to help make TV streaming the next e-commerce shopping destination. Walmart touts Roku as America’s Number One TV streaming platform (citing Hypothesis Group research). So, Walmart has become the exclusive retailer to enable streamers on Roku to purchase featured products and have the transactions fulfilled by the chain. Walmart Connect will connect brands to customers through the Roku platform, and checkout will be seamless for customers, while advertisers receive insights on effectiveness via Walmart Connect measurement.

In announcing these partnerships, Walmart discussed how online search and shopping has become more diversified especially in the post-pandemic age. Seth Dallaire, Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, Walmart U.S., wrote in a blog post:

Consumers who turned to online shopping during the pandemic have chosen to stay there, with those returning to in-store relying on online research to guide their decisions. Consumers realized the importance of “connection” and were forced to adapt and connect in new ways including social feeds, livestreaming, mobile and more, specifically across video and connected TV. In fact, the predicted growth of social commerce from 10% of all e-commerce to 17% by 2025 will be driven by Gen Z and millennial consumers and nearly two-thirds (64%) of social media users — an estimated 2 billion social buyers — said they made a purchase on social media in the past year.

Now, Walmart Connect intends to do its part in connecting social media discovery to actual sales. So far, Walmart Connect’s partnerships have been hands-on in nature. Brands get custom reporting about their campaigns, based on activations on Walmart.com’s live shopping, TikTok, Snap, and Roku. But Seth Dallaire told Advertising Age that the partnership program expanding to the point where it would be more automated and widely available within Walmart Connect, so that brands could better target ads on social media and connected TV.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here and our Walmart Connect expertise here.

For Further Insight

“Why Walmart Connect Is Winning,” Tim Colucci, February 25, 2022.

“Why Retailers Are Launching Ad Businesses,” Tim Colucci, January 11, 2022.

“Walgreens Doubles Down on Its Advertising Business,” Tim Colucci, May 19, 2021.

“Amazon Unveils New Ad Units Across Its Ecosystem,” Kurt Anagnostopoulos, May 4, 2021.

“Why Macy’s Launched an Advertising Platform,” Tim Colucci, March 3, 2021.

“Walmart Asserts Its Leadership in Advertising,” Tim Colucci, February 8, 2021.