Social Commerce Is on the Rise

Social Commerce Is on the Rise

by Bella Schneider Advertising

Social commerce is on the rise. According to a new report from eMarketer, the pandemic has fueled a surge in e-commerce across the board, and social commerce in the U.S. has benefitted from that acceleration. By all accounts, it will continue to do so: the prediction is that social commerce will gain even more traction as platforms boost their checkout and shopping functions. What does this news mean for your brand? Read on to learn more.

The Market Is Growing

Social commerce is certainly enjoying a banner year already. eMarketer predicts that in 2021, U.S. retail social commerce sales will rise to $36.09 billion — a whopping 34.8 percent leap that would represent a 4.3 percent piece of the retail ecommerce sales pie. The prediction comes on the heels of a revised 2020 social commerce forecast: from 19.8 percent growth to 37.9 percent growth.

Social Commerce Hot Spots

Because of their focus on images, Instagram and Pinterest have a leg up on displaying merchandise; it’s probably no coincidence, then, that both platforms, as eMarketer points out, “provide the most relevant social commerce experiences for brands today.” Instagram and Pinterest have also been enjoying exceptionally strong growth. And both sites have been very proactive about developing business tools that make it easier to sell products and services online.

For example, Pinterest offers tools such as:

  • Product Pins, through which a business can connect its product catalog to Pinterest, filter and organize inventory, create shopping ads, and measure results.
  • Promoted Pins, which appear in search results and home feed as regular pins do, but are targeted and boosted to deliver more reach. Users can pin them to boards, comment on them, and share them. Note that after a Promoted Pin is shared once by a Pinner, the “Promoted” label disappears, with repins considered “earned media.”
  • Promoted Carousels, which feature two to five swipeable images. This can be a useful format for brands wishing to showcase multiple products or features.

But it’s Instagram that has really rocked social commerce by continuously offering tools that make it easier for brands to use the platform for sales. Consider features such as:

  • Instagram checkout, which facilitates simple, convenient, and secure purchases made directly from Instagram. As we’ve blogged, shopping from Instagram means protected payment information is kept in one place. So Instagrammers can shop multiple favorite brands without having to log in and enter intel multiple times.
  • Instagram Live, which allows checkout-enabled businesses to sell products through “live shopping.” In live shopping, consumers might be inspired by a creator or brand’s live video content and subsequently buy promoted products in real-time.

Platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok are also making moves to stay competitive. As we’ve blogged, TikTok has been doubling down on social commerce, especially in the arena of livestreaming. Consider the site’s recent collaboration with Walmart, in which shoppers could check out Walmart’s TikTok profile to see fashions highlighted by TikTok creators like Michael Le (it’s worth noting that categories like apparel/accessories really lend themselves to social commerce). Using mobile checkout, consumers could then buy the same products they saw in the livestream.

What You Should Do

Eager to incorporate social commerce into your marketing plan? We recommend that you:

  • Do your homework on your audience. Not all social commerce platforms are the same. Pinterest tends to appeal to Millennial women, TikTok to Gen Z and Millennials as a whole. Ask yourself: what demographics am I trying to reach?
  • Learn how to use the tools available to you. Each platform will have its own requirements for creating content. In addition, all of these popular sites will require a strong understanding of how to use visuals — it behooves you to make creating powerful imagery a strength. Finally, if you choose to get into live commerce, you’ll need to get really savvy about using livestreaming effectively.
  • Make sure you are set up for success. As we discussed on our blog in January, many businesses are struggling to manage the surge in demand that happens when they attract more shoppers with an intent to buy. Make sure your online fulfillment can handle the demand.

Contact True Interactive

How might social commerce fit into your brand’s digital marketing plan? Contact us. We can help. Read about our expertise in online shopping here.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

It’s Amazon Advertising’s Year — So Far

It’s Amazon Advertising’s Year — So Far

by Mark Smith Amazon Facebook Google

Good news for Amazon. Bad news for Google. According to a new report from eMarketer, Amazon’s share of online advertising continues an upward trend. Google, by contrast, continues to lose marketshare. Read on to learn more.

The What

Amazon’s share of online advertising, which has been rising every year, will reach 9.5 percent in 2020, eMarketer says. Google’s share will drop to 29.4 percent, as Google reports its first-ever decline in advertising revenue since eMarketer began tracking advertising revenue in 2008. Meanwhile, Facebook’s share of online advertising is predicted to rise to 23.4 percent (note, however, that eMarketer published its analysis before an advertising boycott of Facebook took hold—those numbers will likely be re-evaluated).

The Why

Why is Amazon Advertising increasing its share, while Google sees its marketshare drop?

  • Amazon’s advertising unit, known as Amazon Advertising, is probably benefitting from people shifting their purchasing online during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020. As we have blogged, Amazon without question became an especially attractive place to make purchases as shelter-in-place mandates took hold. And Amazon was prepared to help advertisers build their visibility during this surge, with a tool kit including products such as Sponsored Ads and Display Ads.
  • Meanwhile, eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, Nicole Perrin, explains that “Google’s net US ad revenues will decline this year primarily because of a sharp pullback in travel advertiser spending, which in the past has been heavily concentrated on Google’s search ad products. Travel has been the hardest-hit industry during the pandemic, with the most extreme spending declines of any industry.”

What the News Means

The news creates some nice press for Amazon Advertising, but as we have blogged, Google’s ad business remains healthy and solid. And as eMarketer points out, Google is being hit by the economic downturn in travel. There is nothing inherently wrong with Google’s ad products, however.

In fact, Google continues to make its ad products better. We have blogged about some of its innovations lately:

Facebook likely has more to worry about than Google. An advertising boycott is gaining traction with big brands such as Unilever and Starbucks pulling their ad business because they believe Facebook is not doing enough to police hate speech, among other grievances. As reported by cnbc.com, the big names already responding to the #StopHateForProfit campaign have the potential to influence more companies to join the boycott.

Our Recommendations

We suggest that regardless of your platform of choice, businesses continue advertising online. Despite the turbulence among the big online ad players, we know that businesses that continue to have an online ad presence are best positioned for success.

Contact Us

Do you need help sorting your digital ad presence? Contact True Interactive. We can help.

Why You Shouldn’t Move Your Online Advertising Budget From Google to Amazon

Why You Shouldn’t Move Your Online Advertising Budget From Google to Amazon

by Mark Smith Google

In the advertising world, the meteoric rise of Amazon Advertising is capturing a lot of buzz and inspiring commentary, including posts we’ve published on our own blog. At the same, Amazon Advertising’s biggest competitors, Google and Facebook, are as strong as ever. Consider the growth of Google’s own advertising business, which dominates the world of online advertising, even as Google’s share of the online ad market drops slightly, per eMarketer. Here’s the skinny:

Alphabet Reports Strong Earnings

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, surprised analysts recently by reporting stronger-than-expected earnings. As reported in Search Engine Land, Google produced $32.6 billion in advertising revenue in Alphabet’s second quarter. That’s a 22 percent increase year after year, and an uptick after several quarters of slowing growth.

The surge in advertising revenue for Google has a lot to do with Alphabet’s strong earnings. And advertising simply grew a lot better than expected. As Business Insider reported, “A resurgence in Google’s core advertising business, after a weak performance in the first quarter of the year . . . pushed Google’s net revenue up.” Interestingly, the earnings report came out on the same day that Amazon announced mixed results.

Why did Google Report Strong Growth for Its Advertising Business?

No one knows exactly why Google’s been nailing it with its advertising, because the company remains mum about the details. But as The Street pointed out, YouTube probably had something to do with it. Ruth Porat, Google’s Chief Financial Officer, revealed that YouTube revenue represented the second-highest growth of any segment for the search behemoth. And as management noted, “[W]e are building momentum with our subscription services, YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, now available in over 60 countries, up from five markets at the start of 2018.”

We also believe Google is succeeding because the company isn’t standing still and taking success for granted. As we discussed on our own blog, Google continues to launch new features and tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) to help advertisers launch smarter, more targeted campaigns. The headline is this: whether through paid search ads or display ads, Google has been making it easier for advertisers to do the work.

What You Should Do

What does Google’s trajectory mean to the savvy marketer? We recommend that you:

  • Stay abreast of the industry, and keep your options open. That includes staying calm in the face of inevitable fluctuation. For example, according to ad industry sources, some advertisers are defecting from Google and moving 50 to 60 percent of their ad budgets to Amazon. But news like this isn’t a reason to get rattled—or abandon Google. It doesn’t mean advertising should be an either/or between Amazon, Google, or Facebook. Ebbs and flows notwithstanding, the opportunities Google represents can’t be discounted. And no matter how much Amazon grows, Google is not going away. Brands that devote all their advertising resources to one outlet are likely to get burned—or miss out on opportunity.
  • Understand how Google is evolving. Google will continue to grow its ad business, drawing on several key advantages:
    • A head start in using AI with the specific aim of making advertising smarter and more effective. It’s true: AI is hot, and Google faces competition from Amazon and Facebook in this arena. But as noted above, the company is holding its own with a battery of AI tools.
    • An established global presence that reflects Google’s efforts to tailor advertising products in support of international ad campaigns.

Google continues to sense and respond to consumer tastes, even when Google’s profit motive is not evident. A good example is the forthcoming release of Stadia, the cloud-based gaming platform that Google announced recently. How Google will make money off Stadia is not clear immediately. But one thing is clear: Google is finding a way to keep people using Google by launching new products accessible through Google.

Contact True Interactive

Contact us to learn more about how online advertising might figure into your strategy. We’re here to help.

Coming Soon: A $1 Trillion Holiday Shopping Season

Coming Soon: A $1 Trillion Holiday Shopping Season

by Héctor Ariza Retail

Get ready for a strong holiday shopping season. eMarketer has raised its 2018 holiday shopping forecast, with total retail spending growth expected to be 4.1 percent, up from eMarketer’s previous prediction of a 3.8 percent growth rate. The 2018 season will approach $1 trillion in spending, or $986.77 billion to be more precise. In addition, eMarketer says that retail ecommerce will grow at 16.2 percent, with that growth being driven largely by mobile.

“We expect that the 2018 holiday retail season will be one of the strongest in recent years,” eMarketer said in the October report, Holiday Shopping 2018. Reasons for a strong season include:

  • A strong economy that will fuel spending.
  • A lengthy shopping season, with 32 days occurring between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the longest possible calendar between these two landmark dates. “This will give shoppers ample opportunity to complete more of their holiday shopping online,” noted eMarketer.
  • The growth of mobile. “The other key growth factor is the extent to which mobile is fueling consumers’ ecommerce migration” said eMarketer. “Mobile now drives nearly two-thirds of online shopping activity, according to research firm comScore, and is inching ever closer to a majority share of ecommerce spending. Although shoppers are still much more likely to shop than buy on mobile, they are increasingly comfortable transacting on smartphones, thanks to more seamless, optimized experiences on both mobile web and apps.”

The prospect of a stronger holiday season is good news for retailers and consumer electronics firms. Per eMarketer, “Consumer electronics will prove popular during the 2018 season, particularly with an ever-expanding slate of voice-activated and connected home products hitting the market. Apparel and accessories will continue its online migration, while the toys and hobbies sector promises to get more competitive.”

The companies in the best position to thrive:

  • Have strong mobile commerce operations.
  • Capitalize on an expected intense period of spending around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Black Friday is no longer a single-day event. The day really begins on Thanksgiving now.
  • Effectively invest in advertising across the digital world, with a focus on Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

To make sure you benefit from the holiday spend, be sure to check out some recently published resources from True Interactive:

  • “Advertiser Q&A: Amazon Sponsored Ads,” a post from Samantha Coconato that discusses one of Amazon’s popular advertising products for businesses that have a presence on the platform.

At True Interactive, we’ve been actively working with clients to create successful holiday advertising campaigns online. Contact us if you need assistance with yours. We’re happy to help.

Photo by Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash

Four Ways Brands Earn Trust

Four Ways Brands Earn Trust

by Taylor Hart Marketing

Consumers don’t want to ignore brands. We want to spend time in their stores and immerse ourselves in their websites when the experience is good. We willingly buy their products. Otherwise, people around the world wouldn’t be spending nearly $25 trillion in 2018 in the retail sector alone. But to become loyal to brands – to willingly give them our time and money over and over, and then recommend them to others – we have to trust them.

A relationship with a business is built on trust, and consumers now possess more tools to figure out which brands they can trust and which they cannot. For example, analyst Brian Solis recently assessed the results of Google research indicating that mobile searches that include “best” have grown more than 80 percent in the last two years, and searches using the phrase “to avoid” have grown 1.5X in the same span. And Google continues to refine its algorithms to provide precise answers. As Solis notes,

Among everyday consumers, trust in brands and executives erodes every year. According to Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer report, trust is increasingly democratized and less hierarchical. In its most recent report, Edelman found, for the first time, that 60% of consumers view “a person like yourself” as a credible source for information about a company as a technical or academic expert. And, credibility of CEOs hit an all-time low in the series, with a 12-point decline in the last year.

Building consumer trust becomes not only an imperative for attentive brands but also a significant competitive advantage.

In addition, consumers are increasingly relying on reviews to determine which companies they can trust. According to eMarketer, online reviews are even overtaking advice from friends and families as a way to research brands. Online reviews are especially important for high-consideration products such as electronics and clothing.

How do brands earn our trust? I think brands do so by living these four attributes:

Authenticity

Brands can illustrate authenticity in many ways, but when it comes to consumers trusting brands, it’s important that companies demonstrate their values and what they stand for. Kendra Scott is a fashion brand that is built around positivity and giving back to the community. The founder, Kendra Scott, uses social media to not only showcase their quality products, but the company’s values and philanthropic actions as well. The brand organizes events for a variety of organizations and causes, which they put on display across their marketing channels. Emphasizing how involved Kendra Scott is to making the world a better place allows consumers to think of them than more than just a company that sells jewelry and other fashion products – it’s a brand they can trust.

Transparency

In the social media world that we live in, there are no longer secrets. Consumers are demanding brands to be open and honest with them. Many brands struggle with being transparent with their customers, but a lack of transparency only hurts them. Whether a brand is enduring a PR crisis or announcing a new product, it’s important for a brand to show who they are and what they can give to the consumer. Recently, I received an email from Panera Bread’s CEO, Blaine E. Hurst, commenting on the recent romaine lettuce recall. He stated, “From the moment the advisory was issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on April 13, 2018, we pulled all romaine originating from Yuma growing region from our cafes .  . .”

He continued by confirming that customers can rest assured that they found a new source and all Panera salads are safe to eat. He concluded the email by saying, “We hope this helps to ease your mind, and invite you to come in and enjoy your favorite Panera salad again.”

From this email, Blaine Hurst was able to build trust by being honest. He assured customers that they were safe to eat at Panera by confirming that Panera had resolved the unfortunate issue. When a brand faces a conflict that involves them or their products, it’s crucial that they are completely transparent with consumers in order to gain or sustain trust.

Consistency

It’s essential to develop standards for brand consistency, online and offline, to earn consumer’s trust. Chick-fil-A is a company that does so. My experience at Chick-fil-A, no matter which location, has been consistent each time, whether it’s at the beginning with a warm welcome from the employee taking my order, or when I’m enjoying my meal. And the brand consistency doesn’t stop there. When I come across one of their social media posts or advertisements, I can tell it’s their content without even looking at the brand name. Having consistency across your team, products, and marketing efforts builds trust and loyalty for consumers because they know what to expect from you and your products or services.

Empathy

Showing your customers that you care about them, especially in a time of need, boosts consumer loyalty and trust. I recently ordered a present for a family member off Amazon, and the dealer lost it in the mail. Amazon sent me an email telling me to contact Amazon support, and then a friendly customer service rep from Amazon apologized multiple times for the inconvenience. The same rep immediately re-ordered my item for me free of charge with overnight shipping so that I would get it on time. Amazon training their support team to show empathy allows me to feel confident ordering from Amazon in the future. Even if this issue or a similar scenario were to happen again, I could trust that Amazon would happily resolve the issue quickly. Offering empathy to a customer enhances the customer’s experience which then enables them to trust the brand.

Perhaps the best way for a brand to build trust is to ask these simple questions:

  • Are you treating your customers the way you would want them to treat every person at your company?
  • What do you want your customers to say about you? Are you giving them every motivation to do so with your actions?

Trust is earned one person at a time. But building trust starts with training your own people. Does everyone at your own company know how to earn the trust of every customer they meet?

Image source: http://www.brandingbusiness.com/blogs/building-b2b-brand-trust-through-communication

Get Your Data Ready Before You Launch Your Advertising

Get Your Data Ready Before You Launch Your Advertising

by Kurt Anagnostopoulos Marketing

Here is an all-too-familiar scenario for businesses such as retailers and restaurants that operate brick-and-mortar locations: you carefully plan a digital advertising campaign, say to promote a back-to-school sale . . . you’ve done your homework on your audience, and you’ve developed a killer keyword strategy . . . your campaign launches, creating a spike in traffic to your location pages, your listings on Yelp, and to your brick-and-mortar storefronts . . . resulting in angry customers. Why? Because your location data is wrong in search results or your content is out of date.

Faulty data and bad content can sabotage the best-laid digital advertising plans. And a recent Forrester study suggests that bad data is a big problem. Forrester surveyed digital marketers to understand their challenges delivering mobile ads. As reported in eMarketer, the survey respondents said that inaccurate location data is a big problem undermining their efforts.

I’m sure you’ve experienced the results of poorly managed location data when you Yelp or Google a store or restaurant after seeing an ad or hearing a social media conversation. A new restaurant offers specials to lure new customers! But, when you search for the location, its address is wrong (or perhaps nonexistent) and its hours are not posted. What happened in that situation is that the business forgot to prepare for the uptick of traffic to its location pages that would result from a well-executed ad. To avoid becoming one of those businesses, we recommend you get your organic house in order. Here are steps you should take now:

  • Audit the state of our location data. Make sure all your locations have claimed Google My Business pages and are showing up in searches on search engines, Yelp, and all the places where people look for brick-and-mortar locations near them. Then review the accuracy of your location data, including elements such as your name, address, phone number, hours, and web URL (if your data appears on a third-party site), among other elements. If your business operates hundreds and thousands of locations, managing the accuracy of your data can be daunting task – so make sure you’ve assigned someone the job of doing so.
  • Update your data as needed to reflect any seasonal or event-based information that will change temporarily. This issue is especially crucial during holiday seasons when retailers keep expanded hours. Before you promote a seasonal event, have you updated your listings to reflect the change? And after the event is over, did you update your store hours again? The need to constantly update data as in this example is one reason why businesses work with automated software platforms – there’s just too much heavy lifting involved.
  • Make sure your deep content reflects the searches people are making as a result of the advertising you are running. We’ve talked about the need to align content with searches on blog posts such as Taylor Murphy’s post on adapting your pay-per-click strategies for voice search. Similarly, it’s important to be ready for an uptick in searches (voice and text-based) resulting from your advertising. If you are a retailer running a sale Star Wars merchandise this fall to coincide with the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, have you updated your online inventory to prominently feature this merchandise for people conducting these searches, especially on mobile devices?

By managing your data and content to prepare for a major digital advertising roll-out, you drive the right traffic to your online storefronts and brick-and-mortar locations – people who are responding to your call. Failing to get your data and content in order will create frustrated customers. The choice is yours. Contact True Interactive to discuss maximizing the value of your performance media. We’re happy to help.

Image source: New Old Stock (https://nos.twnsnd.co)