Welcome to the wild, wild world of digital marketing!
Here’s a sampling of the recent developments we will cover in this issue:
- Facebook says you’ll soon be able to cross-communicate on major messaging platforms
- Ad spend and shares for Stories on Facebook and Instagram are booming
- Analytics really isn’t all that scary
- Google text ads can now show on YouTube
- Reddit is selling PTC ads
We’re glad you’re here for this month’s edition of Stukent’s News You Can Use.
FACEBOOK TO INTEGRATE 3 MAJOR PLATFORMS
Topic: Social Media Marketing
Key Point: Facebook says Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp will soon allow cross-communication. The applications will remain distinct, but users won’t be limited to chatting on just one platform at a time.
That news – even though the reality may still be a year or more away – has the social media marketing world thinking about possible ramifications for marketing.
One voice worth listening to is Larry Kim, founder of WordStream and CEO of MobileMonkey. A good place to begin is Kim’s article, 8 Things You Should Know About the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp Integration.
ALSO SEE: Facebook Announces Merger of Messaging Apps
INSTAGRAM STORIES SHARES BOOMED IN 2018
Topic: Social Media Marketing
Key Point: 2018 stats say Instagram advertising is on the rise. Year-over-year growth for influencer marketing hopped a slick 39 percent.
One major find in a new Klear report is the adoption of sponsored posts in the Stories section. One in three sponsored posts shared last year were Stories.
Other information gleaned from Klear focuses on demographics. Women, micro-influencers, and millennials are leading the way on Instagram.
Get the entire scoop on Mobile Marketer. It may change the way you invest your marketing budget.
ALSO SEE: Influencer Checklists Rate Quality of Followers at the Top
FACEBOOK STORIES AD SPEND UP 124 PERCENT SAYS NANIGANS
Topic: Online Advertising | Ecommerce
Key Point: A Nanigans report showed that spending on Facebook Stories ads (by Nanigans customers) was up 124 percent (year-over-year) for Q4 2018.
That point, alone, is interesting, but digital marketers will want to dig deeper into the report to learn from the other metrics. Here are a few more key findings:
- CTR was up 52 percent year-over-year
- CPM trended up by 112 percent
- CPC rose by 39 percent
True to the trend other marketers are seeing, Nanigans found a preference for video ads (61%) over image ads (39%).
The paper segments advertisers into three groups according to the desired conversion: app installs, lead generation, and transaction-driven.
The report, as well as the Mobile Marketer article that summarizes it, is well worth a read.
ALSO READ: Introducing Facebook Stories Ads
THE 4 STAGES OF SCALING WEBSITE ANALYTICS
Topic: Analytics
Key Point: Analytics may be the most intimidating Google platform of all. Despite the abundance of information accessible in Google Analytics, many marketers push the interpretative job off to someone else. Analytics is definitely not a cake walk.
This Marketing Land article proposes a scalable approach to taming the beast – complete with four stages: crawl, walk, run, and fly.
Begin by determining your most important KPIs, figure out which tools are needed to pull the data you need, implement the plan, and use the results to inform and optimize your website.
Easy.
ALSO SEE: Why Gartner expects CMOs to cut marketing analytics units in half!
VIDEO EMPOWERS ACTION
Topic: Social Media Marketing | Ecommerce
Key Point: Half of shoppers surveyed in the “How People Shop with YouTube” study said online videos have helped them make a purchasing decision. 75 percent say they want the people in the videos to be down-to-earth and realistic. And 90 percent say they discover new products on YouTube.
Those are just some of the results in this thought-provoking, illustrated article by Googlers: How Online Video Empowers People to Take Action.
25 TOOLS TO IMPROVE YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Topic: Social Media Marketing
Key Point: If you’re ready to start rocking it on YouTube, then it’s time to get your toolkit assembled. Search Engine Land steps up to the plate with this look at the best tools to help you optimize your YouTube channel.
Best of all, the tools are categorized into topics like competitive analysis, post-production, promotion, and more. Anyone who is thinking of launching a presence on YouTube should check out this cool YouTube tool guide.
GOOGLE TEXT ADS SHOWING IN YOUTUBE SEARCH RESULTS
Topic: Social Media Marketing | Online Advertising
Key Point: Speaking of YouTube, here’s a development of interest: Google Ads now includes YouTube in its Search Partners network. That means the text ads you with Search Partners opt-ins are eligible to show up as YouTube ads.
One caveat: this is for mobile search displays only.
One Google product manager said, “Even in a video context, text ads shown to the right person at the right time, matching the right intent, can be really effective at driving conversions.”
Get the extended scoop in this article from Search Engine Land.
ALSO READ: Show Your Display Network Ad on YouTube
REDDIT NOW SELLING PPC ADS
Topic: Online advertising
Key Point: If you’re not yet registered to advertise on Reddit, this is a good time to check out the possibilities. Reddit is now selling ads by the click. That means you now have better access to the fifth most popular website in the USA!
Get Reddit user demographics here: Reddit Stats on Users
The move comes on the heels of a major site redesign for Reddit. Beta testing shows ad return on investment numbers for early access brands came in at up to 50 percent.
ALSO READ: Reddit Launches Cost-Per-Click Ads
DON’T STOP THERE
Last year is in the record books. The coming year, though, is an open ledger. And you get to make the deposits.
Don’t stop studying. Don’t stop getting better.
The digital marketers who succeed are the ones who choose a direction and don’t stop moving. If you see digital marketing news you think should go in next month’s News You Can Use, let us know. Be a Stukent field reporter!
BONUS INFO
How to link/unlink Google Ads and Analytics
