DIGITAL MEDIA DIGEST: JUN ‘16
A monthly look at the world of digital from NORTH’s point of view
Buy Button Adoption Stalls
By Caroline Desmond, Director of Media Strategy
It’s been a year since Pinterest announced buyable pins, Instagram released its similar Shop Now feature and Facebook and Twitter began testing buy buttons in posts. Despite the initial excitement and the logic behind it, buy buttons have decidedly stalled in their rollout and adoption. But why is this?
The initial excitement around shoppable social posts felt justified given the amount of time people spend on social media, particularly on mobile devices. In fact, Nielsen reported last December that one in five minutes on mobile is spent on Instagram or Facebook. Additionally, social platforms were positioned to address one of the biggest issues with mobile commerce in general; the need to create a frictionless checkout experience. Even though we’ve seen a swell in traffic to e-commerce sites from mobile and tablet devices, there has not been a proportionate increase in sales on these devices. One of the biggest reasons for this being that it can be a hassle to enter payment and shipping information from a mobile device and not all brands have invested in developing mobile optimized checkout.
That said, despite the obvious benefits shoppable social posts stand to offer, Facebook is still beta testing its buy button with small to mid-size advertisers, and Pinterest’s volume of buyable pins is only a fraction of the hundreds of millions of items Amazon sells.
So what’s the holdup?
Low Awareness
Consumers are still unused to seeing buyable posts on their social feeds. Michael Yamartino, Pinterest’s head of commerce echoes this sentiment and was recently quoted in the Washington Post saying that, “most people haven’t bought from a platform that’s not a retailer.”
Cluttered Feeds & Short Attention Span
A 2015 study conducted by Microsoft revealed that our attention spans are now lower than that of a goldfish. The average adult now has an attention span of 8 seconds while the goldfish maintains attention at 9 seconds in case you were interested. With so much content coming our way in social newsfeeds and lower attention spans, it’s simply harder for brands to get noticed.
Inconsistency
Sucharita Mulpuru, principal analyst for Forrester, calls attention to a perfect example of the inconsistency seen with buy buttons on social platforms. In a recent Digiday post, Malpuru points out that “on Pinterest, the intersection between what people want to buy and what is available to buy is huge. The majority of most popular pins are not buyable.”
The opportunity may well be in using social channels as more of a digital storefront for big ticket ticket items, and for smaller buys, the shoppable pins become the virtual equivalent of the checkout selling last minute impulse buys at exactly the right moment. In addition, social shoppable posts offer the opportunity to find new customers. Pinterest early data on buyable pins reported that 84 percent of customers who purchased with buyable pins for at least one brand were new to the store.
Ultimately it seems most likely social shoppable posts will complement e-commerce giants like Amazon. Kirsten Newbold-Knipp, a research director at Gartner, agrees that Amazon will continue to be the destination for routine purchases. Conversely, social media is where content and products are stumbled upon by chance. With advanced targeting capabilities social platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram make it more possible for brands to stack the deck in their favor by ensuring that the most likely buyer sees product when they are most likely to buy.
Demographic Targeting + Search = Love
By Crystal Stanford, SEM / PPC Manager
There were many bits of exciting news coming out of Google’s Performance Summit in May. Google announced a few significant and highly anticipated changes to Google AdWords, including:
- Expanded text ads (moving from the standard 25–35–35 text ad to an expanding 30–30–80)
- Bid adjustments for all devices
- Promoted pins within Google Maps
But arguably the most exciting changes for brand advertisers will be the new ability to layer demographic and similar audience targeting with traditional keyword targeting for search.
Google took their first couple baby steps towards this major improvement over the preceding three years. First there was the rollout of Re-marketing Lists For Search Ads (RLSA) in 2013, which allows search advertisers to layer website visitor targeting over keyword targeting. This capability has become only more useful with the increasing use of paid social and its ability to drive potential customers to your website at a larger scale. Next came last year’s debut of Google Customer Match giving search advertisers the ability to upload e-mail lists, which could then be layered against keyword targeting to reach current/past customers.
The main issue with these tactics, however, is scale. For privacy reasons, in order to even be able to use the lists, they usually need to be about 900+ visitors or email addresses strong, and even at that size, they’re sometimes not particularly effective, at least not in a big way. While you might see strong CTRs and conversion rates resulting from this special targeting, you definitely won’t see volume. In my experience, it’s often difficult for small and medium-sized clients to come up with large enough pools of first party data to make a dent in the overall performance of their digital campaigns.
The rollout of demographic targeting, however, helps remedy these issues. Now, search advertisers can tap into the same demographic targeting originally used for Google’s display advertising network. Layered against high-intent keywords, Google’s demographic targeting gives access to large pools of data that have serious potential for marketers, especially now that it can be refined with an effective filter like keyword targeting. Most exciting is that Google will also offer similar audience targeting for search, which was also previously only available for display, and an obvious answer to Facebook’s beloved-by-digital-marketers-everywhere lookalike audience targeting capability. Similar audiences will build off advertisers’ website visitor lists and allow them to reach searchers with similar characteristics to those who have already visited their site.
It’s being speculated that the newly available demographic and similar audience targeting is an answer to growing concern over rising CPCs and increased competition, especially with the recent decision to kill right-hand ads on desktop search results pages. While the cost of clicks has continued to rise, search advertisers have pointed out that the platform hasn’t gotten much more effective. Search marketers realize they have to get more strategic and creative in order to maintain the efficiency of their SEM campaigns, and this new capability adds a new tool to the arsenal. Perhaps it’s Google’s way of saying, “We understand your concerns. We’ll throw you a bone and give you some new ways to target customers more efficiently.”
Frederick Vallaeys of Optmyzr offered up his opinion on the matter in a recent post related to updates:
“I think that demographic controls for search will have the biggest impact because as costs continue to rise, this gives advertisers a big lever to improve targeting so that their CPA and ROAS can remain reasonable. Between this and the expanded text ads, it means that online marketers will have to become more like traditional marketers who have to craft the right message for the right user.”
Which brings me to the exciting possibility that marketers now have in front of them. Vallaeys strongly encourages marketers to tailor messaging to various audience targets, which gets especially more interesting with new expanded text ads. Suddenly, advertisers are no longer constrained to traditional 25–35–35 text ads and solely keyword-based targeting. The possibilities have opened up tremendously, and Vallaeys emphasizes that those who are primarily data-driven advertisers will have to start thinking more like true marketers. For brands on search, these new changes mean that brands are free to act more like brands on what has frankly been a rather creatively-constrained platform.
Encouraging Engagement Via Snapchat Updates
By Nathan Johnson, Assistant Media Planner
If you’re not guilty of it now, you will be sooner than later. People are spending more time on Snapchat than ever before. So much so that the disappearing messaging app has surpassed social titan, Instagram in time spent in app. This was according to a recent report from app analytics company, App Annie, which also stated that the only app currently ahead of Snapchat was Facebook (based on iPhone users in the U.S.).
While the social app has pushed the envelope with innovative engagement features, such as the infamous “face swap”, they’ve also set their eyes on becoming a serious publishing platform. In their most recent update, Snapchat revamped the design of its Discover and Live sections, which now feature thumbnail images and headlines of publishers’ top stories for that day (think Flipboard). In the Stories section, the thumbnails automatically scroll to showcase daily content, even when the user is not actively engaging with them.
The redesign isn’t just a beautiful new layout, but a way to encourage further interaction with publisher content by featuring content via imagery and headlines, whereas before they would have avoided clicking into it due to lack of content details. Further interaction is also encouraged by now letting users subscribe to their favorite channels to stay up-to-date with what’s being talked about.
Ultimately, Snapchat wants to prove to publishers that their platform is worth the investment. While there’s excitement around the opportunities Snapchat presents, there are still a lot of unknowns and publishers seem to be cautious in forking up the investment to join the social app’s network. That said, if design changes bump up user interaction with publisher media, then Snapchat stands to do just that.
I see this as a win for both users and publishers. Snapchat is making it easier for users to stay connected with their favorite publishers as well as possibly discover new ones. On the other side of the coin, publishers will likely see increased interaction on their produced content. Just ask Buzzfeed who reportedly receives 21% of their traffic from Snapchat.
I also see this as a win for advertisers who may have been interested in advertising on the platform, but might not have found the right publishers to partner with. As Snapchat attracts more publishers into their network, this will only increase the opportunity that brands have. Additionally, I expect to see brands begin incorporating product placement and other sorts of native like spots within publishers’ daily content. This seems like a natural fit for brands that want deeper integration with publishers, though publishers and brands want to make sure that content doesn’t become overly advertorial. In the end content is still king.
(Branded) Content is King
By Stacey Gallarde, Senior Media Planner
As noted above, content is king. There’s no question about it. Not surprisingly, brands and advertisers have long attempted to align themselves with quality programming in order to get in front of attentive audiences at scale. As early as the 1920’s there were sponsored programs such as the Eveready Hour, which then gave way to more robust show sponsorships and product integration all before the standard :30 spot existed! Traditional broadcast advertising as we know it was introduced in the 1940’s-1950’s, as a result of high out of pocket costs associated with show integration and advertisers expressing the need to reach audiences across dayparts and programs. Fast forwarding to today, advertisers and publishers are making old things new again and teaming up to create branded content for all screens.
As history has seen, branded content can come in many shapes and sizes. It can be anything from a simple program sponsorship in name inclusion only, product integration into a television series, or a branded infographic. The key differentiator from traditional advertising is that it is “consumer-focused, unlike advertising, which is brand focused, that is designed for selling” notes David Lang, Chief Content Officer at MindShare. While traditional ads aim to push a certain product or brand, sponsored content is a aimed at building a consumer relationship.
With digital media driving innovation, branded content is evolving at a much faster clip than ever before. The fragmented media landscape makes it so that advertisers shouldn’t simply run those :30 spots they’ve become accustomed to alone. With the many devices available now, consumers have control over what they want to hear, watch, interact with, for every waking moment. Broadcast companies like Turner have acknowledged this fact and announced they will be decreasing their commercial load times as they have been a factor in declining TV viewership. Though Turner will be taking a cut from broadcast ad sales, they will be filling that hole (and then some) with branded content partnerships across their traditional and digital channels.
“You work with brands to tell better stories without interrupting the (viewing) experience, but add to it.” notes Dan Reiss, EVP of Content Partnerships at Turner
Some brands have committed to work directly with publishers on large scale content deals. Mondelez in particular, has announced a new initiative to create publisher-direct partnerships to co-produce sponsored content, games and apps. Thus far they have integrated their Triscuits product into Buzzfeed’s Tasty recipe videos and have plans to integrate Stride Gum into Fox programming. Their ultimate goal being to create ads that cannot be parsed from the content creator’s editorial voice in an attempt to “future-proof [the brand] against the changing landscape” notes Laura Henderson, Global Head of Content and Media Monetization at Mondelez.
In similar fashion, Budweiser and The Player’s Tribune (TPT) have created a content partnership with a heavy video focus. Budweiser is the exclusive sponsor of TPT Studio B in addition to all content shot/filmed from that set. The content will be available on a Budweiser-branded section of TPT’s site and distributed across their various social handles. The mutually beneficial partnership will allow TPT to grow fan bases across their various social channels, while Budweiser will be granted access to an invaluable male-skewing, sports-fan audience.
Flipping the script from the direct brand-publisher deals, agency DigitasLBi, has partnered with Facebook’s Creative Shop to create a morning show dubbed Rise and Shine, which will be open for brand sponsorships. The program will be live-streamed three to five days a week on a given brand’s Facebook page and in users’ newsfeeds. Additionally, users will be able to subscribe to the show via a Messenger bot for new content notifications and other relevant alerts. Though DigitasLBi will handle the programming/talent and be responsible for securing sponsors, they’ve noted that “the show is going to be shapeable by whatever brand gets involved. There’s no preconceived notion. It’s going to be about building the show contextually.” (Source: Scott Donaton, Digitas)
Obviously the entry points into the branded content space are vast and varied. That said, knowing that consumers have the upper hand these days, it is becoming increasingly important to deliver value (by being informative, educational, entertaining) in an authentic and relevant way, whatever the scale of the program. Though branded content programs may not drive immediate conversions or sales, they are a start to, hopefully, a long lasting relationship with consumers.
