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Social Ads Might Be Tanking Your Reach
Heavy spending on social? “Light users” could be keeping your brand in the dark.
A new study from adtech company, Digital Turbine, suggests ad buyers relying too much on social media may be missing key consumer segments.
The study found that brands like Sony, Amazon, and McDonald’s aren’t getting the full reach for their social ad spend.
Missed reach
According to the study, this is because “light social users,” consumers who spend less time on social media than other apps, make up a significant portion of the audience that social ads often miss.
Of the 44 million people who go to the cinema, 1 out of 4 were light social users, and saw one-third fewer ads from Sony Pictures, compared to those who were not light social users.
62 million retail customers are light social users, the study found that those consumers saw 30% fewer ads from Amazon.
For quick-service restaurants, 66 million light social users saw 40% fewer McDonald’s ads.
Expanding beyond social
To avoid missing these consumers, the study suggests advertisers look beyond social media and YouTube.
Mobile gaming, an area with high engagement and under-utilized ad space, could help brands fill these gaps.
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CapCut’s New Play for Retailers
CapCut, the video editing app created by TikTok owner ByteDance, is pushing further into retail content creation with its new Commerce Pro package.
New tools for brands
The package includes a range of TikTok-friendly commerce creation tools, including:
A feature that generates video clips from product URLs, as well as various means to include shoppable links in your clips.
Access to TikTok’s AI avatars for product demos and explainer videos, letting you create and feature these digital characters in your promotions.
A “Virtual Try On” feature that lets customers select a model to try on products and generate photos showcasing them.
The tool also includes auto-publishing across multiple channels, performance insights, and seasonal templates for events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Pricing
In terms of pricing, Commerce Pro uses a “freemium” model, offering the first 200 seconds of video you create in the app for free, but after that, you'll need to switch to a paid plan, priced at $26 per month or $250 annually.
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TikTok Keeps Growing Despite the Heat
As CapCut vies for your marketing dollars, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, continues to drive revenue growth despite regulatory challenges in the U.S.
The Information reports that ByteDance's international revenue jumped more than 60% to about $17 billion in the first half of 2024, according to sources.
TikTok’s expanding role in ByteDance’s revenue
With TikTok driving much of this growth outside China, this suggests the app’s continued strength in advertising and other ventures, even amid the ongoing threat of a U.S. ban.
ByteDance’s total revenue in the first half of the year grew more than 35% to about $73 billion.
While the majority of the company’s revenue comes from China, the latest numbers show that TikTok's contribution continues to rise. The company’s international business accounted for about a quarter of its overall revenue, up from about 20% in the first half of 2023.
Advertising remains TikTok's largest revenue source, with additional income from e-commerce sales and virtual gifts during livestreams.
Revenues rival Meta
Meta Pushes More Variable Ad Display
To keep those ad dollars flowing, Meta is rolling out a new ad option called “Flexible Media”, as it looks to automate more aspects of the ad process.
How it works
The Flexible Media option builds on Meta’s existing Advantage+ campaign tools, which already automate ad placement by choosing which of your ads to show different users.
This new feature goes a step further by letting Meta’s system automatically choose creative variations tailored to specific ad placements.
Advertisers provide the media, and Meta decides the most effective delivery method.
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Meta Keeps Political Ads on Ice… For Now
Meta has extended its political ad ban beyond yesterday's American election.
The company announced that its blackout period for election-related ads will continue past the original end date of November 5th, lasting until an unspecified time later this week.
According to Meta, ads about social issues, elections, or politics will remain restricted for the time being. However, ads that ran before 12:01 AM PT on October 29, 2024, and served at least one impression, will still be shown—though with limited editing options.
Google Ads Calls Out Your Competitors
Google Ads is now throwing shade at your competitors.
The ad platform has an optimization scorecard that shows how well your account is set to perform. Now, it seems Google is testing a feature that explains if a change in your score is due to “competitive pressure” and identifies the competitor causing it.
A user shared a screenshot on LinkedIn showing a message that says: “Some of your campaigns lost impression share due to competitive pressure from amazon.com.”
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