Surprising Losses Continue Among Popular Platforms

Today In Digital Marketing is a daily podcast showcasing the latest in marketing trends and updates. This week, Tod touches on:

• Q3: Pinterest Loses 10 Million More Active Users
• COMMERCE: A Wayfair Widow… Really?
• CONSUMERS: Where Is Gen Z Shopping This Holiday Season?
• FACEBOOK: New Features For Groups
• GOOGLE: Don't Disappear With Expanded Text Ads

Below is the transcription from this weeks topics

Q3: Pinterest Loses 10 Million More Active Users

Pinterest today reported a decline of 10 million monthly active users in Q3 this year, bringing the platform's monthly active users down to 444 million. And Q2 numbers were down by 24 million before that!

So what's to blame for the slowdown?

Credit: Pintrest

Quoting the company:

We believe the deceleration in growth was primarily attributable to a continuation of the pandemic unwind.
As lockdowns eased, people have embraced life outside their homes, a trend that caused a dramatic decline of our year-over-year growth rate of monthly active users in Q2 and Q3, as consumer preferences shifted away from our core at-home use cases.

It can be argued that Pinterest's business growth is less dependent on usage growth than other social networks. The platform has more opportunity to earn money from shopping in addition to advertising, since its focus is to encourage action with each Pin, rather than just to reach as many people as possible.

But while users were down, revenue was up.

Quoting the company again:

Revenue grew 43% year over year... We saw increased demand from large retail advertisers, as well as growth in our international business.
Shopping engagement remains robust, with the number of Pinners engaging with shopping surfaces up more than 20% quarter over quarter and up 60% year over year.

Although this isn't to say that Pinterest should be completely excused for its more recent hiccups. In fact, lockdowns and other measures are driving usage higher, not lower, for the majority of social apps.

COMMERCE: A Wayfair Widow… Really?

Image: Canva

Speaking of third-quarter slowdowns... The e-commerce giant Wayfair this week reported a 19% sales drop in Q3. But that was tempered by a small gain in the number of active customers.

So they've been trying some new things out — The most recent being Wayfair On Air which we told you about earlier this week, an immersive video commerce experience that aims to showcase products.

The second being that Wayfair is inching its way toward a physical retail presence and laying the groundwork for more omnichannel expansion.

And the third… Wayfair is using a widow and a puppy in a sentimental new holiday ad. The 2021 Wayfair holiday ad is titled "The Host", and features an older man’s commitment to keeping the family tradition of Christmas alive after the loss of his wife.

Here is the clip:

*clears throat*

Wow. I don’t know if it's the ad that’s making me sad, or Wayfair’s desperate attempt to pull on your heartstrings as sales sink? Either way, someone is cutting onions.

CONSUMERS: Where Is Gen Z Shopping This Holiday Season?

If your holiday campaigns are hoping to target Gen Zs, you should probably accelerate your social media work. 87% of that group say they will use social media for inspiration this season.

This from a recent McKinsey survey — it also that found 58% of consumers overall say social media will directly affect their holiday shopping decisions.

And 60% to 70% of respondents are shopping across channels for most holiday-related categories.

So — What platform should marketers use?

• Facebook was rated the most influential platform with 67% saying it will influence their behaviour the most.
• 57% answered YouTube.
• 52% said Instagram.
• Looking at Gen Z specifically: YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are their most likely sources of inspiration.

Image: mckinsey.com

As for who the holiday 2021 shopper is and what they want from you:

Quoting the survey:

Shoppers are already embracing the omnichannel experience, and since they’re worried about stock running out, they are seizing opportunities to buy sooner rather than later. They’re also more willing than ever to switch brands or retailers, especially when items are unavailable...
Shoppers are anxious about empty shelves. Approximately 40 percent of respondents... say they expect to shop and spend earlier than they did in 2020 because they anticipate shortages, longer shipping times, and unexpected supply-chain challenges.
Finally, retailers will need to work harder to gain and retain loyalty. Among the 60 percent of consumers who have faced out-of-stock products in the last three months, only 13 percent say they waited for an item to come back in stock. About 70 percent switched retailers or brands instead.

FACEBOOK: New Features For Groups

Image: Facebook

With organic reach at an all-time low, some social media managers are turning to Facebook Groups to break through the clutter. If that's you, you might be interested to learn that Meta has announced new features for managing Facebook Groups, including new tools for admins, subscription-based paid subgroups, real-time chat for moderators, support for community fundraisers and more.

Here is a deeper look into the new tools Facebook Groups will offer.

Quoting the announcement:

• [You can now] Pin announcements and choose the order in which they show up in a new Featured section at the top of groups.
• Community Chats will allow admins to create a chat for the admin and moderator team.

This one is similar to functionality for Reddit moderators.

• [You'll be able to] Create community fundraisers to raise money for group projects.
• And create paid subgroups that members can subscribe to for a fee to gain exclusive access to more content, experiences like coaching or networking or deeper conversations.

Perhaps of most interest — the new Groups will let you even sell merchandise you've created, by setting up a shop in your group.

GOOGLE: Don't Disappear With Expanded Text Ads

Image: Canva

The expanded text ads (ETAs) that have been standard in Google search will soon be phased out.

ETAs and their predecessors, Standard Text ads, have been the default since Google Ads was launched, but this change represents a step in a completely new direction. As we've covered here before, search ads will now default to responsive ads.

If this is new to you, Search Engine Land has a great outline on their site today on how to prepare your accounts.

Quoting the piece:

• Ensure that every ad group has at least one responsive search ad.
• Be sure to use unique copy in every variation of headline and description. If not, Google might use repetitive combinations, which can negatively affect your performance.
• Make sure you do your best to get at least a ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent’ score on Responsive ads without being too repetitive. Use as many keywords in headlines as you can.

And don't worry about the machine learning do all the work — Google reminds us that:

For those worried about the loss of control in the switch from ETAs to RSAs, there’s still pinning. This allows advertisers the option to have a greater sense of control over the visibility of their headlines.

When ETAs are phased out, Google says they expect you'll get better ad performance — time will tell.

Credit to Tod Maffin and the Today In Digital Marketing podcast, Produced by engageQ.com