📰 Meta Shops Best Practices For Ads & More

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LINKEDIN EXPANDS ITS ADS LIBRARY

LinkedIn has expanded its Ads Library with a brand new feature that will allow users to search from branded content partnerships across its network. This move comes as LinkedIn continues to put its focus on creators and content, which increased 41% YoY in 2022. With this new addition, LinkedIn hopes to continue unlocking opportunities for influencers on its platform. You can learn more about how you can see this new branded content library here.

META SHOPS IS THE COOL KID ON THE BLOCK

You’ve probably heard a lot about Meta Shops, but have yet to really hear much in terms of best practices when using it in your campaign structure. Well, hopefully, with this post by David Herrmann, that will change. In this thread, he breaks down a few of the best practices for Meta Shops in ads that he’s uncovered through his own testing. In addition to that, Dave Rekuc added his own thoughts, which were just as useful. Check out both of their posts below for more detail.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SPLIT TESTING

If I said that having your mouth closed instead of open in your YouTube thumbnail led to longer watch times, you’d think I was crazy, right? Well, as it turns out, humans are really weird (surprise). In a series of recent A/B split tests, Mr. Beast tested his mouth open versus closed in his thumbnails, and in every case, a closed mouth led to longer watch times. Why? I have no idea. It’s as weird as it sounds, but when it comes to consumer psychology, nothing shocks me anymore, and this perfectly outlines the importance of split-testing anything you can. Check out The Verge’s article below for more info on the tests:

YOUTUBE IS COMING FOR TIKTOK

It looks like YouTube’s attempt to unlock the magic of TikTok hasn’t ended with the addition of YouTube Shorts. Now, YouTube has introduced a new vertical livestream feature that looks quite familiar. These new live videos will be shown to users intermittently in their Shorts feed, similar to TikTok. It seems like someone at the YouTube headquarters is taking notes. Interestingly, YouTube did test the live stream format back in 2016 with poor results and shut them down soon after. Check out the article below to learn more.

INSTAGRAM CHANGES THAT AFFECT MARKETERS

If you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed that Instagram has been rolling out a ton of updates to the platform. Most of the updates have been small, but since there has been such a sheer volume of them, Social Media Examiner has gone ahead and published a quick round-up to keep everything neat and tidy. In this article, they cover a series of recent updates from Instagram, including adding music to carousels, audio clips in notes, notes in stories, and more. Check out their article here for the full breakdown.

• METAS NEW HOLIDAY ADS GUIDE: Is it that time of year already? Meta’s guide to ads this holiday season is here! Grab your pdf while you can.

• X CAUGHT RUNNING UNLABELED ADS: Oopsies!

• PATREON ADDS DISCORD-LIKE CHAT: Patreon continues to lean into community building with its brand new addition of a Discord-like chat feature to its platform.

• THE NEWS BAN ON META EXPANDS TO EUROPE: Remember that news ban in Canada? Well, it looks like this is rolling out to Europe soon, too. Sounds like bad news to me.

• TWEETS ARE CALLED POSTS NOW: But do you really want to be telling people you’ve made a new X post?

COCA-COLA — AI BEVERAGE

If legacy brands like Coca-Cola are jumping on the trend, it’s safe to say that the age of artificial intelligence is officially here. Using AI, Coca-Cola has created a limited edition brand release called Coca-Cola Y300, which leaned on AI tech to help develop the flavour.

If you want to try it for yourself, you can find it in a number of stores in the US, as well as select stores internationally. To learn more about this campaign, check out this article by Marketing Dive for more info.

RYANAIR — AUGUST 2023

I couldn’t find any info on this campaign aside from some images, but I really liked them, so I figured I’d share. If anyone has any info, please share! That said, this campaign seems to be focused on spinning any possible negative perceptions around flying by wrapping it in the reality of the perks you gain by giving up on some things. In these fun ads, they showcase the ‘negative’ in text and juxtapose it with the visual of people enjoying their vacation. Some of them are better than others, but overall, I think they’re pretty fun. How will they perform, though? I wouldn’t put money on this doing great in terms of direct return, but it sure does go a long way in continuing to push the Ryanair brand, which has long relied on this sort of ‘tone.’ Check out The Inspiration’s website here for more.

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Have a great week,
Cory