📰 The EU Bans Targeted Ads On Meta?

✔ New Email Marketing Requirements

✔ Meta Faces An EU Ad Targeting Ban

✔ New IG Creator Tools & Perks

NEW EMAIL MARKETING SENDER REQUIREMENTS

Both Google and Yahoo have recently announced a series of new requirements for email senders, especially bulk senders, to improve deliverability and reduce spam for users. These new requirements will be strictly enforced starting at the beginning of Q1 2024. So, what do you need to know? Don’t worry, we’ve got you:

• Set up DMARC authentication for your sending domain

  • This is something you can easily get started on right away by simply updating your domain’s DNS records.

• Align your ‘From:’ header with your domain

  • This speaks for itself, but you want to make sure that the email address you have listed as the sender matches the domain it was sent from to be compliant with DMARC.

• Make unsubscribing easier

  • Your email must include a one-click unsubscribe button somewhere in your email, as well as a link to unsubscribe in your message’s body, though this one doesn’t need to be one-click.

The first two are pretty straightforward. However, I’m unsure how I feel about the last requirement. It’s great to give subscribers a clear path to unsubscribe if they don’t want to receive the email anymore, but I’m somewhat unclear on what constitutes a ‘link in the message body’. Either way, to learn more, check out Klaviyo’s in-depth breakdown on this topic below 👇

CRAFTING YOUR PERFECT HOOK

If you signed up for this newsletter for the creative guide, you might already know how important hooks are. If not, take my word for it: a great hook can make or break an otherwise great ad. In this post, Marin breaks down his process for generating high-performing hooks for his ads, and it’s a masterclass. Broken down by traffic warmth, funnel stage, and types, this post should give you all the inspiration you need to craft impactful hooks for your ads. Check out Marin’s post on X below:

META FACES EU ADVERTISING BAN

The European Data Protection Board has ordered the ban of Meta from processing personal data for behavioural advertising across the European Economic Area within two weeks. To counteract this, Meta has proposed relying on consent as the legal basis for behavioural advertising. While the Irish DPC is currently evaluating this proposal, it seems they are leaning towards this not being enough effort. Of course, an outright ban on targeting for Meta in the EEA wouldn’t just be a massive blow to Meta but businesses at large, so hopefully, we can come to some reasonable consensus on this. For more information, check out Reuter’s article below.

ORGANIC SPLIT TESTING COMES TO INSTAGRAM

As part of a recent update to provide creators with an even greater suite of tools, Meta announced that they have added the option to split test organically posted Reels. This is pretty amazing, as typically split testing tools are reserved for paid efforts. With the new tool, creators can now split test up to four variations of both the thumbnails and caption for the post, and after 30 minutes of delivery, the system will automatically use the winning combination as default. To learn more about this update, check out this article for the full breakdown.

Additionally, and possibly even more interestingly, in that same update, they also announced that you can now earn increased post-visibility in feeds by completing achievements in the professional dashboard. I'm not sure how this is going to roll out, but I hope that they make this addition obvious to all creators. Otherwise, this could quickly become a losing game for less tech-savvy creators. That said, complete a few achievements and gain a boost in feeds? Count me in.

• X NOW WORTH HALF WHAT MUSK PAID: The Verge discovered internal documents that show the company is now worth only $19B, 55% less than Musk paid for it 📉

• YOUTUBE PREMIUM GETS MORE EXPENSIVE: YouTube recently announced it’s rolling out a price increase in select countries. Will this roll out to all countries soon? Time will tell 💸

• HUBSPOT ACQUIRES CLEARBIT: In an apparent effort to improve its data analytics suite, HubSpot has confirmed its purchase of Clearbit 💻

• TIKTOK x SALESFORCE INTEGRATION: Following their recent integration update with HubSpot, TikTok has also announced their integration with SalesForce Marketing Cloud ☁

• X’S LLM: X has announced their brand new AI language model named Grok, apparently named after Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. I can’t say I love that name, but what else should I expect at this point 😅

WALMART — MEAN (GIRLS) BLACK FRIDAY DEALS

Agency: Publicis Groupe

Walmart has released a Black Friday holiday spot featuring recreated scenes and cast from the movie Mean Girls, with a special feature from Missy Elliott. Not only does this ad hit all the nostalgic notes required to make this campaign effective, but they nailed it down to all of the little details - the cast, the extras, the props and scene design, everything. Personally, I feel like this ad is a bit too long and possibly overstays its welcome, but at this point, I’m just nitpicking because it’s so good. I didn’t plan on shopping at Walmart for my BFCM deals, but maybe I will now. How about you?

DORITOS — CRUNCH CANCELLATION SOFTWARE

As part of a new campaign aimed at gamers, Doritos launched a super creative campaign alongside some legitimately impressive software. In this campaign, Doritos recognizes the ‘crunch’ of their chip as being almost supersonic and something that needs addressing when on a mic. This is framed as a negative in the commercial but still comes across as a product benefit, which is a delicate balance but is nicely executed. To wrap this whole thing in a bow, they developed nVIDIA Broadcast-esque algorithmic noise cancelling software to detect the sound of a chip crunching and remove it from your audio input so that you can crunch Doritos and game on an active mic all night long. This campaign is the perfect balance of cheeky, fun, targeted to a specific audience, intricate, simple, and product-focused. Overall, I love this campaign, though I don’t personally plan on using this software any time soon. To learn more about the campaign and software, check out their dedicated landing page here.

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Have a great week,
Cory