📰 Meta Is Messing With Your Ads

✔ Meta Is Making A Mess

✔ Earnings Reports Are Here

✔ TikTok Goes Lead Gen

& More. Let’s get into it 👇

SIDE NOTE 1: GO CHECK YOUR ACCOUNTS. A lot of strange behaviour has been happening on Meta Ads Manager recently, and with BFCM just around the corner, it’s critical to keep an extra close eye on your accounts. If anything else pops up, I will include it in the newsletter. In the meantime, check your accounts!

META PLAYS WITH ATTRIBUTION WINDOWS

Many people are reporting that their Meta ad accounts have begun to automatically change the default attribution window on ad sets to 7-day click & 1-day view. At first, this seemed like a glitch because why would it automatically change these settings? However, it now appears this was intentional and part of a bigger rollout. Rumours have it that Meta had been planning to make this change for some time, but why they didn’t let advertisers know about this, I’ll never know. This seems like a pretty big deal considering the way that you attribute performance is critical to profitability and different for every business depending on their unique needs. That said, it’s probably a great time to check your accounts and ensure you’re set up to use your preferred attribution window.

EARNING REPORTS ARE OUT

All of the big tech companies have released their earnings report for the past quarter, and we’ve got the roundup. The key takeaway? Everyone had a fantastic Q3. Here’s what you need to know:

META (source)

• Revenue up 23% YoY to $34B 🔥

• Operating margin up 100% YoY 🤯 to 40% from 20%

• Net income up 168% YoY 🤯 to $11.5B from $4.4B

GOOGLE (source)

• Revenue up 11% YoY to $77B 🔥

• 9.5% increase in ad revenue YoY

• 25% increase in profit YoY

MICROSOFT (source)

• Revenue up 13% YoY to $56.5B 🔥

• Net income of $22.3B, up 27% YoY

• LinkedIn revenue up 8% YoY

• LinkedIn hits record number of users with 985M users, though this appears to be disputed by some as LinkedIn released different numbers fairly recently

AMAZON (source)

• Ad revenue grew 26% YoY to $12B 🔥

• Total net sales up 13% YoY to $143B

• TTM operating cash flow increased 81% YoY 👀 to $71.7B

SNAP (source)

• Revenue up 5% YoY and 11% QoQ 🔥

• Net loss of $368M, compared to $360M last year

• Adjust EBITDA of $40M, compared to $73M last year

TIKTOK X HUBSPOT

HubSpot and TikTok have partnered to provide real-time lead synchronization between the social media platform and HubSpot’s Smart CRM. This is the first CRM lead generation collaboration for TikTok. Using a no-code approach, advertisers can now create ads on TikTok and sync leads directly to HubSpot. Although this integration is currently available only in the U.S. and Canada, it will expand to other countries soon. To learn more, check out the full breakdown on Martech below:

PERFORMANCE MAX GETS SEARCH THEMES

As part of a recent update, Google has rolled out ‘search themes’ to Performance Max, which effectively allows you to provide more context around how your customers behave to improve conversions. Some details as explained by Google: “You can add 25 unique search themes per asset group (e.g., “car” and “automobile” would be the same audience). Search themes will respect brand exclusions in Performance Max and account-level negative keywords. Results driven from search themes will bring your customers to the landing pages you’ve indicated via your Final URL expansion, page feeds, and URL contains settings. Search themes will have the same prioritization as your phrase match and broad match keywords in your Search campaigns. You’ll be able to see the search categories your ads matched to in your search terms insights at both the campaign and account levels and associated conversion performance. You can now view search term insights for custom date ranges, download your data, and access it via the API.” To learn more, check out Google’s documentation here.

• INSTAGRAM ADDS FRIEND COLLAB POSTS: As part of a new test, Instagram has added the ability to ask friends to submit photos to your carousels, which you can approve and add to the rotation. 😁

• X’S NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE PAY TO WIN: X’s new subscription tiers are here, and they include suspicious perks such as ‘reply boosts,’ which allow you to be seen by more people. That’s, uh, not great. 😖

• TIKTOK’S DAU IN THE EU: As part of a new disclosure requirement in the EU, tech companies such as TikTok must report their active users by region. TikTok’s report just dropped, and it’s packed full of information 📊

• INSTAGRAM’S REMINDER ADS ARE HERE: Reminder ads, which allow users to opt in to a notification reminder, have officially rolled out to story placements 😀

SKIMS — NIPPLE BRA

Agency: Unknown

This ad campaign has been the talk of Twitter, so you may have already seen it, but I had to share it anyway because it’s definitely worth seeing. In this new campaign, Kim Kardashian uses sensationalized messaging to showcase her brand’s focus on climate initiatives. Releasing a bra with a built-in nipple that makes it appear as though your nipples are always hard, the brand hopes to communicate its stance on global warming. I feel like this is just the right balance of zany and sensical that makes a good ad. It gets people talking, but not only in a negative way. Whether this is the product for you or not, they’ve done something right here, as this campaign went relatively viral as soon as it was released.

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Have a great week,
Cory