Prepare Yourself for Changes to Facebook’s Post Sizes
It’s time to scale down your ads on Facebook.
Starting on August 19th of this year, Facebook will implement substantial changes to the image sizes for photo and video posts displayed in the mobile news feed. The maximum media height is changing from an aspect ratio of 2:3 to 4:5.
While this might not sound like a huge deal, the change significantly reduces the amount of primary text shown. Soon, only 3 lines of text instead of 7 will be displayed in news feed posts. This means that if your ad has more than 3 lines of text, potential customers will have to click on the ‘view additional text’ option to read the full ad. So the pressure is on for marketers to create straightforward advertisements that will capture potential customers with fewer words.
By reducing the size of news feed posts, Facebook aims to improve the effectiveness of ads, making them adaptable across mobile platforms. Regardless, smaller ads tend to gave a greater impact.
Read more about Facebook’s image size changes and how they might impact your marketing with Search Engine Journal’s article here.
Statistics Prove the Importance of Social Media for Businesses
Knowing where and how consumers spend their time is integral to the growth of any company.
11 hours and 27 minutes – that’s how long the average adult spends per day using digital media according to recent studies.
Additionally, a shift in digital media usage has been noted recently. Though TV occupied the position as the most dominant outlet of digital media usage, social media has been gaining ground in recent years. Now, the average US adult spends about 2 hours and 23 minutes every day using social media.
Still thinking about whether or not you should make that Instagram account for your business? Well, your choice should be pretty clear now. Without a strong social media presence, your ecommerce business will drown in a sea of companies just like yours. With social media, you can increase brand awareness, talk easily with your customers, and ensure that your online business stands rankings above the rest.
Sure, managing social media accounts isn’t always ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ – it’s hard work. The results might be gradual, but they’re worth the effort, especially considering all the growth social media has seen in such a short period of time.
Hop on the social media bandwagon and discover more interesting statistics on digital media usage with this article on Business 2 Community.
Manage Your Deliveries with eBay’s New "Managed Delivery"
Shipping costs and delivery times are huge factors in whether or not a customer decides to buy from your ecommerce store.
In 2020, eBay will launch their very own Managed Delivery option to streamline the storing, packing, and shipping processes. This development was announced at their recent eBay Open Conference event held in Las Vegas.
According to the announcement, Managed Delivery will provide eBay sellers the option to store, pack, and ship their products through third party logistics partners. Sellers will even have the opportunity to offer their customers free shipping paired with faster delivery times, too. If you decide to take part in eBay’s Managed Delivery service, your product pages will be equipped with labels to designate that they come with fast and free shipping.
Instead of warehousing products on their own, eBay will partner with third party companies in the US from which they will ship your products. Additionally, your business will be able to use Managed Delivery across other marketplaces and even your own website.
Though this option is yet to be rolled out to all businesses, various beta programs prove its success. Take the company Select Tech: they saw a 35% increase in sales while using the beta program for Managed Delivery. Imagine a similar sales boost for your own company.
Read more about eBay’s upcoming Managed Delivery option with Digital Commerce 360’s article here.
Desktop vs. Mobile – Who Will Win?
It’s the face-off we’ve all been waiting for – desktop vs. mobile.
It looks like we might have an answer to this question that plagues marketers and businesses alike. According to a recent report by Episerver, desktop is the dominant device for orders in ecommerce. Though this is true, smartphones still comprise the most web traffic. It seems that customers are browsing your business on their phones, but actually making purchases on computers or laptops.
The study goes on to conclude that there is a 24% higher average total item count on desktop compared to that on a smartphone. It’s helpful to keep this in mind when developing your desktop and mobile marketing strategies. The study also found that 50% of online browsing takes place from mobile phones compared to only 41% from desktops.
In addition to this, Episerver concludes that most consumers visit your ecommerce store directly having discovered it earlier somewhere else. Optimizing your marketing strategy to accommodate these findings might be a good idea to get the most out of your advertising spend and increase conversions as you go.
Desktops and smartphones play different but equally significant roles in attracting consumers to your site and in creating actual sales, so you're best off using both mediums. Follow up on Episerver’s study here with this article from Digital Commerce 360.
You Get a Masthead Ad & You Get a Masthead Ad
You know those big ads on YouTube that greet you as soon as you visit the site’s landing page? Well, Google just announced that your business will have the option to actually (affordably) buy your very own spot on those masthead ads.
Previously, advertisers had to purchase these masthead ads for an entire day. As a result, very few companies could actually afford this possibly unprofitable advertising opportunity.
Now, Google is allowing all advertisers the opportunity to buy a masthead ad on a cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) basis with advanced audience solutions to display the ad to people who might actually want to buy what your selling. Just imagine your very own company video headlining on YouTube – this doesn’t have to be a distant dream. Before you even decide whether or not you want to invest in one of these masthead ads, Google now allows you to preview your ads in this and other formats.
At least you can now see your video ads in action, or your business's name in lights (as one of these masthead ads) – whether for preview purposes, or simply for inspiration. Find out more about this advertising opportunity with Search Engine Journal’s article and maybe even try out the masthead ad tool.
