This Week in Digital Marketing - March 18, 2022

We have a few announcements to share from the world of digital marketing! Whether you focus on e-commerce, paid advertising, or email marketing, you’re going to want to check this out.

What Your Need to Know About Mobile Game Advertising
In 2021, consumer spending on mobile games was $116 billion, up $16 billion from the previous year.

Last year, Apple and Google decided to make identifier for advertisers (IDFA) an opt-in option for users, which completely transformed the marketing landscape. IDFA, which was enabled by default, made measuring and targeting mobile gaming ads more simple. As a result, more traditional forms of advertising, such as banners, films, and pop-ups, have seen a comeback. It's also seen an increase in playable advertisements, which are interactive commercials that allow users to try out an app or game's basic functionality for free.

Why we care: Consumers love their phones and want to be distracted, especially these days. Marketing to people via mobile games is already huge and going to get even bigger.

Twitter Tests E-Commerce Waters with New Feature for In-App Purchases
Twitter's new feature would put the company against social e-commerce giants like TikTok and Instagram. The experimental tool, known as Twitter Shops, allows marketers to curate up to 50 items to offer in their shop, which Twitter users may then purchase via an in-app browser from the merchant's website.

After a brand or business enables a Twitter Shop, a new “View shop” button will appear on its profile page, directly above its tweets.

For the time being, only iPhone users will be able to see and interact with the businesses. This is similar to how the Twitter Shop Module was introduced last year. That feature was more limited, allowing firms to display up to five products on their profile, similar to how the Twitter Shops "View shop" button worked.

Google to Sunset Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, in Favor of Google Analytics 4
Universal Analytics will be phased out by Google next year, the company stated on Wednesday. On July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics properties will stop processing new hits, while Universal Analytics 360 properties will stop processing hits on October 1, 2023.

After the deprecation dates listed above, previously processed data in Universal Analytics will be kept for at least six months.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is different from its predecessor in that it works across platforms, doesn't require cookies, and measures data using an event-based data model. It also does not keep IP addresses, which can assist brands in complying with privacy laws.

Study Finds iOS 15 is Inflating Email Open Rates
According to a new report from Campaign Monitor, Apple's new Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) is having a substantial influence on email marketing, with average open rates up 3.5 percent year-over-year in 2021, but click-to-open rates were down 3.6 percent.

MPP is an opt-in feature that prevents email senders from seeing information about how users engage with emails. It was released as part of Apple's iOS 15 last year. This is accomplished by pre-fetching/downloading an email and its attachments (including tracking pixels). This labels the email as opened, boosting the open rate for each person who has opted in to the new functionality artificially.

Cable TV Subscriptions Set to Drop Below 50% of All US Households
According to a new study, fewer than half of all U.S. households would have a cable TV subscription by 2023. According to Insider Intelligence, the overall number of pay TV homes would shrink to 65.1 million by 2022, a 4.8 percent decrease. This equates to 49.5 percent of all homes in the United States.

This continues the cord-cutting trend that has wreaked havoc on cable. Pay television has lost more than 50 million adult viewers between 2016 and 2021. (or 25.5 million households). The most alarming news for cable companies is that the greatest reduction occurred in 2020, when more people than ever were stranded at home, resulting in a 7.7% drop.

Some of this information is relevant to your business, and some of it might not be. This is where we can help. We’re able to break down these updates and figure out which ones are most important for you and your business. Contact us for a consultation!