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What’s cheaper than Google Ads, Meta’s getting serious about influencer marketing, and more. June 22, 2022 [Read in browser]( [logo] [sponsor]( Good morning. Ever come across incredible content and find yourself scrolling, scrolling, scrolling… only to see that incredible content fade behind a paywall? Makes us want to throw our coffee mugs out the window. Good news is, there’s a way to unlock exclusive content—and coffee mugs—for free if you’re interested. Details below in our “Sharing Is Caring” section. META Is influencer marketing about to get even easier? [article-image] If you build it, creators will come… right? That’s what Mark Zuckerberg seems to think. Because Meta is bringing more options to marketers and the creators they work with… What’s going on: [Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta]( is going to make it easier for “creators to make money.” By that he means: - New free tools that can help creators make money. New tools include subscriber-only Facebook Groups for paying subscribers, monetized Reels and livestreams, and more. - More creators are getting access to existing tools like Reels and Facebook Stars. - Creator marketplace. Instagram is testing a space where creators can get discovered by brands and get paid for their content. Sounds a bit like TikTok’s Creator Marketplace, doesn’t it? - NFTs. Yep, you read that right. Instagram is expanding its NFT test to more creators around the world. That’s nice: On top of that, Facebook plans to keep revenue sharing in its pockets until 2024, so creators will get more money. Maybe we’ll see first-party data from Meta on how a profile performs in terms of engagement, reach, and so on. Why we care: User-generated content (UGC) and influencer campaigns are some of the most effective campaigns out there right now. Meta’s updates give you more options for finding creators who can help your brand reach customers, which is helpful. And speaking of helpful updates… AMAZON You can stream marketing stats with Amazon’s new API As we’ve mentioned before, Amazon is becoming a bigger player in the advertising space. So it’s natural they would bring some very welcome upgrades to their toolset. What’s new: The latest upgrade is Amazon Marketing Stream, [which launched in beta yesterday](. What does it do? It’s a real-time, constant stream sent through Amazon Ads API. What changed? Before this update, API users would have to manually pull data, compare, and crunch the numbers. Amazon Marketing Stream now makes things way easier where marketers don’t have to manage API throttling, and they don’t have to compare new info with old one. Who gets to use it? Right now it’s only available in the US, Canada, and Mexico. So if you are an agency, a tool provider, or a direct advertiser in that region, you can request access. SPONSORED BY AIR Marketing teams are getting rid of Google Drive and Dropbox while saving 520 hours a year [article-image]( How much time do you spend searching for creative assets, uploading, and organizing them, approving them, giving team members access, and so on? What if you could get most of that time back? No more time wasting with managing creative assets! [Air is the solution.]( Brands are ditching Google Drive and Dropbox, and managing all their creative assets with Air which saves them up to 10 hours a week! It feels like a magic productivity potion for your marketing team. Air lets you [find, manage, and distribute videos and images faster!]( Here’s how: - Intuitive search: Air scans your visual assets and tags them with content keywords, so you never need to remember locations or filenames. - Visual browsing: No need to click into folders. Everything is clean and visible; a powerful filter builder gives you full clarity. - Secure sharing: Share links to single assets or entire boards, internally or externally. Set passwords or expiration dates for peace of mind. [Save up to 520 hours of work with Air.]( CONTENT MARKETING Takeaways from 25 years of sending newsletters [article-image] Does reading the Stacked Marketer newsletter inspire you to start your own? [Ann Handley recently shared the lessons]( she’s learned from sending newsletters for the past 25 years. Her insights may help you launch a successful newsletter yourself. So let’s get to the good stuff… – Waiting for inspiration to write does not work. Because that will turn into an excuse to not publish anything. Brainstorm content ideas and create an editorial plan. Set up a schedule you can manage, and stick to it. – A newsletter is a relationship-building channel. Not a distribution channel. – The one thing that nobody else can copy from you is the tone of voice of your newsletter. Develop one. And keep improving and reiterating until you don’t find one that you feel is yours. The Crew’s tip: Create guidelines and processes to make sure you stick to your tone of voice. We are not robots afterall, and some days, we might be tempted to shift away from it. Guidelines help you stay on track, especially when you have a team of writers. – The “from” name is more important than the subject line. That’s because you create a relationship with your readers over time. Eventually they’ll open your email just because it’s from you. – Your newsletter needs a “master of ceremonies,” or an MC. Well… The Crew slightly disagrees here. There are tons of examples of successful newsletters sent by companies that don’t use an MC. The Hustle, Morning Brew, The Newsette… the list goes on. An MC might make growth easier, especially in the early days. In general, people trust other people more than brands. Buuut… it’s not essential. So there you go: Lessons you can apply to your own newsletter. Good luck! SPONSORED BY CAMPAIGN MONITOR How to market to the generation that is taking over purchase decisions [article-image]( We all know that selling to Gen Z is not an easy game. While previous research has highlighted the differences between Gen Z and other generations, a lot of it falls short in explaining what those differences mean for your business. [In this guide](, Campaign Monitor reveals the real motivations, behaviours, and preferences of Gen Z—and what they mean for your marketing. [Download the free guide to Gen Z now.]( THE CREW'S INSIGHTS Microsoft Ads are finally available for almost everyone [article-image] As part of our [Deep Dive on growth hacks]( last month, we took a look at some under-the-radar advertising platforms. One of those platforms is Microsoft Advertising. In the past, many people outside of the US weren’t able to use the platform for advertising. It just wasn’t available in many countries. But things have changed… [In February](, Microsoft announced that its ad platform was coming to 29 more countries. And in May, Microsoft added another 32. Don’t underestimate Microsoft Ads. Microsoft and its properties now reach more than 1B people worldwide. Sleep on this channel, and you could be sleeping on customers. It’s also cheaper than Google Ads. Advertising on Bing is, on average, [30% cheaper than on Google](. For some niches, we’ve found it to be nearly 5X cheaper. The Crew’s insight: Big advertising networks, like Microsoft, are consistently expanding to new countries. So be an early adopter and enjoy those low costs per click (CPCs). And by the way… if you want to discover more growth hacks your competitors are probably ignoring, our recent Deep Dive will show you tons of them. [Read the free preview here.]( ROUNDING UP THE STACK [COPYWRITING:]( Blank pages. Character limits. Structure. Emotion. Edits. Making time to write killer copy is hard enough without the devilish details. So if you’re crushed for time or talent, don’t sweat it. [Add a professional to your team… like Joe.]( * [GOOGLE:]( Do your pages have different product variants? If so, then those pages won’t be eligible to show rich results in Google Search, thanks to Google’s latest update. You’ll need a distinct URL for each variant to support rich results. [TIKTOK:]( Out of 800,000 small business owners surveyed, 58% of them declared that TikTok helped them grow their revenue. So if you run a small business, better get TikTok’in. [E-COMMERCE:]( According to a Snapchat report, two-thirds of consumers are less likely to return a product after trying it out with an augmented reality feature. This might be the solution to high return rates we’ve been waiting for… [ADVERTISING:]( Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn CEO, says creative skills suffered a 17% decline in the advertising industry. Is that why costs per mille (CPMs) are up? Not enough creativity in our ads? [WORDPRESS:]( Everyone’s favorite content management system (CMS) is encouraging theme authors to switch to locally-hosted theme fonts. Why? Because solutions like Google-hosted fonts expose visitors’ IP addresses, and that violates the GDPR. Oops. [GOOGLE:]( Bugs, flagged. Google said they’re aware of the bug affecting the Performance Max Product Listing tab. Here’s hoping they fix it soon. *This is a sponsored post. BRAIN TEASER A man in a car saw a Golden Door, Silver Door and a Bronze Door. What door did he open first? You can find the [answer here](. [poolside-logo] POOLSIDE CHAT Laptop dominos [article-image] Imagine working at a laptop recycling company. Doesn’t sound like a fun place to work, does it? Actually… you’d be wrong. Because the employees at Technology Recyclers [set up 2,910 laptops like dominos and toppled them](, breaking a Guinness World Record in the process. Apparently, the employees wanted to raise awareness of the amount of waste we produce with every new laptop. We consider ourselves aware on two levels: Aware of the waste… and aware of the fun of toppling hundreds of laptops, too. So… mission accomplished? SHARING IS CARING Share our newsletter, get exclusive content for free. Every time you share our newsletter with other marketers, and they subscribe, you unlock points towards exclusive content, like: - The Crew’s Top 10 Insights (2 referrals) - Total access to the growing library of The Crew’s Insights (4 referrals) … And more. Hit the link to get started! [article-image]( [CLICK TO SHARE]( Or copy your referral link: [ [SUBSCRIBE]( | [INSIGHTS]( | [ADVERTISE]( You are receiving this email because you want to know what is going on in digital marketing. If you aren't thrilled about our emails, reply and let us know why. Or you can unsubscribe from all daily updates by clicking [here.]( Our postal address: Spectrum IT Solutions GmbH, Canettistrasse 1/Top 0107, 1100 Wien, Austria