🔊 Amazon advertisers to spend more on ads this year | Twitter buys a company known for 'Stories'

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Plus, why customers should be at the center of product strategy.

Feb 20, 2020

Good morning marketers, we’ve got lots to cover – are you ready?

The vast majority of Amazon advertisers plan to spend more on ads again this year, according to Marketing Land’s (that’s us!) 2019 survey of digital advertisers released Wednesday. Of those planning to increase their Amazon ad budgets, 41% said they plan to spend as much as 25% more than the previous 6 to 12 months; 22% plan increases of 25% to 50%; and 10% expect Amazon budgets to increase by 50% or more. The survey represents 155 marketers who said they’re currently running Amazon ad campaigns. Other highlights include ad budget distribution, rankings of Amazon ad products, key challenges, other marketplaces, and more.

Marketers are investing more of their budgets on data management platforms than operational tech solutions, according to Merkle’s Q1 2020 Customer Engagement report released Tuesday. The survey, which polled 400 U.S. and UK based marketers, found that 29% said they spend more on management tech than operational tech, with another 29% reporting they invest only in management technology solutions versus spending on both.

Is Twitter getting a ‘Stories’ function? It looks that way. Twitter has acquired Chroma Labs, the company behind the Chroma Stories app (a short-form content creation tool with Stories templates and filters for various social sites). Twitter confirmed the Chroma Labs team will join Twitter’s product, design, and engineering teams. “Their expertise in creative tools that help people connect and share completely align with our work to serve the public conversation,” said Twitter VP of Design and Research Dantly Davis in a Tweet.

Yesterday at SMX West, we unveiled our latest creation: The Periodic Table of Digital Commerce Marketing. In the same way our other periodic tables make sense of SEO, paid search and email deliverability and optimization, this practical resource pulls together and organizes everything you ever wanted to know about digital commerce marketing – from omnichannel capabilities for retailers to optimization considerations for online marketplaces. Ready to see it? Download it here.

Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor

Pro Tip

It’s time to put customers at the center of your product strategy

“Design thinking is a methodology for creating products, services and experiences where you put your target customer at the center of your development process,” explains Jeremy Korst of GBH Insights. “To be successful, it’s vital that marketing play a strategic role in shaping the product strategy. Together with the design and engineering team, marketers should constantly be seeking to better understand target customers and put their needs at the center of the product development process. Making this leap isn’t easy. But, for marketers who have long yearned to have a more strategic role in product strategy, this new way of thinking provides a fertile opportunity to play a bigger role in the up-stream process.”

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Social Shorts

Parents get more control on TikTok, LinkedIn rolls out a new feature that lets you show off (more) achievements

TikTok introduces new parental controls. The short-form video-sharing app yesterday announced a new set of safety controls to let parents set limits on their children’s use of the TikTok mobile app. Dubbed “Family Safety Mode,” the new features include screen-time management controls, limits on direct messages, and a restricted mode that limits inappropriate content. According to TikTok, parents who want to enable Family Safety Mode must first create their own account on the app, which is then linked to the teen’s account. While these features were already available in the app for users to set for themselves, the Family Safety Mode gives parents the ability to toggle controls on or off while preventing the settings from being changed without parents’ involvement.

LinkedIn launches a handy profile feature. LinkedIn is rolling out a new profile element that lets users showcase key achievements and updates in a separate ‘Featured’ section at the top of their LinkedIn profile. According to LinkedIn, “The Featured section allows you to showcase samples of your work to people who view your LinkedIn profile. This is a great way to provide evidence of your skills and experience.” It’s a significant addition to LinkedIn, giving professionals more ways to show off skills, competencies, achievements, services and more.

Search marketing training this week in San Jose

Join us this week at SMX West, February 19-20, for actionable SEO, SEM/PPC, and Digital Commerce Marketing tactics (three lanes, no limits!) and invaluable networking with a community of smart, friendly marketers.

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