Good morning marketers, will you feel better about Facebook advertising when this is all over?
Facebook is seeing an unprecedented surge in usage across countries hit by the coronavirus, but ad revenue on the platform isn’t reflecting the same trend. In a blog post last week, Facebook said it isn’t monetizing “many of the services” related to the increase in engagement and has “seen a weakening in [its] ads business” in the countries heavily impacted by the pandemic. Much like the global maelstrom of regulatory and privacy concerns (see: GDPR, CCPA), ad spending is on pause. Facebook could take it as an opportunity to rewrite its narrative, turning record engagement into ad revenue opportunities in the future.
How Facebook handles itself from now until the end of the crisis – employing a mix of genuine empathy, targeted support and shrewd PR – could shift its brand story. And when it’s all over, we’re likely to see record ad revenue driven by pent-up advertiser demand. That assumes, of course, that the shelter-in-place audience continues with its renewed Facebook habit.
In other news, as Amazon sellers react to changes brought on by coronavirus, disruptions in logistics and channel strategies are shining a light on the broader vulnerabilities of the e-commerce ecosystem. Amazon’s decision to stop accepting inventory shipments for non-essential items to its warehouses for four weeks has left sellers scrambling. Meanwhile, supply chain disruptions have rendered existing processes anything but reliable. It’s causing Amazon sellers – and e-comm retailers as a whole – to rethink their delivery logistics, resources, and manufacturing processes as production slows or temporarily shuts down altogether.
Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor
