WhatsApp announced the launch of a new disappearing messages option last week. It’s been in testing for some time. Snapchat, of course, pioneered ephemeral messaging. When enabled, messages will disappear after seven days. In one-on-one chats, either user can enable the option. Admins have control in group chats. “We’re starting with seven days because we think it offers peace of mind that conversations aren’t permanent, while remaining practical so you don’t forget what you were chatting about,” the company said in the announcement.

Why we care. The feature is aimed at giving users a feeling of chatting “as close to in-person as possible” when using the messaging platform. WhatsApp has also been building out its customer service and shopping features for businesses, integrating more deeply with Facebook. More than 175 million people every day message a WhatsApp Business account, the company said last month.  

From emails to digital experiences, online events to in-person tradeshows, your buyers expect you to meet them where they are with timely, relevant, and personalized content that respects their privacy. Join our expert panel to explore how an omni-channel approach enables marketers to break down silos, connect data, tech and processes, and create the transformational experiences B2B buyers are expecting.

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Direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketing has taken a whole new turn in 2020 as brands seek to raise their digital game and grab the attention of consumers overwhelmed by marketing content. However, some believe that the implementation of a CDP can provide efficient ways to improve your D2C approach.

The promise of a CDP is a deep look into the customer journey, identifying audiences across channels and constantly evaluating their behavior. That’s the advice Nicole Rothman, Director of Acquisition Marketing at National Debt Relief, gave at MarTech, after a successful implementation of Treasure Data, an enterprise CDP.

“Some people may think that a CDP can be very redundant to their CRM,” said Rothman. “But anyone who has a CDP, or has access to one, knows that the magic that actually goes into discovery of an audience from their first party data, then you have the ability to activate that specific audience to certain platforms and watch it go from there. And that is truly just scratching the surface.”

Rothman continued: “Before [implementing] a CDP we weren’t really utilizing our own visibility into the customer journey,” said Rothman, “which gave us a lot of issues with delivering a fluid brand experience.”

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Hey marketers, it’s time to start planning your New Year’s ad campaigns. Especially if you’re in an industry like fitness, wellness, sports or subscription services — essentially anything that ties into the “New Year, New You” mindset. Traditionally 12% of gym-goers sign up in January, but with this year’s brick-and-mortar health restrictions in place, chances are that energy (and spend) will be going toward other self-improvement sources. And you’ll want to be ready to capture your piece. 

Obviously, you’re going to launch paid search and social. Those two are reliable performance channels that will generate a solid return on investment. But there’s a third reliable performance channel you may be missing out on: Connected TV. Let’s take a look at how effective CTV can be for advertisers and why it’s an essential channel to tap into for your New Year campaigns. 

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Forward-thinking keynotes from Areej AbuAli and Mike King, 45+ tactic-rich SEO and SEM sessions, 1:1 community networking, and more. Book your SMX pass by November 14 for just $199!

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What often happens is that there ends up being one or two people in the office who are comfortable with writing and editing code and then these people produce scripts and notebooks that everyone else runs.

However, there is a simple way to streamline this workflow to remove the steps where people need to run a script and format the output. Instead they can run the automation directly from within Google Sheets.

There are two parts:

• A Google Cloud Run application that will do the complicated stuff (in this case run a Lighthouse test) and that will respond to HTTP requests.
• An Appscript custom function that will make requests to the API you created in step 1 and return the results into the Google Sheet.