Why Is Amazon Suddenly So Thirsty About Email Marketing?

Rob Bettis -

Housekeeping: There will be no issue of Cache next week, as I will be making some margin in my life to enjoy a long weekend trip with the fam.  We will be back on the 16th with all the important news you may have missed.

We are getting a clearer picture of what a post-iOS 14.5 world will look like - including a leaked memo from Facebook:

Advertisers will lose the ability to target an advertisement with an estimated time frame to result in a conversion when it comes to iOS users. The memo says:

– 1-day click-through opt-out data will be modeled for advertisers.

– 7-day click-through and 1-day view-through attribution settings will no longer include iOS 14.5 opted-out events.

– 28-day click-through, 7-day view-through, 28-day view-through attribution tools will no longer be available to advertisers. // 9to5mac.com

In the days since Monday’s iOS update launch, FB data has been...erratic.

Like, fart-in-a-fan-factory erratic.

ROAS’s have been unexpectedly (super) high, which has caused advertisers to question Facebook’s new data modeling. Plus, other reporting bugs have left ad managers scratching their heads all week.

April 25, 2021

📰 The News You Missed

Shopify is still booming, despite the world returning to normal.

For months, investors have been speculating about when a global recovery from the pandemic would slam the brakes on online spending. But the latest estimate-defying results were fueled by accelerating revenue in every geography and at every type of merchant on Shopify’s platform, Chief Financial Officer Amy Shapiro told analysts on a conference call. U.S. stimulus checks, issued in March, added to the tailwind but the trend was already in place. // finance.yahoo.com

You have to wonder, what if the world doesn’t return to normal? What if the habits that were accelerated and reenforced during COVID are the new normal? What if grandma keeps getting her groceries online and curbside never dies?

Verizon has a terribly named FLoC competitor.

Verizon Media became the latest player to enter the space earlier this month with the launch of Next-Gen Solutions, a tool that helps advertisers and publishers target audiences without any online identifiers. Using artificial intelligence (AI) trained on first-party data from Verizon Media websites like Yahoo, Next-Gen Solutions infers audience characteristics based on context and real-time signals from devices. Similar to Google’s FLoCs, Verizon’s solution does not rely on cookies, mobile app IDs, or hashed email. What differentiates the product is that Verizon’s Next-Gen Solutions requires no user-level profiles, and it works across multiple Internet browsers. // streetfightmag.com

When you own the network, everything is first-party data.

Apple’s new privacy policies could shift the balance of power back to the telecoms.

Please hold while I buy stock in VPN companies...

Amazon is testing a tool that lets some brands contact shoppers

Last week, Amazon began piloting a tool that enables U.S. companies that are part of its Brand Registry program to email marketing materials to shoppers who have opted to “follow” their brands. These companies can then notify those shoppers when they launch a new product or promotion.

The follow button is featured in areas such as a businesses’ store page and videos on Amazon Live, Amazon’s livestream shopping platform.

The tool, called “Manage Your Customer Engagement,” is designed to drive repeat purchases for vendors and sellers and help them build a more robust following on Amazon’s sprawling marketplace. In a video describing the tool, Amazon urges companies to “build your brand with Amazon.” // cnbc.com

How many folks follow brands on Amazon? 🤣

This feels like anti-trust theater. Plus, it provides another opportunity for Amazon to charge these businesses for ads to grow your follows.

Stripe is acquiring TaxJar to add cloud-based, automated sales tax tools into its payments platform

Stripe will be integrating TaxJar technology into its revenue platform — where it will sit alongside Stripe Billing (its subscription tools) and Radar (its fraud prevention technology), and potentially build new services using AI and other technology to automate more functions — but businesses can continue to use TaxJar directly, too. // techcrunch.com

Quick Hits 🥊

  • It was earnings week for most of big tech. Spoiler - everyone is making gobs of money. But the “Why?” is interesting.
  • Alphabet increased revenue 34% YoY, in part based on Google Ad’s 32% growth during that time.
  • YouTube also helped, with ad revenue up 50% YoY

I still contend that Google is sitting in a very interesting spot if ATT truly kneecaps social advertising.

Just For Fun 🤪

ATTprompts.com

A collaborative effort to gather as many live App Tracking Transparency (ATT) prompt examples as possible. // attprompts.com

Clever idea. I just submitted a few screenshots myself.