Social Signals, #200

Read to the end for a cursed Thomas the Train 3D printing fail by yours truly

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You are reading Social Signals, Greg’s weekly email about creative, digital, social, and cultural signals worth noting (and sometimes a dumb viral video worth sharing with your friends). Today’s email was written to EELS “Good Night on Earth” on repeat. Follow @gregswan on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you haven’t already, subscribe below:

Big launch week!!! The team at SpaceX successfully landed a capsule of space tourists without an astronaut onboard. The team at Arby’s launched Arby’s for RBs, inventing a new approach for college athlete sponsorships at scale. The team at Blue Kazoo launched the long-awaited Mars jigsaw puzzle. And I successfully reprogrammed my Alexa-powered Billy Bass so I can ask it how many days until Christmas every morning.

You may have noticed I put a #200 in the title of this week’s email. It’s been roughly 202 weeks since I started sending out weekly missives, and I took two weeks off in that time, so I think it’s number 200 or pretty damn close. So it’s 200. Yay. Here’s to the next 200. Thanks for coming along.

Lots going on, so let’s get into the social signals worth noting this week…

How Apple’s “Do Not Track” Affects Facebook

Apple’s App Tracking Transparency update is why we all get those notifications asking if you want to allow your apps to track your data and share it with other companies for purposes of tracking across apps and websites. After the update, initial reports found that only 11-12% of international mobile users it tracks allowed app tracking after iOS 14.5 launched. The opt-in rate was even lower for the US, at 2-4%.

Now Facebook is sharing specific ways in which ad reporting has been affected by the new privacy prompts. The most specific impact is in conversion reporting – with Facebook now unable to track conversions in the same way, it’s been working to implement a new system that estimates activity based on system learning.

Key quote: “Our estimate is that in aggregate we are underreporting iOS web conversions by approximately 15%; however there is a broad range for individual advertisers. We believe that real world conversions, like sales and app installs, are higher than what is being reported for many advertisers.”

Facebook offers some advice for marketers:

  • Allow time before you analyze performance: Consider waiting for a minimum of 72 hours or the full length of the optimization window selected before evaluating performance for conversion-optimized campaigns. Daily assessment is still possible for campaigns, but waiting will ensure you get the most accurate picture of performance.

  • Analyze the campaign, not the creative: Where possible, analyze reporting at the campaign level. While ad set and ad level assessment are possible, some estimated conversions are aggregated and reported with a delay. Take this into account when assessing ads performance.

  • Set up the Conversions API: Adding the Conversions API to your existing setup will help you optimize your ad campaigns, decrease cost per action, and more accurately measure campaign outcomes.

  • Consider all of the tools available: Consider all measurement solutions available to you, on Facebook and off.  (note: ask your agency partner – like Fallon – for a best-in-class way to measure!).

  • Continue to test and learn: Through testing new bidding, format, and audience strategies, you can identify what is working today and evolve over time as Facebook’s improvements continue. Testing new creative and marketing strategies is essential for improving your performance over time.

You can read the rest of Facebook’s guidance here. Facebook remains one of the most powerful advertising platforms, so you can believe there will be more changes to come.

Twitter will let some users send tips with Bitcoin.

Tipping + NFT Showcases Come to Twitter

As Twitter continues to work to empower Creators on the platform, this week they announced the ability for all users to send and receive tips via Bitcoin. Twitter’s iOS users will start getting access today and Android is coming soon. Twitter won’t take a cut of tips exchanged between users, and this moves tees up Twitter’s forthcoming NFT authentication service, which will allow users to display NFT art on their profile.

Key quote: “By allowing people to directly connect their crypto wallets, we can track and showcase our NFT ownership on Twitter… We are interested in making it somehow visually clear that this is a[n] authenticated avatar and, and then giving you some interesting info and insight about the provenance of that NFT.” Lots to watch in the months ahead!

Weekend Reads: 1) A generation that grew up with Google is forcing professors to rethink their lesson plans; 2) Our brains were not built for this much uncertainty; 3) How tech is inventing better ways to read the internet; 4) How does social media chatter affect stock prices? 5) TikTok trends are shaping what you buy, eat and drink.

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See you on the internet!
Greg

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