Chasing Rabbbits

šŸ—žļø Headlines from 2023.01.27

The Shine Isnā€™t Lasting

About that whole luxury being up thingā€¦

Luxury may be in with the youth, but it might be on the way out overall.

Some luxe brands and retailers saw earnings drop through the fourth quarter as staff sizes downsized as well.

But itā€™s not all doom and gloom as the sector as a whole still instills confidence over the year ahead. The biggest hit will likely come on treat yoā€™self style purchases from consumers that might now be trying to stretch their dollars elsewhere.

The two groups most in danger of rocky roads are:

very high-end luxury brands, which have remained extremely upscale, have performed better than lower-end brands or the so-called affordable luxury ones.

New entrants are a wildcard. Many expect them to get squeezed. But they could also prove more nimble and resilient as they arenā€™t constrained by tradition and expectations.

Visa and Mastercard both reported sluggish growth, saying consumer spending is slowing after transitioning to lower priced and store brand items.

Both sectors are pinning some hopes on Asia and/or China, which could be risky.

These moves suggest a dose of uncertainty as consumers wonder what this year will hold for the economy. Or it could just be a cool down between holiday shopping events. Year-end shopping started earlier and Iā€™ve heard some things in the past couple weeeks about people waiting for February and Presidentsā€™ Day to do ::gestures vaguely:: something (from listing homes to waiting for sales). Only time will tell if this is the start of a slump or simply a collective inhale.

The Real Reels

Instagram saying ā€œwe pivoted too hard to videoā€ might be code for ā€œwe pivoted too hard away from revenue.ā€ Reels Ads are the cheapest of the Meta lot at the moment, so competing with TikTok cost more than just cred.

Fun fact: Big Blue generates 2/3 of Metaā€™s Zuck Bucksā„¢ļø.

Reports were flowing after the holidays that Facebook performance was the gift that kept on giving. Sounds like Facebook expects that to be the norm and not the exception moving forward. Thanks in part to improving AI prediction machines for ad targeting and content (Reels) delivery. The money tanker may have finally finished adjusting course post-iOS privacy changes.

But if you only remember one nugget, remember this:

While Reels is often publicly associated with young users and Instagram, Facebook users appear to be the more avid consumers of the short videos.

Polish Up Your PPC

This Search Engine Land post on consent-based targeting is worth a read for any PPC manager. Nothing groundbreaking, but a great refresh and primer for the new year. Topics include:

Performance Max Shopping Data

Itā€™s easy to setup a Performance Max campaign in Google Ads, but it can still be a little difficult to figure out how itā€™s really doing. Thankfully, Collin Schmelebeck has a handy Twitter thread to help shed some light on shopping performance. You have to wait for your follow request to be accepted before you can see the thread, but I donā€™t want to steal his thunder, so hereā€™s a taste:

Scrollend Cometh

No, the act of scrolling isnā€™t dying (that I know of). Scrollend is a browser event that fires when:

Sounds like a useful event to track if youā€™re interested in how people engage with your content and where they lose interest.

Chrome joins Firefox in supporting Scrollend, which combine for ~68% of the browser market.

Just The Headlines

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