Marketing
19 May
Meta tests promotional ads to help lead users to deals
The Facebook and Instagram parent is also making updates to lead ads.
(Photo courtesy of Meta)
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Meta is testing a new promotional ad format that are designed to help people find deals from brands.
Through this pilot, select advertisers on Facebook in the U.S. and UK will receive access to features that allow them to find, apply and manage deals. Promotions can be offered for seasonal sales, first-time purchase discounts and holiday promotions.
Meta offers this example of how it works:
“When people see an ad with a special promotion on Facebook, they can click through to claim the offer, which will automatically apply the discount code. If they don’t complete the purchase, they will receive a reminder notification before the deal ends,” the company wrote.
Meta found that 85% of shoppers seek out promotions before making a purchase. The new ads aim to make it easier to find deals, while in turn enabling brands and retailers to complete more sales. The ads also arrive at a time when consumers are more price-conscious following months of inflation and interest rate hikes that is giving way to a pullback in discretionary spending.
Lead ad updates
As Meta learns more through testing, it will consider adding features in the coming months.
The promotional ads arrive as Meta is also making upgrades to its lead ad products. Through this update question-and-answer forms can be automatically updated based on responses.
“For example, an educational institution can ask questions, such as, “What degree are you interested in?” Based on that answer, the subsequent questions would dynamically update to guide the person to more information about a specific program,” Meta writes.
Advertisers will also be able to soon overlay Instant Forms. Users will be able to engage with rich media on business pages, then submit information with autofill capabilities for names and email addresses.
There’s also a new step that businesses can take before setting up a lead ad campaign. Businesses using Meta’s new pages experience will also be able to add a contact form to the “Contact Us” button on their Facebook page. This allows people to inquire about a business and start a conversation through Messenger.
“These questions and forms give people a more tailored discovery and consideration experience for products and services they may be interested in, and help businesses find more qualified customers,” Meta wrote.
The updates come a week after Meta rolled out a new AI Sandbox that will allow the Facebook and Instagram parent to test generative AI features for advertising.Subscribe to The Current Newsletter
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Retail Channels
02 June
Macy's sees 'reset year' for ecommerce
The retailer's marketplace is expanding quickly.
When it comes to ecommerce growth, was the pandemic a blip or a new trendsetter?
As we move further from the height of COVID-related closures, it’s a question that will start to be answered through the lens of history.
So far, the narrative of ecommerce growth in the U.S. from 2019-2022 has gone like this: Ecommerce’s share of overall retail saw a huge spike at the height of the pandemic in 2020-21, when goods in general were in demand and online shopping was necessary to preserve health and safety. Experts looked out and saw a permanent exponential change in the penetration of ecommerce as a share of retail that would last beyond the pandemic. Then, in 2022, everyone went back to stores and the trendline came back to 2019 levels. Growth was no longer exponential. There was still growth, but it was not happening as fast as during the pandemic period.
With this in mind, it’s worth pointing out that 2023 is the first year that there likely won’t be a pandemic-influenced swing to influence ecommerce growth. It is also a year where demand has suffered challenges amid inflation and interest rate hikes.
So as we seek to determine the importance of ecommerce to overall retail, it’s worth it to continue taking a close look at what growth trends retailers are seeing now, whether ecommerce is remaining resilient amid consumer pullback and how retailers are preparing for the future.
The latest example arrived this week from Macy’s. It’s a fitting one for the times. Overall, Macy’s is seeing a slowdown as consumers pull back on discretionary purchases, with sales declining 7% in the first quarter versus the same quarter of 2022. Digital sales were down 8%.
Macy’s is particularly susceptible to the macroeconomic headwinds that many brands and retailers are facing, as spending among the middle-income consumers it counts as a primary customer base is particularly softening, said GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders.
But while ecommerce is slowing overall, the importance it gained to Macy’s business during the pandemic is remaining in place.
In 2019, ecommerce made up 25% of Macy’s revenue, CEO Jeff Gennette told analysts on the company’s earnings call. That jumped to a high of 44% in 2020. By 2022, digital reached 33% of sales after the pandemic boom. In the first quarter of 2023, it remained at 33%. So, while the trend line dipped after shoppers returned to stores, ecommerce share still settled in at a higher post-lockdown point than it was before the pandemic.
This came in a quarter in which traffic was “relatively good” across both online and in-store, Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said. It was “flattish” online, and slightly up in stores.
“We do expect that this is the reset year with the penetration between them,” Gennette said. “But we do expect more aggressive growth in digital in the future versus stores as we think about '24 and beyond. And that's going to be foisted by a lot of ideas and strategies.
Over the last year, the retailer has made investments in boosting ecommerce, even as shoppers returned to stores. In a bid to boost the assortment of goods available online, Macy’s launched a marketplace in September 2022 that welcomes goods from third-party sellers.
The marketplace had an “outstanding” first quarter, said Macy’s President Tony Spring, who is poised to succeed Gennette as CEO next year. Gross merchandise value increased over 50% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, while the average order value and units per order for marketplace customers was 50% above those not shopping at the marketplace.
Macy’s is continuing to build the marketplace even as it racks up sales. The retailer added 450 brands, ending the quarter with 950 brands.
This is helping to draw in new customers, as well as younger existing customers who are buying more items, resulting in increased basket size.
“We're very excited as to how marketplace is really attracting the Gen Z customer, particularly in categories where it was not economically feasible for us to carry in the past,” Gennette said.
In the end, Gennette said a strong digital and social presence is key to attracting younger consumers. That's a different type of shopper than other age groups.
“We know the younger customer starts first online,” Gennette said. That behavior will still be in place as the generation gets older, and gains more buying power in the process.
Going forward, Macy’s is seeking to expand the model to other retail banners in its portfolio. Bloomingdale’s will open a marketplace in the early fall.
The Macy’s ecommerce trajectory isn’t that different from the wider U.S. ecommerce narrative detailed above. With one quarter of 2023 data, there is evidence that ecommerce share settled out at a higher point after the pandemic than where it started before COVID arrived. There is flattening now, but the retailer is taking it not as a sign of a slowdown, or a signal to change course. Rather, it sees changing consumer behavior as a reason to build for the future.
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