This week’s most important marketing news

Meta introduced new shopping features to Facebook.

• Facebook Groups can now sell their own merchandise by creating a shop tab and featuring products on the group page.
• When members of a group discuss products and offer recommendations, FB will show images of the product and make it easy to purchase them through the app. It also does some visual formatting to posts asking for recommendations.
• Top Product Mentions will now appear occasionally on your News Feed, recommending products to you that have been mentioned in Groups you follow.

With these updates, Groups can make your brand money in a few different ways. Consider collaborating with groups or creating and monetizing one.

Meta announced they’ll be eliminating thousands of detailed targeting options.

Facebook targeting options such as sexual orientation, religious practices, and political beliefs will be removed Jan 19, 2022. They announced that they’re making this change to “[prevent] advertisers from abusing the targeting options.”

How it could help: In 2019, FB was sued because landlords and homesellers “unfairly restricted” who saw ads for homes and apartments based on aspects like race and religion. This change should prevent that kind of issue from happening in the future.

How it could hurt: Many have voiced the concern that nonprofits will lose donations that they used to receive from their FB ads. And nonprofits won’t be the only ones.

If you run FB ads, starting Jan 19 you may need to adjust your targeting. This FB article gives some ideas and examples for alternative targeting if you’ll be losing current options.

TikTok says that 77% of their users admit that the app is likely to inspire a holiday gift they buy this year.

So here are two resources TikTok is offering to help you see success on their platform.

• ​A digital magazine showcasing successful ways accounts have made money through their app.
• ​A holiday campaign guide. We liked the planning schedule they offered suggesting how far out to begin planning different pieces of a campaign.

“Twitter will now let you pay to undo tweets and read ad-free news in the US,” according to the Verge.

We’re having fun thinking of the tweets companies would pay to undo.

​YouTube ad Product feeds are available for more campaigns.

If you didn’t know, when you run an ad before a YouTube video, you can add a grid of products to be displayed below the video player while your ad runs. That’s called a Product feed. Previously, you could only use those for Video action campaigns. But now they’re available for awareness and consideration Video campaigns. Product feeds definitely help those ads convert. If you’re running video ads, look into them.

Getting conversions from a competitor comparison page

Some companies have a product or service that’s very unique or is clearly better than the competition. In those cases, a competitor comparison page can be straightforward, a list of features that shows their company as the clear winner.

But most of us market a product that isn’t crazy different from our competitor’s product. You guys have something good, but a winner isn’t as clear cut. How do those companies, the majority of businesses, use a competitor comparison page successfully? How do you tell a story that will build trust and convert?

1. You tell the story of your unique selling proposition.
2. You don’t ignore your competitor’s strengths.
3. And, you have a good CTA.

Tell the story of your unique selling proposition

Your unique selling proposition = why people choose your product over other similar products.

In a perfect world, you’d know this off the top of your head for your company products. But if you don’t, now is a good time to figure it out.

Examples

• Robinhood: investing made possible for everyone
• Jimmy John’s: freaky fast sandwich delivery
• Southwest: low-cost flights

Don’t completely ignore your competitor’s strengths

If your competitor page tells a strongly biased story (nothing good about a competitor, nothing negative about you) then you’ll lose trust instead of gaining it. But as long as your offering has a strong unique selling proposition, then you can show off some of your weaknesses.

Just tell a strong story. Something like this:

If you buy from our used car dealership, you can count on getting a reliable car. We have a strong vetting process and we only sell cars with clean titles. Sure other dealerships offer a wider variety. But when you come to us, you know you’re getting a safe used car.

Have a good CTA

Most people on this type of page should be close to converting. Make sure you have a bottom-of-the-funnel CTA for them to use (schedule a sales call, add to cart).

Remember if there are people who are the right fit for your product, then there are people it’s wrong for. And that’s ok. Let your competitor comparison page weed out people who aren’t the right fit for your product. That helps you and allows you to create a comparison page that will be honestly useful to those who visit it. Then, you’ll end up with longer-lasting, more qualified customers from this page. Win, win.

Lets get visual