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For the duration of this year, Philadelphia Cream Cheese has experimented with everything from experiential pop-up restaurants to music festival appearances. Most recently, that experimentation has led the 150-year-old Kraft-owned brand to Reddit, where it is looking to tap into the platform’s honest, in-depth food reviews. It’s a move that Keenan White, senior brand manager at the Kraft Heinz Company, said is meant to build up brand relevance and equity.
It’s a first-time investment for the legacy brand, which has dedicated 20% of its social media marketing budget toward things like category takeovers as well as organically participating in Reddit conversations, White added. That’s not to say all of Philly’s ad dollars go toward experimental channels. The brand has a steady cadence of advertising in digital banners, television and social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, he said.
“We really want to meet people where they are and have that native experience with them,” White said. “Of all social platforms, Reddit is really the one where we need to do that right, to show up because of its uniqueness.”
It’s unclear how much Philadelphia Cream Cheese spent experimenting with Reddit, as White declined to outline those details. According to Kantar, the brand spent nearly $13 million on advertising from January through June of this year. That figure is significantly lower than the $35.9 million spent in 2021. Pathmatics reports the Kraft-owned brand spent $1.6 million on digital advertising this year, significantly less than the nearly $3 million spent the year prior. (Kantar figures do not include social spend as Pathmatics figures do.)
With nearly two decades in business, Reddit isn’t a new social media platform or advertiser tool. However, the platform has worked to add new ad inventory tiers to focus on targeting and brand safety, causing marketers to reconsider its role in their mix.
“Marketers are realizing Reddit isn’t such a scary place. Subreddits are filled with passionate audiences,” Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer at Mekanism, said in an email to Digiday. “Brands which enter subreddits with respect and understanding fare just fine. A little self awareness goes a long way.”
From a strategy perspective, Reddit can be an effective top-of-funnel platform, according to Joe Federer, the former head of brand strategy at Reddit who founded [An Internet Reference], which specializes in advertising on the platform. When done right, it’s an effective way to boost brand awareness because trends on Reddit are sometimes picked up and shared across other social media platforms. This means brands should go into Reddit aiming to be authentic and non-intrusive, he added.
“If you’re a marketer, and you’re a brave marketer who wants to go have genuine conversations that matter with your customers, Reddit is the best place to do that,” he said. “Reddit is this fountainhead. Trends flow from Reddit into the other parts of the internet. To me, that’s why Reddit is such an interesting part of a marketing mix.”
With the holiday season in full swing, Philadelphia Cream Cheese said it has a robust media mix, including buys on YouTube, out-of-home and print ads, in addition to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and, of course, Reddit.
“This will be the first time we’ve invested in that in the grand scheme of things since we started [and] as we continue to evaluate what’s the right way for the brand to show up on that platform,” White said. “Definitely. I think Reddit is going to be on our plans in the future as well.”
Purpose-driven marketing may face growing challenges for the rest of this year as consumers wrestle with inflation and the ad market gets more competitive.
While holiday-related digital ad spend is expected to hit $45 billion in 2022, according to video insights firm QuickFrame by MNTN, purpose-driven ads promoting social causes and mission-oriented brands are operating in a tough economy. Increasingly, major retailers are using ads with emotional storytelling to connect with consumers — resulting in a crowded space, as purpose-driven ads also aim to tell their stories.
An analysis by marketing platform System1 found that themes for holiday ads are shifting away from partying and glamour to focus on simple pleasures and togetherness. The five most effective ads in the study came from Hobby Lobby, Macy’s, Walmart, Etsy and USPS, which all ranked highly for their emotional storytelling, the study noted.
“With inflation high and consumers worried about the economy, it’s no surprise they’re dreaming of a quiet Christmas,” said Jon Evans, chief customer officer at System1. “As we get past Black Friday and nearer Christmas itself, we might see more charity and purpose-driven ads come to the fore, but for now it’s a more introspective Christmas ad season than usual.”
Even as more charity ads emerge, it might be more difficult for those ads to engage consumers due to the economic downturn. As QuickFrame noted in a study on connected TV holiday commercials across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, holiday messaging results in 58% higher engagement on average compared to those without a holiday theme. However, the research also noted that consumers are coming out of several difficult years and now focusing on self care rather than philanthropy — with charity-themed ads seeing a much lower return on ad spend compared to ones in fashion, fitness and skincare.
The fact that people are feeling financially insecure does impact their motivation to give, explained Peter Prodromou, president of independent agency Boathouse Palo Alto. He contends current economic challenges will impact giving habits this year, but said he does not expect this effect to be lasting, with some of the market conditions uniquely tied to Covid-19.
“We pride ourselves on being extremely charitable, but the reality is, you tend to make these decisions based on your own personal situation,” Prodromou told Digiday. “And when you’re living with a stock market that’s whipsawing the way it has … you’re watching the value of your assets going the wrong way. People tend to pull the purse strings tighter.”
This year, there are also fewer ad dollars spread around, as digital businesses that exploded during the pandemic cut back and tech giants continue laying off thousands of workers in recent months. It has gotten harder to vie for attention in the ad market during a busy season, so mission-driven organizations and agencies need to look at this as a “brand and trust exercise” in order to win, said Steve Grant, svp of human integration at Horizon Media.
“Companies need to select their purpose with care, and then live those values internally and externally in a no-bullshit way,” Grant said. “Then that has to reach the market in product and message at a high enough amplitude and with the right positioning to have an effect … The message space in the holidays is particularly contested.”
Consequently, more mission-driven organizations may turn to podcasting and audio advertising to find consumers in a more intimate setting. In November, the podcast advertising unit Market Enginuity Podcast Group spun out Soundrise, a new company focusing on values-driven sponsorship and podcasting. From 2017 to 2022, the podcast group said it increased annual growth by 55% in client revenue from podcast advertising sales.
Soundrise CEO Harry Clark said the holidays are the perfect opportunity for brands to “stake their claim” as more than just a product. When the marketing is done right, consumers trust the brand and potentially choose it over the competition. And podcasting, Clark added, is a good fit for these ads due to the host delivery and messaging interwoven into the content of the show.
“By connecting with consumer buying sensibilities, purpose-driven campaigns can also positively impact brands during the gifting season when consumers are thinking about giving brands that their friends and family also align with,” Clark said.
That doesn’t exclude visual ads, though, as Prodromou pointed out, “hitting people visually” lets people share the content, especially if it’s on mobile. Additionally, now there are more visually immersive opportunities, such as virtual reality experiences in the metaverse, that could help organizations tell their stories.
“I think [the metaverse] is fascinating,” Prodromou said. “If you could story tell out to potential donors, that way could be extremely powerful. … Nonprofits are mission-based by definition, so they’re trying to convey a good story all the time.”
This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at the role TikTok’s Branded Missions program plays in keeping creators on the platform as YouTube readies its short-form video revenue-sharing program.
The key hits:
TikTok’s two best-known means for creators to make money from the platform are its controversial payment program Creator Fund and its fledgling revenue-sharing program Pulse. But TikTok has another monetization program that is serving as revenue-generating training wheels for up-and-coming creators.
A couple weeks after announcing Pulse in May, TikTok introduced its Branded Mission program that effectively turned creators into creative agencies for brands. A brand would post a brief describing the types of videos it was looking for creators to produce, then creators produce those videos and submit them to the brand. If the brand chooses to run a given video as an ad on TikTok, the creator is eligible to be paid for their work.
TikTok’s Branded Mission program is more grunt work than glamor, though. It’s producing branded content on spec, and creators have spun up Discord servers dedicated to tracking when new Branded Mission briefs are posted so they can quickly pounce on the money-making opportunity. “You kind of do have to fight for it,” said one creator.
Like I said, not glamorous. But it pays. According to two TikTok creators, the Branded Mission payment amounts they receive per month have increased from $300-400 to $5,000-6,000 in the past several months. One of the creators shared screenshots with Digiday showing payment amounts for individual Branded Missions that exceeded $2,000.
A second creator said the monthly Branded Mission payment amounts have exceeded the wages they receive from their day job. “On paper, like on bank statements, I get more money from TikTok a month than from working,” they said, declining to specify their day job.
TikTok’s Branded Mission money doesn’t appeal to all creators, though. Creators who have amassed millions of followers can attract their own brand deals, enabling them to negotiate and ensure that they are compensated for their work.
“To just do the work and then submit it, we would never allow our people to do that,” said Brian Mandler, co-founder of talent management firm The Network Effect.
The Branded Mission program “asks talent to create content for a campaign without a guarantee of being selected or compensated. Payment is based on boosting content that has already been produced,” said Charley Button, talent manager at talent management firm Select Management Group. “We work with top creators who are in high demand, so they receive offers without needing to apply. For our clients, it’s difficult for Branded Missions to compete with guaranteed revenue from a standard branded content deal.”
However, both Mandler and Button said that the Branded Mission program seems suited to so-called “micro-influencers,” or creators with follower counts in the tens to low hundreds of thousands. Creators in this category have a sizable audience but typically not one large enough to gain the attention of brands looking to do direct deals. Indeed, the two creators interviewed for this article have TikTok follower counts in the low hundreds of thousands.
“There are literally millions of creators that have a fair amount of [followers] that are looking to start making money on TikTok that this is great for,” said Mandler.
“This new tool might be more helpful for growing creators who are looking to develop relationships with brands or creators who might not otherwise receive an offer,” said Button.
However, even for the class of creators seemingly best suited for Branded Mission work, there are pros and cons.
For example, while Branded Missions can pay well, not all creators may get paid. The creators who spoke to Digiday have more than 100,000 followers and have received payment for Branded Missions, but they said they know creators with less than 100,000 followers who have submitted videos that were selected for Branded Missions but did not receive payment. A TikTok spokesperson said that creators must have at least 1,000 followers to participate and receive payment for Branded Missions.
Additionally, creators can receive boosts in view and follower counts as a result of their videos being selected for Branded Missions, but the audience increase can be somewhat superficial. “Every time I do a Branded Mission, I get the video views, you get the followers, I get all that. The downside is that most of the time it will be people that are not interested in your content at all,” said the second creator. They cited one Branded Mission from which they gained roughly 5,000 new followers but estimated that less than 1,000 were interested in the creator’s content category.
But again, the money. With YouTube preparing to debut the revenue-sharing program for its TikTok Clone, Shorts, in early February, TikTok may be feeling some urgency to convince creators to prioritize its short-form vertical video platform. And while the creators acknowledged they cannot count on the Branded Mission program to be a reliable recurring revenue stream, they see it as a signal that TikTok is trying to improve its financial support of them.
“It’s been probably the biggest accomplishment with me and TikTok money-wise,” said the first creator.
“Auto has been a great vertical. We’re starting to see some travel [ad dollars] come in as things heat up for the holiday season and spring break’s not far away. We’ve seen the crypto piece slow down with everything going on there. We have seen retail pick up, which makes sense given the holidays are around the corner.”
— Streaming executive on the Q4 ad market
$23.9 billion: How much money streaming service owners will spend on content this year, compared to $51.6 billion that linear TV network owners will spend on content.
64%: Percentage share of original scripted streaming shows that are based on established intellectual property.
$240 billion: The reported valuation of TikTok owner ByteDance as existing investors seek to sell their shares in the company.
47%: Percentage share of U.S. adults who plan to give streaming video subscriptions as gifts this year.
>$1 billion: How much money Amazon plans to spend per year on movies that will be released in theaters.
Arm & Hammer enlists TikTok influencers to help millennials, Gen Z with holiday laundry:
Read more about Arm & Hammer here.
Why American Express invests in TikTok ahead of Small Business Saturday:
Read more about American Express here.
TV will play an important part in brands’ holiday marketing:
Read more about brands’ holiday marketing here.
Bob Iger’s big plans:
Disney’s new-old CEO told employees on Monday that his streaming focus will shift from growing subscribers to achieving profitability and that the company won’t be pursuing any major acquisitions, according to CNBC.
Disney’s next CEO:
Bob Iger is only one week into his two-year term, but considering his previous struggles to establish a successor, Puck has put together a scouting report of who could be next in line.
AMC Networks’ layoffs:
AMC Networks will lay off 20% of its U.S. employees, and its CEO Christina Spade has left the company less than three months after taking the position, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Google’s NFL interception:
Google is attempting to win rights to the NFL’s Sunday Ticket games package away from perceived frontrunner Apple, according to The New York Times.
YouTube’s child stars:
More kids are taking to the Google-owned video platform to copy the playbook of Ryan Kaji, whose Ryan’s World channel has blown up into a business spanning traditional TV and commerce, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Tractor Supply Company, a retailer founded in 1938, is using 100% of its marketing spend for this quarter on Paramount’s TV channel. The company’s new “TikTok style ad,” debuted on the premiere of Yellowstone on Nov. 13, is part of a push to build brand awareness.
The idea was to capture attention around Yellowstone, which airs on the channel prior to other streaming services. Furthermore, the brand wanted to highlight a “rural lifestyle” said Kimberley Gardiner, CMO at Tractor Supply Company. The brand last spent all its marketing dollars on linear TV in May 2022.
Lainey Wilson, a country singer and actress, is featured in the new ad, showing footage of her growing up and her current life and how it influences her music.
Although the financial agreement between the brand and Wilson was not disclosed, the brand wanted a distinct, creative format that was also authentic to Wilson and her approachable, down to earth style that serves as inspiration for her songs, according to Gardiner.
As a result, a TikTok-style ad — meaning vertical — was suggested and the brand selected Wilson due to her matching its core values. It is the first time that the brand produced an ad in the style of the social platform.
“As we’re expanding that appeal to a younger, more female and diverse audience, an up-and-coming artist like Lainey Wilson is a natural fit,” said Gardiner.
The spot is running throughout this season of Yellowstone, which will air until early January 2023. Also, during the Yellowstone season premiere, Wilson shared the spot on her TikTok page, where it has over 4.8 million views. Additionally, the spot was shared organically on the brand and Wilson’s Instagram accounts as a Reel on the same day as it currently has over 232,000 viewers. “We’re expanding our footprint across digital channels in ways that help consumers discover Tractor Supply in fun and engaging ways,” said Gardiner.
According to Gardiner, all the paid media spend was allocated to TV spots on Paramount. “We already had TV media dollars committed to Paramount as part of a larger sponsorship of Yellowstone,” said Gardiner. With that said, it is unclear how much of Tractor Supply Company’s advertising budget is allocated to this campaign as Gardiner declined to share budget figures. According to Pathmatics data, the brand spent close to $17.8 million so far on advertising in 2022. Gardiner also said the brand may invest in social ad spend in 2023 with YouTube and TikTok.
Platforms such as TikTok are becoming more popular with Gen Z, so brands should convey authenticity with their storytelling with its target audience to succeed, according to marketers.
“It’s so important that brands connect with younger generations showcasing short-form content that quickly tells a story in an authentic way,” said Lauren Petrullo, CEO and founder of digital marketing agency, Mongoose Media. “The more native your ads look, the more successful they’ll be to the brand’s bottom line.”
The season five premiere of Yellowstone was also viewed by 12.1 million viewers overall and Lainey Wilson’s spot has earned 40M impressions across linear TV to date, according to TV ad measurement tool iSpot tracking.
Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing company Metaforce, added that this campaign is also aligning with the trend for brands to showcase authenticity, adding that the “social media-type ad will powerfully connect with their customers.”
Many of the world’s most influential brands are competing to win over consumers while Qatar hosts the World Cup, soccer’s premier event and a unique opportunity for these brands to get their messages across. One such brand is Coca-Cola. Digiday spoke with Javier Meza, Coca-Cola’s svp of marketing for Latin America, who explained what the company wants to achieve in the multicultural market through its World Cup marketing.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
For Coca-Cola, this world-exciting event is a marketing milestone. This year we created a campaign that builds on the global brand philosophy and the Real Magic platform to encourage and refresh the shared experience of the tournament. With this campaign, Coca-Cola invites soccer fans to experience the Real Magic of Believing during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, generating new, authentic and simple moments of connection that will be remembered forever. We prepared incredible activations, films and surprises for our consumers to enjoy and get excited about The Magic of Believing before, during and after the tournament.
The Magic of Believing has a special chapter for social networks with the Coca-Cola Fan Zone, the digital hub for the 2022 FIFA World Cup 2022. It is an activation designed to elevate the digital consumer experience, offering opportunities for fans to share emotions, excitement, games and memories in support of their teams. The Coca-Cola Fan Zone will include social integrations for fans to share through their own social media accounts. Users can export and share content to third-party platforms to elevate their 2022 FIFA World Cup experience. One such integration is “The Promises,” an experience where fans can customize Coca-Cola packaging with their personal promises and share them digitally via social media or directly with friends. In addition, fans will be invited to visit the social wall in the Coca-Cola Fan Zone, where they can view pledges from soccer fans worldwide.
The Magic of Believing also comes from the traditional Panini figurines. This year, consumers in Latin America can pick up the eight exclusive digital figures. On the other hand, we are introducing Panini’s digital experience, which through eight exclusive soccer players, will encourage fans to share their own inspiring stories through social networks.
The Real Magic platform is founded on the idea that magic lives in unexpected moments of connection that elevate every day to the extraordinary. Real magic happens when people come together and what we share is more significant than what differentiates us. And that’s exactly what happens during the FIFA World Cup: it’s a unique connection. That’s why, unlike most traditional campaigns focusing exclusively on the five weeks that the FIFA World Cup spans, Coca-Cola invites fans to believe in the magic of the game several months before, during and after the tournament.
The Magic of Believing experience, with which Coca-Cola will celebrate the world’s most important soccer event, begins with the FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour by Coca-Cola, which officially landed in the region on Oct. 15 in Mexico, a country with a great soccer tradition.
Coca-Cola created six audiovisual pieces for the FIFA World Cup, which will be unveiled during the tournament, along with more than 90 static public service announcements.
Fans will also be able to participate in the Coca-Cola Fan Zone, our digital hub, where they can compete and participate in various activities. And, of course, Coca-Cola’s three-decade partnership with Panini adds another chapter to this edition. In addition to the usual figurines, Coca-Cola presents eight exclusive figures in Latin America for fans to collect physically and digitally. Finally, we will present limited editions of different packaging in selected markets so that fans can feel the Magic of Believing.
In Argentina and Brazil, as you say, they breathe soccer. In addition to the special activations of the FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour by Coca-Cola, which will remain for three full days in each of these countries, there will be limited editions and special promotions. But undoubtedly, what makes each of the actions we develop in Brazil and Argentina special is the fans’ enthusiasm: the Magic of Believing pulses with its own rhythm.
A real feat it’s the fifth FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour by Coca-Cola, which allows soccer fans around the globe to admire the Original FIFA World Cup Trophy in person and participate in a variety of activities linked to the tour. This year, for the first time, the tour visited all 32 countries that have qualified for the tournament, which adds a special mystique to the tour.
The movie gives you goosebumps. It starts with soccer fans walking down the street drinking a Coke. As they walk, the street transforms into the scene of celebration of their team winning the FIFA World Cup, with all the magic that implies: the chanting, the music, the paper slips, the people leaning out on balconies, the shared excitement… When they finish their Coke, they realize that none of that really happened and that the game is about to begin. And then anything can happen: Coca-Cola gave them the true essence of the Magic of Believing.
These are three more exceptional films from Coca-Cola to elevate the experience around the pledges and devotion of fans to their countries and teams. In these films, fans pledge to get a tattoo, shave their heads and run to work every day if their team takes home the FIFA World Cup. In addition, each film seeks to inspire fans around the world to share the pledges they make to support their team. Once the 2022 FIFA World Cup begins, Coca-Cola will debut a program highlighting fans’ superstitions during the match. They will also introduce new packaging, let’s talk about that strategy, that new image, and what they are looking for. This is the Coca-Cola Fan Zone, the digital hub with myriad activities. For example, fans can customize Coca-Cola packaging with their personal promises and share them digitally through social networks or directly with friends. Fans are invited to visit the social wall in the Coca-Cola Fan Zone, where they can view other pledges from soccer fans worldwide.
After seeing continued growth in the number of paying members to its two subscription products, CNBC will begin testing a price increase for at least one of those subscriptions next year.
CNBC has two subscription offerings. Launched in January, Investing Club provides subscribers with access to CNBC host Jim Cramer’s market analysis and research, his charitable trust portfolio, as well as trade alerts and monthly live meetings, for $400 a year. CNBC Pro, on the other hand, debuted roughly a decade ago and provides expanded access to CNBC’s content, including its live TV feed and a subscriber-only newsletter, for $300 a year.
CNBC will likely begin its subscription price testing in the first quarter of 2023, after the first renewal period for the Investing Club, said Margaret de Luna, gm and svp of CNBC’s direct-to-consumer business. Existing subscribers will be grandfathered in at their current prices, but new subscribers to CNBC Pro could see a yet-to-be-determined price hike.
The new rate will be determined with varying site offers. A price increase on Investing Club would be based on those results, de Luna said.
It’s the first time CNBC would raise the price on a CNBC Pro membership.
“It’s starting to move us out of the infancy stage [and] towards being a sophisticated digital consumer subscription business,” de Luna said.
Given that it’s been available for a decade and publishers have faced increasing costs due to factors like inflation and higher labor costs, it makes sense to experiment with subscription price increases, said Matt Lindsay, president of subscription management and customer data analytics firm Mather Economics which works with publishers. A potential recession on the horizon could also push publishers to diversify, he said.
A number of publishers are testing subscription prices, Lindsay said, declining to share which ones he was privy to. The New York Times’ president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said in the company’s Q3 2022 earnings call that the publisher is considering upping the price of its individual products in the coming months to “drive more people to take our bundle.”
“If everything is going up in price, and subscriptions aren’t, then subscriptions are becoming less expensive than everything else,” he said. And increasing subscription prices does not necessarily lead to additional churn, he said, citing Mather Economics studies from previous recessions and inflationary periods.
CNBC’s direct-to-consumer team has grown from a team of five to 70 since de Luna joined in July 2021. Its dedicated subscription marketing team now has six people, up from just one person last year. The expanded marketing team focuses on acquiring new subscribers, price testing and finding the right tech for its subscription business, allowing the company to run acquisition pricing tests, de Luna said.
Right now, the CNBC team is in the “modeling phase” to determine what the new subscription prices should be and if they will offer additional subscription terms, such as a quarterly or a six-month subscription, she said. Previously, its model was based solely on the number of “marketing exposures” (article and video paywalls, for example) driven by page views, and a conversion rate from those exposures. The team did not analyze new subscriptions by channel (such as hitting the paywall, email marketing, paid marketing and social).
In the past year, the CNBC team built “a very specific operational model where we can make assumptions for different levers,” de Luna said. It breaks down new subscriptions by channel, for example.
CNBC has seen significant growth in its number of subscribers year-over year. It has tripled its active paid subscribers, according to the company. de Luna declined to share how many subscribers CNBC has. 63% of CNBC’s subscriber base is coming from the “CNBC funnel” (versus paid marketing), mostly through CNBC.com or its apps, she said.
CNBC is also looking into offering a subscription bundle down the line.
“Bundling is a great tool. It is, from the business side of things, the safest way to increase the revenue that you get from a subscriber because you get to charge individual subscribers more… You’re delivering something that is better for them or that they want versus just raising an individual price,” de Luna said.
Last year’s Cyber Monday was the first time CNBC offered a special price for Pro. It offered a three-month introductory price of $59.99, which auto-renewed to an annual subscription (the subscription is usually $29.99 a month). The special offer resulted in doubling the monthly new subscriber average for Pro, de Luna said, who declined to give exact figures. New subscribers will also get access to “Pro Week” this week, with daily, on-demand “Pro Talk” videos featuring investors and analysts sharing their market insights.
This year, the company is offering that deal again from Nov. 15 to Dec. 2, as well as providing a special price for a two-year subscription to the Investing Club for $499.99 and an annual subscription for $299.99 (usually $399.99).
With holiday shopping officially underway, Thanksgiving weekend shopping saw record revenue despite the economic uncertainty. However, the growth of e-commerce is also attracting unwanted bot traffic that can siphon revenue and cloud important analytical data that marketers rely on.
A record 196.7 million Americans shopped online and offline from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday — an increase of 17 million from 2021 — according to the National Retail Federation’s survey of shoppers. Of those, the NRF estimates that nearly 123 million shopped in stores, a 17% increase from last year.
Revenue on Cyber Monday was an all-time record, according to Adobe, growing 5.8% year-over-year and totaling more than $11 billion. (Revenue was $9.1 billion on Black Friday 2022 and $5.3 billion spent on Thanksgiving Day.) For the overall holiday shopping season, Adobe Digital Insights expects consumers will spend $210 billion, surpassing the $205 billion spent during the 2021 season and the $188 billion spent during the 2020 holidays.
The high-spending weekend came amid worries of an e-commerce slowdown. A recent survey of marketers conducted by WARC found that 30% planned to decrease investment in digital advertising and e-commerce while just 23% planned to increase spending.
Despite the economic uncertainty, the higher-than-expected spending suggests that consumers do still want to shop, according to Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights. And while people were still shopping under the kitchen table with their phones six or seven years ago, he said more than half of revenue on Thanksgiving Day came from mobile devices.
“Those consumer dollars do seem to be there,” Schreiner said. “People are going out and shopping and buying gifts. And there’s certainly a version of this holiday season where things could have not been that great.”
Although the growth has been promising for bottom lines, some researchers suggest that all the holiday shopping traffic might not be coming from humans. The cybersecurity firm CHEQ’s analysis of 1.6 million visits to retailers’ websites found that about a fourth of Black Friday shoppers were likely fake. Meanwhile, CHEQ’s analysis of 765,000 visits on Cyber Monday showed that 1 in 5 was likely from bot traffic. However, that’s an improvement from last year: CHEQ estimated that 1 in 3 Black Friday shopping visits was fake in 2021.
“Like any good crime, there’s a combination of motive, means and opportunity,” said Daniel Avital, CHEQ’s chief strategy officer. “And I think specifically in e-commerce, that triad is very much pronounced … There’s a lot of money being put around, and that’s always appealing for bad actors online.”’
CHEQ isn’t the only company noticing marketers’ bot problems. A September report from Okta found that 23% of signup attempts for promotions were fraudulent — up from 15% last year – with rewards programs being a key target. Okta also saw an increase in bot traffic during the week of Thanksgiving, especially for retail, food and beverage and financial services categories.
Bot traffic cuts into real revenue, but it also muddies analytical data for everything from clickthrough rates, inventory, time spent on site, return on ad spend and which items people really want to buy. It can also affect customer acquisition costs and plans for the coming year.
“You’re also creating a cleanup mess,” said Ian Hassard, Okta’s director of product development. “Because how do you go back and find the real John Smith versus the fake John Smith? Who registered for that account? It’s nearly impossible without doing a whole bunch of digging and investigating into it.”
Beyond traditional online e-commerce advertising, SMS marketing continues to be a channel for marketers relying on first-party data. More than 12.7 million new consumers signed up to receive messages from brands in the past week — a 49% increase from the same period in 2021 — according to the SMS marketing platform Attentive.
Overall, from Nov. 21-28, Attentive’s platform tracked 1.6 billion messages sent globally from marketers to their subscribers and drove more than $1 billion in revenue for the first time. Some categories that have performed well include apparel, beauty and home office products.
Attentive president Amitabh Jhawar said companies are using text messages for mid-funnel campaigns and getting more revenue from existing customers rather than focusing too much on new ones. However, he said it’s important not to text too much or risk being seen as spam just like email and social media ads. Although companies might make more money in the short term with more messages, they could lose out on building a loyal base.
“If you’re texting multiple times a day, every day, it’s very hard to stay that relevant with updated information as a brand,” Jhawar said. “You’re going to have lots of opt-outs, and the reality for opt-outs is that you’re hurting the lifetime value of the subscriber list you’ve built.”