NFR #73 - Shopify Trends, Google Ads & Notion Mastery

5-minute marketing newsletter providing you latest events across eCommerce, NFTs, culture & more every Wednesday morning on Linkedin & sub-stack.

December 21, 2022

Never Fully Read

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Never Fully Read is a 5-minute marketing newsletter providing you latest events across eCommerce, NFTs, culture & more every Wednesday morning on Linkedin & sub-stack.

Newsletter in a flash:

🤖 eCommerce news:

📈 Top Trends:

🐵 NFT download:

👀 WTF Moment:

🐦 Twitter thread of the week:

🤝 Hot jobs:

🤖 eCommerce news:

🛍 Down 79%, Shopify Stock Is a Rare Buying Opportunity in a Bear Market “Recession fears have sent the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite tumbling into a bear market this year, and both indexes have now posted three consecutive quarterly losses for the first time since 2009. During this current upheaval, Shopify (SHOP 1.41%) saw its share price drop roughly 79%, marking the greatest stock price decline the Canadian e-commerce company has suffered since going public in 2015.”

🎥 Netflix lets advertisers take their money back after missing viewership targets “Netflix is falling short of ad-supported viewership guarantees made to advertisers and allowing advertisers to take their money back for ads that have yet to run, according to five agency executives. The specific shortfall amounts vary by advertiser, but in some cases, Netflix has only delivered roughly 80% of the expected audience, said the executives. A Netflix spokesperson declined to comment.”

🐦 Twitter is a mess, so former employees are creating Spill as an alternative Today, Terrell and Brown are announcing waitlist signups for Spill, which they describe as “a real-time conversational platform that puts culture first.” They expect that the platform will launch in about six to eight weeks.

💰 FTC fines Fortnite maker Epic Games $520M over children’s privacy and item shop charges “The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Monday morning it will charge Epic Games with a $520 million settlement over charges related to children’s privacy. Epic Games, which makes popular all-ages games like “Fortnite” and “Fall Guys,” allegedly violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by deploying “design tricks, known as dark patterns, to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases,” the FTC said in a press release.”

🦧 Bored Apes creator Yuga Labs appoints Activision’s Daniel Alegre as CEO “Nicole, Greg, and I have been on the hunt for someone with Daniel’s skill set for some time,” said Yuga co-founder Wylie Aronow in a press release. The crypto company wanted to appoint a gaming veteran as CEO to help work on projects like Otherside, its metaverse gaming platform. As an executive who oversaw franchises like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush, Alegre fits the bill. He also worked at Google for more than 16 years, in roles such as president of Global and Strategic Partnerships.”

👩‍🏫 YouTube to launch Courses in edtech push in India “For years, teachers have used YouTube to promote their lessons and persuade learners to join their classes off the platform. YouTube said on Monday it is taking broader steps to make the video service more appealing to educators and learners and also provide more monetization avenues to the creators. At its annual India conference on Monday, Google unveiled Courses, a feature that will seek to bring structured learning experience on YouTube.”

🛠 Amazon acquires film/TV rights to ‘Warhammer 40,000’ IP “The agreement will allow Amazon to deliver films and TV series, among other content based on the IP. This is a notable move for the company, as the “Warhammer 40,000” universe is epic in scale and has a massive worldwide fanbase. “Warhammer 40,000 has captured the imagination of fans of all ages, from all walks of life, and all over the world,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon and MGM Studios, in a statement.”

🐦 Twitter announces, then quickly retracts ban on promoting other social media Hours after Twitter banned users from promoting accounts on other major social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, the controversial prohibition vanished from its policy page. The new, restrictive policy came after many users, eyeing the exit doors, began posting links to their accounts on other platforms following Elon Musk's takeover as CEO of Twitter and its subsequent reinstatement of far-right accounts, suspension of journalists and mass layoffs.

🚀 Facebook’s Meta Will Devote 20% of Costs to Metaverse Next Year “Meta is still making a major push into building the metaverse - committing to devote 20% of its costs to the much-maligned effort at the company's Reality Labs division - despite the company's stock price dropping 60% and a top metaverse executive departing. 'Meta began 2022 with a new name and a new vision for the future, and at Reality Labs it’s our job to bring that vision to life,” wrote Reality Labs CTO Andrew Bosworth in a blog post. 'We never thought it would be easy or straightforward, but this year was even harder than we expected.'"

⚡️ SpaceX's Starlink announces it now has 1 million users “SpaceX has announced that its internet service provider Starlink now has over 1 million active subscribers. It seems CEO Elon Musk's ongoing Twitter trash fire didn't stop enough people from signing up to his ISP to hold it back from this milestone. "Starlink now has more than 1,000,000 active subscribers — thank you to all customers and members of the Starlink team who contributed to this milestone," wrote SpaceX's official Twitter account on Monday.”

🎹 Google Ads updates in 2022: The good, the bad, the jury’s still out “In 2022, Google made several announcements, updates, and not-so-subtle nudges that shifted the paid search landscape. (Google’s announcement page is a helpful and relatively objective compendium.) This article will break down: 1. The major moves from the past 12 months. 2. How they impact paid search marketers. 3. What they mean for the future of Google Ads.”

📈 Top trends:

“Shopify’s annual report on the latest trends shaping commerce pulled from proprietary data, insider experts, and top global brands.

Link to read in full here”

“As delivery companies face increased shipments for the holidays, a Signifyd report shared with Retail Dive found that delivery times in November and December improved by 47% compared to last year, and cancellations have dropped by 52%.

The report also noted that porch package thefts have risen to 87% in December so far compared to the previous year. Last month, package thefts jumped 47% year over year.

In November, the use of stolen credit cards online spiked by 174% year over year. So far this month, it’s only up by 5%, but it’s expected to surge later in December.”

Senior Living

Source: Ahrefs

🙉 NFT download:

“The website offering digital trading cards showing former US President Donald Trump in guises such as a superhero, astronaut and Nascar driver says the items have already sold out.

Mr Trump promoted the "limited-edition cards" late on Thursday, saying one could "make a great Christmas gift".

There were 45,000 of the cards, available for $99 each, according to OpenSea, which tracks such offerings.

The announcement drew criticism and mockery, including from Republicans.

"I can't do this anymore," Steve Bannon, a right-wing media commentator and former chief strategist for Mr Trump, said about the sale on his podcast.

Anyone involved in the project "ought to…”

Link to read in full here

🏆 WTF moment:

“The American space agency's Mars rover Perseverance will this week begin dropping samples of rock on to the surface of the Red Planet.

The materials have been packaged in small titanium tubes with the expectation they can be picked up by a future mission and brought home.

It's a major milestone in the quest to find out whether there is life on Mars.

It's thought only by studying rock and soil samples in Earth laboratories can the matter be resolved.

Perseverance will place 10 cylinders on the ground at its exploration site in Jezero Crater.

They contain a mix of volcanic and sedimentary rocks that the robot has drilled over the past 15 months.

There'll also be examples of Martian soil and air.

The first finger-sized tube should be in position on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

🐦 Twitter thread of the week:

Link to thread here

TLDR;

  1. Notion2Charts.com

    1. Generate beautiful charts from your notion data

  2. Bardeen.ai

    1. Build your own Notion workflow without code

  3. Tallyform

    1. Embed forms in Notion and sync form responses straight to Notion

  4. Super.so

    1. Turn Notion pages into beautiful websites

  5. Helpkit.so

    1. Turn notion docs into a knowledge base for your customers

  6. Queue.so

    1. Schedule tweets & threads without leaving Notion

  7. Indify.co

    1. Add widgets like calendar, weather, and countdown timer in Notion

  8. Bonus: Second brain

    1. Turn Notion into a digital system and capture and organise your knowledge

🤝 Hot jobs:

  • Thriva Health - Product Marketing Director

    • “We’re looking for a talented Product Marketing Director to join Thriva’s fast growing B2B Solutions Business. Sector-specific experience is great, especially in areas like healthcare, pharmaceuticals and insurance, but not a prerequisite. The Product Marketing Director will be the first in role and is an opportunity to own our overall B2B product strategy. In that role you will be responsible for planning, creating and implementing the overall product marketing strategy including new product development and international expansion.”

  • PetLab co - Director of Lifecycle Marketing

    • “We are hiring a Director of Customer Loyalty & Engagement to lead the development of programs that will boost cross-selling across product lines and increase long-term retention. Partnering closely with our Product and Data teams, you will be responsible for understanding the needs of our customers and the dogs they love to create communication programs that engage and delight them. You’ll also be responsible for driving the growth of our subscriber base of supplements by maximizing the conversion among our growing customer base. This position requires strong data-driven strategic thinking, creative abilities to develop customer-focused programs, and the ability to work well with cross-functional teams.”

  • Brainlabs - Paid Social Director

    • “Hi there, we're Brainlabs, the world’s most innovative digital marketing agency with a world class company culture to match. We’re absolutely crushing it in the UK and the US and are now looking for a Paid Social Biddable Director to join our team.”