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🤖 eCommerce news:

📹 YouTubers, podcasters help Sweetwater reach a record sales year  "Sales at music gear e-commerce retailer Sweetwater once again reached a crescendo in 2022. The privately-held company said it achieved $1.57 billion in sales and saw revenue growth of 9.5% year over year. It’s the third consecutive year Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Sweetwater reported sales exceeding $1 billion."

🥖 Ocado shares slump as annual loss hits £500m "Ocado has posted a statutory loss of over £500m after a slowdown in its retail operations, sharply rising costs and one-off charges hit its bottom line. The group’s overall revenues increased 0.6% to £2.5bn in the 12 months to 31 December as increased revenues from global technology partnerships was mitigated by a slowdown in its UK retail joint venture with Marks & Spencer. International solutions revenues were up by 121.9% to £147.8m as the group opened a further eight international CFCs during the period, taking its international sites to 12 and 38 live modules (compared to 12 last year)."

⚽️ Fantasy sports app Champions Round raises $7M to build new content creator feature "Users, particularly Gen Z users, are moving away from traditional fantasy sports, where leagues are tied to entire seasons. Instead, many users are opting for daily fantasy sports (DFS), a subcategory of fantasy sports games, where players compete over short-term periods rather than an entire season. The Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association (FSGA) reported that more than 30 million people in the U.S. participate in DFS, up 12% from 2019. Champions Round offers a version of this that it has dubbed “micro fantasy sports,” which are short-form games users can play daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. For instance, users can draft and manage a team around a single event like the NFL draft, removing the need for a season-long commitment."

🛍 Target plans $100M investment to expand next-day delivery "Target announced a $100-million investment Wednesday to expand next-day delivery capabilities through the addition of more than six new sorting centers. The retailer plans to grow its sortation network from nine to more than 15 facilities by the end of 2026. The company said the centers will expand next-day coverage “across major U.S. markets,” though didn’t specify locations. Target expects to deliver roughly 50 million packages from its sortation centers in 2023, twice the amount of last year. Since opening its first facility in 2020, the retailer said it’s seen a 150% increase in the number of orders delivered the next day."

♲ YouTube Expands Multi-Language Audio Tracks to More Creators, MrBeast Says ‘It Supercharges the Heck out of Videos’  "After initial testing over the last few months, YouTube is rolling out access to multi-language audio tracks to more creators worldwide — and it has enlisted massively popular YouTuber MrBeast to tout the new feature’s benefits. The multi-language audio feature lets creators add dubbing to new and existing videos, helping them expand their global reach and reach new audiences for their channels, according to YouTube. In early tests with a “handful” of creators, including MrBeast, YouTube has seen more than 3,500 multi-language videos uploaded in 40-plus languages as of January 2023. Creators testing multi-language dubbed videos saw more than 15% of their watch time coming from views in the video’s non-primary language in January, according to YouTube."

📦 Amazon Expands Same-Day Delivery, With Fees, While Battling Slow Growth "Retailers are determined to get goods into the hands of consumers quickly and Amazon.com is always part of the conversation on that topic. So there’s little surprise in The Wall Street Journal’s reporting that Amazon intends to become a significant force in same-day deliveries. However, how close it is to achieving that goal may surprise a few. Amazon has opened 45 same-day shipping centers since 2019 and it could have as many as 150 operating within the next few years, according to MWPVL International, which tracks the retail and technology giant’s operations. The facilities, which carry around 100,000 of the most popular SKUs sold by Amazon, are being opened in major metropolitan areas around the U.S. The Journal said Amazon has opened new same-day sites in Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco."

🎶 TikTok Announces New Integration with Mercedes Benz to Display TikTok Content on In-Car Screens "As explained by TikTok: “From passing time waiting while stationary in your vehicle to simply enjoying a moment to yourself while your car is at rest, before heading in to your destination, TikTok will be your new favorite activity when parked, delivering you a stream of videos tailored just for you. Passengers can get in on the fun too! The two screens in the vehicle run independently, so both the driver and passenger can log in to their own accounts and For You feeds.”"

🦄 Microservices orchestration platform Temporal raises $75M and remains a unicorn "The startup has also maintained its coveted unicorn status with a valuation of “just over” $1.5 billion, despite some reports to the contrary a few months back suggesting that its valuation had dipped below $900 million. Founded in 2019, Temporal simplifies the development of distributed systems, which includes microservices, a software architecture built around integrations between smaller, function-specific components that are easier to maintain and scale compared to the monolithic software of yore. Such distributed systems rely on “queues” — a type of asynchronous cross-service communication — and databases to synchronize data across the board, which isn’t always reliable and is difficult to manage at scale."

💬 Reddit now lets you search comments within a post Reddit announced today that users can now search comments within a post on desktop, iOS and Android. With this latest update, you no longer have to “Cmd-F” or “Ctrl-F” on a post page, as you can now search comment threads without having to expand them. The feature lets you quickly find the information you’re looking for on a specific post, the company says.

❌ Canada bans TikTok on government devices "TikTok has been banned from government-issued mobile devices in Canada, the country’s Treasury Board announced Monday. Taking effect on February 28, this block follows similar actions taken by the European Commission and some state governments in the U.S. The European Commission issued their directive to remove TikTok from government devices late last week. That same day, four Canadian privacy regulators announced that they would jointly investigate TikTok. Already, the chief information officer of Canada has determined that TikTok poses “an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.” Canadian officials haven’t found any evidence that government data has been compromised, so this is considered a precautionary measure."

👩‍💻 Here’s how every social media company is adopting subscriptions "For the longest time, social media companies have relied on the fact that their service is “free” to use. All these companies banked on showing ads and getting some user data in return to let them use social networks without any charge. Now with declining revenues and tough global economic conditions, social networks are resorting to offering subscriptions in one way or another. These paid plans can unlock features ranging from vanity checkmarks to exclusive stickers to increase reach and more. Here is the breakdown..."

♻️ Rebuy is out to change the customer buying experience, one personalization at a time "Rebuy, founded in 2017 by brothers John Erck and James Van Erck, has an end-to-end SaaS offering for e-commerce — Shopify merchants in particular — that combines artificial intelligence with no-code or low-code technology. Merchants can then create personalized shopping experiences for their customers through upsells, cross-sells and post-purchase follow-ups. For example, to help notify customers that they get free shipping when they spend $100 or more, how to provide gifts with purchase or understand that to convert a user requires helping them discover the right product."

🎤 Voicemod tools up with $14.5M to ride the generative AI (sonic)boom "Bosch’s startup has been fiddling with audio effects for almost a decade, playing in the field of digital signal processing (DSP) — where its early focus was on creating fun ‘sound emoji’ effects and reactions for gamers to spice up their voice chats. And gamers do remain its main user-base (for now). But the audio field is being charged by developments in AI — which Voicemod’s team is hoping will lead to whole new use-cases and many more users for its tools. So where DSP technology was about applying effects to a person’s (real) voice, developments in artificial intelligence are enabling startups like Voicemod to offer tools to create entirely synthesized (unreal) voices. And even the ability for users to ‘wear’ these voices in real-time — so they can speak with a voice that isn’t theirs. Think of it as the audio equivalent of a Snapchat lens or TikTok’s viral teenage filter or Reface’s celebrity face-swaps."

📈 Meta’s ‘Widely Viewed Content Report’ Highlights Top Content Trends on Facebook Meta has released the latest version of its Widely Viewed Content Report, which aims to dispel the notion that Facebook’s algorithms favor divisive, argumentative, political content, with the actual data showing that what the majority of Facebook users actually see in their feeds is far more mundane.

📈 Top trends:

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🐭 2023 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report

Link to report here

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💰 Meta Says That its Automated Ad Targeting Tools Have Driven a 32% Increase in ROAS

“In the fourth quarter of 2022, advertisers saw over 20% more conversions than in the year before [while] recent tests have found that advertisers who use Advantage+ shopping campaigns are seeing a 32% increase in return on ad spend.”

Definitely, the tide has shifted in this respect, with more and more big advertisers noting that Advantage+ targeting – which essentially automates the entire process – producing great results.

“With Advantage+ shopping campaigns, an advertiser just needs to set their business objective, target country, advertising creative, and budget. Then, our AI systems do the rest: optimizing to find the right person, with the right message, at the right time.”

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👏 Live Comedy Specials

Chris Rock to address ‘The Slap’ in Netflix’s first livestreamed broadcast this Saturday

"It’s a big deal for both Rock and Netflix. Netflix, which began experimenting with an ad-supported tier in November and began cracking down on shared password use earlier this month, has a lot riding on the evening, given it will be the first livestreaming event in its 25-year history. (As reported by TC’s Lauren Forristal, Netflix confirmed in May of last year that it would roll out a livestreaming capability that centers on unscripted content, competition shows, reality reunion specials, live comedy shows and a future “Netflix is a Joke” festival.)"

🐦 Twitter thread of the week:

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Link to thread here

🤝 Hot jobs:

Workiva - Director of Demand Generation - EMEA

"The Director of Demand Generation - EMEA will lead and develop the Regional Marketing practice in EMEA. As part of the EMEA marketing team, the goal of this role is to elevate Workiva, educate our key buyers, drive product awareness, generate leads and help retain customers.

The Director of Demand Generation - EMEA is responsible for maximizing revenue by partnering with sales teams to generate and support growth and expansion. This person will have oversight of demand-driven campaigns, relentless measurement of success and ROI for EMEA business objectives and will be able to expertly communicate results and recommendations for continued growth."

Shift - Performance Marketing Director

"Global B-corp, privately owned, £60m plus revenue and only just getting started. This well loved d2c brand is on the hunt for a talented and career driven Performance and Media Director to manage an 8 figure budget and bring the brand to life. This is a huge impact role with a Global remit owning all digital and media spend. They are taking on the big players in the space quickly becoming a challenger brand. We now need a passionate Performance leaders to drive the next stage of exciting growth. The brand offers fantastic working lifestyle and benefits,"

Airtime Rewards - Marketing Director

"Airtime Rewards are delivering the leading data-led rewards technology globally.

We believe every shopper should feel great about their daily spend.

Our app is loved by our members (>2m!) and we're continually building new features that drive towards our vision that sees hundreds of millions of pounds saved on phone bills.

Alongside this, we work with some of the best-known retailers to revolutionise their performance marketing. We're giving them brand new information and insight that transforms their understanding of their customers.

We do all this with our cutting-edge proprietary technology, utilising real time purchase data and AI learning to delight our members and maintain relationships with >200 retailers (including Boots, Greggs, and Tesco to name a few!)."

😂 Meme of the week:

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