We’re back with another Midweek Media Breakdown, where we give you the latest social media news through a digital marketing lens.
💸 iOS 16 To Include Apple Pay Later 💸
At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, the company announced its new ‘buy now, pay later’ software is set to roll out in September as part of the iOS 16 update.
Wherever Apple Pay is accepted, users will now be able to take advantage of Apple Pay Later and choose to pay back the cost of their purchase over the course of six weeks, in up to four different payments, with no additional fees or charges.
The first payment is upfront, with the pending and completed payments being managed through Apple Wallet.
Having previously avoided the BNPL space, Apple Pay Later will be the first offering of its kind from Apple Inc. Interestingly, other popular buy now and pay later services have been losing popularity during the post-COVID recovery.
Fintech superstars like Klarna and Afterpay have been experiencing a major decline in share prices. Afterpay’s owner Block (now Apple’s number one competitor in the BNPL space) experienced a 60% plunge in just one year.
The BNPL space exploded during the pandemic, so many have chalked this up to the market readjusting. However, experts are questioning the timing of this announcement from Apple, following a number of class-action lawsuits being issued against Afterpay in 2021. Klarna has also recently laid off 10% of its global workforce.
Despite the current critique of BNPL models, Apple is confident this ‘user-focused’ offering is an update people want. “Designed with users’ financial health in mind, Apple Pay Later makes it easy to view, track and repay Apple Pay Later payments within Wallet,” said Apple.
🕺 TikTok Adds New Trend Insights 🕺
Unless you spend hours a day on TikTok, keeping up to date with the latest social media trends, audios and jargon is a near-impossible task. Often, timing is key for brands wanting to leverage TikTok trends. TikTok is now helping out marketers even more with a new, super-useful insights tool helping us to better understand emerging trends and activity.
TikTok has now added new insight elements to its Creative Centre Platform. These new insights will help marketers tap into trends by providing key data on trending songs, hashtags, regional performance stats, top influencers and more.
Key audience insights into who is using trending audios and their shared interests will now also be available. You will also be able to look up trending hashtags, with the results being displayed by popularity based on location – an insight gem for targeting!
There are also more insights into how each trend is performing in different parts of the world, with top creators in each region being highlighted. The ‘creators’ tab lets you discover top TikTok influencers by region.
These new insights are super valuable to marketers wanting to dig deeper into the top TikTok trends. We’d highly recommend giving TikTok’s Creative Center a visit. Their Ad Library shows the top-performing ads and just one quick exploration can reveal so many insights into what TikTok users are interested in, engaging with and enjoying.
📷 Boost Campaign Performance with AR and Snap Camera Ads 📷
Snapchat just revealed new data on how to maximise campaign performance on Snapchat through interactive ad formats.
In two new studies, Snap explored how different ad formats drive social media engagement and response, and how AR ads can further contribute to boosting brand lift and awareness.
The first study focused on how to create the most powerful Snap campaigns possible, testing variables such as frequency, creative and ad format.
The key takeaways:
- Taking advantage of multiple ad formats within your campaign drives significantly better results
- An average frequency of publishing 4 times per week (but no more than 8 times a week) was optimal for driving a better response
The results show that the average brand awareness lift is 32% higher with multi-product ads and 36% higher with Snap Camera and content integrations. So, it’s clear adding interactive elements produces a significant boost in performance.
Snapchat has also invested heavily in the development of AR-enabled campaigns. Their other recent study focused on the power AR has to drive more meaningful engagement.
The key takeaways:
- Snap users find AR ads significantly more informative than pre-roll ads and help consumers feel closer to the brand
- Different AR formats result in different responses and engagement
In an official statement, Snap said: “World Facing AR Lenses impact those in the middle of the journey, and result in higher purchase intent (+8%) and build relevance for the brand (+7%). Front-Facing AR Lenses help lift brand image for those closer to purchase, with a +5% lift in brand uniqueness and 4% lift in relevancy.”
A full overview of each study can be found here and here.
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Thanks again for tuning into another weekly roundup with The Graygency. Check out our blog for more Midweek Media Breakdown posts.
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