Our 5 Biggest 2024 Predictions

Hello!

Welcome back for some more bites to chew on. 

On the Menu

We all love a few predictions as we look into another year of opportunity, profitability, grinding, and hope.

Specifically, hope that one of the big tech companies doesn’t pull some nonsense that makes marketers want to play a spirited game of Toss the Laptop. 

Bite 1: The Election Will Impact Ads

No, don’t worry, we’re not making any political takes here.

We just know that Q3 and Q4 are going to be interesting because of the elections. 

Back in 2020, there were crazy spikes in CPMs starting in September because both parties were pushing ad spend, and that brought everything up for everyone across the board. 

Of course, this doubly sucks because as it is, CPMs go up around that time of year due to the ever-growing ad ramp-up into BFCM. But such is the nature of the beast. 

So:

Anticipate semi-unpredictable changes in ad spend and leave an extra chunk of change around to account for higher CPMs before the election. 

Bite 2: Social Media = Social Shopping

Especially given the rapid success of TikTok Shop, we’re likely going to see damn near every social platform have an enhanced or new shopping experience. 

Instagram Shopping will be much more heavily curated.

Pinterest Shopping will likely be developed further.

Twitter might even come out with something. 

And others could be interesting to see. Twitch? Given that Amazon owns Twitch, they could leverage it in some interesting way—and then that could cause its own chain reaction in terms of how shopping on social media develops. 

TikTok Shop will still definitely be the big one, though. They’ve done so much right, and people are already really innovating there.

We will be, too.

Bite 3: Difficult & Sad Truth: Struggling Brands Won’t Last

In eCommerce, the most important thing is and always will be building a great brand. 

The challenge now, though, is that in addition to building a great brand, you need to be a thoughtful and sophisticated eCommerce operator who can handle ever-increasing complexity in our space: selling channels, marketing channels, ops, etc. 

Brands with less loyalty, that aren’t genuinely data-driven, that aren’t at least keeping up with the curve… Won’t survive. 

The consequence here: For other brands, this will actually have positive effects. There will be cheaper inventory (more supply, less demand) and potentially less keyword competition, depending on the vertical/niche.

Bite 4: Relevance of Influencers & Content Creators @ ATH

We’ve lived through (and continue to live through) the times of celebrity-backed or celebrity-started brands.

But given the rise of some multiplatform influencers and content creators, we’re going to see more successful brands started by or through these personalities. 

Mr. Beast is the best example so far, starting Feastables, but you don’t need ~230m YT followers to start a strong brand. 

The personality does need a sizable following, though, and that might be the most important thing. 

Because…

Bite 5: Audiences Are the MOST Valuable Asset

We already talked about the impact of a strong influencer on sales in our recent newsletter about fundraising.

The popular influencer we worked with early on at Obvi quadrupled our sales nearly overnight. 

Brands with influencers’ and content creators’ audiences are going to likely see strong sales out of the gate as well as strong retention: if the influencer’s doing it, the audience will be doing it. 

Note: These brands have to be cautious. Even if a brand is founded by an influencer or they have heavy involvement, that’s still building the business on semi-unsteady footing. If the influencer happens to leave (or anything: if they get sick, hurt, etc.), the brand is f***ed.

Tool Spotlight

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And when you test a lot (like we do), you need that understanding. We don’t want to waste hours on trying to figure out what performed the best and what didn’t, and we want to get out of spreadsheets.

Plus, we love:

• Clear direction on what we need to iterate on

• Help around guiding spend to better-performing assets

• Aligning our team on what’s working well (and not)

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Catchew Later!

We sincerely appreciate every moment you spend with us and reading our work. We’ll see you soon.

All the best,

Ron & Ash