Spotify Ads, TikTok SEO, Google Shop and Seaweed Packaging!

Lizzie Robinson | Managing Director

Invest In Spotify Ads For 2023

If Spotify ads haven’t been on the radar for 2022’s marketing strategy, then tune in and learn why you should take advantage of this digital marketing tool for 2023. 

Spotify continues to dominate the music streaming service; holding about 31% market share in 2021. Research shows that advertising with Spotify is 25% more effective than other ads. The average listener spends between 99 and 140 minutes using Spotify each day, providing ample opportunity for brands to infiltrate avid listeners’ ears.

Spotify Ads are an excellent choice when it comes to audio advertising. It provides marketers with access and opportunity to create advertisements for free users or tailored sponsorships to target more premium members. Best part is – you can’t skip the ads without a premium account!

Cost Effective Audio Advertising Strategy For Small Businesses

There is a low startup price for Spotify advertising of just $250. This is fantastic in facilitating small businesses to get started on a lower budget. Current rates are especially low, between $0.015-0.025 per ad served. 

To make things even easier, Spotify offers a streamlined service for creating the advertising content. Simply provide your copy and brief, and they will record the content inhouse. If that’s not music to your ears, I don’t know what else is! 

When it comes to targeting, there are a number of ways you can achieve this. The first is you can choose targeting based on podcast and music genres. Secondly you can niche your demographic according to geo targeting, age, gender and interests. 

For advertisers interested in cross-platform marketing, you can implement your 30- second videos into the Spotify ads. Vertical videos being supported on iphone, and both vertical and horizontal for desktop. Tracking performance is simply with UTM tracking parameters, they are not affected by third-party cookies or Facebook pixel.

Jemma Giovannucci | Head Of Socials

Tiktok SEO; Getting Your Video To Show Up On Google

In previous blogs we have touched on the value of SEO for Tiktok. Taking advantage of in app features is effective to tailor your content to specific trending phrases within the app.

We are taking it that step further by introducing you to Tiktok SEO for Google. Now there is potential to optimise your Tiktok content to be indexed by Google! 

Adding that extra layer to your SEO strategy is a huge advantage. Google is continuing to focus on promoting video content within the search engine, and we encourage all our brands to take full advantage of this.

Tiktok SEO Ranking Factors

Hootsuite recently published an article outlining the core SEO ranking factors to ensure your content is optimised by the Tiktok algorithm.

Unsurprisingly, interaction and engagement are always of the highest Tiktok SEO ranking factors. But equally important to this is using the app features including captions, hashtags, sound effects and trends. 

Interestingly, it doesn’t matter how many followers you have on Tiktok, as this does not influence how widely your content is served to people. That being said, obviously if you have more followers you are more likely to have more interactions which is important for Tiktok SEO.

Adding Google Keywords To Your Content Strategy

Keyword research has, and always will be an essential element of traditional SEO strategy.

Whilst there currently are no tools that determine the number of Tiktokers searching specific phrases on Tiktok, you can take a dual approach by researching what content people search for on Google. Cross-check this with what auto-populates on Tiktok’s search and you might just uncover some opportunities! 

A great way to identify specific phrases to create content for is to firstly; type in the core keywords i.e. ‘digital marketing’. From here, go down the alphabet and type in the first letters i.e. ‘digital marketing a’, ‘digital marketing b…’ and see what comes up until you have found a topic that achieves your interest.

Not only does this identify the core keyword you would like to use in your current content, but it can also unveil ample other opportunities, sparking that creative interest!

Strategically Incorporate Your Keyword Across The Video

Without being too obvious, make sure you incorporate your keywords across all features of the video. This could include stating it within the video, closed captioning your content and making sure to include it in the caption and hashtags. Reinforce your keyword message across all avenues.

Eloise Ditchfield | Digital Marketing Co-Ordinator

Google Shopping And Why All Ecommerce Stores Should Start Use It

Google holds over 92% of the world wide search engine market share. As the largest; by a long shot, stakeholder of search engine market share, it only makes sense that taking full advantage of Google’s features will ensure your business gets in front of as many eyes as possible.

For all you ecommerce stores who haven’t heard of, or taken the time to set up Google Shopping, this one’s for you!

Google Shopping; formerly known as Froggle many years ago (20 to be exact), is Google’s product search tab. Here, stores can directly sell their products on Google marketplace.  Facilitating an opportunity for businesses to find your products aside from searching your store.

Google Shopping appears across two sections of Google. The first being Google Shopping tab; this is where both paid and free advertisers can position their products. The second, and only if you’re running ads, is the top of Google Search.

Free Listing Of Products Directly On Google Search

First and foremost, Google Shopping is hugely advantageous in offering a place for product listings to be displayed directly on Google’s search tab. If you are eligible, you can do this for free and do not need to be running ads. For most platforms such as Shopify, you can easily integrate within the ecommerce platform. 

It gives consumers an opportunity to shop directly through google; not going via the site but exploring on Google’s shop marketplace. This is hugely important for streamlining the conversion action.

Give Your Listings That Visual Touch

For ecommerce stores, where visual cues matter, Google Shopping presents as a more viable alternative to Google Ads without images. 

A huge advantage of Google Shopping is it provides your business with another marketplace to drive traffic to your online store. Garnering brand exposure and consumer interest surrounding your product.

Google Shopping is a lot easier to manage. Instead of bidding on certain keywords, Google decides what keywords are most relevant based on the product feed data you strategically craft in the product listing. 

Finally, you will not be charged unless someone clicks on the ad. What makes ecommerce product shopping more valuable is there is a higher probability of interest in purchasing if someone is clicking on the ad.

Ainsley Caulfield | Graphic Designer

Seaweed Packaging; At The Forefront of Sustainable Manufacturing

Seaweed has made itself known as an invaluable tool in the sustainability mission. With potential beyond being a highly nutritional food source, it is now presenting as a viable material for soft and hard plastics. 

Exploring seaweed as an alternative to plastic packaging is becoming increasingly popular among countries. Within Australia and China there has been collaboration in creating a viable plastic friendly product. Dr Zhang, from Victoria University, states within Australia “… we know how to modify polymers for packaging purposes…on the China side, they know how to extract the polymer from seaweed”. 

Across the oceans, London-based startup Notpla is at the forefront of creating environmental change for product packaging. They have developed a single-use plastic alternative made entirely from seaweed. Not only is it natural, organic and non-chemically modified, but biodegradable and home compostable. 

This innovative product has been so highly regarded, that Prince William awarded the $1.2 million Earthshot prize to develop this innovative product further. 

So what makes seaweed better? First and foremost, it decomposes in 2-3 months; a stark contrast to the 450 years it takes for plastics to break down. 

Secondly, it has the potential to be used for both soft and hard plastics. This opens up opportunities not only for single use packaging solutions, but use for long term storage of liquids such as beauty products.

Potential Adoption For Long-Term Product Packaging

The greatest challenge for engineers is exploring the commercial use of seaweed alternative packaging for long-term product packaging. 

The beauty industry contributes a whopping 120 billion units of packaging waste per year; with predictions it will have contributed 12 billion tons of plastic to landfill by 2050. 

A Japanese designer; Aman, recently experimented with this form of material to ship a perfume bottle from Tokyo to Milan and found the eco-experiment to be a success.

We look forward to seeing more successful designs using seaweed packaging in the future.

Thanks for tuning in to our last fortnightly catchup for the year! We hope you loved learning about these insights as much as we did sharing them with you. Looking forward to exploring more innovative and exciting trends, insights and tips within the marketing and branding world for you in 2023! 

Love the Agency Jean team xx