Good morning, Marketers, are your customers buying now, but paying later?

Between November 2019 and November 2021, Americans’ usage of “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) options increased 438%. Americans also seem to be spending more than ever this holiday season, with a record 22 days last month driving over $3 billion in online consumer spend, according to Adobe. And, let’s not forget that consumer prices recently spiked by 6.2%, the largest inflation surge in over three decades.

It’s logical, goods cost more now, so customers are turning to options that allow them to smooth out their expenses over a larger period of time. The thing is, two-thirds of BNPL app users said they spent more than they would have otherwise, according to Lending Tree. And, these BNPL companies may not be running thorough credit checks before approving purchases.

It’s not our responsibility to tell audiences how to spend their money, even if it’s money they don’t currently have. But, it’s worth thinking about since customers may not be able to support our brands in the future if they’re still paying for purchases from months back.

George Nguyen,
Editor

SEO

Google December 2021 product reviews update is rolling out now

The update will take about three weeks to fully rollout, Google said.

PPC

Demographic audiences double the reach of narrow interest audiences, Facebook says

However, both strategies perform similarly when reach is comparable.

Find your Google paid search path to success in 2022

Marketers spend billions of dollars in paid search deployed across tens of thousands of campaigns. The challenge is dealing with all the complexity that creeps in while managing those campaigns across multiple locations alongside multiple affiliates, media partners, and agencies. In this live webinar, learn how to drive performance from your campaigns in less time with more confidence. You’ll hear about the challenges that Adthena customers have faced and the steps they took to forge ahead.

RSVP Today!

PPC

Google Performance Planner adds support for ineligible campaigns, secondary metrics, ‘Suggested changes,’ specific time ranges

These new features expand Performance Planner’s flexibility, making it potentially more useful for advertisers in more situations.

SMX Build: Free one-day intensive for serious SEOs

If you’re an SEO craving cutting-edge tactics that move the needle, you won’t want to miss SMX Build: SEO for Developers — a FREE one-day training intensive that explores the tools, testing, tactics, and strategies advanced SEOs need to know.

Register For Free

SEO

3 SEO metrics to help secure executive-level buy-in

Campaign metrics alone may not accurately represent your team's work. At SMX Next, Jessica Bowman shared metrics that can help SEOs change the conversation and get executives to recognize their value.

Ecommerce

E-commerce SEO guide: New documentation from Google

The new guide from Google gives e-commerce SEOs documentation they can take to clients and stakeholders to get their recommendations implemented.

Shorts

  • Is Google rolling out the expandable snippet carousel? First seen as a test back in August, more search professionals are reporting seeing this feature in the wild. I can’t quite explain why, but it reminds me of Bing’s results.
  • Sorry, did you mean Bing? Marketing O’Clock’s Christine Zirnheld spotted a tricky little tactic on Bing Search: when you search for “Google,” a second Bing search bar appears above the first result. Interestingly, that doesn’t happen when you search for “DuckDuckGo” or “Yahoo.”
  • The top 10 U.S. ads on YouTube. YouTube has published its 2021 Ads Leaderboard, showcasing the ten most watched ads on YouTube this year. Some of the ads are even labeled with the creative and media agencies that were involved.

From MarTech