Google and TikTok holiday shopping data, explained

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are unseasonably warm:

↘️ META: $8.94 CPM | ↗️ TIKTOK: $5.84 CPM | ↗️ SNAPCHAT: $10.48 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 🎓 Enrollments are open for TikTok Academy

• You’re going to kick yourself after seeing this Instagram Stories hack 📸

• 🟥 Roblox’s TikTok clone has racked up eight million monthly active users. And now it has ads.

But first…

🥇 Data dive: Why we’re skeptical about TikTok’s Q5 “goldmine”

TikTok just released a 13-page report arguing that advertisers should be spending more during “Q5,” the buzzy term for the period just after the holiday rush, which it calls an “underrated post-holiday goldmine.” Should you buy it?

Social media platforms have been pushing Q5 for the past several years, for understandable reasons: CPM rates plunge in late December and early January, so they’re looking for incentives to get advertisers spending again. And TikTok makes an interesting argument. According to their survey, 78% of TikTok users plan to spend “the same or more” money after the holiday as during the holiday rush, for a variety of reasons: spending gift cards they got in their stockings, exchanging holiday gifts, and taking advantage of holiday sales. 

But we’re skeptical of that 78% number—and of what it means for most advertisers. This year, as last year, we crunched our data on Social Media CPM rates and compared it with data on how much consumers are actually spending, day-by-day — producing a granular look at the most efficient times to spend, i.e. days when consumer intent is relatively high and advertising rates are relatively low. And that analysis led us to focus on a period just before the start of the holiday rush, not after — an opportunity for brands to “jump start” the shopping season. We mapped the data to illustrate:

Chart: U.S. consumer shopping spend, in billions, graphed against Meta and TikTok CPM rates, by day, October-December, 2023. Sources: Adobe, Gupta Social Media Tracker 2024.

In 2024, the “jump start” period will fall November 19-25. During the corresponding period in 2023 (seen above), we saw TikTok’s ad rates were 13% cheaper than the monthly average, during a span when overall U.S. consumer purchases were escalating from $3.1 billion per day to $3.97 billion per day. No offense to Q5, but that combination of lower CPM and elevated consumer intent is a stronger signal of untapped value for advertisers.

▶️ Dig into the data to see what else we discovered about holiday advertising rates on TikTok, Meta, Snapchat, and YouTube in our 2024 State of Social Media CPM report.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

🔎 Google — not to be outdone — has also released its 2024 Holiday Playbook to agencies, which includes guidance on how to buy before, during, and after the Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) hotspot. Two key takeaways, which our data confirms:

• Get a jump start: Google recommends that advertisers “show up strong and start spending before [BFCM]” — noting that consumer spend in the six weeks prior to BFCM has increased 55% between 2019 and 2023.  

• BFCM is overhyped: According to Google’s data, in 2023, Cyber Monday “was only the 15th most valuable day of the season.” Google says there were eight shopping days in December 2023—including “Super Saturday,” the day after BF—that were more valuable.

✂️ Clip It—a TikTok clone that operates exclusively on Roblox—has racked up more than one billion views and has eight million monthly active users. And now it has ads. At the moment, all of the video ads served inside Clip It are the same programmatic ads that are sold directly by Roblox and placed across different experiences on the platform, although Clip It plans to launch its own advertising products in the near future.

💾 Microsoft has rolled out a number of changes for its video ads, including the ability to directly import Google Video campaigns, use LinkedIn Profile targeting, choose enhanced CPC bidding, and more.

☁️ SoundCloud is opening up its display and video advertising to programmatic buys via PubMatic.

♾️ Meta is rolling out a new ad option called “Flexible Media.” Not to be confused with Flexible Ads—which enable you to submit 10 images for an ad—Flexible Media takes it a step further, giving Meta permission to use different images for different ad types.

🔥 Hot Tip: You can now see Meta conversions broken down by existing customers vs. new audiences for non-ASC campaigns.

📸 Instagram: Opting into Automated Format Optimizations can improve the way that square images are displayed within Story Ads. In the screenshots below, the version on left is what it looks like in opt-out mode, and the version on right is after opting in:

⏰ TikTok’s Web Info Cards, which were temporarily paused due to a bug, are now back. 

Reminder: these are similar to a Display Card, but shorter—they appear at 4-6 seconds, and serve as the ad’s CTA. These are available for Traffic & Website Conversions (excluding Video Shopping Ads). TikTok recommends using them to display things like discounts, promotions, positive product reviews and ratings, free shipping and free returns, all paired with eye-catching photos. Like this:

🔥 Hot Tip: TikTok has rolled out a new and improved version of TikTok Academy. With most course segments designed to take 15 minutes or less, it can be a quick destination for learning about a TikTok feature or objective type you might not have used before.

🧪 Testing, testing: TikTok has added a few new alpha and beta tests, including Spark Ads for Lead Gen, and Messaging Ads. Want more info? Give us a shout.

🦘 In first-of-its-kind legislation, the Australian government has proposed legislation that would institute a ban on social media usage for anyone under the age of 16, and hold platforms responsible for ensuring compliance.

🐘The Elephant In the Room: Our weekly office poll!

🏈 Still dreaming about your brand ponying up for a Super Bowl this year? Too late — the ads are already sold out. Those lucky enough to land one reportedly paid about $7 million for a 30-second slot.

While we’re on the topic:

📊 Last edition’s poll results: What's the best social media platform for Halloween?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ TikTok 🦇 

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Instagram 🎃 

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Twitter/X ☠️ 

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Snapchat 🧛

Thanks for reading! We’ll be back next week to fill your inbox with more tips, tricks, and treats from the addressable universe.

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