🗞️ Digital Marketing Must-Knows

This week’s round up:

1. Amazon is opening a clothing store, ‘Amazon Style’ in LA. The shopping experience is built around technology. With the Amazon app, QR codes and fitting room touch screens at the center. Amazon has designed the store to be more space-efficient by keeping just one version of each product on the floor. This creates space for “more than double the number of styles” as a traditional store in the back.

2. Instagram publicly launched subscriptions in alpha. Creators can generate subscription revenue by giving subscribers access to exclusive content and benefits.  The move will more formally commercialize the relationship between creators & followers.

3. LinkedIn launches Clubhouse-style ‘Audio Events’ and is working on a video format too. “We’ll expand the ability to host Audio Events to more creators in the coming months, and we’ll start rolling out our Video Events format later this spring.”

4. Apple has complied with an order to let other providers process payments in the App store. For the first time, dating apps in the Netherlands can use alternative payment providers. This means they can bypass the 30% ‘Apple Tax’ charged to companies generating $1M + per year. By one estimate, Match Group, one of the largest dating app developers, could save as much as $215M per year.

5. Instagram is testing vertical scroll for Stories (TikTok-style). While TikTok is testing Stories. The apps could soon be tough to tell apart. Instagram was the most downloaded app worldwide in Q4 2021, per Sensor Tower. TikTok came in second. The Indian market is fueling much of Instagram’s growth while TikTok remains banned.

Snippets for the road

• Behavioral ad targeting is subject to bills in the US & EU.

• SEMRush acquired Backlinko

• Lastly, Tumblr is having a resurgence led by GenZ

Have a great weekend!