TLDR Marketing 2024-05-30

Walmart has launched Walmart Realm, a new virtual home for gamified, immersive shops created in partnership with influencers. Three initial virtual shops highlight products selected by popular creator partners: So Jelly, an underwater playground; Y'allternative, a gothic Western destination; and Go Chromatic, a futuristic metallic world. Walmart Realm also includes creators' social content and three mini-games inspired by the featured products. Walmart plans to expand the platform to include additional digital storefronts and partnerships with creators beginning in July.

“Meme tech” could be poised to become the next big industry, akin to health tech or fintech. Meme Depot is a platform aiming to create a comprehensive archive and community for memes. It's organized in a Pinterest-like interface and there are collections that act like visual subreddits. If you're looking for a Kim Kardashian meme, there'll be a Kim Kardashian collection you can navigate to. Meme Depot's business model incorporates a crypto-based feature called “meme party”, allowing users to buy passes and join communities.

Referrals attract your ideal clients, shorten your sales process, command premium fees, and dramatically increase customer lifetime value. Yet, while over 80% of people say they'd be thrilled to refer businesses they love, less than 30% actually do. Tactics to generate more referrals include presenting a referral offer to every client, creating a champion program of raving fans, generating referrals from your employees, building a strategic partner network, and launching your own networking hub. For B2B companies specifically, you can also offer client benefit calls to customers' trusted advisors or teach referral marketing.

This article includes 32 tactics to reduce subscriber churn, including attempting to re-engage “at-risk” accounts and incentivizing early renewal. To reduce churn effectively, a company should first conduct research to understand why its most profitable customers typically churn. The findings should illuminate numerous issues and opportunities that can be addressed systematically.

The Trade Desk's new biannual Sellers and Publishers Report highlights the rise of premium internet content. The top 500 digital publishers now account for 50% of open internet advertising revenue. The report also includes a list of the top 100 open internet publishers valued by advertisers for their quality and reach.

A look at the top Pinterest trends and seasonal moments by month. June is themed as the “main character” and characterized by the icon era, al fresco, shareables, and getaways. September is themed as “level up” and top keywords include “hard refresh”, “throwbacks”, and “in season”. November represents “gratitude” and covers anything that seeks warmth from inside out through the foods you eat and company you keep.

The Generation Effect explains why we remember something more when we put more effort into recalling it. For example, a 2020 study found that people were more likely to remember brand names with a single missing letter, compared to fully spelled-out brand names. To take advantage of this principle, use hidden letters in your next ad, incentivize active participation in your product, or make your social media posts interactive.

Brands like tbh Skincare, Heaps Normal, Liquid Death, and Barbie have won over Gen Z. These brands utilize platforms like TikTok, promote socially conscious messages, and create unique, engaging content that resonates with Gen Z's values. Their success demonstrates the effectiveness of genuine, culturally relevant marketing in building strong connections with this influential generation.

Google's new policy on “site reputation abuse”, effective May 5, de-ranks third-party coupon pages on popular sites. It views them as spam meant to manipulate search rankings. This change impacts large news and lifestyle publishers who rely on high-margin revenue from these pages. The decision has sparked debate within the affiliate space, with some supporting Google's move and others defending third-party coupon pages. Despite Google's dominance, new players like Amazon and TikTok are driving innovation and collaboration. The $150B US digital coupon market emphasizes the potential for growth through strategic partnerships.

A screenshot showing how Sequel.io effectively differentiates and positions itself from competitors on its homepage.

A U.S. appeals court set a fast-track schedule to hear legal challenges to the potential ban of TikTok.

CTR doesn't correlate with any brand growth metrics, including brand awareness, purchase intent, or ROI.