💵 $10k days are the norm now

Welcome to Morning Commerce!

This week felt a little dare-I-say quiet compared to the onslaught of news and updates we’ve had over the past month.

Here’s what we’ve got for you:

• The way people search the web is changing (maybe)

• How to improve influencer outreach (free)

• How to pay your suppliers over time

• HowTo and FAQ rich results caput

• 6 ways to level up your Shorts

• Semrush adds AI

— Kyle Tully

ACQUISITION

The way people search the web is changing (maybe)

Hubspot is at it again. This time they surveyed over 600 people about their search habits. They say people are “flocking” to other channels, like social media, to answer their questions.

But I think the data mostly shows search still dominates!

Here’s how people search for answers to questions online:

• 88% use search engines

• 31% social media

• 12% AI/chatbots

And only 15% prefer social search over search engines.

In fact, 86% of people surveyed said search engines are the most effective way to answer questions.

So while Gen Z and Millennials have larger relative populations that prefer social search, the vast majority of them still prefer search engines and agree they are the most effective way to get answers.

How to improve influencer outreach (free)

Two tips for improving your influencer outreach efforts from Jason Wong:

1. Use the Meta Creator Marketplace to find influencers open to collab. Your messages go into their partnerships tab rather than “others” which dramatically helps response rates.

2. Send a picture along with your message of the thing you want to send them. Makes it feel a lot more real and engages the loss aversion principle.

6 ways to level up your Shorts

Youtube continues adding new tools and features to encourage brands to publish more Shorts. And the word on the street is Shorts are still the fastest way to build your brand on Youtube in ‘23… being watched by over 2 Billion logged-in users every month.

Here’s what’s new:

1. Collab - record a Short in a side-by-side view with another Youtube video or Short. Hit “remix” then “collab” on eligible videos to get started.

2. New effects & stickers - dozens have been added, including the engagement-friendly “Q&A” sticker. You can also reply to comments with a Short to keep that engagement train rolling.

3. Go live & get discovered - a mobile-first vertical live experience will see live videos inserted into the Shorts feed, giving brands and creators another way to get discovered.

4. Suggestions - grab the audio and effect from the Short you’re remixing automatically.

5. Playlists - save your favourites into a swipe file so you’re never short of ideas. (See what I did there!)

6. Transform - easily convert horizontal videos into Shorts with recomposition tools including adjustments for layout, zoom, and crop.

How do Shorts fit into your marketing mix? If you’re building a brand on Youtube they seem like the obvious play right now!

SEO

HowTo and FAQ rich results caput

Never one to let SEO’s get a break, Google is changing how FAQ and HowTo rich results are shown in search results.

• FAQ rich results will only be shown for “well-known, authoritative government and health websites”.

• HowTo rich results will only be shown on desktop.

What does this mean for you? If you don’t know, then probably nothing.

But if you’ve been diligent with SEO and content marketing and have earned featured snippets with either of these schemas, then you’ll likely notice a drop-off in impressions and clicks as these changes roll out.

Google says you can safely remove the schema from your site, but that there is no need to. But I don’t see any reason to remove it.

In fact, I would continue adding it where appropriate. Google isn’t the only one consuming your site, and more structured data can only help the robots understand, categorise, and rank your content.

Semrush adds AI with ContentShake

I’m sure you’ve been on the edge of your seat waiting for another AI tool to hit the market. And you’re in luck! Semrush just launched their AI-powered content writing tool, called ContentShake.

They say you can “use ContentShake to get content ideas, write articles faster with AI, optimize copy using competitive market data, and publish directly to your blog.“

At first glance, it looks like Frase but less business-like, more friendly.

I’m playing with it right now and my first thought is it’s really slow. Like painfully slow. I’m writing this paragraph now while waiting for my first ContentShake article outline to load so I can give you some hands-on info… and two minutes later it’s still loading.

I asked it to give me some ideas for an article on speed optimising a Shopify store. And I’d say the content is about the same as what you’d expect from ChatGPT. e.g. It gets the basics right but there is nothing specific about Shopify and many of the recommendations do not apply to Shopify.

If I hadn’t already experimented with every other AI tool on the market I would probably be blown away by this. But the bar is extremely high now.

There is a free plan available if you want to check it out.

FYI: No AI tools are used in the writing of this newsletter. It’s just me!

CONVERSION

$10k days are the norm now

DadGang is a great little Shopify success story worth paying attention to.

What started as a group of dads chatting (#dadgang) and launching 100 hats on a whim, quickly grew to a community of over 75,000 with over 40,000 hats sold in 14 months.

And they did it with:

• A free theme. (They use Dawn.)

• Canva + iPhone for content.

• Minimal apps.

So what makes them so successful? There are some experienced operators behind the scenes, no doubt. But IMO it’s because they tapped into an identity. One that has largely been on the sidelines in popular culture and likely felt under-appreciated for some time.

Plus they make the perfect gift for a new dad.

SHOPIFY NEWS

Melio launches Pay Over Time

Melio recently launched Pay Over Time, the first product that enables small businesses to pay vendors and business bills in monthly instalments, while their suppliers get paid in full and on time.

It’s like Buy Now, Pay Later, but for business.

"We're proud to be providing more flexibility to small businesses that need to pay bills and invoices with strict terms, enabling our customers to better align their spend and income," said Matan Bar, Melio co-founder and CEO. "This unique Accounts Payable service enables business bills to be paid in installments, providing our customers with an additional layer of cash flow flexibility."

You’ve got options to pay in net 30 days, right up to 12 monthly instalments.

You might recognise the Melio name as we’ve previously written about them when they launched their bill payment integration with Shopify. Right now it’s only available for US-based businesses.

Four new Shopify updates

• Pay with credit card in Draft Orders now supports Shopify Markets Pro - This allows merchants to complete a Shopify Markets Pro order on behalf of a buyer in admin without having to send an invoice.

• Streamline your business with Organization Settings - Shopify Plus stores can now manage multi-store organisations with ease.

• Inventory dataset removed from ShopifyQL Notebooks - API end-points used to access the inventory dataset are also being removed.

• Merchants with B2B orders are now eligible for Shopify Markets Pro.

INSPO OF THE WEEK

Rhode’s product pages are gorgeous 😍 Just some of what we love: Full-screen hero images, subtle zoom effects as you scroll the page, hover effects on the benefit bullets, double sliders showing the application, and a reviews section that matches the brand. The attention to detail is outstanding.

How we can help…

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