Our Big Changes in 2022
Well, let’s start with the biggest news, shall we?! In September of 2022 Dash of Milk was acquired by Lauren Fraser of LMF Marketing. Though it was never on my cards (Lauren’s) to acquire an agency, the opportunity presented itself, and I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge.
During the last quarter of 2022 the teams and I underwent a massive project of merging brands, and starting to roll our the new dash. agency. With a nod to “Dash of Milk” in the name, and a strong influence from the LMF Marketing teals, it was a natural result, but by no means an easy feat. We’re still working through the duplicated software and shifting subscriptions over to our new emails. We just keep finding more!
LMF Marketing as a brand will be wound down, and we’re just waiting to get all our SEO pages sorted before finalising it’s wrap up. It’s been an amazing journey of less than 5yrs for LMF, and only in my wildest dreams did I imagine to grow it to the level I have within this time.
The acquisition has allowed for a truly elevated agency to be born though, merging the expertise and zones of genius from each business to create a full-service digital agency that can deliver a better experience than ever before; it’s really exciting. Already the support and service we’re able to offer our clients is at a whole new level, and the team and I cannot wait to see how things progress in 2023.
Within digital, you never quite know how things are going to unfold either, so I wanted to first recap some of the big changes and impacts we observed throughout 2022, before our next blog when we dive into forecasted trends and changes in 2023. Read on…
INDUSTRY NEWS
Our Key Observations in 2022
- The effects of Apple’s iOS privacy changes at the start of 2021 have well & truly been felt. Not only has the reduced targeting capabilities of iPhone users lead to a loss of over $10 billion dollars for Facebook (AKA Meta), it’s also drastically changed the results achievable through Meta Ads.
Reduced targeting ability has meant it is now much harder to find the right audiences within Facebook & Instagram, and therefore takes longer to build out a thriving funnel… and with lower overall ROI on your ads than was achievable only a couple of years ago.
But it’s not all bad. It means that true creativity and strategy is required, and you can’t be a lazy marketer. Businesses are also required to create great brands – that customers really want. - As the economy and world re-opened after COVID-19 restrictions, the commerce space was flipped on it’s head again. What had been a booming time for some, and a bust time for others, has been shaken up this year, multiple times.
Many businesses have experienced a return to almost pre-pandemic levels, which has been a real struggle after 2yrs of booming growth and goals of a ‘new norm’. We’ve also seen other businesses experience sudden demand after being on the brink of closure… but unfortunately then suffer the ongoing impact of labour shortages, sickness and supply issues.
This is a strange time, and inflation is only adding to the impacts felt across businesses of all sizes. When businesses are in times of “distress” focus needs to be on financials, sales & marketing. Our goal has been to provide flexible & omnichannel solutions to help support you through these challenging times. - The rise of Reels & demise of engagement has lead to ongoing frustrations in social media. I don’t know about you, but I was sick to death of seeing lip-syncing and the same dance moves over & over on Instagram.
As the Instagram algorithm changed in favour of video and Reels, we all experienced a substantial drop in engagement and reach, and were bombarded with the same s*^t constantly. It took a Kardarshian to turn things around. But the effects have been great, with small business struggling to grow organically online if they weren’t willing to spend 80% of their day creating Reels.
The loss of Meta Ads targeting AND the drop in quality content & engagement meant many people looked for alternative platforms, and we are seeing continued growth in TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn. All of which attract particular audiences and are pushing to make big improvements in their Ads platforms. We’re big fans of diversifying away from Meta. - Black Friday was a bust for most businesses. We have never seen a Black Friday that was so aggressive, or started so early. I’m sure you all felt it as well, constant emails and SMS, and a lot from businesses that I had not received any comms from at all since the day I subscribed.
Not only were macro factors an impact, but the sheer volume of competition and the sharp increase in ad costs meant reduced cut-through and sales for the majority of businesses.
The most success came through targeting warm audiences and for brands that had invested time and money in building their email database, and keeping them engaged, in the lead up to the event. Plus a very strong offer. - Tracking is getting harder and we all need to focusing on the most important metrics. As we continuing moving to a cookie-less digital world, we are going to see more limitations around marketing tracking. It has already been very hard in 2022 to understand the impact of campaigns and accurately track customer journeys.
The rapid rise of digital marketing has predominantly been off the back of big data, but as we see owned data restricted more and privacy increase, we’ll continue to struggle to 100% track results, and instead we need to work closely with you to understand the impact of marketing.
Focus on the most important metrics only, the ones that actually shift the needle for your business. That means not getting distracted by vanity metrics, or jumping into new channels without strategy. We have to work with you to build your brand for the long-term and focus on activities that support growth. Again, there’s no room for lazy marketing., and it’s going to take consistent omnichannel effort.
As we warm into 2023, you can expect more changes and lasting impacts as the digital and marketing space continues to evolve. We’ll be unpacking trends and forecasted changes in our next blog, so be sure to share your email and stay up to date on the latest news from dash.
