Google My Business Rumors Confirmed, Microsoft Earnings Report and Facebook’s Record FTC Fine: Newsletter July 26, 2019

Google recently released a statement confirming the cause of the removal of multiple Google My Business reviews. A few weeks ago, SEO experts noted that multiple companies experienced their GMB reviews disappearing. In a statement, Google pointed to a bug which arose among Google’s efforts to remove false reviews, which is currently being resolved. Google has not yet confirmed whether the removed reviews will be restored.

It’s earnings season and Microsoft’s most recent earnings call saw the software leader beat estimates for Q4’19 of their fiscal year, which ended on June 30th, 2019. For the first time in several years, Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud division, which includes Azure, generated more revenue than the segments which contain Office and Windows, respectively. Many companies, such as LinkedIn, have announced they are shifting to use Azure in light of the growth from Microsoft. MSFT rose 2% following the earnings announcement.

The digital marketing world this week saw the Federal Trade Commission fine Facebook a record $5 billion after a year of investigating privacy issues with the social media giant. The settlement comes after millions of Facebook users’ data was breached to political data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, as well as the FTC’s expressed concerns that the company had not been abiding by 2012 privacy protections. This is the largest settlement to have been brought against a tech company in history.

New in listings from FE this week, we are pleased to present a unique B2B SaaS business in the Customer Loyalty & Engagement niche. Launched in 2015, this 8-figure business has scaled at a remarkable rate by providing an innovative software for automobile repair shops looking to increase customer acquisition and retention rates. Catering to a $479 billion dollar US industry, this business allows users to employ multi-channel sales strategies across numerous mediums to increase customer retention, engagement and lifetime value. An impressive history of bootstrapped growth has allowed revenues to reach a c.109% CAGR over 2015 to 2018 and attractive SaaS metrics with over 1,600 users, low net MRR churn of c.2.9% and high LTV of c.$10,200. Please follow the link above to request a prospectus.

In events news, Founder Thomas Smale will this week be speaking at ASD Market Week covering 5 Lessons from over $500 Million in Business Acquisitions. Make sure to RSVP at the link above and stop by room #3133 on July 30 at 2pm if you will be there, or reach out to set up a meeting if you will be in Las Vegas and want to connect! Next week FE will be co-hosting the IndieHackers SaaS Marketer Meetup. This is a great opportunity to brainstorm about marketing, strategy and growth, so make sure to RSVP here!

Continue reading below for more on Google’s statements regarding disappearing Google My Business reviews, the FTC’s settlement with Facebook and Microsoft’s earnings driven by cloud platform Azure.

Listings

New

SaaS – B2B Customer Loyalty & Engagement – $416K MRR

  • State-of-the-art software with a clear value proposition in an evergreen niche worth hundreds of billions of dollars
  • Customer-centric business model and well-received product with a perfect feedback rating
  • Impressive history of bootstrapped growth with revenues reaching a c.109% CAGR over 2015 to 2018
  • Attractive SaaS metrics with over 1,600 users, low net MRR churn of c.2.9% and high LTV of c.$10,200
  • Fully autonomous team staying on with the business post-sale

Yearly net profit: $2,122,000
Asking price: $11,221,000

E-Commerce – Amazon Toys & Games Business – $159K gross/mo

  • Well-developed supplier relationships with some of the world’s leading toy suppliers
  • Highly diversified product offering with hundreds of five-star product reviews
  • Proprietary purchasing software creating a competitive advantage
  • Growing ARPO with thousands of monthly product sales
  • Lean and simple operations with a focus on process and automation

Yearly net profit: $223,000
Asking price: $604,000

Sold

Display Advertising – Food & Travel Authority Blog – $13.1K gross/mo

E-Commerce – Hunting & Outdoors – $42K gross/mo

Digital Products – 2 Y/O Teaching/Languages – $2.6K gross/mo

Display Advertising – Routers & Modems Resource – $1.1K gross/mo

In the News…

Google Releases Statement on Disappearing Google My Business Reviews

Recently SEO experts and businesses have noticed disappearing reviews on Google My Business. In some instances, only a few reviews were removed and in others all reviews disappeared.

Google, in a recently released statement, said the disappearance of the legitimate reviews occurred due to Google trying to remove all fake reviews from the platform. Google says it will be inspecting its tools and systems in order to ensure that deleted legitimate reviews will be recovered. There is some controversy to this statement, as experts believe the reviews might not be able to be reinstated.

Google says the accidental deletion came from a bug it is working on fixing.

Azure Drives Successful FY Q4’19 for Microsoft

Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud reporting sector, Azure, contributed more revenue to the company overall than the Productivity and Business Processes and More Personal Commuting segments for the first time in three years.

The company stock rose 2% after the company’s high quarterly earnings. Azure is a set of cloud-based services that are aimed at helping businesses meet challenges by letting them build, manage, and deploy applications on a global scale. The service provides an extensive directory with virtual machines, databases, file store, backups and other services for mobile and web applications. Azure competes with similar services from Google and Amazon.

Azure’s growth remained at 64% for the fiscal year’s fourth quarter.

Facebook and the FTC Reach Settlement Terms

The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook have reached a $5 billion settlement along with newly implemented privacy structures and new tools for the FTC to monitor the company in a 3-2 vote by commissioners.

The settlement orders unprecedented restrictions requiring Facebook to now deal with privacy from the corporate board-level down. Facebook will also now be required to have members of its privacy committee be nominated independently and to designate compliance offers responsible for Facebook’s privacy settings. In addition to the monetary settlement, Facebook must now improve its privacy structure as well as implement new tools for the FTC to more easily monitor the tech giant. The investigation started March of last year after the commotion around the breach and transfer of data to Cambridge Analytica and concerns that Facebook had been continuously violating the 2012 privacy agreement terms.

The $5 billion penalty is unprecedented and is the largest penalty imposed on a tech company for a violation of consumer privacy.

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