As the March equinox arrives here in Boston, the FE International headquarters is springing into one of the busiest times of the year. This week in listings, a top ten list affiliate business is available with more than 22K keyword rankings. Get notified immediately when a new listing is posted by filling out this investor form.
In tech news, Uber’s president Jeff Jones was asked to step down due to the lack of a “cultural fit”. Uber has recently been under tight scrutiny and featured in some negative headlines. In other news, as you may already be aware, Amazon has been actively banning counterfeit or faulty products from their site. It recently has announced a brand registry for companies to submit their IPs and logos. Another Amazon effort to please third-party sellers, where it often takes commission from enabling sales on its platform. To read more about these stories, please read the news briefs below.
As April approaches, FE International will be appearing at more events. On April 9th to 12th, FE will be sponsoring MicroConf in Vegas. Let us know if you’ll be in Vegas around that time or attending the conference. We can set up a meeting with founder Thomas, as well as our COO Olga Lidenko. On the following week, Thomas will be speaking at two events. He will first head to Brighton to speak at the LTVConf on the 19th and then immediately heading back to the States to Atlanta to speak at a private digital investor event. If you are in the area, let us know!
Continue reading below to learn more about registering your brand with Amazon, Instagram shoppable organic posts, Google ad monitoring and another resignation from Uber.
Deal Highlights
Affiliate – Top Ten Lists – $1.4K gross/mo
- 22K keyword rankings
- 139,000 visitors in the trailing twelve-months
- 100% outsourced content creation
- High net margins of over 97%
- Ability to expand into a number of additional niches
Yearly net profit: $16,700
Asking price: $49,000
Sold:
Affiliate – Funnel Marketing – $2K gross/mo
Affiliate – Pet Supplies – $4.7K gross/mo
E-commerce – Furniture – $67K gross/mo
In the News…
Tap to Shop on Instagram
Instagram has decided to allow brands to include shoppable features in organic posts. Back in November of last year, Instagram was testing shoppable organic posts with a limited number of brands. The brands could provide product info and links directly on an organic photo for their shoppers. It is currently enabled for any apparel, jewelry or beauty brand in the US who have uploaded their product catalog onto Facebook. Instagram will also work with Shopify and BigCommerce to encourage users to use the new feature.
If your e-commerce brand is eligible, Instagrammers will be able to tap your photo and see a tag that with the name of your product, price and a “shop now” link that directs them to the in-app browser. During the testing period with certain brands, Instagram found that 19% of people who tapped to reveal more product information, moved onto the brand’s site. To make shoppers aware of shoppable photos, Instagram has added a feature where dots appear above the product after a user lingers on the photo for a few seconds.
Without trying to charge your brand for another ad feature, Instagram is working to encourage more purchases via their platform with this latest addition. You should consider taking advantage of this new feature if you are selling clothes, jewelry or any beauty products.
Google is Letting Advertisers Police Their Ads
In response to the UK government discontinuing taxpayer funded ads on YouTube and Google because ads were appearing on extremist content, Google announced that it will be revamping its advertising policies to give companies more control over what ads appear on YouTube and the Google Display Network.
The first action will be removing content that harasses or attacks other people based on their race, religion or gender (aka hate speech). The second will be to ensure that all advertisers are coming from its YouTube Partners Program and not impersonations or exploitation of the members. The third action will be to monitor YouTube content to guarantee that it abides by community guidelines. This mostly pertains to YouTube content, but ads are often pushed across multiple different platforms.
Read more about Google providing advertisers with more tools to control ad placements on the Google blog.
Register Your IP with Amazon
Remember how Amazon is cracking down on counterfeit products? Next month, brands will be able to register their IPs and logo with Amazon so that Amazon can flag potential counterfeits. When a seller account or listing is flagged, Amazon will be able to remove the listing or account.
This past year, Amazon has implemented policies to cater to third-party sellers that have noticed counterfeit and faulty versions of their products being sold on the marketplace. Now these brands and companies will be able to flag the counterfeits themselves. In addition, Amazon has developed the Transparency program that allows brands to label packages with a specific code that shoppers can use to cross-reference to ensure they have an official product.
Jeff Jones Says Bye to Uber
Amid multiple sexual harassment allegations and a lawsuit from Waymo, Uber president Jeff Jones has stepped down from his position. Recode has claimed that the resignation is a direct result of the amount of controversies at Uber. The beginning of this year, Uber was accused by users of taking advantage of Trump’s immigration ban that caused a movement to delete the app. Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car company is suing Uber because it claims that Uber is using stolen trade information for Uber’s acquired self-driving truck company, Otto.
Ahead of Jones, SVP of engineering and former Google employee Amit Singhal left resigned late February because he failed to report a sexual harassment claim made against him when he was formly at Google. With all the drama, Uber’s board of directors support CEO Travis Kalanick and his decision for the company’s recent cultural change.