Click Through Reads #78: TikTok Shopping, Meta Pro Team, Snapchat +

Welcome back, Click Through Readers! We hope everyone had a fun, safe holiday weekend and an even better work week. Before you sign off for the weekend, make sure you’re up-to-date on the latest industry news!

Lots of new features are making their way into the social media world. TikTok is testing a new shopping tab that will expand to North America soon. Facebook is introducing a new complimentary live support team called the “Meta Pro Team”. Microsoft has started rolling out dynamic descriptions for most dynamic search ads. And finally, Snapchat has created a new subscription platform, Snapchat+, to help boost sales on their platform. 

We won’t keep you long, so let’s jump right in!

TikTok Introducing New Tab Dedicated To Shopping

TikTok is known for its two primary feeds for users to consume content, the 'following' feed and the 'for you' feed. A new test out of Indonesia introduces a new 'shop' feed to explore.

While this might come as a surprise since the platform is widely known for short-form video consumption and not e-commerce, TikTok has been following the same growth process as the Chinese version of the app, Douyin. Douyin capitalizes on creator monetization, powerful algorithms, and organic promotions to drive a majority of revenue through in-stream e-commerce integrations. 

Last year, Tiktok started piloting its shopping feature with a deal that allowed Shopify merchants to add a shopping tab to their profiles. The investment into e-commerce continues with a new, dedicated shopping tab.

 “The Shop Tab is currently testing in Indonesia and serves as a hub for products being sold in TikTok Shop. Brands on TikTok have found a creative outlet to authentically connect with audiences, and we’re excited to experiment with new commerce opportunities that enable our community to discover and engage with what they love.”

It will be interesting to see how the North American market responds to this new functionality test on one of the most popular social media/entertainment apps. TikTok did not say when or if it plans to bring the Shop tab to more markets.

Facebook Announces “Meta Pro Team”

Facebook recently introduced a new expansion to their complimentary live support: Meta Pro Team—an expansion of the formerly known Facebook Marketing Experts. The goal of this new team is to help provide more customized guidance based on individual needs of small businesses. This team is available to businesses growing their advertising efforts on Meta platforms and covers a wide array of support from ad optimization, billing, account access issues, and more.

Facebook also announced that there are currently three types of Meta Pro Teams dedicated to helping businesses grow and unblock roadblocks:

• Meta Marketing Pro: Marketing Pros provide live, tailored help to maximize business results across different Meta technologies.
• Meta Technical Pro: Technical Pros provide live, hands-on guidance to help install or optimize Pixel, Product Catalog, Conversions API and measurement.
• Meta Support Pro: Support Pros help troubleshoot policy, billing and ad restriction issues.
• Meta Creator Pro is coming in the future.

The Meta Pro Team has a dedicated homepage containing details on business eligibility and which program(s) may be best for your business.

Microsoft’s Upcoming Changes to Dynamic Descriptions

Microsoft Ads has started enabling dynamic descriptions for all existing dynamic search ads (DSA). There are two exceptions to this update -advertisers in sensitive verticals and DSAs with static headlines. DSAs with static headlines will never show dynamic descriptions. 

With this update, dynamic descriptions are now the default option when creating new DSA campaigns. 

As this update continues to roll out across accounts, advertisers affected will be notified via email. The notice will also include instructions on how to opt out of this change for specified accounts if you’d like to retain control over the description copy.

Snapchat Rolls Out ‘Snapchat +’

In response to steadily declining ad spending on the platform, Snapchat has introduced a new subscription program called Snapchat+ to help boost sales. The plan will give users access to more exclusive, experimental, and pre-released features such as new icons, profile badges, the ability to pin other users as your favorites, and new data insights such as your Snapchat friends' locations and additional info on who watches your stories. The program is similar to Twitter Blue, a Twitter service that provides access to additional tools within the platform. 

Twitter Blue has had a slow rollout with little traction among users. With its niche features, the Snapchat+ program may also not be widely-appealing except to those who use the app frequently, though the offered features will likely expand. The subscription services will initially be available to the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, with plans to expand later.