Ryvalmedia Pulse (Vol.46)

Temu and Shein continue to drive up digital ad costs, with Australian retailers looking to explore customer acquisition solutions

With financial pressures continuing to plague consumers, affordable shopping apps continue to grow in global markets as they continue to lean into consumers desire for cheaper products. Shein and Temu are both nudging $1 billion in online sales each in Australia as these retailers are outbidding rivals for ad digital inventory and pushing up digital ad costs nationally, and globally. Whilst Australian e-commerce is still growing, cost of living pressures and the broader economic climate are causing shoppers to be laser focused on price and flock to these cheap marketplace apps. Whilst it is becoming increasingly more difficult to compete with retailers on price point, there are alternatives that these price-focused retailers do not consider. Local Australian retailers need to double-down on their value propositions that the likes of Shein and Temu can't compete with, such as quality, customer service, loyalty programs, delivery times, click & collect and warranties. Learn more

Radio continues to be the key driver in YoY audio growth within the Australian market

Fresh off the press, the 8th annual report by Edison Research and Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) explores audio penetration within the Australian market. Providing benchmark measures on audio usage and behaviour across both traditional and digital formats, the report has highlighted positive performance in Australia. Radio still dominates the audio environment, with the report highlighting a 2% YoY growth across broadcast radio. Growth has also been noted across more digital formats to support the strong radio consumption, with podcast listenership increasing in market by 20% over the last two years. Despite the continued growth across digital formats, broadcast radio continues to dominate the in-car listening experience, a crucial moment to reach the Australian audience during the weekday commute and weekend drive around. While digital formats continue to rise, it is important for brands to still be aware of the mass reach and listening that broadcast radio still provides and the importance of it as part of a diversified total audio approach. Learn more

Meta announces beta integration with GA4, with the potential to optimise user functionality

Some Meta users have been served a pop-up with the option to connect Googe Analytics 4 (GA4) with Meta direct from platform. While it is currently a small roll-out in select markets for now, if the trial is extended to a wider audience this beta integration is worth exploring. Previously, integrating Meta Ads with GA4 required manual set up using UTM parameters, a process that was time-consuming and prone to errors, hindering the depth and accuracy of insights. This new native integration eliminates this bottleneck entirely and connects GA4 to Meta seamlessly and accurately. This data, combined with the pixel and Conversions API, has the potential to save marketers time, improve accuracy of data and ultimately help optimise campaigns. However, we also need to stay critical as attribution of both platforms is not reliable by default, and how the data from GA4 will be attributed in Meta is not known just yet. Stay tuned. Learn more

The Ryvalmedia Pulse is prepared fortnightly by Alex Pupko (Strategy Manager), with this issue in collaboration with Carragh Simpson (Business Manager).