“Sociable” is the newest commentary on necessary social media developments and trends from industry expert Andrew Hutchinson of Social Media Today.
There was a bit of dialogue late this week a couple of recent arrangement between Amazon and Meta, which is able to enable Facebook and IG users to purchase Amazon products in-stream.
As you’ll be able to see on this sequence (posted by Maurice Rahmey on Threads), the brand new Amazon/Instagram integration, in this instance, will enable Instagram users to connect their IG and Amazon account, facilitating one-click purchases without leaving Instagram.
As explained by Amazon:
“For the primary time, customers will have the ability to shop Amazon’s Facebook and Instagram ads and take a look at with Amazon without leaving the social media apps. Customers within the U.S. will see real-time pricing, Prime eligibility, delivery estimates, and product details on select Amazon product ads in Facebook and Instagram as a part of the brand new experience.”
Which is interesting, though not a serious revolution, as you’ll be able to already purchase via most Facebook and IG ads once you tap through.
So it’s not that big of a deal, but nevertheless…
A key element of this might be the combination of knowledge between the 2 platforms, with Meta and Amazon sharing a minimum of some insights that would then higher inform relative marketing strategies, ad performance (via sales), etc.
But that’s probably not what’s happening here.
In reading the high-quality print, within the explainer notes relating to the linking of your IG account, it states that:
- Amazon will have the ability to display up-to-date product pricing on ads, based on details out of your Amazon account (i.e. in case you’re a Prime subscriber or not)
- Amazon will share limited in-app activity data with Meta to show you more relevant product ads, based on which ads you engage with
So there’s not actually a heap of knowledge feeding through from one to the opposite, though the engagement activity could help to improve Amazon ad targeting.
But more importantly, Amazon is not going to share your specific shopping actions “like purchases, product views, or searches” on Amazon to improve Meta’s ad targeting. So it won’t suddenly enable far greater ad targeting on Meta in consequence of the partnership, and the actual data being shared is proscribed.
But it might be one other way to drive more engagement with Amazon ads on Facebook and Instagram, while it may also drive more in-app shopping activity, helping to drive Meta’s commerce push.
Which is rather a lot like Schrodinger’s commerce push, in that it could be happening, or possibly not, depending on the month/week/day you ask. Meta has largely abandoned its live-stream shopping plans, while it’s also removed its dedicated shopping tabs on each Facebook and IG. But like all social platforms, it’s still trying to discover a way in, and possibly, through more direct reference to Amazon, which has over 167 million Prime subscribers within the U.S., that would facilitate a recent pathway to drive more in-app shopping activity.
But while there was some initial hype across the potential data being shared here, and the capability to side-step the impacts of Apple’s iOS 14 update, which has restricted purchase tracking via Meta’s apps, the actual data flow is fairly limited.
But it’s worthy of note either way, and could have some value for Amazon merchants.
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