SUM NEWS: 🗽 AWNY Takeaways, 📺 YouTube Insights & 🎁Holiday Shopping Trends

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IN THIS ISSUE

📚 Marketing Micro Lesson: T-Shaped Marketers

🌐 Around the Web: Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google, X, AWNY

🔍 Marketing Acronyms Unpacked: CAC

📣 SUM Stuff: Executive Visibility, Event Planning, Budgeting Strategies

😂 In the Meme Time

Marketing Micro Lesson: T-Shaped Marketers

Whether you realize it or not, you’re probably a T-shaped marketer. Do you specialize in one area of marketing while having a general understanding of other marketing disciplines? Congrats, you’re a T-shaped marketer! If you’re not familiar with the term, the “T” represents your deep expertise in one or two facets of marketing (vertical line) along with your broad knowledge of different marketing disciplines (horizontal line).

T-shaped marketers are highly sought after, especially in startups and small businesses where versatility is key.

Benefits of Being T-Shaped

1. Holistic Strategy Development: With a big-picture perspective, T-shaped marketers develop cohesive, cross-functional strategies that drive results.

2. Adaptability: They can pivot across different tactics, making them valuable in fast-paced environments.

3. Enhanced Communication: Their broad knowledge enables them to speak the language of fellow collaborators, understanding their challenges and finding creative solutions.

How to Expand Your “T”

If you already specialize in one area of marketing, take baby steps to broaden your horizons. Seek opportunities to work with colleagues from different marketing disciplines that overlap with yours. This will help you gain insights into various aspects of marketing and understand how they interconnect. If you’re a content marketer, team up with a digital marketer to understand how you should be incorporating SEO into your content. Familiarize yourself with email marketing software so you can build the emails that you draft. Review social media analytics to see what’s resonating with your audience. Take a course to learn more about email marketing, SEO, social listening, HTML basics, or design. At SUM, we’ve compiled over 60 free courses from industry giants like Hubspot, Google, Meta, and more.

All of this will help you do your job more effectively while enhancing your value in the job market and within your organization.

SUM POLL

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Marketing Acronyms Unpacked: CAC

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is how much it costs you to get a new customer. It's calculated by dividing the total cost of marketing and sales expenses–including salaries, creative costs, marketing campaigns, technology, etc.–by the number of new customers acquired. For example, if you spend $1,000 on marketing and sales in a month and get 10 new customers, your CAC is $100 per customer. 

You can improve your CAC by adopting new technologies to streamline and optimize, prioritize retargeting ads, leverage a referral program, conduct A/B testing, refine your targeting to reach potential customers who are more likely to convert, and focus on customer retention.

AROUND THE WEB

The Drum unpacked the top trends that defined Advertising Week New York: AI was everywhere, retail media is the talk of the town, signal loss is still inducing anxiety, and creativity is more important than ever.

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YouTube’s “Why We Watch 2.0” report outlines what viewers are looking for in YouTube content. The key takeaway? Brands should prioritize authenticity and relatability, as viewers increasingly crave genuine connections and more personal storytelling.

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Mobile shopping is a dominant force this holiday season, with 53% of holiday digital sales in the US expected to come from mobile, according to Adobe Analytics data. That means optimizing for mobile is crucial – whether its investing in mobile-first ad formats, simplifying checkout processes, or leveraging mobile data for personalized offers.

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Meta is prioritizing video elements in ads across Instagram and Facebook as video now accounts for 60% of time spent on both platforms.

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LinkedIn and Meta continue to dominate B2B social ad spending – together, they’re expected to represent nearly 80% of B2B social ad spending this year.

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X has dropped its advertising lawsuit against Unilever, but not Mars, CVS, or Ørsted.

ind out what Unilever’s agreement with X could mean for the remaining advertisers and users.

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Google has launched its 7th annual rundown of top Halloween search trends, including an overview of top costume trends for adults, kids, and pets, which you can use to inform your holiday promotions or simply as inspiration for your office party.

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

IN THE MEME TIME …