🔊 Facebook launches responsive ad feature | Squarespace acquires social content tool Unfold

Plus, why it’s good for marketers to have empathy for customers. Oct 29, 2019 Good morning marketers, ready to dynamically optimize your Facebook ads? Facebook has rolled out [Multiple Text Optimization – a new responsive ad feature]( that enables advertisers to create several versions of headlines, ad copy and descriptions for single-media ads. Facebook’s ad system then dynamically serves up the combination it determines will deliver the best results. Sound familiar? Yes, this is similar to Google’s responsive search ads and leaves messaging combinations to the algorithms. Advertisers can see what their text combinations will look like with a new feature in Facebook’s ad preview tool. Brands operating on Squarespace will now be able to create Story content on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat through [Squarespace’s latest acquisition of Unfold](. “Unfold and Squarespace share the same DNA and vision for empowering creators,” said Unfold’s founders Alfonso Cobo and Andy McCune in a statement on Squarespace’s website. “Together, we’ll continue to rethink how people share stories to connect and inspire.” According to Squarespace, Unfold users have created more than 700 million Stories using the app, and it ranked #1 in the App Store’s photo/video category in nearly 12 countries. For small businesses without the design resources of a major brand, a tool like Unfold can help elevate social content at a relatively marginal cost. Keep scrolling for more news, including a look at how consumer empathy can help drive business, plus our own reading list curated just for you. Taylor Peterson, Deputy Editor Soapbox Empathy is good business, but only when companies proactively apply it In this age of infobesity, it can be difficult to pull anything human out of the mountains of data we accumulate. That is precisely why we must. Emotionally empathetic filters must be applied to existing methods of data collection and interpretation. We must discover not only the what, but the why. We can take insights gained from [emotionally empathizing with individual consumers]( and contextualize how potential customers feel within the greater market. A gap exists between customers’ feelings and perceptions of how to meet their needs and companies’ own ideas about how to meet them. Through the contextualizing power of cognitive empathy, marketers can visualize that gap and find actionable solutions to bridge it. We must constantly apply both emotional and cognitive empathy at all stages of the marketing process and actively seek practical, actionable strategies to intervene as customers’ needs and motivations evolve. Empathy is not a precursor element, or a seasoning applied at the table – it is a robust and profoundly human tool that must be consistently applied throughout the marketing process, from data acquisition through to sale. – [Peter Minnium]( is president of Ipsos US Webinar: Deliver More Relevant Website Experiences by Leveraging Analytics Sponsored by Coveo Attend this webinar and learn how to develop a unified strategic plan to deliver more relevant visitor and customer experiences, increase personalization to provide effortless customer self-serve options, and scale your sales efforts more effectively. [Learn more »]( Social Shorts Facebook rolls out Preventative Health Tool, meanwhile, employees decry company’s political ad policy Facebook aims to keep users healthy. Facebook has rolled out a new [Preventative Health Tool]( designed to connect users with health resources and check-up reminders. “To help you keep track of your checkups, we collect information you provide, such as when you set reminders or mark a screening as done. We also log more general activity, like frequency of clicks for a specific button, which allows us to understand how the tool is being used, in order to improve it over time,” wrote Facebook on its Newsroom Blog. Users will be able to set appointment reminders, schedule health tests and find affordable care using the Preventative Health tool. The company says recommendations for checkups offered by the tool are based on a user’s sex and age per their Facebook profile. At first glance, it looks like a helpful resource, but it’s worth noting just how much information you’re giving a platform that has never been all that good about keeping user data safe. Employees want Facebook to change its ad policies. In response to Facebook’s policy of not fact-checking ads from politicians, a group of 250 Facebook employees signed a letter asking the company’s leaders to rethink how it handles political advertising, reports the [New York Times](. The employees said the policy is a “threat to what FB stands for” and that they “Strongly object to this policy as it stands.” The letter, which was posted on Facebook’s internal Workplace platform, was shared with the New York Times by three employees who asked not to be named. Facebook spokesperson Bertie Thomson told the New York Times, “Facebook’s culture is built on openness, so we appreciate our employees voicing their thoughts on this important topic. We remain committed to not censoring political speech, and will continue exploring additional steps we can take to bring increased transparency to political ads.” Twitter confirms certain users will see more ads. Twitter has confirmed that users with high follower counts may be seeing [more ads]( in their timeline. The company sent the following statement to Marketing Land when asked about the uptick in ads for certain users: “Historically, people with high follower counts have seen fewer ads. Recently, we’ve taken a more consistent approach of showing ads to everyone who uses Twitter and as a result, people with higher follower counts will notice an increase in the number of ads they’re seeing.” When asked what it deems a “high follower count,” Twitter would not divulge any numbers. See The BIG SMX East Preview! SMX East kicks off November 13-14 in NYC — and it’s our biggest agenda ever. Join us for over 100 search marketing presentations from industry experts and market-defining solutions providers, including two new tracks on agency operations and local search marketing for multi-location brands. Click the link below to access your exclusive preview of everything in store! [Read More »]( What We're Reading We've curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader [Exclusive: Google owner Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit]( – Reuters [Have a Bad Customer Experience Reputation? Own It (and Other Advice)]( – CMS Wire [Customer Experience Continues To Get Better Even If Loyalty Doesn’t]( – Forbes [Google parent company Alphabet held a secret ‘logistics summit’ last week with reps from FedEx and other shipping companies]( – CNBC [Amazon will let you pay bills with Alexa]( – VentureBeat [A quarter of consumers have already started holiday shopping]( – Retail Dive [The Balancing Act Between Addressable And People-Based Marketing]( – AdExchanger [‘You miss out on opportunities’: The hazards of being pregnant in advertising]( – Digiday [Marketing Land] []( [Want to advertise?]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. 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