"AI Will Never Replace Human Creativity and Connection."
Empire Flippers
The #1 curated marketplace for buying and selling established, profitable websites and online businesses.
Greetings, fellow earthlings!
Today's?trend of the?week?is "mushrooms".?
Ingesting just 30 grams (1.1 ounces) of the world's most poisonous mushroom, the Death Cap, is enough to kill a fully-grown human.
But while some mushrooms cause harm, others have been discovered to have great health benefits.?This?hasn't gone unnoticed by health-conscious consumers, with mushroom-based products springing up like, well, mushrooms.
The five-year search growth for?mushroom coffee?has risen by 506%, with?mushroom chocolate?hot on its heels at 488%.
Today we have for you:
And:
Alright, let’s dive in.
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MARKETPLACE TRENDS
Here are the latest trends from last?week's marketplace activity:?
Cup of tea - 3?
AI
“AI Will Never Replace Human Creativity?and?Connection.”
10-second takeaway?
HubSpot, in partnership with 10Web, has released its?State of AI in Marketing in 2023?report.
The report sheds light on the growing role of AI in content creation,?and?exactly how AI tools are being used across the industry.
?Key Takeaways
- 68% of business leaders believe that implementing AI in their companies will bring?unprecedented growth.
- 62% of business leaders have already invested in AI tools, with 71% seeing a?positive return on investment?(ROI)?and?72% reporting?increased employee productivity.
- AI is being used in various ways: content creation (48%), data analysis?and?reporting (45%), learning new skills (45%),?and?conducting research (32%).
- 63% of participants using generative AI claim that?AI-assisted content performs better?than content created without AI.
- 84% of SEO professionals say AI?and?automation have impacted their SEO strategies for 2023. 37% of respondents use AI to?automate time-consuming SEO tasks, while 35% rely on AI for an SEO-driven content strategy.
- 44% of participants anticipate a?positive impact on their SEO strategy, 51% expect no impact,?and?only 5% foresee a negative impact due to AI integration.
- The most significant concern expressed by participants was the potential for AI tools to?produce inaccurate information.
Hubspot's CMO Kipp Bodnar weighed in with his AI marketing predictions, stating "AI will never replace human creativity?and?connection. Lived experiences?and?opinions will never be able to be generated by a machine,?and?an employee can’t be mentored?and?managed by AI. AI is a great tool for marketers to use, but would be useless without human knowledge, strategy,?and?implementation. But when it comes to menial tasks that take up way too many of our hours — let’s leave those to the robots.?"
Download the full report?here.
THE OPPORTUNITY
The Early Bird Catches the Worm
It’s easy to look at an industry giant?and?recognize that it was once a brilliant?investment opportunity. But by that point, it’s too late.
The most successful investors are the early adopters. Those who spot potential opportunities early on?and?position themselves to reap the future rewards.
Take Empire Flippers for example. Eleven years ago we were the new kids on the block. The scrappy underdogs that many investors would have overlooked.
Fast forward to a decade later,?and?we’ve sold half a billion dollars worth of online businesses.
Now imagine owning a piece of that $500 million. That’s the opportunity an early investor would have had.
While Empire Flippers didn’t offer investors a piece of the proverbial pie, our sister company WebStreet is doing things differently.
WebStreet helps people take advantage of the upsides of online businesses without having to own a business themselves. Their fractional investments have earned investors 20% returns thus far with an average of 3-4% cash-on-cash quarterly returns.
WebStreet’s revolutionary investments give them a first-mover advantage in a blue ocean market.
Now, they are giving investors a chance to cash in on WebStreet’s future growth by allowing them to invest directly in WebStreet itself.
In?this?week’s episode, Kyle Kuderewski, the Operations Manager at Webstreet, joins us to reveal all the juicy details about?this?rare investment opportunity.
Listen to the full podcast episode?here.
AMAZON
A Prime Example of How Not to Manage Subscriptions?
10-second takeaway?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against Amazon on Wednesday, accusing Amazon of enrolling customers into its Prime service without their consent?and?deliberately complicating the cancellation process for Prime subscribers.
The FTC seeks undisclosed monetary civil penalties to be imposed on Amazon.
"The main goal of the cancellation process is not to allow subscribers to cancel their memberships, but to stop them from doing so."
The complaint?alleges Amazon employed deceptive user-interface designs to trick consumers into signing up for automatically renewing Prime subscriptions.
To cancel their subscriptions, users had to navigate through five or six different pages, while Amazon used diversion tactics?and?warning signs near confirmation buttons to dissuade cancellations.
Amazon executives allegedly knew the cancellation process was difficult, internally referring to it as the "Iliad flow" a reference to Homer's lengthy epic poem about the Trojan War.
An Amazon spokesperson refuted the FTC's claims, stating that they are "false both in terms of facts?and?law".
This?legal action?comes on the heels of a recent agreement between Amazon?and?the FTC, in which Amazon agreed to pay a $25 million penalty?and?implement stronger privacy protections to address charges of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act?and?enhance its AI system.
领英推荐
On Tuesday, it was also announced that Bernie Sanders has?opened an investigation into 'dangerous?and?illegal' Amazon warehouse conditions.
HIDDEN GEM
Listing #68324 -?$141,716.00
AMAZON ASSOCIATES, DISPLAY ADVERTISING, AFFILIATE | TECHNOLOGY, MUSIC | 31X
Created in March 2016, the WordPress site features informational?and?review-type content related to various types of tech products. The well-established site requires minimal time to maintain.
We’re highlighting?this?business?this?week?because of its following strengths:
MICROSOFT
Microsoft's New AI-Powered Advertising Tool for Enhanced Targeting
Following a successful pilot, Microsoft has officially released its latest advertising tool called?Predictive Targeting.
The AI-powered tool uses machine learning to analyze signals from advertisers' existing ads?and?landing pages, as well as Microsoft's extensive audience data, to help advertisers identify potential new audiences.
The tool then automatically targets ads to the audiences most likely to convert without advertisers having to create a targeting strategy from scratch.
Microsoft claims?that using Predictive Targeting can enhance conversion rates by an average of 46% while streamlining targeting processes.
Moving forward, Predictive Targeting will be the default targeting method for Audience Ads. Advertisers will still have the option to disable Predictive Targeting?and?define their own audiences if desired.
As with all AI-powered tools, it’s important to consider the potential downsides of surrendering control over your ads.
By relying on Microsoft's algorithms to determine target audiences, there is a possibility that the AI may target unintended audiences, leading to wasted ad spend or even damage to your brand’s reputation if the wrong audiences are exposed to the ads.
To mitigate these risks, consider using additional targeting?and?measurement tools alongside Predictive Targeting to ensure a more comprehensive?and?balanced approach.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Amazon Prime?Day 2023 dates announced:?July 11th through July 12th
Squarespace?acquires?Google Domains:?$180 million dollar acquisition
Yahoo!?launches Backstage:?a direct path to premium publisher inventory for advertisers
OpenAI?to create app store:?a marketplace for products built with OpenAI tech
Amazon?launches flexible financing in the UK:?revenue-based financing up to ￡2M
SUPPLY CHAIN
US Businesses Add a Plus One to Their Supply Chain Party
Nearshoring, which involves manufacturing?and?shipping products to the U.S. from nearby countries like Mexico?and?Canada, is gaining popularity due to trade uncertainty with China.
The trend is seeing businesses adopt a "China plus one" strategy to diversify their supply chains.
In Q1, the volume of imported goods from Mexico to the U.S. surpassed that from China by 15%, while Canada saw a 5% increase, according to a joint?supply chain stability index?from KPMG?and?the Association of Supply Chain Management.
The index also reveals a 10% decrease in ocean freight prices due to a decline in inbound container freight from Asia.
However, the shift in inbound volume from Mexico may pose challenges related to insufficient trucking capacity, exacerbated by the driver shortage.
This?supply chain diversification should benefit eCommerce businesses as they reduce their risk of running out of inventory over the Chinese New Year?and?similar periods of reduced productivity.
AMAZON ASSOCIATES
Is?This?the Start of the Amazon Apocalypse?
Australian affiliates are feeling the brunt of a recent?Amazon Associates commission cut.
The commission changes came into effect last Thursday, 15 June, with a number of niches under fire.
The Beauty, Health & Personal Care, Personal Care Appliances,?and?Luxury Beauty niches were the worst affected, with their commissions dropping down to a dismal 0%.
The Automotive, Video game, Software, Sports,?Fitness,?and?Outdoors niches also saw at least 50% of their commissions disappear.
While only the Australian branch of Amazon Associates has been affected so far,?this?latest round of commission cuts may leave many affiliates around the world feeling vulnerable.
For affiliates who rely solely on Amazon Associates, changes like these could see their revenues disappear overnight.
This?serves as a stark reminder of the importance of diversifying both your affiliate partners?and?revenue streams.
By joining additional affiliate programs?and?decreasing your reliance on a single affiliate partner, you can reduce the impact that commission cuts have on your business.
You could also expand your business beyond affiliate revenues by adding additional income streams, like display ads or digital products, to your business to add an extra layer of protection to your bottom line.
To help you out, we created a handy list of?alternative affiliate programs?in the worst affected niches.
LIVING LA VIDA NOMAD
Here’s The Scoop!?
Our youngest sales representative, Ollie, was trying to get a few customers at the ice cream parlor. Unfortunately, he was more focused on the ice cream than getting us some good leads.
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MEME OF THE?WEEK
Been somewhere cool or seen a meme that made you chuckle?
Send us a DM on Instagram (@empireflippers) with your favorite meme or nomad shot?and?we'll include it in the next email!