It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas is truly my favorite and we’re in the season. Since the vid stole Christmas last year, our calendar seems twice as full this year and it makes me so incredibly happy. I have a whole section of my wardrobe dedicated to Christmas clothes and this year I’m going to get to wear every piece, sometimes more than once! Woop woop! I digress, it’s Friday, I’ve had a two week Edit hiatus, and we’ve got a fun weekend in store, so I’m pumped to be writing this today.
It’s rather quiet in the world of digital marketing – some news out of Britain as it pertains to Meta and Giphy, plus a change for mobile first indexing on Google and a few predictions for 2022. As for home building, it’s a mixed bag of news; on the one hand our clients are forecasting some big growth for 2022, on the other, inflation, higher lumber prices, and supply chain issues will persist.
NEW HOME SALES IN OCTOBER
Housing output was revised for September from 800,000 down to 742,000 which shifted housing output from September to October from down to even. Median new home prices have risen almost 18% year over year, contributing to the slow down in pace during 2021, which is down 23% over last October. The good news out of this report is that
“2021 sales are still on pace to be the second best year since the Great Recession.”
LUMBER, SUPPLY CHAIN & INFLATION
This feels very broken record to continue mentioning these issues but they continue to plague builders and are projected to do so into 2022 so here we are. New homes that are permitted but whose construction has yet to begin are up 43% from last year. Thare are a variety of reasons for this and the newly increased Canadian lumber tariffs are sure to play a role moving forward. Inflation will also play a role in those rising costs mentioned above. The good news is that
“single-family builder confidence increased in November to a level of 83, per the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI”
Those two quotes above are why our builders are forecasting such growth in 2022.
MOBILE-FIRST NO MORE
I mean you should still think mobile first since more than 60% of builder web traffic comes from mobile, but it is no longer a looming deadline for the way in which Google will crawl your site. This deadline was moved once before and Google provided plenty of time to prepare so most sites are already indexed mobile first. Google indicated that there were however sites out there that were not prepared and this wanted to give them time.
META CAN’T OWN GIPHY
Britain has ruled that Meta must offload giphy. According to the Competition and Markets authority, Meta owning Giphy will hamper competition from other social media platforms. I love Gif’s as much as the next person, but this ruling seems odd to me. Facebook errr Meta, is considering an appeal but for now it’s bye bye Giphy.
DIGITAL MARKETING IN 2022
Cookie loss and how to market without it is top of mind for those predicting digital marketing trends in 2022. Contextual, first part data, CDP, email it’s all being thrown about as the places where marketing will be concentrated next year. I can’t say I disagree. I will add in that you can also expect to see your CPC’s rise 20-30% over 2022. Getting strategic about your lead growth and cultivation will be key.
See you back here next week as we tick off the days until Santa arrives!
