Meta’s Facebook daily active users have dropped for the first time in 18-year history.

Meta Platforms announced that daily active users decreased to 1.929 billion in the three months ending in December compared to 1.930 billion the previous quarter, reported the BBC.

The social media giant also warned of slowing revenue growth because of competition from TikTok and Youtube, as advertisers cut spending.

Meta’s shares dropped significantly in the past week.

Meta blamed privacy changes by Apple, making advertising tracking more difficult. According to the report, the company’s chief financial officer, Dave Wehner, said it could have an impact “in the order of $10 billion,” according to the report.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said, “The thing that is somewhat unique here is that TikTok is so big a competitor already and also continues to grow at quite a fast rate.”

TikTok was the most downloaded app in the US last year, with 94 million downloads.

According to Insider Intelligence/eMarketer, the next most popular apps were Instagram and Snapchat, which reached 64 million and 56 million downloads respectively.

Interestingly, the top three downloaded apps were photo and video-focused social media platforms.

According to the report, more than one-quarter of people in the US were monthly TikTok users last year, while a third of Instagram users were monthly users.

The age range that saw the most use was among 18 to 24 year-olds for TikTok, and Instagram had an older audience of 25 to 34.

The fourth most downloaded app in 2021 was Cash App, followed by Zoom, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp in eighth place, and YouTube.

Email marketing remains a top way to get potential and existing customers to purchase. According to an article in Entrepreneur, here are five mistakes that e-commerce business owners commonly make.

1. Sending emails inconsistently hurts the connection with your list. A long email break can hurt your relationship because some people may not remember your store and unsubscribe. At least send one email a month.

2. Not sending welcome emails that get four times more clicks than other emails, according to Invesp. Free resources and information like an ebook or a video could be good.

3. Your list is out of date, and emails are bouncing. If you do not fix a high bounce rate, your emails can send to spam folders. Make sure you are cleaning your email list for bad emails.

4. People marking your emails as spam should be removed from your list immediately.

5. Discover if emails are being sent to the spam folder. Some verification companies can help figure this out.

Shopify recently announced the release of three new themes in January with layouts meant to support trends in various industries.

The Crave theme is designed for food and beverage products.

The Craft theme is meant for crafts and is intended for home and decor products.

The Sense theme is intended for health and beauty products.

The new themes have more customization settings and include the new features released in 2021.

Those already using the new Dawn theme are encouraged to update to the latest version to access the new theme settings, Shopify said in a blog post.

Users are spending more time on TikTok than any other social media platform in the US, according to Insider Intelligence/eMarketer.

Adult TikTok users are expected to spend an average of 38 minutes per day on the platform. However, according to the report, this is two minutes less than last year.

Twitter ranked second with 35 minutes per day, and Facebook third with 31 minutes.

Snapchat is fourth with 30 minutes per day, and Instagram fifth at 29 minutes.

Here are the top three digital marketing skills needed for starting an online business today, according to an article published in Forbes on Monday.

First, optimize for SEO since Google is the most popular platform people use to find businesses. Focus on providing value as Google seeks to rank the best content at the top of searches and it will be more likely to be shared.

In addition, research the best keywords for your brand.

Also, make sure your website speed and mobile optimization are good.

Second, make sure you are present on the correct social media websites that fits your target audience. According to the article, do not spread yourself everywhere, but focus on two or three platforms where you know your potential customers are active.

Third, use email marketing to turn leads into purchasers and to get customers to buy again. Offer discounts or some gift on your website in return for emails.

China will continue being the world’s top e-commerce market in 2022, with 46.3% of the country’s retail sales taking place online.

According to Insider Intelligence/eMarketer, in second place is the UK with 36.3% and then South Korea with 32.2%.

The US is only in seventh place with 16.1%, demonstrating that there is still much growth to come.

China has more than the UK and South Korea combined with a nearly $3 trillion e-commerce market in terms of total dollar amounts.

The UK is estimated to have about $246 billion in e-commerce sales and around $143 billion in South Korea.

Most customers are willing to share their email address with a business for a small incentive such as a discount, found a study between Google and Boston Consulting Group.

According to the study published on January 21, successful marketers build trust with consumers by showing concern for their privacy.

The survey of over 1,000 consumers in the US and Canada in August 2021 found that they are more likely to share their gender, age, zip code, and email with a company rather than their phone number, location, or online activity.

The study found that 30% of respondents were willing to share their email with a company without any incentive, and 90% were willing to do so for the proper benefit.

Discounts and free samples were more convincing for people to share their email than other benefits such as newsletters or community access.

US consumers are returning significant amounts of purchases and creating difficulties for brands.

According to a report in the Financial Times on Tuesday, retail returns jumped 78% to $761 billion between 2020 and 2021.

The report cited statistics from a National Retail Federation survey released on Tuesday that found that 16.6% of all retail sales were sent back last year compared to 10.6% a year earlier.

Returns have increased because Americans are buying much more online. The National Retail Federation estimates that more than 20% of last year’s online sales will be returned, with more than $23 billion of them judged to be fraudulent.

According to the report, goods bought online are more likely to be returned than those purchased in a physical store because the appearance and description online do not always meet expectations.

This comes as many brands are offering generous return policies.

The returns are causing logistical headaches and opportunities as some companies are repackaging products to be resold at discounts.

To ease advertisers using Facebook Ads Manager, Meta is redesigning the objective selection process when starting new campaigns.

The company announced in December that it is moving towards an outcome-based Ads Manager where advertisers choose their desired business outcomes (e.g., 11 objectives have been narrowed to 6: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App Promotion, Sales), and the platform will guide them in their campaign setup.

The changes will primarily impact advertisers using Conversions, Messages, and Video Views campaigns.

Simplifying the objectives will make it easier for advertisers to communicate their actual goals. It will also allow Ads Manager to better provide guidance in the campaign setup.