Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 95
Inspiration from across the world for retail enthusiasts, e-commerce professionals, marketing lovers and technology fans. Welcome back! I summarized some great links again, I stumbled upon this week.
Goodmorning! Another edition of my newsletter on global marketing and retail. Very soon I will publish about retail on my trip to South Korea! Stay tuned!
🎨How to use AI to conduct winning creative ad research
I watched this recording and I like to share it. It is very interesting in my opinion and it gives both a direction for legacy companies in which direction it goes when we talk about new job descriptions on the marketing or e-commerce departments, or if you are interested in starting your own consultancy company with a focus on the position of AI Creative Ad Strategist this is also a very valuable video.
I suggest to watch the recording! As a bonus they also share some of their prompts. I have copied some of them and linked them in an google sheets below. Also the full slide deck is linked below.
The complete slide deck via my dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/m4u2870u5fw2fxymfuv55/How-to-Use-AI-to-Conduct-Winning-Creative-Research-in-2025-Make-Ads-That-Convert-2025.pdf?rlkey=lzs8ocfor51xax6z477zdjh3w&st=xyta9fo6&dl=0
My personal prompt library on PM and Ads, I included some of the video
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tP4uw-yx8Rn9wumEcgIWtt8GiJQ2AdlpBOXObuEgzVg/edit?usp=sharing
🌐Global App experiences still a lot of work to do
Now I am almost traveling again, I have to check-in, use different global apps or services, and always you stumble into problems, often easy to detect.
See for example:
Turkish Airlines: I fly with Turkish Airlines soon, and they have a global app. Now I tried to book my seat on their plane, and they even offer the local NL payment system “Ideal” but when I try it I get an error message. This clearly is a bug as it works in every other app on my phone. I think its possible to detect these errors, when they occur, ensuring a smooth user journey and more conversion. I could now only solve it by using a credit card.
Or take “dragonpass” that I sometimes use for lounge access. They have a new app. Great, but I had to re-login and create a new password.
Nowadays more and more people use a passwordmanager or passkeys, I do as well.
It’s not possible to copy paste the password generated by my password manager in their password boxes. I think a very, very common use case for many people. I can understand, Dragonpass is I think Chinese, and there things work a bit different, but it is an international app for a global audience so this should have been prevented.Last one is Thai Airways, I also fly with that airline. I love Thailand and like to support them and buy some additional services through their app, such as choosing a seat. But it’s so so complicated, that I dropped off.
There is a cloudflare turnstile page, web embedded in the app that is very very unclear and I always get that page, very strange. Just only after trying two or three times I do no longer see it. Normally I would already dropped off.
If I just click on “manage my booking”, I get tons of error message making me very uncertain and I cannot even find how to choose a seat, and I already filled all of those fields that they indicate weeks ago. This app certainly is not on par with the average airline app benchmark.
So many opportunities for everyone looking with a global view on app or web journeys! Again confirmed 😉.
🛎️Rand Fishkin : Focus on bringing people to your site
Yes, it’s Rand again! As I shared last edition, on new metrics for SEO, I think a must read for everyone, this video from Rand, confirms and extends this post. As I keep on advocating already for a few years now, if you do customer research do ask/check/find out where are your customers, what other sites do they visit, what influences them online. Basically what Rand says is:
Get rid of your obsession with website traffic increase. focus on “bringing people to your site,” focus on being present where your audience already is.
👨💼AI Evals a new skillset for PM’s
With the rise of AI in products (also and especially international products) we have a new skill set coming up for PM’s: Evals. Evals are a highly technical topic. PMs don't have to always write them but they should:
- Understand traces
- Be able to analyze errors
- Be able to write basic evals
- Help the team analyze-measure-improve
I think worth to dig into (I know I will).
For more details you can check this post below. I think the course they offer is too expensive but maybe in the future that one will be more accessible.
Details:
⛔Funny AI ad creation fail 🤣
Sometimes you spot these funny ads. I am sure this one is made with AI. Check it out. Why is this person holding someone else hand, while they are painting their own nail 🤣?
I guess it probably hardly had any impact on conversion.
🛅Istanbul → Africa suitcase trade slows down
Now this I find interesting reading how these things go. I was never aware of “wholesale in a suitcase”. So it seems lots of goods go from Turkey to Africa via suitcases. Currently there is a decline in activities appearantly but so interesting to read how this trade all went.
The maze of alleys that lead down to the Sea of Marmara have long been the center of the “suitcase trade” to sub-Saharan Africa, a route through which merchants carry goods back and forth in their baggage.
Very interesting to follow this, especially as the e-commerce potential in Africa and the Middle East will increase massively, so many opportunities in that area!
According to the latest study from BCC Research, the “E-commerce Regional Analysis Market: Middle East and North Africa” will reach $80.3 billion by the end of 2029, at a CAGR of 11.7% for the forecast period of 2024-2029.
Details: https://www.arabnews.com/node/2602957/middle-east
Details: https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/e-commerce-market-middle-east-134500184.html
🇧🇷 Meanwhile in Brazil: Brazilians soon can sell their own data via a digital wallet
I follow things on Fintech also quite regularly. a recent Google Alert led me to an article about Brazil’s dWallet project, which allows citizens to monetize their digital data. This initiative highlights the accelerating pace of digitization, influencing global trade, the adoption of digital tools, and the evolution of innovative blockchain solutions.
Aside if this is desirable, this specific case, it’s clear that such developments are reshaping the financial landscape and user expectations in products.
Brazil is testing a digital wallet program that allows users to monetize their data.
A federal bill, when passed, would turn data into commercial assets for citizens — the first such proposal in the world.
The pilot, a partnership between the public and private sectors, is ahead of similar initiatives in some U.S. states.
Details: https://restofworld.org/2025/brazil-dwallet-user-data-pilot
That’s it for this edition. Thank you so much for reading, liking and subscribing!
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