Does Santa listen to podcasts? If you find a bag of AG1, a HelloFresh meal kit, or a Helix mattress under the tree, we might have our answer.

Uncommon Goods, an online shop for unique gifts, is hoping Santa (or at least the average holiday shopper) might catch one of its ads among podcast regulars this year.

By the numbers: Last holiday season, Uncommon Goods devoted twice as many ad dollars to podcasts as it did to TV, according to Christina Brinkman, a senior marketing analyst at the company, though she did not share specific figures.

• That spend is about even this year, she said, but the company still spends about 10 times more on podcast ads during the holidays than it does at any other time of the year.
• “We are really geared towards the holiday season,” Brinkman told Marketing Brew. “We know it’s when a lot of our customers are coming back to us each year, and we know that there’s a lot of competition out there for marketing messages, so we really like to get our name out there as much as possible and try to flood these podcasts.”

Big picture: Three years after it got into podcast advertising, Uncommon Goods still implements a “test and learn” strategy, Brinkman said, experimenting with different measurement and targeting strategies to make sure its current “flood” of podcast ads are effective.

Read the full story here.—AM

If you were at our Marketing Brew summit earlier this month, you might’ve heard Amanda Goetz, founder and CEO of House of Wise, talk about her company’s not-so-fruitful experience working with some celebrity influencers. “Every single Kardashian posted our product on Valentine’s Day,” she told attendees. “Zero sales. Zero.”

Goetz emphasized the benefits of working with micro-influencers, who might be more likely to embrace a product than a big name. Similarly, American Eagle’s CMO, Craig Brommers, said the brand has had just as much success with “the Addison Raes of the world” as it has “plucking kids out of obscurity.”

These conversations got us thinking about what this means for the future of influencer marketing and if creators with smaller followings might see even more deals moving forward. So earlier this week, we asked what you’ll spend more on next year: macro-influencers, micro-influencers, or nano-influencers. (While definitions vary, nano-influencers typically have fewer than 10,000 followers, micro-influencers have between 10,000 and 100,000, and macro-influencers have more than 500,000, according to Influencer Marketing Hub.)

More than 600 of you answered, and responses were pretty much evenly split:

• 30% said you’ll spend more on macro
• 34% said you’ll spend more on micro
• 35% said you’ll spend more on nano

Zoom in: Nano-influencers might have the smallest followings, but as Insider wrote earlier this year, they’ve become “increasingly important” thanks to “their niche content and highly engaged audiences.” In May, TikTok rolled out a feature called “Branded Missions” to help brands connect with creators that don’t have massive followings.

At any rate, we’d love to know more about how you select which types of influencers to work with. Hit Reply to let us know.—MS

Retail Brew’s Erin Cabrey recently went to holiday-window unveilings at two NYC department stores, Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue and Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square. She talked to Macy’s director of storewide visual campaigns and windows and Bergdorf’s senior director of visual presentation about how this year’s displays came together. Read part of the story below, or click here to read it.

These festive feats of visual merchandising, including everything from family-friendly animatronics to high-fashion mannequins surrounded by elaborate sets, date all the way back to 1874, when Macy’s founder R.H. Macy is said to have debuted the city’s first holiday window display back when its flagship department store sat on 14th Street. Fast forward to 2022, and department stores like Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdale’s continue to celebrate the season with impressive window displays.

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Page me: LinkedIn can be cringe, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are some best practices for LinkedIn Pages to get you started.

That’s meta: Just in time for the holidays, the IAB has released a “Metaverse for Brands” guide.

Sell it: How to get leadership to buy into your social strategy.

Founded in 2019, BeReal is a newer social app that has picked up steam this year. Get our report to learn our analysts’ take and find out which brands are experimenting with the platform.

Download your copy now.

Stat: 48% of Americans said “late November” is the best time for holiday advertising to start, according to Morning Consult.

Another stat: Apparently, Kia’s new logo is confusing enough that 30,000 people are googling “KN car” each month, according to The Drive. Still, Kia is often the first Google result.

Quote: “The capability of participants willing to enable KDP’s payment term strategy will be heavily factored in this RFP decision process.”—A statement included in an RFP document from Keurig Dr Pepper obtained by Adweek; the company asked for 360-day payment terms during its recent PR agency review, prompting concern from a trade group

Read: “What Are All Those ‘Chief Metaverse Officers’ Actually Doing?” (Axios)

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Why a DTC wine company started a branded podcast
• How Google is trying to help advertisers and publishers link their data
• Google and iHeartMedia allegedly paid radio talent to promote the Pixel 4—without ever giving them the phone, according to the FTC