In the ever-evolving landscape of eCommerce, staying ahead requires constant adaptation and strategic insights. The Fospha State of eCommerce Report for Q1 2024 brings valuable data to the forefront, guiding marketers, advertisers, business owners, and agencies in the eCommerce industry on where to channel their efforts for maximum return.  

The report reveals a significant underinvestment in paid social channels, with advertisers reaching only 59% of their potential, suggesting an opportunity to nearly double spend for profitable returns.  

Here are some key takeaways from the report: 

Meta and TikTok emerge as leaders in paid social success, with Meta boasting the highest relative Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). Notably, TikTok stands out for new customer acquisition, outpacing other channels in driving new conversions.  
Snapchat’s major update has catapulted it as a growth channel worth watching, with a remarkable 504% increase in ROAS year-over-year.  
The report highlights a widespread issue in the industry: the underrepresentation of impressions-led channels by Google Analytics and ad platforms’ own attribution models. This discrepancy emphasizes the need for standardized measurement methods to accurately report performance.  

Now is the time to reassess your investment in paid social, explore the potential of emerging channels like Snapchat, and adopt reliable measurement methods to navigate the complex digital marketing landscape effectively. 

For a deep dive into these insights and to leverage them for your digital strategy, download the full Fospha State of eCommerce Report Q1 2024. Embrace the data-driven insights to refine your approach, optimize spend across platforms, and drive your eCommerce brand towards profitable growth.  

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, scaling a brand effectively requires more than just an innovative product or service. For B2B and e-commerce marketers, understanding the intricacies of growth strategies across different stages of business development is crucial.  

A recent analysis of 71 brands offers valuable insights into the optimal strategies for startups, scaleups, mature brands, and majority offline businesses. Here’s what we learned. 

Startup Stage: Building the Foundation 

Key Strategy: Startups focus on impressions-driven channels like Paid Social to establish their audience base. This approach is essential for gaining visibility and creating a strong initial footprint in the market. 

Case Study: Pooch & Mutt exemplified this strategy by leveraging Paid Social to achieve significant year-on-year revenue gains while also improving acquisition costs. This foundational step is crucial for setting the stage for future growth and stability. 

Scaleup Stage: Accelerating Conversion 

Key Strategy: For scaleups, having already established an audience, the focus shifts to conversion activities. Increasing spend in impressions-led media helps continue generating demand while maintaining a balance with acquisition costs. 

Case Study: The Essence Vault successfully applied this approach, scaling their Meta presence while minimizing cost increases. This stage emphasizes the importance of efficient spending to maximize conversion rates and sustain growth momentum. 

Mature Stage: Expanding Horizons 

Key Strategy: Mature brands invest in higher funnel activities to avoid market saturation and explore international expansion opportunities. This strategic pivot ensures sustained growth and market diversification. 

Case Study: Represent scaled their efforts on TikTok, enhancing growth and improving Meta efficiency. By expanding their presence in the US, they exemplified how mature brands can navigate saturation and seek new markets for continued success. 

Majority Offline Brands: Embracing Digital Channels 

Key Strategy: Majority offline brands primarily invest in click-based channels like Performance Max. However, the analysis reveals significant opportunities in Paid Social, suggesting a balanced approach for optimal results. 

Snapchat driving spend growth at higher efficiency

Nutrimuscle is a fast-growing sports supplement brand that started using Fospha in June 2023. Their goal was to grow by increasing conversions and effectively allocating spend, but like many businesses, one of the primary challenges they faced was the inability to track key metrics (i.e. Cost of Acquiring Customers) and lack of transparency into campaign performance.

Nutrimuscle wanted to understand where to allocate spend, and which channels would be most effective for increasing reach and conversions. Last click and ad platform measurement wasn’t enough- this is where they turned to Fospha.

If you’re looking to turbocharge your brand’s growth, you’re in the right place. Fospha, a leader in marketing measurement and analytics, has just released a game-changing report: “Elevating eCommerce: Secrets of Scaling Brands.” This isn’t just another report—it’s your playbook for smashing those growth goals. Let’s dive in.

Key Strategies for Different Growth Stages

Fospha analysed 71 eCommerce brands to uncover the secret sauce behind the top performers at each growth stage. Whether you’re a startup, scaleup, mature, or majority offline, there’s gold in these insights.By diving into real-world case studies and expert opinions, Fospha unveils the significant impact of full-funnel marketing and upper-funnel investments on sustainable growth.

Upper Funnel Advertising: The best brands aren’t just throwing money at ads—they’re strategically investing. On average, they’re dedicating over 18% of their Meta budget and 22% of their TikTok spend to awareness and consideration. Why? Because brand visibility is king.

Lifecycle-Specific Strategies:

Startups: It’s all about building that brand awareness with Paid Social. Think big, get seen.
Scaleups: Now’s the time to double down on conversion activities and impressions-led media. Make those clicks count.
Mature Brands: Diversify the marketing mix, increase upper-funnel spending, and explore international markets.
Majority Offline Brands: Time to dive into Paid Social, despite traditionally relying on click-based channels like Performance Max.

Real-World Success Stories

Fospha’s report is packed with real-world case studies that show these strategies in action. Check out these brand wins:

Pooch & Mutt: By ramping up their TikTok spend, they improved customer acquisition costs (CAC) and saw revenue soar.
The Essence Vault: They kept their CAC steady while boosting their Meta spend, demonstrating efficient budget management.
Represent: They took efficiency to the next level and expanded their presence in the US market, thanks to their savvy TikTok investments.

Insights from the Experts

Fospha teamed up with Meta Marketing Science team to enrich the report with expert perspectives on effective growth strategies. Alfonso, Marketing Science Partner at Meta, highlights the importance of accurate and actionable measurement systems for smart marketing investments and driving growth.

Download the Report for In-Depth Insights

Want to take your eCommerce game to the next level? Get your hands on Fospha’s latest report. It’s packed with the data-driven insights you need to navigate different growth stages and make your marketing dollars work harder.

Click here to download “Elevating eCommerce: Secrets of Scaling Brands” report.

About Fospha

Fospha is a new type of marketing measurement. Using machine learning to combine multi-touch attribution and marketing mix modelling in one view, provides clear, actionable insights on where to spend to maximise your growth. With a cutting-edge approach Fospha shows you the impact of all clicks and impressions, restoring visibility you lost with iOS14 & 17 and future-proofing you against further privacy changes

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, scaling a brand effectively requires more than just an innovative product or service. For D2C and e-commerce marketers, understanding the intricacies of growth strategies across different stages of business development is crucial.  

A recent analysis of 71 brands offers valuable insights into the optimal strategies for startups, scaleups, mature brands, and majority offline businesses. Here’s what we learned. 

Startup Stage: Building the Foundation 

Key Strategy: Startups focus on impressions-driven channels like Paid Social to establish their audience base. This approach is essential for gaining visibility and creating a strong initial footprint in the market. 

Case Study: Pooch & Mutt exemplified this strategy by leveraging Paid Social to achieve significant year-on-year revenue gains while also improving acquisition costs. This foundational step is crucial for setting the stage for future growth and stability. 

Scaleup Stage: Accelerating Conversion 

Key Strategy: For scaleups, having already established an audience, the focus shifts to conversion activities. Increasing spend in impressions-led media helps continue generating demand while maintaining a balance with acquisition costs. 

Case Study: The Essence Vault successfully applied this approach, scaling their Meta presence while minimizing cost increases. This stage emphasizes the importance of efficient spending to maximize conversion rates and sustain growth momentum. 

Mature Stage: Expanding Horizons 

Key Strategy: Mature brands invest in higher funnel activities to avoid market saturation and explore international expansion opportunities. This strategic pivot ensures sustained growth and market diversification. 

Case Study: Represent scaled their efforts on TikTok, enhancing growth and improving Meta efficiency. By expanding their presence in the US, they exemplified how mature brands can navigate saturation and seek new markets for continued success. 

Majority Offline Brands: Embracing Digital Channels 

Key Strategy: Majority offline brands primarily invest in click-based channels like Performance Max. However, the analysis reveals significant opportunities in Paid Social, suggesting a balanced approach for optimal results. 

In the pixelated world of Stardew Valley, where crops reign supreme and farmers strive for prosperity, one particular fruit holds a special place of honor: the Ancient Fruit. This crop, being very rare and precious, is much wanted by players. This is because of its high-earning prospects and special features.

This article will focus on everything you should know about the Ancient Fruit in Stardew Valley, from getting the seeds to getting the most out of them.

Introduction to Ancient Fruit

The Ancient Fruit is a rarity; it is the only blue fruit that requires as long as an entire season to fully ripen. While it takes comparatively long to develop, it is worth much more than simple crops. This is why it is so valuable. Many players desire it.

With proper knowledge and strategy, farmers can draw the strength of Ancient Fruit. This will help them increase their income and make their farming business level up.

Acquiring Ancient Fruit Seeds

The road to Ancient Fruit starts by getting Ancient Seeds that give this fruit life. There are several methods to obtain Ancient Seeds in Stardew Valley:

The Traveling Merchant: As you will be moving along the north end of the Cindersap Forest, remember to look for The Traveling Merchant who comes around every Friday and Sunday. Ranging from 100g to 1000g, the merchant might add a pack of Ancient Seeds as part of their inventory.
Donating the Ancient Seed Artifact: Pursue the giant terrain of Stardew Valley to get the Ancient Seed artifact. Should you find one, donate it to the Museum and you will receive a package of Ancient Seeds and the recipe for cultivating more.
Seed Maker: The Seed Maker can be used for all of the processing of crops and with a chance to collect Ancient Fruit Seeds. Even though most crops usually produce seeds similar to the input, there is a small chance of receiving Ancient Fruit Seeds. This makes the process fruit some.

Cultivating Ancient Fruit

After owning the Ancient Fruit Seed, it is time to start the journey to cultivation. Don’t put the seeds of the crop in the ground during the wintertime, because Ancient Fruit needs a good climate. You can do this during any other season.

Please be patient, because it will require nearly 28 days for the seeds to reach full maturity and develop into plants. Nevertheless, it would be worthwhile since it is one of the most profitable crops. As soon as the Ancient Fruit plant matures it will continue to bear fruit every week. An experienced farmer could make a steady living out of it.

For those who want to continue cultivation throughout year-round, use the greenhouse. Here the climate remains ideal, no matter the season. Using the seeds of ancient fruits for the greenhouse gives farmers a continuous harvest. In the long run, it also encourages them to boost their crop output for better economic gain.

Maximizing the Value of The Ancient Fruit

Ancient Fruit holds a significant value. Both as a raw item as well as when processed into various products. Here are some ways to maximize the value of Ancient Fruit:

Selling Raw Fruit: Antique Fruit proves to be a sizable profit, the price depending on the quality. Whether it be for normal, silver, gold, or iridium quality, Ancient Fruit farmers can expect significant profits.
Processing into Wine or Jam: However, the Value of Ancient Fruit can also be improved by processing into the Wine or Jam. The processed Ancient Fruit products are brought higher prices and can also be further aged in the casks to increase their quality
Completing Bundles: donate the Ancient Fruit to fulfill specific Community Center bundles. In return, you will get access to the Movie Theatre or new locations.
Crafting Genie Pants: Get creative by combining Ancient Fruit with cloth at a sewing machine to form dyeable Genie Pants. This adds some flair to the whole ensemble of your character’s clothes. It can also be used as a blue dye in tailoring.

Q&A:

1. What is Ancient Fruit in Stardew Valley?

Ans: Ancient fruit is one of the most valuable produce in Stardew Valley, as it pays the highest and has a relatively long harvest start. It is a particular kind of seed that as long as they are nurtured, they grow into plants that produce Ancient Fruit which can be sold for profit.

2. How do I get Ancient Fruit seeds?

Ans: Stardew Valley provides the players with multiple ways to get the ancestors’ seeds. One of the easiest ways to earn them is to get them as a reward for completing specific tasks or quests. Be on the lookout for a chance to obtain Ancient Fruit seeds as a reward for getting a job well done on the farm.

3. Can I grow the Ancient Fruit on the Nintendo Switch version?

Ans: Yes, these Fruits can be cultivated and grown on every platform publishing Stardew Valley, including the Nintendo Switch. Regardless of whether you play on a PC, console, or mobile, you can have fun growing the Ancient Fruit tree on your farm.

4. Is there any special event or location related to the Ancient Fuirt?

Ans: Yes, during the Winter season, adventurers can check out the Night Market to meet with sellers who probably have Ancient Fruit seeds or other Ancient Fruit items for them. Don’t miss this occasion to add Ancient Fruit seeds and other worthwhile items to your farm.

5. Does the Artisan profession have any advantages in the Ancient Fruit farming?

Ans: The Artisan occupation gives more value to the artisan goods, like the wine made from the Ancient Fruits. Thus, the farmers can earn an even higher fortune by harvesting their crops.

Bare metal gives you total control over the hypervisor for maximum flexibility and resource optimization. Dedicated hosts keep things simple with the cloud provider managing the VMs for you.

Image is subject to copyright!

Let’s imagine you’re the owner of a fastest-growing e-commerce business. Your online store is getting more and more traffic every day, and you need to scale up your server infrastructure to handle the increased load. You’ve decided to move your operations to the cloud, but you’re unsure whether to go with bare metal servers or dedicated hosts. How does it impact your growth of business?

What are Bare Metal Servers & Dedicated Hosts, and what is the main difference?Bare Metal vs. Dedicated Host

Both bare metal servers and dedicated hosts are physical machines located in a cloud provider’s data center. The main difference lies in who manages the hypervisor layer – the software that allows you to run multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical server.

What is a Hypervisor and What Does It Do?

A hypervisor is a software layer that creates and runs virtual machines (VMs) on a physical host machine. It allows multiple operating systems to share the same hardware resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage. Each VM runs its own operating system and applications, isolated from the others, providing a secure and efficient way to run multiple workloads on a single physical server.

Types of Hypervisors Used in Cloud Data CentersType 1 (Bare-Metal) Type 2 (Hosted)Type 1 Hypervisor vs Type 2 Hypervisor

Type 1 (Bare-Metal) Hypervisors run directly on the host’s hardware, providing better performance and efficiency. Examples include VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix Hypervisor.

Type 2 (Hosted) Hypervisors run on top of a host operating system, like Windows or Linux. Examples include VMware Workstation, Oracle VirtualBox, and Parallels Desktop.

Cloud providers often prefer Type 1 hypervisors for their data centers due to their superior performance and security.

Bare Metal vs Virtual Machines vs Containers: The Differences

When deploying a modern application stack, how do we decide which one to use? Bare Metal, VMs or Containers?

With a bare metal server, you’re essentially renting the entire physical machine from the cloud provider. However, you’re also responsible for installing and managing the hypervisor software yourself. This gives you a lot of control and flexibility. You can tweak the hypervisor settings to optimize performance, overcommit resources (like CPU and RAM) to squeeze more virtual machines onto the physical server, and have direct access to the hypervisor for monitoring, logging, and backing up your VMs.

Think of it like renting a house. You’re in charge of everything – from painting the walls to mowing the lawn. It’s a lot of work, but you get to customize the house to your exact preferences.

Feature
Bare Metal Server
Dedicated Host

Hardware
Physical server rented from cloud provider
Physical server rented from cloud provider

Hypervisor Management
Customer installs and manages the hypervisor software
Cloud provider installs and manages the hypervisor software

Hypervisor Control
Full control over hypervisor configuration settings
Limited or no control over hypervisor settings

Resource Allocation
Can overcommit CPU, RAM across VMs for efficiency
Limited ability to overcommit resources across VMs

Monitoring
Direct access to hypervisor for monitoring and logging
Rely on cloud provider’s monitoring tools

Backup/Recovery
Can backup VMs directly through hypervisor
Must use cloud provider’s backup/recovery services

Scalability
Scale VMs up/down based on available server resources
Request cloud provider to scale VMs up/down

Security
Responsible for securing the hypervisor layer
Cloud provider secures the hypervisor layer

Management Complexity
High, requires hypervisor expertise
Low, cloud provider handles hypervisor management

Pricing Model
Pay for entire physical server capacity
Pay for VM instances based on usage

Use Cases
High performance, legacy apps, regulatory compliance
General-purpose applications, simplified operations

Examples
IBM Cloud Bare Metal, AWS EC2 Bare Metal
IBM Cloud Dedicated Hosts, AWS Dedicated Hosts

Dedicated Hosts: Simplicity but Less Control

On the other hand, a dedicated host is like renting an apartment in a managed building. The cloud provider takes care of the hypervisor layer for you. All you have to do is tell them how many virtual machines you want, and they’ll set them up on the dedicated host for you. You don’t have to worry about managing the hypervisor or any of the underlying infrastructure.

The trade-off, of course, is that you have less control over the specifics. You can’t overcommit resources or tinker with the hypervisor settings. But for many businesses, the simplicity and convenience of a dedicated host are worth it.

How Companies Are Saving Millions by Migrating Away from AWS to Bare Metal Servers?

Many startups initially launch on AWS or other public clouds because it allows rapid scaling without upfront investments. But as these companies grow, the operating costs steadily rise.

Open-Source Hypervisor Alternatives

While cloud providers typically use proprietary hypervisors like VMware ESXi or Hyper-V, there are also free and open-source alternatives available, such as:

Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE): A complete open-source server virtualization management solution that includes a KVM hypervisor and a web-based management interface.Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM): A type 1 hypervisor that’s part of the Linux kernel, providing virtualization capabilities without requiring proprietary software.Xen Project Hypervisor: An open-source type 1 hypervisor that supports a wide range of guest operating systems and virtualization use cases.Which Option is Right for Your E-commerce Business?

If you have a team of skilled system administrators who love getting their hands dirty with server configurations, and you need the flexibility to fine-tune your infrastructure for optimal performance, a bare metal server might be the way to go.

However, if you’d rather focus on your core business and leave the nitty-gritty server management to the experts, a dedicated host could be a better fit. It’s a more hands-off approach, allowing you to concentrate on building and scaling your e-commerce platform without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.

Should You Use Open Source Large Language Models?

The benefits, risks, and considerations associated with using open-source LLMs, as well as the comparison with proprietary models.

DevOps vs SRE vs Platform Engineering – Explained

At small companies, engineers often wear multiple hats, juggling a mix of responsibilities. Large companies have specialized teams with clearly defined roles in DevOps, SRE, and Platform Engineering.

AppHub is the exact platform that helps distribute, manage, and handle software applications or apps. Developers have these applications on their devices, where they can be developed and deployed by having a centralized location. Some Samsung users are informed with notification signals by CarrierHub and AppHub which seems to be an annoying element to most users.

This application tremendously simplifies the task of mobile companies to make software updates to their devices at their will and also has the power to track them if necessary. It does the same job as a file manager, but is the only official installer for the App Store and can organize files and categorize them.

Virtually, everyone thinks that MCM is required to monitor your data, however it is not involved in doing so. It does not get linked to your phone; instead, it uses your Android phone to supply regular updates so that your device is protected. It is okay for you to forget to turn off the notification because it does not harm the device, however, to some people, this could be disturbing.

If you are one of those who are having these kinds of problems, here are some fixes that will help you troubleshoot the Apphub processing requests error.

Be Patient for a While

The app runs in the background, not visible on your phone, and the message is sent silently without popping onto the screen. The alert may stay for a while, and it may go away after the course of the learning program is over. If your plan is not successful, attempt to do the next step.

Go to the System Control Panel and Check Whether or Not You Are Connected to the Internet

If your device has an unstable or slow internet connection, this issue will be encountered by you. In this regard, check whether you are having an uninterrupted wi-fi or data connection flow or not. Of course, make sure you monitor the usage of WiFi or cellular data to make sure that you are not running low on it.

Restart Your Computer

Turning off and turning on the device will sometimes fix the cases wherein the request pops up! It may seem easy, but it’s quite an effective method for fixing problems that can cause the request notification to appear.

Wherever it goes, it’s always better to give your device a fresh start so that you can clean up the temporary files, reset system processes, and refresh your memory simultaneously. So switch off your device in device settings or restart it and see if the issue persists.

Clear Caches and Data Storage

Sometimes the issue is caused by storage settings corrupted or app cache data buildup on the apps. So, solving the problem requires deleting the cache and data. The issue, according to the given statement, is associated with corrupted or wrong data. You can follow these steps to clear your cache and storage.

Choose Settings from the icon on your Android device.
Then choose Apps out of the menu.
From the list of the installed applications you should choose the “Carrier Hub.”
Click “Clear Cache”.
Go for the “Clear Storage” or “Clear Data” option.
To go back to your previous Settings menu, just press the Main Settings button.

The alternative is to locate the “Carrier Hub-apps-manager” icon and stop the app’s work by tapping the “Force Stop” button.

Upgrade the App

Observe the error and if the app is misbehaving make sure you keep all apps up to date to provide for optimum performance of the app and error-fixing. Besides, we would like you to be certain that Carrier Hub does not have an outdated version which is perhaps the ground for the problem of copying the “Apphub requests are being processed” notification. It could be checking for updates on the carrier hub app or Google Play Store app might resolve the difficulty.

Disable Notification on Carrier Hub

In case Carrier Hub on your device keeps giving you problems, the simplest solution may be to turn off constant notifications so the alerts won’t be displayed on your device. To accomplish this and turn off the pop-ups, follow the steps given below.

On your device, open Settings, tap on Notifications, and then turn off Notifications of Carrier Hub or you can choose the option to mute notifications. The processing requests will be shown no more and you will mostly be sorted by now on Samsung phones or other mobiles or your PC.

Factory Reset Your Device

After all you have done if it still does not function properly, the factory reset might be a last resort that might help. This can also be achieved on your system if you open the ‘PowerShell’ window, or go to adb devices, and provide it with the necessary adb commands to uninstall the app altogether. But beware, doing the reset will remove all your data from the machine, so ensure that you have a safe place before you proceed with the reset.

These are the troubleshooting steps that will help you easily get rid of the carrier hub’s processing requests notification and mcm client requests popping up in the top-right corner or any blank area. There are other minor elements that you might want to check if the issue persists, like USB cable connection, sprint network, or T-mobile SIM issues.