Katie Sullivan Porter has 12 years of experience in the digital marketing field, including 6 years in the agency space. She has worked for and with SMB, mid-size, and enterprise ecomm and B2B companies in a broad range of roles from paid media management to content writing to strategy. She is a mother of 2 boys and enjoys her extra time taking them to Disney theme parks. She has a passion for culture and can often be found on the weekends traveling, seeing theatre productions, or attending concerts.
Retail media networks have revolutionized the way brands advertise to consumers, but what impact do they have on consumer behavior? In this blog post, we'll explore the ways retail media networks influence consumer behavior and purchasing decisions. From targeted advertising to personalized recommendations, we'll examine the key factors driving consumer behavior in the age of retail media networks.
Retail businesses should always be aware of how their customers respond to different business decisions and how they can adjust their offerings to serve them better. Here are some ways retail media networks have influenced the way customers shop in-store and online.
Internet forums and social media have made it easier than ever for customers to find information about products that they intend to purchase. First-party information (directly from the business where they want to shop) can be viewed as less trustworthy than reviews and unbiased opinions found online.
Recent research shows that over half of shoppers read between 3 and 5 reviews about a business before making a purchase with them. Retail media networks have encouraged customers to look for these reviews more actively. Businesses can increase customer trust in their brand by encouraging past buyers to post unbiased reviews on their own sales channels.
Abandoned carts are a common problem for e-commerce businesses, leading to lost sales and revenue. However, highly targeted advertising can help reduce the likelihood of abandoned carts by reaching the right customers at the right time with personalized messaging.
By using data insights and segmentation analysis to understand consumer behavior and preferences, e-commerce businesses can tailor their advertising messaging to match specific customer needs and desires. This helps build a stronger connection between the customer and the product, making it more likely that they will complete their purchase.
Highly targeted advertising can help drive revenue growth for e-commerce businesses, reducing the occurrence of abandoned carts and improving overall conversion rates.
Data privacy is becoming an increasingly important issue for modern customers. In a recent survey, 84% of respondents said that data privacy is a human right and a similar number of respondents said that they should have full control over any data a company might have about them.
The increased regulatory focus has forced companies to plan for a future without third-party cookies. Businesses now have to find new ways to gather information about their customers. This makes retail media networks seem more trustworthy in the minds of their customers since they always know how the business got their data and how it is being used.
Customers today place a significant emphasis on personalization when they shop. Retail media networks provide businesses with a platform to deliver targeted advertisements and content to customers based on their browsing and purchasing behavior.
Businesses can show personalized offers, promotions, and recommendations to customers, enhancing their overall shopping experience simply by leveraging the retail media networks that they own. This not only drives customer engagement and loyalty but also increases the chances of conversion and repeat purchases.
Personalization is increasingly becoming a necessity for modern retailers. As customers choose more personalized shopping experiences, retailers can use retail media networks to deliver these experiences to every customer. Here’s how:
The modern shopper receives a staggering amount of information in a day. Advertisements have become more pervasive and can cause a customer to simply disregard any advertisement they see. Businesses are under significant pressure to cut through the noise and make customers take notice of what they have to say.
Retail media networks allow businesses to gather information about what customers might be interested in and deliver advertisements that are more aligned with their needs, rather than adopting a spray-and-pray approach to digital advertising.
Pro tip: Use the data your network provides to customize shopping feeds when customers first visit your site, and show advertisements for products they might already be interested in, increasing the chance they’ll pay attention.
Customers always give businesses some indication of what they might need or want through their browsing activity or past purchases. On third-party shopping channels, this information is often closely guarded and rarely shared with brands unless it directly involves their own products.
Retail media networks allow companies to gather more granular information about what products a customer is thinking about, how long they research it, and what purchases they made in the past. This can help businesses deliver personalized recommendations to customers who might be primed to make a purchase in the near future.
Pro tip: Once a customer makes a purchase or indicates an interest in an item, you can use that information to recommend products that are similar or complementary to the item they want to purchase to create opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.
Sometimes, customers need a little nudge before they decide to make a purchase. While brands can plan promotions around festive periods and times of high shopping activities, retail media networks allow businesses to take more control over these promotions.
Pro tip: Observe how airlines often employ dynamic pricing strategies to maximize sales. You can use your retail media networks to do the same with individual customer profiles and customer-level browsing and shopping data.
Retail media networks provide opportunities for businesses to collaborate with influencers and leverage their audiences to influence purchasing decisions. When businesses partner with influencers who align with their brand and target audience, they can effectively reach and engage customers with authentic and trusted content.
Influencer marketing within retail media networks helps businesses build brand awareness, boost credibility, and drive conversions by leveraging the influencer's authority and the trust they’ve established with their followers.
Online shopping has split customer preferences and a recent survey indicated that 55.6% of customers prefer online shopping while the rest prefer shopping at a physical store. Retail media networks give businesses complete control over their customers’ shopping experience. This allows them to ensure that marketing messages are consistent regardless of how customers choose to engage with the brand.
Amazon, Walmart, and Home Depot have all embraced retail media networks as a key component of their advertising and marketing strategies. These three major retailers have significant online and offline footprints, and leveraging retail media networks has allowed them to effectively reach their target audiences and drive sales across various channels. Amazon, for example, has built an extremely successful retail media network through its Amazon Advertising platform. Likewise, Walmart has been expanding its retail media network, Walmart Connect, which offers advertisers access to Walmart's vast customer base both in stores and online. Home Depot has also been making significant strides in retail media advertising with its in-house platform known as "The Home Depot Pro." The platform allows advertisers to reach the retail giant's professional customers through targeted display and video ads.
As retail media networks continue to evolve, they will continue to influence consumer behavior in a variety of ways. First, businesses will increasingly rely on effective conversion tracking to ensure their marketing spend is distributed optimally. With access to detailed data insights provided by retail media networks, businesses can monitor the performance of their campaigns and track the customer journey from ad exposure to conversion. This allows them to analyze the effectiveness of different marketing strategies, channels, and messaging and make data-driven decisions to optimize their campaigns and allocate their marketing budgets more effectively.
Furthermore, retail media networks provide retailers with access to more in-depth data about their customers and their preferences. Through the collection and analysis of customer data, retailers can gain valuable insights into customer demographics, behaviors, and preferences. Unlike the allocation of marketing resources, this data can help to directly increase sales once customers have indicated interest in any of your products.
The availability of such comprehensive customer data through retail media networks empowers retailers to make more informed decisions, enhance their marketing efforts, and ultimately influence customer behavior in a more targeted and effective manner.
MarinOne gives marketers the ability to use the information they gather from their retail media networks and apply it to their omnichannel communications. As customers spend more time across multiple social media platforms and websites, businesses need to be more careful about how they spend marketing dollars across each of these channels.
To get started today, schedule a demo with one of our MarinOne experts.
TikTok is more than a social media platform. When users open the TikTok app, they aren't doing so to chat with friends. They go to TikTok for entertainment.
The nature of the platform's For You Page gives brands a unique opportunity. You don't need loads of followers for your content to be discovered. As long as your videos are entertaining and relevant, they find their target audience.
This is part of what makes TikTok marketing a powerful customer acquisition channel that helps brands spread awareness, build supportive communities, and drive conversions.
While the company has faced its fair share of controversy, it’s one of the most-used social media apps in the world. As of April 2023, 44% of the US digital population uses TikTok. That means utilizing TikTok as an acquisition channel gives your brand access to over 116 million people.
That growth is backed by the user base’s strong purchasing power. TikTok’s in-app purchases amounted to nearly 500 million USD in the first quarter of 2023 alone.
After reading this blog, you’ll have all the information you need to harness that purchasing power with a winning TikTok customer acquisition strategy.
Open TikTok today, and you won’t be seeing many 15-second dance videos. The app’s culture has evolved significantly since its pandemic-era rise to fame. It’s still an entertainment platform, but user behavior classifies TikTok as a search engine, too.
According to Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan (in charge of Google’s Knowledge and Information organization), “Almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search… they go to TikTok or Instagram.”
Their purchase intent and the platform’s searchability factor create a strong foundation for organic customer acquisition.
Here’s how you can implement organic TikTok marketing content into every stage of your customer acquisition funnel:
When it comes to building brand awareness without an established following, consider TikTok an asset. TikTok's users spend the majority of their time on the For You Page. It’s a constant stream of content cherry-picked by the algorithm. While some of the content is from creators they follow, most of it is stuff they’ve never interacted with.
Brands can take the already insurmountable amount of reach even further by working with influencers. A steady stream of organic content is key to building a community of potential customers.
Value-focused content is ideal for users in the consideration stage. They’re aware of your brand— now it’s time to show what your products can do for them.
The credibility associated with user-generated content is also beneficial for nurturing familiarity into consideration. Find UGC by checking branded hashtags, account mentions/tags, and by using a social listening tool. You can also commission influencers from the TikTok creator marketplace to make native TikTok videos about your products– just remember to maintain transparency for all sponsored content.
Inspire users to make a purchasing decision by implementing clear, specific calls to action at the end of your TikTok videos. Your CTAs should be tailored to your TikTok audience. Tell your viewers exactly what steps they need to take to make a purchase. The steps will vary depending on what conversion pathway you set up. Try to make the process easy and fast.
Strengthen your CTAs further by providing TikTok-exclusive offers like discount codes, freebies, or even a dedicated landing page designed just for your TikTok audience.
Don’t forget about your customers once they reach the purchasing phase. Promote long-term customer loyalty through community building and customer service. Continue creating engaging content, manage customer queries from your comments and DMs, and grow customer lifetime value by releasing limited edition versions and special offers on a semi-regular basis.
While TikTok ads may not be as well-established as other industry players, they still play an instrumental role in TikTok customer acquisition.
If you want a successful customer acquisition strategy on TikTok, you need high-quality, entertaining videos. The following tips can help you improve your video content:
Optimal TikTok video specs:
Safe zones are the areas where your content is displayed on screen, unobstructed by any buttons or sidebars. Be mindful of the safe zones to ensure all valuable content is clearly visible.
Here’s a common product-focused TikTok video structure:
This structure can go full-on infomercial, leaning into the cheesy vibe for comedy, or it can follow a subtler approach. Some brands like to break the fourth wall in an effort to prove authenticity.
Life hacks are all over TikTok for a reason– they appear genuine and actually useful. This is the connotation you want to replicate with your content. You understand the viewer’s unique problem and have a solution to make their lives easier.
Whether you’re making an organic video or an ad, follow the native TikTok format and design your content to fit the app’s unique culture. Basically, create your TikTok ads as you would any product-focused TikTok video.
Use all the features TikTok has to offer. Trending sounds, voiceover, closed captions, on-screen text, jump cuts, effects, colors, filters, and the like are all scroll stoppers that keep your audience engaged.
Be mindful of any intellectual property used in your ads. IP boundaries are muddy on TikTok, but disputes currently in the works should be taken as a warning sign to brands using other users’ original audio for advertising purposes.
Further reading: Check out our blog post “How to Nail Your TikTok Ad Creative”.
TikTok ads are ideal for products that meet a need or solve a specific problem. Communities on TikTok are more niche than on other platforms. Organic hashtag research can lead to subcultures that align with your target audience.
The question is less "Are my target customers using TikTok" and more "What content do I need to put out to find them?"
Your TikTok ads should visually represent your product's value proposition. This is one place where partnering with creators can change the game, as they are typically skilled at producing native videos that entertain while showing off your product's value.
TikTok ads follow the campaign<ad group<ad structure. Brands can differentiate campaigns by objective, product, destination (app, website, or brick-and-mortar store), budget, offer, etc. Ad groups are a way to organize creatives.
To get the most out of your ad spend, consider only displaying your ad in the TikTok feed. Include at least 3-5 unique, active ad groups per campaign and 2-3 unique creatives per ad group. When posting your creatives, uncheck the video download feature to keep your video from being saved and reuploaded by another account.
Read this blog next: Every TikTok Ad Format You Need to Know and How to Use Them
The TikTok testing period can last 1-2 months. It takes time to gather enough conversion data to identify performance patterns. Factors that impact the testing period length include:
If your optimization goal is conversions, TikTok recommends not making any changes to the targeting, bid, or budget before it passes the learning phase. This type of ad group typically exits the learning phase after 50 conversions. Post learning phase, keep your budget within 20-50% of the previous budget.
Here is the average cost of TikTok customer acquisition (TikTok CAC) according to Business of Apps:
Make the most of your TikTok advertising budget by adhering to the following recommendations:
Standard delivery spends the budget as evenly as possible throughout the ad period. This method prevents leftover balance and optimizes the return.
Accelerated delivery spends the budget in whatever way produces as many results as possible in the shortest period possible. This can result in a higher or lower fluctuating cost for a single result, but the average cost will still align with your bid. Accelerated delivery aims to get the highest exposure as quickly as possible.
While dividing the total ad campaign cost by the number of new customers acquired is the most effective way to measure ROI for a conversion campaign, brands can also measure the impact of their ads by calculating the difference between the view time per impression and the view time per viewer. The bigger the difference between these, the more people are rewatching the ad.
MarinOne’s TikTok integration gives advertisers better insights and improved performance for their TikTok campaigns.
Powerful analytics and advanced optimization enable you to run better reports, compare TikTok ads with other paid social campaigns, customize KPIs, automate bidding according to your campaign goals, respond to external signals with custom bid modifiers, refine messaging with search intent targeting, and more.
Jumpstart your TikTok customer acquisition with MarinOne today.
Yahoo! DSP stands out as a platform that offers advertisers a unique blend of technology, scale, and customer relationships. Here's why advertisers should consider Yahoo! DSP for their campaigns:
Yahoo! DSP combines the benefits of a walled garden with the transparency of an independent platform. This means advertisers get the advantages of a massive scale, proprietary inventory, and unique data without feeling restricted.
In a post-cookie world, identity becomes crucial. Yahoo! DSP's best-in-class identity graph and first-party data ensure advertisers can connect the dots seamlessly. Even without IDs, Yahoo! DSP has got you covered.
With the power of machine learning, Yahoo! DSP drives performance without hidden fees or pricing inefficiencies. This ensures advertisers get the most out of their campaigns.
Advertisers get exclusive access to Yahoo's premium inventory, which includes one of the largest premium native marketplaces. This ensures ads are placed in high-quality environments that audiences trust.
Yahoo! DSP, in collaboration with MarinOne, allows advertisers to buy high-attention pre-bid segments. This move focuses on attention-based advertising, aiming to make ads more effective and improve the overall user experience. This can lead to higher revenues for publishers and better engagement for advertisers.
Yahoo’s DSP provides advertisers with direct access to its owned and operated media properties. This means advertisers can buy inventory directly from Yahoo, ensuring better control and quality.
Through its Connect ID, Yahoo’s DSP offers ID matching against deterministic first-party audience graphs derived from its owned sites, Yahoo Mail, and fantasy sports. This ensures advertisers can target their audiences more effectively.
From planning and targeting to optimization and measurement, Yahoo! DSP is built to cater to the diverse needs of advertisers. Whether it's Advanced TV, Digital-Out-of-home, Audio, Native Ads, Video, Mobile, or Commerce, Yahoo! DSP has a solution.
Yahoo! DSP is part of a broader industry trend where DSPs are creating direct connections to publishers. This ensures better transparency, control, and efficiency for advertisers.
Yahoo's decision to focus on its DSP and move away from its SSP is a clear indication of where the industry is heading. Advertisers need platforms that provide value, transparency, and direct connections. Yahoo! DSP is positioned to offer just that.
In conclusion, Yahoo! DSP offers a unique blend of technology, data, and content that makes it a compelling choice for advertisers. Whether you're looking to target specific audiences, access premium content, or leverage attention-based advertising, Yahoo! DSP has the tools and capabilities to drive success.
Exciting news for brand advertisers and agencies! Marin Software, known for its innovative digital marketing software, has just announced an expansion in its capabilities. The MarinOne Retail Media Platform now includes support for Walmart Connect’s Sponsored Brands ad unit and the existing integration with Walmart Connect’s Sponsored Products.
This new feature opens up a world of opportunities for advertisers to help increase brand visibility and drive customer engagement. Sponsored Brands is a unique ad unit designed to drive traffic, awareness, and conversions for businesses selling on Walmart's website. It highlights selected products at the top of the search page, allowing advertisers to showcase their brand and products in a highly prominent placement within Walmart's search results.
Marin Software's CEO, Chris Lien, expressed his enthusiasm for this new addition, stating, "Marin Software is committed to helping advertisers effectively reach and engage their customers across various platforms. Our support for Walmart Connect's Sponsored Brands ad unit is a testament to that commitment. We're thrilled to offer our clients the tools they need to make the most of this powerful ad format."
By integrating Walmart Connect's Sponsored Brands into Marin Software's platform, advertisers can manage their campaigns alongside other major retailers like Amazon, Instacart, or Target. This new feature offers extensive campaign management and optimization capabilities, enabling advertisers to understand their customers better and optimize their advertising spend.
Here's a glimpse of what Marin's support for Sponsored Brands includes:
"Walmart Connect’s Sponsored Brands offer advertisers the unique opportunity to drive online sales and understand the impact on in-store volumes," added Lien, emphasizing this new integration's potential.
Are you interested in exploring this new feature? Visit Marin Software's Walmart Connect page to learn more about support for Walmart Connect in MarinOne.
It’s safe to say a lot has changed in the digital marketing space over the last year. We entered an AI renaissance, gained not one but two new social media platforms (hello Lemon8 and Threads), and while personalization is trending, third-party cookies are on their way out. For good.
Keeping up with the latest trends and best practices with so many drastic changes on the table can be tough, which is why we love marketing conferences. They condense wisdom, experience, and research from industry experts into keynote presentations and breakout sessions that help marketers regroup and re-evaluate their strategies according to top-tier insights.
Without further ado, here are the best marketing conferences to attend in 2023 and 2024:
Date: Multiple
Location: Multiple
Ideal for: Digital marketers, marketing managers, SEO specialists, and professionals interested in overall digital marketing strategies and trends.
DigiMarCon is a comprehensive digital marketing conference series that takes place in 40 cities across 18 countries (and one international cruise), making it arguably the largest digital marketing conference in the world.
Attendees can expect to learn about social media marketing, SEO, content marketing, data analytics, and customer experience via the event’s expert insights, best practices, real-world case studies, interactive workshops, panel discussions, and networking sessions.
Date: August 7 & 8, 2023
Location: Seattle Convention Center Summit in Seattle, Washington (two livestream pass options available)
Ideal for: SEO specialists and digital marketers
MozCon is a hub for SEO enthusiasts. The conference features presentations from leading SEO experts. Attendees can expect the latest on search engine optimization and ranking strategies, complete with guidance on how to make data-driven marketing decisions and future-proof your business. This year’s conference is all about the future of search, with a special focus on ChatGPT, E-E-A-T, and TikTok.
Date: August 16-17, 2023
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Ideal for: All digital marketers
Digital Summit is a series of conferences held throughout the United States. The conferences cover digital marketing, content marketing, and social media topics. Dates and locations vary per conference. View the full schedule for 2023 here.
Digital Summit is also holding an online conference titled “Deep Dive into Social 2023” on September 7, 2023. The one-day virtual conference is jam-packed with a masterclass, breakout sessions, and how-tos with actionable resources.
Date: August 4-6, 2023
Location: San Francisco, CA
Ideal for: Digital marketers, business leaders, and content creators
The 2023 AMA Summer Academic Conference features research that highlights the role of marketing in the broader business ecosystem.
AMA is also holding virtual content marketing conferences on August 23-24 and October 18-19 of this year. Register for free to access this two-day conference packed with all the tools and strategies you need to build a compelling content strategy in 2023.
Date: September 5-8, 2023
Location: Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, MA
Ideal for: Marketers, sales professionals, and business leaders
Inbound 2023 by HubSpot offers three curated agendas to help attendees maximize their experience– one for marketing, one for sales and business development, and one for growth acquisition marketing. The conference features inspiring keynote speakers, educational breakout sessions, networking opportunities, and hands-on workshops.
Date: September 14-15, 2023
Location: Miami, FL
Ideal for: Digital marketers, marketing managers, content creators, and professionals interested in the latest digital marketing trends and best practices.
The Digital Marketing World Forum Global is an international event series that explores the future of digital marketing technologies through keynote presentations and interactive sessions. The conference features the following content tracks:
Date: September 26-27, 2023
Location: Hilton Midtown, New York, NY
Ideal for: Programmatic, data-driven professionals from brands, marketing agencies, publishers, and technology companies.
AdExchanger's Programmatic I/O is a conference centered around advertising and ad tech. Attendees can look forward to educational discussions on programmatic buying, data-driven marketing, and the future of advertising technology.
Date: September 26-27, 2023
Location: Online
Ideal for: Digital marketers and business leaders interested in MarTech.
If you’re interested in learning more about the intersection of marketing and technology, the MarTech conference will be right up your alley. Attendees will explore the latest tools, technologies, and techniques in marketing strategy, including advertising automation. It’s also completely free to register.
Date: September 26-28, 2023
Location: Washington, D.C.
Ideal for: Content marketers, writers, editors, and marketing managers
Content Marketing World is the place to go for all things content. Event attendees will learn the newest best practices for content marketing strategy, creation, distribution, and measurement.
Date: October 14-17, 2023
Location: Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego, CA
Ideal for: Content strategists, content marketers, technical writers, and content creators
LavaCon covers all things content. Attendees can expect in-depth sessions on content planning, storytelling, content SEO, and best practices for delivering valuable content to target audiences. The conference also explores emerging content marketing trends like interactive content, visual storytelling, and AI.
Date: October 16-19 2023
Location: New York, NY
Ideal for: Advertising professionals, brand marketers, media buyers, and marketing executives
Advertising Week New York hosts a hefty lineup of 12,000+ industry peers, 600+ speakers, 400+ sessions, and 20+ content tracks. The event unites the brightest minds in marketing, advertising, media, and tech. Attendees will learn from industry leaders, uncover new trends, and network with peers from all over the world. Virtual sessions are available online for 30 days post-event.
Date: October 25-27, 2023
Location: Online
Ideal for: Social media managers, content creators, digital marketers, and business owners interested in optimizing their social media presence and campaigns.
The Social Media Strategies Summit is a virtual conference designed to help senior-level social media marketers audit and revitalize their social media strategies to promote brand awareness and customer loyalty. Pre-summit workshops take place on October 25, 2023, and the General Summit will happen in the days that follow.
Attendees can expect keynote presentations, panel discussions, case studies, and interactive workshops on subjects like content creation, influencer marketing, community building, and social media advertising.
Date: November 14-15, 2023
Location: Online
Ideal for: Search marketing professionals, SEO specialists, PPC managers, and digital marketers.
SMX is a conference on all things search engine marketing, both SEO and PPC. Attendees can expect in-depth sessions on search engine marketing with valuable insights into top advertising platforms.
Date: January 9 - 11, 2024
Location: Caesars Forum, Las Vegas, NV
Ideal for: Digital marketers, growth hackers, and e-commerce pros
Known for its emphasis on digital advertising and conversion optimization, the Traffic and Conversion Summit teaches digital marketing strategies specifically designed to drive traffic and convert.
Expect sessions covering new traffic channels, customer-centric marketing, new conversion breakthroughs, and ultra-current breakout sessions.
Date: February 18-20, 2024
Location: San Diego, CA
Ideal for: social media marketers, content creators, community managers, and business owners
Social Media Marketing World features top-notch social media marketing strategies, expert-led sessions, case studies, and networking with fellow social media professionals. Attendees can expect to learn the latest on creating successful social media advertising campaigns.
Date: April 8 – 10, 2024
Location: Paris Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Ideal for: Lead generation specialists, digital marketers, sales professionals, and business development managers interested in improving their lead acquisition strategies
LeadsCon is a conference for marketers interested in improving their lead generation and customer acquisition strategies. The event bundles the latest trends, tools, and techniques for converting leads into expert-led sessions, case studies, and interactive workshops.
Date: May 16, 2024
Location: JW Marriott LA LIVE, Los Angeles, CA
Ideal for: e-commerce marketers, online retailers, and digital marketing professionals in the e-commerce industry
The Los Angeles eCommerce Summit is a local gathering of LA’s top ecom experts and decision-makers. It focuses on e-commerce strategies, digital advertising, user experience, and customer retention for online retailers. Attendees can expect to hear industry experts share insights into website optimization, digital advertising campaign implementation, and data analytics.
Date: June 3-5, 2024
Location: Denver, CO
Ideal for: Marketing leaders, CMOs, marketing strategists, and professionals responsible for marketing technology decisions and customer experience optimization
The Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo features new research and actionable insights on topics like AI, marketing strategy, multichannel marketing, and brand strategy. Attendees can expect keynotes from Gartner analysts, expert-led sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities.
Date: March 11-13, 2024
Location: Orlando, FL
Ideal for: Data analysts, marketing analysts, data-driven marketers, and marketing strategists
The Gartner Data and Analytics Summit is a conference tailored to challenges faced by data and analytics professionals. It covers topics like data management, predictive analytics, customer segmentation, and data visualization. Attendees will learn from Gartner analysts, industry leaders, and case studies. The most recent summit prioritized the following topics:
The marketing conferences above are great opportunities for learning and networking, but they aren’t the only way to learn about new advertising technologies. MarinOne’s experts can help you supercharge your paid search, social, and e-commerce advertising efforts. Book a personalized demo to get started.
Traditional advertising models are no longer meeting the needs of modern marketers. Audiences expect customized messages and advertising channels such as television, radio, and print are unable to deliver personalized marketing messages to highly segmented groups. Even digital marketing has become more challenging with third-party cookies being phased out. The rise of retail media networks has disrupted the advertising landscape, providing a new and innovative way for marketers to reach their target audiences.
By delivering precise, targeted advertising at scale, retail media networks offer numerous benefits to marketers looking to break through in the crowded digital space. As retail media networks become more popular, marketers need to improve their understanding of the system and how it can help them.
In this article, we will discuss the rise of retail media networks, explore their impact on existing advertising models, examine the benefits they offer to marketers, and provide best practices for success when working with retail media networks.
Before we get into the impact of retail media networks, let’s be sure to understand what they are. Retail media networks are advertising channels owned by retailers, which they can use to advertise their own products or offer to third-party businesses.
While retail businesses currently spend less than 10% of their marketing budgets on retail media, this number is expected to grow 5X by 2024. Retail media networks are expected to become as common and mainstream as social media advertising.
Retail media networks can help businesses deliver a level of personalization that third-party platforms could not. Especially in a privacy-conscious advertising space, retail media networks empower retailers with greater insight into their customers’ preferences without being unnecessarily intrusive.
Retail media networks can deliver marketers significant benefits, from granular reporting to improved customer targeting. Here are the top five reasons why modern marketers should use retail media networks:
By leveraging consumer data collected by retail platforms, retailers can offer precise targeting of advertising to specific audiences, improving the likelihood of engagement and conversion. In a recent survey, marketers shared that a key reason they use retail media networks is their ability to deliver access to difficult-to-reach customers at scale without compromising on personalization.
Retail media platforms provide an entirely new revenue stream for retail companies, enabling them to monetize their customer data by offering targeted advertising to marketers. There are multiple ways businesses can use this data to increase revenue. They can use the customer data themselves to encourage more purchases or they can offer targeted advertising to other companies that might be interested in reaching the same types of customers—or they can choose a combination of both.
Customer experiences are often used by retailers as a differentiating factor that helps them rise above the competition. Through personalized and relevant advertising, retailers can improve the shopping experience of their customers by presenting them with products that align directly with their interests and needs. This can be done at scale with first-party data and an advertising channel that is completely controlled by the retailer itself.
Pro tip: Deploy a composable CDP architecture. This architecture allows for unparalleled flexibility in collecting various data types, both in batch and real-time. Composable CDPs integrate the data and centrally manages it, making it readily available for downstream applications like Retail Media Networks.
Retail media networks offer advertising solutions with tracking and measurement capabilities, enabling advertisers to monitor and optimize performance to increase return on investment. Since the retailer owns the advertising platform, they have unfettered access to extremely granular customer data. This allows them to build highly comprehensive profiles for each customer and adjust outreach to them to guarantee the best results possible.
Pro tip: Utilize a closed-loop measurement approach. Closed-loop measurement is a technique used to gauge the effect of advertisements on consumer buying behavior, encompassing both online and offline activities. By employing this approach, you can monitor the performance of your advertising media campaigns throughout the entire purchase process. Assess the success of an advertisement in leading to a sale, and understand how your investment in media correlates with actual customer purchases.
This method provides insights into the channels, creative content, and publishers that are most influential in boosting sales. Additionally, it aids in fine-tuning your media strategy to guarantee the maximum return on your investment in media.
Here's an illustration of closed-loop measurement at work:
Traditional advertising channels have become less popular and effective with the introduction of social media and retailers have had to adjust their marketing strategies to reflect this. However, it is not enough for marketers to simply focus on digital marketing while ignoring other avenues available to them. By utilizing retail media networks, advertisers can build assets and avoid the high costs of traditional advertising channels such as TV, print, and radio, and instead benefit from more affordable and targeted advertising solutions.
Once marketers have decided that they want to make use of retail media networks to reach their most important customers, they need to understand how that can be done effectively. Here are some tips that marketers should consider when using retail media networks in their campaigns:
Retail media networks allow marketers to fine-tune their targeting efforts without being invasive. However, using the same advertising to reach out to disparate audiences can significantly hamper its effectiveness. Each customer segment has unique needs and preferences when it comes to how businesses communicate with them. Customers that prefer in-store advertising can be delivered advertisements designed just for them while customers on different social media platforms also have their own specially designed advertising.
Pro tip: Take advantage of location analytics. In-store retail media's challenge is accurately gauging promotional impact and ROAS, especially for non-endemic products. Brands want more than impressions; they seek tangible improvements in conversions and sales to justify advertising spend. Location analytics can enhance this assessment. For example, if a gym advertises at a health food chain, offering QR code discounts can track leads, while foot traffic data provides a broader evaluation. This data can analyze cross-shopping habits, track targeted demographic visits, identify specific campaign locations' most successful areas, and study visitation patterns and consumer profiles during the campaign, offering a comprehensive understanding of the promotion's success.
Businesses need to transition from using third-party to first-party cookies but not every business has a system set up to enable that. Retail media networks can help plug this gap. These systems allow businesses to collect and organize first-party customer data. Retail media empowers retailers to learn more about their customers’ preferences and adjust in-store and online experiences accordingly.
Businesses typically have larger audiences in store than on digital platforms and marketers have been able to capitalize on shoppers who are ready to make purchases in-store. However, this ability hasn’t been as effective online. Retail media networks allow marketers to plan an omnichannel strategy and encourage more conversions across online and offline channels.
Customers tend to research the products they want to buy before making the purchase. Marketers may ignore the role that their own retail site plays in engaging with the customer early. By leveraging the vast reach and targeting capabilities of these networks, businesses can place their products and advertisements directly in front of potential customers when they’re in the early stages of exploring and researching products.
This early and strategic engagement has several benefits for businesses:
In a bid to stretch marketing dollars, marketers can easily make the mistake of focusing on specific platforms while ignoring others completely. A combination of utilizing retail media networks and optimized social media marketing is the key to reaching the largest audience possible while still being targeted. These networks leverage advanced targeting and data capabilities to ensure that advertisements and brand messaging are consistently presented to consumers across various online channels.
By integrating with multiple platforms and sites, retail media networks enable businesses to synchronize their campaigns, creative assets, and messaging to create a cohesive brand experience. This consistency not only strengthens brand recognition but also helps to build trust with customers as they encounter familiar and consistent messaging wherever they engage with the brand. By delivering a seamless and unified experience, retail media networks empower businesses to reinforce their brand identity and effectively communicate their value proposition to potential customers, regardless of the platform or site they encounter.
Marketers can be preoccupied with metrics such as views and impressions but this does not always translate into more sales for the business. Retail media networks can help provide the sales data that marketing teams need to adjust their strategies as necessary.
With MarinOne, marketers gain a holistic view of their campaigns across different retail media networks, allowing for better coordination, data analysis, and decision making. It simplifies the complex task of managing and optimizing advertising budgets, bids, and creative assets across multiple platforms and networks.
Additionally, MarinOne offers comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities, giving marketers deep insights into the performance of their retail media campaigns. They can access unified dashboards, track key performance indicators, and measure the effectiveness of their advertising efforts across retail media networks.
Overall, MarinOne empowers marketers to evolve and thrive in a marketing environment where retail media networks are commonplace. It streamlines campaign management, enhances optimization capabilities, and provides powerful insights, enabling marketers to achieve better results and drive growth in this evolving landscape.
To get started today, schedule a demo with one of our MarinOne experts.
In the digital marketing world, successful leaders possess a unique combination of strategic thinking, technical expertise, and a talent for connecting people. One such individual is Meg Madden, the Vice President of Products at Marin Software. With her vast experience and remarkable achievements, Madden has established herself as a trailblazer in the industry. In this article, we delve into Madden's professional journey, her accomplishments, and the values she holds dear.
Meg Madden's professional journey can be traced back to June, 2012 when she joined Marin Software, a leading provider of digital marketing solutions. Her tenure began as an Online Marketing Manager, where she excelled in activating social strategies for notable companies such as General Motors and PayPal. While working in the Austin office, Madden was instrumental in fostering team growth and spearheading global strategies for paid strategies, including collaborations with AT&T.
As a Pod Leader for the Austin team, Madden showcased her leadership skills by managing independent network agencies and overseeing account directors and customer managers. She also played a crucial role in breaking down silos within teams, facilitating cross-channel and cross-regional collaboration. Her efforts resulted in forming the Global Customer Engagement Team, further strengthening Marin Software's customer-centric approach.
Before joining Marin Software, Meg Madden pursued an MBA at Yukon, where she honed her skills in business management. Prior to that, she served as a Social Media Manager for Quickluck, showcasing her expertise in leveraging social media platforms to drive brand engagement. Madden's educational journey began at Yale, where she earned a BA in American Studies, providing her with a solid foundation in understanding consumer behavior and cultural dynamics.
Meg Madden's story is not just defined by her professional accomplishments. Growing up on the border of Texas and Mexico in Harlingen, TX, she was exposed to a multicultural upbringing. This experience instilled in her a deep appreciation for diversity and a strong sense of community. Madden's formative years were marked by active involvement in various activities, from playing softball and participating in color guard to volunteering at the Women's Crisis Center.
Even today, Madden continues to impact others' lives through her volunteer work positively. She regularly guest lectures at Stanford Business School, sharing her industry insights and experiences with aspiring business professionals. Additionally, she remains active in her church group, contributing to the children's ministry and participating in activities at the cowboy church located on the rodeo grounds.
Meg Madden's personal life revolves around her family. She is a proud mother to three children, aged 8, 6, and 3, comprising two boys and a girl. Her husband has taken on the role of a stay-at-home dad, allowing Madden to focus on her professional endeavors while balancing her responsibilities at home. Madden believes that being a mother is the most challenging yet rewarding role she plays, finding solace in her rural lifestyle on a farm, complete with chickens and ducks.
When it comes to personal values, Madden emphasizes the importance of continuous learning. She believes that staying curious and open to new ideas is key to personal and professional growth. Additionally, she has always learned to assume positive intent, realizing that it took her some time to truly understand the impact of this mindset.
Madden's unwavering commitment to her team's growth is one of her proudest achievements. She takes immense satisfaction in witnessing the professional progress of individuals who have worked under her guidance. Many of these talented individuals have either moved on to new opportunities outside of Marin or have climbed the ladder within the organization itself.
Meg Madden's journey from an Online Marketing Manager to Vice President of Products at Marin Software is a testament to her exceptional skills, dedication, and ability to connect people. Throughout her career, she has prioritized breaking down silos, fostering collaboration, and building customer-centric solutions.
If you’re considering spending money on ads to reach your target audience, you want to ensure that the money is well spent, and spent in the right place – somewhere like Google. With more than 92.5 billion visits per month, Google is one online opportunity that is virtually limitless in terms of reach and investment.
Most popular websites by unique monthly visitors, November 2022
In this guide, we’ll discuss how to use Google’s keyword match types and everything you need to know to optimize your campaigns so you can achieve the best results from your ads.
Keyword matching is an essential aspect of any successful Google Ads campaign. By choosing the right keyword match type, you can control which search queries trigger your ads to appear.
Just as its name implies, broad match is…well, broad. As the default match type in Google Ads, these keywords cast a wide net, allowing your ad to show for any search query that includes the keywords you've chosen and related variations and synonyms. They can even match for searches that don’t include your exact keyword terms.
Because broad match keywords collect a wide range of search terms, you save time that might be spent brainstorming and manually creating a keyword list. In addition to its enormous reach, broad match has a very loose query match, meaning that search term variations are very likely. Broad match is effective, but it leaves you with little control over which searches trigger ads and increases the likelihood of your ad showing for irrelevant searches, leading to wasted impressions and clicks.
Another downside is that broad match keywords often result in poor quality scores and don’t guarantee traffic quality if you aim to maximize landing page traffic.
While similar to broad match, a broad match modifier is more refined. These modifiers allow you to reach a more targeted audience. To use this match type, you add a "+" before the word you want to bid on in the keyword phrase. Without the "+," the ad won't appear. In other words, your ad will show up only for the specific keywords you choose. For example, the keyword “coffee cup” might match with “coffee beans” or “mug,” whereas “coffee +cup” could compare with “teacup” or “cup holder.” On the other hand, selecting “+coffee +cup” requires both terms for your ad to appear, though they can be in any order and include additional text.
With broad match modifiers, the search query can be in any order as long as the keyword with the "+" is present. Broad match modifiers give you greater control over reaching a wider audience and improve the quality of leads you get from your ads.
Phrase match is a more restrictive match type that requires the search query to include the exact keyword phrase, with words before or after the term. This match type can help you reach a more targeted audience while allowing for some flexibility in the order of the words.
Exact match only shows your ad for searches that exactly match your keyword phrase, with no variations or different words. While this match type limits your audience size, it can be helpful for very specific and targeted campaigns and gives you maximum control over which searches can trigger ads on the SERP.
The good thing about exact match is that it leads to high relevancy and quality traffic, and as a result, you will pay less for junk clicks. However, it’s time-consuming, and your reach is not very wide. Furthermore, there’s a chance you could miss valuable keyword-related traffic or long-tail keyword searches because exact match keywords only catch specified search terms.
Even when your keyword list is thorough, chances are your ads will still appear for irrelevant search terms, making search term exclusions just as significant as inclusions. By adding negative keywords to your list and blacklisting them from your campaigns, you can avoid the “bad fits” most likely to waste ad spend.
Selecting the right keyword match type ensures that your Google Ad campaign budget is used effectively to reach your target audience at the right time with the right message – without spending on irrelevant clicks. When you bring in the right type of traffic, you’re more likely to attract new customers, increase sales, gain higher click-through rates, better conversion rates, and ultimately maximize ROI.
Match types play a crucial role in determining the success of your account as they control which search queries you bid on. When selecting match types for keywords, consider these factors:
The performance of keywords and similar keywords can give you an idea of the best match type for maximizing return on investment.
Observing how your competitors bid on terms and how they structure accounts can impact your return. Looking closely at how they have historically performed can also provide valuable insight.
Bids, including cost per click and cost per conversion, can be significantly influenced by match types and may determine the best match type to use.
How an advertiser structures their account and creates specific ads for different match types can significantly impact the performance of varying match types.
Keyword targeting helps you reach the right audience, increase your visibility, and drive more conversions. With these four best practices, you can make the most of your advertising budget and reach your target audience more effectively:
Close variants extend the coverage of your keyword match types to encompass similar searches. This means that searches including misspellings, singular/plural forms, derivatives, abbreviations, and accents can be matched with close variants. It’s crucial to be aware of the impact of keyword variations on your campaigns.
Knowing that keywords can be ambiguous, it’s essential to consider adding negative keywords to your campaign. When you add them, use either broad or phrase match negatives or use exact match negatives to fine-tune your ad groups.
Keywords on the Google Display Network, including display and video keywords, are all used in broad match form. You can use them to reach content related to your products or services. However, it's important to note that this targeting method is only sometimes precise, and your ads may appear on websites that are not directly related to your display keywords.
Continuous testing and adjusting will make your Google Ads campaign successful. Regularly monitor the performance of your keywords and adjust your bids, ad copy, and targeting as needed. When you do, you’ll discover the best keywords for your campaign and optimize your results.
There’s no doubt that with Google Ads’ expansive reach and authority, adding it to your paid strategy will produce results. To get started, use the tips we covered, and iterate and refine as you go.
By teaming up with MarinOne, you can create a successful Google Ad campaign that will drive clicks and convert leads. To get started, reach out to one of our MarinOne team experts today.
While platforms like Facebook and Instagram dominate the landscape, one platform offers a unique opportunity for businesses to reach their target audience effectively and cost-efficiently: Pinterest. With 400 million monthly active users, Pinterest Ads have become a powerful brand exposure and sales tool. And now, with the integration of Marin Software, advertisers have access to enhanced insights and optimization capabilities to maximize the impact of their Pinterest campaigns. In this guide to getting started with Pinterest Ads in 2023, we will explore why your business should leverage Pinterest Ads, how to get started, and how the Marin Software integration can elevate your campaign performance.
Pinterest allows companies to share various kinds of digital content, making it ideal for product promotion and engaging customers with valuable and entertaining posts. Moreover, approximately 75% of users on Pinterest are continuously shopping while on the platform, indicating a highly engaged potential customer base.
In addition, Pinterest has proven to be a cost-effective marketing channel. In 2021, the average cost for Pinterest ads was $1.50 per click, significantly less than the $3.56 per click on Instagram.
Another benefit of using Pinterest for e-commerce advertising is its advanced targeting options. Advertisers can create audience groups directly from existing customer lists, people who have already visited their site, or form a new audience with parameters similar to their existing customers.
The platform also allows the customization of ads according to users' interests, certain keywords, and demographic groups. Importantly, Pinterest ads have significantly boosted conversions compared to other channels, with rates ranging from 1.5% to 8.5%, depending on factors like target customers and content type.
Now, with the integration of Marin Software, advertisers can harness the power of machine learning and automation to improve their campaign performance further and gain better insights.
To start using Pinterest Ads with the Marin Software integration, the first step is to set your campaign objectives. Once that is done, MarinOne--Marin Software's flagship platform--unifies leading AI bidding, budget pacing, forecasting, performance insights, and recommendations to help advertisers maximize the reach and impact of their Pinterest marketing investment.
By leveraging the advanced analytical grids MarinOne provides, advertisers can comprehensively analyze their campaign's performance across Pinterest and other social, search, display, and e-commerce platforms. This holistic view enables advertisers to make data-driven decisions and optimize their campaigns for better results.
Marin Software has been at the forefront of helping advertisers advance their digital advertising campaigns for almost 15 years. With extensive experience managing nearly $50 billion in advertising spend across various channels, Marin Software brings valuable expertise to the table. Integrating with Pinterest's Marketing API gives advertisers a competitive edge by providing better insights and campaign optimization through machine learning and automation.
Pinterest Ads have proven to be a valuable tool for businesses looking to reach their target audience effectively while driving brand exposure and sales. By following this guide and leveraging the Marin Software + Pinterest integration, companies can unlock the full potential of Pinterest Ads in 2023 and achieve remarkable results.
Get a free analysis of your paid social campaigns from one of the advertising consultants at Marin to start making better data-driven decisions, optimizing campaigns hands-free with AI, and driving higher efficiency in your paid marketing programs.
TikTok is quickly becoming a popular choice for e-commerce advertising, as evidenced by its high number of monthly active users and downloads. With more than 1.7 billion monthly active users and three billion downloads, it has surpassed other popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, Pinterest, and Snapchat.
As its reach and popularity continue to grow, so does the interest in advertising on the platform. For e-commerce retailers looking to build a strong marketing strategy, including TikTok ads for e-commerce should be a consideration. For inspiration for your next campaign, let’s take a look at some of the best TikTok ads of all time, and what has made them so successful.
Understanding the essential components that constitute a well-optimized TikTok advertisement can help your ad attract more views. These features will help you get more views:
As a fast-paced platform, on TikTok, users tend to scroll through their feeds quickly, which means that you only have a few seconds to grab their attention. To do so, craft a clear message that will resonate with them quickly and encourage them to take action. Without a clear message and a single, unambiguous objective, your ads simply won't make an impact.
Create your ads with eye-catching visuals that are high quality and relevant to your product or service. Additionally, they should be optimized for mobile viewing to ensure the best user experience.
TikTok can be a marketing powerhouse for capturing the attention of millions of users. However, since the platform is saturated with endless videos, entertainment, and other content, you need to create ads that are entertaining and engaging if you want to stand out. Aim to make your ads fun, creative, and memorable. Your ad should evoke emotion and create a connection with the user, making them more likely to share it with others.
TikTok videos are short—most are between 60 seconds and three minutes—but the most effective ads are often much shorter. To leave a lasting impression, get your message across quickly and effectively without wasting any time.
TikTok influencers can help direct high-quality, loyal traffic towards your brand, so collaborating with them can be an effortless approach to gaining brand recognition. In fact, collaborating with creators to produce TikTok-specific branded content generates 65% higher 2-second view rates and increases engagement by 83%.
Using branded hashtag challenges, influencers and creators can enhance your brand’s visibility without hard-selling. Influencers and creators are also often sought after because of their ability to connect with their audience in an authentic way. Make sure, however, that the influencer or creator you choose truly aligns with your target audience.
To achieve success with your TikTok ad campaigns, it's important to understand the unique advantages and disadvantages of each ad format. Once you’re familiar with the six different options, you can determine which one will work best for your specific goals and audience so you can maximize your results on TikTok:
In-feed ads are very similar to watching stories that you see on Instagram or Facebook, except they happen to be embedded in the “For You” feed. These ads are skippable for users and they have a maximum length of 60 seconds, but 9–15 seconds is optimal. However, you can include multiple CTAs (calls to action) to prompt users to click on the ad.
When a brand takeover ad is displayed, it appears immediately after the app is opened, as either a static image for 3 seconds or a 3–5 second video without audio. While this ad type can give you quick traction, it’s more expensive than the others.
TopView ads consist of 60-second videos that play automatically as soon as the user opens the app. This ad type and its strategic placement ensures that viewers will be exposed to your ad, making it a dependable and efficient method for connecting with your intended audience.
Spark ads are a unique ad format that allows brands to target their audience with customized ads tailored to their interests. They consist of a single image or short video clip that can be used to showcase a product or service. However, what sets Spark ads apart from other ad formats is that they're displayed in a user's "Following" feed, which makes them feel less intrusive and more organic.
The hashtag challenge ad format is unique to TikTok and promotes user-generated content. The audience is prompted to generate themed content that features the designated branded hashtag, which is subsequently compiled on a hashtag challenge page. In addition, these challenges yield an average engagement rate of 8.5% and provide creative direction to brands interested in participating.
Comparable to Snapchat lenses and Instagram filters, these brand-sponsored visual effects compliment hashtag challenges. They can be found on the first page of the effects panel, and remain there for 3 days.
To reach their relevant audiences on the platform and improve conversion rates, e.l.f. Cosmetics used an in-feed ad. The video they created was entertaining and genuine and successfully illustrated the brand’s personality while advertising products in an engaging and professional format.
The beauty brand heightened awareness and brand recognition by ensuring their video was appealing while simultaneously highlighting their brand, making it clearly visible in the beginning and ending frames.
The intimate apparel brand, Aerie, achieved TikTok success by leveraging in-feed ad campaigns alongside branded hashtag challenges. Most recently, they became the first to experiment with TikTok's Dynamic Showcase Ads (DSA), and were able to increase conversions through personalized advertising.
With DSA, consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands can advertise thousands of products with minimal effort spent on creative production. By using dynamic ads on TikTok, not only did Aerie automate their advertising efforts, but they significantly increased conversions and freed up time for more strategic initiatives.
In just 24 hours, KIND's hashtag challenge generated a staggering 20 million views. In their effort to promote their Simple Crunch Bars, the snack brand giant gave users the chance to win a flight to New York along with a year’s worth of KIND products in exchange for posting videos about the bar’s loud crunch.
In conjunction with user videos, KIND strategically positioned influencers to create sponsored posts. By collaborating with Zach King, for example, the brand gained a record 1.7 million likes and more than 18k shares.
KIND’s campaign was successful because it tailored its messaging to reach Gen Z by using influencers to promote their product. In addition, KIND encouraged video shares by giving their intended audience a motivational incentive, one that guaranteed a trip and some free products. Who could turn that down?
Garnier turned to TikTok to promote a new line of vegan hair care products to its Gen Z and millennial target audience. Using a branded hashtag challenge combined with a 2-D branded effect, they enabled users to test the product line by creating a before-and-after transition video.
In addition, Garnier tapped influencers to help push their brand further in conjunction with a One Day Max in-feed ad and a TopView Lite. A subcategory of TopView ads, TopView Lite ads include a 3-5 second-long video with no sound. To top off their efforts, the brand compiled a mash-up of the best user-generated videos, which they later promoted through Brand Premium In-Feed Ads.
Using a mix of different TikTok ad formats, Garnier was able to reinforce their brand’s message and appeal to their audience. Encouraging a viral challenge also allowed their users to become a central part of Garnier’s bigger story, helping the brand gain more traction.
To gauge the attention of users for a new release titled “Sing On! Germany,” Netflix launched a TikTok ad campaign that would increase awareness. They used a Branded Effect paired with a Hashtag Challenge that enabled target viewers to participate in a virtual karaoke booth. Using this strategy, Netflix was able to incentivize submissions, and in turn, improve engagement levels.
Netflix promoted the Branded Effect through influencer marketing and by using tunes from iconic songs that got users to sing along. Because so many people were able to use the filter and emotionally connect with classic tunes, the campaign became wildly popular and generated over 600m total video views.
To create a winning TikTok ad campaign, it’s important to analyze what aspects successful ones got right. Pay close attention to the various approaches used, identify successful hooks, and note which influencers generate the most engagement so you can determine how to establish a connection with your own target audience.
If you’re ready to begin your TikTok advertising strategy, MarinOne is here to help. Our TikTok advertising pros will advise you in creating trendy, on-brand TikTok ads that work for your business and industry.
To grow your business with TikTok, contact us today.
Navigating what tactics and strategies to use in B2B marketing is tough. To gather insights on how to stay ahead, we recently participated in the Forrester B2B Summit in Austin, Texas. Leaders and visionaries from various industries gathered to explore trends, strategies, and innovations. The sessions, discussions, and networking opportunities provided valuable knowledge that will shape our B2B marketing approach for 2023 and beyond. Here are our "TLDR" notes from our favorite sessions.
AI's capability to analyze vast amounts of data enables B2B marketers to identify patterns, predict customer behavior, and personalize content and interactions. It also streamlines lead generation, automates repetitive tasks, improves customer service, optimizes for voice and visual search, aids in competitive analysis, and necessitates ethical considerations. Marketers should prioritize training and upskilling, refine Account-Based Marketing strategies with AI, and stay updated on AI's future directions.
John Arnold, Principal Analyst @ Forrester
Sam had an amazing experience meeting Sebastian Vettel's pit crew, sitting in the racecar, and receiving a personal letter from the racer himself. Despite Mercedes' dominance in racecar driving, being a Ferrari fan was essential to Vettel's winning mindset. Experiential marketing, particularly in the context of Formula I, played a significant role in driving customer loyalty and advocacy. Key elements of experiential marketing include interaction, engagement, personalization, and creating memorable experiences. Leveraging technology like VR and AR enhances the impact. Storytelling and adapting to virtual events are crucial, as well as considering emerging trends and building long-term relationships with customers. The Forrester B2B Growth Engine emphasizes aligning marketing, product, and sales to meet the changing needs of buyers, as evidenced by their dissatisfaction with providers in 2022.
Katie Fabiszak, Principal Analyst @ Forrester
Katie and her son Drew faced the challenge of choosing a college among numerous options, feeling overwhelmed by the lack of differentiation. Similarly, B2B brands encounter a "sea of sameness" and must differentiate themselves by listening to individual customer needs. Key strategies include understanding buyer value, adopting a customer-centric approach, maximizing customer lifetime value, personalization, predictive analysis, customer feedback, crafting compelling value propositions, increasing customer retention, aligning product development with customer expectations, customer journey mapping, cross-functional collaboration, and evolving with changing customer preferences for sustained value delivery.
Barbie Mattie, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester
CMOs can drive market penetration by implementing targeted marketing campaigns, enhancing branding efforts, and implementing customer retention strategies. Market development involves conducting market research, creating market entry strategies, and tailoring messaging to different market segments. CMOs collaborate with product teams in product development by integrating customer insights and developing marketing strategies. Diversification requires exploring opportunities, validating them through research, and executing marketing strategies for new products or markets. Strategic partnerships involve identifying compatible partners, creating collaborative marketing strategies, and maintaining brand alignment. CMOs also play a role in assessing potential acquisitions, overseeing post-acquisition integration, and developing effective communication strategies to inform customers about changes resulting from acquisitions.
Ashley Naumann Vonella, Sales Enablement & Operations Senior Team Manager, VelocityEHS
Ashley Naumann discussed the concept of Revenue Operations (RevOps) and its significance in driving business growth. RevOps involves aligning sales, marketing, and customer service departments to provide a seamless customer experience. It emphasizes the integration of data from different departments to create a holistic view of customer interactions, enabling informed decision-making. RevOps also streamlines business processes, enhances revenue forecasting and planning, and helps overcome organizational silos, fostering collaboration and improving performance. She highlighted the impact of RevOps on customer experience and provided strategies for successful implementation.
Brett Kahnke, Principal Analyst, Forrester
B2B intent data is defined as data that reveals the signals and indications of a potential buyer's interests and purchasing intentions. It plays a crucial role in modern marketing and sales strategies by providing valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. There are various sources of B2B intent data, including first-party and third-party data providers. First-party data providers utilize a company's own data, such as website analytics and CRM data, to analyze user behavior. Third-party data providers collect data from external sources, offering a broader view of the market. Other intent data provider models include bidstream data providers, cooperative data providers, predictive analytics providers, publisher-based providers, and data aggregator providers. Understanding the pros and cons of different data sources helps businesses make informed decisions about utilizing B2B intent data in their marketing and sales efforts.
Neil Honaker, Data Hygiene / Data Privacy Manager, Essity
Jackie McBrady, Sr Director, Lead-Finance Applications EMEA, Cushman & Wakefield
Jenn Atkins, CMO, Dun & Bradstreet
Master Data Management (MDM) is a comprehensive method that helps organizations define and manage critical data, providing a single point of reference for all data elements. It ensures data accuracy, consistency, and uniformity across the organization, leading to improved efficiency, decision-making, and regulatory compliance. MDM consists of components such as master data, metadata, data quality, and data integration. Best practices for implementing MDM include having a clear strategy, securing executive buy-in, prioritizing data quality, involving stakeholders, starting small and scaling gradually, choosing the right tools, and planning for data governance. Common challenges in MDM implementation include inconsistent data quality and resistance to change, which can be addressed through data cleansing and effective communication. Successful MDM implementation results in enhanced decision-making, improved operational efficiency, and better regulatory compliance.
Attending the Forrester B2B Summit was truly an illuminating experience that has invigorated our team at MarinOne. As we reflect on the invaluable insights gained from industry experts, thought leaders, and fellow marketing professionals, we are inspired to push the boundaries of B2B marketing and embrace innovation. Armed with a fresh perspective and a deep understanding of emerging trends, we are eager to implement the strategies and best practices we've learned to drive tangible results for our clients and stay ahead of the curve. The Forrester B2B Summit served as a catalyst for growth, igniting our passion for continuous learning and reaffirming our commitment to delivering exceptional B2B marketing solutions. We eagerly look forward to the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead, armed with the knowledge and inspiration we gained. Reach out to work with one of our team members to revamp your B2B advertising campaign strategy.
Data continues to be an increasing driver for businesses of all sizes and the need to effectively manage and organize that data has grown almost exponentially. Data taxonomy provides a framework for understanding how different types of data are related. It's then used to improve decision-making, strengthen the customer experience, and minimize costs.
All of this adds up to making it a critical tool for any company that wants to maximize its data asset value. New insights, analysis and actual business intelligence rely on data structures and models that are clean, accurate, and logical,
This growing role has increased the importance of having effective strategies for organizing information. A proper taxonomy helps to better understand customer requirements and preferences. This is accomplished by grouping similar pieces of information into coherent categories. Both from an internal perspective (i.e., categorizing sales leads) as well as from an external one (i.e., segmenting users).
By taking into account the various relationships between different types of information, valuable insights are gained. Additionally, having a clear structure makes it easier to find specific data. This helps conserve resources while also improving accuracy across multiple teams.
In this post we will explore the role of data in business and offer some best practices for structuring data in the future.
Data plays an increasingly important role in helping organizations achieve their strategic initiatives. Different types of data can be utilized to inform and guide such initiatives. This includes customer demographics and behavior, market trends, financial indicators, performance metrics, and competitor activity.
Customer data can help companies understand their customers and how they behave. This can then be used to zero in on new customers and track the performance of existing ones. Market trend data can provide insights into the broader industry landscape. Financial and performance metrics can inform strategies around budgeting and resource allocation.
Competitor activity is also an important factor in business decision-making. Knowing what they're doing and how well they’re doing it allows you to adjust your strategy accordingly, either by leveraging their strengths or exploiting their weaknesses.
By having a clear taxonomy in place, companies can get the most out of their data. They can also ensure that they're using the data to effectively drive the continued growth of the business. Successful data taxonomy requires careful planning, thoughtful organization, and ongoing maintenance.
Data taxonomy helps companies understand their customers and the market, track their performance, and compare what they do with competitors.
A data taxonomy is a system of organizing data into categories. It helps to structure information so that it can be located quickly and easily understood. Data taxonomies are made up of terms, which can be hierarchical or related in some way (such as “customers”, “leads”, and “opportunities”).
By structuring data in this way, companies can gain insight into the behavior and preferences of their customer base and betting insight into current market trends.
Data taxonomies help with data governance. They provides a framework for how information should be collected, stored, and accessed to ensure it remains secure and compliant with regulations. Having an established taxonomy makes it easier to keep track of where data is located and who has access to it.
This practice also makes it easier to understand customer needs and preferences. By segmenting customers into different categories, companies can hone their marketing efforts and improve the overall customer experience. This can increase engagement and loyalty, which helps drive revenue growth. Additionally, data taxonomies help reduce costs by streamlining processes such as inventory management.
Having a poor data taxonomy can have damaging consequences. Without proper categorization, important information or insights may go unnoticed. This could lead to inaccurate predictions or decisions, which in turn could result in losses for the company.
In addition, having an inadequate data taxonomy can make it difficult to find information quickly and accurately. This increases time spent on tasks and can lead to errors or delays. It can also be difficult to track the origin of data when there’s no clear structure in place.
Finally, a lack of data taxonomy can make it hard to monitor access and ensure regulatory compliance. This could have serious legal and financial consequences if confidential customer information is mishandled or exposed.
When implementing a data taxonomy, there are some best practices you need to be aware of. Following these guidelines will put you and your organization on the way to clean data sets that are accessible, usable and capable of powering your business towards its strategic initiatives.
You should work hard to craft specific criteria for what you want to achieve, both with your data and how it will be used. Develop a framework that fits your needs and tailor it to meet your unique goals and objectives.
Additionally, you should involve stakeholders in the process. Make sure everyone who is involved in data management is on board with the taxonomy. This will help get everyone familiar with the structure and that it works for all departments.
Metrics and goals are essential when it comes to developing a successful data taxonomy. When planning your taxonomy, it's important to determine how metrics will be used to measure its success.
Are you looking for data sets that integrate easily with tools and applications? Are you structuring data to be used cross-functionally without much hand holding? Whatever goals you set at the start of your taxonomy journey, it is crucial to measure progress and, ultimately, success.
It’s important to keep data integrity and completeness in mind when creating a taxonomy. This means making sure you have the necessary information to accurately categorize your data, as well as regularly checking to ensure that your categories are up-to-date. The data set itself should be qualified for both accuracy and completeness. A gap in either will ultimately render the insights provided by the data unreliable or even inaccurate.
Next, you need to decide which categories and subcategories will be used. Choose the ones that align with your plan and are easy to understand. Consider using industry standards if possible, as this can help ensure consistency across departments.
Applying categorization to data sets involves more than simply assigning labels. It also requires understanding the context and meaning behind each piece of data. Each data set should be thoroughly analyzed and categorized based on its purpose, source, format, and other relevant factors. This ensures that the taxonomy is accurate and complete.
Functionality should be a primary focus. It’s important to keep in mind that your categorization will be used by people, so it needs to be intuitive and user-friendly. Consider the language and terminology you use, as well as how easy it is for users to find what they need.
Creating a taxonomy for an entire company or organization can be a daunting task. To make the process easier, it’s best to break it down into smaller chunks and implement it in stages. This allows you to focus on one area at a time and adjust as needed based on feedback from stakeholders.
Testing is key to ensuring your taxonomy is effective. Gather feedback from stakeholders and test the categorization over time to make sure it meets all of your goals. If necessary, course-correct and refine your categorization as needed.
Finally, document each step in the process. This includes creating a detailed record of all the categories, sub-categories, and overall structure. This will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and familiar with the taxonomy when changes need to be made.
Developing a successful data taxonomy requires careful planning and consideration. It's important to:
Documenting each step in the process is also essential for ensuring everyone is familiar with the structure of the taxonomy when changes need to be made. With a well-structured plan in place, businesses can leverage their data more effectively to drive better decisions and long-term success.
Marin Software enables businesses to manage and optimize their online campaigns across search, social, and display networks using advanced analytics tools. We will ensure your data taxonomy is well utilized by tying categories to real business outcomes within your advertising initiatives.
With our powerful platform, marketers can easily measure the performance of their campaigns, identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions quickly. This helps to maximize returns on advertising investments while improving customer engagement and satisfaction. Marin also provides training resources to help users get the most out of their software products. With our comprehensive suite of services, we provide a complete solution for all your digital marketing needs. Contact us today to learn more about how Marin Software can help you take your digital marketing efforts to the next level.
Pinterest, the popular social media platform known for its visual search engine, has announced a multi-year partnership with Amazon to bring third-party ad demand to the platform. This collaboration will allow advertisers to purchase ads on Pinterest through Amazon's Demand-Side Platform (DSP).
The partnership is set to benefit both parties, with Amazon gaining access to Pinterest's vast user base of over 450 million monthly active users, while Pinterest will have access to Amazon's robust e-commerce capabilities. The partnership will also help advertisers reach their desired audience more efficiently and effectively, as they will have access to the wealth of data that both platforms have collected about their users.
For Pinterest, this partnership is part of their ongoing efforts to enhance their advertising offerings and provide more options for advertisers. In recent years, the platform has introduced features such as Promoted Pins and Shopping Ads to make it easier for businesses to reach their target audience on the platform.
This partnership is not the first of its kind for Pinterest, as the platform has previously collaborated with other e-commerce giants such as Shopify and WooCommerce. These partnerships have allowed businesses to integrate their online stores with Pinterest, making it easier for users to discover and purchase products on the platform.
However, the partnership with Amazon is perhaps the most significant one yet, as it opens up a whole new world of advertising opportunities for Pinterest. The partnership will allow Pinterest to provide advertisers with more advanced targeting capabilities. For instance, advertisers will be able to target users based on their Amazon purchasing history and search behavior, as well as their Pinterest engagement history.
The partnership is also a significant win for Amazon, as it allows the e-commerce giant to extend its reach beyond its own platform and tap into Pinterest's vast user base. With over 450 million monthly active users, Pinterest offers Amazon a unique opportunity to expand its advertising offerings and reach new customers.
Furthermore, the partnership aligns with Amazon's broader strategy of expanding its advertising business. Over the past few years, the company has been investing heavily in its advertising capabilities, with the goal of becoming a major player in the digital advertising space.
By partnering with Pinterest, Amazon can tap into the platform's vast user base and gain access to valuable data that can help inform its advertising strategy. This, in turn, will help the e-commerce giant better compete with other digital advertising giants such as Google and Facebook.
Overall, the Pinterest-Amazon partnership is a significant development for both companies and the advertising industry as a whole. The partnership will provide businesses with more advanced advertising capabilities while also helping Pinterest and Amazon grow their respective businesses.
As the advertising landscape continues to evolve, collaborations such as this one will become increasingly important for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve. By partnering with other industry leaders, businesses can leverage each other's strengths to create more comprehensive advertising solutions and drive better results.
We recently attended B2B Online in Chicago to get a sense of how distributors and manufacturers are delving into digital marketing to create full-funnel B2B customer journeys. Read on to get an overview of key themes industry experts shared on day one. Some of the most important topics throughout the day were about increasing ROI, developing the ultimate tech stack, aligning sales with your digital strategy, and leveraging the power of e-commerce marketplaces.
To increase ROI, marketers should keep up with the latest trends and technologies. Key strategies discussed include:
Building an efficient tech stack requires understanding business needs and goals. Some of the most important tools for digital marketers to consider include:
Aligning sales and marketing goals is crucial for driving revenue. The experts shared various methods for making this happen:
Nordson Corporation's digital transformation journey highlighted the importance of enhancing the user experience and leveraging technology. Here's what Nordson did to be successful:
Integrating e-commerce into sales strategies is crucial for growth. Some key points that were shared more than once:
Procurement teams must adapt to remove inefficiencies in the Procure-to-Pay process. Key topics discussed include:
This presentation highlighted the importance of transparency and authenticity in B2B marketing and sales. This was definitely the most lively, entertaining and informative presentation of the week. Here's what they ultimately had to say:
The presentation debunked common myths in B2B marketing. We've provided below the most common myths they "busted" and what B2B marketers should actually be doing:
A paid brand presence is vital for standing out in a crowded market. Here are the highlights of what was shared:
The main presentation surrounding this topic focused on the role of modern Product Information Management (PIM) systems in driving growth. Some quick takeaways from that presentation are as follows:
The fireside chat focused on the importance of customer adoption in B2B e-commerce. Key insights discussed include:
Where B2B marketers may have some changes to make compared to their B2C counterpoints is in maintaining transparency, authenticity, and ethical standards in marketing and sales. With additional focus in these areas, all the experts who presented agree that long-term relationships with customers will ultimately lead to long-term success…especially for manufacturers and distributors.
To address these areas for potential improvement, the industry expert presentations shared at B2B Online Chicago provided valuable guidance for increasing ROI, developing tech stacks, aligning sales, leveraging e-commerce, and succeeding in the marketplace model. It's clear that by embracing digital technologies, personalization, and customer-centric approaches, B2B businesses can enhance their marketing efforts, streamline operations, and drive revenue growth.
PPC advertising has revolutionized the world of online advertising, allowing businesses of all sizes to reach their target audience and generate conversions. However, managing PPC campaigns can be a time-consuming and laborious process, especially for businesses that run multiple campaigns simultaneously. This is where MarinOne comes in, providing businesses with a powerful and efficient automation tool that can save time, improve accuracy, and increase efficiency.
MarinOne Scripts is a part of MarinOne, a comprehensive cross-channel advertising platform that integrates all of a business's advertising data into a single platform. With MarinOne Scripts, businesses can automate various aspects of PPC campaign management, including adjusting bids, budgets, and ad status based on preset logic. Similar to MarinOne bidding, automated changes to bids and budgets allow businesses to focus on strategic aspects of their marketing program while MarinOne Scripts takes care of the routine tasks. Since MarinOne Scripts leverages Python, users can leverage Scripts that handle spend optimization, keyword expansion, negative keyword mining, data analysis, and ad copy optimization.
With MarinOne Scripts, businesses can automate bid adjustments and budget allocation, eliminating the need for manual monitoring and adjustment. MarinOne Scripts can also help businesses identify underperforming keywords and pause or adjust them automatically, saving valuable time. Users can customize scripts so that they can chain actions together - ex.everytime a poor performing kw is paused, it is also added as a negative keyword to the original campaign and/or all campaigns.
Another benefit of MarinOne Scripts is that it increases efficiency. MarinOne Scripts automatically adjusts SmartBidding targets based on performance data, ensuring that businesses get the most out of their ad spend. It can also optimize ad copy to improve conversion rates and reduce cost-per-click. By streamlining the PPC campaign management process, MarinOne Scripts helps businesses improve their efficiency and increase their ROI.
MarinOne Scripts improves accuracy of data analysis as it minimizes the instances of human error - a common problem in manual PPC campaign management. MarinOne Scripts eliminates the risk of human error by automating several aspects of campaign management. This ensures that businesses get accurate and reliable data on their campaign performance, allowing them to make data-driven decisions. It also ensures business continuity in the event that a PPC manager has unexpected time off and is unable to manually monitor and/or optimize PPC campaigns.
In addition to saving time, increasing efficiency, and improving accuracy, MarinOne Scripts is scalable and customizable, making it an ideal solution for businesses of all sizes. Whether a business is managing a single campaign or multiple campaigns, MarinOne Scripts can help automate and optimize PPC campaigns across online ad accounts.
MarinOne Scripts customization capabilities give advertisers the flexibility to create automation rules that are tailored to their unique business goals and objectives. Each script can have pre-defined start and end dates - this way, advertisers can apply scripts that are aligned with their business calendar. As an example, end of quarter spend governance rules may be more flexible than start of quarter so two scripts with complimentary start and end dates would ensure that the appropriate spend governance rules are applied.
With scalability and customization options, MarinOne Scripts is a valuable asset for any business that wants to get the most out of its PPC campaigns. Speak to us today about getting started and trying MarinOne Scripts for free during the first 30 days.
Some months ago, MarinOne attended Search Insider Summit’s Performance Marketing event in Deer Valley, Utah. While skiing, snow shoeing, snowmobiling and more winter fun set the tone for a casual, social atmosphere…the insights and expertise that were shared during the speaking sessions I would call anything but casual. Here are our quick and brief “too long didn’t read” notes on the content that was covered.
Super Coffee has been one of the nation's top five ready-to-serve coffees since 2015 when they quickly reached a $400 million company. They can now be found in over 70,000 stores and online, prompting the need for an update to their digital marketing efforts to continue their success. Jimmy Dicicco (co-founder and Chief Brand Officer) and Tyler Ricks (Chief Executive Officer) talked about their journey and how their digital strategy transformed over time. They also explained their strategy for maintaining a balance between expanding their business and staying profitable, along with the methods to measure ROI.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Jimmy DeCicco, Co-founder, Chief Brand Officer, Super Coffee
Tyler Ricks, Chief Executive Officer, Super Coffee
Morgan Chemij, HP's Global Senior Director of Marketplaces, offered great insights about retail media and shopper marketing! He discussed how marketers can ensure that they remain up to date and well-informed on new retail media trends. The recent trend of diverting money away from traditional media channels and allocating it towards retail marketing, means understanding the importance of this type of marketing is paramount for any brand or advertising team. He went into depth about how retail media has been gaining immense traction in the marketing sphere.
Major players like Amazon, Walmart Connect, Target Roundel and Instacart are taking advantage of this trend to leverage their reach and engagement, while new platform partners like Costco and Best Buy are rapidly growing and making a mark. Major retail d2c brands particularly have been using these platforms to propel growth and success for their businesses. Chemij gave tips on where to place bets, what types of activations are likely to be the most successful, and HP's approach and learnings during their Retail Media journey.
PRESENTER
Morgan Chemij, Global Marketplace Strategy & Execution, HP
The ad tech industry has progressed significantly by automating a great deal of the process for building, publishing and optimizing paid media campaigns. This shift has taken away more control from marketers. It's understandable to be wary of AI algorithms when it comes to content creation and optimization. Figuring out the perfect balance between automation and human input is key for a successful campaign. To gain more insight into this topic, Annie Stickney moderated a debate-style panel discussion where leading marketers discussed their experiences with artificial intelligence and automation.
MODERATOR
Annie Stickney, VP OmniChannel Analytics - Head of Search Analytics, JP Morgan Chase
PANELISTS
Michael Aburas, Director of Digital Marketing, Icon Parking
Brett Geeser, Head of Paid Search, Cross Media
Jonathan Kagan, VP, Search, 9Rooftops @jonkagan
In this time of ongoing uncertainty, marketers must be nimble and flexible to stay on top of consumer's evolving needs. Being able to respond quickly is critical for success is critical. Vivian Chang, the head of direct-to-consumer at The Clorox Company, discussed how the iconic CPG brand is optimizing and adapting its organization to ensure a successful long-term outlook. During her presentation, she covered essential tactics for marketing operations success like delivering over revenue, successful change management, and finding a balance between short-term and long-term objectives.
PRESENTER
Vivian Chang, VP Growth, Clorox DTC, The Clorox Company
Despite a complex customer acquisition climate, companies are still looking for effective solutions to drive traffic and sales. Brands and retailers are held to high expectations to achieve their goals in this landscape. Establishing a strong presence through conventional branding and SEO is essential for achieving success within a performance marketing strategy. These channels provide valuable assistance to paid media for maximizing the return on your investments.
Amy Madonia, Executive Director of Global Ecommerce at The Estée Lauder Companies, explained how the world's biggest makeup brand made use of storytelling techniques to differentiate themselves online. She also covered the future of demand generation in today's digital environment which is changing rapidly.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Amy Madonia, Executive Director, of Global Ecommerce, The Estée Lauder Companies
H&R Block saw an opportunity to reach a younger audience and enhance its brand perception when the NCAA updated its Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) regulations in 2021. College athletes had the chance to make a large profit off of their NIL, which presented an appealing opportunity for tax preparation companies. It enabled them to join in on a relevant cultural moment and effectively connect with consumers. Pierson Curtis, Director of Growth Marketing at H&R, talked about how their culturally sensitive and purpose-driven campaign led to better performance across various paid, earned and owned channels.
PRESENTER
Pierson Curtis, Director of Growth Marketing & Engagement, H&R Block
It's possible to achieve a mutually beneficial situation among Brand and lower funnel marketers. Through Affiliate and Partnership programs, teams can collaborate in creating profitable strategies and tactics for all involved. Kristina has done a commendable job at Big Island Coffee Roasters as their lower funnel marketer. 'Partnerships' has become her priority, right after her love for coffee. This initiative has enabled Kristina to support her Brand colleagues in various ways. By thinking out of the box and applying creative strategies, marketers can create fresh opportunities and deliver excellent results that are beyond usual PR and Brand activities.
PRESENTER
Kristina Smith, Head of DTC, Big Island Coffee Roasters
As the second most popular search engine in the United States, Microsoft Advertising provides an excellent opportunity for businesses to reach a diverse audience and increase their revenue. With over 133 million unique desktop searches and 5.4 billion monthly searches worldwide, Microsoft Ads provides a massive audience base for businesses to reach out to.
When comparing Microsoft and Google Ads, business growth expert Charlotte Davies said, "If your audience matches Bing’s user demographics, then this could be a better advertising option for you. Choosing Bing over Google can also work out cheaper because, even though there are fewer users, there are also fewer advertisers. This means less competition."
However, it takes more than just setting up an account and creating ads to see success. Here are some best practices to help you drive more conversions and maximize your return on investment (ROI) with Microsoft Advertising.
The success of your Microsoft Advertising campaigns depends heavily on the keywords you target. It’s crucial to choose the right keywords that are relevant to your products or services, have high search volume, and low competition. Start by conducting thorough keyword research and analyzing your target audience's search terms. Microsoft provides a keyword research tool that you can use to identify relevant keywords for your campaigns. Once you’ve identified your target keywords, create ad groups and optimize your ads around those keywords.
Ad extensions are additional pieces of information that you can add to your ads, such as your business location, phone number, or links to specific pages on your website. Ad extensions can help increase your ad’s visibility and improve your ad rank, leading to higher click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates. Microsoft Ads provides several ad extensions, including sitelink extensions, call extensions, location extensions, and callout extensions. Choose the ones that are relevant to your business and add them to your ads.
Your ad copy is the first impression potential customers have of your business. It’s essential to create compelling and engaging ad copy that clearly communicates the value of your products or services. Use language that resonates with your target audience and highlights your unique selling proposition (USP).
Remember what Leo Burnett said about great ad copy…as it is as true today as it was 50 years ago during his heyday: "Advertising should say, 'Here’s what we’ve got. Here's what it will do for you. Here’s how to get it.'"
The key to success with Microsoft Advertising is continually monitoring and optimizing your campaigns. Track your campaigns’ performance regularly, and make adjustments based on the data. Analyze your ad copy, keywords, targeting, and ad extensions to identify areas for improvement. Use Microsoft Ads’ reporting tools to gain insights into your campaigns’ performance and make data-driven decisions.
Nicole Farley from Search Engine Land recently said this about audience targeting with Microsoft: "The Microsoft Ads Audience Network is beneficial for brands as it allows them to reach users on a variety of platforms, such as mobile apps and websites. This can be especially helpful for brands looking to target a wide range of audiences – especially B2B."
So try it out in 2023 as Microsoft Ads provides several audience targeting options to help you reach the right people. You can target your ads based on demographics, such as age, gender, and location, or based on their search history and interests. Audience targeting can help you reach a more relevant audience and increase your ad’s effectiveness. Use audience targeting in combination with keyword targeting to create highly targeted campaigns. Microsoft is also continually updating the audience options this year with a suite of new features that were just introduced in January.
Microsoft Ads provides several automated bidding and budgeting tools that can help you save time and maximize your ROI. Use Microsoft Ads’ automated bidding to adjust your bids based on the likelihood of conversion, maximizing your chances of winning auctions. Use automated budgeting to set a daily budget and let Microsoft Ads manage your spending for you. These tools can help you optimize your campaigns without spending hours manually adjusting bids and budgets.
Microsoft Advertising provides several ad formats, including text, image, and video ads. Test and experiment with different ad formats to identify which ones work best for your business. Different ad formats may work better for different products or services, so finding what works best for your business is essential.
Microsoft's advertisement system has been subject to a considerable overhaul lately, with the axing of Microsoft Rewards and the implementation of a new business model. In order to make sure you're using Microsoft Advertising to its fullest potential, take the time to study its features and benefits. Knowing how everything works before you begin setting up campaigns can save a lot of frustration and give you the opportunity to use it effectively.
After you have got a good grasp of the fundamentals, you can begin establishing your campaigns. To save time and automate as much of the setup process as possible, speak with a MarinOne consultant today on how we centralize advertising data across platforms and make optimizations easy for paid search marketers.
Businesses all over the world strive to convert brand awareness into customer conversions and profits, but marketing and customer service efforts are only as effective as the principles that are driving them. Demand generation is the strategy that helps B2B and B2C companies create reliable brand interest that translates directly to high quality leads.
Gordon Ferris, Director of Growth Marketing at Marin Software, shares significant insight to help us understand the principles that will define the success of demand generation strategies in 2023 and beyond. With more than a decade of experience in search, social media, and ecommerce marketing, Gordon generously explains the key tenets of demand generation that every marketer must understand to succeed in both B2B and B2C companies.
Most brands believe they know what they stand for in a general sense but this does not always translate into effective messaging. A major reason for this disconnect is not knowing how the brand is perceived within the minds of internal and external stakeholders. Each brand makes a promise to their customers and these promises must be ratified through consistent, concrete behaviors. Businesses that successfully communicate their marketing messages consistently have seen a 33% rise in overall revenue.
Gordon shares that businesses must “understand the power of their product and what makes their brand unique because this is what people will respond to. This needs to be actively pushed through across marketing activities and channels.”
Once a business defines the promise it makes to its customers, it needs to understand how those promises relate to each customer segment’s needs. Marketing can be viewed as one-way communication from a brand to its customers, but successful demand generation requires more than that. Businesses should actively collaborate and engage with customers to collect customer insights to better define and meet their needs. This can also help businesses create brand advocates that further amplify a business’ message through organic communication.
Even if businesses want to listen to their customers, it can be challenging to define what they’re looking for. Gordon explains how businesses can break down a customer’s needs into two distinct categories. “Businesses need to identify a customer’s rational and emotional needs. Rational needs relate to the functional needs and attributes they want from your product. This can be quality, variety, efficiency, saving time, reducing cost and effort, and more. Emotional needs, on the other hand, relate to how your customers want to feel when interacting with your product. This could be a customer feeling confident or enjoying exclusivity through the ownership or use of your product.”
In an ideal world, the relationship between a brand and its customer would be enough to translate effective communication into active demand. However, brands don’t exist in a vacuum. Competing services, products, and brands present constant challenges. This has led to almost three quarters of people actively avoiding advertising with the use of ad blockers or other tools. To avoid overwhelming the customer, businesses must position themselves as a partner customers can trust.
Gordon adds that “positioning can only be done appropriately when businesses know their brand and all its components. They also need to understand the competitors they share space with. Marketers should ask questions such as what are some of the brands in your direct category? What brands fall just outside the category, but have an overlap or affinity with your customers? Analyze competitor brand positioning; how do they want to be perceived by their customers?”
According to Gordon, “Once you do those first three steps of understanding your brand, your customers, and your positioning, then you get into tactics and the tactics become easier.”
The principles listed above should apply across all demand generation activity. They can help businesses be more proactive in learning about their customers, themselves, and their competitors.
Authenticity has been cited by 88% of customers as an important factor in determining whether they like and will support a brand. Even if marketing messages have a proven track record of success with a customer base, if the brand that is sharing those messages doesn't believe it, it will not resonate with customers. Businesses should identify and amplify the messages that lie in the overlap of the brand’s beliefs and the customer’s needs.
Businesses have been trying to phase out the use of third-party cookies as major browsers and search engines ditch the information-gathering method in favor of first-party data. However, a staggering 83% of marketers still rely on third-party cookies to learn about their customers. Businesses must learn to extract actionable insights from the information they already have or are able to gather.
Gordon explains that “once someone is on your site, you need to make the most of that engagement. Allow your customers to find what they’re looking for, but at the same time, by the way they click or navigate your site, find what’s important to them.”
Marketers can sometimes overlook the needs of the average customer when designing messages that seem eloquent to their own eyes. While there is value in including flair in a brand’s marketing, it should always be accessible and easily understood by the business’ most important customers – and the message must connect to the priorities of the intended audience.
Businesses should actively “create bite-sized paths that are addressing specific value propositions or questions that your customers might have for your product or the industry you’re in,” shares Gordon.
With MarinOne, businesses can gather information about how well each message is resonating with their customers, learn what their customers are actually interested in, and how their competitors are faring with different marketing tactics and messages.
To learn more about how MarinOne can help you reach your audiences more effectively, request a free demo of our solution now.
Augmented analytics is drastically changing the way marketers work, empowering them with better ways to identify customer needs, develop more effective campaigns, drive conversions, and ultimately improve business outcomes.
Using advanced tech solutions such as artificial intelligence to collect and analyze data, augmented analytics helps marketers make more informed, data-driven decisions. Simply put, it’s a smart and powerful solution that enables marketers to move way ahead of competitors by helping them achieve more with less. From providing smart insights to revealing valuable intelligence, augmented analytics is a game changer that can transform your business in 2023 and beyond.
Augmented analytics is a data processing approach that uses a variety of techniques, including data mining, statistical modeling, and machine learning, to analyze a wide range of historical and current data to improve data exploration and analysis. Applying advanced algorithms to the data enables businesses to better understand customer behavior, identify trends and anomalies, and make predictions that inform decisions based on facts, rather than intuition. By leveraging these complex algorithms, augmented analytics enhances the way businesses can use data for further analysis in business intelligence applications. This strategy has huge potential and is a key tool in helping marketers develop a strong competitive advantage. In fact, the augmented analytics market is expected to grow by 25% in the next five years, reaching $22.4 billion by 2025.
Using augmented analytics can multiply your business’s success by improving your bottom line and introducing new ways to boost campaign efforts.
Marketing teams confronted with frozen or shrinking budgets are nonetheless still expected to generate leads and build pipelines to increase revenue. Using augmented analytics, marketers can make data-driven decisions and optimize their marketing investments through accurate insights and recommendations. Instead of just relying on past experience, estimates, gut instinct, or trial and error, the technology provides an accurate picture of which campaigns are performing well and which aren't, enabling marketers to allocate their budgets effectively to maximize returns. Here are two ways augmented analytics can help optimize marketing budgets.
Budget forecasting supports operational improvements that can lead to greater business success. For many marketers, monitoring spend versus allocated budget is a time-consuming process that is often prone to inaccuracies — especially when juggling several clients simultaneously. With augmented analytics, however, forecasting allows marketers to stay on track by providing historical and current information about budget spending so they can act on timely suggestions. This way, marketers can ensure that allocated budgets are spent according to plan, freeing time to spend on granular analysis of under- and overspending, preparing them to navigate future campaigns that will achieve higher ROAS.
Another practical way augmented analytics can help marketers maximize ROI is through anomaly detection, a tool that uses historical data on metrics including clicks or CPM and impressions to identify and self-learn expectations for the metrics. When an anomaly is detected, the outlier is automatically flagged, indicating issues that can drain a budget. These anomalies reveal campaign performance problems that might have otherwise gone unnoticed, helping to minimize negative effects – or eliminate them altogether.
The beauty of augmented analytics is the way its powerfully constructed machine learning algorithms reveal important insights that can save time and improve a company’s bottom line. Through real-time insights and recommendations based on data analysis, marketers can make more informed decisions, understand customer behavior and needs, and tailor their campaigns accordingly.
With such proactive insights, augmented analytics can not only help reduce risk, but can also minimize issues by allowing marketers to use its highly sophisticated number crunching to drive more sales, build effective pipelines, and retain customers.
Augmented analytics give marketers accurate and detailed information about their customers that they might have not been able to obtain through other means. With greater insights about prospective and existing customers, marketers can improve customer experience by understanding how their customers will interact with their brand.
Since augmented analytics is able to unify a diverse range of datasets such as demographics, CRMs, psychographics, and more, it can provide critical information marketing teams need to maximize customer value. By exploring large volumes of different data, augmented analytics can also model and predict customer behaviors, calculate customer lifetime value, and discover customer trends and patterns — all of which can be used to improve customer experiences.
Marketers can also harness augmented analytics for smoother operations. By automating certain tasks, such as data preparation, data discovery, and data visualization, marketers can save heaps of time and effort. Additionally, augmented analytics can automatically generate charts, graphs, and other visualizations based on data analysis, helping marketers to quickly and easily understand and communicate the results of their analysis. When data is streamlined and manual tasks are automated, marketers can spend less time combing through data for insights, and more time focusing on other strategic business initiatives that demand attention.
Here are three steps to help you get started with your augmented analytics journey.
To begin using data science and artificial intelligence, your data doesn’t need to be perfect. Identify the business problem or opportunity you want to address. Focus on a use case that is aligned with your KPIs and has high business value. Once you see that it is successful, you can move on to other larger projects.
Being strategic about rolling out augmented analytics and collaborating with your entire company can help build trust and show employees that you want them to be involved with the implementation. Communicating with different stakeholders in your company will help them understand the value of the technology and how it can be used to drive business results. Encourage employees from across the organization to play a role in the initiative, demonstrating that you value their input and cooperation in achieving your business’s mission and goals.
Concentrate on creating a data-driven culture. When you’re ready to start using augmented analytics as part of your company’s daily operations, establish strategies and offer training in place so employees can get the most out of the valuable data assets. When you include users from the beginning, they will likely be more invested in the outcome.
Be prepared to make changes along your augmented analytics journey. Encourage others to contribute feedback so you can gather insights and make adjustments as needed. A flexible approach supports iteration. In turn, when you iterate with stakeholders, you’ll be better equipped to adjust to their needs. Adopting a flexible outlook will help ensure a successful transformation for your business and make for a more seamless transition.
From identifying user segments to refining your target audiences, you can use augmented analytics to gain a deeper understanding of customer data and optimize your campaigns. With the right insights, you can effectively focus on those customers most likely to buy or respond positively to your offers, putting the right messages in front of them at the right time.
As you embark on your augmented analytics journey, remember that success is achieved through collaboration, training, flexibility, and the right data-driven strategies. When implemented properly and consistently across all areas of your business, these principles can help you maximize the value of your investment and take your analytics initiatives to the next level.
If you're eager to elevate your marketing efforts with sophisticated analytics, reach out to MarinOne for help. As a customizable, enterprise-class solution, MarinOne can help you more efficiently analyze your customer data, better understand your customers’ needs, and take advantage of the opportunities augmented analytics provides.
If you haven’t heard the term “affiliate marketing” before, it’s a popular advertising tactic where businesses reward third parties for generating traffic and leads for them. The affiliate marketing industry is worth over $17 billion and for 20% of brand marketers, it’s the most important customer acquisition channel they have at their disposal. With statistics like that, it’s no wonder affiliate marketing has taken off so rapidly over the last few years.
Simply put, a good affiliate marketing program will allow you to promote and exponentially grow your business while simultaneously blending smoothly with your other marketing channels. It’s a great way to generate significant online revenue and drive more sales.
The growing popularity of affiliate marketing as an effective digital marketing tactic is a sure sign that you should get on board. Our beginners’ guide will walk you through everything you need to know—from basic definitions to how to get started with your own program.
Affiliate marketing is a revenue-sharing model in which an affiliate promotes a business's goods or services to help them achieve their sales goals. In turn, affiliates earn a commission from the sales made as a result of their advertising efforts. The push toward less traditional marketing tactics is opening up new avenues to generate significant online revenue, benefiting brands and affiliate marketers alike.
By leveraging the abilities of a variety of individuals for a more effective outreach strategy, affiliate marketing spreads the responsibilities of product marketing and creation across parties. To ensure affiliate marketing success, three distinct parties need to be involved:
A seller can be either a product creator, vendor, merchant, or retailer with a product — be it goods or service — to market. Occasionally, the advertiser can participate as the affiliate and also profit from the revenue sharing associated with affiliate marketing efforts.
An affiliate, also referred to as a publisher, markets the seller’s product in a way that’s appealing to potential consumers. Whether an individual or a company, the affiliate focuses on persuading consumers to make a purchase. To attract consumers, affiliates often target a specific audience and adhere to that audience’s interests.
For an affiliate system to work successfully, there must be sales. And, of course, consumers are the ones who make that happen. Affiliate marketers advertise products and services to consumers through various channels by using affiliate links that direct them to the merchant’s website. When consumers do so, however, the Federal Trade Commission requires that affiliates clearly disclose their relationship to the retailer.
For those looking to increase their income online, affiliate marketing is an inexpensive method of making money without the hassle of actually selling a product. However, the way affiliate marketers get paid after linking the seller to the consumer can get complicated. For the affiliate to earn a commission, the consumer doesn’t always need to buy the product. An affiliate’s contribution to the seller’s sales will be measured differently depending on the program.
Here are four ways an affiliate gets paid:
After a consumer purchases a product, the affiliate receives a percentage of the sale price of the product from the merchant. In this program, before they are compensated, the affiliate must get an investor to actually invest in the affiliate product.
In this more complex program, affiliates are compensated based on lead conversions. Pay per lead demands an affiliate persuade consumers to not only visit a merchant’s website but to entice customers to click and take action.
Utilized by some affiliate marketers, pay-per-click (PPC) programs help affiliates redirect consumers to a merchant’s website. Because an affiliate is paid based on the increase in web traffic, their focus remains on engaging consumers to the extent that they move from the affiliate’s site to the merchant’s site.
With this payout system, each time an affiliate directs a user to the merchant’s website and that user installs a software product the affiliate gets paid.
Affiliates use different methods and practices to reach their target audience and make sure they stay engaged.
Affiliates can benefit from leveraging influencers in their marketing strategy. Since influencers already boast an impressive following, they are likely to persuade consumers’ purchasing decisions. When influencers successfully direct a seller’s products to consumers, they receive a share of the profits.
Through content marketing, bloggers excel at increasing a seller’s conversions. A blogger can spread the word about a product’s value by writing about it and promoting it along with providing links to drive traffic back to a seller’s site.
Advertised within a partner site or on the sponsored listings of a search engine, microsites can garner a serious amount of affiliate sales. Paid search-focused microsites offer targeted audiences relevant content with straightforward call-to-actions. In turn, this increases conversions.
Email marketing holds the power to impact affiliate marketing income. Despite its older origins, it can help promote a seller’s products. Affiliates may build email lists over time, or leverage email newsletters with hyperlinks, increasing the chance of consumers purchasing a product, thereby earning the affiliate a commission.
Media websites have the potential to create huge amounts of traffic and build large audiences. Most commonly, these large websites provide product exposure through the use of affiliate links or banners, which ultimately improves conversion rates. As a result, both the affiliate and the seller benefit from top-notch revenue.
To help you understand the real benefits of affiliate marketing, here’s a list of the top six benefits.
Aside from being an effective tool for attracting new customers and increasing sales, affiliate marketing is known for producing a high return on investment (ROI). In fact, 84% of businesses rate affiliate marketing as a better marketing channel than others. In addition to increasing ROI, affiliate marketing produced an average return on ad spend (ROAS) of 12:1 across all industries. To determine your ROI, divide your gross profit — your revenue minus your costs — by your costs, and then multiply it by 100.
To protect your bottom line, it’s essential to avoid getting tied into pricey and unprofitable purchases. Compared to other advertising techniques, affiliate marketing allows marketers to partner with online retailers at a much lower cost. It’s also responsible for 16% of U.S. eCommerce sales, which proves how beneficial it can be for companies.
With affiliate marketing, you’re likely to witness a surge in traffic to your site. Not only do affiliates expand your audience, but they also bring them to your site. When traffic volume is higher, your rankings improve, brand awareness grows, and sales and profitability increase.
After building a reliable affiliate network to promote your brand, you will soon begin to see how this marketing strategy can also boost your company’s reputation. A business with credibility attracts more consumers and has a more loyal customer base. Companies with a reputable brand can often charge premium prices for their products or services.
In addition to boosting your reputation, affiliate marketing is a quick and effective method for building strong brand recognition. With affiliates working as brand ambassadors to advertise your company in a relevant, colorful, and positive way, you can also rapidly improve your customer acquisition strategy. Affiliate marketing companies can benefit from building relationships with influencers and bloggers to increase traffic to their sites through word-of-mouth advertising.
If you’re ready to get started, follow these steps.
Merchants turn to affiliate marketers because they can reach target audiences composed of potential customers. When you pick a specific niche, you’ll be more likely to build an affiliate platform with original content that meets the demands of an underserved audience. It’s wise to pick a niche that offers value to a sizable, underserved audience.
Use a platform that matches your niche. Consider which platform is best for your audience. You may discover that using a mix of platforms is the best route to help your affiliate marketing endeavors.
After you’ve chosen which platform to use, you’ll need to create a website. As an affiliate, you’ll need to let your users know how you make money from your website by adding a disclosure page.
In addition to a disclosure page, you need to include a privacy policy along with a terms of service page. This way, you’ll be protected from legal issues, but also be able to build trust with your audience.
Joining an affiliate network can both improve income opportunities and streamline relationship-building processes with merchants. While it’s not always necessary, many affiliate networks will help affiliates optimize their chances of success. To find one that best suits a product and audience, researching your different options can lead you in the right direction.
Using a mix of digital marketing tactics including SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, and so on can increase your network and your overall audience size. By combining these tactics rather than using only one of them, you may find that your marketing efforts will create a bigger impact.
While affiliate marketing can improve your company's bottom line, it takes work and often requires a lot of optimizations. Here are our top tips to make it pay off.
Pay close attention to performance metrics by tracking your typical daily, weekly, and monthly average performance. To get a sense of average activity, keep tabs on your leads, clicks, and sales. By collecting average performance data, you can verify whether your campaign is effective and focus on what needs to change.
By analyzing customer behavior data along with affiliate marketing data, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of what’s working and not working. This information will help guide your marketing strategy, allowing you to adjust your affiliate marketing campaigns to deliver desired results.
To optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns, focus on your main traffic sources. Analyze current data to determine any traffic sources or segmented audiences that are generating a high conversion rate.
Make sure your funnels are designed to make consumers take action. An affiliate marketing funnel is effective when each stage of the clients’ decision-making process is properly mapped out, guiding them to purchase the products they’re searching for. With the right funnel, the customer journey path will lead consumers to the designated product/service landing page, encouraging them to act on the desired goal.
Because affiliate marketing offers a big bang for your buck that other strategies can’t compete with, it’s quickly becoming a central aspect of many marketing strategies. With the benefits being so apparent and as the market continues to grow, more businesses are adopting it so they can stay ahead of their competition.
MarinOne has all the tools you need to make affiliate marketing a successful pillar of paid media. We can set you up with actionable tactics that will help you drive more sales, boost conversions, and gain influence, repurposing your affiliate relationships for high performance advertising.
Whether you're new to affiliate marketing or looking to step up your current performance marketing game overall, our MarinOne experts can help.
Modern consumer expectations and behaviors demand a creative edge from advertisers and a winning strategy that customers will respond to. Even when you know your target audience well, it’s not always easy to figure out the secret formula that gets consumers to say, “here’s my money.” However, when the right advertising techniques are used, you will captivate your audiences’ attention and direct them enthusiastically into your marketing funnel without them even realizing it.
In a world where digital overload has made consumers resistant to ads, if you want to keep your audience engaged, you need to go above and beyond. Here are 13 compelling advertising techniques that will help you do just that and deliver the results you're seeking.
Many colors elicit a specific emotional or physical reaction and, in doing so, shape human behavior. When it comes to your brand and your marketing strategies, they not only influence perceptions, but can create an intentional mood for consumers, setting the right tone and conveying a desired message. In fact, research has proven that between 62% and 92% of people make a subconscious judgment to purchase something based on color alone.
Lego’s “Make Your Own Story” ad, for example, uses color psychology to develop a playful scene with Star Wars figures. The brand strategically places the figures into a fun, casual atmosphere to tell a new story. By selecting orange — known to evoke emotions of warmth, friendliness, and enthusiasm — as the background color, they’ve created an open and inviting mood.
Partnering with a well-recognized influencer can help fast track your marketing efforts by getting your brand on the map. Doing so will also help build a big following. When consumers see popular influencers vouching for your products or services, it has a much more powerful impact on consumers than it would if the message were to come from your brand directly.
Take Nike, for instance. In their video ad with Billie Eilish, the brand successfully reached audiences through partnering with a star who’s recognized for her distinct style. The pop artist gave meaning to the campaign, placing an emphasis on sustainability.
“I want my collaboration with Nike to tell a story that not only highlights the importance of recycling but also reminds us that we need to take better care of our planet,” said Eilish.
By taking a stance on a social issue, the star took the brand initiative to new heights, tying into the emotion of the buyer to help create a following. As Nike has demonstrated, celebrity marketing is a high-impact marketing tool that can produce significant gains — an increase in brand awareness, credibility, and sales.
According to recent statistics, 64% of customers prefer to shop with companies that can accommodate their needs in real time. In this day and age, consumers expect businesses to deliver results immediately, and if they can’t, consumers will look for someone else who can. No matter what product or service you offer, consumers are drawn to speed — how fast you can meet their expectations, or how you can save them time so they can spend it doing other things. Be sure to incorporate your time-saving advantages into all of your messaging across various marketing channels.
Sedex, a supply chain company, demonstrates their commitment to speed by using extreme illustrations in their ads to support their promise to consumers: “Trust us. We deliver it fast.” Consumers take comfort in knowing that they will get what they want, when they want it. When brands live up to consumer expectations, it results in customer loyalty, brand trust, and more.
It’s easy for advertisers to fall into the trap of focusing on their product’s features. However, customers aren’t compelled to make a purchasing decision based on features alone. When you sell an outcome that impacts the consumer on an emotional level, customers are more persuaded by the value a product has to offer to them.
In the case of WeTransfer, their global brand campaign politely asks consumers to “Please leave”, explaining that their file sharing service is designed with the customer’s needs in mind so they can make the most of their time and get back to living their real lives. By focusing on needs instead of its features, WeTransfer highlights its company’s values: that it puts people first.
To resonate with your customers on a deep level, create an ad that feels immediately familiar and establishes a meaningful connection. When you inspire a strong emotional reaction, you are more likely to convince consumers that you understand how they feel.
Nivea Men’s brilliant ad for Active Age moisturizers is a stellar example. In their “Because Life Makes Wrinkles” campaign, the brand illustrates how ordinary moments in life take a toll on us, causing wrinkles— something many people can relate to. Whether it’s taking care of children or getting in a fender bender, Nivea makes it apparent that stress affects everyone, and using a moisturizer is something everyone can benefit from.
Using landmark images in your advertising campaigns can be a valuable visual asset. In fact, they can influence consumers' attentional focus and subsequent judgments. Take Asics, for example. To entice their marathon runners, the brand used a beautiful print ad to appeal to its consumers, conveying that they have the entire city of Los Angeles on the sole of their shoe. With a piercing image like that, who wouldn’t be motivated to go for a run?
Implementing minimalism in advertising can be profoundly effective. When thoughtfully crafted, minimalist digital ads can get your message across without distracting clutter or over-stimulation, and are also more likely to increase conversion rates. These simple messages can be both thought-provoking and enticing for your consumers, ultimately capturing their attention in a way that motivates them to take action.
McDonald’s McDelivery service has mastered the art of this advertising technique. Their ads are simple, yet bold. In their campaign, elegant illustrations speak louder than words. As you can see from the example, the iconic food chain has proven that less, really is more.
Repetition is key to keeping your brand or product at the forefront of consumers’ minds. The marketing Rule of 7 states that a consumer needs to see or hear something seven times before it actually sinks in. Exposure to repeating images, words, and messages makes consumers more likely to remember your brand. Thankfully, today’s digital environment provides multiple channels like your website, social media, video, and online advertising to make it easy to add repetition to your marketing strategy.
Of the many brands that have utilized this approach, L’Oréal has proven that frequency paired with repetition can make a brand memorable. Their famous slogan “Because You’re Worth It” sprinkled throughout all their ads has been ingrained in the minds of millions of consumers. The cosmetics giant has not only created a sense of familiarity and trust amongst its customers, but has also successfully achieved brand recognition.
In advertising, body language can have more influence on an audience than words can. Body language is a powerful form of nonverbal communication that can translate a message without relying on text to prove a point. A person’s body movements, posture, and/or facial expressions are three of the most common forms of body language that can be adapted for your ads.
In its “Melt” series of campaigns, Perrier incorporates a Renaissance twist into its advertisements based upon a Surrealist classic painted by Salvador Dali. By combining it with attractive models who use body language to exaggerate extreme heat, the brand creates an emotional trigger response from audiences, making them realize how much the sparkling refresher can quench a person’s thirst. Through using timeless and thoughtful imagery, Perrier is able to communicate a strong resonating image that makes their brand stand out.
Association marketing relies mostly on sophisticated psychology and aims to create associations for the viewer through feelings, ideas, places, or nostalgia. Associations often lead to strong, positive brand recognition and affirm its position as a premium service or product.
Throughout Lacoste’s Ageless campaign, the brand seamlessly emphasizes its ageless style. By featuring unusual pairings of people across their print ads and commercials, Lacoste points to the fact that no matter what your age is, clothes can still make you look fashionable.
Using pop culture cleverly has been a mainstay of pro marketing campaigns for years. Leveraging pop culture icons in your advertisements is a great way to gain content visibility, increase brand loyalty, and build a strong connection with consumers. Not only does it have an enormous impact on buying behavior, but pop culture influences also shape your brand's personality, making your customers feel like you’re one of them.
In this imaginative ad, Band-Aid selectively chose the Hulk to represent that its brand heals, protects, and is strong. The brand’s messaging is clear, concise, and uses a pop icon to market their flexible-fabric band-aids. The ad speaks volumes and the color choices effectively set a healing and calming mood.
Symbolism attracts consumer attention and alters buying psychology. Symbols play a crucial role in successfully conveying messages and creating meaning. The most common uses for symbols are dramatic visuals, metaphors, or similarities that draw attention or interest towards a product. Essentially, symbols are a creative visual shortcut that can be used to effectively build your brand and convey a concept that will be remembered.
In its cleverly designed park assist ad, Volkswagen compares a spiky hedgehog squeezed between two goldfish in vulnerable plastic bags to the difficulty of parallel parking. With a unique image, the brand makes a powerful statement and a lasting impression in consumer minds.
Consumers respond more favorably when brands make it easy for them to spot a solution quickly and affordably. IKEA is no exception. They have mastered the art of solving space-related challenges for their customers through smart storage solutions.
As is their tradition, IKEA usually uses quirky means to get their message across. In their brilliant “Need Space” campaign, they highlight the issue of space crunching, depicting how users stuff one shoe into another to save storage space. But, they don’t just address a pain point. They provide the solution too — a sleek and thin shoe cabinet to help customers make the best use of their living spaces.
While there are countless tactics you can use in your advertising strategy to create a strong appeal, using the ones that resonate best with your audience will ultimately generate the most success.
Change is constant in digital advertising, but these techniques and strategies are timeless and will continue to be effective now and in the future. In the campaigns above, we can see that clever visuals, subtle symbolism, strong associations and pop culture influence can go a long way.
From the advertising examples above, it’s clear that if done right, ad campaigns have the power to evoke emotions and keep products in our minds, influencing our buying decisions both directly and indirectly.
If you’re looking to create a lasting impact with your ads, MarinOne can help. Contact our team to get started today and learn more about how we can help you continuously improve your marketing campaigns.
For marketers, there are more ways than ever before to conduct outreach, contact your target audience, and increase sales. With so many different methods available, it can be a challenge to determine which will produce the best outcomes and which ones are worth incorporating into your marketing efforts.
While everyone has their favorite strategies, certain forms of outreach have proven to have a higher rate of success. The key is in the variety of methods you employ, and the consistency with which you use them.
While excelling at prospecting still demands mastery of many of the same age-old techniques that worked 30 to 50 years ago, there are new approaches you can take to level up your game.
Here are eight advanced tactics you can use to secure more sales.
To assess which prospects are strong potential buyers, you’ll need to identify the major criteria that you and your salesforce team consider to define a good candidate. Before you reach out to your leads, develop a set of qualification questions to help prioritize your outreach efforts. This way, you’ll discover which leads are worth connecting with, and which can be ruled out immediately.
Don’t let your hottest leads grow cold while you spend time on lukewarm prospects. After you’ve identified which leads are qualified, rank them using a lead scoring system so you can prioritize advancing those most likely to close. Develop a lead scoring system by assigning value based on data pulled from previous lead successes.
The best insights into your leads will come from your leads themselves. Scanning their social media channels can help you determine whether or not they’re a good prospect by yielding relevant data. LinkedIn research reveals that social selling influences more than 50% of revenue. Staying informed about your audience’s interests and values can give you a deeper understanding of their needs while simultaneously allowing you to build rapport and win their trust.
The way you approach your prospects can impact how you close a deal or lose one. Use these methods to discover the best ways to reach out.
Referrals and recommendations are a powerful sales prospecting technique that can earn you the credibility you deserve. Word-of-mouth is incredibly impactful and should not be underestimated. In fact, when making buying decisions, 91% of B2B buyers are heavily influenced by first-hand accounts.
With numbers that high, it pays to be proactive about tapping into your network. You can use this opportunity to build relationships with your current customers by offering them discounts or other incentives for referring new people. Sometimes, it might be as simple as getting a testimonial, quote, information for a case study, or other social proof from past customers, all of which can elevate your leads’ confidence in you, ultimately converting them into a prospect.
The rise of video is one of the latest trends sales prospecting pros are using as a marketing and outreach tool. Incorporating video throughout your sales cycle can boost your numbers significantly. According to current statistics, after watching a video, 88% of buyers continue to complete a purchase, and 73% prefer to learn about products this way. With video rising in popularity, it’s worth taking advantage of this medium.
To be a sales prospecting pro, it’s critical that you scope out your competition. By keeping a close eye on the competitive landscape, you can rest assured that you are optimally positioned for your intended audience. If you aren’t already doing so, analyze magic quadrant results, follow competitor news, survey competitor websites, and track the latest advancements across relevant industries.
Complement your prospecting strategy with an automation tool so you can nurture your leads and convert stragglers into sales. By using these tools, you can link content distribution, allowing you to get the right message out to the right people at the right time. Automating various processes to optimize your marketing-sales pipeline can convert leads into customers more quickly and efficiently. With the right tool, you can segment groups based on specific criteria, prioritize based on highest needs, generate interest along every step of the buying process, and much more.
To stay ahead of the curve, sales pros need to be proactive about leveraging the latest prospecting tactics and technologies. From researching your prospects to using automation tools, every step counts when it comes to closing deals faster and more effectively. By mastering each of the above techniques, you’ll have an edge over competitors and will see better results from your outreach efforts. With so many opportunities to help you outsource work and many automation tools at your fingertips, along with a vast array of software choices to help you work more efficiently, you can multiply your successes and fill your pipeline with an abundance of qualified leads.
Using tools by MarinOne can help your marketing team optimize paid advertising processes, bring in more interested candidates into the sales funnel, and ultimately close more deals. MarinOne is a customizable, enterprise-class solution that can help accelerate your paid media efforts.
Ready to start prospecting for new leads? To learn more about how MarinOne can help you achieve the results you want, get in touch with one of our team experts today.
Paid advertisements can increase your ROI by 200%, so it’s no wonder the market for paid search ads is worth approximately $60 billion annually. With digital ad spend forecasted to account for more than 60% of the global ad revenue this year, you’ll want to stay competitive to make sure your rankings consistently show up at the top of search engine results.
As we approach 2023, paid search advertising remains a critical aspect of marketing. To make sure you’re ready to kick off the new year with a strong start, we’ve outlined 15 best practices you can put into action.
Use these best practices as part of your marketing strategy to take your paid search advertising to the next level.
Zero in on what your customers are searching for—and how they are searching for it. To drive targeted traffic to your site, do your keyword research. Go beyond traditional keyword tools and the typical Google Adwords’ Keyword Planner. By setting up a filter, you can figure out which keywords are performing well and toss the ones that are delivering the fewest conversions.
Make a habit of A/B testing. By following up with tests, you can continuously improve your conversion rates. Using A/B testing is one of the best ways to learn which messaging strategies resonate best with your audience. Once you have a clear indication, you can hone in on messaging that works for your target audience and your CTR will inevitably rise.
Special offer tactics encourage higher web traffic by driving more users to your site. Time-bound discounts, freebies, and creating a sense of urgency are methods that motivate consumers to take the action you want them to take. Using phrases like “One Hour Flash Sale” or “Only Three Left in Stock” in your PPC ad can draw people in by making them feel the need to act quickly and complete a purchase.
To make the most of your PPC investment, you want to be sure you use both types of keywords, local and negative. Think of negative keywords as the opposite of your targeted ones. Negative keywords lead to a lower chance of you attracting the wrong visitors by dictating the types of search terms for which you do not want to appear. Local keywords enable you to increase targeted traffic from people around your area.
Matching your ads’ messaging with your landing page is one of the most important elements of PPC optimization. When researching consumer journey patterns and overall behavior, be sure to check how searchers respond to certain words in your messaging. You can go dynamic and change your landing page to make it specific for different audiences as well. By adjusting your landing page based on user search queries, you'll boost conversion rates without adding to your development costs.
A slow loading site negatively impacts the user experience. When a page takes longer than three seconds to load, there’s a dramatic increase in abandonment rates. In fact, bounce rate probability increases by 90% if a page’s load time is between one and five seconds.To check the speed of your site, use tools like Google’s Pagespeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Pingdom Tools.
This goes for both your visuals and your text, both for your ads and your landing pages. In a world where consumers are constantly glued to their phones, it's critical for you to approach your paid search ads with a mobile-first mindset. Over 70% of web traffic comes from mobile devices and mobile search queries will no doubt continue to outpace desktop queries.
With a mobile-centric PPC strategy, you can ensure mobile users have the best user experience, encouraging them to follow through to the end of your funnel.
With 27% of the global online population using voice search on mobile to conduct their queries, your paid search strategy needs to be optimized for it.
Thanks to voice-enabled digital assistants like Alexa and Siri, voice search is rapidly rising in popularity. It’s also faster than typing, making it convenient and ideal for on-the-go mobile users. When building your paid search ads, include voice search in your strategy. If you don’t, you’ll be leaving opportunities and money on the table. To capitalize on voice search, you can:
Your conversions must be measurable so you can identify the success of your campaign and determine your next steps to optimize and improve results. While impressions, clicks, and click-through rates are important metrics, when you’re running multiple PPC campaigns, it’s not ideal to rely just on them. For example, a high CTR may make it appear that your campaigns are performing well. However, if your conversion rate is still low, it means it’s time to adjust your strategy.
With a mobile-first mindset, it’s also important to track calls from your ads. A great way to track call conversions is by using the Google Adwords Call Extension. This feature enables you to add a clickable phone number so customers can call directly from the ad. With this conversion type, you can track phone calls, calculate your cost per acquisition (CPA), and optimize your campaigns.
Make it a priority to diversify your campaigns. If you’re used to running text-based search ads, expand your strategies to not only include paid search ads, but also display ads, paid social ads (META, Tiktok, LinkedIn to name a few), as well as other ad formats. By implementing a diverse approach, you can ensure that you are reaching potential customers in all digital spaces where they’re most likely to be frequently visiting and engaged.
Don’t stick to ad styles of the past. Instead, use responsive search ads in all of your paid search planning. To do so, you can use Google’s AI to discover which headlines and descriptions are more likely to resonate with your audience. Eventually, Google Ads will also be able to identify which combinations yield the best results through the use of machine learning.
With scripts, certain aspects of your paid search optimization can be automated including bid management, reporting, split testing, and others. Scripts are good tools to help you use your time more wisely rather than using it to complete mundane and repetitive manual tasks that can be more efficiently streamlined.
Marketers have realized that using video is a powerful way to get in front of their audiences—84% of marketers claim that it helps generate leads and boost sales. By providing customers with a deeper understanding of your product or service, video is one of the best ways to use visuals to increase brand awareness. Make it your goal to incorporate videos where they make sense in your strategy.
In the second half of 2023, Google Chrome is slated to shift from third-party cookies to first-party cookies. To get ahead of the game, refocus your paid search strategy so you’re prepared for the transition. Looking ahead will allow you to alter your plans accordingly, but will also help you build strong lasting relationships with new clients, vendors, and your internal teams.
When done right, paid search advertising is a valuable marketing strategy to increase leads and sales and generate brand awareness. By following these best practices for paid search in 2023, you will be well on your way to optimizing your campaigns and maximizing your ROI.
However, it's important to remember that an effective paid search strategy relies on leveraging data insights to make informed decisions. By pairing paid search best practices with MarinOne’s platform, you can gain the insights you need to scale your top advertising campaign results, increase conversions, and reach higher paid search rankings for your target audiences so you can grow your business.
To learn more, request a demo.
PPC advertising is already used by 45% of businesses to promote their products and services, and 62% of marketers plan to increase their PPC budgets. With figures like this, it’s clear that advertisers need to set themselves apart from competitors to drive more qualified leads and visitors.
Using the right PPC campaign management tool is a good place to start and can make a world of difference in how you manage your campaigns. In short, they can make your campaigns more effective and less time-consuming. But with such a vast array of tools on the market, choosing the best one can be a complex process—especially if you aren’t sure what to look out for or what features you need. We've put together a quick guide on what to keep in mind as you start exploring your options.
So, what do you need in a PPC campaign management tool? Here are seven things to look for.
Look for a tool that can help your business achieve its goals and enhance performance. The ideal solution should help you find new opportunities to improve your PPC campaigns and produce lasting results. When you begin your search, clearly outline your business needs. Once you’ve identified your goals, you can turn them into measurable objectives. Doing so will help you easily narrow down your options and find the solution that suits your business best.
The right PPC optimization tool will afford you more time to monitor and manage campaigns instead of getting bogged down with small, tedious tasks. Some tools are designed to create bulk campaigns or PPC ads using a keyword research tool or receive automated recommendations on bid adjustments. Using a PPC campaign management tool will also enable you to reduce in-house resources you’re currently devoting to digital marketing. Not only will it cut your expenditures, but you’ll have more free time to focus on other core areas of marketing that matter the most.
You want a tool to do more than just run audits or produce results on a dashboard. Pick a tool that has robust functionality and can help with:
The price of a PPC campaign management tool may ultimately impact which solution you choose. However, using one allows you to determine an effective budget for your ads by channel and increase the ROI of all your campaigns, making it a worthwhile investment. By automating your campaigns and working at scale, the right tool can also help save costs on additional resources in your organization. So be sure to choose wisely and consider more than just the cost of the tool itself.
A PPC journey begins with an agency offering potential clients a proposal, which is typically done through a PPC audit that illustrates past success stories in the form of case studies, and a bit of sales know-how. After a client is on board, an ROI calculator and monthly reports will be needed. A solid PPC campaign management tool will be able to easily generate performance reports that can be converted into PDF format so everyone has access and can track your team’s success through the journey.
When you purchase a PPC campaign management tool, you’ll want to be sure it includes all of these basics, and hopefully some additional unique extras too. Creating a criteria checklist of which attributes you need can help you spot which tool meets all of your requirements.
With the digital market constantly evolving, it’s crucial to keep up with the most current technology, especially when it can help improve your bottom line. The right PPC campaign management tool will deliver measurable results and minimize costs to drive your business forward. Additionally, it can help you stand out from your competitors and stay ahead of the game.
The success of your PPC campaigns depends on them being fully effective and efficient. If you’re looking to boost your sales and streamline your PPC campaign management, the right tool can make it easy. By taking a strategic approach to selecting the ideal PPC campaign management tool that’s best for you, you’ll achieve maximum results that will grow your business.
Now that you’ve read about how to choose the best PPC campaign management tool, take a look at why MarinOne is the best option on the market for both B2B and retail-focused marketers. Just a few of the time-saving features our tool offers include:
We offer free audits on your performance marketing campaigns and our team of expert consultants is ready to help you today.
From emails to chatbots to scheduling, automation has transformed the way we work—and it’s only getting bigger: 86% of employees surveyed think automation will help them improve their efficiency, productivity, and growth. And one area that’s grown by leaps and bounds recently is creative automation.
Creative automation can be a lifesaver for small and/or stretched marketing teams (which is probably every marketing team ever) because it does the heavy lifting for you when it comes to some of the most time-consuming parts of creating, launching, and managing ads.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how marketers can take advantage of creative automation to save time.
In a nutshell, creative automation uses technology to automate the creation and/or optimization of your ad campaigns. This can include anything from simple A/B testing to more complex machine learning algorithms that will automatically generate new ad variations based on past performance.
There are a number of different platforms that offer creative automation, each with its own unique features and capabilities. Some of the more popular ones include Creatopy, BannerFlow, and Celtra.
Creative automation apps create multiple versions of a base template automatically. Dynamic elements like text and audio are customized on top. Teams then link these components to a field in a data repository spreadsheet. When something in the spreadsheet changes, the dynamic elements respond. This makes it possible to launch an entire ad campaign with just a few clicks—and without ever having to leave your creative tools.
Saving time is a major benefit of creative automation, but it's not the only one. Here are a few more reasons to consider using it in your marketing campaigns.
If you’re convinced that creative automation is right for your business but you’re not sure where to begin, here are a few tips to help you get started.
What do you want to achieve? Do you want to save time on ad creation? Improve campaign performance? Collect data? All three? Be sure to establish some clear goals before you start shopping for a solution.
Not all platforms are created equal. Spend some time researching your options to find the one that best meets your needs.
What does your team need from a creative automation platform? Make sure to take their input into account before making a final decision. Things like a user-friendly interface and good tech support are a must.
Once you’ve narrowed down your options, it’s time to start comparing features. Which platform offers the features you need at a price that fits your budget? Create a shortlist.
Don’t forget to test out the platform before committing to it. Most providers offer free trials so you can explore the features and see if it’s a good fit for your needs.
Once you've determined the right tool for automating your creative assets, you can then save time with a tool for automating the distribution of those assets. Paid media management puts all your ads in one centralized campaign manager, from TikTok to Facebook to Google Ads…so you can see what creatives perform well on multiple platforms and what creatives will need to go back to the drawing board.
MarinOne is the most versatile PPC management tool on the market. It makes it easy to plan, buy, optimize, and report on all your campaigns. Plus, with our automation insights feature, you can easily uncover opportunities for reducing spend, make the most of high-performing areas, and analyze data across your channels to improve your campaigns with ease.
Request a demo today to see how we can help you streamline your ad creation process and improve your campaign performance.
With Black Friday right around the corner, brands are looking for creative ways to stay ahead of their competition and steal momentum. During 2021’s holiday season, nearly 155 million consumers participated in Black Friday sales—and that was despite the ongoing pandemic and supply chain disruptions. Of those consumers, 66.5 million did their shopping in-store while 88 million made their purchases online. Online spending alone totaled $8.9 billion. In years to come, this growing trend of purchasing online is expected to hold strong.
With Black Friday remaining one of the most popular shopping times of the year, businesses must do all they can to supercharge their marketing campaigns and get in front of customers.
Here are eight of the top ways to make a big impression on consumers.
Decide which channels are the most active and the best fit for your brand. Be wise about where you decide to place your ads and which type of ads you’ll use—for example, are you going to run Google display ads, in-app ads, or social media ads? Knowing the answers to these questions ahead of time allows you to create deals and ads suited to the audience of each target platform.
Get in front of consumers before your competitors do! It’s never too early to plan your Black Friday campaign. Once you’ve chosen the channels you’ll use, prepare your ads. Broaden your appeal by reaching shoppers who are looking for early deals—and those who prefer to space out their purchases. You don’t want to lose out to competitors because you didn’t get in front of customers soon enough. According to a PR Newswire survey, 54% of shoppers begin their holiday spending as early as October. By publishing your ads early, you’ll also be able to adjust your strategies for Black Friday weekend because you’ll have time to figure out what’s resonating with customers—and what’s not.
It’s been proven that personalization efforts go a long way. To leverage the power of personalization, consider using dynamic display ads to expand your reach. For a step-by-step guide, you can follow MarinOne’s tips on how to use display ads to make the most of your ad dollars and run a successful campaign.
Provide deals consumers can’t find anywhere else. On Black Friday, you’ll want to give customers an offer they can’t resist. Make sure the discounts you give are deeper than what you offer year round. Customers aren’t just looking for any deal—they’re hunting for the offers that allow them to buy things that are normally out of their spending reach.
Take advantage of social media, influencers, emails, and other communication channels to create teasers for your audience. Tempt your consumers early on with deals they can anticipate. Creating this kind of excitement will help you win consumer attention which will translate into faster sales for you.
Make sure your brand creatives look similar. With familiarity across your Black Friday ads, your brand will be more recognizable and trustworthy to consumers. By taking this extra step, you’ll give your audience the confidence they need to close the deal.
Create visuals that are hard to forget and don’t overlook the value of powerful visual effects. Creating memorable Black Friday ads is a crucial step in drafting your holiday marketing plan so you attract more traffic and boost sales. Step up to the challenge of creating something that really stands out. Choosing unique designs and vibrant colors can help impress your customers, winning them over with just one glance. When you make the extra effort, your consumers will remember you and keep coming back. To do this:
Make consumers excited to purchase products that benefit them. Creating a sense of urgency is one of the best ways to do this. You can make potential customers feel hyped about your brand an take action sooner by:
If you’re looking for some inspiration, here’s a roundup of some of the most noteworthy Black Friday campaigns that caught lots of attention.
Consumers love brands that prioritize global issues like sustainability. As a brand that values sustainability, IKEA built it into its annual Black Friday campaign launch. They offered customers the opportunity to return used IKEA furniture in return for a credit voucher for up to 50% of the item’s value. After running the campaign in 27 countries, IKEA donated or recycled all the items that could not be resold. By celebrating Black Friday with genuine discounts, IKEA demonstrated a commitment to its brand values and also gave consumers a reason to make more purchases. In addition, loyalty program members were given an extra 20% off on vouchers used between November 19th and 29th, making them feel valued and also motivating them to engage with the campaign.
With its fun Black Friday commercial, Bed Bath & Beyond can get inside the heads of its target customers. In this ad, when a shopper has trouble justifying her purchases, a reassuring sales clerk convinces her it’s “for the house.” While capturing the guilty pleasure of Black Friday shopping, this creatively genius video ad gives customers an easy “out,” encouraging them to buy the things they really want for themselves.
In its Black Friday campaign, Google chose to focus on a key social justice issue by supporting black-owned businesses. The brilliant campaign commercial they used cleverly included a Google search component, allowing viewers to search for Black-owned shops that were closest to them. With results specifically configured to promote relevant links and content, Black-owned stores received greater visibility.
In its out-of-the-box TikTok campaign, Walmart turned Black Friday sales into a gamified experience. By using a filter that allowed customers to “unwrap” deals, they created an element of surprise that kept consumers engaged. They also encouraged consumer participation by having TikTokers post their #Unwrapthedeals hashtag along with their challenges for everyone to see. Through its interactive campaign, Walmart broke all TikTok hashtag challenge benchmarks, gaining over 5.5 billion hashtag views in total.
Ray-Ban successfully got its customers excited not only by offering an unbeatable discount of 50%, but also by using a countdown clock. In addition to creatively advertising saving possibilities, they created a fun design to capture customers’ attention.
Instead of hosting a flash sale to encourage uninformed impulse buying, this Toronto-based umbrella company of skincare and makeup brands extended its discounts for the entire month of November. As part of a Black Friday campaign, they asked customers to approach their shopping differently and take their time. On the holiday itself, they shut down their brick-and-mortar stores and paused their website so consumers could “celebrate the beauty of slowing down.”
For marketers and advertisers, Black Friday is one of the busiest times of the year. But with the right imaginative Black Friday ad campaign you can stand out amongst the fierce competition and get consumers flocking to your holiday deals.
Whether you’re launching a campaign to increase revenue numbers, improve engagement, or cultivate interest in your brand, our tips will serve you well. Studying the top ads that ruled the internet will give you guidance on how to create your successful ad campaign.
If you’re looking to elevate your e-commerce marketing strategy, start with MarinOne’s platform to help you analyze, automate, and optimize those Black Friday ads.
Ready to get started? Contact our team today.
Modern businesses serve an increasingly diverse and demanding customer base. Between older customers who prefer traditional methods of outreach and younger customers who want a more personalized approach, marketing efforts must always be balanced to appeal to each target audience.
The popularity and widespread use of social media also increases pressure on businesses to ensure that their marketing and messaging hits the right notes with every customer every single time. Attribution can help teams decide which messages resonate with their audiences and adjust tactics accordingly. Read on to find out how incrementality can help modern marketers conduct attribution research more effectively and accurately.
Customers are engaging with businesses through digital channels more than ever. This allows businesses to monitor, measure, and adjust these interactions to yield the best marketing results. Social media interactions, engagement data from digital marketing tools, and many more systems are available for business leaders to learn about how their customers react to certain messages and marketing material over time. Modern marketers can combine this insight with effective targeting mechanisms to ensure that carefully crafted messages reach the customers that would resonate with them the most.
In the past, marketing campaigns typically relied on traditional methods of outreach such as advertising or promotions to increase interest in their offerings. However, the rise of social media combined with the ease of e-commerce has changed the marketing landscape dramatically. Marketing collateral now has the ability to directly drive traffic to channels owned by the brand or to a landing page designed to convert customers. This has led to marketing material being spread over a wider variety of channels to increasingly targeted audiences.
Modern marketers have cutting-edge digital solutions to help them reach their customers more effectively. They also have more data about their customers than ever. Business leaders understand the potential that this combination of marketing insight and strategy can realize for their organizations. This has led digital advertising spend to rise consistently in the past few years. Industry estimates show that worldwide spending on digital advertising will cross $500 billion by 2024. This increased spending also places significant pressure on marketers to deliver results and present these results in a compelling way.
Marketers must study their outreach efforts closely across channels, messages, and outreach types. This can make attributing business outcomes to a specific platform, tactic, campaign, or ad set challenging. While most social media and websites provide marketers with rudimentary data about their ads on their own site, these analytics are limited in the insight they can provide for omnichannel marketing efforts.
Incrementality refers to the measurable increase in business outcomes as a direct result of specific activities. This measurement typically includes significant testing and experimentation with various test and control groups for maximum accuracy.
“In the context of marketing, when there is a concerted action, what is the compounding action of that concerted action compared to if you take that concerted action away,” shares Supriya Shukla, Customer Engagement Manager at Marin Software. “It’s like a tap. You open the tap and water comes out - you assume all the water coming out is from you opening the tap - you took an action and there was an outcome but then you close the tap and there’s a leak - from where? - is it from you opening the tap or was the leak always there?”
Most businesses use data to effectively segment and target audiences. Social media platforms, sales sites, and owned marketing channels each provide marketers with significant data about their customers, marketing effort success, and the relationship between the two. Since this data is so easily accessible, the accuracy of this data and its ability to generate strategic insight often makes all the difference for successful marketers.
Marin can help make the difference for businesses that operate in highly competitive marketplaces. Supriya shares an example of a financial services client who employed Marin’s solution:
“Financial services is a very competitive space known to have very high dollar CPAs. Over time, MarinOne has seen, because this client lead-scores their customers along their buying journey, various patterns and insights as they’ve tracked them incrementally as they move from one part of the funnel to the next that they wouldn’t have foreseen otherwise,” she says. “This has enabled them to formulate hypotheses that they’ve been able to test. This demonstrates how incrementality can play a huge role in sophisticated marketing measurement for customers in the digital age.”
Social media users have more options for online engagement depending on their unique needs. This has led to audiences being spread across multiple platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and more. While this helps marketers reach their target audiences more efficiently, it also means that omnichannel marketers have to tweak their marketing material based on the formats that are most effective for each platform.
Marin is able to adapt to the platforms that are most valuable to you. Supriya explains how Marin’s solution “can be highly customized in terms of the data you can pull into it through business intelligence connection tools, as well as the ability to bring in custom call-ins and calculations to display in a grid format. You can calculate custom metrics within a BI tool that brings the data in or you can manually set it up within Marin. This will enable you to attribute by seeing side-by-side campaigns to see how they’re converting when compared to custom conversion touchpoints.”
Marketing data can be received from a variety of sources but it is always important to put this information into the right context. Market conditions and customer preferences change and evolve regularly. Measuring internal marketing performance and comparing that insight with competitor data and industry benchmarks can help marketers keep track of these movements and ensure that they are consistently effective in rapidly changing marketing environments.
Modern customers are always on the lookout for brands whose value sets align with their own. Value-based marketing is more popular and effective than it has ever been. It is important for businesses to choose the right words in their messaging and adjust them where necessary to better align with their customers. Incrementality allows marketers to measure the extent to which their messages resonate with their customers and adjust accordingly.
Marketing efforts can generate significant rises in sales and interaction figures and are directly responsible for a measurable amount of revenue. Incrementality measurements allow business leaders to weigh the amount they are spending on each lead against the value they generate for the business. This measurement can also improve reporting and enable better decision making at all levels.
Marketing data comes in all forms and has to be consolidated from multiple sources and platforms. MarinOne allows marketers to access all their crucial marketing data on a single platform while still conducting attribution analysis at various levels.
Get in touch with one of our experts to learn how MarinOne can help you plan, monitor, and adjust marketing activities to achieve optimal results every time.
Innovations in marketing and the popularity of social media have made it easier than ever for businesses to reach their customers effectively. However, this has also led to customers being inundated with marketing material. Competitive benchmarking can help your business rise above the competition and make an impact on potential customers.
All marketers want to drive the best performance of their campaigns, but how do you know if your efforts are paying off? Understanding and analyzing performance in a vacuum can be unproductive—or worse, misleading. Competitive benchmarking analysis is the study of marketing performance as measured against the performance of your closest competitors.
“There are several competitive analysis tools marketers can use to monitor their competitors organically - which track most things available to the public, and there are also tools you can use to track your competitors' paid activity,” Candace Boren, Product Marketing Director at Marin Software explains. “Once you’ve collected metrics for your competitors, you can use that information side-by-side with MarinOne to analyze your performance to see how you are or aren’t stacking up to your competitors.”
Take a look at what content your competitors are producing for their website, blog, and social channels. Press releases and news mentions will also allow you to keep track of the messaging strategies employed by your competition. Vendors such as Crayon, Klue, and Contify can help you keep track of your competitors’ owned content and mentions. You could supplement this research by analyzing competitor SEO performance using vendors like Semrush and Ahrefs.
In addition to organic intel, you should also keep an eye on paid media and where your competitors are advertising across search, social, display, television, and other channels. The success they experience can be replicated while their failures can be avoided. Some tools that can help you keep track of your competitors’ paid marketing efforts include MediaRadar, The Search Monitor, and Pathmatics.
So you’ve gathered intelligence on when and where your competitors are advertising and distributing organic content. Now what?
The key to competitive benchmarking is to use this data to your advantage! Take a look at which channels your competitors focus on. This may be a good indicator of where to best reach your target audience. Have they moved away from a particular channel? Maybe they haven’t seen strong performance here. And of course, notice if there are channels you’re missing in your campaign strategy—you want to maintain a presence everywhere that your competitors are reaching potential customers.
“Competitive benchmarking is important because even if you think your performance is where it needs to be, you don’t want to look at it in a vacuum because there’s always more opportunity to acquire customers who might otherwise go to your competitors. So if you are monitoring their performance to make sure you are in line with it, you're capturing every opportunity that you can see,” Candace explains.
Keeping an eye on your competitors can help you ride the wave of success that they might be experiencing on another platform. For example, TikTok has become important since its rise in popularity in 2019. Analyzing the competition can help you identify the opportunities a new popular social media platform can present to businesses.
The benefits of competitive benchmarking don’t stop there. Modern customers are highly opinionated and fragmented. Effective targeting can help you find and reach customers who are being underserved by your competitors. If a competitor is experiencing success on a platform or with a specific marketing strategy but are unable to meet customer demand, competitive benchmarking would put you in the perfect position to fill that gap in the market.
Make your competitive benchmarking data work for you by pairing it with effective analysis and improved strategizing using these tips.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact area within a wider marketing strategy to adjust for the best results. The RACE Framework gives marketers a simple way to analyze marketing activity and it can be applied to any channel or platform that you wish. RACE is a mnemonic device. It stands for Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage.
These steps represent the journey that marketers must take from the beginning of a customer interaction to its conclusion. Analyzing marketing results at each of these steps can help marketers understand how to capitalize on the opportunities presented to them by competitive benchmarking data.
Data is only as valuable as the insights it can provide. These insights also have to reach the right team members to actually be useful. Marketing teams must make sure that decision makers, team leaders, and other relevant stakeholders have access to critical information so they can strategize effectively. It is also important for this data to be presented in an easy-to-understand manner.
The average social media user visits over seven social platforms each month. How do you decide how much attention each platform should get from the marketing team and how the marketing budget should be distributed across these channels? Competitive benchmarking data can pinpoint the platforms that seem to generate the most conversions and interactions for businesses with a similar profile to your own. Marketers should use this information to optimize their spending on important platforms while keeping niche platforms in consideration in case they become more important in the future.
"Analytics tools like MarinOne can help you look at your performance and compare it to your competition. And if it's not where you need it to be, budget allocation tools can help you find the right level of investment for your campaigns to get you up to par," Candace explains. "And as you move through your spend period and find you are not performing in one channel and performing really well on another channel, these algorithms will automatically shift your budget allocation for you. You'll be outperforming your competition without having to manage your campaigns manually day in and day out."
To compare your competitors’ marketing strategies with your own, you need a comprehensive picture of your digital program. MarinOne’s advanced analytics suite pulls all your search, social, ecommerce, display, and app advertising into one view. It’s easy to see at a glance where you are spending and where you are performing, so you can easily compare your performance with the competition.
If you want to take it a step further, MarinOne’s budget allocation tools will shift your budget between campaigns and channels based on how well they’re performing—all while ensuring you hit your budget targets at the end of each month.
Learn more about MarinOne today. Get in touch with one of our experts to learn how MarinOne can help you make the most of insights generated through competitive benchmarking.
The marketing world is constantly changing and developing with new tools and methods. Strategies that are effective today may not work next year, or even next month. What we know for certain is that successful marketing requires looking beyond the top of the funnel for customers who will stick around. Without retention, there is no growth.
That’s why growth marketing is more important than ever. So, what is growth marketing all about? Learn why growth marketing is important, what its core components are, and five different ways to turbocharge your business with it.
Growth marketing is a spin on traditional marketing with additional digital layers such as A/B testing, SEO optimization, data-driven blog posts and email campaigns, and careful attention to each aspect of a user’s experience. Insights inform strategies that are quickly implemented to achieve sustainable and robust growth. Unlike traditional marketing, growth marketing prioritizes small hypotheses, fast experimentation, and rapid iteration over large, long-term campaigns.
An average of 4 million businesses are opened every year, and over $297 billion is collectively spent on marketing expenditures. With those figures, it’s more important than ever to make your business stand out. To compete, it's crucial to have a growth marketing strategy. A strategy that is creative and compelling will:
The primary focus of your marketing strategy should be based on metrics like retention rates, acquisition rates, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value. Some of the most frequently used tactics that growth marketers find successful include:
A/B testing can be used in a variety of formats, such as email marketing, landing pages, social media ads, and more, making it one of the primary tactics to be used in a strong growth marketing strategy. By deploying “A” or “B” tests, you can gain a better understanding of which content pieces are performing better. With better insights into how to engage your audience, you can optimize future campaigns and increase your likelihood of boosting conversion rates.
Pro tip: Just because one test proves to be more effective with a particular audience segment doesn’t mean you should stop testing. Concentrate on customized segments and keep testing new content variations to understand which content resonates best.
With cross-channel marketing, your focus should be on building a plan to extend customer reach. It can include push notifications, email marketing, direct mail, in-app messages, and other action-driven initiatives. The key is to know your audience’s preferences. When you incorporate your plan into your growth marketing strategy, zeroing in on communication preferences will help you build your campaigns accordingly.
Pro tip: When you integrate multiple channels into your marketing plan, your audience can remain engaged from anywhere. Use contextual campaigns to help you gain a deeper understanding of your audience’s behavior across different platforms.
As part of your growth marketing strategy, be sure to pay close attention to the three critical life cycle stages: activation, nurture, and reactivation. You need to:
Pro tip: Each customer will progress through the life cycle at their own pace. However, proactively accommodating users' changing needs will help you create more need-specific campaigns, setting you up for success.
To optimize your campaign, know your clients. Analyzing their data can often shed light on surprising insights such as discovering which leads have a higher likelihood of converting. It can also help you tailor communications to improve retention rates.
While it’s important to analyze your client base, it’s equally important to determine what your competitors are doing. Seeing what works well (or doesn’t work at all) for them can give you insight into new marketing opportunities to test, too.
Pro tip: To see what your competitors are doing well, use an online competitor analysis tool. To learn what media your clients consume or what terms they use when searching for your product, use the Google Keyword Planner and try client and industry surveys.
When done right, content marketing can create a lasting impact as part of your growth marketing strategy to help you generate new leads. Demonstrate your expertise in your field with articles, videos, and other sources that your potential customers are searching for. By optimizing your content around keywords your audience is looking for, you can boost the chances of them coming to you and staying.
Pro tip: Be sure to plan, test, and analyze which content is working. When you determine which content is attracting the most attention, adjust your campaigns to ensure you improve results.
You’re probably already employing advertising as part of your marketing strategy — be it sponsored content, display advertising, remarketing, pay-per-click, social media ads, and so on. In most scenarios, real-time data is accessible, allowing you to closely monitor your ads’ performance. Dig into the data and follow growth marketing principles by planning, testing, tweaking, and repeating.
Pro tip: By digging into that data, you will be able to identify insights that enable you to improve leading indicators over time. But to truly maximize your growth marketing efforts, don’t lose sight of the big picture. While data is important, stay focused on broad performance metrics (like sales and revenue) over time so you don’t repeat ineffective advertising moves.
Optimizing your website is key to generating more leads. It’s important for communicating why prospective customers should choose you. If you haven’t already done so, advance your SEO strategy. Ultimately, your goal should be to funnel your clients to the action you want them to take. Additionally, your site’s aesthetics and user experience should be familiar for your target audience.
Pro tip: Seeking advice on your SEO strategy is wise, since it’s a specialized technical area. You can also consider identifying CRO improvement opportunities by conducting A/B testing, individual user testing, qualitative research from focus groups, and client surveys.
For growth marketing to be sustainable and successful, focus on the customer experience. Having quality service will help you build loyalty and turn consumers into brand advocates. Your products alone will not keep customers happy — they must be coupled with high-quality customer service. Make sure that all brand interactions leave your customers feeling satisfied and valued. If your customer service team isn’t motivated to give each person the "white glove" treatment, your customers probably won’t be coming back…which can make the colossal effort of attracting new users feel like a waste. As we said at the beginning of this article, growth marketing is nothing without a great retention strategy.
Pro tip: To create a good customer service experience, collect customer feedback through surveys and ask for suggestions on how to improve. You should also empower employees with the latest solutions so that they can fulfill their roles effectively. For instance, using a telephone system that automatically distributes incoming calls will benefit team members and customers alike.
With growth marketing comes countless tools, channels, platforms, and tactics. One thing is clear: growth marketing requires work, but the return makes it very worthwhile
MarinOne has the tools you need to be a successful growth marketer and can help you focus on both testing and optimizing to boost engagement and provide a better customer experience.
Ready to take your growth marketing to new heights? Contact one of our MarinOne experts today.
Recently Google announced that Performance Max campaigns would be a more significant part of the Google Ads platform and therefore a greater part of paid media strategies for marketers at large. Since then, many questions have been raised as to what exactly this campaign type is and how it differs from other campaigns. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a few of the most common concerns coming up for advertisers and best practices to deal with the changes below.
Performance Max (PMax) means you can now buy Google Ads across the entire inventory of products from a single campaign, with expanded coverage across a myriad of different placement types, including:
PMax uses a mix of automation and machine learning to help advertisers reach their conversion goals with all of these placement types all within one campaign. Performance Max campaigns should complement keyword-based search campaigns, as well as boost performance across Google's less competitive advertising channels like Gmail and Display.
If paid media marketers invest wisely, this could bring in a whole new set of customers who are not as familiar with online shopping. Previously in Beta and compatible with Smart Shopping and Local campaigns, Performance Max will be a replacement for Performance Max Offline and Performance Max for Retail by the beginning of October 2022, meaning paid specialists need to make the pivot now.
Performance Max helps you drive performance based on your specified conversion goals, delivering more conversions and value by optimizing performance in real-time and across channels using Smart Bidding. Performance Max combines Google's automation technologies across bidding, budget optimization, audiences, creatives, attribution, and more. They're all empowered by your specific advertising objective (for example, if you have a CPA or ROAS target) and the creative assets, audience signals, and optional data feeds you provide.
“Performance Max puts your business goals front and center, and prioritizes these above other signals by inputting your specific conversion goals,”
-Rodney Ip, Global Product Lead, Google Ads
Performance Max are goal-based campaigns, designed to deliver the value that matters most to you. So, to get started, you choose the goals that are necessary for you to reach your marketing objective. Then Google asks you to provide a series of inputs that help the AI tool get campaigns started. These inputs include:
PMax campaigns are then able to take those inputs and invest your budget as effectively as possible, maintaining a core focus on the initial objective you set. Google’s automation goes to work finding the best potential customers and serving those customers the most relevant ad. Bidding and attribution technology then determine the most optimal bids to meet your goals. And of course, it’s all done in real time in the auction.
Targeting technology, machine learning, and automated bidding all culminate to a campaign with the best possible ROI outcome. In fact, Google’s data thus far indicates Performance Max campaigns average a 13% lower cost per conversion than any other campaign to date.
Because they leverage machine learning and automation to drive performance, Performance Max can leave advertisers feeling like they have given up some control over their campaigns. But there are still some levers you can pull to maximize your PMax campaigns.
Adding audience signals to your Performance Max campaigns enhances Google’s machine learning to help you reach the best customers. Google takes your audience data and looks at the audiences for signals to identify similar buyers likely to exhibit the same behaviors and interests. You can add audiences from:
Google can then use the information you have provided to inform its targeting algorithms to find customers who are most likely to convert. This is a good way to help jumpstart your Performance Max campaigns and can also continue to inform throughout the lifecycle of the campaign, especially as your first party data changes over that time.
Consider importing your offline conversions to help improve your PMax performance. By giving Google access to offline sales data in addition to your online digital attribution channels, you will give the algorithms a more comprehensive view of what’s working.
The system can then interpret which leads have resulted in sales and also the assets being used in the ad groups that are ultimately driving conversions. Incorporating these valuable insights will help deliver the best content to the customers most likely to convert.
The team at Marin has been hard at work updating the MarinOne Engine infrastructure which will deliver a powerful experience for advertisers. MarinOne Engine already powers MarinOne's newest and most advanced grids and enables new campaign types, more data, more flexible reporting, and enhanced processing for scalability.
MarinOne Engine will allow us to support additional campaign types from Google including Performance Max as well as local campaigns and additional data for video campaigns.
As you start formulating your strategy for adding Performance Max to your digital campaigns, the marketing experts at Marin are here to help. Reach out today to schedule a demo and see how MarinOne’s advanced analytics, automation, and optimization tools can work for your Google Ads programs.
Advertising is more of an art than a science, and digital marketing is certainly no exception. In the last decade, a lot has changed in the world of online marketing, and the field will continue to adapt along with the quickly evolving technology landscape and ever-shifting consumer trends. In this article, we’ll take a look at how it all began, how it has evolved, and where it's headed next.
Let’s first take a look at how digital marketing has developed over the years by looking at some major milestones in its history.
Digital marketing made a strong start in the 1990s due to the rising popularity of personal computers. Between 1994 and 1996, the number of people using the internet jumped from 25 million to a whopping 77 million. Why? Well, when the World Wide Web launched in 1989 and the first popular browser, Netscape, arrived on the scene, it caused an explosion of new users. From then on, the digital landscape began to grow exponentially as more and more browsers and search engines popped up, including many of the most popular search engines we know and still use today.
The invention of the World Wide Web created a collaborative space for sharing information, leading to a social media revolution. You may or may not remember MySpace, but it was the first truly popular platform of its kind, and it set the trend for all the others to follow. After its release in 2003, Facebook made its grand entrance. As a social media leader, it quickly became an outlet for businesses to reach global audiences. Brands began to realize the immense opportunities that could be achieved through tweets, posts, videos, emails, blogs, PPC advertising, and more—and this opened the door for digital marketing to expand.
By 2011, TV viewership began to decline for the very first time in history, and marketers were taking note of the transition. With this shift came the introduction of “cookies.” If you’re not already familiar with them, cookies are small pieces of code that are useful for tracking user behavior and content retargeting. Advertisers took advantage of tracking techniques, giving attention to browsing habits and usage patterns so they could fine-tune their campaigns and other marketing efforts.
The emergence of the internet and the rise of search engines also created an ideal space for what came to be known as native advertising. Using native advertising, marketers can promote content more effectively and connect with target customers through search ads.
When iPhones became available around 2007, they completely changed how we access the web. As the world quickly invested in the many glories of smartphones, mobile usage served as a major motivation for brands to undertake search engine optimization. By 2014, mobile device usage crossed a key threshold and predictive analytics started to gain some traction.
In 2016, marketing automation went into effect and marketers started to build more personalized and efficient campaigns. When Facebook and Google prevailed as the two most recognized leaders of the internet in 2017, influencer marketing skyrocketed—and advertisers took the opportunity to grow their audiences. Paid advertising was no longer considered a supplementary strategy for marketers.
When 2018 rolled around, marketers continued to improve their SEO efforts, realizing that long-form content was another strategy they could use to increase session durations. But SEO wouldn’t be the only strategy on the minds of advertisers. By 2019, marketers were dealing with an entirely new frontier: the quickly growing landscape of video platforms. By this time it was clear to advertisers that if they wanted to succeed, they would have to prioritize content creation as part of their marketing strategy — be it short-form or long-form text content, or videos.
However, the digital marketing landscape changed once again in 2020 when the pandemic hit and there were restrictions on many daily activities. Digital marketers were forced to keep up with skyrocketing social media use, new purchasing behaviors, and changing consumer behavior patterns. Consumer expectations skyrocketed and marketers had to shift their strategies to create more digital experiences. Marketers realized to adapt they would need to focus on customer values and experiences while placing a stronger emphasis on relationships than ever before. While online strategies are nothing new to the marketing world, COVID-19 initiated a stay-at-home virtual age that couldn’t be ignored. Since then, marketers have needed to focus on online strategies more than ever as a channel for reaching their existing and potential target audiences in order to remain competitive.
As it has done in the past, digital marketing will continue evolving and developing every year. So what can you expect for digital marketing next? Current trends forecast that AI, automation, and machine learning technologies will likely become more pervasive. Influencer marketing will continue to grow and voice search and chat bots will soar in popularity. Interactive marketing content will pop up more, and you can also expect to see digital marketing become algorithm-driven.
While it’s impossible to say with complete certainty where the ever-changing digital marketing landscape is headed in the future, it’s exciting to see where it will go next.
Digital marketing has come a long way in its development. However, the digital market industry is continuously evolving and digital marketers must keep up with the rapid acceleration of changes. They must be able to identify emerging trends as well as the creation of newer and more intelligent search engine algorithms.
To help you keep up with trends and make the most of your digital advertising campaigns, MarinOne gives you full visibility into your campaigns while continuously integrating the latest developments in digital marketing.
MarinOne can help you elevate and scale your paid search, social, and ecommerce advertising by helping you automate your campaigns. To see how contact one of our experts today and schedule a personalized demo.
We all have a fundamental need to belong. In fact, this is not unique to humanity; some animals only survive or thrive in groups as well. The foundation of a community is built upon support from acquaintances or family, as well as shared interests or backgrounds. Churches, schools, clubs, neighborhoods are some of the primary ways people get a sense of community or togetherness. Brands can create a community using the same methodology: a group of people that are all passionate or interested in a central topic.
Community marketing's primary objective is to help companies engage with members of their target audience through their products, creating an engaged and long-term audience of customers. A key component to true lifecycle marketing, creating an active brand community can keep the same customers coming back to your brand again and again. It is a pillar of brand loyalty.
Community marketing leverages the power of social media or other online platforms to build meaningful relationships with consumers. Many consumers want to get the "brand perspective" on various topics they are interested in, and this can impact how the community members interact. Many companies underestimate the influence they may have to start meaningful conversations online. Fitness, beauty, and lifestyle brands often do this quite well as consumers of these products are addressing needs that are quite personal, like their appearance or health, and they crave a safe space to discuss those needs. Organizations doing community marketing well are hosting and owning that safe space for discussion.
There are a few crucial aspects to establishing a healthy community marketing strategy. One component of this involves creating messaging that focuses on everything your target consumers love doing. Look at the broader universe surrounding your product and the problems it solves.
Savage X Fenty did this successfully when they set out to have a unique discussion around body positivity and inclusivity in the lingerie space. Their approach in setting up email lists, and Facebook groups, and community boards, all added to that sense of togetherness where many people of different backgrounds could connect on feeling "on the outside" with other lingerie companies marketing tactics. The result of this harmonious messaging resulted in incredible growth for the brand. Making your company mission about more than just a set of products brings customers or prospective customers together, getting them psyched about what they already have a genuine interest in.
If you still have doubts about using community marketing for your business, here are some benefits that might help you make up your mind.
Even with many benefits to businesses that use community marketing, the lack of clarity in some areas has led to misconceptions surrounding it. Let's look at a few that are the most common.
If you are starting or want to better your strategy, brace yourself and put your best foot forward. You do not want your audience feeling too much pressure, coercion, or any form of spam. Here are some tips to get you started without coming across too "salesy."
Community marketing contributes significantly to accelerated growth and a positive brand reputation. Incorporating this channel as a tactic can help keep company goals in line with the audience's wants. Identify the best platform for building your community based on where you believe your existing target market spends their time online.
Once your organic social media strategy is inline, MarinOne can assist in continuing to drive brand awareness, revenue growth, and holistic omnichannel analysis. Our tool provides an all-in-one place to see how all your campaigns are performing against each other, and how organic channels are assisting paid channels. Speak to our marketing team of experts today to learn more about cross-channel paid media management.
It’s hard to keep up with what’s new in the world of marketing with so many new strategies emerging every day. A decade ago, marketers focused on creating catchy ads and putting them in the right places at the right time. However, a lot of things have changed since then. For one thing, effective marketing now requires businesses to implement a more holistic approach.
With more competition than ever before, simply creating an ad won’t yield the best results. In this day and age, customers are more in control and are more discerning. You must understand your buyer, learn what they want, and develop a strategy to meet their needs. One of the best ways to do that? Precision marketing.
Read on to learn about precision marketing and gain meaningful insights and advice from one of our very own MarinOne digital advertising experts, Anu Adegbola, on how to create an effective strategy that will get your brand noticed and help you win your customers’ loyalty.
Precision marketing uses data and relationship-building to precisely target a brand’s customers. The technique involves nurturing relationships—specifically, prioritizing existing customers over new ones and connecting with them in a more relevant way. It’s about customer retention, upselling, and cross-selling. Using precision marketing, marketers rely heavily on market segmentation to analyze shopper habits, behaviors, and other patterns to help increase the success of their marketing efforts while providing a better and more intelligent customer experience.
The internet has made it easy for customers to respond to marketing campaigns and ads in real time. If you want to stay ahead of your competition, you need to be prepared to adapt quickly.
To thoroughly understand your customer base, you need more than just demographic information. While it’s helpful to know the basics of where and who your customers are, it’s just as critical to know what’s important to them, how they communicate with one another, and more. When you have accurate data, you’ll be able to create messaging that resonates with your key audiences.
Customers expect their user experience to be frictionless. In this new digital age, they want what they want, when they want it. To ensure customer satisfaction it is critical to stay up-to-date with the latest marketing trends. If you don’t, your customers may look elsewhere, seeking out your competitors instead.
Marketing is no longer about copy that sells. While engaging ads are still very important, success now requires social insight along with an understanding of psychology. When you understand why customers are making their purchase decisions, you can develop a more tailored marketing strategy.
Implementing an effective precision marketing strategy that produces results requires following a careful and comprehensive plan.
When promoting your product, don’t forget that commitment to your customer comes first, and their purchase comes second. Developing real relationships will help foster more brand loyalty along the way.
“If all you’re focusing on is getting clicks, you’re not going to get the return you’re looking for. It’s not all about volume—it’s about the right volume. You need to make sure you’re showing things to the right audience,” says MarinOne marketing expert, Anu Adegbola. “Those who have focused on just the data and not building a relationship with their clients won’t succeed because they don’t have the whole picture.”
Besides having had a profound effect on marketing, social media has proven to be an essential part of a successful marketing strategy. Old marketing strategies like live events and cold calls may have worked in the past, but not now. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media platforms give you a way to connect with customers more personally.
Anu’s advice: “If you’re going to have a presence on a social platform, you need to do it well. Test the various platforms to see what’s working for your brand or company—if it’s not working for you, move on and find what does. Make sure you’re on the appropriate platform for your brand and your customers. If you’re in the wrong space, you may get a negative reaction.”
Customers respond well to brands that cater to their needs and consistently offer them real value. “It’s not just about targeting the single purchases, but it’s about building repeat customers,” Anu explains. Make lifecycle marketing an integral part of your precision marketing strategy by creating interesting and dynamic content that brings your precisely targeted customers back to your brand again and again. Personalized offers that relate to past products they've bought, birthdays, or unique interests are all great ways to get repeat purchases from the same customer over time.
Customers appreciate authenticity. Understand where your brand sits in the market and what makes it unique. To be effective, know your brand values and make sure you represent those values through your marketing efforts. It also helps to have an approachable brand voice–test out multiple variants of landing page or ad copy when running a targeted campaign. Most likely the assets that will perform the best will be the most simple to comprehend; making things too complex increases the likelihood that you'll lose interest by those unfamiliar with your brand.
Customers today live in a digital world with unlimited options. Give them a compelling reason to work with you. By delivering an exceptional customer experience, you can win their trust and expect that they will keep coming back.
“You need to make things easy for the customer,” suggests Anu. “For example, if the return process is easy, they’ll come back to shop again, and hopefully buy something even more expensive the next time they shop with you.”
Here are some of the best ways to get in front of your customers and build their loyalty.
Customers naturally gravitate towards brands they’re familiar with and can trust. Aim to align your brand with your values, mission, and your customers’ expectations.
Use precision marketing to gain accurate insight into your audience’s behaviors. When used effectively, audience data can help you create content that is engaging and relevant.
Setting realistic goals will make it easier for you to track the success of your marketing efforts. By measuring what’s working and what’s not, you can adjust your goals accordingly. Consider evaluating click through rates, the number of email newsletter subscribers, how effective CTAs are working, as well as ups and downs in website traffic.
While it's good to attract new customers, it’s far more cost effective to focus on retaining your existing ones. The goal is to have people keep coming back. To drive more conversions, focus on creating personalized experiences and deals that your existing customers will find appealing. Segment your audiences, collect data about each audience group and their behavior, and you’re sure to be on your way to higher retention rates.
You may already be aware that marketing trends change frequently. Staying on top of trends—even if they come and go—gives you a competitive advantage and helps you maintain a close connection with customers. When a new trend pops up, assess whether it will be effective for your brand. To make sure you're in the loop, read current blogs and listen to your customers so you can meet their needs.
The marketing industry is constantly evolving and it will continue to do so in the years to come. To remain responsive, marketers must use precision marketing to build solid relationships with their existing customers and attract the right audiences for new potential customers.
MarinOne can help you streamline and amplify your precision marketing campaigns using the latest analytics and automation tools. We can also provide tactical and strategic advice, guide you on what strategies will work best for your specific needs, and much more. Learn more about MarinOne today.
Get in touch with one of our experts to see how we can help you get the information and tools you need to increase the effectiveness of your precision marketing campaigns.
The global e-commerce market reached a value of $13 trillion in 2021—and is forecasted to rise to $55.6 trillion by 2027. What are some of the major factors that led to this growth? There was an explosion in demand for smart devices like smartphones and tablets, making it easier than ever for people to shop online from anywhere. COVID was another big factor: when stores closed, consumers all went online—and they liked it.
In this article, we'll share some of the benefits of the current e-commerce landscape, then give you some tips on getting your e-commerce site to perform at its best this year and beyond.
There's no doubt that online sales are more important than ever, regardless of your company structure. With a growing population of e-comm shoppers and a marketplace that's constantly expanding, it's essential to have a strong e-commerce presence if you want to stay competitive and meet customers’ demands. Here are five reasons you should focus your efforts on e-commerce:
Since the onset of the pandemic, consumer behavior has dramatically changed, shifting more towards digital shopping habits. A study done by Pew Research states that 79% of U.S. consumers shop online, indicating that this new habit is here to stay. And for good reason: it’s far more convenient than having to step foot in any physical retail store. It saves time, gives consumers the flexibility to shop for the best prices, and allows them to choose from a wider range of products.
Having an e-commerce site means your store is theoretically open all day, every day. With 24/7 access consumers can browse whenever they want, be it 1 AM or 1 PM. Not only does this make digital shopping more appealing for customers, but it also increases sales opportunities.
As opposed to a traditional brick-and-mortar storefront, using an e-commerce site allows you to run your company from anywhere. Whether you prefer to sit in an office, work from home, or even your local coffee shop, you can watch your business grow without being tied to a physical space.
As an e-commerce company, your number one priority is to get the word out about your products and services. It is possible to advertise in different ways and improve traffic to your site. However, this is easier said than done. It's always hard to get noticed online with so much noise and competition shouting their message out. By honing in on the right niche messaging for your target demographic, and utilizing an omnichannel marketing approach with SEM, email marketing with proper authentication protocols, influencers, and more…you can "find your people" on a global scale. Once the right brand message is identified, the opportunity to extend your reach to a wider target audience is virtually limitless.
If you were at all hesitant to start an e-commerce site because of the cost, think again. Launching a site is more affordable than owning a store, and it minimizes infrastructure, communication, and other overhead costs.
With e-commerce best practices constantly evolving and changing, it’s vital to keep your e-commerce site current and your business competitive. By keeping up with the latest trends, you'll find new and innovative techniques that will offer your business huge value, while identifying the tactics that may not be suitable for your specific company needs. To determine which trends are worth pursuing, know your customers and competitors well so you can make the right move.
Adopt advanced conversion tactics and push your organization to improve your baseline goal. Routinely examine bounce rates, exit rates, click-through rates, and average session durations. It is also wise to invest in e-commerce tools that can help analyze your current conversion rate issues. Some other strategies for boosting conversion rates include using high-quality images and videos on your product pages, providing limited-time coupon codes, and tweaking your store checkout process.
Offer your consumers free shipping on orders over a specific amount and offer expedited delivery options like three-day shipping or two-hour delivery windows for customers who need their items immediately. An effective product delivery strategy will help to differentiate your business from competitors.
Without a storefront, customers can’t physically experience an item before purchasing it. Give them the confidence they need to make informed decisions about products by providing them with easy access to online product reviews. By helping them navigate your business’s digital space, you maintain a positive reputation and a strong brand name, leading to happy customers and returning business.
Having a social media presence allows you to connect with existing customers and reach out to potential new ones. Statista data indicates that users spend an average of a whopping 147 minutes per day on social media. Using social media to market your e-commerce store allows you to reach shoppers directly, advertise new products, or engage them with attractive promotions. According to BigCommerce statistics, businesses with an active and unique social media presence have at least 32% more sales than those without one.
Consumers prefer a seamless shopping and purchasing experience, with expectations that their products will arrive at their doorstep as fast as possible. Backend integration can help streamline e-commerce operations like inventory management, so that your customers remain satisfied and get what they want, when they want it. Integrating inventory management allows your organization to track its stock so you can balance the quantity of products on hand while meeting customer demands. By being able to analyze trends and sales patterns, you can also successfully maximize sales margins.
Making sure your e-commerce site is mobile-friendly is the key to driving more sales and ensuring a smooth customer journey. A mobile-friendly design leads to more page views, stronger customer loyalty, increased online purchases, and many more benefits.
The last thing you want is a slow-loading website that will irritate your visitors. If your site can’t move fast enough for your customers it will negatively impact the user's perception of your brand, increase bounce rates, and encourage buyers to look elsewhere. In fact, studies prove that if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, 40% of users will quickly give up and leave.
Not only is centralizing your business to an e-commerce website cost-effective, it’s also been the preferred way for customers to shop for several years now. To stay competitive, it's essential that you get your website running like a well-oiled machine.
Not sure where to start? MarinOne can help by streamlining your advertising efforts and give your website a jumpstart in sales and traffic. This will buy your team time to get the web backend exactly how you want it while we build your front-end brand through advertising on marketplaces, paid search, and social. With MarinOne, you can gain an edge over your competition, maximize performance across all channels, and utilize impactful retail marketplace advertising features to set your e-commerce site up for success.
Learn more about how MarinOne can help. Get in touch and speak to one of our team experts or schedule a free demo today.
As most performance marketers will tell you, knowing your audience and how they interact with your brand is crucial to help you measure and optimize your campaigns. While advertisers used to rely on guesswork in devising strategies to reach more prospects, they can now confidently make informed decisions based on real-time data, thanks to tracking pixels.
Tracking pixels are crucial when you’re thinking about campaign planning, targeting, and optimization. Although pixels are simply small snippets of code on the backend of your website, they have the power to transform your entire marketing strategy. In this article, we’ll break down the basics of pixel tracking, how it works, the different types, and how you can start using pixels properly for any kind of marketing campaign.
Simply put, a tracking pixel is an HTML code snippet embedded in a site or email. Although it’s a nearly invisible component of the site, it contains a tag that tracks user behavior—things like the pages they’ve visited, the actions they’ve taken, and their purchasing history. This is powerful because it can capture important information that reveals consumer interactions with advertising and other marketing efforts.
There are a few different types of tracking pixels:
We could spend a great deal of time on the distinction between various types of tracking codes. For those just trying to get a basic understanding, however, here’s a brief overview.
While all three are different, they are all used to capture user information so you can deliver a more customized web experience for your site’s visitors.
Before getting started, here are some helpful tips to consider.
MarinOne can help. Our Marin Tracker is a conversion tracking solution with optimization tools built into its platform to give you a better understanding of your buying cycle.
We help you make data-driven marketing decisions by unifying your campaign data with sales outcomes and machine learning. Our tracker makes it easy for you to measure your revenue impact from all of your digital marketing efforts.
Save time managing tracking codes so you can spend more time on what matters most—driving your campaigns with rich insights.
Tracking pixels can give you the edge you need if you’re ready to take your online advertising or latest campaign to the next level. Get in touch with one of our experts about how we can help you set up, plan, execute, and optimize your campaigns.
Online grocery delivery has grown exponentially since the start of the pandemic and retailers are fighting to secure their place in the online shopping world. Retail advertisers are eager to get in front of hungry customers at the moment of purchase and have discovered that Instacart is one of the best ways to do that.
Since 2020, Instacart has experienced a 500% increase in order volume. To keep up with this escalating traffic volume and successfully reach customers, advertisers are quickly realizing that they need to spruce up their e-grocery advertising campaigns.
In this guide, we’ll explain the basics of Instacart advertising and explore Instacart ad inventory and the different ad types to help you find out which is right for you. We’ll also look at various campaign structures and keyword strategies, your bidding options, and some advanced tactics for optimization.
Instacart advertising is the perfect way to extend your brand’s presence into the digital world of e-grocery shopping.
Instacart is designed to give shoppers what they want, when they want it. They can do so because they leverage a huge number of brick-and-mortar retailers. Instacart’s ability to help advertisers maximize brand reach and consumer awareness makes it a suitable option for brands of all sizes.
With brands reporting very good ROAS, the platform’s advertising is destined to become even more crowded than it already is. Research shows that more than 45,000 stores participate on Instacart.
Retailers can create “Featured Product ads” through Instacart’s grocery pick-up and delivery services. The purpose of the ads is to reach prospective buyers on Instacart who are using specific keywords while browsing. Featured Product ads are typically displayed in areas of high visibility across the platform and can appear in two different categories: Search or Non-Search Ads.
These ads appear in a shopper’s search results and are a powerful tool to help amplify your brand’s visibility. In fact, 40% of all clicks on search results are on the top 1 to 3 products that populate a results page.
Unlike Feature Ads, Non-Search Ads pop up in various places on Instacart and are not restricted to specific search keywords. They commonly appear in one of four placements including the home page, your items, item details, or department.
Keywords and products on Instacart can be grouped in two different ways:
As its name indicates, this type of campaign structuring refers to grouping products together that fall into a particular price range.
These are products that share more than 70% of particular keywords.
Understanding the differences that keywords can make will help you create effective Instacart ad campaigns.
These keywords present a large opportunity for Instacart growth. Because Instacart has a low volume of advertisers, Cost Per Clicks will be lower than what you would get on Amazon. If shoppers purchase your item using these keywords, it’s likely that they will make repeat purchases via your item section.
Typically, branded keywords have the highest ROAS and lowest CPC. However, when using branded keywords, it's wise to allocate only a small portion of your budget to them because you want to ensure that your ad spend remains incremental.
“Conquesting” or bidding and winning your competitors' keywords can be a tricky strategy. While your CPC for these keywords is always more than that for category keywords, it can be ineffective and costly, and can also result in low conversion rates. Competitor keywords are best suited for items that are frequently purchased since the lifetime value of a shopper can help offset the initial high cost of the bid.
With the platform’s second-price auctioning system, advertisers' Cost Per Click (CPC) will be $0.01 more than the next highest bidder whenever they win an auction.
Specific keywords you want to target can be used when launching your campaign. To make sure you secure the most efficient bid price, you can make always-on optimizations yourself or by using a third-party service.
These bids can be used for non-keyword traffic or by Instacart for new keywords that were harvested automatically.
Instacart has revolutionized the way consumers buy groceries and it’s clear they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. To ensure your campaigns are successful, consider using these suggested tactics:
It’s crucial to ensure that your product inventory and your UPCs are accurate. Plan carefully and make sure products are in stock—Instacart will not promote products that are not.
When setting up your campaigns, apply paid search best practices. Dividing your campaigns by sub-brand or product category will make them easier to manage and optimize. You can also take it one step further and separate them by product type at the Ad Group level.
Instacart’s ad teams provide outstanding customer service to committed customers, with your brand’s success in mind. By joining forces, you can improve your Instacart presence. You can also utilize the platform’s reporting features and deep insights to help you make more informed buying decisions.
Use keywords that are relevant to your campaign and pay close attention to default keywords that Instacart may have added automatically. Keywords that are indirectly related do not perform as well.
Consistent monitoring is key to a successful campaign. When the campaign begins, gather as much data as you can and prioritize your budget. Run tests so you can see what’s working and what’s not so you can reallocate your budget quickly.
With advanced automated bidding solutions and our powerful reporting, MarinOne can optimize your Instacart ads. Our platform works seamlessly with Instacart’s platform so your bidding strategies perform at their peak on each retail marketplace. Read about this in more detail here.
Want to significantly improve the performance of your campaigns? We’ve got you covered. We make it easy by building out campaigns for you automatically, alerting you when there are changes in performance, and proactively identifying opportunities for you so you can achieve top results. To get started, simply connect your Instacart account.
Don't have an Instacart account or want to learn more about how we can help? Reach out to us at info@marinsoftware.com and one of our account representatives will be in touch.
There's no reason to put all your social media advertising eggs in one basket when there’s a whole world of low competition and high ROI advertising opportunities out there. If you’re ready to branch out, consider giving Snapchat a chance.
With a recent resurgence in popularity, the platform is experiencing a new fleet of users among teens and young adults. As of the second quarter of 2022, the app had 347 million daily active users worldwide, which is an 18% increase from the previous year.
Snapchat reaches 75% of Gen Z. If you’re trying to reach a younger demographic, Snap ads might just be your secret weapon. Many of today’s teens even use Snapchat over their phone’s native messaging platform for chatting with friends. While these users might also use social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, the fact that many advertisers sleep on Snapchat means less competition for your ads.
Take the airline-booking app Hopper, for example. A recent case study from Snapchat’s inspiration page revealed some pretty impressive stats:
Now that we’ve piqued your interest, let's find out what Snapchat ads are all about. Snapchat started as an app used solely for sharing vanishing images. Soon after, they added the ability to send direct messages and send short videos. They led the pack when it came to the Stories concept, lenses, and geofilters.
Nowadays, they’ve expanded to include a Discover Page filled with news, articles, and stories by featured creators. That Discover Page is your ticket to advertising success. It houses Stories at the top. Scroll down a bit to see the featured content.
Snapchat ads are similar to the ads you’re used to on popular advertising platforms like Facebook and Instagram. They appear between Stories, on the Discover Page, and in the form of branded lenses and geofilters.
Below are all the Snap ads formats you can use to reach your target audience:
This is Snapchat’s basic ad format. It displays a single image or video full screen and can be used for most any brand objective. Videos can be up to three minutes long, but the platform recommends keeping them between 3 and 5 seconds for the best results. Snapchat’s images and videos are lumped together in the same category. This full-screen ad format enables users to take action by swiping up.
These ads take up the entire screen, meaning they don’t have to compete for the viewer’s attention with other content. They appear between content in the following sections: User Stories, Publishers, Creators, and Our Stories.
Here are a few use cases:
Perfect for ecommerce brands, Snapchat’s Collection ads allow you to showcase a series of products. If a Snapchatter is interested, these ads include four different tappable tiles that make it easy for them to buy and browse.
Create an On-Demand geofilter for users visiting your location of choice. This is a good option for brand awareness campaigns. There are a few different types of geofilters:
Filters can be made smart to serve ads with real-time updates based on the user's location, name, time, etc.
Snapchat really paved the way for TikTok and Instagram filters. I mean, how could we forget the OG puppy ears? Snapchat’s lenses are its AR filters.
Lenses give Snapchat advertising a creative edge. Using these, advertisers can encourage viewers to participate in memorable interactive augmented reality experiences. With the platform’s Lens Web Builder, marketers can select from hundreds of animations, 3D objects, and effects to build a branded AR lens to connect with audiences in an engaging way.
Face lenses manipulate the user's facial features to make them appear different in some way or another. They can be used to transform users into a character relevant to your brand or as a way for users to try on your products without leaving the Snapchat app.
World lenses appear on the outward-facing camera (aka the back camera). They detect the user’s environment and allow users to interact with 3D objects overlaid on their world. These filters are also an effective method of showcasing products.
Branded filters allow brands to advertise inside user interactions. Most of the other ad types offered by the platform live on the Stories/Discover Page. Branded filters show up when a user goes to send a Snap to a friend. Filters are, by far, one of the most fun things about the social media app because they can be applied to photos and videos as an extra, entertaining add-on. Brands can also develop their own unique filters for users to apply. Creating these filters is a great way to build brand awareness among users who might not have clicked your ad on the Discover Page.
Story ads, part of Snapchat’s Discover feed, help you reach your target audience and drive brand awareness with a branded tile. Snapchat story ads are a series of images or videos that appear in between user stories or in the Discover Feed. They can display a collection of between 1 and 20 images or videos. These are pretty effective considering many Snapchat users watch their entire Story feed multiple times a day.
You can also advertise an article via the article ad format. It will pop up in the Discover section amongst other featured Stories and Articles.
Display a series of products with this shoppable ad format. These catalog ads can display as collection ads, single image/video ads, or story ads. They allow users to purchase without leaving the Snapchat app.
Commercial ads are non-skippable 6-second video ads. The actual video can last up to 3 minutes, but the ad is only non-skippable for the first 6 seconds. They appear within curated content and for better or worse, Snapchatters can’t skip them.
Marketers who are active users of Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram may already know that running dynamic ads is a great way to promote your brand. However, unlike other social media platforms, the Snapchat dynamic ads are only sent to users who’ve previously interacted with a brand. Offered in two formats — single image and collection — these dynamic ads are designed from pre-set templates and from your product catalog, eliminating the need to create them manually each time.
Now that you understand the basics of Snapchat ads, it's time to get to snapping. Snapchat's ads manager has a pretty nice suite of analytics where you can find what segments interact with your ads (including segments you didn't choose to include in your campaign). This is super helpful when it comes to improving your campaign relevance and reducing your advertising costs.
Paired with MarinOne's Snapchat integration, you can see all your advertising campaigns in one place, making it easier to identify budget by channel, successful products, and successful audiences that can be tested across various platforms. Speak to one of our marketing experts for a free consultation to get started with am omnichannel advertising strategy, featuring Snapchat.
There's nothing worse than feeling like you're wasting perfectly good product in storage facilities because certain items in your inventory just don't seem to be selling. This is frustrating both for operations and marketing teams. Operations teams are facing supply chain issues, shipping headaches, storage fees, and more while they watch waning product take precious warehouse space that best selling items could occupy.
Meanwhile the marketing team is pouring money into ads, thinking that more exposure will lead to more sales, while certain items cannot seem to get out the door quickly enough. Sometimes, no matter how many times you tweak a campaign, the results just aren't there. Too many companies suffer from the "left hand not speaking to the right" in regard to marketing and operational teams. If this sounds familiar, it might be time to take a closer look at your inventory management strategy and realign the effectiveness between operations and marketing.
As Julie Durante, the Director of Inbound at Impulse Creative, said, “Operations must serve the customers that marketing helps attract. If marketing and ops aren’t in alignment, no one will be successful.”
If your operations and marketing teams work side-by-side, you'll see great results. Making sure operations are aligned with what marketing is doing ensures a smooth workflow and you'll end up with more leads and revenue because of this close collaboration. Entering into a mutual agreement means you can share ideas, improve efficiency, and create the right environment for company growth. Here's a quick overview of the advantages of this approach.
By reducing your exposure to products that aren’t moving, you can save money on advertising and inventory costs. By ordering just enough to meet consumer demand— no more and no less—you can avoid major losses.
When an effective management strategy isn’t in place, you can tie up your money by purchasing large quantities of inventory all at once. With careful management, this can be avoided, resulting in improved cash flow that can be spent elsewhere when needed, like special marketing initiatives.
When you streamline processes, it impacts the rest of your business by increasing revenue growth and leading to more consistent profitability.
Since you now have insight into exactly how much product you have, it makes it easier to determine the right products for upselling, cross-promotion, and bundling. An inventory that is well organized and well documented will also help save staff time and prevent errors, leading to tight shipping schedules and a greater overall customer experience, which is an important part of reputation management for the marketing team as well. If your inventory is properly organized, the rest of your supply chain will fall right into place.
Obviously creating the kind of multi-team synergy we're describing takes time and effort. That’s why it's important to find the right balance between having autonomy amongst each team and finding the most opportune moments for both teams to work together.
Poor operational oversight and control can slow down fulfillment, and make errors more frequent. Some of the tactics we've mentioned, like engaging an inventory management tool, or reorganizing documentation processes, will make things much easier.
As with most things in business, communication is key. Constant, transparent communication between the marketing team and operations team is a vital part of achieving success. The idea is to encourage the free flow of information. Promote collaboration by giving everyone a chance to share their ideas and knowledge. Make sure that people can easily talk to one another in person or through conference tools, and help break barriers between departments.
Great teams work to understand the full range of what work is taking place and who owns what pieces of the puzzle. Who will take charge and make sure your teams function as well as they should? The answer lies in the question of ownership, not control. Establish early on the areas where one team will have to dictate the actions of another and vice versa, based on the greater good and big picture objectives of the company.
If a shipping promotion marketing wants to run will ultimately cost the company too much, operations may have a veto in that area. But if a product bundle idea could potentially bring in a significant amount of additional revenue and it doesn’t add too much time in terms of labor or packaging, marketing may have the final vote in that scenario.
At the end of the day, everyone is on the same team of reducing costs and increasing revenue for the company at large. Keep that singular focus in mind, have a spirit of teamwork from the top-down, and every situation will play out as smoothly as possible.
Inventory-based spend management is a way of making marketing and advertising budgeting decisions based on the product inventory you have available.
By tracking and forecasting inventory levels and targeting your campaigns more specifically to the products you have in stock, you can increase your chances of making a sale. Surprisingly, 43% of small businesses don’t track their inventory—and 21% of companies overall say that they don’t have proper inventory management in place. Starting with a basic understanding of where things are now is paramount in order for all parties to move forward. To make a strategic sales approach based on inventory management successful you must get on top of existing inventory, the current marketing plan, and identify where those two componencts do not align in the big picture.
In this case, unlike other marketing tactics, the operations team takes the first step. Inventory-based spend management starts with a forecast and analysis of your product inventory. You'll need to take a close look at what products you have in stock, the expected rate of turnover, and any supply problems on the horizon. Without this kind of information, the "tail will be wagging the dog" as marketing continues to guess on which products to promote and feature.
Once that data is all in one place, you can start to make decisions about where to allocate your marketing budget both in the short-term and the long-term. If there’s a problem with supply for one item or category, you can shift your marketing strategy to other products.
Thankfully, all of this can be done by implementing inventory software. With a good system in place, you can automate your strategy, optimize cash flow, successfully manage and control orders, oversee warehouses, reduce handling costs, and much more.
There are predefined techniques to help you optimize inventory-based spend management. By choosing the techniques that work best for your business, you can maximize your budget and optimize your spend strategy. Here’s a look at just a few of them.
The goal of JIT is to have the minimum amount of inventory on hand to meet demand. That means you bring in inventory on an as-needed basis, rather than buying in large quantities.
With this technique, goods are split into three categories, A, B, and C. Category A products represent your most valued goods—those that make a huge impact on your overall profit; Category B reflects products that fall somewhere in the middle of your most valued products and your least valued ones; Category C includes small transaction items that are critical to overall profit but don’t individually matter too much.
Demand forecasting focuses on historical sales data to forecast customer demand. Companies use this type of forecasting as a rough estimate of the amount of goods they expect consumers to purchase in the future.
Inventory-based spend management is crucial if you want to ensure your customers get the goods they want when they want them, but can also be a key tool to help you properly manage your marketing budget.
Inventory-based spend management is a great way to save money and get the most out of your marketing budget. By targeting your campaigns specifically to products you have in stock at a surplus and those that generate the best profits, you can avoid over-ordering products that aren't selling well and bounce back as a business when inventory levels are off. This approach can also help you make more sales by increasing your marketing focus on products that are in stock.
Whether you’ve got a solid marketing and operations strategy in place already, or you’re looking to develop one, MarinOne can get you headed in the right direction.
MarinOne helps your marketing team see all of your ad spend data in one place, so you can make more informed decisions about where to allocate your marketing budget instead of watching your dollars go to waste.
Paired with a great inventory management tool, you'll have effective multi-team visibility for both operations and marketing needs. Consult with one of our advertising experts to learn how you can successfully manage and optimize spend.
Apple Search Ads is a powerful acquisition tool for app marketing that has been around for several years. It’s a proven method that connects advertisers with a relevant target audience to increase conversions. Using Apple Search Ads, app developers can drastically improve their visibility in the App store, thereby gaining an edge over competitors. And with two different solutions offered—basic and advanced—advertisers can implement either simple or complex campaigns, depending on their organization’s goals.
While Apple Search Ads are a gateway for advertisers to convert more users, users are hyper-aware that companies are trying to glean as much information as they can to track them. Consequently, privacy settings in Apple’s mobile ecosystem are growing ever-more stringent. More and more users are tapping into Limit Ad Tracking (LAT), a simple but sophisticated feature that can be enabled on their mobile devices to prevent data collection by apps and to help maintain privacy rights. Limit Ad Tracking disrupted the advertising space simply by providing users the option to safeguard their personal data.
iPhone devices now make up approximately 45% of the US smartphone market and users are turning on Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) to feel safer. This means advertisers face new challenges as they launch their App Store search ads to connect with iOS users.
Share of Apple iPhone users in the U.S. from 2014 to 2021
Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) is a feature on Apple’s mobile OS that gives users a choice to opt out of having an ID for Advertisers (IDFA) and can be turned on from a user’s Settings app. When this setting is on, networks are unable to locate an identity associated with a device, and users who seek privacy protection do not receive unwanted targeted ads.
While LAT doesn’t completely block ads, it prevents targeting users based on their behavior, and ad tech companies can’t collect as much data as they normally would if the setting is turned off. Rather, tracking is largely limited to contextual data points such as the device’s OS version, the app store subcategory, the version of the app, and so on.
LAT was the predecessor to App Tracking Transparency, or ATT. Both iterations are Apple’s way of letting users choose to decline personalized ads. Essentially, the opt-out prevents Apple Search Ads from recognizing the user as a returning customer and using their information to serve more relevant ads.
While previously referred to as the Limit ad tracking (LAT tracking) feature, Apple’s verbiage of choice is now “personalized ads”. Instead of turning on LAT tracking to prevent personalized ads, users with iOS 14+ can simply turn off the personalized ads feature.
Users who choose to guard their privacy with either version of the feature prevent advertisers from targeting them through any aspects of their Apple ID. This includes demographic and search data.
With so much riding on whether or not a user consents to personalized ads, you might be wondering if the initial ATT prompt is your only chance to acquire ATT consent. Users can turn off the “Allow Apps to Request to Track” option in their privacy settings. If they enable the requests, advertisers have one chance to request ATT permission. If the user denies the native ATT prompt, you don’t get another chance.
At this point, your only option is to provide information in your app informing users on the benefits of tracking, as well as how to adjust the settings to enable it.
As more users enable the LAT feature on their devices, advertisers are being hit with a big challenge. Many users see LAT as a privacy-preserving tool. For advertisers, however, it reduces their ability to reach their target audience. The implications for marketers are not favorable; here are some of the reasons why.
Prior to iOS 10, companies did not have to honor the user’s LAT request. Apple also previously allowed companies to use permanent device identifiers (called universal device IDs or UDIDs) for frequency capping, attribution, conversion events, estimating the number of unique users, advertising fraud detection, and debugging.
Once iOS 10 entered the picture, Apple began showing zeros in place of the user IDFA for those who selected LAT. IDFA stands for “identifier for advertisers” on Apple mobile devices. It’s like a web cookie, but for ad tracking. An IDFA notifies advertisers when an iPhone user takes a certain action on their ads or apps.
iOS 14 changed the game by only assigning IDFAs to those who explicitly opt into tracking. IDFAs let advertisers know when a user takes an action as a result of an ad. They’re also used for fraud detection. Post-iOS 14, advertisers have to use Apple’s SKANetwork (StoreKit Ad Network) to get attribution data per campaign and marketing channel without device-level data for privacy safety.
After updating to iOS 15, users receive a prompt explaining what personalized ads are, equipped with buttons for the users to turn the feature on or off. Apple’s data on their first-part advertising efforts shows that when prompted, 78% of users opt to turn off the personalized ads feature.
The same data revealed that the conversion rate between users with personalized ads on and off are practically identical. Advertisers report a 62.1% conversion rate for customers who opt in and a 62.5% conversion rate for those who opt out.
In response to this data, Apple recommends developers target users with the feature disabled as they are far greater in number. Because there are more users with the feature disabled, bidding prices for that audience are lower.
Advertisers who choose to target users based on demographic data like age or gender will not reach those who opt out of personalized ads. Those who don’t target using demographic information will automatically advertise to LAT-on users.
Even with the limitations that LAT poses, Apple search ads enable app marketers to reach their target audience on a global scale. Apple search ads are a very effective channel of advertising with very high user intent, and so the ongoing ad-blocking evolution still has advantages for mobile marketers.
Although there are many advantages to LAT, there are some obvious downsides. Without IDFA, behavioral targeting becomes impossible, leaving advertisers to depend on contextual targeting criteria. As a result of IDFA opt-in rates ranging from 4–13%, many organizations are seeking solutions that can provide accurate analytics, reporting, and attribution.
Worldwide Daily Opt-in Rates
For mobile marketers, tracking for LAT-on users is extremely limiting because a user’s data is off-limits unless they provide consent via App Tracking Transparency (ATT). Apple Search Ads ad groups with specific targeting (either age or gender-based) will be unable to reach users who have enabled LAT. Without a way to track LAT-on users, mobile marketers risk missing a quarter of the potential traffic.
As a result, by only being able to obtain install data from LAT-off users, mobile marketers suffer from data discrepancies that lead to an incomplete picture with a lower number of attributed conversions. Furthermore, turning on LAT can negatively affect the functionality of certain apps by disrupting advertisers’ ability to track revenue and other post-install metrics.
Possibly the biggest step advertisers can take to adapt as privacy preservation becomes more prevalent is to transition advertising measurement away from deterministic, user-centric models and instead use a holistic model that incorporates variations in ad spend and revenue to attribute efficiency to channel-specific ad campaigns.
Essentially, privacy preservation and ATT aren’t going anywhere. Workarounds are possible, however they are temporary. Eliminating the need to use extremely targeted ads simplifies the process of reaching target customers.
MarinOne can help your organization optimize your app campaigns to improve performance and gain efficiencies. Through MarinOne, you can drive mobile revenue as well as app installations by leveraging Apple Search Ads and Google Universal App campaigns. Learn how MarinOne’s Apple Search Ads integration supercharges already powerful Apple Search Ads campaigns.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can use cutting-edge software to reach your customers more effectively, contact us. We’ll be happy to schedule a no-strings-attached demo of our solution for you today.
There’s no denying the popularity of Amazon. Amazon is a major player in the world of ecommerce and one of the biggest online marketplaces. With over 300 million customers worldwide, 2.3 billion sellers on the platform, and over 100 new advertisers daily, competition is fierce. Countless brands battle for shoppers around the clock. In the race to be successful sellers, advertisers are aiming to win first place—or at least the best position when it comes to getting their products seen. The trick? Amazon bidding, with a combination of effective strategies to increase sales that will put you on top and set you apart from your biggest competitors.
Amazon bidding is an auction-based system that allows sellers to place bids for keywords or products with the goal of showing their ads to potential buyers. When a shopper clicks on their ads, an advertiser pays for the bid. This is known as cost-per-click (CPC) advertising.
Amazon has access to a vast amount of data that helps them calculate the probability of a shopper clicking your ad and converting.
Amazon reduces bids by up to 100% if a click is unlikely to result in a sale and is less likely to convert. This option is automatically applied by default to all existing campaigns.
When to use it: This is a good option for a profit-driven strategy. Dynamic bids help you preserve ad spend for conversions that are unlikely and help to ensure that you don’t overspend on advertising.
For first-page search result placement, Amazon raises bids by up to 100% if a click is more likely to convert. It increases bids by 50% for all other placements, and will reduce a bid by up to 100% if a click is less likely to convert.
When to use it: This option is recommended if bids happen to be highly variable in your market because up and down dynamic bids are more flexible. Up and down are perfect for existing campaigns that are well-optimized.
Amazon will not dynamically adjust a bid based on the likelihood of a conversion.
When to use it: Fixed bids are great for an impression strategy and are ideal for raising brand awareness. Using this strategy, however, will most likely cause you to overpay for a good amount of your clicks. Why? With fixed bids, Amazon applies your bid to every single placement—regardless of the likelihood of conversion. The silver lining is that they allow you to exercise complete control of your sponsored ad campaign budget.
To calculate the optimal bid, use the formula below.
Bid = Max. CPC = (Ad Sales / Ad Orders) x (Ad Orders / Ad Clicks) x (Ad Spend / Ad Sales)
Bid = Max. CPC = (Ad Sales / Ad Clicks) x (Ad Spend / Ad Sales)
While these formulas are there to help you with the Amazon bidding process, the goal is to maximize your profit while simultaneously decreasing your spend.
Keywords influence the chance of conversion and the amount you need to bid. They are key to determining the search results that your campaign will target. To identify the most profitable and relevant keywords, consider using an Amazon keyword tool or reverse ASIN search.
If your listing is impressive, attractive, and enticing enough to draw a potential customer’s attention, a click is more likely to result in a conversion. Make sure to use clear and informative descriptions, include high-resolution photos, and improve your Amazon feedback rating.
Shoppers like it when their Amazon products arrive as quickly as possible. There’s no doubt that Amazon’s same-day or next-day deliveries are a huge appeal for customers —especially when there is no extra charge for it. In fact, 83% of shoppers favor free delivery so much so that more than half (54%) of them will abandon their carts if they have to pay a delivery fee. Take part in Amazon’s fast shipping program by getting the blue Prime badge or by qualifying for Amazon Prime via Seller Fulfilled Prime or FBA.
Determine the outcome you’re trying to achieve in order to decide which bidding method is best for your campaign. Develop a strategy so you commit to your goals by selecting the bid that’s most appropriate.
Amazon bidding is a big determinant in the success or failure of your Amazon campaign advertising efforts. Regardless of how much target-marketing research you conduct, it’s still a challenge to truly know what shoppers want and why. Amazon’s algorithm does a good job of analyzing and predicting success, so with a detailed understanding of how Amazon bidding works, you can still implement winning campaigns to ultimately achieve your business goals.
Getting your products seen among millions of other Amazon sellers is no easy feat.
If you're not yet up to speed with advertising on Amazon, MarinOne can help. Our automated bidding tool can be used to manage bids for Amazon Advertising accounts directly within the MarinOne platform.
MarinOne also manages keyword-level and target-level calculated bids for Amazon Advertising accounts:
To learn more about other Amazon Advertising management functionality in MarinOne, check out our Amazon Advertising article.
If you're new to MarinOne's automated bidding, learn more about our automated bidding tool from our Bid Strategy article.
Interested in learning more? Try a free trial today.
Getting Started with Amazon Live
Visibility is the key if you are aiming to succeed as a seller on Amazon. Keeping up with platform changes and new features is a great way to stay ahead of the competition and have more visibility on Amazon for your brand. One such feature your company ought to be utilizing is Amazon Live.
Since the inception of Amazon Live in 2016, it has slowly but surely grown in status and notoriety. What initially seemed cheesy to many brands has now become a highly profitable revenue platform. As Prime Day 2022 numbers have improved year over year, being able to engage users already shopping on Amazon offers up audiences who are more likely to convert right away.
This is great news for individual influencers as well as major brands. Most of the users active on Amazon Live view shopping as being highly therapeutic or personal in some way. So with an ever-growing audience of highly-engaged active shoppers, the question arises ‘How can my brand use this too?” Here’s a playbook on how to get started.
Amazon Live is regarded as one of the most successful initiatives launched by Amazon in the form of a live streaming platform. Sellers can create videos and tutorials as a way to market new or unique products. Creators can host live streams on their Amazon Live to advertise their product to their customers and followers. The live streams come in a myriad of formats: from direct interactions between seller and shopper, to giving product demos, offering promo codes, and holding Q&A sessions, all amounting to the creator earning commission from sales produced by their streamable content.
Amazon Live has been made customer and seller friendly, as both parties can access the platform on desktop as well on mobile. There is also growth potential from a global perspective for brands, as the website and mobile app versions of Amazon Live are available across many countries.
Social media influencers have been an integral part of the entire concept behind Amazon Live. Amazon’s foray into live shopping with this QVC style shopping stream changed the influencer landscape at large as thousands of streamers have taken advantage of a new place to sell their products in an interactive way.
The Amazon Live platform also offers the Amazon Influencer Program, where individuals with an existing social media following can re-direct that following to the influencers' favorite Amazon products. Using tagged codes and links, the influencer in turn receives a sales commission for those product purchases from Amazon.
By developing a unique Amazon Storefront, influencers can choose and promote any product on the platform on this layout to generate a permanent income stream. Based on the type of product, total influencer sales, etc., the commission for influencers is set up in the range of 10% of all revenue.
Amazon Live offers the influencers a chance to showcase a products' features in real time while answering questions and engaging with shoppers, much like Facebook Live and Youtube Live. Developing content for live streams is as personal as any other content an influencer may create. If you're a content creator looking to produce a unique streaming experience on Amazon Live, don't be afraid to wear your product, use it, and flaunt it the way you want…just as you would on any other social media platform. (So long as you're within Amazon's guidelines of course.)
Keep in mind that shoppers want to see:
You can sign up for the Amazon Influencer Program in order to live stream products here. All you need to apply for the Amazon Influencer Program is your YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account information. It takes 3-5 days to get the application approved and setup your account.
Just like other forms of influencer marketing, there are several benefits to working with influencers on Amazon. For brand owners looking to use Amazon content creator relationships as part of your omnichannel marketing strategy, a few objectives you could set as part of an Amazon influencer program are:
When done correctly, influencer marketing has been shown to drive qualified traffic that will not only deliver an immediate return on investment but also provide momentum for Amazon listings. This helps increase Best Seller Rank, organic rank, and ad visibility.
Keep in mind that content creators prioritize their own brand identity and authentic voice above all else. So to have success, you must find the right partnerships that are a fit for the company and the influencer.
In a recent interview with Amazon, popular influencer Trisha Hershberger described her early experiences as a content creator, and how she was met with resistance by the industry to be herself. Many brands only wanted to collaborate with her if she changed her appearance to what they considered the "typical" gamer look.
“I was told, ‘you can't wear a dress on camera and talk about video games, no one's going to take you seriously, you have to wear a graphic T-shirt.' I was told often that I didn’t look like the gaming type,” she says.
Hershberger shared that she was adamant about her point of view despite the pushback she had received. Her reward for this fortitude came in the form of seeing audiences respond positively to her individuality. Viewers are wanting to connect with creators who are being true to themselves and their interests. By sticking to her guns and presenting the image she wanted to portray, Hershberger managed to help shape a culture of communication and openness between herself and the brands she promotes.
She believes the stalwart attitude she and other influencers have had has helped to create more diversity in online content at large. “With more diverse creators coming forward with different backgrounds and interests, there is something for everyone,” she says.
Amazon Live has the potential to be another powerful asset in the digital marketers' toolkit, just like many other platforms, tools, or features that have come before it. You've most likely already tackled Pinterest advertising, TikTok content, programmatic ads, and many other unknowns in the past…so don't be afraid to get bold here too. Amazon Live is simply another opportunity to dig deep and get creative, scaling your marketing initiatives to new heights. Some low hanging fruit for omnichannel applications we would suggest include:
While some of the execution to an Amazon Live campaign may be distinctive to other campaigns your brand is running, what will be consistent is the need for clear audience tracking, insightful data analysis, and accurate attribution. Marin Software is prepared to help you do just that with our all-in-one paid media management platform. Our tool integrates directly with Amazon Ads so you can see how a multitude of campaign types are performing all at once, against one another. It's also one of the only tools available that offers true omnichannel budgeting across nearly 30 publisher platforms, so you'll know whether to put more or less engine spend toward Amazon, Facebook, TikTok, or anywhere else your ads are running. Let our team set up the infrastructure for your team to make the best advertising decisions possible. Get a consultation from one of our digital marketing experts today.
Is your business struggling to make a digital impact despite having a fully developed and designed website? The problem could be that your website is not as dynamic as it ought to be with UX-driven software and plugins. Whether you are dispensing information or selling goods and services online, marketing automation beyond your basic CMS is necessary to bring your audience to your website the first time and keep them coming back for more.
Here are some of the best integrations you should be using for a functional website that captures your audiences' attention while giving your marketing team the transparency needed to reach those audiences ongoing.
A quick way to identify lead quality is by having customized landing pages for every type of lead coming into your sales funnel. With Instapage, you can develop unique landing pages quickly and efficiently for every client category you serve. Its compatible nature enables you to connect with other software and applications to funnel the generated leads to your CRM, and you can plug LPs into your CMS and domain without much hassle.
Instapage has also taken some of the guesswork out of landing page design; as they have provided hundreds of high-converting templates, ready for you to test. You can customize the template as you please with Instapage's drag-and-drop functionality; and with easy-to-use duplication, a/b variant, and mobile-friendly editing tools…you'll have dozens of great landing pages in no time, without ever touching raw code directly. Pricing starts at $199 per month, or you can contact their biz dev team for a custom quote, depending on the needs of your website.
There is no thorough lead generation campaign without email marketing. To enable a winning strategy, you will require an email marketing automation platform. While there are many behemoths in this space, such as Marketo and Pardot, for those just starting out…our recommendation would be MailChimp. The software is great for novices, it has a surprising number of drip funnels ready to go, and it easily integrates with dozens of other tools and platforms.
Depending on your needs and existing contact list, MailChimp offers both free and paid subscriptions to their service. You can send emails to up to 2000 contacts for free; beyond that point, there is a sliding scale of premium plans ranging between $9.99 for 500 contacts and $299 for 10,000 contacts. Like so many others, they also offer enterprise account quotes through one of their sales consultants.
If you want to keep potential customers entering your website engaged, incorporate conversational marketing into your website experience. Intercom is an excellent tool for ensuring current and potential clients get a live and personal touch. The application is fast, and you can set it to ensure customers are directed to the right pages for their needs, with various triggers based on multiple choice responses or keywords. It can also track return customers and create a more natural experience for them with different messaging. When needed, the site visitor will be routed to a live individual who can answer their questions in real-time as well. The monthly rate for Intercom varies quite a bit depending on which of their packages your business needs, but to test out the chat functionality only you can get started with just $74 per month.
For knowledge base software and FAQ directories, there is no better option than Helpjuice. This highly-rated software helps you organize help articles, user tutorials, and more into categorized, functional workspaces for your customers. If the support section of your website is taking over the marketing content that actually leads to new business, you need to make a shift in the balance of power and make that help-related content digestible and simple to navigate. Helpjuice can make that possible. Their packaging starts at $120 per month for 4 users, and goes up to $499 per month for unlimited users.
While we may be a bit biased on this one, it is undeniable that Marin has been an industry leader in cross-channel advertising management and data analysis for almost two decades, which is about three times longer than most of our competitors have even been in business. As one of the pioneers of the modern digital data space, we have one of the best analytics tools available for people seeking comprehensive omnichannel summaries. The product development team at Marin is constantly re-designing and elevating the software to focus on what’s essential, so your team can be focused on innovation, not number crunching. We work hard to simplify data into insights while simultaneously hiring the best marketing consultants in the world who can help you turn those insights into action. Pricing is customizable according to your unique business needs.
This is the go-to web analysis tool to understand your user behavior, source, demographics, etc. Google Analytics is excellent in providing user segmentation, website optimization, and key website metrics like the number of visitors and average bounce rate. It has influential audiences you can use to boost ads campaign and intelligent user tracking and privacy features. When paired with a paid media management solution like MarinOne, your ability to know who your audience is, where they're coming from, and what they want is virtually limitless.
One of the reasons businesses are turning to online operations is to increase transaction efficiency. PayPal is a great tool for this as it is almost universally accepted as one of the safest and most user-friendly digital payment platforms. Both business owners and consumers like PayPal as it is easy to use on both sides of the transaction. For brands, it seamlessly integrates with dozens of online shopping carts and e-commerce platforms. On the customer side, PayPal offers quick payment options that put the user in charge of their security preferences. This tool is safe, tested, and popular across the globe, making it a reliable choice for almost any business.
While Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce are certainly the leading powerhouses in the online checkout market, what is sometimes limiting with those platforms is how inherently tied they are to your website's CMS. Shopify and Magento are all-in-one solutions, meaning your entire site needs to build on those platforms directly. WooCommerce is a great plugin but is primarily paired with WordPress sites. So if you already have a CMS on anything besides WordPress, and you don't want to go through the trouble of rebuilding your entire site, Shift4Shop is your next best option. They are considered a top choice due to the tools' ability to transact and retain data on the customer, invoices, and other financial transactions. Notable benefits include a smooth UX for the shopper, order transparency for administrators, and ease of integration with other business software applications.
If you are hoping to enhance communication and collaboration among your employees, Bitrix24 is an excellent choice. The tool has top-notch data management and cloud storage abilities. Automating marketing and sales processes boosts teamwork, thus enhancing customer care through service delivery.
Whether you want a digital assistant to handle your project management or want to just catch up on the day's tasks, this is a great tool for overseeing productivity and task management. All the features you need to start your own project are available on Bitrix24 in the free version. The paid plan, starting at $43 per month for 5 users, includes advanced functionalities and customization for bigger companies with bigger needs While Bitrix24 comes with many features, here are some of the best task management tools for increased productivity.
A relationship-focused CRM for your entire team, it is best known for customer prospecting. With Nimble, you enjoy reduced data storage costs, low business risks, optimized business performance, and easy integration with other software apps. Besides, Nimble can “scale up” and “scale out,” thus enhancing performance capacity. It's easy to use; and it works in your Outlook/Gmail inbox, social, web. You can tap into every part of your contact's interaction history, so you don't miss anything the team does when you step away. You can also make comments on a record, update deal status, and keep an eye on social handles. Nimble starts at $19 per month per user, and it's value is well worth the cost.
Even if you’re not a professional web developer, many CMS tools combined with the right plugins, have made it easy enough to get the results you want. No matter what you're looking for in terms of business goals, it's important to have a website that attracts your audience. Refer back to this list as you refine and revise your site to keep testing new integrations and determining what would be most compatible with your particular setup.
Once your business starts to get solid footing with a fully optimized site, our Marin team of paid media experts are ready to help you launch things to the next level with digital advertising.
Reach out when you’re ready to get started promoting your now streamlined and well-functioning website.
Native advertising is the use of paid advertisements to make your content look more attractive by blending in with their organic surroundings, somewhat veiling the fact that a native advertisement is indeed paid placement.
You may find native ads in various social media platforms as they are recommended on the feed, videos, images, etc. For example, posting an informative article to Facebook instead of promoting a traditional banner ad makes the article an effortless part of the editorial flow of the page.
Native ad placements can be found anywhere online, not just on social platforms, as millions of websites sell ad space on their site pages through networks like Outbrain, Basis, and Yahoo Gemini.
Now that you have a bit of an idea of what native advertising is, you are probably asking yourself where it falls in importance within the advertising ecosphere. Surely most consumers know an ad when they see one, so is the guise of “blending things in” even helpful anymore?
For the modern consumer, native advertising simply offers users the opportunity to connect in a format that the user chooses themselves. While studies suggest that most people searching online know they are being advertised to almost constantly, many consumers still take kindly to the effort of making content relevant and unobtrusive. By personalizing content as much as possible, and letting your ads be an organic part of a users’ online experience, your brand will have a higher likelihood of building a favorable reputation amongst new potential customers.
Additionally, you can expect to produce a good amount of brand lift through high engagement rates, click through rates (CTR) and pageviews with a well-produced native ad strategy.
One of the great things about native advertising is that there are several different types, allowing ample opportunity to take the same piece of content and produce multiple variants for promotional distribution. Most native ads are designed to help keep the general viewer engaged in a piece of content they are reading. This is one of the most common types of marketing tactics that can be used by new businesses to expand their products and amplify brand awareness.
The first and the most common native ad type is the content recommendation. These are simply ads that appear as recommended articles and blogs. One thing about them is that they appear in the middle or at the end of an article rather than being on top.
Another type of native advertisement is the search and promoted listings which essentially appear at the top of an article so that viewers can engage in the ad. Besides appearing on top, they may also appear on the side page of the article so that as viewers scroll down the article or blog, they can watch the ad. This is a great way to attract more viewers to any website.
The third type of native advertising is the in-feed advertisement which are ads that appear as social media posts as you scroll through social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and even Twitter. Since so many people use Instagram and other social media daily, these advertising types prove to be extremely useful for improving your overall engagement or top of funnel visibility.
Since native advertising has been around for a bit longer than other digital marketing methods, like video ads or social commerce, it’s easy to be enamored with newer, shinier pennies. But do not underestimate the value that this advertising method can bring to your holistic marketing plan. Native ads continue to be a relevant tactic for many businesses as they build brand trust and authority with users, due to their inconspicuous nature. The success of these ads depend on the quality of their content. If the content is memorable and gripping, it is more likely to engage an audience and bring new people into your customer funnel.
You should be following best practices to get the most out of a native ad strategy. That includes:
Brands are shifting their strategies for more effective native ads; instead of running ineffectual campaigns, they're prioritizing storytelling and putting content in the right context.
This includes tangible assets such as advertising on premium publishers with a clear brand message to tell. Many brands already apply this methodology other channels such as PR and SEO, and the same can absolutely be done with a well thought out native advertising roadmap. Be in control of you brand's story.
Meet with a MarinOne marketer today on how we can tie all of your advertising campaigns together in one place…including your native advertising.
Creating profitable banner ads is a non-negotiable skill in the marketing world. Like understanding Twitter and knowing your way around Google Analytics, it's just something you need to know. But mastering banner ads is no walk in the park.
Here are eye-opening stats to consider:
It’s hard to get banner ads right. When done well, not only are they an effective way to generate leads and sales—but they can also be used to increase brand awareness and drive website traffic.
We'll take a look at what banner ads are, why you need to use them—and how to make them profitable. Keep reading to learn more.
A banner ad is a digital marketing placement that promotes a product, service, or brand using a rectangular image, GIF, or video. Banner ads are typically displayed on websites, social media platforms, and email newsletters.
Banner ads come in a variety of different sizes, and each size has its own unique benefits and purpose. Here are the most common banner ad sizes:
Banner ads typically work on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-mille (CPM) basis. This means that you'll pay every time someone clicks on your ad (CPC), or every time your ad is displayed 1000 times (CPM).
When creating a banner ad, you'll need to consider the following:
Once you've considered all of these factors, you'll be ready to create your banner ad.
Here are some tips to follow:
When it comes to banner ads, less is more. You only have a split second to capture someone's attention, so don't try to cram too much information into your ad.
Stick to one message and make sure it's clear. CTAs surrounded by negative space see an increase in conversion rate of 232% compared to those surrounded by clutter—so remember: give your buttons room to breathe!
People are visual creatures, and that's especially true when it comes to banner ads. Use high-quality images and videos that are relevant to your product or service. And make sure your visuals are attention-grabbing and visually appealing.
Pixellated pics, busy backgrounds, and generic stock photos are all big no-nos if you want your banner ad to stand out and look trustworthy. To add an extra layer of visual interest, consider using a high-quality black background to make your design pop. This can help your images and text stand out and grab the attention of potential customers.
In addition to choosing a good quality image, make sure your banner ad carries the blueprint of your brand: your colors, fonts, and logo should all be present and correct. Consistency is key to building trust with your audience—if they see a banner ad that looks like it belongs to your company, they're much more likely to click on it.
More than half of all web traffic is coming from mobile devices—so you can't afford to ignore this crucial step.
Make sure your banner ad is designed with a mobile-first approach. This means creating an ad that looks good and is easy to navigate on a mobile device. Use a large, legible font and big, bold CTAs. And keep the overall design of your ad simple and uncluttered.
The only way to know for sure whether your banner ad is effective is to test it. Try out different versions of your ad and see what works best. Test different images, copy, CTAs, and layouts. Keep track of your results and continue tweaking your ad until it's as effective as possible. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to testing.
When it comes to testing your banner ad, there are a few things to keep in mind:
The display network you choose should have all the info you need on which sites your ad will appear. Make sure you read it!
Banner ads perform best when they're:
It's unlikely you'll have a say over where your ad appears on the page, but you can target specific types of websites that align well with your brand.
Your banner ad copy should be short, sweet, and to the point. You only have a few seconds to get your message across, so make sure it's clear and concise. Use persuasive language that speaks to your target audience and drives them to take action.
Remember, banner ads are not the place for long-form copy. Stick to one or two sentences at most.
Influencer marketing, which includes businesses collaborating with influencers, is a powerful strategy for brands to broaden their social media reach. It's growing in popularity– over three-quarters of US marketers will employ influencer marketing in 2022. Influencer marketing initiatives are not one-size-fits-all. Much depends on your specialty, goals, and the pool of influencers in your audience. With the right strategy and approach, influencers can help any business reach its marketing objectives.
Influencer marketing is a social media marketing strategy in which companies collaborate with influencers (also called content creators) to promote a product, service, or brand. The influencer creates and distributes material about the brand or product, and the business compensates them with cash, free items, or both. Typically, businesses will supply the influencer with whatever product they will be featuring on their platform. To guarantee the influencer will post about your product, you’ll have to pay according to their sponsorship rate sheet. Reach, traffic, engagement, and conversions are the most common influencer marketing KPIs.
The first type of influencer marketing was celebrity endorsements. Social media content creators with highly engaged specialized audiences may now provide more value to marketers than superstars with large but generic followings. This is because social followers find social content producers relevant, trust their suggestions, and are committed to exhibiting their support.
Here are the stages to launching a successful influencer program for your company.
Like any effective marketing plan, the first step is to define your objectives. Defining your goals for influencer marketing can help you develop a practical approach throughout your campaign. It will also assist you in understanding the metrics you should follow to determine the effectiveness of your campaign.
Below are some good influencer marketing objectives to consider:
A successful influencer marketing strategy requires reaching the right people with the appropriate tools and influencers at the right time. Create audience personas to better understand who you're attempting to target with your campaign. Outline specifics regarding your target audience, such as:
You have to know your target audience to know which influencers they engage with. The influencer must be relevant to your target audience– otherwise, you’re throwing money down the drain.
Before implementing an influencer marketing plan, you must first grasp the guidelines. The Federal Trade Commission establishes those rules in the United States. Transparency is key here. Influencers must also be aware of sponsored content requirements, and they frequently fail to do so. Or the influencer may make the revelation of their sponsorship delicate and partly buried. The restrictions for advertising vary widely by nation, so verify them. The sponsorship must be disclosed to the audience with clarity. Social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube are simplifying this by adding features that identify a sponsored post as such.
These three factors determine influence:
The appropriate influencer for your campaign shares content about your industry and company, and their target audience must be similar to yours.
Reach is the number of individuals who could see your material through the influencer's audience base.
The influencer's potential degree of engagement with an audience that resonates with your brand is referred to as resonance.
The key to a successful collaboration with influencers is trust. Whoever you collaborate with must have your audience's confidence and respect. Without authentic content, your influencer marketing campaign is unlikely to achieve the desired marketing objectives.
The best approach to tell if a prospective influencer is trustworthy is to look at their engagement and the feedback they already receive from their followers in the form of comments, direct messages, likes, and shares. Socialblade is a great tool for doing a closer analysis of each influencer with which you are considering collaboration. To ensure that you are hiring the most trustworthy and reputable influencers, you may consider partnering with a reputable event staffing agency that specializes in influencer marketing. This could provide you with a wider pool of qualified prospects, allowing you to make an informed decision.
Your study does not end with creating a shortlist. Before signing any contracts, there are a few more steps to solidify the success of your campaign. Determine how frequently your potential influencer uploads paid material. If they share a lot of sponsored posts, their engagement rate may be lower than what you would like. 5% engagement is generally considered healthy, so keep that in mind as a general rule of thumb.
Keep the influencer's posting schedule in mind when considering the content you'll want the influencer to share. Any influencer strategic about their approach is very cautious about what promote and when. So if you ask them to share too many pieces of promotional content in a short period, the influencer will reject your offer (or their compensation expectations will increase dramatically).
Invading a potential influencer's DMs and asking for collaboration right off the bat may not be the best method to start a relationship. It can sometimes be perceived as too forward and even a bit tacky, so do your best to navigate the start of the connection with care and professionalism. Don't get me wrong: it may be effective to reach out cold, but there are other communication methods for planting seeds that lead to longer-lasting partnerships. Influencers accustomed to working with brands often list an email in their bio for this purpose. Start by engaging with the influencer’s content...Enter their direct messages after establishing an authentic interest in them as an individual and an interest in supporting their content.
A social media influencer who has worked hard to build their brand would refuse any offer that jeopardizes their integrity. So it's better to offer some rules/guidelines on what you want but leave the actual content creation process to them. Content creators know what their audiences resonate with. They can also spot what will be an immediate turnoff. Best practices are to offer talking points and guidelines that the influencer can work into their native content however they see fit.
When you begin your influencer marketing campaign, the number of likes and comments on your branded content may overwhelm you, especially if your influencer has a significant following. These are vanity metrics that don't accomplish anything for your brand. You must calculate your actual return on investment (ROI) to determine the value of your campaign.
Even though users who engage with the sponsored content might not purchase right away, they are now aware of your brand and have started their journey to becoming a customer. Getting them to follow you or visit your website opens that door.
And even if they don't follow your account, your product will come to mind when a need arises. They can revisit the influencer's post to find the link and make a purchase. That's the power of influencer marketing-- an influencer's audience trusts their recommendations. If a follower needs something, they use the influencer's recommendations to make their purchasing decisions.
After running a successful sponsorship, consider pulling the influencer's content and posting it to your own account as a paid ad. This maximizes the value and ROI of the partnership and allows you to reach segments of your target audience that are not already following the influencer, but that would still benefit from the influencer's content.
It's no secret that users on social media are scrolling through their feeds for much more extended periods. In 2022, social commerce sales in the United States are expected to reach $45.74 billion, with more than half of the nation's adults purchasing directly on the social media platform of their choice.
With such robust behavior data, brands must have an omnipresent presence across social media platforms to take advantage of these trends. Recent studies indicate that the majority of significant brands plan on increasing their social commerce investments in 2022.
Get a quick look into emerging social commerce trends for 2022 and how they can help you grow your brand's sales, marketing, and profits. Continue reading and discover key trends that have shaped social business over the past few years and what you should do in 2022.
Social commerce is a part of e-commerce and refers to consumers' shopping experience on a social network. In other words, social commerce is selling products through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Social buying is a growing trend within the US and is becoming more popular worldwide. It's estimated that social commerce will grow to $79.64 billion by 2025 in the US. Although that may be a very healthy number for the market overall, marketers still have a long way ahead of them if they want to succeed on the individual brand level.
Brands can utilize various techniques in this space to take advantage of impulse purchase decisions and consumer FOMO. The major players in social media like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have optimized the buying experience by reducing friction throughout the buyers' journey within the platform.
One of the most inherent benefits of social media marketing is how quickly it can change and adapt to new consumer trends. Text-based updates have been replaced by more visual, transient content on social media platforms in the last two decades. Companies can draw on their strengths historically to determine how they approach social commerce now. Think of it as an opportunity to present the same brand messaging that has worked before in a new medium, like taking the headline of a billboard and turning it into a PPC ad. This transition from organic social media to social commerce ought to work much in the same way.
For example, Instagram Shopping, Facebook Shops, and Pinterest Buyable Pins have all been updated in response to consumers’ want for quicker, easier purchase experiences. Snapchat is another platform taking steps to introduce social shopping trends to its 229 million users. Snapchat’s recent introduction of “lenses” allows users to read product descriptions, reviews, and specs.
Verbiage within the content (whether in video, audio, or written form) is often purchase-driven on social media now as well. Common phrases such as "swipe-up to purchase" or "click the link in the bio" make it easy for social media users to purchase the advertised items and services. Users have come to expect these captions or comments within brand messaging, as they reinforce the CTA (call to action) in another way and make the user’s most simple next step very clear.
Just like any other channel, the social shopping experience for each industry can vary quite a bit. Social commerce ads that promote athleisure clothing is very different from ads that promote electronics, for example. Take the time to do thorough competitive research for your social commerce strategy, just as you would for any other new medium. If you don't have the internal resources to do this research, you can also hire marketers who have experience in the space.
With so much content available to consume, users are unlikely to engage with or pay attention to brand-generated content. Because of this, more brands are starting to understand the value of user-generated content, live stream shopping, chatbots and influencer marketing. This content is both user-friendly and approachable–the key being that UGC is humanizing your brand and building authenticity, much like a low-key testimonial. With such a shift in traditional content engagement, these organic opportunities should not be overlooked. They will play an important supporting role in your social commerce strategy.
E-commerce purchases are affected by the interaction a shopper has with the website. Merchants who run online stores have ultimate control and can often view direct actions when all purchases are taking place on site. Social commerce diversifies that shopping experience. The benefit of course is that this can increase the amount of revenue and number of sales overall, as a step is removed from the users’ conversion journey. The downside is that you may not have as much data or control as an advertiser that you would have on your own site or e-commerce shopping cart.
Keep in mind that the objective is digital convenience whenever looking at important decisions within the social commerce space. Brands that still use outdated business models with a long buyer journey and complicated purchase models will frustrate customers. The faster and more seamless the path is to checkout, the better your chance to capture more revenue.
Another factor to consider is the fact that users' attention spans have fallen dramatically. This makes it even more critical for brands to optimize their user experience to gain more confidence and increase sales with as little work from the consumer as possible. Consider diversifying your purchase integrations to optimize this process fully. Plugins from tools like Shopify Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay, and more will yet again remove a step from users’ finishing their checkout.
It's been fascinating watching how social trends have driven innovation in social networking beyond just communicating with friends or family. Over the last several years, legacy direct-to-consumer brands (DTC) have invested billions in paid social advertising to drive new revenue. Their success caused a flood of more unique, independent brands to follow suit…which made the competition for advertising slots that much more aggressive. This led to higher costs for advertisers and increased ad fatigue for social media users. Global advertising spend on social networks was 26% higher in the third quarter of 2021 than in 2020. In 2022, Insider Intelligence forecasts that US retail and social commerce sales will rise by 24.9% to $45.74 billion. Fashion categories, such as apparel and accessories remain the largest market for social commerce. However, other lifestyle brands wanting to market electronics or home decor are also doing incredibly well with social commerce campaigns. Brands that offer new and differentiated goods are best suited to social commerce. But if the patterned growth is any indication of the value still to come for advertisers…we recommend testing it out, regardless of what kind of DTC product you’re selling.
Social commerce enables brands to develop frictionless shopping experiences and reach consumers in the most critical places. As social media continues to evolve in 2022 and beyond, brands will have more options to create social commerce experiences with potentially explosive growth. Brands with a proactive approach to moving to the next level should shift their marketing efforts and build trust with customers through social commerce implementation.
As many of us already know, on Amazon half of the work is already done if you can manage to have a quality organic listing and positive seller standing with Amazon itself. The algorithm on Amazon is a combination of organic and paid advertising, and to get the most out of Amazon in terms of sales and revenue, these two channels must be working hand-in-hand. This is far more crucial on Amazon than most other platforms, where organic and paid work can be somewhat disparate.
Recently, competitiveness amongst Amazon listings continues to escalate. Getting a quality ROI from this marketplace is not as simple as it once was. There are plenty of sellers, within the United States especially, who seem to be struggling in establishing their businesses and getting their brand the visibility they would like.
We have assembled a list of tactics that should help you get the edge over your competition in 2022 and into the coming years. A sophisticated advertising strategy stands out as the most empowering place to start. If done correctly, Amazon search ads and display ads can be a game-changer for your business.
If you are just getting started with Amazon ads, it is better if you take it slow, one day at a time. Start with a limited budget so that you can easily do trial-and-error testing to see what works for you. You are bound to face high competition in the beginning.
When you set your budget, it’s important to look at your average cost of sale (ACoS). This is the amount you spend to obtain leads which can help make sure that your budget will work with it. You need to understand how this works so that you can maintain healthy profitability.
Just like any other channel, you'll want to carefully weigh the costs of advertising and production when it comes to determining just how much you should spend on marketing. Amazon advertising is no different.
Sales tax, fees, product and overhead costs take off around 50% from your earnings. After those are accounted for, you'll only have 50% of the original budget to go around on advertising and then finally, profit.
This means that your ACoS needs to be less than 50% for your business to gain a profit. Anywhere from a 15-40% ACoS is not uncommon on Amazon advertising, so you’ll want to keep this in mind as you account for your budget on this platform.
As you identify your ACoS, your confidence as an advertiser and business owner will increase as you establish a system for healthy profitability and increasing revenue over time.
Try a web-based calculator to calculate the margin built into a product. There are many online tools for calculating ACoS as well—don’t be afraid to try these shortcuts to know for certain you are making sound financial decisions…especially if you’re just starting out in this kind of budget management.
Sponsored Display Ads are yet another unique feature introduced by Amazon for self-advertising one’s business. The primary distinction of these ads from other Amazon ads is that they don’t target keywords. Instead, they target customers by their interests and behaviors. They also compare consumers’ with similar interests or purchase histories to grow the audience segments and see if new customers might also be interested in what you're advertising.
Therefore, for all the newly established businesses or even the well-established ones, these Sponsored Ads might work as an important tool for bringing incremental traffic and brand awareness your way effortlessly. Using Sponsored Display Ad campaigns, you can feel assured that any potential customer who might have viewed a product similar to yours at another business store will be able to view your product(s) as well, making your brand more prevalent within the category segment.
Sponsored Display Ads are currently one of Amazon’s less popular campaign types due to their newness. As advertisers become more comfortable with this ad type, competitiveness will surely increase; so this is one easy way to get ahead of the competition.
Amazon DSP, or Demand-Side Platform, is where advertisers can go to programmatically buy video and ad placements. Like many other DSPs, Amazon provides the connection for programmatic ads that include placements on Amazon directly or across the web, including a network of thousands of Amazon partner websites. This gives brands a more diverse range of targeting opportunities. Use audience insights to determine what reach is available in your audience segments. Exclusions are an effective way to keep your audiences fresh: rule out past purchasers or set a 30 day purchase window…there are very few products on Amazon that would have a buying cycle longer than 30 days. If a customer was not ready to make a purchase decision in that time frame on this platform, they are not likely to make a purchase at all.
The initial 45 days of advertising on Amazon are known as the ‘honeymoon’ or ‘learning’ period. This is the time when you can best put your efforts into making the most of experimentation and learning about everything that goes on in establishing one’s business.
If you fail to make the most of this period, chances are high that even after this time, you will struggle to meet your goals in this very competitive marketplace. The first month or so is a crucial time for testing product pricing, keywords, descriptions, ad messaging, and promotions. All of these factors could greatly impact your effectiveness on Amazon, so be aggressive and don’t be afraid to test many different approaches week over week. Just be careful that your A/B testing is clean and well-documented so you know exactly what was productive and what wasn’t moving into the post-honeymoon phase.
Keywords can become a source of big problems for you when you are targeting too many terms on the ad side, keyword stuffing your description or product names, or simply taking the wrong approach in how or what you are bidding on.
To avoid these pitfalls, it is best if you do your research, evaluate similar sellers, and see how many keywords they use to promote their products. Thorough competitive analysis at the forefront will save you a lot of headache in the long run. There are many tools that can help you with this work, or it can be done manually. Either way, be specific in establishing the right competitor list to evaluate; and be thorough in your analysis of each competitor.
Once you feel comfortable with Amazon ad formats and key strategies, you may want to consider leveraging an Amazon Advertising partner. Amazon evaluates and approves key vendors to help their advertisers drive even more value from their campaigns. A partner like Marin Software can help you use machine learning and cutting-edge technology to streamline and amplify your Amazon campaigns.
Advanced analytics can deliver reports and insights within and across your Amazon campaigns and also give you a cross-publisher view if you are using other marketplaces like Instacart, Criteo, or CitrusAd. MarinOne also proactively scans your account every day to identify opportunities to grow revenue and decrease costs. It’s important to note that Amazon only holds your historical data for 90 days. A tool like MarinOne can give you access to all your previous campaigns with unlimited data retention.
It’s never a bad idea to incorporate automation into the day-to-day management of campaigns to save you time. Actions like bulk changes perform the same edits across objects and campaigns so you don’t need to do that manually. Another big time saver is SmartFeed which pulls in your inventory feed and syndicates that data to Amazon (and other publishers) to automatically pause and resume campaigns based on your inventory levels. You can also take advantage of day parting which schedules and deploys your budget during the most effective times of the day for your products.
Some Amazon partners, like Marin, also offer bid optimization to help advertisers determine the right level of spend and forecast the expected conversions, revenue, and profit based on your goals. You can also use MarinOne’s pacing tool that shows you how you are progressing over your selling period and adjusts your bids to keep you on track.
While it is a competitive market, don’t be off put or consider stepping back from Amazon advertising just yet. With thorough research, careful planning, and ongoing optimization, Amazon absolutely can produce the results you are looking for. It is unmatched in terms of customer intent, quick purchase conversions, and return on investment. It also happens to be the second largest search engine in the world; and therefore, not to be ignored.
To embrace Amazon for the good of your business, go along with its competitive pace and keep on implementing new strategies until you feel confident in your AMZ marketing chops. If you are keen to learn and implement the right techniques, you will find yourself reaching your KPI goals on Amazon in no time.
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As a business leader, staying ahead of the curve is key to success. It can also be challenging trying to keep up with all the latest changes in marketing.
To help you on your way, we've put together this comprehensive guide on display ads—complete with everything you need to know about this ever-evolving advertising format. Read on to learn more.
Display ads are a type of online advertising that use images, videos, or text to promote a product or service on websites and apps. These ads can appear in a variety of formats, including banner ads, interstitials, native ads, etc.
Display ads are an effective way to reach a wide audience with your marketing message. They can be used to raise awareness of your brand, drive traffic to your website, and generate leads and sales.
When a user visits a site with display advertising, a small piece of code called a pixel is placed on their browser. This pixel allows the ad server to identify the user and track their activity across different sites. Based on this data, the ad server will serve relevant ads to the user as they browse the web.
Display advertisers create a custom ad for a given site that includes relevant keywords about the site or offer. The ads are typically served by a third party based on the previous behavior of the user to increase relevance.
Display ads can appear in many different forms including pop-up ads, side-banner ads, image ads, and more. You've definitely spotted them while clicking around (usually in the form of an ad for a site you've just visited that keeps following you around).
Let's take a look at the most common types of display ads
Image ad: This is the most common type of display ad and usually includes a static image with some text.
Video ad: Video ads are becoming increasingly popular and can be used to grab attention and convey a message more effectively than an image alone.
Native ad: This type of ad is designed to blend in with the surrounding content on a website or app. It is often less intrusive than other types of display ads and can be more effective as a result. The CTA (call to action) associated with native ads are usually regarding some kind of longer content piece, such as “Read the article about X topic.”
Pop-up ad: Pop-up ads are those that appear in a new window or tab when you click on a website. They can be effective in getting your message across, but they're also a bit annoying for the user—so use them sparingly. Important: choose sites that deploy them in a user-friendly way, or you could end up irritating the user, appearing spammy as a brand, and losing a sale.
There are several reasons you might want to use display ads as part of your marketing strategy. Here are some of the most common benefits:
Some things to keep in mind:
Despite these challenges, display advertising can be a powerful tool for reaching your target audience and achieving your marketing goals if deployed correctly.
Before you start your campaign, it’s important to first carefully research and weigh the pros and cons of the two main buying models.
PROS:
CONS:
PROS:
CONS:
If you’re looking to quickly reach a large audience and build brand awareness, CPM may be the better option. However, if you’re looking to drive conversions and sales, CPC may be a better choice.
When deciding which model to use for your campaign, don’t forget to consider your budget. CPM can be more expensive than CPC, so if you’re working with limited funds, you may want to consider using CPC.
Once you’ve decided which model to use, you can start planning your campaign. Take note of the following best practices:
If you don't know how you're doing, you can't improve—which is why measuring your ads is non-negotiable.
When measuring the success or failure of a display ad campaign, you'll need to track the appropriate metrics. Here are some of the key metrics to have on your radar, along with tips on how to measure each one:
Clicks: This metric measures how many times users have clicked on your ad. You can track clicks by using Google Analytics or another similar tool.
Click-through rate (CTR): This metric measures the percentage of people who see your ad and click on it. To calculate CTR, divide the number of clicks by the number of impressions. For instance, if your ad has been seen 1,000 times and clicked on 10 times, your CTR would be 1%.
Cost per click (CPC): This metric measures how much you're paying for each click on your ad. To calculate CPC, divide your total advertising spend by the number of clicks.
Conversions: This metric measures how many people who click on your ad go on to take the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. You can track conversions by setting up conversion tracking in Google Analytics or another similar tool.
Cost per conversion: This metric measures how much you're paying for each conversion. To calculate cost per conversion, divide your total advertising spend by the number of conversions.
Once you've decided which metrics to track, you'll need to set up a system for tracking them. The best way to do this is by using Google Analytics or an ad management and analysis tool like MarinOne. By setting up event tracking, you can track how many people see your ad, click on it, and take the desired action.
When spending money on display ads, there are a few simple things you can do to ensure your ad dollars are being spent wisely.
There's been a lot of research into the best times to post on social media. As you can see, it varies by platform:
The most important thing to do is test your efforts and figure out what works for you. And remember to keep testing.
While it's always best to experiment with different strategies before making any major decisions, there are some criteria that your ads should meet to be considered successful. Meeting the criteria of your chosen social media platform, and using MarinOne’s ad management platform, is the best way to run a successful campaign.
MarinOne is an all-in-one ad management platform that helps marketers create, manage, and measure their display ads. It's a powerful tool that provides insights into what's working and what's not, so you can make adjustments and improve your results.
Learn more about MarinOne’s automation tools today. Get in touch and speak to one of the team.
Today's consumers are always connected and always on the go. Marketing is omnipresent and users are incredibly sensitive now to inauthentic marketing tactics. Companies wanting to make a lasting impression need to shift their focus to catering to increasingly savvy digital marketing audiences. Continually innovating and coming up with the most creative marketing ideas possible is the only way to attract and engage customers in a competitive marketplace. All of this is easier said than done. In this article, we have listed 5 of the best creative marketing ideas that you can implement in 2022.
There is a trend in the industry of designing content for smaller social platforms, such as TikTok, Snapchat, or Pinterest. Designers and marketers alike need to pay attention to the layout and functionality of these smaller platforms and design their content with them in mind. This way we can provide an optimal, user-friendly experience for a broad range of users. Users that could ultimately end up converting on the company website.
TikTok has taken social media by storm in 2021. It is now the most popular live-video app among 13 to 18-year-olds, which is a demographic few other platforms have had success reaching over recent years. Assets for tiktok design should be vertical videos that are short, snappy, and successfully hook the user within the first 5 seconds.
Pinterest and Snapchat also continue to be large driving forces in the social media platform metaverse. Pinterest design needs to contain lots of pictures for viewers to see what's being talked about in a very literal way with any given topic. As an example, you could write a piece titled "10 DIY projects with supplies from Walmart" and include pictures of all the supplies you used to make the project.
Similar to Instagram, Snapchat design is most powerful when driven heavily by influencer campaigns or user-generated content. Marketing on Snapchat is tricky because it’s different from other forms of social media, but with over 11 billion daily active users the effort to create dynamic content will be well worth it. MarinOne’s paid social optimization tool can help you make the most of all social content optimization, especially when combined with a thoughtful paid advertising plan.
We all know that video is a powerful medium that can be used to convey a message in an entertaining way, but what is rapidly changing in the video marketing space is the length of time that users will give video content the opportunity to be entertaining. A company may choose to use video marketing for a product or service release, educational assets, or even as a search engine optimization technique. A solid short-form video marketing strategy is something that should be included in every marketer’s optimization toolkit and should be considered as one of the top digital marketing strategies for 2022 and beyond.
In terms of video length, as marketers, we must “prove” that the content is indeed engaging within the first few seconds. And even more than that we must embrace short-formSnapchatTikTokhow-to editing from beginning to end--be prepared to make video content 15, 30, or 60 seconds in most cases. 2-3 minutes is acceptable in some cases, such as an explanatory video describing how a complex SaaS tool works, but be prepared to make every moment of those 3 minutes informative and visually interesting.
The only exception to this rule in the digital marketing space seems to be Youtube. With over 1.5 billion users and more than 400 hours of video uploaded every minute, YouTube has become one of the most popular and influential channels for marketers. Here is a quick guide when determining the ideal youtube video length for your content:
Social listening is the process of monitoring social media networks to find topics, trends, and insights. It's a great way for brands to find out what people are talking about them, what they are interested in, what their responses are to the brand's posts, and more. To stay relevant, content creators need to increase their social listening skills.
Social listening tools provide a central place for data related to conversations on social media networks. The key is to listen in on conversations, gather data, analyze it, and use insights gleaned from social listening to generate relevant content. While social listening used to be only available as an expensive service offered by consulting firms or expensive software systems, now many tools allow you to do this on your own. A few popular software systems in this space include Sprout Social, and Brandwatch.
Graphic design is an important element in paid advertising - a well-designed ad draws the attention of the audience to what you are trying to sell, increases clicks, and incites action from the user. While the main objective of graphic design for any medium is to convey a message or an idea through images, symbols, words, and colors, advertising graphic design takes communication through these same visuals even further. It’s common to go through many stages to create an advertisement that is highly likely to convert and become part of an evergreen performance marketing campaign.
2022 is likely to see popular design trends such as 1990’s nostalgia, anti-design, and parametric patterns. To make sure the advertisement looks attractive, vector icons are a great choice. There are plenty of free and premium vector icons that can be easily tailored to match the company's branding.
To still be effective in the competitive world of digital marketing today, graphic designers face a colossal task. They not only need to create strong visuals for websites but also graphics for a myriad of other assets like social media posts, email campaigns, and blog cards...all while maintaining a congruent user experience from channel to channel. The first stage for a designer to achieve the best possible ad is basic research like gathering textual information about the product, its history, and its target audience. A/B testing is the best practice for comparing ad creatives, and MarinOne’s display ad testing solution makes it easier than ever before. With the use of this tool’s sophisticated AI, potential ad campaign examples can be produced in mere minutes.
Marketing is no longer a one-time, short-term investment. Companies need to maintain a constant stream of marketing efforts to nurture their customers and maximize the lifetime value of their business.
The customer lifecycle is the process of interacting with a customer to satisfy their needs. It starts when a potential customer's need is just an idea and ends when they become loyal customers for your company. Connect by MarinOne has powerful data visualization and integration to get the full picture of your loyal customers’ lifecycle.
Marketing automation helps you in every step of the customer lifecycle by automating processes and providing insights about your customers’ preferences. More and more businesses are executing campaigns at scale using pre-configured workflows without requiring excessive manual input from employees. Some benefits to using marketing automation software effectively include increased efficiency in lead generation, higher sales conversions due to improved data accuracy, improved customer satisfaction by providing personalized interactions, and greater sales opportunities from targeted marketing campaigns.
What is consistent amongst all of these creative new marketing ideas is the need for authenticity within the content itself. Unique marketing strategies that include fascinating statistics, great storytelling, and beautiful design are paramount to stand out amongst all the noise. Thanks to MarinOne’s comprehensive suite of paid advertising optimization tools, staying at the forefront of innovation is now quicker, easier, and simpler.
Businesses often go to great lengths to build their brand, decide on a brand message, and craft a narrative around that brand message. This time and effort are only rewarded when that narrative is effectively communicated to a brand’s target audience. Businesses spent over $238 billion on internet advertising in 2021 and this number is projected to grow significantly in the coming years.
Targeted advertising is the best way to ensure that the brand message reaches the right customer—but how do you make sure that you are paying a fair price to reach those customers? Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising allows business leaders to spread their message far and wide but only pay when engagement is registered. Here is how you can use PPC to amplify your existing brand message online.
Pay-Per-Click marketing refers to an advertising practice where advertisers pay a fixed fee each time their ad is clicked by a visitor. This helps businesses to direct visitors to their website in a cost-effective manner. Companies typically use this method of advertising to drive visitor traffic to their website or social media page through search engines and social media share pages.
One of the major reasons to advertise on the platforms where your target audiences spend the most time is to improve brand awareness. PPC advertising on the appropriate platforms ensures that the advertising brand is always top of mind for the customer when it is time for them to make a purchase.
Search engine ads that appear on generic product searches can encourage customers to associate the advertising brand with the products that they search for, making it easier for them to remember and search for the brand the next time they wish to make a purchase.
To ensure that marketing campaigns are effective across every platform and channel, marketers must create ad copy that amplifies the brand message consistently. PPC advertising allows brands to amplify existing marketing material such as posters and infographics on social media and search engines.
Almost 60% of shoppers research a future purchase online before pulling the trigger. However, search engine results and social media pages are often saturated with marketing messages from competing brands. Successful brands can use PPC to ensure that their ad rises above their competitors’ by appearing at the top of their customers’ search results.
The popularity of PPC advertising has led to numerous brands using the strategy to make their presence known online. To rise above the crowd and reach the right audiences efficiently, brands must choose the right optimized keywords to direct customers to the appropriate ad.
Once these keywords are decided, brands must choose the right budget for their marketing efforts. Brands should consider increasing the frequency or reach of ads that serve a general audience to ensure that the ad receives the airtime that it deserves ahead of competing brands.
Ads should always be designed with the customer in mind. This is why it is important to make online ads as engaging as possible. This can be done by adding extensions to your ads. Extensions can come in many forms ranging from sitelinks to store locations and more. These extensions increase the likelihood of a customer engaging with the ad once they have read the accompanying copy or viewed the accompanying graphic.
In addition to extensions, brands should make it as easy as possible for a customer to continue engaging with the brand. Call-to-actions (CTAs) are a crucial part of this engagement. Clear CTAs allow brands to control the way customers interact with their ad by directing them to the appropriate platform or site that can help them receive a cohesive experience across marketing channels.
A common mistake that marketers tend to make when drafting ad copy is creating generic CTAs that are copied across different ads and platforms. However, customer actions can differ greatly from platform to platform. For example, customers who click on a search engine ad are more likely to visit a website that is related to their search. On the other hand, a customer who interacts with a social media ad might need more incentive to interrupt their browsing and interact with an ad.
Online advertising is a dynamic activity and businesses must be prepared to react to changing customer preferences promptly. Brands can track each online ad using a variety of engagement metrics and adjust ads that fail to generate the expected response from key customer demographics. Consistent evaluation of ad performance also allows marketers to optimize ad spend on ads that seem to resonate more with the appropriate target audiences.
MarinOne helps businesses keep track of how each PPC advertisement is performing and presents this information through an easy-to-understand graphical interface. Businesses can receive a bird’s eye view of how their ads are performing across platforms or highlight individual ads to assess their effectiveness in reaching their target audience.
If you would like to learn more about how you can use software to reach your customers more effectively, contact us. We will be happy to schedule a no-strings-attached demo of our solution for you.
As the online space becomes more competitive, brands are going to new and greater lengths to ensure they stand out ahead of the competition. One promotional route that many are choosing is display ads.
When well-executed, display advertising is an excellent way to capture your audience’s attention. Display advertising allows you to effectively convey your product and messaging. The ads are designed to entice the reader to click through and learn more.
However, some expertise is required—poorly implemented display ads can negatively impact your business. When they miss their mark, users might find them intrusive and irrelevant, and you could waste a lot of money.
But what exactly is a display ad, and how do they work? What are some good examples of display advertising? Let’s find out.
Display ads are a common form of online advertising. There are several kinds of display ads; you’re used to seeing them in emails, and they’re also common on websites and social media.
Display ads can serve multiple purposes. Some businesses use them to build awareness of new research, for example, while others will utilize them to promote the company’s products and services.
When you implement display advertising, you start by choosing the platform you want to promote yourself on, as well as the ad size and positioning.
The pricing varies depending on what you pick. You can choose several pricing models for display ads, such as cost-per-mille (CPM) and pay-per-click (PPC). When you run an advertisement of this kind, you can choose how long you want the campaign to run and select other parameters—such as the audience segments you’d like to target.
To help you create an excellent display advertising campaign of your own, let’s look at these real-life examples. Below, you’ll find eight display ads that have worked in the past. We’ll discuss why they’ve enjoyed success.
Music streaming giant Spotify has become well known for its innovative and quirky advertising. The company has run several paid online campaigns, each featuring its instantly recognizable branding.
This is a promotion for Spotify Premium. If you use the free version, you know all too well that the ads can be intrusive to the in-app experience; this ad works because it gets to the point. What they are directly and indirectly saying is, “You can wave goodbye to ads and try the full version of Spotify for 30 days, after which you probably won’t want to return to the free edition.”
What makes this ad work? It addresses a pain point that customers using the free service all have, and offers an immediate, free (for a time) solution. The text is clear and not cluttered, and the green-means-go action button stands out. Single or two-tone color schemes with vibrant tones are also very effective statistically as they tend to pop out to the user on a desktop or mobile device.
MailChimp is one of the world’s most popular email marketing tools, and its marketing strategy is a key factor.
Why does this particular ad campaign work? Well, there are several reasons. Rhyming is a powerful way to make your message stick, and each ad is equal parts funny and absurd—inviting connection through humor. Moreover, the colors are simple and appealing.
Klarna has taken the fintech world by storm, and its advertising campaigns challenge the assumption that the financial services industry is drab.
This pay-later service originated in Stockholm, Sweden—where it still has its headquarters. And in the ad you see above, it has dug deep into its Scandinavian roots. Klarna isn’t actually Swedish for “smoother shopping”, so it’s added a bit of humor for users, as you can see with the two characters that pay homage aesthetically to playful Swedish stereotypes.
The ad also works because the copy is simple—only four words in a unique font—and both the colors and textures suggest the smoothness they’re talking about.
HP is one of the largest tech companies in the world and is perhaps best known for its printers. How do you make printing seem a little more interesting? Create ads that are fun to view and read, of course.
Anyone who has had to file their own taxes knows that tax season can often be stressful. HP’s ad works because it offers a promise—that its product will make your job more straightforward.
The ad also works because the colors are simple and the printer is at the focal point of the image.
Adobe is one of the world’s biggest software companies. Adobe’s solutions primarily focus on helping creatives achieve their goals. Photographers, designers, and podcasters use several tools (e.g., Lightroom, InDesign, and Audition).
Any photographer will tell you that what they saw in real life often doesn’t look the same on camera. Editing software is useful for improving color quality and creating a unique style, as this ad shows.
The ad is successful because it sums everything up in four words; you take the picture, before bringing it to life with one of Adobe’s editing tools. The company has also used complimenting colors, making the ad more eye-catching.
Samsung is a global manufacturer of various consumer items, including smartphones and tablets. It's one of the fiercest competitors to Apple. As such, the company needs to ensure that its advertising game is on point.
Upon releasing the Galaxy S6 tablet, Samsung produced a campaign with a simple message: you can create work regardless of where you are. The ad appealed to people who might need to create quick prototypes for clients on the go, along with those either traveling or working remotely.
In addition to the messaging, the ad also works because the colors are simple – and the tablet is the main focal point for the viewer.
Huawei is a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in China. For a recent Christmas campaign, the company put together the following ad campaign.
The ad encourages people to be present with their loved ones aside, but it’s clever because you can still see the main product that Huawei is trying to sell. Moreover, the candy cane adds to the Christmas theme – as do the shades of red.
Huawei’s ad was also effective because it played on viewers’ emotions. Christmas is a time to create memories with people you care about, and the messaging reminds people about the importance of disconnecting from the virtual world now and then.
Puma is one of the world’s best-known sports clothing manufacturers. While it isn’t as big as Nike or Adidas, the company still has a huge presence and following – with several major partnerships.
Puma has created several memorable display ads in the past, but the ad above is one of the best. It uses the term “we’ve got sole” to describe the fact that puma shoes often have comfortable and sturdy soles, but also that its products have a sense of character.
Unlike some of the other ads on this list, the Puma campaign features a wider variety of colors. However, they remain pleasing to the eye and work together without looking disjointed.
Now that you’ve seen a couple of display ads in action, we can discuss the top factors that will help your own campaigns stand out.
Before you start creating copy, you must have a clear goal in mind for your display ad campaign. You can use display ads for several types of goals. Below are three to get your creative juices flowing:
Consider the action you wish readers to take, and select your words carefully to connect with your audience demographics.
Each display ad example in this article uses interesting visuals. The images are simple and tell the story with minimal complexity, making it easy for the viewer to understand what’s going on.
Color is a critical factor to convey mood and personality, so choose carefully. Warm colors like red, orange, and yellow generally convey a sense of energy and enthusiasm. Blues and purples more often connote poise, wisdom, and stability. Green, of course, makes people think of action and growth.
Your text will be the first thing that most people look at when engaging with your display ads, and you should have fonts that appeal to them visually.
Your fonts should match your branding; using something modern if you sell antiques probably won’t work. Be creative; we recommend trying at least two or three different kinds to see which ones bring more engagement.
Since you can create display ads on several platforms, place them wisely to get the highest return on your investment. Younger customers are often found on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, while more mature audiences can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Once you’ve chosen your display ad campaign’s goals and visuals, you’ll need to consider the copy itself. Below are some pointers to help you out.
When you create ad copy, it’s crucial that you understand your audience. How they speak is especially important—tone and style matter. If you’re struggling to write copy that resonates with your audience, consider outsourcing this part to someone from the same demographic.
In each of our display ad examples, the copy is short and gets to the point. People won’t read lengthy ad texts online. Long paragraphs will turn them off.
You might find it helpful to write a few versions and A/B test them to see which works best.
People love laughing, and humor is one of the best ways to connect with your target audience. Don’t be afraid to go a little left-field with your visuals and copy. The payoff is huge if you get it right. Just ensure that it feels authentic and acknowledges a common experience they’ll recognize.
What’s in it for them? At the heart of all advertising, you need to ensure that you communicate how you will solve your audience’s problem. The reader must want what you are selling, so be sure to communicate your solution clearly and immediately.
Display advertising is an excellent way to reach your target audience, and you can have a bit of fun planning your campaigns. The fight for online attention is fierce, but the rewards are big if you successfully portray yourself in the best possible light.
We hope you are inspired by some of the best display ads of 2022, and that our tips help you create the best ads possible. If you would like to improve your display advertising, MarinOne can help you identify opportunities and optimize your campaigns across Amazon DSP, Yahoo! DSP, and Criteo Marketing Solutions
If your marketing team is understaffed, they may not be up to fulfilling all of your business goals. While a small team could theoretically handle the bulk of your tasks manually, this can lead to mistakes, missed opportunities, and eventually burnout—not good for morale, your reputation, or your customers.
Marketers need to evolve with technology that allows them to keep up with the fast-changing digital marketing landscape—and the customers driving those changes.
It makes sense to benefit from automation tools that handle your campaign management and other marketing activities—this makes your job easier and means you get to provide a better service to your customers.
To help you make the most of the tech out there, here are 9 ways automation can help out a short-staffed team while achieving your marketing objectives:
Automating your marketing teams’ workflow saves time and money, allowing you to focus on the things that really matter. It’s not enough to just post for your company—competitors are vying for attention in any given area. Your accounts need content, promotions, advertising...in short, they need someone behind them constantly replying to queries and providing value across all channels. Automating this means the software can handle everything so you can focus on other business areas.
MarinOne lets you automatically adjust campaign bids using unique factors that impact your campaign performance, such as seasonality, ratings, new product launches, coverage in the media, and social media buzz so your ads are always optimized to perform well without you having to intervene.
MarinOne also automatically reviews search queries and adds keywords and negatives that meet user-specified criteria. We can track conversions associated with raw queries to provide better insight into whether keywords make sense to be added (or removed) based on their post-click success.
Keyword expansion increases your reach and improves your campaign efficiency automatically.
Increasing the frequency of messages on social channels helps to build rapport with your customers. They'll see a larger presence of your business on their social feeds and will assume you're very active—which means more trust.
Scheduling social media posts in advance used to be time-consuming. But now, automation tools can do many of the repetitive tasks for you, so it’s easier than ever to post relevant content on your social pages without needing someone there posting in real time.
Automation allows you to create a posting schedule for your social media accounts and then let the application take care of everything for you! You’ll get the best engagement when the post goes live on the platform (and there won’t be any embarrassing mistakes). The same goes for your ads: you can use automation tools, like MarinOne’s paid social ads management feature, to track, manage, and optimize your ads with the click of a button.
Take it a step further with Message Booster, which analyzes the performance and content of organic posts and automatically transforms the best ones into ads. Automating this content promotion and campaign creation can save you hours of manual work. By targeting specific audiences with Message Booster, you can reach people who are likely to purchase from you based on location, interests, and demographics that you define. And because your organic post has proven to be effective in engaging these types of customers, you can avoid using your ad spend on paid ads that may or may not interest your audience.
With bulk uploads and inline edits, you'll have greater control over your day-to-day workflow. In MarinOne, you can use CSV or batch uploads to make thousands of changes at once. The campaigns, groups, keywords, or ads will appear on your account as soon as you complete all of the steps and push to the publisher within a few hours.
Unified bulk uploads allow you to work across accounts and publishers with a single action. Meanwhile, inline editing allows you to make adjustments or corrections without returning to Excel. This means less time hopping between documents and a lower chance of discrepancies and mistakes.
Building campaigns from your product feed provides an easy way to integrate product information into campaigns for many different ad platforms at once. Everything is kept in one place, and updating product information is easy so you don't have to worry about campaign updates channel by channel.
MarinOne builds keywords and creatives from a product feed and campaign template. Get complete coverage of your product with no manual work. You can also mechanize pausing and resuming based on inventory levels.
Marketing teams are busy, and sometimes things slip through the cracks. To avoid negative ramifications caused by human error, set up preprogrammed notifications about changes to your account such as status updates, new campaigns and ad groups, and the addition of shared library items. Staying clued in to what is being done by other team members as well as natural changes happening in your advertising campaigns will help you to stay responsive, resulting in timelier analysis and action.
MarinOne's automated alerts bring changes directly to your inbox, saving the need for manual monitoring.
MarinOne Insights highlights recommendations for improved performance across your accounts. You can think of this as a continuous audit that evaluates the effectiveness of your organization’s digital marketing activity. In fact, Insights is updated every 24 hours and uses historical data to uncover opportunities to reduce wasteful spending and capitalize on volume in high-performing areas.
Insights also provides performance impact estimates for incremental spend, conversion, and revenue and examples to show you exactly what you stand to gain when implementing recommendations. So no need to worry if you don’t have staff to analyze your accounts every day!
Integrating your data into your ad management platform means you always have information at your fingertips without looking for it. Pull in data from your web analytics, mobile tracking, and CRM, and let the software take the strain.
Another benefit of integrating your software: you can more easily extract insights and create reports that incorporate all your data, not just some. This means you get better insight into your business, customers, and competitors and can use those insights to optimize your campaigns for the best performance.
With MarinOne, advertisers can also export data to Excel, Google Sheets, data warehouses and BI tools so you have information when and where you need it. .
Keeping track of your spend is a must—don't let it fall to the wayside just because you're short-staffed. Pacing charts track your spending over the month, quarter, or another period you specify and automatically adjust your bidding targets to keep you on track. MarinOne helps you plan your targets with advanced forecasting, and then you can sit back while MarinOne manages your bids to keep you on budget through the period.
If you are extremely tapped for resources and have the budget, you might consider partnering with an AdTech team that can manage and optimize your campaigns for you. This means that when you're busy or away, their team can run campaigns and optimize them for you, taking the strain off the rest of your staff. When they have questions, they can ping you with an email or DM so you can quickly provide the data needed to make informed decisions.
Click here to learn more about MarinOne’s automation tools today. Or schedule a demo with the team to see firsthand how MarinOne can keep you operating at peak performance even if you’re short-staffed.
