Executing A Low Budget Campaign

Executing a low budget campaign can be difficult in the SEM realm. You need to get immediate results with a small spend. Typically in Google Ads, the more spending you have allows you to collect more data from clicks which helps you capitalize on optimizations faster. Being able to make optimizations fast allows you to increase CTR and reach valued KPIs faster, so seeing a small budget for most is like climbing a mountain, you may face some trouble and it might be slow but you can reach the summit. One of our clients, Twin Cities Pain Clinic started running a low budget campaign with us and we were able to create results fast. Let’s talk about Twin Cities Pain Clinic and its journey to success with SalesX. 

Who is Twin Cities Pain Clinic

Twin Cities Pain Clinic was founded in 2003 with the mission to help people live their lives with less pain. With four locations in the Twin Cities area, the practice has grown into an expansive, highly-specialized pain management group, providing life-changing chronic pain care. With this expansion, they needed to update their digital campaigns to maximize spending with a low budget.

SalesX Execution

Since partnering with Twin Cities Pain Clinic, we have successfully updated tracking, restructured and changed the focus of the Google Ads campaigns, implemented new creative and proper testing, and this year, they have seen a 51% increase in leads, 8% increase in spending and a decrease of 31% in CPA. 

Tracking Restructure 

SalesX is a data focussed company. Through the use of data and 30+ years of team experience, SalesX can predict and project results to hit. However, we need the most exact data to get the best results. In doing so we decided to further the tracking on Twin Cities landing pages to be in sync with our PPC (pay per click) campaigns. By getting the tracking as close as possible to the results in Google Ads, SalesX was able to work with Twin Cities to see what leads were of caliber and which campaigns were yielding the best results. This allowed SalesX to hyper-focus on what was working at a faster rate.

Campaign Restructure

Making sure your campaigns are structured in a way for you to target a specific audience is crucial to an increase in quality score, CTR, and converting leads. SalesX prioritized the campaign structure based on the services Twin Cities Pain Clinic provides. By focusing on the specific services SalesX can narrow down keywords and ad copy to target the perfect audience for the campaign. SalesX also created separate landing pages for each service so that all the information is properly directed to the need of the potential lead and helps them feel secure with the expertise of Twin Cities Pain Clinic.

Creative Overhaul

Twin Cities Pain Clinic and SalesX collaborated heavily on creative to attract potential customers on landing pages, going through over 10 modifications of creative on landing pages in a short amount of time through a/b testing to find out which creative intrigued customers the most to sign up. This helped to increase CTR and conversion rates. SalesX also a/b tested ad copy in all campaigns relying on Twin Cities Pain Clinic’s knowledge of the field to make sure that ad copy was hitting the right points for customers to be attracted to their business. Through weekly a/b testing, we were able to find the strongest ad copy at an accelerated rate to land leads. 

Results of Executing Low Budget Campaigns

Digital media went from a media that was supplementing their other marketing efforts to one that is currently the number one lead generator. YoY, we have lowered CPA goals, stretched their budgets, and helped them get additional leads. Executing a low budget campaign can be difficult especially if you don’t know where to start. With the proper tracking, a/b testing, and optimizations you can make your low budget campaign a success too. Due to SalesX’s success with Twin Cities Pain Clinic, we have been nominated for this year's US Search Awards Best Low Budget Campaign category. SalesX is happy to help if you are struggling feel free to sign up for a free X-Audit™ to get a full Google Ads assessment and learn how we will help turn your SEM efforts into the leading marketing field for your business.

Competitor Targeting Without Search Ads In Google Ads

Competitor targeting is a well-known strategy in Google Ads. Using Keywords to target other companies’ brand names, and products is the easiest and most known way to after a competitor. However, the way quality score works, it makes targeting competitor keywords very expensive. There is more than one way to go after a competitor and it doesn’t need to be solely in the search network.

Today we are going to go over three other strategies you can use to target competitors without needing to directly use keywords.

Competitor Targeting Through Custom Audience Keywords

Custom intent and custom affinity audiences are now combined into one custom audience feature in Google Ads. This allows businesses to reach audiences more in line with the campaign’s overall goal type, which in turn helps businesses create competitor ads.

By using this strategy your video and discovery campaigns will appear to users who have search competitor terms. Since video and discovery campaigns cost less than search campaigns you will get more bang for your buck and get visibility against your competitors.

How to set it up

First, you will need to go to Tool’s & Settings, Shared Library, and Audience Manager, then create a custom audience. Then Choose the option to target “people who searched for any of these terms on Google”.

This is key to do because it means you are targeting people who search any terms on this list of terms you created. It will target people on all Google properties like YouTube. In this section, you will make a list of the competitor terms you want to add to this new custom audience. Let’s say you are a shoe company you might want to add terms like nike shoe review, nike shoes, nike flyknits, best nike shoes, nike running shoes, etc.

Now if people search the terms you selected on your ads will pop up to them and it will create awareness of you and your products or services. This method is as specific as targeting keywords in Google Search but this will still allow you to get in front of your audience while leveraging your competitor’s name, giving you a chance to sway their decision. Try testing these out on video and discovery campaigns to get in front of your competitors.

Competitor Targeting through the custom audience with competitor URLs

Did you know you can create Custom Audiences based on specific URLs? Yes, this is true it is a very clever strategy to use with Custom Affinity, which is still available today. Essentially you create a list of competitor URLs and make an audience off of the domains to advertise against. 

How to set it up

To set this up you will go through the same process as creating a custom audience based on keywords however instead of choosing “People who searched for any of these terms on Google” you choose “People with any of these interests or purchase interactions”.

Using the same example as a shoe company you will select URLs to add to the list like: nike.com, addidas.com, puma.com, and many more. This strategy is to be used for the top of the funnel potential customers. You will be able to grab potential customers based on people who travel to your competitors' websites which helps gain brand recognition for your company and get them farther down the funnel. Note that this will not grab the same exact people that enter your competitor’s website but target people similar to the people that entered the website.

Placing Ads on Competitors’ YouTube Videos

This next strategy is to directly advertise on your competitor’s YouTube videos through placement targeting. Since YouTube video advertising is cheaper than Google search you will get more bang for your buck this way. This works best if your competitors are active on YouTube and have a significant amount of views so it might not always work very effectively.

How to set it up

For this process, you will need to head to the YouTube ad placement option.

From here you can target specific YouTube videos or target a specific channel. Using the same example let's say Nike doesn’t upload a lot of videos to YouTube. However, they promote ads on the NFL channel. You can target the NFL channel to compete against their ads. The last thing to note is to make sure that your ads are running on the proper placements that you wish for so review this every now and then to remove any listings you don’t like.

Competitor targeting in Google Search Ads is a pretty well-known strategy. It helps you gain business while trying to go up against opposing companies. However, it can become incredibly pricey and consume a big amount of your budget. The three tips we went over today are great effective ways to do competitor targeting that is also cost-efficient. Try them out and see how much they help you out.

Marketing Strategy: How to Reduce Your Cost Per Click in Google Ads

With all of the changes to Google / the crazy internet advertising market over the last year, marketing is starting to come back down to reality. Creating a new marketing strategy to help capture this new uptick is important. There are many metrics you can use to see how impactful you have been, cost per click or CPC is a great place to show progress in. 

Lower Google Search CPC

Google search is where most companies put most of their money and have the largest online presence besides social media. So having the right marketing strategy to reduce your cost per click here will help you increase your budget and keep its pace throughout the month.

Keyword selection is key

In Google Ads, you can do keyword research to estimate the number of searches a month and what the average price of a keyword or the search term is. This is usually the first step in creating a marketing strategy. You want to find a mix of keywords that attract a lot of searches as well as being a fair-priced keyword.

In this example we are looking at the keyword computer, notice it on average gets 450,000 searches a month, is competitive, and averages to around $2.31 cost per click, however, if you used gaming pc you will get around 823,000 searches per month with an average CPC of $1.23. Some keywords will be higher than others, and some will convert better than others, depending on how aggressive you want to be, you should review your keywords and see what you might want to pause or ad to your account. 

Improve your Quality Score

We recently went over quality score in a blog post, and most people do not understand the value behind it. Your max CPC multiplied by your quality score gives you your ad rank. So let us compare two scenarios. First, you have a max CPC of $2.00 but have a quality score of 9. If you add that together your ad rank would be an 18. The second ad has a CPC of $6.00 with a quality score of 3. This will give you the same ad rank as the first one. The reason this is important is that having high-quality scores gives small budgets and small CPC bids the advantage over lower quality scores.

To improve your quality score you should be reviewing your ads and landing pages to make sure they are as relevant as possible to the core keywords you are targeting. By doing this you can have lower CPCs than your competitors. 

Search Partner Network Tests

The last tip we have to lower CPC in Google Search is to try out the Search Partner Network. This network allows you to show on additional sites with online search features that fall under the Google umbrella. In the past, we have seen that clicks in Google’s Search Partners are cheaper and are also less competitive. If you go into your campaign settings and look under Networks you can check the box that allows you to include search partners. It is a great test to see if you can get some more bang for your buck compared to the typical Google SERP.

Lowering Google Display Ads Cost Per Click

Google Display is vastly different from Google Search. When it comes to decreasing CPC in Google Display, you typically aren’t focusing on this. The reason being is that clicks are dirt cheap compared to Google Search. However, if you want to extend your budget further by dropping your CPC here are a couple of tips. 

Exclusions

In Google Display, once your campaign is set up, you are automatically showing up everywhere on the Google Display Network, which isn’t ideal. You will want to filter out areas of the internet so that way you get quality leads. You can exclude things like location, topics, audiences, and placements which means specific websites or apps. By doing this you will decrease your wasted spending.

Double Check Your Bids

Knowing what your max bid is in your display campaigns is important. There are several factors to how much your cost per click comes out. With manual bidding, you can decrease your max bid to the desired amount you want. If you use an automated bidding strategy and are using the goal max or target strategy you can play with max CPC otherwise you won’t have control over your bids. 

Lowering Google Shopping Ads Cost Per Click

The last section we will go over is Google Shopping. This infrastructure is vastly different from Google Search and Display. To drop your CPC down in shopping you will need to take your time, it is actually similar to Google Search and Display. 

Make Your Negative Keyword List & Don’t forget Competitors

In Google Shopping you cannot pick specific keywords, so what makes a shopping campaign strong is the negative keyword list. You have to acknowledge the competition keywords typically have a higher CPC to try and prevent other companies from bidding on their brand or name. If you have big competitors that have large pockets it can be smart to put them on the negative list, or if you feel like their products will affect search results and increase your CPC make sure to add them to your negative list as well. Adding these keywords to your negative list allows you to reduce your CPC as well as compete with more generic keywords on an even playing field. 

Create a Funnel Structure

Creating a funnel structure for your Google Shopping campaigns will help you divide and conquer. Most people will split things into three sections: High Priority, Medium Priority, and Low Priority. Each one has a specific intention and helps you to maximize your CPC.

• High Priority: This section typically has lower CPC bids and consists of generic search terms. 

• Medium Priority: This section typically has fairly average CPC bids and consists of branded search terms and product types.

• Low Priority: This section typically has high CPC bids and consists of brand and product-specific search terms. They will be high CPC bids because you are protecting your brand name and your specific products from the competition, it will also be search terms that have high intent behind them. 

By having this structure you will be able to avoid high-risk CPC that might fall through the cracks and let you optimize your bids more efficiently. 

Following The Marketing Strategy

If you follow these tips you will be able to decrease your CPCs in your Google Ads account. Keep in mind that it is a process that takes some time especially since negative keyword lists take a big role in Google Display and Shopping Campaigns. With Q4 coming fast it will be smart to take your CPC into account because depending on your industry they can drastically change.

Google Released a New 3-Strike Ad Policy

Google came out with a new 3 strike ad policy on July 20th last month. This isn’t a surprise that Google added a new policy, but depending on your account it can be a pretty big hindrance. Today we will be going over this new strike policy, how to prepare for this policy and what type of accounts it will affect. Keep in mind this new policy will start taking action in September.

What’s The New Three Strike Policy

This is a new policy that is being set up for repeat offenders. Each strike that you receive will result in a different penalty. There are three specific areas that Google is choosing to place this system into.

• Enabling dishonest behavior policy

• Unapproved Pharmaceuticals or supplements

• Dangerous products or services

These three areas are pretty obvious places to start this new policy to be applied to.

Explaining the Three Strike System

As stated before there are penalties you will receive for breaching these policies. The first time your ad is disapproved of for one of these policy violations. You will get a warning, this will only take down your ads until they are changed. If you continue to make the same violation, then you will start going down the three-strike system.

First Strike

After you receive a second violation of the same policy, and were warned within the last 90 days. You will gain your first strike. This strike results in a temporary hold on your account for 3 days. So you will not be able to run any ads in your account for that time. Once your hold is finished you will be able to run normal ads, but the ads that violated the policy will still remain paused.

Second Strike

If the same policy is broken within 90 days for the third time you will get your second strike. Once a second strike is given your account will be suspended again. This suspension period is now increased to seven days. One other thing to mention is you will need to submit a form that acknowledges the correction of the ad that was at fault.

Third & Final Strike

At this point in time, you really shouldn’t be hitting your fourth ad policy violation. However, if your account is flagged again within the last 90 days of the last violation of your second strike, then it will result in your third and final strike. This last strike will make your account suspension indefinite. We don’t currently have an idea of how long the indefinite suspension will be and won’t have a clue until this policy has actually started. 

Ways to Prep For Google’s New Three Strike Ad Policy

You won’t need to start worrying about these ad policy changes until September. So let’s go over some ways to help you prepare yourself for these changes. 

Review Outstanding Disapprovals

You can get in front of this by reviewing your account for outstanding disapproval ads. To double-check everything you should also clear any disapproved content that you have rather than worrying about it later on. The reason being is that Google plans to roll out this program to other policies in the future.

Activate New Test ASAP

Another proactive approach you can take is to test out new campaigns and ad copy before September rolls around. By testing out the new ad copy beforehand you will get feedback about your ad copy before getting strikes. Before publishing Google has a review process and confirms approval or disapproval. After getting the campaign approved you can keep it on pause until the launch date.

Never Create a Backup Account Now or After a Suspension

This isn’t a workaround, but more of a recommendation. If your account gets suspended for any disapprovals of these policies. Some people have the logic that if your account is suspended then why not create a new one right? Wrong, Google has thought about this a long time ago. Google already administers account suspensions when it notices a new account is made to try and bypass strikes or suspensions.

Is Quality Score a Valid Metric in Google Ads

Quality score has always been seen as a unicorn; it is one of the hardest metrics to get consistent results in for Google Ads. With all the new automation that Google has been incorporating people are wondering if the quality score metric will be tweaked. And due to automation people have various stances if the quality score is still a valid metric.

Quality Scored Defined

Before we decide if a quality score is still valuable, Let us dive into what a quality score is and how to receive a good one. There are three pieces that create your quality score: ad relevance, ECTR, and landing page experience. 

1. Ad relevance: this is pretty straightforward. You want to make sure the ad that you display closely matches the search query. Google reviews the search query and wants to confirm that your advertisement makes sense for the query. This is considered the easiest step since you have full control over this.

2. Expected Click-Through Rate (ECTR): This portion is judged by Google to figure out how likely your ad will be clicked based on the search query and the CTR data in the account. This is something that Google is predicting so you do not have a lot of control over this section of the quality score formula.

3. Landing Page Experience: This is determined by how user-friendly and relevant your landing page is to the searcher based on the search query, ad, and website performance. For example, Google takes into consideration things like page load speed, keywords on the landing page, and relevance to the topic of the keyword. This is also something you can have control over since you can go into your website and tweak whatever you need to further help your page be more relevant to searches.  

Based on these factors Google then gives you a score between 1 and 10, 1 is the worst 10 is the best. To get an idea of where people usually grade on this scale, 4-6 is considered good, 7-10 is excellent and 1-4 needs some work.

How Quality Score Works

The reason why quality score is so important is that it helps boost your ad rank. Most people that start advertising don't know that your ad rank is your Max CPC bid x quality score. This helps the little guys compete against bigger accounts that have more money to spend. If you are being aggressive with your bids and you see that you have lost impression share due to rank metrics, then you will want to look at improving your quality score.

Keep in mind that quality score isn’t the end all be all of Google Ads. If you are running out of ideas on how to optimize your account and find that you are losing in ad rank it is definitely a good idea to look into your quality score. Just keep in mind that quality score might not be the issue and it could just be that you need a new PPC strategy. Typically if you have relevant keywords in your ad copy and landing page as well as a good loading speed you should be able to get a quality score of 5 to 7 so just focus there first.

Will Quality Score Be Going Away in 2021

Google has been making a lot of changes over the last couple of years. And they have not made a statement in regards to quality score. Since it is something that can be confusing to new marketers, and many of the changes they have been making are to help new marketers it is something many believe Google will change in the future.

2021 August Marketing Strategy

August is the tail end of summer. Sadly after next month, we will start up Autumn and the beach vibes will go away. However, we do have one more month of summer so let’s enjoy it. As a business owner or marketing strategist for a company, there are several holidays and awarenesses that you can get involved in. 

Month-Long Events in August 

There are several different events that are held throughout the month of August. You can appeal to all kinds of people in your marketing strategy by participating in some of these events, just make sure they are true to your company and its philosophy. This will allow you to build a closer connection with your audience. There are three of these events that almost any company can partake in: Family Fun, Black Business, and Back to School Month.

Family Fun Month

Family Fun Month is pretty explanatory, get out in August and enjoy some time with your loved ones. Depending on your type of business there are multiple ways to promote this. Of course, you have classic promos/coupons you can promote. If your company targets adults (more specifically parents) you can write a blog post regarding the best family-friendly places in town, or how to make the last days of summer count for your children. Or if you want to try and gain some foot traffic now that COVID restrictions are getting lightened up. You can try working with other businesses that are local to host a night of fun. Restaurants cater food, Photographers take photos, then distribute photos to the guests at a later time, and have information booths for businesses that can’t show off their services at the family fun night. That way no one misses out on the brand awareness, and loyalty that can be gained from it.

Black Business Month

In 2004 Black Business Month was born, which gave a great opportunity to show support to black-owned businesses. You can support this in multiple ways, first is if you give a shout out to the black business owners you know on your social media, and request your followers to go show their own support to these businesses. Another way you can support is by pledging a certain amount of money during the month of August to then donate to a black-owned business in your neighborhood. 

Back to School Month

With summer ending children start going back to school in August. So this is a great time to get creative with your marketing and create promotions based on Back to School Month. If you are a barbershop or hair salon, hold a back-to-school haircut deal. Before and after school programs should be in full swing to get children ready for their routine schedule. Dentists and nutritionists might have a discount package for children so they are set up for the beginning of the school year. Make sure if you are promoting to leverage your promotions across all platforms to reach the largest audience. Leverage Google My Business for local searches, and social media like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to get the most reach. Also, use Google Ads and Bing Ads to have target ads to people that are searching for your services. 

August Holidays You can Advertise During

August has multiple holidays that are prime for several businesses to promote. 

National Dollar Day

On August 8th, 1786 the US established its monetary system. It is a day in history where you can educate people on currency as well as marketing. You can make a blog post talking about the history of the US monetary system as well as teaching your audience how to save money. You can also give a sale or take off a dollar in honor of National Dollar Day.

Bowling Day

Bowling Day is always on the second Saturday of August this year on the 14th. Bowling is a family fun event great for kids and adults. Bowling alleys should be all over this day promoting discounts to try and attract the crowd on social media. Or if you're a business owner, make a company event out of it and see if you can get a couple of lanes for your employees to enjoy themselves. 

National Relaxation Day

Yes, this is a day everyone looks forward to. National Relaxation Day is on August 15th and it is all about letting people take some time off and just chill out. Spas and salons can offer big discounts for anyone who books an appointment or work out a deal with a company to come to the local office and provide their services to employees there. If you are a yoga company you can offer a free session for everyone. This is great because it allows potential customers to try out your business and can help them to convert into returning customers. Or you can close your company early or entirely for the day to help with company morale as well as show loyal customers that you show compassion for employee health.

World Humanitarian Day

August 19th is World Humanitarian Day, where we recognize those who have passed away working for humanitarian causes. If there is a humanitarian cause that your company is passionate about, this would be the time to spread awareness through social media. You can post information about the cause, you can donate to the cause, and encourage others to do the same. Or just have your audience try to do something good for the day. 

These are just a few of the holidays and observances that are happening during the month of August, each one has a vertical that can participate in it if not several. So make sure to take a look and prepare your marketing team with some of these ideas. Also, keep in mind that Labor Day in September is one of the bigger promotion holidays so start prepping for it in August as well. Below is a list of all the holidays in August

• Respect for Parents Day (Aug 1)

• National Sisters Day – First Sunday in August

• American Family Day – First Sunday in August

• Sons and Daughters Day (Aug 11)

• Middle Child Day (Aug 12)

• Shapewear Day (Aug 10)

• Secondhand Wardrobe Day (Aug 25)

• Brazilian Blowout Day (Aug 21)

• Tooth Fairy Day (Aug 22)

• Night Out Day (First Tuesday)

• Garage Sale Day – Second Saturday in August

• Senior Citizens Day (Aug 21)

• Bowling Day (Second Saturday)

• Friendship Day (First Sunday)

• Girlfriends Day (Aug 1)

• Happiness Happens Day (Aug 8)

• Global Sleep Under The Stars Night  (Aug 8)

• Be An Angel Day (Aug 22)

• Just Because Day (Aug 27)

• Nonprofit Day (Aug 17)

• Purple Heart Day (Aug 7)

• Spirit of ’45 Day (Second Sunday in August)

• Navajo Code Talkers Day

• Aviation Day (Aug 19)

• Park Service Founders Day (Aug 25)

• Ride The Wind Day (Aug 23)

• WebMistress Day (Aug 26)

• Women’s Equality Day (Aug 26)

• Grab Some Nuts Day (Aug 3)

• Underwear Day (Aug 5)

• Water Balloon Day (First Friday in August)

• Lazy Day (Aug 10)

• Tell a Joke Day (Aug 16)

• Sneak Some Zucchini Into Your Neighbor’s Porch Day (Aug 8)

• I LOVE My Feet Day! (Aug 17)

• Blame Someone Else Day (First Friday the 13th of the year (Aug 13 in 2021))

• International Beer Day (First Friday in August)

• Beach Day (Aug 30)

• Mail Order Catalog Day (Aug 18)

• Power Rangers Day (Aug 26)

• Book Lovers Day (Aug 9)

• Left-Handers Day (Aug 13)

• Work Like A Dog Day (Aug 5)

• Never Bean Better Day (Aug 22)

• Dog Day (Aug 26)

• Totally irrelevant but nostalgic

• International Mahjong Day (Aug 1)

• Relaxation Day (Aug 15)

• Thoughtful Day  (Aug 28)

• Grief Awareness Day (Aug 30)

• Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day (Aug 28)

• National Dollar Day (Aug 8)

• National Thrift Shop Day (Aug 17)

Being Successful in Google Ads Without Broad Match Modified

Google has been advocating for broad matches, and how it is more effective compared to the past. However, Advertisers are having a hard time believing the statements, most are still loyal to broad match modified and are sad about the slow transition away from it. So, if broad match modified becomes valueless how can we still get relevant traffic?

One solution is broad match combined with audience targeting. In this post, we will be going overbroad match and audience targeting strategy and set-up. 

Why Combine Broad Match & Audience Strategy

As we all know Google announced a few months back that broad match modified will be transitioned out, and that broad match will become more effective due to algorithm improvements to help trigger ads on the proper searches. Google says that it will take three things into account users' recent search activity, content on the landing page you use, and other keywords in the ad group to understand keyword intent. 

Most digital marketers still being skeptical about broad matches due to the past. So risking money that is already on a tight budget isn’t something many want to do. If you are looking to scale you might need to resort to broad match, by layering audience targeting you will have the best chance to enhance your account. 

Google Ads Broad Match With Audience Targeting Strategy

Using this strategy lets you layer audiences to target on top of your broad match keywords to keep them in check. These audiences aren’t small remarketing, but affinity, in-market, and custom audiences that Google creates that have high impressions.

The way these audiences keep your broad match keywords in check is simple. Broad match can sometimes show less than direct search queries, by having the audiences overlapping at least guarantees that you are marketing to the right person. This is also helpful because in Google Ads we are no longer able to see every single search term that shows up.

This technique will help you reduce irrelevant traffic or increased wasted spending as much as possible for broad match keywords.

Setting Up Broad Match With Audience Targeting

To start it is just like any other search campaign. Either use one that is already created or create a new one with your desired settings, adgroups, broad match keywords, and responsive or text ads. The next step is to select either the entire campaign or an individual adgroup. After clicking into audiences and click the edit pencil to edit your audience targeting. Make sure you have toggled the option of targeting the audiences you select. You can either search for specific audiences or take some browse options or if you created a custom audience you can try that as well. Then all you have to do is hit save and your campaign is all set up.

Extra Tips for Broad Match & Audience Targeting Campaign / Adgroups

Setting up for this strategy is pretty easy, so to make sure your new strategy is a success let's share a few tips to help you out. 

Check on Your Bids

Because this strategy uses broad match, you will match with more which means you will spend more overall. So if you are using manual CPC bids it will help you minimize wasted spend while you're collecting data.

If you are using automatic bidding then you won’t have to worry about this issue. Google recommends using automatic bidding with broad match keywords anyways. Automatic bidding knows to bid lower or higher depending on the search query's relevancy. But it doesn’t hurt to confirm that the bidding strategy matches your goal, to make sure your goal is slightly lower so that way your bidding costs stay down. 

Check Your Negative Keywords

Another way to curb your bidding costs is to add negative keywords. With broad match, you are giving Google more judgment on what queries you show for, by adding negative keywords you will help steer the queries in the right direction. The areas that you can control will help you hold the reins of broad match. Make a list of all possible keywords that you wouldn't want to show up for and add them to the negative keywords list and make sure to add them before starting up your strategy.

If you feel like you're stagnant on growing your account you should consider broad match combined with audience targeting. Due to the past, the majority of the community is still hesitant to use broad match. With the tips, we provided above as well as keeping a close eye on it you should be able to gain some new insights and growth in your account.

Google Ads Conversion Tracking: Tips to Fix

Conversion tracking is a key tool for Google Ads. It allows you to track meaningful actions or completed visits and conversions on your company’s website or landing pages. Due to this tracking, you will be able to understand how well your ads are performing, and if your marketing strategy is working. 

Even though this is a keystone to succeeding in Google Ads, it is easy to set up and continue to maintain. Google Ads conversion tracking breaks and one week you will start seeing a drop in conversion data and there are no indicators that tracking is broken. Most people will make changes to try and fix what is wrong in the account not knowing the account is fine, which can make your success in Google Ads harder. In today’s blog post we are going to go over some of the pains of conversion tracking and how to fix them.

Google Ads Conversion Tracking Proper Set-up

There are multiple types of conversion tracking, however, setting it up is done the exact same regardless of what you choose. Here’s a link from Google on how to set up conversion tracking. If you want the short version, essentially Google generates some HTML code that you need to copy and paste into your webpage on your site that customers visit after completing the conversion, for example, you could add this to a thank you page or confirmation order page. 

To start you will need to be in Google Ads and click on the Tools section in the top right of the screen. From there you will select conversion under the measurements drop-down menu. This will bring up the conversions actions section, and you can click the +conversion button to create your first conversion.

Once this happens you will be asked to fill out a form that will help Google Ads generate the appropriate HTML code for you to copy and paste on your site. Make sure you give your conversion a name i.e. “Contact Us Submission” that way you can see how many times the form was filled compared to how many people visited the landing page. 

After this you can choose the source of the conversion and Google will prompt you through the implementation process from there. Here are the four choices for a source of conversion: Webpage, Call on-site, App download, and Import.

Conversion Tracking Metrics

Once this is all done you have your tracking set up so you can see conversion data. So let us go over the conversion metrics that Google provides. Conversion (1 per click) counts each time you receive one or more conversions from a single ad click. This is used so you can get the number of new customers you are getting. Cost/conversion (1 per click) shows the amount of money spent on clicks divided by the total conversions. This allows you to see the ROI (return on investment). The conversion rate (1 per click) shows the percentage of clicks that turn into conversions. The percentage shows you how effective your ads, landing page, or keywords are performing. Last is the view-through conversion which measures the number of times a customer viewed but didn’t click on your ad, but then later on converted.

Why Conversion Tracking isn’t Working & How to Fix it

Okay so now that we have the basics of conversion tracking done let's go over some common pain points and how to fix them.

No Conversion Data or Seeing Low Conversion Rates

Sometimes after setting up conversion tracking you might see fewer conversions than usual or even none at all. Don’t freak out, there are two things to do. 

The first thing to look at if your conversions are low is the performance of your accounts. Check your change history to see if there have been any recent changes that could have affected the performance of your accounts. The second is to try out the Google Tag Assistant plugin which we prefer to use with our clients. Google created a tool to check up on the tags on landing pages which is Called Google Tag Assistant. Google Tag Assistant can report back what your tracking is picking up. There is an assortment of colors that can show up giving you the status of the tag code so you can confirm if your conversion tracking is working properly.

Adding or Removing a Conversion

Sometimes when adding conversions in tracking, you forget to add an action you wanted to track, or you want to remove one because you consider it no longer viable. It is an easy fix. First to add one just refer to the beginning of the blog post. It is the exact same process just replicated. If you are trying to remove a conversion, you need to go to the tools section in the top right section then go to conversions and then proceed to the conversions section. After this process, you should see all the conversions you are tracking, click on the one you would like to remove. After clicking on the conversion you should see a separate information section and you can click an edit option. Finally, all you need to do is uncheck the “include in conversions” option and your set. If you can get onto the backend of your website faster, then you can just remove the specific tracking on the backend of your website as well.

No Recent Conversions or Tag Inactive in the Conversions Section

In the conversions section of Google Ads, you might see red text that says either “tag inactive” or “no recent conversions”. You might be confused especially if in your account you have seen converted recently. So what’s going on?

Surprisingly there isn’t anything you need to do here. It seems counterintuitive, especially with all the red and suspicious phrasing being used. Essentially this means you haven’t had any conversions within the last 7 days, or the 30 during the tag inactive period. So it doesn’t mean that tracking isn’t working properly, but that conversions have just been slow to come in for the action you are trying to track. You will probably have to circle back to your account performance and strategy and see if you can boost conversions through optimizations. 

Conversion tracking in Google Ads is such a valuable tool to have. Make sure you are setting it up properly, and if you run into any of these pain points once tracking is set up hopefully these tips will help you out.

Online Brand Strategy: How to Increase Presence

The world revolves around the internet and digital activities. Most people spend around eight hours a day on their phones, computers, or tablets. Take a normal sleep schedule into account and those eight hours are more than half of someone's day spent online. People are online to be social, professionals, hobbyists, researchers, and consumers. 

If your business is online, service-based, or a storefront, it shouldn’t matter if you should have a strong online presence. Most people that are online are there to shop or find a local business that alleviates pain in their life. As the internet evolves so does the definition of an online presence. It used to be just a website, now there are dozens of ways to interact and increase your online brand strategy through your presence.

What is an Online Presence

Online presence is more than what people originally thought. You can have a website, and social media and be online, but that doesn't mean you are actually creating a presence. You would have to dive deeper than that. First, there is you, a person or company that creates content. Next is the internet, this is where your content is held through search engines and social media algorithms. Last is the public eye, this is how people perceive your business and content online and how they engage with you. So creating your online profiles and website will get you on the digital map, however, your online presence will be what gets you credibility, reputation, and visibility.

Why an Online Presence is Important

Being able to have your business in front of your target audience, and giving a quality experience will allow you more opportunities to build brand awareness and improve your reputation. There are multiple ways to build the online brand strategy of your business. 

First is to be discovered, you will need to get people to discover your business even the ones that don’t even know they need you. Next is to verify your credibility, people need to rely on sources of info before making a purchase. If you don’t explain or give credible information then you won’t be seen as reliable and be dismissed. The third is to make sure you are marketing around the clock, the more you post the more people discover your business. Google looks at your website to rank it, so make sure your website is as consistent as you can be. 

How to Increase Your Online Presence Through Your Website

People will find your company in several ways, but in the end, they will eventually head to your website. Most people will look at your website before calling, signing up, or purchasing products/services. If your website isn’t appealing, and the business doesn’t provide the right information quickly then consumers won’t consider your business viable. So let’s go over some ways to help your website retain potential customers.

Modern Attractive Website

People nowadays have high expectations so you need to have your website looking in tiptop shape otherwise it will be judged poorly by customers. You should try to have an expert web developer create your website to get the best-looking website. People that choose to DIY their websites run into several problems which can cause more issues for your business as well as countless hours fixing it. So even if you need to splash the cash in the end it will be worth it.

SEO Optimization For Your Website

Most small businesses never pursue SEO like link building, content creation, or keyword research which are all key to making your online presence increase. Having SEO is a way to climb the search list of Google allowing you to get more exposure and it's free, you just need to put in the work. 

Increasing Online Presence Through Social Media

Having social media profiles is a great way to increase your online presence. Most people think you need to be on every platform to better your odds of increasing your online presence.

However, quality is better than quantity. It is better to be fully engaged on one or two social media platforms compared to being on several platforms for a short period of time during the day. Here is a list of social media platforms you can try.

• Facebook 

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• YouTube

• Pinterest

• Snapchat

• TikTok

Being active online is one of the biggest ways to create a bigger online presence. So you need to post regularly and respond to any comments from followers, answer direct messages and answer questions from customers. 

If you bring your business to the internet you're not restricted just to your storefront. You will be able to reach current and potential customers faster than you ever imagined. The way to do that is by having a strong online presence.

Monthly Spend Limits In Google Ads

For years marketers have been trying to find creative ways, such as daily budgets and bid caps, to make sure spending in Google Ads doesn’t get out of hand. However, this month advertisers can now use monthly spend limits at an account level. Whenever Google rolls out a new feature we need to look closely to ensure we know its ins and outs. 

What are Google Ads Monthly Budget Limits

Google Ads monthly budgets let you layer an account-level monthly spend cap on top of daily budgets, similar to how lifetime budgets on Facebook work. This is the first time ever in Google that we are able to control our spending on an account level through Google Ads.

Google Says that a monthly spend limit is “the maximum amount you can pay for a campaign over a month.” It will override campaign budgets to stop at the threshold that you choose.

Something that you need to keep in mind is that this is a setting at the account level, which means it affects all the campaigns you will be running. So make sure that you set a limit that will cover your spending in all campaigns. 

Google Ads Spend Before Monthly Budget Limits

To be able to add a monthly spend limit you will need to set up daily budgets. However, you might want to understand the system before jumping straight into monthly spend limits. Let’s go over how a campaign could work without a monthly budget.

Daily Budgets Without Monthly Account Spend Limit

This is the original system -  a required daily budget without any spending limit holding you back. 

Pros

We are all used to this model, and that is one benefit of this model but let's go over a few others. There is less restriction on these campaigns compared to the ones with a monthly spend cap. Google only requires you to use a daily budget which gives you wiggle room to expand and grow your reach. You can adjust your daily budget at any point in time (monthly spending allows this too). You can manage your budgets campaign-by-campaign, so one can take priority over the other. 

Cons

There are some drawbacks to having campaigns with daily budgets without monthly spending limits. Because daily spending is so flexible, you can easily overspend. Due to the easy overspending, it can be hard to control and your costs can quickly increase. If you have multiple campaigns running you will need to be attentive to all the daily spending. If you have a daily budget that is on the low end, it can be just as limiting as a monthly spending budget. This is because with low daily spend you are losing impression share due to a small daily spend. This translates to means less traffic and fewer conversions.

Daily Budgets With Monthly Account Spend Limit

Let’s take the campaigns you are used to with daily budgets, and add an account level monthly spend limit. This works because Google’s algorithm uses your daily budget at its campaign level and bids. At the same time, it tracks the overall account spending to keep you within your monthly budget. There are both pros and cons to this approach. 

Pros

You can now finally manage how much you’re spending on Google Ads for the entire account. Prior to this, you would typically need to estimate how much you are spending and make optimization decisions based on those numbers. Having this monthly spend limit provides a built-in safety net to make sure you are comfortable with your spending, and so you don’t have a campaign that goes rogue and spends too much money.

Cons

One thing you need to keep in mind is if you use a monthly spend cap, at the end of the day the monthly spend cap overrides everything else. That includes any optimizations you make during the month. If your spend limit is low and you reach the limit halfway through the month, then all your ads will stop running until the month is over. This is not a set and forget feature, you will need to set the monthly spend limit for your campaign every month. So make sure to review historical spending in order to create a good estimate of what your budget should be. 

Setting Up Google Ads Monthly Spend Limit

If the monthly spend limit is attractive to you and you want to test it out, this is how you can set it up. First, on the top right-hand side go to the toolbar and select Billing. Second, on the left-hand menu select settings. Last, select the option to create a monthly spend limit.

2021 June Marketing Ideas

June has arrived and that means the warm weather is here to stay. For most people that also means turning on the air conditioning and staying inside. But for marketers, it is time to get out of our comfort zones. With the new month, there are also several holidays and causes that your company can get behind or celebrate.

Ideas For The Month

June has several monthly themes. Here are four that you can endorse if they align with your company.

LGBTQ Pride Month

The LGBTQ community is focused on expression, creativity, and freedom. Being able to stand with this community and incorporate them into your campaigns is a great thing as long as you are a supporter.

You can start support and awareness through a Pride art contest. Show your support and encourage others to show support through social media. Reach out to your followers, community, nonprofits, and other businesses to encourage them to create their own pride flags, banners, or art. Have them use specific hashtags to continue the spread of awareness or support and one specific to you so you can track down a winner.

Safety Month

Safety month can be a flexible topic that you can apply to any audience. If you're a child care company, that sell child supplies, or toys you can make a quiz focused on keeping children safe. If you're a security business (cyber or traditional) you can create a blog post about the top ten safety precautions businesses should take. There are several ways you can twist safety around your business. You just need to be a little creative about it.

Summer Vacation / Graduation

Schools out! It is time to celebrate the end of the school year and to market to high schoolers and college students. If your company is a moving company this is a great time to offer special promotions to college students that might need help moving out, or graduated high schoolers that need help moving in. If you are a restaurant or retail shop owner you can run a promotion to customers where if they show their graduation picture or diploma that they can get a free meal or discount on products. Most college and high school graduates might be short of cash at this time of year so this promotion can help them out and create a loyal customers for you.

Holiday Marketing Ideas in June

There are several holidays or observances in June. Here are a few you can leverage during the month for promotions. 

Father’s Day

Father’s Day is on June 20th and of course, is a day to show appreciation for everyone's fathers. It’s also one of the biggest holidays in June. This is a great time for companies that provide gifts marketed toward adult males. 

You can try promoting your products by creating a blog post of your recommendations for top Father’s Day gifts. Or you can create gift baskets that have a combination of gifts perfect for a dad. If you're a restaurant you can provide a free meal for dads or give them complimentary drinks with their meal. Your busiest days might be right before Father’s Day so make sure you are reminding customers on your social media accounts of promotions. To make your products a safer choice you can offer a no return deadline so if the customer's dad isn’t too fond of the gift they can return it and purchase something else on your site, or store. 

World Environment Day

Consumers always look for businesses that do a little extra to support causes. Everyone is a big fan of environmental protection so this day can be a great way to show your support for the cause. You can offer limited edition items that are eco-friendly. You give out reusable bags or metal straws with every purchase that is made or create a visual image that shows support for the environment and spreads awareness. Or you can even donate a portion of your revenue for the day towards a charity!  World Environment Day is on June 6th.

Take Your Dog to Work Day

Everyone loves “man’s best friend” so having a day where people can show off their fur babies is always an uplifting concept. Take Your Dog to Work Day is on June 25th and there are a couple of ways people can advertise for this. If you’re a pet business, have discounts on items that are travel-specific. Or if you want to try to expand your business's reach on social media, host a giveaway for owner submissions of their dogs at work for them. Pick a random post or your favorite by using specific hashtags for those that want to participate. This allows you to track the posts and your winner. 

There are several holidays and observances that you can get creative with during June to help you gain more exposure on social media as well as bring in traffic and revenue. Below is a full list of all the holidays you can choose from. Have fun with it!

National Awareness Causes and Themes in June

• Give a Bunch of Balloons Month

• DJ Month

• Zoo and Aquarium Month

• LGBTQIA Pride Month

• Men’s Health Month

• Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month

• Camping Month

• Great Outdoors Month

• Homeownership Month

• Iced Tea Month

• PTSD Awareness Month

• Safety Month

• Accordion Awareness Month

June Holidays and Observances

• SAFE Day (June 4)

• Donut Day – First Friday in June

• Eyewear Day (June 6)

• Higher Education Day  (June 6)

• Gardening Exercise Day

• Cancer Survivor’s Day – First Sunday in June

• Best Friends Day (June 8)

• Call Your Doctor Day – Second Tuesday in June

• Making Life Beautiful Day (June 11)

• Kitchen Klutzes of America Day (June 13)

• Children’s Day – Second Sunday in June

• Flag Day (June 14)

• Garbage Man Day (June 17)

• Splurge Day (June 18)

• Juneteenth (June 19)

• Father’s Day – Third Sunday in June

• Summer solstice/first day of summer/ longest Day of the Year

• Selfie Day (June 21)

• HVAC Tech Day (June 22)

• Take Your Dog to Work Day – Friday After Father’s Day

• Beautician’s Day (June 26)

• Sunglasses Day (June 27)

• Insurance Awareness Day (June 28)

• Social Media Day (June 30)

Pros & Cons of Utilizing Google Ads Page Insights Beta

Google Ads constantly launches updates to try and better its services. However, some of Google’s recent updates have been upsetting to some of the platform’s users. Recently, Google released a new Insights page from beta. This is one update that shouldn’t upset too many users and can actually provide some great additional insight into your ad campaign. 

Pros of Google Ads Insights Page

The new page Insights beta offers custom insights based on your business account. The idea behind this is to help companies see relevant trends and identify opportunities.

Checking Customer Behavior Changes

This section of Google Ads Insights leverages your account’s performance history, campaign settings, and trends across Google. It then generates insights and recommendations for your account. Google believes that this will help marketers keep up with rapidly changing markets and competition, as well as provide insights into consumer behavior.

Stay In Front Competitors

This tool helps you to gain insights into consumer behavior, but it also helps you get ahead of your competitors if they aren’t leveraging this tool. Google noted that searches for curbside pick up increased by 3000% during the pandemic. Getting these insights will help you capitalize by targeting specific keywords before your competition catches on. 

Possible Cons for Google Ads Insights Page

There is a possibility that this new tool is as great as it seems. Not everyone uses Google Ads, but it is fair to say a vast majority of businesses do.

What If Everyone Uses This Tool

Keep in mind that it won’t just be you that can use this new beta feature. If other competitors are using this tool to increase spending on trending terms, that means everyone is increasing their spending, and the true winner with this new tool is Google. Of course, if there is an opportunity to increase your company's campaigns you want to take advantage of it. Google wants to help grow your business and help their bottom line, so it can be a win-win for everyone involved. 

Just keep in mind that while this new tool can grow your business, it will also persuade you to spend more money.  Make sure you have the money in your budget to open up to these opportunities. 

Leveraging Google Ads Insights Page 

To get to the Google Ads Insights page all you have to do is go to the main menu under the recommendations tab. The first thing you will see is a broad overview of trends for your ads as well as suggested trends for your business. To dive deeper just click on the view trends details button. Below is an image of some recommendations that Google provides for you.

Under the recommendations section, there can be multiple recommendations. Google is suggesting for this specific example there is only one. If you click the view button you can see what Google is exactly recommending before applying the change. You should always check what Google is recommending to determine if the change is indeed valid given your overall ad strategy. 

Because there are constant changes happening on the platform any additional info or data that can be leveraged is a plus. Google has been pushing a lot of automation recently and it is a nice change of pace to have this insights page as an update that doesn’t ruffle too many feathers and gives more information.

Facebook A/B Testing Will Help You Save Money

Everyone wants to save money whenever they can and that’s equally true for Facebook ads. One thing digital marketers need to keep in mind is that even if you feel that an ad is perfect, it doesn’t mean it will work out. However, with a/b testing and data collection, you can systematically create the perfect ad for your audience.

A/B testing can help you lower your ad costs and today we are going to go over the best ways to run a/b testing on Facebook.

Why You Should Use A/B Testing For Facebook

If you have ever used Facebook ads before, you know that Facebook can be finicky, and campaigns don’t always run consistently. You should always be checking up on it to make sure you see success. Facebook is known to have frequent, sudden shifts due to algorithm changes, that are often irrational and happen without explanation. Applying an a/b testing can give you an advantage when these changes happen so your ad can be more successful. Another reason is to ensure you reach the entire audience you are targeting. One ad might strike interest in part of your audience while another attracts a different segment., so it is always a best practice to test out multiple ad copies at the same time. 

How to Run Facebook A/B Testing Properly

Know Your Goal

The basic application of a/b testing is to determine what ad variation performs the best to accomplish it. If you want to drive more website traffic at a lower cost, test link clicks and landing page views to see what gets the lowest CPC. If you want to drive more leads at a lower cost try comparing lead generation campaign objectives versus website traffic objectives. Both will get these results, but you can see what works best for your company's campaigns. If you are trying to drive more video views, you should test several video variations using the same ad copy, or vice versa under one audience. That way you can see what video or ad copy works best. Lastly, you can improve your CTR. Try using multiple ad copy variations using one creative. If any of your ads are under a 1% CTR you can come to the conclusion that your copy isn’t working with your audience, so the next step would be to test a new ad copy. Continue this process to keep growing your CTR to better levels. As you increase your tests you will be able to see more results. 

Use Both Your Data as Well as Facebook

When you are checking to see what your ads are doing, make sure that your ad sets are out of the Learning Period before making any changes. Sometimes Facebook notices fewer impressions on an ad and will shy away from it. But if you notice that it has a higher CTR and drives conversions at a lower cost than other ads, make sure you keep that running. Just because Facebook has a data collection system, it doesn’t mean that it is always right.

Turn Off Lower Performing Ads And Start The Next Test

Once your campaigns have run for enough time to make true judgments, check out the ads’ performances. If some are underperforming compared to others, start pausing them. If the ad is less successful then you should see it as an opportunity to make a new test to replace the lower performing ads. That way you can further optimize your campaign to drive down CPC. 

What to A/B test On Facebook

There are multiple ways you can a/b test your Facebook ads. However, you want to make sure you are picking the best variable to improve, and that you are testing only one variable at a time. Otherwise, you can’t tell which test is the best.

Campaign Objectives

Right now Facebook has eleven campaign objective types to choose from.

Lead Gen Vs Traffic Campaign

You can try to drive leads using a lead generation campaign and another using a traffic campaign. This technique is often used to increase sales leads or to gain email subscribers. For lead gen campaigns, you can drive more leads at a lower cost. One thing to keep in mind is that your lead quality might decrease. Traffic campaigns are the opposite. You will see fewer leads at a higher cost, but your lead qualities will be better ones in a lead gen campaign. Even though this might be the norm, try out both to see if they can achieve your goal.

Website Traffic Vs Conversion Campaigns

You can compare website traffic campaigns against conversion campaigns to see which one drives more purchases. Both achieve conversion goals but traffic campaigns typically drive conversions at a lower cost. This is mainly because this type of campaign is higher up in the marketing funnel, so make sure you compensate with a bigger budget.

Audiences

You can try testing custom audiences and native audiences in your ad sets. For example, let’s say your company sells t-shirts. You can use some audiences to test people's interest in t-shirts, some others to target interest in competitors’ t-shirt companies, and a third for lookalike audiences. 

Ad Level Elements

At an ad set level, there are several places to test. Each of these variables can affect how a campaign works. You can try ad copy length, headlines, creatives, calls to action, or landing pages. You can pick and choose what to try testing out of these five options. Just keep in mind to only test one variable at a time, unless you're running dynamic ads. 

Cost-effective Facebook A/B Testing Methods

The main objective of a/b testing is to ultimately save money as you increase your revenue. When you start campaigns it can be expensive until you can make optimizations to decrease the cost per lead or conversion. 

Dynamic Ads

Manual testing of ads is always a great option. But if you want your ads to move faster with testing, then learning and optimizing dynamic ads are the way to go. This ad type is a quick way to test various ad-level assets and save you time and money by leveraging the system to put together combinations of ad copy and creatives. This is incredibly useful for prospecting campaigns, to give you insights through the system-lead testing option.

If you use a product catalog, set up dynamic product ads in your retargeting campaigns. That way users that previously looked at products but did not purchase them, can come back efficiently and complete their purchase.

Upper Funnel Campaign Objective Tests

If you have a smaller budget, but your products or services cost more than your daily budget, you might want to try an upper-funnel campaign objective, because they are less expensive and can help your budget last.

When you have a small budget try awareness, reach or website traffic campaigns to re-engage with a warm audience. When your campaign is still optimizing for your goal, people will still convert if you add a landing page to your ad.

Use Ad Set Level Budgets

You have the option to pick between two budget options in Ads Manager. One is at the campaign level and the other is at the ad set level. Campaign budgets work best with prospecting audiences, but not as well for budgets in retargeting campaigns. When working with small budget accounts you can use ad set level budgets so you have more manual control as to how your budget is being spent. 

A/B testing on Facebook is important because it gives you insight into your campaigns. Allowing you to make optimizations to maximize your conversions, and save you money.

Personalizing the Ecommerce Customer Journey to Increase Returns

Since the move to remote work in 2020, online engagement has seen a huge uptick. By huge uptick, we are talking about a 27% increase in retail eCommerce sales. This is a huge opportunity for eCommerce companies, but can also make it harder to stand out from the crowd.

Personalizing your customers' journey is essential to improving retention and cultivating a connection with your customers. Think about making your eCommerce store into a brick-and-mortar style endeavor.  Get personal with patrons, throw some free merchandise to frequent employees, and make note of what goes out of stock quickly and what stays on the shelves. With today’s digital marketing you can definitely create this type of atmosphere online.

Ecommerce Personalization

Adding personalization can take your eCommerce marketing to the next level. What we mean by personalization is designing a shopping experience that is catered to each individual based on their behaviors and the info that they provide. The more personalization you create, the more engagement you will receive, and you can continue to evolve the process. By showing relevant content to your customers you will avoid wasting time and money. 

Things To Do Before Personalizing

There are three things to consider before you start personalizing your eCommerce strategy. The first is to find a way to collect data on users such as behavior, demographics, and transaction data. This can be done through cookies, loyalty programs, or first-party data. Second, you must take the time to analyze the data you collected. After you have a way to analyze data you can create aggregate pools of visitors for specific marketing campaigns. Last is to deliver a customized experience for each of these segments.

How To Customize an Ecommerce Journey

There are several ways to customize a customer’s journey, which can help lead you to conversions. Depending on your industry and audience, there are some methods that can be easier to implement than others.

Personalized Homepages

When a customer logs into their account you will be able to deliver welcome pages that can highlight offers or items that a specific customer will be interested in. Offers on a personalized homepage can include a variety of things like promotions or suggestions based on past purchases. By giving customers promotions and item suggestions you can help push the customer down the marketing funnel. This also can help you create more loyal customers.

Show Recently Viewed Items

On eCommerce sites, customers will browse multiple times before actually committing to placing an item in the cart. Being able to see what items a customer has previously clicked on can help encourage them to put the items they passed up into the cart. You can include this on the homepage or landing pages, and at the bottom of all your eCommerce store pages. That way customers can keep track of what they have been looking at.

Create Campaigns On User Behavior

Since each customer has different needs, why would you offer them the same products? Collecting data to create personalization is key here. By using this data you can employ behavioral segmentation to create campaigns for specific groups. This strategy can be used for new and existing customers. For example, you can provide a promotion for new visitors to sign up for via an email list or loyalty program. And if an existing customer recently purchased an item, you can request a review.

You can base some customized offers on what your customers click on, pages they visit often, items in their cart or wish list, previous purchases, or products they are interested in.

Email Customization

Today there are over 3.9 billion email users. This gives companies a great opportunity to interact with their audience. However, there is a lot of competition. So the best way to stand out in a customer's inbox is by customizing it. 

When a customer joins your email marketing list, you can leverage behavioral data to send targeted information based on interest. For example, you can send them a link to an item that they clicked on for more information but didn’t add to their cart. Make sure to personalize your subject line to make it eye-catching in your customer’s inbox. Being able to send out these emails allows eCommerce businesses to compete with big companies like Amazon. 

Personalization of the eCommerce marketing experience should be vital to your strategy. You want customers to have a great experience and feel like they are being cared for while they are shopping on your site in the same way they would feel if they were shopping in person. Make sure to talk to your team about the best ways to personalize your website and its offerings.

How to Influence Decisions With Marketing Psychology

The brain controls everything, from how your body processes things, to your emotions, even how and when you move. It is crazy to think that everything we do is flawlessly done in split seconds seemingly without thought at times. However, your brain is also always trying to find ways to streamline jobs or objectives.

This is also true for cognitive functions like problem-solving, remembering, and decision-making. When it comes to a person making a judgment or performing an act, your brain relies on past information to quickly decide what the best decision is. 

When it comes to a consumer's purchasing decision being aware of these shortcuts can help you predict and leverage their behaviors in your favor. By leveraging this you aren’t trying to manipulate a customer, just influence them to perform an action. 

Show Accreditation

The idea behind this is that people tend to follow others in situations where the “appropriate” behavior is unknown to them. Let’s go over some ways this can influence behavior.

Adding Testimonials on Landing Pages

Testimonials are the most common way to bring confidence to consumers on landing pages. Consumers will feel more comfortable getting feedback from existing customers' judgments based on reviews. Would you rather use something that has a one-star review or a five-star review? Many people use testimonials/reviews to help make judgments on products and services.

You can even create a page solely for reviews so that there is a plethora of insight for consumers to use to inform their decisions.

Highlight Endorsements From Well Known Brands

If you are servicing or providing products for big-name companies, leverage it. Use their logo, face, and name of the company (with permission of course). If people recognize these brands it provides more credibility and confidence in your products or services.

Partnerships

If you have won any awards or accreditations make sure to flaunt them. This is just another way to show your credibility as a company. Again, this delivers confidence in your products to your customers.

Anchoring

Anchoring bias occurs when people rely too much on pre-existing information or the first information they find to inform decisions. However, this is a great way to present your pricing. 

Mark-downs

A great example of this is on e-commerce websites, specifically Amazon. A consumer sees the original price and then sees the new discounted price. In most cases, consumers will see it as a deal, because of the price drop and that is it is of higher value to them. Just make sure that you understand that price drops can also affect the perceived quality of a product. If your price drop is very drastic, instead of assuming they’re getting a good deal, the consumer might think there is something wrong because the deal price drop is so large.

Amount Saving

Amount saved is typically found with subscription-based products or services. Typically you will see all rate options, monthly vs quarterly vs yearly. With this display, there will usually be some sort of discount for purchasing the longer amount of time of the description base. These discounts usually are quite large, but in the grand scheme of things, it is less expensive and gives you saving for a longer time-based subscription.

The Pygmalion Effect

The Pygmalion Effect, aka the Rosenthal Effect, is a psychological phenomenon wherein high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area. As an example, if a coach of a football team holds his players to a high standard and shows belief that they can achieve their goals, the team will have a higher probability of performing better. 

Create A Positive Feedback Loop

You can create the Pygmalion Effect directly on your audience or customers. If you convey a higher level of performance is possible, or that they can be the best in their field, you can encourage them to align with those beliefs.

This can be started by having consumers download your content through social media. This will build more confidence that they can achieve their goal with your help. Each time they do this, there is a higher chance of landing a customer. If the customer then achieves their goals, they will become more loyal to your brand and become returning customers.

The Mere Exposure Effect

The Mere Exposure Effect is also known as the “Familiarity Principle” and this effect is the concept that the more often people have previously been exposed to something, the more they like it. For example, the first time you hear a song you might feel indifferent about it. However, the more times you hear the song, you appreciate it more and more, and eventually, the song becomes your favorite song. 

Display Ads for Brand Awareness

Display ads are known to have lower click-through rates compared to other ad-type campaigns. But one of the main reasons to use them is to create brand awareness campaigns. This is the same basic concept as the example above: the reason behind this is to keep exposing your brand to consumers so that you raise brand awareness among them.

Retargeting Ads to Increase CTR

Another great strategy to leverage the Mere Exposure Effect is retargeting potential prospects. Retargeting ads have a 76% higher chance of being clicked on compared to regular display ads. One thing to watch out for is how often you display them. The reason being is if you are too aggressive with them, your brand might be looked at as annoying. Make sure you provide enough time in between retargeting ads so that your company's reputation doesn’t take a hit.

These psychological theories are based on cognitive functions that involve “errors in thinking” so if you use any of these you have a responsibility to uphold them. Make sure that you are not forcing a product or service on someone else if you know it isn’t a good fit for them. Make sure the customer doesn’t feel cheated or swindled and keep in mind the principle of reciprocity can also be used in a bad way. Make sure you give yourself time to achieve results and in time the data will come in.

Making Your Pop-Up Conversions More Effective

When it comes to gaining conversions on your website there are a vast number of tools that companies use to increase their conversion rates. One that is world-renowned is the pop-up ad. Pop-up ads have a bad reputation due to the way they have been overused. People had been blitzed by pop-up ads for years to the point of feeling like they were being constantly spammed on websites. However, as the internet has evolved, these ads have also evolved into messages that look clean, and are helping increase desired actions/conversions on companies’ websites.

Why Use Pop-up Ads?

With all conversion-based marketing, you are trying to create a process for individuals to view content that will encourage them to take action. However, even if you have an amazing offer and your pop-up is working well, there will always be potential customers who don’t complete your pop-up ad. Pop-up ads can also be used strategically to increase potential customers and increase the probability of consumers completing an action. Your pop-up ads don’t have the to be conversion you absolutely need; it can be one that has less intent for the consumer if you want.

Pop-up Strategies

Similar to landing pages, pop-ups can be multifaceted. Your design can encourage people to take action, but the success of a pop-up ad is linked to the design, copy, formatting, etc just like a landing page. Another factor is when your pop-up ad activates during your potential customer's experience. This is where the difference between pop-up ads in the past and in the present today.

There are two types of strategies that should be useful to most industries. They are the funnel strategy and the eCommerce strategy.

Ecommerce Pop-up Strategy

If your business model is based on selling products online this strategy is for you. You can use pop-up ads that are focused on the products or services that the user is intending to purchase. However, there are multiple steps in the buyer’s journey so you will need to decide what pop-up makes the most sense in order to get them to convert into a purchase. There are three stages in the buyer's journey to focus on to convert for pop-ups. 

Inquiry Stage

In this stage, the potential customer views a product page. During this process, we recommend using a pop-up on your organic pages. The reason is that the potential consumer might view multiple products and receive a pop-up when you are simply browsing can be considered annoying. However, if you are running paid marketing ads that send users to a specific product page, then you should add a pop-up because the consumer already made a deliberate action to go to the page you are promoting.

Add to Cart Stage

This stage is pretty self-explanatory, this is when a customer has added a product to their cart but hasn’t purchased the item(s) yet. There is a good chance that the consumer will get cold feet and leave the website without purchasing the product or service. A pop-up with a trigger when consumers try to leave the page or are idle for a specific amount of time on the page is the way to go here.

Checkout Stage

This stage is when consumers are on the checkout page with the products in their cart. With the customer already at checkout, a pop-up ad here could include a discount or a last-minute recommendation promotion. 

Funnel Pop-up Strategy

If your business isn’t eCommerce focused, you probably use some type of form fill that goes into a marketing funnel. At the top of a marketing funnel, you will have offers that have lighter intent, and as you move further down the funnel you are getting closer to closing a sale, which is your main objective. Knowing how your marketing funnel works will help you create an effective strategy.
For example, let’s say you are driving traffic to a landing page that offers a demo, or free trial. This landing page could have a pretty good success rate, however, if the potential customer isn’t sure about signing up for the offer you can use a pop-up tool. The specific action of this pop-up would trigger if the user is not converting on the page and is about to leave. The pop-up can be a higher funnel objective like a sign-up for a webinar, ebook, or case study. That way if the customer is confident about a demo or purchasing the service, you can still keep them interested. You can also gather some of their information for retargeting, bringing them down the funnel a little further to get a full conversion later on.

Another place you can utilize a pop-up is on your thank you pages. By utilizing this you can try to push customers who received something higher up the funnel, like a webinar, further down the funnel with your offer of services or products. This helps produce a natural path for leads that might have some intent to use your services. Instead of having a slow trickle system like an email marketing list, you can expedite the process to hopefully lead to faster conversion.

Delivering a Pop-up Ad

The way your pop-up ad is delivered is just as crucial as the actual pop-up itself. As we have said a couple of times before, there is a fine line between an efficient pop-up ad and annoying spam. It needs to be at the right place at the right time. If you try these two strategies above you will have a higher chance of success and enjoy stronger pop-ups. Depending on what pop-up tool you are using, there are a variety of pop-up types you can try leveraging.  Let’s go over some of the most common ones and when to use them.

Page Load Pop-up

This pop-up type is activated after a page has been loaded for a specific amount of time. Usually, you don’t want it to activate too early, or for it to wait too long to show. If you check out your analytics, you can gauge how long users are on your page to make a judgment as to when your pop-up should show up. 

Bounce Pop-up

A bounce pop-up is one of the most common pop-ups used. This allows you to deliver a pop-up ad when a user is about to exit out of their tab within their browser. This is great for last-minute discounts or as another way to try and engage the site visitor before they leave.

Scroll Pop-up

This pop-up is usually applied on blog posts since the pop-up is activated by the visitor using the scroll function on their mouse. However, you can also use this scrolling feature on landing pages that have more content or information below the fold. Once they scroll past the fold, the pop-up will trigger. 

Click Pop-up

This pop-up is triggered by the use of buttons and links. Typically this pop-up is for form submissions. An example of this pop-up is what eCommerce companies would use when a product is added to a customer’s shopping cart. The pop-up in this example would provide a promotion to help complete the transaction. 

Pop-up ads have matured from being a spam message getting in the way of a user’s experience, to being helpful, appealing, and effective. They can help expedite a potential customer's journey down the funnel, bring potential customers into the funnel, or, if you are an eCommerce company, they can help you complete purchases on your site. Hopefully, these tips on pop-ups will help you to increase your conversions.

2021 May Marketing Ideas

May is just around the corner and as people say “April showers bring May flowers” so it is time for your company to bloom with some marketing ideas. There is a vast amount of holidays your business can get behind, and can leverage to increase traffic and your brand presence. So let’s dive into some 2021 May marketing ideas.

May Marketing Ideas

These marketing ideas for May are great for social media marketing like Facebook and Instagram, as well as blog posts, hosting events, or creating promotions.

National Small Business Week

Of course, we have to start with National Small Business Week, which is held every year in the first week of May. This year it starts on May 2nd. This week is dedicated to spreading awareness about small businesses and showing appreciation for the business and owners. 

The first thing to remember is to use the hashtags #nationalsmallbusinessweek and #nationalsmallbusinessweek(location) or any other relevant national small business week hashtags that are popular on social media. 

If you're a small business yourself, you should team up to promote with other nearby small businesses or ones you collaborate with. This way you will get some cross-promotion and build better connections with businesses and possibly client businesses. If your company leverages the use of downloadables or case studies, set up a landing page and promote some tips to help small businesses that can help accelerate their workflow or work efficiency. This will demonstrate your interest and show your efforts to help out anyone that is starting out. 

Mother’s Day

Everyone knows Mother’s Day is in May. It is also a great time for companies to do business, especially flower shops, spas, or specialized gift stores. This is also an opportunity to set up promotions, whether for a brand new product, discount, or BOGO (Buy One Get One) deal. Most eCommerce businesses will see a significant spike during this time, so it is critical to ensure your promotion is out early, and that you are reminding people frequently as the day comes closer. On Mother’s Day, you can post a picture of all the moms that work at your company showing appreciation for them. You can also create a giveaway where your followers post an image on social media of their Mother’s Day festivities, use your brand name as a hashtag and tag you, and receive a gift from your store or company in return. This will help you gain more traffic on social media, help boost your brand presence, and bring your online community closer.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a great time to show some patriotism for the USA and to market your business. If you sell American-themed products or products that are red white and blue, this is your time to shine. Some of the best places to promote this would be on your Instagram or Pinterest account. If you want to build your presence locally try hosting a BBQ or picnic, and give out swag bags with your products to help with brand recognition. Or, you can even take a percentage of your revenue based on the holiday sales and donate it to a charity for troops or veterans to show your support.

Spring Cleaning

Although it isn’t a holiday, spring cleaning is in full swing during May. This is a great time for contractors, landscaping companies, and painters to gain new clients among people getting their homes and cottages ready for summer. 

Try sending out postcards and emails to past and potential new clients to drum up business in your local area. Try posting promotions for discounts for your services on Facebook and Instagram, to advocate your services. Lastly, try creating some new website content like blog posts about seasonal maintenance or tips for spring cleaning. Make sure that you are properly SEO’ing and optimizing these posts to gain the most traction possible.

Star Wars Day

Star Wars Day has taken the world by storm over the last couple of years. With Disney and Star Wars doing so much, it is a great time to grab this audience on May the 4th. You can get creative with promotions for products or webinars during this time. Be sure to use the hashtags #maythefourth and #maythefourthbewithyou. 

Women’s Health Week

Women’s Health Week is a great time to get creative and show your support for female consumers. Highlight women in your industry for their accomplishments or promote content that they are posting during the week of May 12th.

This is also also a good opportunity to post recipes on social media or promote blog posts to help people stay creative and healthy with their diets. If your company is a fitness center, try having outdoor classes, like yoga, or a group run. This is a great way to have women get fit, connect with one another, and show off how great your classes and gym are.

Overall whatever you choose to promote during May, make sure you are recapping all your promos and events in an email newsletter or blogs so that consumers don’t miss the opportunity that you are providing. If they do miss out on it,  they will be ready for next year. If you are hosting events, make sure to be active on social media, share Instagram stories, foster a little FOMO in your audience and encourage people to participate. We only covered a few holidays in this blog post so below we will add some more that might make sense for you to leverage. Have a happy May!

• Small Business Week (May 2-May 8)

• Public Service Recognition Week

• Women’s Health Week

• ALS

• Motorcycle awareness

• Stroke victims

• Celiac disease

• Mental health

• Star Wars Day – May 4th

• Cinco de Mayo and Kentucky Derby – May 5th

• Teacher Appreciation Day – Tuesday of the first full week in May

• Mother’s Day – May 9th

• Peace Officers Memorial Day – May 15th

• Bike to Work Day – third Friday in May

• Armed Forces Day – 3rd Saturday in May

• Geek Pride day – May 25th

• National Burger Day- May 28th

• Memorial Day – May 31st

Is Mobile-First Indexing Ready for the Change?

Over the last several years, Google has made sure to give the most accurate search results for user queries on mobile devices. They have also prioritized ranks based on website performance on mobile devices. There have also been multiple updates from Google specifically for mobile search queries. Mobilegeddon in 2015, Speed Update 2018, and this spring the Page Experience Update will be coming out. This new update should increase friendliness, stability, and interactivity which are vital ranking systems for mobile searches. Google is also implementing a plan to transition all websites over to mobile-first indexing.

Mobile-first Update Date

In March 2020, Google announced they would officially move all sites on the web over to mobile-first indexing. Due to COVID-19, the project was pushed to a new launch in March 2021, and it seems like Google is close to being finished. Once it is implemented, there isn’t anything you need to do, but you can take extra steps to further optimize your site for the algorithm. 

Understanding Mobile-first Indexing 

Mobile-first indexing means that moving forward Google will predominantly use the mobile version of your website content for indexing and rankings. Google has always used a desktop version of page content for indexing. However, with the majority of searches now being from mobile devices, it only makes sense to convert the primary indexing to mobile.

If your website was created before July 2019, you will be notified via search console when your site is switched over to mobile version indexing. As of March 2020, Google announced that all websites are being moved to mobile indexing in September. That is until COVID changed Google’s plans. With the new March 2021 launch, as of now, around 70% of websites have been moved over to mobile-first indexing. The last 30% should be done by the end of April. This is a recent statement from Google regarding the remaining 30%:

“We have the deadline...set for March. I think there are some technical details with the last sites that we are working out. So we can switch them over in an optimal way. But at some point, it will just be switched over. If that is still in March or maybe in April or maybe even ends up in May, I don’t know. But we are going to be switching all of these sites and if your site is ready then that will just happen then.”

The good thing is that you do not need to worry about your site being indexed on a mobile-first basis, if it hasn’t already happened then it will soon. The only thing you need to worry about, however, is whether or not your website is optimized for mobile-first indexing.

Optimizing for Mobile-first Indexing

Since companies don’t need to worry about the indexing transfer, Google has provided some tips on how to enhance your mobile-first indexing.

Allow Googlebot Access to Render Your Content

Here are three steps to make sure Googlebot can crawl your website. First, meta tags are still used to crawl both versions of your site. It is the same default setting for websites and, unless your developer changes the configuration of your site, you don’t need to worry about this. Second, ensure that Google can see all lazy loading. Lazy loading is an optimization technique for the online content on your site or web app. To check out your loading speed and any issues you have, we recommend using PageSpeed Insights. Third, make sure you aren’t blocking specific URLs with the disallow directive. To learn more about this check out this section on Google Search Central.

Make Sure Your Content is the Same on Desktop & Mobile

Your Mobile site should have the exact same content as your desktop site. Google has let companies know that if you intentionally have less content on your mobile pages compared to your desktop page, then you will lose traffic when the page is indexed. We suggest further ensuring your headers are the same for mobile and desktop sites. 

Leverage Google Recommendations

Google has also made further suggestions to help you with mobile-first optimization. First, follow the Better Ads Standard when displaying ads on mobile devices. Second, ensure images on your mobile site follow image SEO best practices. The top seven things to remember to ensure compliance with SEO best practices are:

• Use a compressor to reduce image size

• Upload images in next-gen formats

• Scale images to work with your website

• Have original image content

• Leverage titles captions and alt text

• Ensure seamless social sharing

• Use lazy loading

Third, make sure videos on your mobile site follow video best practices. Finally, if your website has separate URLs for desktop and mobile pages, make sure they are verified in Search Console and that the URLs aren’t fragmented.

Watch For Mobile Errors

Google doesn’t expect you to know everything you need to optimize for. But they do expect you to check up on your site through Search Console for mobile errors and to fix any errors that pop up. The first step to do this is to claim your site in Search Console and submit a sitemap. 

By hiring experts in the space you can run an SEO audit on your website. This can help you understand what is holding you back on your website. You will be able to see if you are missing meta tags, structured data, oversized images, and page quality issues for a start. But there are other things you can work on as well. 

People are naturally worried about change, but by taking the initial step of reading this article you are already more informed and have less to be concerned about. If you are looking into what needs to be done, and what Google is looking for, just make sure to refer back to this article as a guide to further optimizing your website for Mobile-first Indexing.

Google Ads Retires tCPA and tROAS

TCPA (Target Cost Per Acquisition) and tROAS (Target Return On Ad Spend), the two oldest auto bidding strategies are moving on. In a blog post Google announced that in April, Google will be retiring tCPA and tROAS, as options for picking a bidding strategy in campaign settings. Just like other transitions, Google has completed over the last year, this change will be gradual. 

TCPA and tROAS Explained

Just to get an understanding of what you will be missing out on, let’s go over what tCPA and tROAS used to be. These automated bidding strategies used machine learning to create the best optimization for bids based on your goal. In layman’s terms, Google takes your budget and bids whatever you need to bid to get the most conversions with the cheapest cost or highest return percentage. The goal of each is to maximize your results.

These automated bidding strategies were the best way to get the most bang for your advertising spending. If you are an eCommerce company and have revenue tracking set up and you focus heavily on ROI, it would be the most preferred method. 

Monitoring

Being able to pick a specific target also means you need to check up and adjust your target tCPA or tROAS for it to align with the campaign's current performance metrics. In a perfect world, you would want a $1.00 CPA or a ROAS of 900%. However, if your target CPA or ROAS isn’t based in reality, Google will have a hard time figuring out how to reach your goal of $1.00. This makes the target goal finicky to reach, meaning you will need to change your goals.

Historical Data

Historical data is something you need in vast amounts to obtain the conversion data you need for these campaigns to get maximum results. If you are just starting an account with no history or data it doesn’t make sense to use these campaign strategies.. This is because Google uses machine learning and without any data to learn from, Google will struggle to hit your target.

Alternatives for tCPA and tROAS

As mentioned before, the changes to tCPA and tROAS will be gradually changed over several months. The main change is that max conversions are going to have the CPA target setting underneath it, similar to how Google already does with tCPA.  As well as, max conversion value will have an option underneath to obtain ROAS just as tROAs currently do. 

Is There Anything to Worry About for My tROAS or tCPA Campaigns

According to Google, no action is necessary. As we have discussed here before, these campaign types are being retired and reorganized. Due to this your campaigns will be transitioned to Max Conversions or Max Conversion Value, so there is no need to worry and you can continue your campaigns as usual. This transition should be quite smooth and you shouldn't see a change in your setup data or performance.

As we all know Google has been making numerous changes to Google Ads. These changes have helped optimize Google Ads but being able to learn about these changes beforehand will help you ensure your continued success. It is your choice to change your campaigns right away or to let Google slowly transition them. But whatever route you decide, you should be able to stay on top of it and evaluate your campaigns. Just make sure to do a quick audit on a campaign level for settings and metrics to help you identify what parts of your account might be impacted.

Digital Marketing Trends in 2021

Last year, companies worldwide had to change their shopping and business experience due to COVID-19. After adapting over the past year, people have learned how to effectively and efficiently shop online, and companies have enhanced their online presence to keep up with their customers. Due to the influx of companies’ online presence, competition on the internet has skyrocketed recently. Many startup companies have been employing digital marketing companies to help them compete in today's digital advertising market.

Digital marketing has been around for years, so it isn’t like there is a brand new strategy that is taking the world by storm. However, due to the foundation of digital marketing, many companies have been able to leverage it to use efficient channels to reach potential customers that need to stay at home. Today we are going to go over some new and “newish” digital marketing trends and the old reliables that have been effective in 2021.

New 2021 Digital Marketing Strategies

In-email Purchases

Email marketing has been around for years. Originally companies would add links to the email to direct traffic to their blog page, landing page, or specific products. MailChimp has taken it a step further. Now MailChimp is offering an experience that is similar to apps, embedding videos and other interactives. MailChimp has access to more user data, which allows them to do specialized targeting, based on the user’s purchase history, Google searches, most visited websites, as well as the apps’ customer service, and more. 

E-Commerce companies leverage email to let users learn more about their products, receive feedback and generate sales. Companies are starting to make this transition on a small scale. Being able to reach out to customers and obtain sales through email is incredibly relevant in 2021. It also helps increase your business opportunities through cross-channel marketing.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) is the use of computer technology to create a simulated environment. VR lets people experience and interacts in a 3D world. This technology allows consumers to dive into the authenticity of products, promotions, or videos and allows them to feel the experience. If VR is used properly, you can develop a range of competencies and talents. 

YouTube VR is a standalone app optimized for VR specifically. We already know what kind of powerhouse YouTube is. YouTube VR allows you to choose a video and dive right into that specific VR experience. This app also has a “theatre mode” which allows a bit screen experience. You can even watch the video and search at the same time. Pretty amazing right?!

Fulldive VR (FDVR) is different from YouTube VR. FDVR is as close as it gets to real life. This technology moves farther than a headset and allows a user to merge with the interface of a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). For example, someone that plays video games would be able to dive completely into the game they are playing and experience it from a true first-person view. Imagine being in the matrix, everything your character does, and getting to live all the senses, like hearing, taste, touch, and smell from the game you get to experience. The possibilities of this technology are endless. You can use this for leisure, training, or to show a property. Elderly people can set back the clock and dive into a world where they are back in their youth again.

Artificial Intelligence

Around 42% of marketers are not confident about segmentation for digital marketing. It is important for marketers to know their audience and most segmentations assume that people prefer one thing over another. AI helps marketers analyze behavioral and demographic data. So much so that it can do it more efficiently than most humans can manually. It can learn every detail of the user from profile information, purchases, demographic information, even browser history and apps used. 

Google has had an AI system in place for years, but only in the past few has it truly been integrating and pushing users toward using this effective advertising tool. Artificial intelligence can crunch numbers quickly and reliably and because of this and the proven success it has had, many companies are starting to employ it.

Voice Search

The great thing about voice search is that, as a consumer, your query is answered without needing to type, look or scroll through the results to find your answer. With voice search, the user is inclined to go with the first thing that pops up, which is usually the correct answer.

As voice search becomes more popular it won’t be enough to be on the first page anymore. The top spot of search results will be an even bigger priority than it is currently.

App Personalizing

With the power of AI and the massive amounts of data that it brings, you can create app personalization. The app stores, Google Play Store, and the Apple App Store are highly saturated as of now. Statista reported the number of apps on the Play Store and Apple App Stores were 2.9 million and 1.84 million in 2019. If a user installs your app there is a high chance of them deleting afterward due to an unsatisfactory first experience. If users find companies’ apps useful, there is an attention rate that needs to be applied to have users who are dormant become active again.

It's important to make sure that apps provide a smooth and personal experience to your consumers. Personalizing the app helps you stand out from the crowd, and helps consumers enjoy their experience of the app.

AI integrated apps are being used to improve app performance. And most app developers consider AI as an integral part of app development.