Picture this: you have a website, and you want to know where your visitors are coming from to improve your strategies. But there’s a tricky kind of traffic called “dark traffic.” It’s like visitors arriving in disguise – you can’t tell where they’re really from. This is a problem because you can’t figure out what’s working or not in your marketing.
Dark traffic happens because sometimes, visitors directly type in your website’s address or use bookmarks. Also, links shared in private messages or some apps can’t be tracked properly. So, even though they’re visiting your site, you don’t know where they’re coming from.
Solving this puzzle is essential. By understanding dark traffic better, you can make your marketing smarter and improve how you reach people.
Let’s dive into the world of dark traffic, learn why it’s a challenge, and find ways to uncover the hidden paths your visitors take to reach your website.
What is dark traffic?
Dark traffic refers to the website or app traffic that is attributed as “direct” traffic in analytics tools, but its true source or origin is not accurately tracked or identified. In other words, it’s traffic that comes to your website or app without clear referral information.
There are several reasons why dark traffic may occur, including:
Direct bookmarks:
Users manually typing in your website’s URL or using a bookmarked link.
Untracked links:
Links shared through private messaging apps or email that are not properly tagged with tracking parameters.
Mobile apps:
Traffic from mobile apps might not pass referral information correctly.
HTTPS to HTTP redirects:
If a user clicks a link on an HTTPS site that redirects to an HTTP site, referral information can be lost.
Social media apps:
Links clicked within social media apps might not always be accurately tracked.
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How to resolve the dark traffic problem?
To deal with dark traffic, consider the following steps:
Implement UTM parameters:
Use UTM parameters in your links whenever you share them online. UTM parameters are tags added to the end of URLs that help track the source, medium, campaign, and other relevant information about the link. This can help you better categorize your traffic and attribute it accurately.
Use analytics tools:
Utilize web analytics tools like Google Analytics or Usermaven to track and analyze your website’s traffic. While these tools may not completely eliminate dark traffic, they can provide insights into trends and patterns that might help you identify sources of direct traffic that should be categorized differently.
Monitor referral sources:
Regularly check your analytics data to identify unexpected spikes in direct traffic. Investigate the source of these spikes to determine if they are the result of dark traffic or if there might be new referral sources that are not being properly tracked.
Educate team members:
Ensure that everyone who shares links on behalf of your organization is aware of the importance of using properly tagged links with UTM parameters.
Improve tagging:
If you’re using social media or other platforms to share links, ensure that these platforms are correctly handling referral information. Some platforms might strip out referral parameters, leading to inaccurate tracking.
Monitor trends:
Keep an eye on traffic patterns and trends. If you notice a consistent pattern of dark traffic from a specific source, it might be worth investigating and finding ways to properly attribute that traffic.
Regularly review and clean data:
Periodically review your analytics data to identify and clean up any discrepancies or misattributions.
While it’s challenging to completely eliminate dark traffic, taking these steps can help you minimize its impact and gain a clearer understanding of your website’s true traffic sources.
Dark traffic scenario
Imagine you’re the owner of a thriving online fashion store, and your website is bustling with activity. You’re excited about the traffic flooding in, but there’s a twist. A significant portion of your website’s visitors fall under the mysterious realm of “dark traffic.”
You log into your analytics dashboard and notice that a substantial chunk of your traffic is labeled as “direct traffic.” This is the category that includes visitors who type in your website’s URL or use bookmarks to access your site. While this is expected to some extent, you suspect that not all direct traffic is as it seems.
You’re aware that social media shares and private messages could be contributing to this direct traffic, but without proper tracking, you can’t pinpoint the exact sources. This puts a wrench in your efforts to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns accurately.
You know that understanding your traffic sources is crucial for making informed decisions. You want to know which campaigns are driving the most visitors and which platforms are performing best. Without proper attribution, your marketing strategies could miss the mark.
Solution: Unmasking the shadows
Armed with the knowledge that dark traffic can skew your insights, you decide to take action:
UTM parameters: You start incorporating UTM parameters into your links whenever you share content. These magic tags allow you to tell Google exactly where the visitors are coming from. Now, whether it’s a link shared on Twitter, in a WhatsApp message, or through email, you’re covered.
Segmentation: You dive into your Google Analytics dashboard and create a segment specifically for direct traffic. This allows you to isolate the dark traffic and understand its impact better.
Page analysis: Navigating to the “All Pages” section, you look for anomalies. Certain pages seem to have unusually high direct traffic. You cross-reference these with your marketing campaigns and recent shares.
Education: You make sure your team is well-versed in using UTM parameters. You emphasize the importance of tagging links correctly to avoid the shadowy realm of dark traffic.
Refinement: Armed with insights from UTM-tagged links, you refine your marketing strategies. You identify which platforms are truly driving traffic and adjust your efforts accordingly.
Continual monitoring: You understand that dark traffic isn’t entirely escapable, but you commit to regular monitoring and adjustments to keep it at bay.
By unveiling the sources of your dark traffic, you’re not only improving your data accuracy but also making more informed decisions about your marketing efforts. The hidden paths are no longer a mystery – you’re shedding light on the shadows and navigating your website’s success with clarity.
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Dark traffic makes it difficult to understand the true sources of your website’s traffic and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Without proper attribution, you might misinterpret the impact of your campaigns.
How does dark traffic happen?
Dark traffic can occur when users manually type in URLs, use bookmarked links or click on links shared through private messages or certain apps. Referral information can be lost in these cases.
What are UTM parameters?
UTM parameters are tags added to the end of URLs to track the source, medium, campaign, and other information about a link. They help in accurately attributing traffic to specific sources.
How can UTM parameters help with dark traffic?
UTM parameters provide a way to tag links shared on different platforms, ensuring that even if the traffic appears as direct, you know its true origin.
What are some common sources of dark traffic?
Direct bookmarks, links shared in private messages, traffic from certain mobile apps, and links clicked within social media apps can contribute to dark traffic.
How can I prevent dark traffic?
To minimize dark traffic, use UTM parameters consistently, educate your team on their importance, and monitor referral sources regularly to identify anomalies.
Can I completely eliminate dark traffic?
It’s challenging to eliminate dark traffic entirely since some direct traffic is legitimate. However, you can take steps to reduce its impact and improve tracking accuracy.
How do I analyze dark traffic in Google Analytics?
Use segmentation to isolate direct traffic. Analyze specific pages that might have unusually high direct traffic. Look for patterns and trends that can indicate the origin of this traffic.
Brand marketing and online branding have become critical elements for conquering the digital landscape.
Designing a strategic marketing road map has become necessary to understand the fundamental idea of branding.
Multiple brands have successfully demonstrated effective brand building and brand marketing strategies.
Apple stands out with its sleek design, innovative products, and consistent messaging that evokes sophistication and forward-thinking.
Coca-Cola’s timeless branding focuses on fostering emotional connections and spreading happiness through their refreshing beverages.
Let’s elaborate on the basic concepts and then we’ll move forward to the details.
What is a brand?
A brand is a business or company that sells a product or service and has positioned itself into a well-reputed business in the niche or market segment.
Plus, the brand identity and positioning in the users’ minds play a vital role in the establishment of any brand.
Brand Attributes
Brand attributes are the traits that reassure the brand values by implementing the core values of the brand.
Here are the most common brand attributes that shape brands’ perceptions:
Relevancy: Brand relevancy means how relevant a brand’s approach is toward prospective customers. The target audience is key to getting noticed by the market segment.
Consistency: Stick with your publishing or marketing regime, especially if it’s working out for you because consistency takes you ahead of your competition.
Credibility: Credibility revolves around how a brand is perceived by people. Brands put a lot of effort into building brand reputation because being in the audience’s good books is essential for repeat clients.
Positioning: Brand positioning is an attribute that showcases how a brand shapes its image in the customers’ and prospects’ minds.
Types of Brand Attributes
Brand attributes can be divided into two types:
i. Hard brand attributes: These are the properties involving visual appearance and tangible qualities. It includes logos, brand names, slogans, sign boards, mascots, etc.
ii. Soft brand attributes: These are the characteristic values of a brand in the customers’ minds. It includes uniqueness, trustworthiness, innovation, convenience, etc.
What is branding and why is it important?
Branding is a marketing buzzword widely used in the sales, marketing, and public relations departments.
Branding is a strategy to build a company’s identity and carve out an image in the end-users’ minds.
The purpose of branding is to create awareness and spread the word about the brand.
For instance, Nike is an American brand known for manufacturing athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment. Plus, they sponsor sports celebs and sporting events across the globe.
The reason we all recognize the “Nike” logo is that they have spent billions of dollars over the years on building their brand’s identity.
Branding encapsulates everything from creating the identity of a brand to shaping the perception through several tactics, such as:
Choosing a brand name
Creating a logo
Making the branded stationery
Designing the official merchandise
Putting up the sign boards
Printing the pamphlets
Benefits of branding
Here are some key benefits of branding to remember:
Builds trustworthiness: Branding is crucial to building trust between a brand and the consumer base. A brand’s logo, name, slogan, and colors help develop recognition among the masses.
Establishes brand positioning: Brand positioning is the image of a brand in the customers’ minds. Often brands’ are known for their high-quality products or low prices and such perks help shape their position in the end-users’ minds.
Infuses brand loyalty: Branding sparks brand association that pulls the loyal customers and fan base toward their favorite brands. Brands understand the psychology of brand loyalty so they use branding to leverage that brand association in their marketing campaigns.
Helps customer acquisition: Branding works as a channel to communicate, attract, and engage both existing and potential customers. Companies use all sorts of channels to promote their branding, for instance, giveaways, charity events, sponsorship, etc.
Inspires purchase decisions: Since branding is all about creating awareness about a brand with direct and indirect brand promotion, it excites potential buyers and loyal fans to make a decision who are on the fence.
What is brand marketing?
Brand marketing is a process of establishing a connection between a brand and its users.
Brand marketing focuses on highlighting the effectiveness of a brand and how the entirety of the brand is important to the customers’ survival in the market.
Brand marketing doesn’t emphasize selling the product or service directly. Instead, it paves the way for building and growing a strong relationship with the end users.
Most brands opt for the traditional route and use digital marketing mediums like ads, email, and social media for product marketing. As a result, their goal gets tied with the transactional part of the communication.
Pepsi’s brand marketing strategy revolves around capturing the spirit of youth and pop culture. Pepsi’s online brand marketing efforts are a testament to their ability to connect with consumers in the digital sphere.
Pepsi employs branded URLs strategy to reinforce brand recognition and simplify online experiences. By using customized short links featuring their brand name, Pepsi ensures consistent branding across digital channels
What’s the difference between branding and marketing, and which comes first?
The main difference between branding and marketing is that branding brings recognition, identity, and positioning. Whereas, marketing gets brand attention, eyeballs, and engagement.
The branding vs. marketing debate isn’t worth it because both are essential from publicity and sales standpoints.
However, if you’re wondering which one comes first, it’s pretty clear that branding comes first.
For instance, if you launch an SEO agency, you’d start with a brand name, logo, domain, and website instead of hopping on Facebook to run Facebook ads.
What are the types of brand marketing?
There are several types of brand marketing, the below-mentioned three are the popular types of brand marketing:
i. Corporate brand marketing: It revolves around companies’ strategies to develop their reputation and build a connection with the audience through different means. These corporations often communicate their brand values through a mission statement, promotional offers, and press releases.
ii. Personal brand marketing: Personal brands are individuals who have managed to hone in on certain areas and dominate a small segment of the market. Social media influencers cash in on their personal brands. They use content distribution by leveraging social media platforms and amassing an audience which wants to listen to them.
iii. Product brand marketing: Product brand marketing is a process of branding a specific product by pouring all energies into it. In product brand marketing, brands often pick their best-performing product and try to put it on a pedestal to win the attention of the end users.
4 things to keep in mind when developing a brand marketing strategy
A branding marketing strategy doesn’t build on a whim – it always takes some time to put together a strong brand marketing plan.
Here are a few key elements to consider when developing a brand marketing strategy:
Brand marketing is a long-term strategy. Don’t rush it. Otherwise, you might end up frustrated within a few weeks. It’s about building a brand’s identity based on the available resources, relationships, and communications.
It takes time to reap the fruit. It’s not a short-term marketing strategy like an ads campaign that shows results at the end of the week, month or quarter.
It is ongoing and can take many forms. It doesn’t only revolve around choosing a brand name, opting for a nice logo, and designing the brand’s stationery. In fact, brand marketing encompasses everything you do to establish your brand’s identity through collaborations, partnerships, sponsorship, giveaways, etc.
The overarching goal of brand marketing is to grow the business, whether it’s done through building relationships with new prospects, attending seminars or industry meetups, or launching a content marketing plan to attract, engage, and convert the audience.
An effective brand marketing strategy involves understanding different market attributes, including brand positioning, which is a critical aspect that helps shape how a brand is recognized. In Cincinnati, diverse techniques are blended to leverage brand presence and reach an amplified audience base. This modern approach includes collaboration with a leading Cincinnati marketing agency that inspires local and international brands by marrying traditional concepts with contemporary technology and creative executions.
How to build a strong brand marketing strategy?
Brands with strong business positioning in their industry often are the ones that build a branding strategy and follow it. Remember, it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme; branding is a real deal.
Here are 9 tips that can help you can build a strong brand marketing strategy:
1. Identify your brand marketing goals and vision
The first and foremost thing to do when building a strong brand marketing strategy is to identify the brand’s marketing goals. Every brand sets eyes on certain targets to achieve.
In order to build a powerful brand marketing strategy, start by envisioning the future. It doesn’t matter whether it’s gaining a significant market share or entering into a monopolistic market. Collaborating with a specialized marketing agency can provide valuable insights and expertise in reaching your branding goals.
Once the brand marketing goals have been set, it gets easier for the team to execute marketing and branding plans.
2. Develop your brand identity
The brand identity means what this brand stands for or is known for. These brands try to develop their brand identity to attract potential customers and social media audiences.
When brands educate the audience about their belief system, they basically share what they believe in to spread brand awareness. Almost every brand tries to position itself as culturally diverse, with no tolerance for racism, and gender equality.
4. Build brand loyalty
To create a strong brand marketing structure, it’s vital to have brand loyalty on the customers’ part. Brands pay close attention to the ideas that help them earn brand loyalty from customers.
Once these things sort out, building a brand identity seems like a piece of cake.
5. Research target market
Understanding the target market and the challenges that might arise is crucial to establishing a solid brand marketing strategy.
Researching the target market means analyzing the market segment you’re about to enter to help bring clarity to the process.
Brands often turn a blind eye to the competition, which is a big mistake. There may have been a couple of reasons: the first is that they overrate themselves right at the beginning of the journey and the second is that they think competitors won’t notice them, so they don’t consider their competitors a threat just yet. Understanding your target market also helps shape your content, SEO, and advertising strategies to match customer expectations. For businesses looking to scale without building an in-house team, partnering with the best white label SEO service can streamline audience targeting and ensure consistent, high-quality search visibility.
There are two factors to consider when considering research on the target market for building a brand marketing plan:
Narrow in on the target audience: Zooming in on the right segment of the audience would take you closer to the target audience. This is exactly what every brand dreams of when entering the market.
Know your competition: Every brand that excels on social media or in SEO is always aware of its competition. They closely follow their content strategy, social media content distribution, SEO tactics, and more. To make this process more efficient, many teams automate data collection using proxy scraper tools, which help track competitor site activity and gather structured insights at scale.
The target market research would take you ahead of many competitors who don’t care much about understanding the competition or haven’t had a chance to learn more on this topic.
6. Determine your brand marketing tactics
One of the important steps when building a brand marketing strategy is to determine what route to take to get to the destination. The decisions such as color schemes, blog content style, social media content strategies, and other strategies fall into this category.
Clarifying the brand marketing tactics would provide the team with a roadmap to follow and help develop a system to save time in the future.
However, there are always some inside secrets that only team members know and these secrets aren’t supposed to get out. The reason is that competitors spy on you the way you keep an eye on them.
The keys to remember when determining the brand marketing tactics are:
Develop brand marketing collateral: Branding marketing requires a set of tools and resources. Developing an arsenal whether it’s a PDF outline or a list of online tool subscriptions – this would come in handy for the team.
Outline a messaging strategy: The message-driven content always does better than vague and pointless content. Make sure that the content is sending out a clear, concise message to the chosen audience.
Define messaging and positioning: It’s necessary to communicate to see that everyone is on the same page. The team must be crystal clear about the brand position. Don’t shy away from explaining the brand message to the team to ensure that every individual team member knows about it.
7. Rollout a timeline
Rolling out a timeline means allocating a time window to a specific project or campaign. Brands always set a timeline whether they’re hiring a new freelancer or opting for a new URL shortener.
It’s best to set a timeline for a campaign to analyze its performance and effectiveness at the end. Brands usually choose monthly, quarterly, biannual, and annual timelines for their campaigns.
When you’re building a brand marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to choose a time frame for the strategy. The reason why it matters is that it helps brands measure the performance of the campaign afterward.
8. Create a consistent brand image
One of the goals of establishing a strong brand marketing strategy is to come up with a consistent brand image. A brand image means building a positive brand reputation among customers.
Burger King UK faced backlash for tweeting ‘Women belong in the kitchen’ on International Women’s Day. The tweet was criticized for its insensitive and derogatory language, which undermined the significance of the day and perpetuated harmful stereotypes about women. Many people expressed their disappointment and called out the fast-food chain for the inappropriate message. Burger King later issued an apology and acknowledged the need to deliver a more respectful and inclusive message.
This example shows why it is crucial for companies to recognize the importance of fostering an inclusive and supportive environment both online and offline. Small gestures, like providing personalized office items such as custom paperweights, can also contribute to creating a more welcoming and cohesive workspace.
The brand position or image doesn’t establish overnight; it takes forever to establish a brand in the eyes of the audience. It requires continuous effort and a dedicated plan to pull this off.
Brands that successfully establish their reputation and goodwill try to continue that momentum and live up to the customers’ expectations. No wonder they build this brand position and image over the course of several years.
Therefore, it’s vital to make efforts to create a consistent brand image through actions, offerings, customer support, high-qualityproducts/services, and pricing to build and maintain a strong brand reputation.
9. Measure the success of your brand
No one wants their successful strategies to go unnoticed because otherwise they wouldn’t realize what worked for them and might as well try something new.
Therefore, the success measurement of the brand marketing campaign is crucial to the whole process.
In order to get disciplined about measuring the success of the branding strategies, keep the following tactics in mind:
Create brand guidelines: Don’t sleep on setting the ground rules for everyone to follow. It could be anything from choosing the best time to post on TikTok to using a specific font for social media image copies.
Make sure your product delivers on your promise: The product or service has to be top-notch to fulfill the promise. Otherwise, your marketing tactics would fall flat.
The question you might ask is how someone could measure the success of their brand marketing strategy.
Well, there are several indicators that might give you an idea of how well or badly your brand marketing campaign has performed over the course of the campaign, such as:
These indicators may vary from brand to brand. I won’t be surprised if some brand would go further down the rabbit hole and analyze numerous other factors to measure the success of their branding campaign.
How to use social media to market your brand successfully?
Social media has become an important part of the marketing arsenal. No individual or brand could think of marketing a brand without using social media.
The reason why social media is inevitable in marketing is because it has the attention of the masses. Now social media platforms have over 1 billion monthly active users.
So, you might wonder how you can use social media to market your brand without breaking the bank. Well, I have a handful of tips that would help you cash in on the social media real estate:
Create a community of like-minded people: Don’t shy away from starting something from scratch. Build a community of true fans or like-minded people using a Facebook group discord channel or any other similar tool.
Put out compelling, helpful content: Publishing high-quality, effective, and useful content is your ticket to engagement, attention, and eyeballs. Social media ads won’t cut it for most people, so use content marketing as a great alternative to advertising.
Build a strong relationship with the audience: Building a healthy, strong relationship with your audience means you care what they want to know or learn. Provide them with efficient customer support and help them out by going out of the way – it will make a difference in the long term.
Show up consistently on social media platforms: One of the best strategies to market a brand on social media is to consistently show up on social media platforms. You could always use a social media scheduling tool like ContentStudio to schedule your posts for the future.
Use promotional strategies to spice things up: Most brands only focus on once-a-year discounts. However, if you’re a B2C company, then use giveaways, discounts, and promotional offers throughout the year to strengthen the relationship with the audience. Don’t shy away from giving away free brand merch or arranging meet-ups with customers or fans.
FAQs
Let’s answer some of the burning questions about brand marketing:
i. What is the marketing of a brand?
Marketing a brand means putting the brand in front of the prospective audience and establishing an image of the brand.
ii. What are the four branding strategies?
Here are four of the essential branding strategies to follow”
1) Start with finding your brand’s mission.
2) Identify the target market to enter.
3) Build your brand’s image.
4) Measure the outcome of the branding campaign.
iii. What are the benefits of using a marketing strategy for a brand?
Provides clear direction
Targets the audience
Increases brand awareness
Establishes brand recognition
Defines a unique brand identity
Engages and fosters customer loyalty
Maximizes ROI
Drives business growth
iv. Which is better: marketing or advertising for brands?
There is no right or wrong answer for this one. It depends on the industry, company’s type, growth hacks being followed, and tactics that have worked – most brands tend to use both and put more energy into whatever works for them.
v. When is brand marketing most successful?
Brand marketing is most successful when it effectively communicates a compelling brand story, resonates with the target audience, and drives positive brand perception, loyalty, and engagement.
vi. What should be included in a good marketing plan for my brand?
The common tactics for establishing a solid marketing plan must include clarity of the brand’s offering, effective communication, and a powerful analytical mechanism to measure the outcome.
QR code is the bridge between your online and offline marketing efforts. Nurturing your consumers through the marketing funnel by giving them the correct information at the right time is the key to a successful marketing campaign.
Technology is meant to complement traditional print marketing and advertising instead of replacing it. The most successful and engaging marketing campaigns have one thing in common: integrating digital marketing approaches with conventional advertising.
What is QR Code?
QR are 2D barcodes that are scanned through smartphone devices through cameras or their QR code scanning capability.
The strategic use and placement of QR codes with access to the updated and relevant information can be the most significant asset.
Why does QR code marketing matter?
The QR codes were used by a Toyota subsidiary named Denso in 1994. They helped in tracking the vehicle parts and streamline the manufacturing process.
This allowed the fast-decoding process and thus called Quick Response Code.
Back when it was introduced, there was a minimum number of people leveraging this technology. With a tiny number of use-cases, marketers predicted the QR code trend not to last too long.
Fast forward to 2020; the pandemic catapulted the QR code adoption not because of its versatility but for the fact that it was a safe, hygienic and cost-effective solution.
Not just that, it also gave an option to collect data from the traditional marketing campaigns.
Is QR code marketing here to stay?
According to Bank My Cell, there are 6.648 billion smartphone users globally, which means 83.40% of the world population owns a smartphone. With the growing rate of QR code adoption, they can help increase brand awareness, increase sales and enhance customer engagement with the brand.
Modern way to create QR codes is through URL shorteners. Tools like Replug, Bitly and other allows users to create custom shortened URLs without needing to know anything about HTML. When sharing these shortened links, users just need to scan the link with their smartphone camera. This method is great because no technical skills are required, and any recipient can access the shortened URL.
How can you use QR codes for your marketing goals?
Increase social media following:
Social media presence for any business is no longer an option. It’s a necessity. You can use QR codes on the products for your marketing material to direct users to your social media pages like Facebook, Instagram.
This is a great way to maximize reach on social media networks. You can also ask them for a review of your product or tag them in the user-generated content with your product.
Get app downloads:
If used strategically, QR code marketing can be one of the fastest ways to increase app downloads and drive users into the mobile app marketing funnel. Burger King used them during 2020 MTV VMAs to let viewers download the Burger King app. These ads encouraged the viewers to scan the codes to download the app and avail various discounts.
You can use the QR code to direct viewers to a page or website with detailed information. The information not covered in the print ad, such as product description, pricing list, dates and time, the procedure to place an order, can be communicated via the code. The luxury brand, Burberry, introduced sustainable labeling where they outlined the product attributes through this.
QR codes can be used on marketing materials from billboards, print ads and business cards to direct users to webpages. This helps marketers to build email lists by asking users to sign up to avail certain offers. This will be a good strategy to boost your email marketing strategy.
Enhance the user experience:
You can improve the user experience by offering them valuable and necessary information in the QR code—for example, an instructional video to set up the product or printable sheet or link to the recipe on food products.
Increase leads: QR codes can be strategically used for lead generation according to the kind of business. For example, a real estate agency had to sell a large office building. They used these to generate and track leads.
You can use QR codes for establishing product transparency through product packaging. This will help you to win your customer’s trust. It will increase the customer’s loyalty and engagement which is why they are more likely will stick to the brand.
Share contact details: With the vCard QR code, you can share your contact details such as email, work address, phone details, location etc., with your customers. The dynamic one gives you the freedom to edit the information many times without reprinting the code.
Personalize the experience: With the flexibility to embed multiple content formats into QR codes, brands have attracted customers with personalized shopping experiences. JC Penny on Christmas released “Santa tags”. The idea was to allow the giver to record a personalized message played when the recipient scans the code.
Increase post purchase engagement: Avail the opportunity to engage your customer after the purchase. QR codes for rating and review pages are the one way to go about it. You can also link these to discount coupons for their future purchases, so they continue shopping with you. The Amazon QR codes drive repeat purchases and thus increasing the website traffic.
Get reviews and feedback: According to writers block hive, 86% of people said they trust online reviews as much as they believe in word of mouth. You can use a QR code to ask for product reviews and build the customer’s trust by providing them with the information they are looking for.
1-Restaurant Menus: With the pandemic, restaurants looked for safe and hygienic options for their customers. From menus to payments, restaurants used QR codes to design a contactless experience for their customers.
QR code menus lower the printing price and are also more convenient to update about the availability of items, price, details etc., without reprinting.
One cannot deny the effectiveness of OOH advertising. According to Dash Two’s study, 71% of consumers said digital billboards are more appealing than online ads. Pairing the billboard with a QR code strategically can drive consumers to take action and thus getting you data.
Walmart, during the 2020 holidays, when their sales are supposed to be high, didn’t observe the shoppers due to the covid-19 pandemic, they launched virtual billboards at places where they did not have brick and mortar stores.
These virtual stores allowed people to scan and buy the products on the spot from their online stores.
Visitors scan the code next to a painting, and they get a series of stories about the artwork, its history and the painter themselves.
The intriguing stories about war, deception, insanity, love and romance added to the experience of the museum visitors.
4- Recycling:
PepsiCo used an integrated hydration platform with QR codes in their soda stream style dispenser. For single-use plastic, PepsiCo used an integrated hydration platform. Other companies are embracing this innovation as well. Waste Direct, a leading waste disposal and recycling service in the UK, is leveraging QR codes to simplify waste management for convenient waste collection scheduling and more.
The users can bring their bottles to fill them with still or carbonated options. Thus, replacing the vending machine with dispensers that use QR code stickers. The system was launched in schools and offices, but it was later expanded into public places.
Add a call for action next to your QR code: A QR code is like the door opening into the experience your customer wants to have. But if there is no sign on the door, nobody will enter. A compelling call to action is therefore necessary.
QR code Placement: Make sure your QR code is strategically placed in a well visible place where your target user can notice it and quickly scan it. It should be set against a bright background to increase its readability.
Brand your QR code: Make sure the QR code reflects your brand identity. Branding is an essential part of it as well to generate more scans. Make them more attractive by customising them with brand colours and logos.
Mind QR code proportion: While using it on the marketing material or packaging, make sure not to distort the ratio since it can make the scanning difficult.
Minimize the number of QR codes: If there are multiple QR codes on the package or your print ad, it’ll confuse the audience, and thus you’ll miss the opportunity. Ideally, you should go with one goal per QR code, but if you want to give them a holistic view of your product, then you should create a universal link and direct them to the information they are looking for.
Use interactive landing pages: When linking your QR code to the video, file or landing page, make the content accessible on a smartphone and mobile-friendly.
High-quality QR code: Make sure you use a high-quality QR code with well-maintained whitespace so it is easy to read and scan.
Track data: Once your QR code marketing goes live, keep track of data. This data will tell you about your best performing and underperforming campaigns, and you can optimise them accordingly.
Benefits of dynamic QR code:
Editable: You can edit your dynamic QR code’s content at any time, allowing you to print your active QR codes, and you can still change the content at any time.
Data tracking: You can track data of your dynamic QR code addresses, contact numbers, and names; you can follow the number of scans, time of a scan, location of the scan and even people used it to scan it.
Cost-effective: A QR code generator is very cost-effective, and some platforms even offer it for free
Choosing a QR code generator:
Making the right choice of a QR code generator is the prerequisite of leveraging QR code marketing for your business. There are unlimited free QR code generators available, but make sure to choose with:
What are the data points you can get from QR codes?
QR codes are easy to use and are a great tool to analyse users’ click behaviour. They offer multiple data points such as time of the scan, location of the scan, times it has been scanned etc. With the right messaging and strategy, you can ask your users for email addresses, contact numbers and names.
Is there any expiration date for QR codes?
Some QR code generators offer a limited period or a limited number of scans. Once that is over, your QR code expires. However, some QR codes provide a lifetime of free access, and there is no limit on time or number of scans. In this case, you only have to make sure the URL is not broken.
How can we use QR codes in marketing?
QR codes are one of the most widely used tools for marketing by brands and businesses of all sizes.
You can use QR code for:
Directing customers to your website
Getting App downloads
Share the business and contact details with potential clients
Share the address and location
Building email lists
Encouraging customers to leave a review
Engaging the customers for post-purchase
Personalized marketing tools the marketing
Sending prompted SMS and emails
Access AR for marketing
How to promote QR codes for your business?
There are various ways in which you can promote QR codes:
Include QR codes on the packaging
Include QR codes on marketing material both online and offline
Include QR codes in email signatures
Include QR codes on your business cards
Stick QR codes on tables, doors and signage where it can grab customer’s attention
A URL blacklist is a list of website addresses (URLs) that are identified as potentially harmful or malicious by security organizations, internet service providers, or other entities. When a website is blacklisted, it is often blocked or flagged by web filters and security software to prevent users from accessing it.
The URLs listed on these blacklists are often identified through automated scans or reports from users who have encountered suspicious websites. URL blacklisting is done to protect the end-user’s privacy, sensitive information, and important data against hacking attempts or malware attacks.
Website owners, bloggers, and digital marketers rely on several channels and attention sources, such as social media, email lists, blogs, online communities, and advertising.
However, most of these channels drive the audience to the website for conversion, no matter how long it takes to build a relationship between a brand and the prospective customer.
No wonder entrepreneurs, bloggers, and affiliate marketers pay close attention to setting up their websites along with sales/landing pages, blog sections, and email newsletter opt-in forms.
It’s no surprise that a well-designed and optimized website is crucial to your digital marketing campaign’s success.
Speaking of website optimization, URLs play a key role in optimizing the website pages. Therefore, it’s essential to discuss URL blacklisting, and more importantly, how to fix the URL blacklisting issue.
If you have no idea about URL or website blacklisting and you’re confused right now, don’t worry about it, because we’ve got this covered.
Pay attention to every section of this very article.
1.0 Is URL blacklist dangerous?
Are you curious whether or not URL blacklisting is bad for your business? Always remember that businesses grow on relationships and reputation. A brand needs to establish strong brand positioning in the audience’s mind.
Since URL blacklisting destroys a brand’s reputation, online reach, and business development ability to the core, it’s surely not something any brand or business owner would want to be associated with.
More importantly, if a brand or entrepreneur somehow ends up getting their URLs blacklisted on search engines or social media platforms, it affects their communication, reach, and marketing. I do not doubt that URL blacklisting is quite dangerous for any business or personal brand. The impact of URL blacklisting has been discussed in detail further in the article. But before that
1.1 What do blacklist warning messages look like?
When websites or some of the website URLs are blacklisted, a warning message may appear in web browsers regardless of the operating system. These warning messages typically alert the user that the website is potentially dangerous, and advise them to proceed with caution or avoid the site altogether.
Here are some common URL blacklist warning messages:
This site may be harmful to your computer:
This message is often displayed by web browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox when a website is detected as containing malware or other potentially harmful content.
1.2 How does URL blacklist affect your website and business?
Being on a URL blacklist can have serious consequences for a website and brand. Here are 9 ways in which URL blacklisting can impact your website and businness:
1. Decreased visibility in the SERP
When a website is blacklisted, it may be removed from search engine results in pages or pushed down in rankings. This can lead to a significant decrease in traffic to the website, as users are less likely to find it through search.
2. Loss of trust by users
When a website is flagged as potentially dangerous, users may lose trust in the website and its content. This can lead to a decrease in engagement, as users may be hesitant to interact with the website or share its content.
This loss of trust could result in customers seeking out alternative providers and ultimately harm the website’s long-term sustainability. Losing customers’ trust is the last thing any brand or e-commerce website would want to happen.
3. Brand reputation at stake
If your website is associated with malware or other malicious activity, it can damage your brand’s reputation and credibility. This can have a long-term impact on your business, as consumers may be less likely to do business with you in the future. As users may view the website as untrustworthy, which could harm the website’s brand image and make it challenging to establish trust with potential customers.
4. The security risk for visitors
If your website is blacklisted due to malware or other security issues, it could pose a risk to your visitors. Malicious software can infect users’ devices or steal personal information, which can lead to legal issues and also damage your brand’s reputation.
5. Revenue losses
If your website relies on advertising or e-commerce, being blacklisted can result in a significant loss of revenue. Advertisers may be hesitant to place ads on a potentially dangerous website, and customers may be less likely to make purchases if they don’t trust the website.
6. Difficult to get rid of
Getting off a URL blacklist can be a long and difficult process. You may need to identify and remove all malicious content from your website, and then submit a request to the entity that added you to the list. This process can take time, and during that time your website may continue to experience negative consequences.
7. Decrease website traffic
One of the most painful things that happen to a website is when the traffic graph goes down for whatever reason. Once a website is blacklisted, it is likely to be excluded from search results and flagged as potentially harmful by web browsers, leading to a decrease in website traffic. Users may be warned about accessing the site or redirected to a warning page, which could deter them from visiting the site altogether.
8. Reduced conversion rate
If a website’s traffic and credibility are affected, its conversion rate, i.e., the number of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form, is likely to decrease. This could harm the website’s revenue and profitability.
9. Affect organic visitors
Organic website traffic is an essential source of visitors for millions of websites around the web. Organic visitors are users who find a website through search engine results, and when a website is blacklisted, it is likely to be removed from search engine results pages. This could significantly affect the website’s visibility and reduce the number of organic visitors.
1.3 How blacklisted URL affects website SEO performance?
URL blacklisting comes with loads of problems for a brand or organization. It could be fatal for brand reputation and SEO performance if not fixed immediately.
Search engine optimization has become extremely competitive. When a website gets expelled from the good books of search engines, it’s not easy to crawl back to the same position.
Once something goes wrong, it takes sheer hard work and a lot of time to win the same position back in the SERP.
Here’s how blacklisted URLs affect a website’s SEO performance:
1. Triggers traffic loss
One of the most devastating issues webmasters and companies face when their URLs get blacklisted is that their website traffic takes a hit. It results in a revenue decrease, no matter the size or scale of the organization. More website visitors mean more revenue, it’s that simple.
2. Rankings start to drop
Since website page rankings are a crucial part of the SEO process, URL blacklisting causes the ranking to drop in search engines. The reason behind this issue is that search engines want to provide their users with the best experience when they’re using them. Any turbulence during the search process that causes the end-user to get frustrated is a serious matter for search engines.
3. Decrease in inbound links
People want to link to authoritative and trustworthy websites. When a website’s URL gets blacklisted by Google, it eventually sends out a negative message to others in the industry. Nobody wants to link out to a spammy and blacklisted website, because every company or website wants their users to have a great experience when they browse their website or reading their content.
4. Bad user experience for visitors
When a website’s URL is blacklisted by Google or any other search engine, it directly affects the user experience. The web browsers may block those websites with blacklisted URLs and anti-virus softwares to start notifying the visitors with cautionary messages forcing users to exit the websites for safety purposes. Therefore, it results in a bad user experience for the end-user.
5. Dip in the website conversions
Nobody wants to spend money using their credit card or PayPal account if there is a hint of malware or malicious activities on the website. While URL blacklisting affects the SEO performance of the website, it also decreases the website conversion rate very quickly.
URL blacklisting is the process of adding a website’s URL to a blacklist filter, usually maintained by search engines, web browsers, or anti-virus softwares, due to various reasons such as spamming, malware distribution, or other malicious activities.
It’s vital to understand a website ends up getting flagged by search engines, web browsers, or anti-virus softwares. So I came up with a list of reasons why a website’s URLs get blacklisted:
1. Phishing Attacks
Phishing attacks involve tricking users into providing sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, or credit card details through fraudulent websites or emails. If a website is found to be hosting a phishing attack, its URL may be blacklisted to protect users from falling victim to the scam.
2. SEO Spamming
SEO spamming involves manipulating search engine rankings through various unethical practices such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, and link spamming. If a website is found to be engaging in such practices, search engines may blacklist its URL to maintain the quality and relevance of search results.
Website owners often use third-party plugins or libraries to add functionality to their websites. However, if these plugins or libraries are found to have security vulnerabilities, they can be exploited by hackers to gain access to the website’s server. In such cases, the website’s URL may be blacklisted until the vulnerabilities are fixed.
4. Website Defacement
Website defacement refers to the unauthorized modification of a website’s content or appearance. This could be done for political, ideological, or malicious reasons. If a website is defaced, its URL may be blacklisted until the website owner restores it to its original state.
5. Trojan Horses
A Trojan horse is a type of malware that disguises itself as a legitimate program or software. Once installed on a computer, it can perform various malicious activities, such as stealing sensitive information or damaging files. If a website is found to be hosting a Trojan horse, its URL may be blacklisted to prevent users from unknowingly downloading the malware.
6. Malware Codes
Malware code is a type of malicious software designed to infect computers and cause harm. If a website is found to be hosting malware code, its URL may be blacklisted to prevent users from being infected. Also Read: What Does HTTP 302 Code Means For URL Shorteners?
7. Vulnerabilities in the server
Server vulnerabilities can be exploited by hackers to gain unauthorized access to a website’s files and data. If a website’s server is found to have vulnerabilities, its URL may be blacklisted until the vulnerabilities are fixed.
8. Suspicious download links
If a website includes suspicious download links that lead to potentially harmful software or files, its URL may be blacklisted to protect users from downloading such content.
9. Malicious content
If a website is found to contain malicious content, such as viruses or spyware, its URL may be blacklisted to prevent users from being infected.
10. Downloading unwanted programs
If a website prompts users to download unwanted or potentially harmful programs, its URL may be blacklisted to protect users from downloading such programs.
11. Information scraping
Information scraping involves the unauthorized harvesting of data from websites. Using reliable web scraping software ensures compliance with legal and ethical guidelines, helping avoid copyright violations and potential blacklisting. If a website is found to be scraping information from other websites without permission, its URL may be blacklisted for violating copyright and intellectual property laws.
2.1 How do you check if Google has blacklisted you?
There are clear signs and indications to figure out whether or not Google has blacklisted or penalized your website. I’ll dig deeper into this and try to help you out by sharing what I know.
Here are the indicators to look out for when checking if Google has blacklisted your site:
1. Page removal from the search index:
One of the clear indicators of Google blacklisting a URL or a set of URLs from the same website is the removal of the website’s pages from its search index. What it means is that your site is no longer appearing in Google search results.
This could be a sign that Google has blacklisted your website, possibly due to a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
2. The huge dip in organic traffic:
Website owners keep an eye on the traffic numbers of their websites. As soon as they notice a significant drop in your website’s organic traffic (without any notification), it could be due to Google blacklisting the website for some reason.
This could happen if Google has removed your website’s pages from its search index or if your website’s ranking has been penalized.
3. Manual penalty for the site:
Manual penalty could lead to up to 90% drop in traffic or the website URL getting blacklisted. If you receive a manual penalty notification in the Google Search Console, it means Google has identified a violation of its Webmaster Guidelines on your website. This could be due to black hat SEO techniques, such as keyword stuffing, misleading content, or link-building schemes. A manual penalty can result in your website being removed from Google’s search results or a significant drop in organic traffic.
4. Malware notification in the Google SERP:
If a website has been infected with malware, Google may detect it and warn users in its search results with a notification that the website may be harmful. The notification may look like this: This site may harm your computer.” This can lead to a decrease in traffic and a damaged reputation.
If Google has identified malware on your website, it could lead to URL blacklisting. If the malware notification appears with your URLs in the SERP, ask your website host to scan your website for malware and hire a website developer to do code inspection for code injection. It’s always best to change the web hosting if the problem persists.
3.0 How to protect the site from being blacklisted?
Building an optimized, well-designed website for marketing isn’t enough. Often, it’s vital to protect a website property from fatal attacks that could turn out to be a pain in the butt if not taken seriously. While at the same time, it’s easy to get caught up in other marketing strategies which leads to putting website security and SEO techniques often on the back burner.
If you need a precise plan of action to avoid URL blacklisting, then the following 10 tips would come in handy for you:
1. Use a secure web hosting service:
Choose a web host that is reliable and provides a secure environment for your website. This can help prevent your website from being compromised or hacked, which can lead to blacklisting.
2. Choose a high-quality theme & plugins:
Make sure your website code and layout are clean and optimized for search engines. It can help prevent any issues that may cause search engines to blacklist your website. A premium, high-quality WordPress theme would do the job for you. Secondly, use only genuine and premium plugins/themes on your website to ensure that they are secure and optimized for search engines. Using pirated or un-trusted plugins/themes can lead to security risks and blacklisting.
3. Improve your website security:
Use a reputable website security tool to scan your website to ensure it is free from any malicious code or scripts. Moreover, monitor your website for any suspicious activity and take action immediately if you suspect any security issues. This can help prevent your website from being compromised or hacked.
4. Assign user roles and permissions:
Assign user roles and permissions to ensure that only authorized users have access to your website. This can help prevent unauthorized access, which can lead to security risks and blacklisting.
5. Install an SSL certificate:
Use HTTPS encryption on your website, meaning buy and install an SSL certificate on your domain. Install an SSL certificate on your website to ensure that all communication between your website and users is encrypted and secure. This will help prevent security risks and blacklisting. Contact your domain and hosting provider for the SSL certificate installation.
6. Update your WordPress edition:
It’s important to keep your website software and plugins up to date. Outdated software can be vulnerable to security threats, and updating it can help prevent your website from being compromised. Keep your WordPress edition up to date, and ensure that your website is secure and optimized for search engines. It may also help prevent site security issues that lead to URL blacklisting.
7. Apply white hat SEO techniques:
Use only ethical and legitimate SEO techniques to optimize your website for search engines. Using black hat techniques can lead to blacklisting. Avoid using black hat SEO techniques. These tactics can include cloaking, hidden text, bulk backlinks, and other manipulative tactics that violate search engine guidelines.
8. Limit WP login attempts:
Limit the number of login attempts on your website to prevent brute force attacks and hacking attempts. Plus, keep a strong login password for your WP admin account.
9. Replace broken links:
Regularly check for broken links on your website and replace them to ensure that your website is functioning properly. While broken links may not lead to URL blacklisting, it sure sends out an SEO signal.
10. Implement a DMARC policy
Implement a DMARC policy to help prevent email spoofing and phishing attacks. This will help protect your domain reputation and prevent your website from being blacklisted by email providers. 25.5% of email senders who use p=none policy expect to move to stronger DMARC policy in the course of the next year which further showcase the important of using stronger email authentication standards.
3.1 How to access website with URL blacklist warning?
Your website browser might prompt a warning notification to exit the website or move ahead with caution. It’s always best to keep your anti-virus software active and updated just in case.
Furthermore, try to understand the essence of the blacklist warning. Often the expiration or the absence of the SSL certificate prompts a warning message on the website. Some website visitors who have no idea about an SSL certificate, chicken out immediately.
Similarly, if your anti-virus software warns that there is a serious threat of malware or phishing attack on the website you’re browsing, you shouldn’t move forward. Instead, try to exit the website and find an alternative website to visit.
3.2 When to block and allow URLs?
Before figuring out when to block or allow URLs, it’s important to comprehend how URL blocking works.
There are levels of URL blocking. On the user level, you may install a Chrome extension for blocking the website and blacklist the website URLs you want to block. This way, no one on your PC would be able to access those URLs.
Furthermore, there is country-level URL blocking where a governing body orders the concerned department to block a specific website on a state or country level.
So URL blocking could be due to any reason, for instance, national security, blasphemy, rules violation, etc. The decision to block or unblock a URL depends on the case and the reason varies from case to case.
4.0 Conclusion on URL Blacklisting
I do not doubt that URL blacklisting is an important tool that helps protect users from visiting websites that are deemed unsafe, malicious, or contain harmful content.
Search engines and web browsers use site filtering systems to identify and block access to such blacklisted websites, thereby preventing users from being exposed to potential security risks or malicious content.
While URL blacklisting is an effective tool, website owners must take measures to ensure that their websites comply with search engine guidelines and do not engage in any malicious activity that may lead to URL blacklisting.
By taking proactive steps to maintain website security, website owners can help prevent their websites from being blacklisted and ensure that their websites remain safe for users to visit.
A lot of digital marketers, bloggers, and entrepreneurs prefer using URL shorteners to share their content on social media.
While there are so many benefits of using link management tools, one of the reasons is to hide the main URLs from suspicious users and hackers on social media.
I hope you learned a lot about URL blacklisting and taking away a ton of value from this article.
5.0 FAQs about URL blacklisting
Is URL blacklist a virus?
URL blacklisting isn’t a virus, but malicious viruses on the web server could lead to URL blacklisting in search engines. So always keep an eye on your website performance and security.
Is a blacklist permanent?
URL blacklisting may last until the appropriate actions aren’t taken to clean the website code or change the web hosting server to ensure a smooth and safe user experience for the website visitors.
What does blacklist mean in security?
Blacklisting refers to the act of being flagged by an authority or a platform. The cybersecurity experts educate and help audience the audience on the security of websites, apps, email addresses, and social media accounts.
What kind of websites will the search engine blacklist?
Any website that contains malicious viruses, phishing codes, and suspicious scripts may get blacklisted by search engines.
How can I check if my site is blacklisted?
There are several ways to check the site’s blacklisting status, such as hiring a cybersecurity expert, using an online URL blacklist checker tool, and keeping an eye on the site status in your Google Search Central account.
Are blacklisted URLs and blacklisted domains the same thing?
Blacklisted URLs mean the specific page URLs have been blacklisted, whereas the blacklisted domains mean the complete websites have been blacklisted.
Want to tap into the latest content marketing best practices to ensure you’re doing what’s best for your business? Then, you are in the right place. In this piece, we dive into the latest content marketing best practices for 2022 that are a must-do.
Content marketing is one of the most critical marketing strategies for companies today. After all, content is king. The right content can help you win new customers, expand your company’s reach, and generate more leads. But inappropriate content can backfire and hurt your brand more than anything else.
Here are some Semrush stats and facts of 2021 that you must know before developing a content strategy for 2022.
High-performing content types in 2021 were videos followed by blog posts, success stories, and case studies.
The top channels for AI content distribution were organic social media, email marketing, paid social media, and organic search.
The top 5 content marketing challenges in 2021 were attracting quality leads with content, promoting content, creating content that resonates with the audience, proving ROI of content, and improving the SEO performance of the content.
Below we have discussed each of the content marketing best practices. We’ve also shared tips to help you put them into action and overcome the challenges. Ready to up your content marketing game? Let’s dig in:
1. Increase Use of AI-Technology
AI Technology is becoming a significant game-changer, and it will add more innovation to the business practices in the coming years. For example, AI-based content generation tools like Vondy, Jarvis, and Sonic help put out larger quantities of content with lesser effort.
But the negative side of AI tools is that they can affect the authenticity of the content.
How to Make the Most of AI Tools?
Google AI is getting smarter day by day, and it can detect AI-generated content. However, using cheap AI will surely cost you as Google will not rank such articles. Here’s what you can do:
Do not completely generate a piece of content as user-generated content has a higher value.
Write a piece of content and improve the content structure using an AI writing tool.
Use AI tools such as Grammarly to refine your content.
Many keyword research and content analysis tools, such as SEMrush, Aherefs, etc.., give you a better idea of what keywords to use and perform better to rank Google SERP. However, it’s always good to explore other options as well. If you’re looking for different solutions, Semrush alternatives can offer unique features and pricing models that may better suit your needs.
Tools like answerthepublic.com and Sparktoro.com help determine what the audience is talking about.
AI is not confined to automatic writing but also other technologies. For example, the use of AI-based chatbots is increasing, and by 2023 it will drive $112B in retail sales. In addition, as AI, machine learning, and Natural Language Processing grow, chatbots will become more used as 24/7 customer service agents.These advancements also play a crucial role in managing high call volume, ensuring efficient and timely responses to customer inquiries
Here’s a statement of SEO expert Eli Schwartz on AI Technology
Source:contentmarketinginstitute.com
2. Use of AR and VR
Since 2017, augmented and virtual reality use has doubled as 85 million people used VR/AR technology in 2021. It is expected that the market size of the VR industry will grow up to $300 billion by 2024. Also, VR and AR enhance user experience so that they will become an integral part of the content marketer’s strategy and content.With innovations like Apple VR, companies are pushing boundaries, making these technologies more accessible and immersive for consumers and businesses alike.
Why Incorporate AR and VR into Your Content Marketing Strategy?
Augment Reality
3D imaging and AR have become a popular part of the e-commerce industry. Incorporating AR tech gives customers higher visibility on how the products will fit the actual space. Evolve your content strategy to evolve the customer’s shopping experience for years to come. 71% of consumers believe AR technology will positively impact their purchase decision.
Hybrid Events
The pandemic has given businesses a long break from hosting in-person events. Now that doors of streaming events live have reopened, 93% of marketers plan to invest in virtual events as it is allowing them to reach a wider audience. It’s believed that a hybrid solution of both offline and virtual events is the way to go in the future.
If you are a start-up or if it’s your first time hosting an event, then holding an online webinar or live session would be suitable for you. However, a hybrid strategy is better for more prominent companies as virtual events significantly drive traffic and leads. Do invest in a good microphone and camera setup.
3. Incorporate Data Driven Content Marketing
When people think content, they often think creative. But in reality, great content marketing is a blend of both creativity and data. A proper data-driven approach to a content strategy can help brands avoid wasting resources by trying to connect with the wrong audiences in the wrong places. Data can help identify target audiences and their trending topics, channel-specific preferences of potential customers, and the influencers most relevant to those groups.
The difference between good and great will be a brand’s ability to leverage data-backed insights. Data insights empower content marketers to create more impactful content. Be sure to incorporate data-driven analysis into the following areas of your content strategy.
Deliver data-driven content marketing using the below tips.
Go for Hyper-Personalization
Customer hyper-personalization goes beyond simply addressing them by name. Instead, it caters to their wants, needs, and preferences. Hyper-personalization creates unique interactions with each customer by using data, analytics, automation, and artificial intelligence.
In doing this, marketers cater content to each buyer’s persona, using targeted products, marketing channels, and language. Brands such as Amazon, Netflix, Stitch Fix, Naked Wines, WES, and VI Trainer already using hyper-personalization strategies effectively.
Trust cannot be manufactured. An influencer’s fan base is as powerful as a friend’s recommendation when endorsing a product, service, or business.
In addition, real stories shared by real people have an impact. Considering all these factors, you will see higher sales and better-qualified clients.
Understand what your target audience discusses and to whom they listen. For example, if you create joint content with other companies and people in your field with a broader audience, your content marketing will be most successful.
These brands attribute their social media following gains according to their influencer strategies. Over a single year, GNC credited social influencer targeting with over 380,000 new Facebook fans.
In the B2C and D2C spaces, influencer marketing is now established, and the days when influencer marketing was a dirty word in the B2B sector are now long over.
More B2B businesses will embrace influencer marketing and sponsored user-generated content this year, two of the most successful marketing methods.
Content creation requires more than intuition. The aim is to create content that’s accurate, relevant, and based on user needs. It’s possible to test your content’s effectiveness using A/B tests.
Through A/B tests, you can gain insights into user behavior and what elements influence vital metrics. Conversions, bounce rates, customer confidence, and revenue generation are some metrics. Revenue increases are a more tangible metric than something subjective like visitor experience.
Best URL shorteners include features such as creation of branded links, A/B testing of landing pages, traffic routing, traffic analytics, etc., that amplify your content marketing campaigns. Get a URL shortener, create branded short links and use the content that gives you the most traffic and conversions.
[BrandedLinkCta]
4. SEO Content will Win
In 2019, Google processed over 3.5 billion searches daily. Now in 2022, it’s 8.5 billion searches per day. Translation: everyone will race for the search engine results pages (SERPs) to rank better for improved brand awareness and organic traffic.
We have a comprehensive guide on how to publish content that ranks, but here are some quick tips to get you started:
Content Optimization
Target long-tail keywords or key phrases with less competition to rank better
Answer frequently asked questions. Perhaps they’ll land you in Google’s Featured Snippet.
Structure your content based on questions asked by the searchers. Get these insights from the ‘People also ask’ and ‘Related searches’ sections.
Not to forget, focus on quality now more than ever. “It will become more difficult to crush it with SEO because the competition will be stiffer, but we’ll see a major increase in the quality of content that brands publish.” Odak comments.
So what’s quality content, again? First, it’s content that solves your audience’s problems–thoroughly answering their questions. Second, the content reflects expertise, authority, and trust (E.A.T.).
While building your brand’s authority takes time, for instance, by consistently creating content on specific topics to help visitors, you can work on improving your expertise right away. How? By interviewing subject experts.
Let’s give you an example: for this piece on how you can grow your YouTube subscribers, we reached out to someone who’s done it so that we can share actionable advice with you. See? Doesn’t that make the guide even more trustworthy?
Mobile Optimization
It doesn’t matter how great your website content is. However, suppose it isn’t optimized for mobile. Then, You are about to lose out on a massive part of your audience. Content marketers will probably continue to pay close attention to this trend as most searches will come from mobile devices.
Voice search is expected to rise as apps like Siri or Alexa have become popular in asking about any random query.
One of our top content marketing best practices for 2022 is to answer questions with long-tail keywords.
Significance of Core Web Vitals
Algorithms and search engines have improved and are more sophisticated. Strong web vitals contribute to better search engine results. All content marketers should optimize speed for desktop and mobile, images with the proper tags and labels, and even a site map.
These technical elements must contribute to the visibility of your content, just as a wall hook or picture hanger contributes to a painting on your wall. A big mess is inevitable if you do not follow the proper structure or fundamentals. Don’t let this happen to your content! Instead, implement technical SEO tactics to maximize your content visibility.
5. Prefer User Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) has become an essential component of content marketing strategy in today’s era when customers are ready to talk about your services and products online. In UGC, users create content about brands.
The Nielsen Consumer Trust Index reports that 92% of consumers trust organic, user-generated content over traditional advertising.
Ways to Use UGC
Reviews
User reviews show potential customers that your products and services are reliable.
Video
You can connect with your audience through videos in ways that other media cannot. In addition, you are much more likely to gain sales from user-generated videos since they are more likely to go viral.
Gamification
It is another way to create UGC and engage users. Gamification aims to allow users to earn rewards and recognition for completing specific tasks.
Holiday Season Content
During the holiday season or other special events, consider great ways to incorporate UGC into your content marketing strategy. Businesses can engage with customers at an emotional level in several ways. For example, Starbucks runs the #RedCupContest every year during the holiday season and invites its fans to take part by sharing their personalized coffee cups across social media to win Starbucks gift cards.
This alone reveals how marketers value reusing content. Essentially, content repurposing helps you get more eyeballs to the content you create. Not everyone in your audience might be a reader, for example. So you can always take the blog post’s content and make a video of it for the video-lovers in your audience.
Repurposing helps keep your content bank full to the brim. With your content pool complete, you can consistently grow your online presence and support your community-engaged while saving time.
How to Repurpose Content?
It’s easy to assume that content repurposing involves copying and pasting content from one platform to another, from your blog to a Medium publication. But that’s not what it is about.
Content repurposing is creatively tweaking and reusing content you’ve created in different formats to use on other platforms. For example, curating medium-length articles on the same topic idea into an eBook by developing a narrative for them, so they’re all arranged. Then, reading them is easy for the reader (and makes sense too). Capeesh?
Now follow these two steps to start content repurposing today:
One, look at your content performance metrics
Example: dig them out from Google Analytics. If a piece on evergreen content is doing relatively good or a video has impressive views, consider repurposing it. But hang on. Why look at this metrics? So you know that you’re recycling content that’s popular with your audience since it resonates with them.
Two, decide which format you want to recycle content into
You can always turn blog posts into videos, Facebook and LinkedIn posts, Quora answers, and Twitter threads. You can get exciting stats from your written content into social media graphics or present steps in a LinkedIn carousel.
Also, you can do the exact reverse. For example, if you write Quora answers addressing different questions people have on the same topic, you can put them together into a blog post. Similarly, you can take all the social media stats graphics and package them into an infographic for your blog.
Diversifying your content will allow you to reach different audiences.
To achieve success, companies need various content types across all marketing channels. The human brain is receptive to images, increasing the likelihood of consumers engaging with them more quickly. As a result, consumers will continue to be attracted to visual content, particularly infographics.
Well-created infographics can be a great source of helpful information.
Infographics allow consumers to engage, gain information, and understand quickly what you are presenting simply by a glance. Visual learners will particularly benefit from infographics.
Visually appealing and informative content contributes to a more engaging customer experience and improves message and communication.
It can convey information using graphic representations of data or knowledge in less time.
Infographics are essential for content marketing because, as the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words.
Infographics are graphics that provide a visual representation of data or explain a concept. They are typically used to communicate important information quickly, and 45% of marketers who leverage content marketing use them.
According to 56% of content marketers, it’s the most effective marketing type.
Most marketers will invest the same amount in infographics over the next 12 months.
Information graphics are popular because of their shareability, aesthetic appeal, informative nature, and ability to provide helpful information to the reader.
8. Personal Brands will Take Over
For businesses, personal branding has been the talk of the town lately. That translates as having a brand identity and a voice while letting your employees take the online stage.
This comes with multiple benefits: it shows your work culture, helps you grow brand awareness as people come to know your employees, employees share behind-the-scenes content, and many other things.
Having an online presence also means you can keep a pulse on your target audience’s likes and interests and maybe even source content ideas from them. It also means you can grow your authority, promote content and grow an online community.
If you’re not ready, simply bring your social team forward. SEMrush’s Diana Richardson is famous in their Twitter circle.
How to grow your Online Presence?
Pick a Platform
This could be a social media channel or a Q&A community like Quora or Reddit.
Create an Action plan
Answer: How do you plan to engage on the channel? What content will you share with your audience? How much time will you invest? Who’s going to be involved? Don’t forget to jot down precisely what you stand about so people can see your human side.
Be Consistent
When all’s said and done, consistency is what’s going to take you to success. Show up regularly, share value, and focus more on ‘giving’ than ‘taking.’
9. Video Marketing is going to be big, including Live Streaming
People are in love with videos, and whether it’s a virtual event, a social media live streaming session, an informal Zoom coffee hour, live audio streaming, or a pre-planned webinar series. And marketers are already making the most of it in a zillion ways. In 2022, videos will be the leading source of internet traffic (82%). Furthermore, 93% of marketers say videos are essential for their marketing strategy. While, 86% of marketers believe videos will be a crucial source in getting leads.
Video Trends to watch out for in 2022
Short-form videos will be the significant video trend.
Using interactive videos will increase.
CTA’s in videos will increase leads.
Live streaming videos, such as Vlogs, Webinars, etc., are becoming an essential part of content marketing strategy.
Using videos as a storytelling approach in content marketing connects you with your target audience. People watch live streams 10-20 times longer than on-demand content. You know what that means, right? So you got to invest in video marketing if you already haven’t. But don’t worry, you don’t have to break the bank doing so.
DIY video creation tools can help you create videos from templates. Thus, making the job easy to do, quick and cost-effective. Besides using a DIY video tool to create intro videos, customer testimonial videos, client onboarding tutorials, etc. Therefore, considering going live is a must. Exclusive AMA sessions, masterclasses, fireside chats, live tutorials, and sharing behind the scenes content are some ways to engage your audience with live video.
How to start with Video Marketing
The following steps will help:
Get Started with a Plan First
How many videos do you aim to create? What content will you cover? Who will you target, and at which stage of the buyer’s journey?
You’ll need an action plan covering where you want to stream (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn), what content you want to protect, and how you’ll engage your audience.
Don’t forget that you need a content sharing plan for videos and live streams.
Get your Gear
We’ve already suggested InVideo as a video-creating tool. Just make sure your video specs are correct since each social platform has a different requirement.
If you’re planning to create a video by recording your screen, plenty of AI tools and Loom alternatives can make the process easier and more professional. For live streaming, most social platforms already offer free built-in options. The key is to choose the platform where your target audience spends the most time and start creating from there.
Suppose you find yourself divided between two or more platforms. Then consider live streaming on multiple platforms. How? By simulcasting using a tool such as Vimeo that supports it.
Suppose you are ready to shell out some money. In that case, it’s a good idea to get some low-cost live streaming tools, including a microphone, camera, or even a tripod and an encoder.
Prepare an outline and Shoot
The script is also a crucial part of the video content. Whether it’s a live stream or template-based video for your social media, you need to be careful with your words. So, an essential step is to work on your script. Then, once ready, start creating.
10. Audio Content
Audio content is as popular as video content. Instead of a video ad, real human voice-based interaction builds trust among consumers. The number of voice assistants users is continually growing. Therefore, optimizing content for voice search has become a necessity. It’s no hidden truth that the trend of Podcasts will keep growing. Apps like Clubhouse (audio chatroom) provided new ways to reach out to customers.
What to Do?
Set up your podcast as it offers an excellent opportunity for marketers to reach out to new audiences.
Optimize content for voice search.
Use good audio tools like Audacity’s Levelator tool to adjust audio levels in segments and ensure that your content is of top quality. This saves you time, so you don’t have to do it yourself!
11. Targeted Content that Resonates with your Audience
Last year also taught content folks the significance of creating content that resonates with their audience and helps them through their buyer’s journey (the awareness, consideration, and decision stages).
The Creative Marketing Alliance’s Director of Content Strategy, Kenneth Hitchner, notes, “Structured content that addressed a specific part of the buyer’s journey will go mainstream. More companies will adopt this style to reach their prospects along the sales funnel no matter where they are.
This type of content program is long-term cost-effective — remember, this content is slowly replacing your ad budget, which is gone once it’s spent — at three critical things:
Moving future customers down the sales funnel in a way that makes them believe it was their idea,
Drive content engagement, which is a new-fangled word for ‘involvement’ that breeds commitment, and
Connecting the marketing team with the sales team, blaming others for shortfalls.
How can you get to know your Audience in-Depth?
Four ways to learn about your audience:
Talk to your Customers or Target Audience
Ask your sales team to get you connected with your loyal customers. So you can ask them about the challenges they face, how they prefer to consume content, and so on and on.
You can also share the same survey with your connections on social media. But remember: take the time to study the study to create better content.
Take to Social Listening
Surf through hashtags to uncover what troubles your target audience and what sort of content they prefer to consume.
Analyze Google Analytics
This lets you see what content gets the most views (therefore, resonates with your audience), your target demographic, and other details to polish your content strategy.
12. Improve Content Experience
Next up on content marketing best practices is a better content experience or making it easy for your audience to enjoy your content. Visitors need to stay on your site, love the content you’ve created, and enter your sales funnel.
How to improve the Content Experience?
Good page design involves a few fundamental things: readable font size and type, optimal use of white space, and a good color scheme. Medium, for example, is designed with content experience on the front with everything from the font type and size, white space, design elements used, navigation, and so on.
Interactive content is one that your audience can engage with.
That doesn’t mean you create the next Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. A Netflix interactive film about a game developer, Stefan, who had to decide (that users made on his behalf) to develop a game.
Quizzes will also do instead. Women.com credits over half of its engagement to online quizzes, which helps it dominate even BuzzFeed!
Other ideas for interactive content include sliders, timers, calculators, tools, and interactive visuals.
Last, make it easy for readers to consume content. While the design does half the job, the way you format your content and write does the rest. We know that lengthy content may rank first on SERP, but most readers likely move on towards something shorter and digestible.
Hitchner applauds storytelling as he states, “we’ve come a long way from keyword stuffing.” As search engine algorithms continue to advance, so will online marketing content.
Start connecting people to brands through the story. It will drive engagement and cut through the noise by helping others.
Follow these tips to make your content easy to read,:
Write short sentences and paragraphs
Use active voice and get rid of fluff words
Get straight to the point or use the BLUF (bottom line up front), giving the essential details first.
13. Community Building will continue its Upward Trajectory
Last year saw the rise of personalization in marketing, Money Heist trending, and creative ways to make the most of chopped marketing budgets. One such approach included community building. Whether it’s a content community or a customer community, the benefits of both are unparalleled.
According to the 2022 Community Industry Trends Report, 87% of community professionals say that community is essential to their company’s mission.
So how can growing an engaged community help you? If it’s a content community, you can:
Welcome guest posts to keep your content pipeline full and
Pool subject experts or request community members to connect you to experts in their network
Here’s Shopify’s Content and SEO Lead, Kameron Jenkins, leveraging the content marketing community on Twitter:
On the flip side, a customer community delivers the following benefits:
Better learn your target audience’s pain points to create targeted content.
Source user-generated content to share on your marketing channels
Improve customer journey and trust as customers or customers-to- learn about the humans behind your brand, your values, processes, and more.
In short, online communities can help enhance brand awareness and credibility, giving you the most bang for your buck.
How to start an Online Community today?
Now that you know how fruitful an online community can be, how do you start one?
Starting a community is no rocket science and doesn’t require you to invest early. However, you might need to later on. For example, host giveaways for keeping your community engaged.
Take the following steps:
One, decide whom your target audience is by selecting whether you’d like to start a customer or content community.
Two, pick a platform. Slack is a great paid platform for starting a community. Facebook and LinkedIn groups are free to make. Similarly, Twitter chats are free to start. Or, if you’re an email marketing enthusiast, create a newsletter to grow your community.
Here’s an inside look at Christina Pashialis’ paid Content community:
Third, prepare an action plan, answering questions like,
What will your community be about?
How will you promote it?
How do you plan to provide value to your audience and stand out from similar communities?
What steps will you take to keep your community engaged?
Once done, get started.
Alternative plan: if it’s a content community you are after, join one. How? Look for relevant Facebook and LinkedIn groups. The Content Marketing Lounge on Facebook, for example, is a valuable community for content marketers. Are you looking for social media marketers in the community?
We have a Facebook community named ContentStudio.io Community (Marketing Strategies, Tips, and Hacks).
There’s a lot to be excited about, from working on establishing your online presence to creating an engaged community, repurposing content, and polishing your storytelling skills. Focus on these content marketing best practices to stay competitive and updated with the market.
E-commerce marketing tools are platforms used to promote, sell, and optimize online businesses. These include email and social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, content marketing, affiliate marketing, and retargeting. By using a combination of these tools businesses can establish a strong online presence and increase their brand awareness.
Picture this: You have a great product, a beautiful online store, and the determination it takes to succeed in the world of e-commerce marketing. But for some reason, you just can’t seem to get the traffic, conversions, and sales that you need to grow your online business.
Well, in today’s digital age, it’s no longer enough to simply have a great product or website – you need to actively market your brand and products to stand out from the crowd. That’s where the right marketing tools can make all the difference.
In this blog post, we’ve compiled a list of 25 of the best e-commerce marketing tools. From email marketing to social media management, SEO optimization to customer management, we’ve got you covered with a comprehensive list of tools that cater to all your marketing needs.
And the best part? We’ve included both free and paid options, so you can choose the tools that work best for your budget.
Let’s get started.
Social media branding and management
These tools are like your personal assistants that make your life easier by handling tasks such as scheduling posts, tracking metrics, managing multiple accounts, creating and curating content, and analyzing audience engagement.
Below are some useful social media branding and management tools that you can use to manage the social media presence of your e-commerce business.
Replug is a URL shortener that provides link management and conversion optimization to businesses and digital marketers. It is an awesome e-commerce marketing tool that offers several features to help businesses like yours grow.
First off, there’s pixel retargeting – this feature lets you track your website visitors and retarget them with relevant ads on other platforms – such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google. This help boosts your conversion rates, enhances ad efficiency and reduces marketing costs.
Next up, there’s social branding with branded URLs. With Replug, you can create branded URLs by adding your domain name that can be shared on social media, email campaigns, and other promotional materials. Custom URLs help increase brand recognition and improve the click-through rate of your campaigns.
Another awesome feature is customizable calls-to-action (CTAs). With Replug, you can add CTAs to any piece of content, encouraging users to take a specific action – like signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. This can help you drive more conversions and sales.
But that’s not all – Replug also offers a bio link feature that lets you create a landing page with multiple links to your products, services, and social media profiles. This simplifies the user experience and is ideal for platforms with limited link options e.g. Instagram.
Finally, Replug offers detailed tracking and analytics tools to track the number of clicks, conversation rate, referral sources, locations and devices of your visitors on any link. So you can analyze which of your digital campaigns are working and adjust your strategy accordingly for a high ROI. Here’s a review on G2 from one of Replug’s loyal customers.
ContentStudio is an all-in-one solution for content marketing and social media management. You can use it to discover new content, curate posts, plan your content calendar, schedule your social media posts, and analyze your social channels’ performance using detailed analytics.
The best part? It integrates with popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and content marketing platforms like WordPress, Medium, etc, so you can manage everything from one place. Plus, it supports third-party tools like Canva, Giphy, and Google Drive, giving you even more flexibility to create and share engaging content.
Pricing of ContentStudio: Starts at $25 per month.
Have you ever wondered how to keep up with the latest trends and find out what people are searching for on the internet? Well, that’s where Google Trends comes in. It’s an online tool that allows you to track and analyze the popularity of search terms and topics across different regions and languages.
With Google Trends, you can get a glimpse into the search behaviour of internet users, and see how different topics or keywords are trending. You can also discover related queries and topics that people are interested in, and even find out which regions in the world are most curious about certain search terms.
Pricing of Google Trends: Free. (certain features or data sets may require a paid Google Ads account or a Google Cloud account)
UpPromote is an affiliate management software to grow your online business through affiliate programs. This tool helps you onboard affiliates, track their performance, manage commissions, and automate payouts.
With UpPromote, you can create different commission structures and rules tailored to your business needs, and monitor your affiliates’ activity with real-time reports and analytics. You can also list your affiliate offer on their marketplace and get discovered by potential affiliates/influencers.
Pricing of UpPromote: Free plan available with basic features. Paid plan starts from $29.99 per month.
Brandwatch is a social media listening and analytics platform that you can use to keep an eye on what’s being said about your brand online.
With Brandwatch, you can monitor and analyze online conversations about your brand, competitors, industry trends, and consumer insights. The platform uses AI and machine learning algorithms to gather data from various social media channels, news sites, forums, and blogs.
Pricing of Brandwatch: No fixed pricing is mentioned on their website. Contact their sales team for customized pricing.
Visual content plays a vital role in e-commerce marketing. Graphic designing tools help you create visually appealing and persuasive content for your website, social media profiles, and marketing campaigns. These tools include graphic design software, image editors, and templates for creating images, videos, and animations.
Here are some of the best graphic designing tools for e-commerce businesses.
Canva is a great option if you’re looking for a user-friendly tool that offers a wide variety of templates and design elements to help you create stunning graphics. It’s perfect for creating social media posts, product images, and other visual content for your e-commerce store. And the best part is it allows you to create stunning visuals even if you don’t have extensive design experience.
Pricing of Canva: Free plan available with basic features. Paid plan starts from $54.99 per year per user.
Are you tired of slow loading times and large file sizes for your website’s images?
Well, have you heard of Compressor.io? It’s an online tool that can compress your images and decrease their file size without losing quality.
Whether you have JPEGs, PNGs, GIFs, or SVGs, Compressor.io can help you convert from PNG to SVG. By optimizing the compression algorithm for each image, the tool can achieve the smallest possible file size without sacrificing image quality.
This e-commerce marketing tool is an absolute game-changer. Your website’s loading times will significantly improve with smaller file sizes, and your bandwidth usage will decrease.
Pricing of Compressor.io: Free plan available with basic features. Paid plan is priced at $50 per year for 1 user.
Free trial: Not mentioned on their website.
Email marketing/survey tools
If you’re running an online store, you know how important it is to stay in touch with your customers. That’s where email marketing comes in. With email marketing and survey tools, you can create, send, and track email campaigns, newsletters, and surveys segment your audience, automate your campaigns, and even do A/B testing to ensure that your emails are optimized for success.
Mailchimp is an email marketing platform to create and send targeted email campaigns that engage your customers and drive sales. It integrates with popular e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento allowing you to seamlessly synchronize your customer data and track your sales.
Mailchimp also offers automation features such as abandoned cart emails and product recommendations, making it easier than ever to reach your customers at the right time with the right message.
Pricing of Mailchimp: Free plan available with basic features. Paid plan starts from $13 per month for 500 contacts.
ConvertKit is an email marketing platform designed for content creators and online businesses. While it is not specific to e-commerce, it can be used by online stores to create and manage email marketing campaigns to promote products, communicate with customers, and build relationships with subscribers.
ConvertKit offers features such as customizable forms and landing pages, automation workflows, and subscriber tagging and segmentation, making it a valuable tool for e-commerce businesses looking to improve their email marketing efforts.
Pricing of ConvertKit: Free for 300 subscribers with basic features. Paid plan starts from $9 per month.
If you’re looking for an online tool that can help you collect feedback and insights from your customers, then SurveyMonkey is worth considering. With SurveyMonkey, you can create and conduct online surveys, polls, and questionnaires that can provide you with information to improve your products or services.
Whether you need to ask multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, or Likert scale questions, SurveyMonkey has got you covered. And if you need more advanced options like branching logic or skip logic, SurveyMonkey has those too.
Pricing of SurveyMonkey: The basic plan is free with limited features. Paid plan starts from $35 per month.
Imagine being able to reward your customers for simply telling their friends and family about your business. You can do this with ReferralCandy!
ReferralCandy is a referral marketing platform designed specifically for e-commerce businesses. It allows you to create and manage referral programs that incentivize your customers to refer new customers to your store. Then you can offer them enticing rewards such as discounts, store credits, or even cash.
Pricing of ReferralCandy: Starts at $59 per month.
GetResponse is an all-in-one email marketing platform that helps businesses create engaging email campaigns and newsletters with ease. It offers powerful tools for automation, list segmentation, and performance tracking to help you connect with your audience and boost sales.
You can use its drag-and-drop email editor to design professional-looking emails, or choose from a wide range of pre-built templates. GetResponse also supports autoresponders, allowing you to send welcome emails, product updates, or follow-ups automatically.
Whether you’re a small business or an online store, GetResponse makes it simple to manage your subscribers and deliver the right message at the right time.
Pricing of GetResponse: Free plan available with basic features. Paid plan starts from $15 per month.
Free trial: 30-day free trial.
Monitoring and analytics
These tools provide you with insights into your e-commerce business’s performance, customer behaviour, and the latest market trends. With these powerful tools at your disposal, you can track your website traffic, measure conversions, analyze bounce rates, and monitor click-through rates, among other metrics. Armed with this information, you can make data-driven decisions that will help you achieve your goals.
Here are some of the best monitoring and analytics tools for e-commerce businesses.
AdRoll is a digital marketing platform that offers retargeting and prospecting solutions for businesses. With AdRoll, you can target your ads to potential customers who have already shown interest in your brand or website, which can lead to more conversions and increased revenue. Using machine learning algorithms and customer data, AdRoll delivers personalized ads across various channels, including social media, email, and websites.
Pricing of AdRoll: Pay-as-you-go option or you can opt for a fixed pricing plan at $36 per month.
Google Alerts for e-commerce is a tool provided by Google that allows you to monitor your online presence by receiving alerts whenever there are mentions of your brand, products, or competitors across the web. These alerts can help you stay informed about industry trends, identify potential opportunities or threats, and monitor customer feedback.
With Google Analytics for e-commerce, you can dive deep into your customer demographics, track their behaviour, and analyze their purchasing patterns. This data can help you make informed decisions about your online store and marketing strategies, as you can see exactly what’s working and what’s not.
Some of the features that come with Google Analytics for e-commerce include sales and conversion tracking, custom reports, funnel analysis, and real-time data monitoring.
Pricing of Google Analytics: The basic version is free with limited features. For paid version, no fixed pricing is mentioned on their website. Contact their sales team for a pricing quote.
Free trial: Not mentioned on their website.
SEO optimization tools
These tools can do wonders for your e-commerce business by improving your website’s search engine rankings and visibility. With SEO tools, you can perform keyword research, analyze your website’s backlinks and your competitors’ strategies, and optimize your website’s content and structure for search engines.
Here are some suggestions for top SEO optimization tools for e-commerce.
Google Optimize is an online tool that allows you to create and run A/B tests and personalization campaigns on your website to improve conversion rates and overall user experience. What’s more, it integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics, providing you with insights and recommendations to optimize your website’s performance. With features like A/B testing, multivariate testing, redirect tests, and personalization, Google Optimize is a must-have for any serious e-commerce business owner.
Pricing of Google Optimize: The basic version is free with limited features. For paid version, no fixed pricing is mentioned on their website. Contact their sales team for a pricing quote.
With Moz, you can easily analyze your website’s keywords, identify opportunities for optimization, and receive recommendations for on-page and off-page SEO strategies to improve your search engine rankings. Plus, Moz offers other helpful features like site crawling, backlink analysis, and competitor research to help you stay ahead of the competition.
Ahrefs is a popular SEO tool that provides you with insights and data to improve your website’s search engine rankings and traffic. By using Ahrefs, you can analyze your competitors, identify the most effective keywords, track your backlinks, and monitor your website’s SEO performance. This tool can help you develop an effective SEO strategy for your e-commerce business to increase visibility and sales.
Pricing of Ahrefs: Starts at $99 per month.
Free trial: Not mentioned on their website.
E-commerce management tools
If you are tired of spending countless hours managing your online store, inventory, orders, shipping, and payments, then listen up. E-commerce management tools can make your life a whole lot easier! With features like product listings, order management, and customer management, these tools are designed to streamline your e-commerce operations. Integrating field service management software can be a game-changer for businesses that extend beyond e-commerce and into physical services. Not only does it enhance the management of on-site tasks, but it also aligns with streamlining your overall business operations efficiently. Trusted by various industries, this innovative software facilitates the optimal allocation of resources by tracking locations and managing workloads seamlessly.
Here are our top recommendations for e-commerce management tools.
BigCommerce is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that enables you to create online stores and sell products or services online. It offers a wide range of features, including customizable website design, product and order management, payment processing, and marketing tools. With its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features, BigCommerce is the perfect choice for any business looking to succeed in the world of online sales.
WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce platform designed as a plugin for WordPress. It helps you to create an online store and sell products and services online. WooCommerce offers a wide range of features, including payment and shipping options, inventory management, order tracking, and tax calculation.
Pricing of WooCommerce: Free. (you may need to pay for additional services such as web hosting, domain name registration, premium themes, and plugins)
Magento, now Adobe Commerce is an open-source e-commerce platform that allows you to build and manage your online stores. With Magento, you’ll have access to powerful tools for managing your product catalogue, processing payments, and handling orders. Plus, its built-in SEO and marketing capabilities will help you attract more customers and increase your online visibility.
Pricing of Magento: Their pricing is not publicly disclosed. Contact their sales team for customized pricing.
SearchSpring is an eCommerce search and merchandising platform designed to help you deliver relevant search results, personalized product recommendations, and optimize your site search and merchandising strategies. SearchSpring offers features such as natural language search, product autocomplete, dynamic filters, personalized product recommendations, and visual merchandising tools.
Pricing of SearchSpring: Starts at $599 per month.
ShipStation is an e-commerce shipping software designed specifically to help online sellers like you manage their shipping processes with ease. With ShipStation, you can import and manage all your orders in one central location. It automates tasks like label printing, tracking, and order management, making your life much easier.
You also get access to real-time rate comparisons from various carriers. That means you can find the best deal for your shipping needs and save even more money.
Pricing of ShipStation: Starts at $9.99 per month.
If you want to build stronger relationships with your customers and increase sales then Drip is a marketing automation platform designed specifically for online businesses like yours.
With Drip, you can create personalized email campaigns, targeted advertising, and messaging that speak directly to your audience’s interests and behavior. By segmenting your customer base and using automation, you can send timely and relevant communications that will keep your customers engaged and coming back for more.
Partial.ly is a payment platform that provides a flexible payment solution for e-commerce businesses. With Partial.ly, your customers can pay for their purchases over time with scheduled payments, instead of paying the full amount upfront. This means that customers can make purchases that fit their budget and financial situation, which can result in increased sales and reduced cart abandonment rates for your business.
Sometimes, shoppers hesitate at the checkout page because they don’t have the funds to pay for everything upfront. Or maybe their paycheck hasn’t arrived yet. That’s where Klarna comes in.
Klarna is a payment solutions provider for e-commerce businesses that allow customers to pay for products and services through different payment methods, such as instalment plans, deferred payment, or pay later options. This flexibility increases conversion rates and reduces cart abandonment, as customers can complete their purchase without having to pay the full amount upfront.
Pricing of Klarna: You will be charged per transaction. Fees will be outlined during the onboarding process depending on the size of your business.
27. Visme
Visme is a web-based tool that allows users to create a variety of visual content, including presentations, infographics, reports, social media graphics, and more. It’s designed to be user-friendly, making it accessible even to those without design experience.
Visme offers a wide range of customizable templates, graphics, icons, and charts, enabling users to create visually appealing content quickly and easily. It also supports collaboration, allowing teams to work together on projects. Visme is popular among businesses, educators, and marketers who need to produce professional-looking visuals for various purposes.
With these e-commerce marketing tools in your arsenal, you have everything you need to boost your online presence, increase your sales, and transform your online store into a sales and conversion magnet. So what are you waiting for? Start implementing these tools today and watch your e-commerce business soar!
FAQs on ecommerce marketing tools
What are the top 6 e-commerce platforms?
These are the 6 best e-commerce platforms.
Shopify
WooCommerce
Magento
BigCommerce
Wix
Squarespace
What are the 7 C’s of online marketing?
The 7 C’s of online marketing refer to a set of essential principles for effective digital marketing. These are:
Customer: Knowing your target audience
Content: Creating and sharing valuable, relevant, and engaging content
Context: Delivering your content at the right time and in the right format
Connection: Building relationships with your target audience
Community: Creating a sense of community around your brand
Customization: Personalizing content and user experiences
Conversion: Optimizing your online marketing efforts to drive conversions
One way to increase sales on Shopify is to use apps that allow you to sell on other platforms. This can be a great way to reach more customers. Here are some great apps for Shopify that can help increase sales.
1. Replug
If you are looking for a tool that can help you with both branding and tracking your audience, to serve them better, then Replug is for you.
What’s Replug?
It’s the best URL shortener platform for shortening and customizing any URL. It also includes rich features, such as retargeting pixels, A/B testing, tracking analytics and much more, as explained below.
Branded Links
Branded links have become a necessity for online branding and marketing. Usually when we create social campaigns, branded short links look friendlier to eyes and remember compared to any random long URL with multiple characters and numbers. Here is an example of Pepsi brand using a branded URL given in the image below.
Adding to the benefits of branded URLs, they are also easy to share, specially where there are character limits (e.g. Twitter only gives you a limit of 280 characters for the Tweets).
[branded_short_links]
Retargeting Pixels
Retarget your Shopify audience on other platforms, such as retargeting your Shopify audience on Facebook using Replug retargeting pixels.
For example,create a retargeting campaign in Replug, and connect your Meta pixel with the campaign created. Any one that clicks on your shortened Shopify URL will be tracked, and you can retarget them on Facebook using Retargeting Ads.
Test your webpages, content or campaigns using Replug’s A/B Testing. Compare up to 10 versions of a single URL, and choose the one that gets most traction. A/B testing is a handy feature for e-commerce owners, who can use it when running a special campaign or testing a product/landing page etc.
Create one awesome bio link for all social platforms. Using Replug bio links, you can direct your social media audience to your e-commerce store by designing a custom bio link webpage. No technicalities required, just simple drag and drop functions. Easily place your links, social icons, image, videos, text, and much more to design an appealing bio link webpage.
Here’s an example of bio link webpage.
What else?
A link shortener tool gives you the control of shortening, customizing, analyzing and managing branded links.
That’s not just it. There’s more….
Replug has some other cool features that you can check out and make most of your online marketing across the web and social channels.
Another great option is the Shopify Sales Booster app, which helps increase sales by offering discounts and coupons to customers who purchase through your shop. This app is also free and a great way to boost sales on any platform.
Multi-orders
Multi-orders is one of the most popular Shopify apps that allows you to manage and fulfill orders from multiple sales channels in one place. It integrates with popular marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy, as well as with Shopify POS. With Multiorders, you can save time through automation.
3. One Click Checkout & Stickybar
One click checkout & stickybar is a great app if you want to increase sales on e-commerce platforms. The app allows customers to checkout with multiple payment methods and shipping methods. The app also allows customers to track their order status and view their order history.
Shopify integration with ContentStudio makes sharing products easier from your e-commerce stores across all social channels.
5. Omnisend
Omnisend is an excellent email marketing app for Shopify. By adding Omnisend to your store, you can increase the number of emails collected from visitors, cultivate leads with email campaigns, and improve sales and marketing. This app is designed to help you quickly build an email list, grow your Shopify store with email, SMS and push marketing, or drive more sales with email automation.
Google Shopping Actions is a program that lets shoppers purchase products from your store directly through Google search results and Google Assistant. This app makes it easy to set up and manage your participation in the program.
Oberlo is my favorite among the best Shopify apps. It is a drop-shipping service that allows the user to find popular products online and start selling immediately. Get products from various suppliers and add them to your online store. Oberlo is a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to start an eCommerce business without investing in inventory.
8. ReferralCandy
Referral Candy is a Shopify app that allows you to create custom referral programs for your store. If you have customers who are satisfied with your products, they will be more likely to tell other people about them. If you don’t have a referral program, you could be missing out on some potential sales. .ReferralCandy has a wide range of customization options to choose from so you can build a referral program that fits your brand perfectly. It is also a system that automatically delivers rewards to make the referral process easier.
9. Product Reviews by Shopify
Product Reviews is an excellent app that allows customers to write reviews for products they have purchased. Customers can also rate products they have purchased. The app also allows customers to share their reviews with their friends and followers on social media.
What are the essential steps to set up an essential influencer marketing campaign? Influencer marketing campaign steps are to establish goals, identify the right influencers, set strategy, measure results and readjust strategy.
You may have heard the term “influencer marketing” thrown around a lot lately, but what does it mean?
Influencer marketing is about leveraging relationships with key individuals who hold sway over their audience. These people could be bloggers, Vloggers, celebrities, or highly engaged customers.
Before you start reaching out to potential influencers, you must first establish your goals. Do you want to increase brand awareness? Drive traffic to your website? Boost sales?
Once you know what you want to achieve, you can start identifying the right influencers to help you reach your goals.
Pro tip: As with any other marketing campaign, these goals must be “Smart”.
Let’s say you want more visitors to your website. A SMART goal would sound like this:
“I want to increase traffic to my website by 10% within the next three months.”
Why is this important?
Having a precise goal helps you establish concrete key performance indicators to track it.
You can pick the right strategy, tools, and messages for this goal.
You can find the right influencers for your purpose.
Take this example:
Andy Neal is a plus-size model, hiker, and micro-influencer. His (funny, emotion-filled) posts mostly show him hiking in different environments. Andy has talked at length about his mental health and how hiking outdoors has helped him become more grounded.
As an advocate for health at every size, Andy Neal is the perfect influencer for companies retailing plus-size clothing.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CgumCYsu6TI/
In the post above, you can see Andy touching on a current online controversy: does promoting plus-size gear also mean promoting obesity?
That question raises people’s interest, warming them up as the presented opinion elicits different emotions (intrigue, indignation, approval, and so forth). After reading Andy’s arguments, the followers are presented with a question and the author’s answer:
“Do you have a favorite brand you wear for the trail or the gym or for exercise?
You all know my answer, @columbia1938 !”
After warming his followers up with his diatribe, Andy savvily introduces the brand he’s wearing. That way, after building up people’s approval, they’re more likely to click on the brand mention, thus increasing the traffic.
As such, this post’s primary goal is to raise traffic. The subordinated objective could be increasing sales as people who like the brand’s Instagram posts may also click on its website.
However, raising sales isn’t the main goal because there’s no discount code or direct link to the company’s product pages. You can also notice the perfect fit between the brand and this influencer.
That brings us to the next influencer marketing campaign step.
2. Identify the Right Influencers
Not all influencers are created equal. When looking for people to promote your brand, it’s important to find ones that are a good fit. This means considering factors such as audience, engagement rate, content style, and personal values.
Let’s say you run an eco-friendly fashion brand. You would want to look for influencers who care about sustainability and are likely to resonate with your target audience.
Remember: You also need the right influencers for your goals.
But can you tell if one content creator is better to increase your visibility, boost your sales, or win back old customers?
Yes, and here’s how:
a) Suppose your goal is to increase traffic to your website:
In that case, you’re looking for influencers likely to link to your site in their content. That’s why looking for content creators in your industry would be beneficial.
These people should be popular and know how to push their follower’s emotions. They should create FOMO, desire,trends, and controversy like no other.
That’s exactly what Andy Neal did in the previous example.
b) Or suppose you want more people to buy your product:
In that case, you’ll be looking for influencers with an engaged following on social media, preferably people who have previously talked about similar products.
In this case, you’re looking for more objective influencers. These people can have direct conversations with your audience, convincing them of your product’s true benefits.
One good example, in this case, is Carter Sullivan for the Mogo App. Mogo is an online app that helps people become more financially responsible as they keep track of their expenses. As such, users can get out of debt, save money, and build their financial freedom. If you’re already dealing with financial strain, particularly from existing debt, finding a debt relief service near you can be a practical way to regain control and ease financial stress.
The company’s main audience is Gen Z, Carter Sullivan is an excellent choice. As a Zoomer with some previous debt she got out of by using Mogo, she’s perfect for explaining to people the app’s advantages.
Pro tip: Nano-influencers, although they have smaller audiences, are better at direct contact. That means they can actively engage in conversations about your product with their fans, convincing them to buy your brand.
c) Suppose you want to re-engage old customers that have moved on to a different brand:
In this case, looking for an influencer who’s already talking about your industry but isn’t necessarily promoting any one brand would make sense.
You want an expert in the field who’s identified one key issue with their audience that only your brand can solve.
Here’s a potential example:
Let’s say you’re retailing organic food, but following the latest financial developments, your products have become too expensive for some of your audience. In this case, you can focus on one of their most poignant needs.
And studies show that people often buy products if they feel they’remaking a difference. This is especially valid for Gen Z and Millennials, but also Gen X.
So, you could partner with a local influencer that explains the importance of supporting local producers in troubled times. Alternatively, you could partner with a content creator that promotes eco-friendly, locally sourced brands.
Focusing on health and supporting the environment may bring back some old customers.
However, the premise we started from was the price being the central issue. To solve this, you can consider adding a discount or exclusive access to some products through your content creators.
It’s all about strategy. We’ll talk about that below, but for now, here are just a few reminders before we get started:
Some influencers may be fake:
To avoid being duped, use a fake influencer checker.
Use an engagement rate calculator:
Regardless of your goals, you want to ensure your content creators hold sway over your audience. So, simply having a large following isn’t enough; you want to make sure those followers are involved (quality comments and shares are just a few examples).
Use the proper channels to find influencers:
From Google to hashtag searches on social media, geolocation searches, and dedicated platforms or AI software – the world wide web is your oyster. You can also use your professional network, search through your customer & supplier databases, or Google your brand mentions. But all that may take a lot of time. If you’ve never worked with content creators, your best bet is contacting an influencer marketing agency. The best ones will work with you tightly instead of ignoring your plans, offering comprehensive services. That way, you can learn the ropes and adjust the process to your needs seamlessly.
Before boarding your influencers, create foolproof contracts:
Outline all terms, rights, and obligations for both parties. That way, you can ensure your influencers deliver the promised content without delays orsocial media risks.
Now that you know your goals and who the right influencers are, it’s time to start planning for your influencer marketing campaign.
Remember: There arevarious ways to collaborate with an influencer, but not all of them will be a good fit for your brand. The key is to find the one that best aligns with your goals.
Some standard options include:
Shout-outs:
A mention of your brand on social media, in a blog post, vlog, or even in a podcast. The goal is to increase visibility, driving more traffic to your website. The influencer may or may not receive compensation for this.
Shaina, a creative fitness and yoga teacher, offers a good example. She usually posts Instagram and TikTok videos showing quick (but muscle-torching) routines, thus promoting her app. In this post, however, she mentions Altra Running using emphatic words: “officially hooked,” “shoe struggle,” “ONE time,” etc. You can also notice the build-up and the hyperboles paired with the objective product description. The CTA “Go get yours” written in capital letters and followed by three exclamation marks is very convincing because:
It’s the natural continuation of the previous points.
It’s nicely fitted between an accurate product description and the workout’s structure details. As such, Marie’s CTA pops out between two less intense arguments with a rhetorical force that would make Aristotle proud.
The content creator uses and reviews your product on their channels, driving awareness and teaching their audience about its features and benefits. These videos work great for products that are hard to explain with words alone or if you’re targeting tech-savvy audiences that prefer seeing a product in action before they buy it.
Tutorials & how-to’s:
The influencer uses your product to create content that’s helpful to their audience. For example, a cooking influencer could use your kitchen supplies to show their audience how to cook a specific dish. These videos are great when you want to position your product as the solution to a problem your target audience is facing. It’s also what Carter Sullivan did for Mogo in the above example.
Contests & giveaways:
The influencer runs a game on their channels, with your products or services as prizes. This is a great way to increase engagement and get people talking about your brand.
Sponsored posts:
The influencer promotes your brand on their channels in a paid partnership. These can be in the form of written blog posts, social media posts, or even videos.
In the post below, Jo promotes three products: a wig, underwear, and a new pantsuit – all from three different brands. What makes this sponsored post different?
You can see Jo using the products, showing how they fit her specific body shape and image.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cgqz5o4Ar4P/
You can see a nice contrast with the following example. Dr. Noc is a Ph.D. immunologist. Both his TikTok and Instagram clips aim to educate a large young audience on different science and medicine-related topics.
This is a great way to increase engagement and get people talking about your brand, leveraging user-generated content on TikTok or Instagram.
Bonus: Dr. Noc is always dressed up, wearing a shirt and a nice pair of pants.
That’s why this clip below is so catchy.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CgRxCIRg9bp/
People can get a kick from seeing Dr. Noc running on the treadmill and lifting weights in his Mark Weldon shirt and pants. Besides, the video is the visual representation of a pun; Dr. Noc asks his followers if they ever get tired in the gym, saying that it never happens to him because he’s always “professionally attired.”
Why it works:
Humor is an effective rhetorical strategy because it suspends critical analysis. On this permeable ground, the 20% discount code is the final push people need to access the Mark Weldon website and buy from it.
Remember: Both these videos use emotion and strategies that fit the content creators’ personalities. The result is they don’t seem sales even if they’re sponsored posts.
Product placement:
The influencer features your product prominently in their content without explicitly talking about it or promoting it. This is a great way to subtly get your product in front of a new audience.
4. Measure the results of your campaign
There’s no point in running an influencer marketing campaign if you’re not going tomeasure the results. After all, you need to know what’s working and what’s not to adjust your strategy accordingly.
Some of the most important metrics to track include:
Reach: How many people saw your campaign?
Engagement: How many people engaged with your campaign (liked, commented, shared)?
Website traffic: How much traffic did your website get due to the campaign? (You needURL tracking.)
Sales: How many sales can be attributed to the campaign? (Follow your discount codes andUTM links)
You can use Google Analytics, social media analytics tools like Replug or ContentStudio, or even a simple spreadsheet to track these metrics. Just make sure to monitor progress over time to see whether your campaign is successful.
Remember: The indicators above will differ according to your goals. Even if all companies eventually want to increase their ROI, your objective, for now, can be a higher reach without emphasizing sales, traffic, or engagement.
Warning:Don’t become complacent!
If your audience is warmed up enough to buy your products, don’t create yet another engagement campaign. That’s another reason why working with aninfluencer marketing agency is essential at first; an experienced agency will be able to guide you outside your comfort zone, advising you wisely according to your current stats.
5. Adjust your strategy as needed
Lastly, once you’ve measured your campaign results, the next step is to make some adjustments to your influencer marketing campaign. If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to change it.
For example, suppose you’re not getting the reach you wanted.
In that case, you might need to consider working with bigger-scale influencers, diversifying your channels, or including social media ads into the mix. If engagement is low, you might need to adjust your content or offer more incentives for people to engage.
The important thing is to be flexible and willing to change things up if necessary.
Influencer marketing is an ever-evolving field, and what works today might not work tomorrow. The only way to find out is to experiment and see what works best for your brand.
Wrap Up
Influencer marketing can be a great way to reach new audiences and promote your products or services. Following the steps above, you can set up a solid campaign to help you achieve your business goals.
FAQs
What is an influencer strategy?
It is a strategy that brand use and collaborate with other influencers to promote their brand services and products.
What are the 5 characteristics of a good influencer?
5 characteristics of a good influencer are:
Tech savy
Produces quality content
Keep audience engaged
Engagement rate above 5%
Trustable
Who is the biggest influencer?
Cristiano Ronaldo is the biggest influencer.
Author bio:
David Morneau is the co-founder and CEO of inBeat, a hybrid micro-influencer marketing SAAS/agency that helps brands scale their marketing efforts. He has helped over 200 DTC brands to date.
It is funny how very few people know about content remarketing. Some confuse it with usual content marketing, but it is actually a separate technique that has its own aims and practices involved.
Don’t worry, you are on the right foot steps as this walk-through and guide is what you need to begin with content remarketing.
What is content remarketing?
Content remarketing is a strategy of targeting to bring back and re-engaging with people who have already visited your website or have been past customers of your brand.
What is the goal of remarketing?
With this strategy, marketers strive to capture the attention of your site’s visitors to make them come back to your website and complete an action they didn’t make during their first visit. This can be anything from purchasing your product to subscribing to your newsletter. Content remarketing is like that second chance you needed desperately.
What are the benefits of remarketing?
Remarketing helps you to:
Increase brand recall and branded searches.
Turn abandoners and bouncers into leads.
Improve the repeat visitor rate and engagement.
Improve SEO
What’s the difference between remarketing and retargeting?
The two terms can confuse many as they are very interrelated.
In general, the goals of both are focused on targeting and converting potential clients that have bounced from your socials or website.
But what really makes remarketing different from retargeting?
In the beginning, remarketing was thought off as sending just email campaigns to re-engage with customers to inform about discounts, trial expiry or to follow up potential clients, whereas retargeting involved paid advertising.
However, with the evolution of internet and social media both have evolved though the goal is still the same.
Retargeting still involves paid advertising to target and convert potential clients. While, remarketing involves reaching out or following up to past customers or potential clients through various channels that may be Instagram, Facebook, Email, SMS or Whatsapp etc.
Generally, the key medium of remarketing strategy is still email. Both strategies can be used in conjunction, where emails are sent with a paid advertisement.
Further in-depth study of the both terms makes one thing clear that they are not the same.
According to Neil Patel, a famous digital marketing expert,
“I see remarketing more as an umbrella term for marketing to the same prospect multiple times, whereas retargeting really is targeting online ads at the same traffic again and again.”
So it’s safe to say that retargeting ads and remarketing emails are actually two sides of the same coin. However, retargeting is more of a subset of remarketing which only targets website traffic, while remarketing is more concerned with getting back to past visitors using personalized content mostly confined to emails. The image below will develop a better understanding of the subject.
Now that the difference between the two is clear. Let’s move on further.
What are the different types of remarketing?
Remarketing is categorized into 5 types. The five types are
Standard Remarketing
Email Remarketing
Dynamic Remarketing
Video Remarketing
Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
When to use remarketing?
Use remarketing strategy for
Up-selling products and services
Cross selling
Special offers
Re-engagement campaigns
Customer support campaigns
Inventory update campaigns
Follow ups such as cart abandonment or trial expiry etc.
The right tools and channels for content remarketing
You can create personalized content using these different channels that can be used for remarketing are
Facebook ads
It’s an analytics tool by Facebook containing a pixel code that can be put on your website. A pixel is a small box that is placed on a webpage. When someone visits the page, the pixel is able to collect information about the visitor. This information can then be used by other websites to target that person with ads. In remarketing, an advertiser places a pixel on their website. When a user visits the site, the pixel is able to track everything from their web browser’s cookie to their IP address. This data is then used to track people who have visited other websites or viewed certain content. The advertiser can then use this information to show them relevant ads across multiple websites. For example, if a user has visited Amazon and viewed an item for sale, an ad for the same product could be shown on Facebook which would drive more purchases for the advertiser.
The Google Display Network is a web-based advertising network run by Google. The network allows advertisers to place text, image, video and Native ad units on websites and mobile apps.
One of the best things about using GDN for remarketing is that it gives you a lot of reaches. You will be able to find your tagged site visitors on the network several times per day across many different sites. In general, you will be able to connect with the people you tagged several times per month.
The first step in remarketing is to create an audience of users that you will be remarketing too. This can include people who visited specific pages on your website or read your blog, but you will have to group
them into separate audiences depending on your goals.
By grouping your tagged site visitors into audiences, you will be able to reach out to only certain people and persuade them to come back to you.
Another benefit of grouping your audience is that you can bid more aggressively. Consequently, this will lead to more impressions and higher ad positions. Some pages on your website such as the pricing or product pages are way more valuable than your blog. By selecting those who visited specifically your product and pricing pages, you can write follow up mails to them.
In order to define your audience, create a new remarketing list on GDN and define which website visitors you want to include and which you want to exclude. Don’t worry about cookies and such, because Google will take care of them itself.
Yet another great idea is to group your blog audience by the posts they read. So, for example, if you have articles on three different topics, create three remarketing lists for each of these topics’ visitors.
Once you have your remarketing lists set up, you must decide on your audience membership duration. In remarketing, this refers to the number of days you follow a user around. This means that setting your audience membership duration to 30 days will make your site visitors see your ads for, you guessed it, 30 days.
The problem with deciding on the “right” audience member duration is that there is such a fatigue which results in overly aggressive remarketing. Many experts believe that being too “creepy” with your ads may result in the loss of ROI of your campaigns or can even damage your brand. This is why so many marketers advocate for shortening audience membership duration, even though the reality seems to be different.
Fortunately, remarketing has shown to be way more effective. In fact, they stay effective even after ad fatigue starts setting in and viewers are more likely to engage with remarketing campaigns.
This brings us to the fact that being bold with your remarketing is the way to go. Set your audience membership duration for longer time (something like three times your average sale cycle length). Having more impressions means a higher conversion rate and can help you fight ad fatigue.
Prior to Google ads and Facebook ads, emails were the original form of remarketing. With email remarketing, you can take advantage of existing customers who’ve visited your website and email them with targeted offers. By targeting specific segments of customers who have shown interest in your product or service, you can increase the likelihood of success with your campaign.
For example, you might use an email remarketing list to send out emails to past customers with discounts on flights or hotel stays.
Another way to use email remarketing is to show ads to people who have already looked at your website. This allows you to broaden the pool of potential customers, while also reducing the cost of running an ad. While email remarketing can be a powerful tool for reaching out-of-the-people, it does require some preparation and maintenance.
First, you’ll need to create a custom audience that’s carefully selected so that you don’t run into any false positives. Next, make sure that your campaign doesn’t overreach by carefully monitoring performance and experimenting with different tactics until you find the one that works best for you.
Look at the example of Tarte Cosmetics remarketing email.
The “Ends Soon” call to action button creates a sense of urgency and persuades the customer to click and reach directly to the meaningful content.
Email remarketing is the practice of sending out an email to people who have previously expressed interest in your product or service. It’s a great way to reach out to customers who were previously interested in your brand, but may no longer be actively using it. Remarketing allows you to keep them in the loop and possibly re-engage with them. There are two types of remarketing lists:
1. Remarketing lists for customers who’ve already completed a purchase. These are referred to as Customer Lists.
2. Remarketing lists for people who have shown interest in your company in some way, but have never purchased from you (yet). These are referred to as Leads Lists. Remarketing is a very effective way to keep in touch with existing customers and generate new ones.
In addition to GDN and Facebook, you can also use Replug (a platform for link shortening, tracking, optimization, and deep analytics) which is quite valuable for content remarketing. You can use other platforms as well to send personalized messages and ads to your past visitors on the respected platforms.
Using Replug, you can create a retargeting pixel campaign and add relevant tags to track for any short URL. Here’s a preview of it.
Here are the best practices in content remarketing for you to use:
Ads that push to “hard” offers: The best way to get your ads working is to promote your best offers. If you have a bestselling product, make an ad for it, because this will make it sell even better and will help you get your other products selling too.
Conversion path analysis: Do a conversion path analysis and figure out which pages the user usually visits before converting. Once you know what these pages are, target them with your ads.
Ads that push to content: Your content may be even more important to visitors than your products. This means that it may be better to target an article in your ad rather than promote a product page.
Social shares on your blog content: Analyze your blog content and see which content gets the most shares to social media. This will give you a general idea of what kind of content people are interested in and you will be able to target your ads at those articles on your blog.
Email segmentation: Segmenting emails lists depending on specific actions taken by the customer when making the purchase. Depending on the actions, you can send more information and a personalized email using CRM with email marketing software to target specific segments.
Reengage with inactive subscribers: There are a lot of people that subscribe to emails but remain inactive, reengaging with such potential customers by reminding them at the first place that why they subscribed the email. Adding an CTA within the email can encourage them to complete the journey.
Below is an example of American Giant who sent an remarketing email to its subscriber by including the product they browsed previously.
20 tips for remarketing
Lastly, to give you more ideas about how to retarget your ads and remarket your content, here are twenty examples from the past:
1. The right link
One of the biggest mistakes you can possibly do is sending your customers to the wrong place. Imagine you posted a picture of one product, but linked to another one. The person who clicks on the link wants to see the product in the picture, but once they see something different, they quickly lose interest. Instead of doing this, act like Kelley Blue Book on Twitter – link the corresponding product that is in the image you attach to the post.
2. Customer buying window
A common misconception in remarketing is that you have to retarget potential buyers with ads for the product they haven’t bought. In reality, there are many customers who can’t afford certain products and have simply browsed through your catalogue before and viewed these very products. As Rob Weatherhead, the owner of Agent Wolf, says, you must retarget these individuals only for a certain amount of time while their interest is still present. If they don’t convert during this time, it means they either decided not to purchase your product or bought something similar elsewhere.
3. Separate landing pages
This is a mistake done not only by those who practice remarketing but also by many experienced marketers. Instead of linking their ads to separate landing pages, they simply link them to the homepage which is a big turnoff for many consumers. Neil Andrew, Marketing Manager at PPC Protect Limited, recommends creating separate landing pages for your ads and always linking to them.
4. Cheap alternatives
Philippe Côté-Léger, Marketing Director at Lab Urbain, believes that using Facebook and Google is not mandatory. You can follow suit and make use of cheaper alternatives that can prove to be just as effective as Google and Facebook. For example, a content discovery network like Outbrain offers inexpensive CPC.
5. Dynamic remarketing ads
This is one of the simplest yet overlooked tips. Using dynamic remarketing tips is essential for getting the best results.
For example, Ryan Scollon says that dynamic remarketing ads allow him to show ads with products that customers have viewed before. This makes the ads way more interesting instead of leaving them generic. The only thing to keep in mind when designing dynamic remarketing ads is that your imagery must be on point to capture the attention of your target audience.
6. Email promotion
Learning Success Systems has been implementing this technique into their strategy for quite a while now. They match their retargeting campaign with email promotion making it twice as effective. There is no logical explanation for why this works so well, but it has been proven to be successful for many businesses. Perhaps, people remember their emails once they see the ads.
7. Reviews
Karen Sahetya, the founder of Brand Central Marketing, says that one of the best ways to build social proof is to use reviews for retargeting and remarketing. Those who viewed your products but didn’t make a purchase are more likely to buy once they see that others have had a positive experience with your brand and with some particular products of yours. It is the equivalent of someone considering buying a car in real life and a friend telling that person about their positive experience with this model.
8. Social proof
This is very similar to the previous example, but it is still quite different. Let’s look into this practice with the help of Birchbox. They have successfully integrated social proof into their retargeting ads. You can either send those who click on the ads to reviews of your products or include quotes from your past customers about your brand into the ads themselves among other things.
9. Audience segmenting
Audience segmenting is crucial for your digital remarketing campaign. Separating your targeted audience into those who have converted and those who haven’t will allow you to show corresponding ads to different individuals. This practice has been proven effective by many businesses that used it and Evoke Strategy LLC in particular. Its co-founder Devon Vocke says that audience segmenting has always helped them make their campaigns more effective.
10. Best offer
Displaying your best offer is essential for attracting the most attention. One of the best examples of this is Handy’s home cleaning retargeting banner that appears after a customer views other similar websites with home cleaning services. Making such ads catchy is also very important. They have to have bright colors, a promotional offer, and a call to action that stands out and speaks to the audience.
11. Prioritizing users
Joe Castro from Elevation says that prioritizing users that are close to completing a purchase is crucial for achieving more conversions. Those who added products to the cart or went as far as to get to the billing stage are more likely to purchase something than those who simply visited your homepage or product pages. Be ready to invest more in targeting the former ones and offer them free shipping or something similar to get them to convert.
12. Potential clients over sales
Instead of focusing on making a sale, nurture potential clients. Take WordStream, for example. The company offered a free assessment instead of a discount for their products. Consequently, many customers let their guard down because they weren’t pressured into purchasing. WordStream offered a service of value related to what their customers wanted based on what their remarketing “sensors” detected. Always think of customers first and sales second.
13. Urgency
Many marketers know of this simple characteristic that always works. Creating a sense of urgency will motivate your customers to complete the action you want them to faster. For example, Expedia uses urgency in their retargeting ads to prompt users to book travel from their site. Expedia uses irresistible deals with a last-minute offer and this works like a miracle. This is credited to the fear of missing out that most people experience when they see such ads.
14. Interesting & relatable
It has been said before, but it will never be old: make your ads interesting and relatable. There is also a great example of this technique. Mazda and Merchenta worked together to create ads that would attract more potential customers to test drive their cars. Merchenta built customized ads that were based on geographic radius matching individuals to the nearest Mazda dealership. The ads displayed the nearest dealership houses that had the specific Mazda car models that customers viewed online. This, in turn, raised the chances of these people visiting the saloon and test driving the car.
15. Frequency cap
Using a frequency cap can prevent overexposure. As Kyna Garrett from Strike Social points out, social media ads are everywhere, so applying a frequency cap can prevent potential customers from being overwhelmed by your ads. In fact, overexposure can be very damaging to your brand, so it is important to determine the right frequency (which is also not that easy). Find the perfect balance by testing different frequencies and then use the one that works best.
16. Avoid spammy ads
Patric Kreidler from Power Digital Marketing talks about something very closely related to the previous example. Such ads as pop-ups, countdown ads, ads with sound on autoplay, and so on are seen as spam by many users and usually ignored. Moreover, they often lead to viewers associating them with a bad experience. Obviously, no brand would want that, so avoid using such ads at all costs.
17. Emotional connection
It has long been proven that ads that create an emotional connection in viewers are way more powerful than usual ads. For example, Think Engraved uses cute pictures in a combination with cute statements to draw a smile or make the viewer laugh. This draws in potential customers and hooks them onto what else the brand can offer. You can also add an extra something to such ads to make them even more appealing (e.g. a discount or a gift).
18. Videos & slideshows
What can be better than visuals that “speak” to the audience? Images are so common that most ads get lost even if they have a stunning design. This is why videos and slideshows are now becoming so popular. However, you must remember to keep your slideshows with no audio and disable autoplay on your videos. Otherwise, they can become annoying.
19. Relevant sites
Thomas Budnik from Auto Accessories Garage says that including only those sites that are relevant to your brand will ensure that you don’t waste your money for nothing and target only the relevant audiences. Before letting your remarketing campaign go live, check that only the relevant websites are included or the irrelevant ones excluded.
20. Content messaging
Last but not least, Robb Hecht has adopted a social content messaging strategy to help his remarketing efforts. This simply means that you use a special framework that breaks down your ads and serves them to customers at different stages of your sales funnel.
Bonus Tip: Raising your click-through rates will reduce your click prices. This way, you will be paying for a greater volume of clicks, but they will cost you several times less. Just remember to have image ads rather than text-turned-image ads.
Final thoughts on content remarketing
All in all, content remarketing is one of the best techniques to use in your online marketing strategy, and you will definitely get something useful out of it. Make sure to read this article carefully again to refresh your memory about what content remarketing is and how to use it properly.
Guest blog post by Kristin Savage who nourishes, sparks, and empowers using the magic of a word. Along with pursuing her degree in Creative Writing, Kristin was gaining experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in marketing strategy for publishers and authors. She is a regular contributor to Best Essay Education and WOWgrade.
How long have you been going back and forth between Google ads and Facebook ads?
I’m no psychic that knows everything; I just stumble upon so many Google and Facebook ads from the brands I’m aware of that use these ad platforms.
Undoubtedly, both are excellent paid ad options in digital marketing, but the point is that these aren’t the only options out there.
There are several other online advertising options that some of you may not have even explored yet. When most advertisers plan to start their paid ads journey, they look out for better ROI without breaking the bank.
This is why I decided to put some light on the Quora ads platform. Before I dig deeper into the nuts and bolts of how to advertise on Quora, I’d like to lay the foundation first.
In case, you aren’t familiar with the Quora platform, here’s what you should know about this social media platform:
Quora is a popular questioning and answering platform that connects people through this social media network. It’s a platform that lets users ask questions from industry-relevant users as well as allows users to reply to the questions they stumble upon on the platform.
It’s similar to Reddit on some level, but I find Quora easy-to-use, effective, and user-friendly. On the contrary, Reddit is more cluttered, difficult-to-get-attention, and hard-to-figure-out.
Besides the questioning and answering concept, the platform has a lot to offer. You could manage your bio, profile, and credentials. Plus, you could build followers base on Quora through your interactions, activities, and responses.
If you’re wondering how you can get the ball rolling on this platform from a building the followers base standpoint, then let me tell you more.
The Quora algorithm detects the relevancy of the questions and puts them in front of the specific users to answer based on their credentials and profile activities.
You don’t necessarily need to be an expert on a subject to answer the questions on Quora. All it needs is that you’re interested and knowledgeable on the topic.
The platform does the rest of the job through the feedback it gets on the answer from the users interested in the subject.
That’s pretty much it.
Now let’s get back to our topic. Shall we?
If you’re curious why you need to advertise on Quora in the first place, then it’s time for you to find that out.
Why Should You Advertise on Quora?
Quora is one of those top-tier social media platforms that are a little bit underrated when it comes to building a followers base and reaching out to the masses.
However, my personal experience on the Quora platform tells a different story altogether. Perhaps, this is why I’m a big advocate of using Quora let alone advertising on this question-and-answer platform.
When I ran the first few campaigns with Google ads, they turned out to be a failure. Then I took an online course about Google ads and it helped me run a few successful Google ad campaigns afterwards.
The point is that there is no shame in learning something that you don’t know. This is why I’m excited to share my expertise and knowledge on Quora with you.
You might wonder why you should advertise on Quora instead of any other platform. I’m a big fan of testing out all the options available at my disposal. However, four key elements that might convince you to give Quora advertising a try:
I. A large User Base
Quora is undoubtedly one of the top-tier social media platforms among Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. However, the audience size may not be even close to Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, but it has a sizeable audience.
Ryan Browne, VP of Revenue on Quora revealed in December 2019 that Quora has over 300 million monthly active users. It’s not rocket science to figure out that the number would have gone up over the past couple of years.
Therefore, the Quora ad platform is worth a try if you’re trying to spice up your digital marketing campaign.
II. Retargeting
Quora ads program is embedded with several advertising features that make your online advertising experience a whole lot better. One of those features is the Quora Pixel that helps the ad platform identify the occurrence of specific actions on the consumer end, which influences the ad campaign results.
In simple words, It is a tracking code that is placed in your website code to track traffic and conversions.
Furthermore, the Quora Pixel has two parts; the Base Pixel code and the Event Pixel code. The Base Pixel goes into the header of every page of the website, which enables you to leverage website audience building for remarketing and targeting the Lookalike audience.
Whereas, the Event Pixel code tracks the conversion and needs to be installed on the “thank you” pages which indicate that an event has occurred.
The availability of multiple ad formats is the cornerstone of any ad platform. The Quora ad platform does have multiple ad formats that make it easier for the advertisers to A/B test different ads formats in the same ad campaign to analyze the difference.
The Quora ad platform offers four ad formats which are text ads, image ads, promoted answers, and lead gen forms. To find out what these ad formats look like, check this PDF guide from Quora.
IV. User-Friendly Dashboard
Indeed, I have successfully run a few Google and Quora ad campaigns back in 2019-20, but I’m no expert at PPC advertising whatsoever. And, I have never had any problem with the Quora ad platform. I believe the Quora ad platform’s dashboard is quite user-friendly and easy-to-use even for beginner advertisers.
So these are four of the important elements to keep in mind when getting started with Quora advertising.
Let’s dive deep into the process of advertising on Quora.
How to Advertise on Quora?
To get started with Quora ads, you don’t need to be an online advertising ninja. However, there are some basics that you should know before running Quora ads. Take a look at the following steps:
#1: Create a Campaign to Get Started
Understanding the Quora ad structure is crucial to starting a successful ad campaign. It’s no surprise that the first couple of online ad campaigns don’t do very well because most advertisers don’t know how to run them.
Before I put some light on the campaign creation process, it’s essential to know the types of ad campaigns available in the Quora ad platform.
Types of Quora ad Campaigns (or objectives)
Conversions: It’s the ad campaign objective that is used to push the paid visitors to do a certain action, for instance, sign up for a trial account or buy a product. The conversion ad campaign records the event as soon as the visitor completes the process/transaction cycle.
App Installs: The Quora ad platform pays close attention to a mobile audience. Besides the distinction between the desktop and mobile audience, the platform also allows you to advertise your mobile app. The app install objective is selected when you need to increase your mobile app users.
Traffic: One of the most popular objectives of the Quora ad campaign is traffic. It’s typically used for driving traffic to the advertiser’s website. The primary focus of running a traffic-based ad campaign is to increase website visitors.
Awareness: Online advertising isn’t always intended towards selling a product. Instead, sometimes, brands want to create brand awareness through content or ads. Therefore, the awareness ad campaign is used for spreading the word about a brand or product.
Lead generation: This ad campaign type does exactly what it sounds like. The lead generation objective is best for generating leads through Quora advertising.
Once you’re clear on the objective of your ad campaign, you’re good to go.
How to Create a Quora ad Campaign?
To start running ads on Quora, you need to create an ad campaign to determine the nitty-gritty of the advertising campaign.
This is the area where you need to put the basic information about the campaign. It starts with putting in the campaign name followed by the selection of the campaign objective and campaign budget.
Let me walk you through the process of creating an ad campaign for Quora ad:
To create a campaign, click on the profile button and go to the Ads Manager.
Once you’re in the Ads Manager, click on the New campaign button.
Name your Quora ad campaign and select the objective of your campaign.
The next up is the budget; it’s up to you whether you choose a lifetime budget or allocate a daily budget for your campaign.
However, daily budget allocation gives you more control over your ad spending because it won’t spend more than you chose for a single day.
In the next step, you’ll learn how to set up ad sets.
#2: Make Suitable ad Sets
After creating an ad campaign in Quora, the next up is the process of creating ad sets. The ad sets are a good way to differentiate between multiple ad strategies within the same campaign.
Simply put, you can create a single Quora ad campaign for a specific brand and come up with different ad sets over time.
Here’s how you can build ad sets:
Once you have created the Quora ad campaign, just click the next button to proceed with the process. In the next step, you’d stumble upon the ad settings page.
You’d be required to name your ad set right away.
Then, you’d have to put the location targeting for your ad where you could type in the countries or cities you want to target.
You’ll be required to choose the primary targeting of your ad set afterwards.
Here are the targeting options:
Contextual targeting: It’ll show your ad to the specific topics, keywords, and questions. It means that your ad would show up in front of the audience that is searching or following the similar topics, keywords, or questions that you’d choose in your ad.
Audience targeting: The audience targeting option would show your ad to the audience that would match the web traffic, lookalike audience, or contact lists.
Behavioural targeting: It’s the targeting option that allows you to target the audience based on their interests or retarget them based on their interaction history on the Quora platform. Source
Broad targeting: Broad targeting is a rather wide targeting strategy that encompasses a broader audience across the Quora platform.
Furthermore, there are a few additional targeting options such as devices/browsers and gender that need to be selected for accuracy.
Lastly, you’d need to set the bid for your ad campaign. To do this, choose the ad delivery model; you can either optimize your ad units for clicks or impressions.
If you opt for clicks, you’d have to go with the CPC model, whereas if you select the impressions, you’d see the CPM model.
It does sound a bit confusing if you haven’t run a Quora ad campaign before, but in reality, it’s quite simple.
#3: Prepare an ad Unit
The Quora advertising gets a little confusing, especially if you’re a beginner. When I was getting started with Quora ads, I had no idea what to do after creating a campaign.
However, the best part is that the Ads Manager’s dashboard walks you through the whole process. And, you’re able to create your first ad up and running within no time.
Let’s head over to the third stage of the Quora ad creation process. By now, you have created a Quora ad campaign and an ad set as well.
The third step in the Quora ad process is the creation of the ad unit. One of the hacks of winning at Quora advertising is that you should make multiple ad units within the same ad set.
Once you create multiple ad units in the ad set and run them simultaneously in your ad campaign, you could A/B test multiple ads units to see which one works better for you.
Without any further ado, let’s jump right into the process of creating ad units.
After you hit the next button on the ad set page, you’ll reach the ad units section.
It’s the section where you need to put in all the ad details. Let’s take a look at the information you need to fill in the ad unit section:
Ad Name: You must name the ad unit to differentiate it from other ad units.
Format: You can either choose an image ad, text ad, or promoted answer for ad format.
Creative: The creative includes Business name, headline, body text, and call-to-action.
URL formatting: It’s the URL section where your landing page URL goes.
As you finish creating your ad unit, you’re almost done with creating an ad on Quora.
Move on to the final step of the Quora ad process.
#4: Submit ad for approval
The Quora ad creation process has give or take three major steps which start with creating a campaign, then adding an ad set, and finally making ad units.
Once you finish all three steps in the process, the next up is the ad submission. When you submit an ad, it goes into the review. Then, the Quora ad team reviews your ad and decides it.
The Quora ad team closely analyzes your ad and accepts it if everything seems okay or rejects it if there are discrepancies in the ad copy or formatting. Plus, they’d let you know what needs to be fixed to get the ad approved.
Once it’s approved, your ad would go live right away.
Don’t worry if your first couple of ads get rejected. Try learning about the Quora ad requirements and resubmit your improved version of the ad.
Once you submit your ad, wait about 30 minutes to 3 hours to get your ad reviewed. Don’t panic if takes a day or two to get your ad reviewed, especially during the holiday season.
5 Key Components of Quora Ads
It wouldn’t be fair if we don’t discuss some key components of Quora advertising that go hand-in-hand when it comes to running Quora ads:
Ads manager
It’s the dashboard where everything related to Quora ads starts. To access the Ads manager, you need to click through your profile icon and choose the Ads manager from the drop-down menu.
Pixels & events
Pixels & events are the sections where the Quora Pixel code and the Event code are created. Both these codes are inserted into the website code to track the users’ activities and performances. As a result, the Quora ad platform can target those users and show them the ads, and this process is called retargeting. Read more about these codes by clicking here.
Audiences
The Quora ad platform allows you to create an audience to showcase ads through three ways:
1) Website traffic audiences,
2) List match audiences,
3) Lookalike audiences.
To better understand how to set up the audience targeting, check out this guide.
Lead gen
The Quora ad platform has now the lead generation option as well. It flawlessly integrates with over 2,000 apps. The idea behind the lead gen feature is that it helps you natively generate leads through Quora ads. This feature provides advertisers with customizable forms, performance measurement, and connectivity with over 2,000 apps via Zapier.
Reporting
Reporting is an essential component of online advertising or digital marketing campaign. The Quora ad platform does have an excellent reporting dashboard that allows you to generate ads reports on demand.
Mistakes to Avoid While Advertising on Quora
There are no hard and fast rules for winning on Quora ads. When you go through the Quora advertising process a few times, you start to realize what’s working and what isn’t. However, sometimes, you need an expert to walk you through the whole process.
Therefore, I’m sharing a handful of things that could go wrong in your Quora ads. In other words, try to avoid the following mistakes during advertising on Quora:
Setting the incorrect campaign targeting
Campaign targeting is crucial to reaching out to the right audience. If you choose the wrong objective, there is no way the campaign would perform well.
Similarly, if you messed up with location targeting or primary targeting strategy during creating the ad sets, it’s going to hurt the ad outcome. So try to avoid incorrect campaign targeting.
Lack of understanding of the pricing model
The Quora ad platform offers three bidding options which are cost per click (CPC), cost per thousand impressions (CPM), and cost per action (CPA). With CPC, you could bid and pay as low as $0.01 per click, whereas in the CPM pricing model, you can bid and pay a minimum of $0.20 per thousand impressions. Lastly, you can target for a CPA and pay per impression.
Things go south when you don’t have a clear idea of how the Quora ads pricing model works. It’s no surprise that you would choose the wrong bidding option when getting started with Quora ads.
Choosing the lifetime budget for every campaign
One of the tips digital marketers and Quora ad experts give is that never set a lifetime budget. What it does is that it could rapidly consume the whole budget over a short period, and you end up finishing the campaign much sooner than expected.
What you can do instead is try choosing the daily budget, which means the ads won’t consume more than the allocated budget in 24 hours.
Using a single ad unit instead of multiple units
Creating just one ad unit is a rookie mistake that almost every first-timer makes. In fact, I also did this mistake when I was getting started with Quora ads back in 2019.
The biggest perk of having multiple ad units is that you could see which ad unit is outperforming the other one. There is no way that two ad units perform the exact same way.
Sticking with One ad Format
Most beginner advertisers make the mistake of sticking with just one ad format. Quora ad platform provides you with three ad formats which are text ad, image ad, and promoted answer. You shouldn’t stick to just text ads. Instead, try testing the other two ad formats as well.
In digital marketing, it’s said that images grasp the attention of the audience. I reckon you should try out the image ads once in a while to see the difference.
Ignoring the Top-Tier Countries
It’s important to understand where your potential exists so that you could set the location targeting accordingly. However, if you’re going after the global audience, then the only way to get the ROI is by hitting the bullseye.
I can tell you off the top of my head that Quora ads work quite well if you target the top-tier countries such as the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia as compared to the rest of the world. I have had several chances to run Quora ads for European and Asian countries, and the results weren’t very impressive.
The Final Words on Advertising on Quora
Quora advertising doesn’t seem to be as popular as other social media ad platforms, but shelving this option might be a huge mistake.
As you must know ad prices are sky-rocketing on Google ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but it doesn’t mean I’m writing them off. These top-tier social media platforms and their advertising options are absolutely vital to digital marketing.
However, Quora advertising is still under-priced as compared to Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube ads.
Therefore, I tried to come up with a comprehensive yet to-the-point tutorial on how to advertise on Quora.
This article encapsulates why it’s important to pay close attention to Quora ads as well as the basic steps to make your Quora ad campaign up and running.
If you have been planning on scaling your digital marketing campaign, then I’d highly recommend adding Quora advertising to your marketing mix before it gets too late.
Don’t shy away from leaving your thoughts on the Quora ad platform in the comments below.
