Digital Marketing

Marketers have faced an incredible number of challenges over the past year. The demise of third-party cookies, the loss of device identifiers, and evolving privacy regulations have forced the industry to come up with new solutions for identity. With consumer behavior shifting rapidly and market volatility expected to continue this year, proving ROI with accurate measurement will be more important than ever. Half of U.S. marketers say the inability to track reach and frequency is still one of the biggest problems with cross-channel ad measurement. Better measurement solutions are needed.

Advertisers need to take the time now to evaluate their measurement solutions in order to ensure every dollar spent has a purpose. Marketers should look for solutions that overcome measurement challenges and form a single view of the customer journey. Only then can they truly improve the customer experience by delivering personalized messages and offerings based on insights gleaned. In 2021, measurement solutions will evolve and improve to account for cross-platform, cookieless, consumer transparency, and walled gardens.

Cross-platform measurement will enable flexibility and control for TV and other mediums

Recent trends indicate that consumers are purchasing multiple streaming services and cutting the cord at an alarming rate. As consumer behaviors and viewer fragmentation across a range of digital mediums and streaming platforms accelerate, it’s important for advertisers to measure cross-platform reach and frequency in real-time and adjust course quickly if needed. This is nearly impossible to do using traditional TV metrics.

To determine where and how to best reach the consumer, measurement offerings must capture cross-channel metrics and normalize disparate data sets to better understand the actual viewer. For example, one spouse might be responsible for all the streaming subscriptions in a household while another manages cable and internet. To further confuse the issue, their online and offline purchases might be equally mixed.

With more accurate cross-screen metrics and measurement tools, including impact and reach, advertisers can track spend against specific KPIs to determine true ROI within a set audience. As advertisers and distribution players adopt new measurement solutions in 2021 and report these metrics more accurately, the industry will be forced to embrace flexibility in areas that have traditionally lacked agility and required firm budget commitments.

More accurate measurement gives advertisers key insights that require flexibility for optimizations and the need for more real-time control with TV and premium video. Measurement offerings that capture metrics across OTT and linear and link impact to actual outcomes will take center stage in the new year as advertisers are forced to prove ROI and can no longer rely on traditional TV metrics.

The deprecation of third-party cookies acts as a catalyst to better measurement

With less than a year before Google pulls the plug on third-party cookies and the simultaneous restrictions placed on certain mobile identifiers such as IDFAs, the advertising ecosystem is responding with a flurry of identifiers of their own. Despite this, the industry has yet to establish a standard for a universal way to measure reach without cookies, creating confusion in the marketplace and reinforcing the need for secure, privacy-conscious, and interoperable identity solutions that maintain neutrality.

Campaigns using people-based identifiers rooted in authenticated user data perform better across key metrics such as return on ad spend, cost per view, and cost per mille. In fact, certain types of cookieless solutions make it easier to measure results and prove ROI. Campaigns will be people-based and nearly 100 percent addressable—allowing advertisers and publishers to uncover undervalued inventory and see an improvement in their overall performance.

The industry is working diligently to build a better ecosystem – one with trust and transparency – that isn’t reliant on unstable identifiers like third-party cookies. A stronger, trusted ecosystem will ensure advertisers can measure across all consumer touchpoints long after the third-party cookie disappears. This helps to ensure the most relevant, tailored messages reach customers across channels – which ultimately leads to an increase in brand loyalty that will help strengthen businesses and improve outcomes for marketers and publishers alike in the post-cookie world.

Measurement evolves with privacy at its core

As privacy regulation continues to evolve, our industry faces a complex challenge — regaining consumer trust. There’s a conscious effort and trend towards consumer transparency, and that’s not going away. Thus, in addition to adhering to the law, advertisers are updating their policies to ensure transparency about how consumer data is being used. We need to do a better job of explaining that the data individuals share is part of a mutually beneficial value exchange that’s essential to developing products and services that serve consumers better.

As consumers engage across media — they opt-in, log-in, subscribe — and identify themselves in different ways. This data can be used to build and scale the right audiences and enhance measurement to better under which tactics are moving the needle on business outcomes. Advertisers should only use measurement solutions with privacy at the core to ensure the delivery of a seamless customer experience on the individual’s terms.

One example of where measurement is headed is LiveRamp’s integration with Google’s Ads Data Hub. This approach enables first-party data linkage to Google data within the ADH environment in a privacy-first way. An individual’s data cannot be directly viewed, edited, or manipulated in ADH, but actionable insights can be extracted.

Amazon sets the bar when it comes to understanding and measuring the customer buying journey and then executing against that data. Marketers are looking to create that type of measurement engine, without moving data or comprising privacy, that will form data partnerships to fill in the gaps in their line of sight, leveraging data from outside their four walls to measure the customer journey along with all endpoints.

The industry will embrace data collaboration to improve measurement

Walled gardens offer a prime example of how access to data at every point along the customer journey unlocks measurement of the whole customer experience. Following this example, consumer brands will seek to build a strong data foundation to form a unified view of the customer, then to optimize marketing touchpoints as part of the larger improvement to the customer experience. We’re seeing CPG brands analyzing sales lift by comparing data from retail partners to understand the holistic shopping journey of each customer.

As The Winterberry Group found in their January 2021 report ‘Collaborative Data Solutions’, one of the areas with the greatest adoption today is for insight and analysis. Data collaboration will only become more important as marketers strive to measure results and optimize budgets. With the right privacy-conscious structures in place, data science and analytics teams will be able to work across data sets, accelerate analysis, and forge a level of insight that is deeper than ever before.

Conclusion

After the year we had, evolution in measurement is imminent. In what will likely be another financially-difficult year, proving return on advertising investment will be the driving force behind this progression to more accountable metrics delivered with more speed.

Early adopters of cross-platform measurement, truly cookieless solutions, privacy and consumer-centric policies, and data collaboration will provide customers with the best in class experience today and reveal insights needed to ensure future success.

Matthew Emans is VP of Measurement Products for LiveRamp, and the co-founder/CTO of Data Plus Math, acquired by LiveRamp in 2019.

While going digital has been a hot trend for lots of businesses worldwide for a while now, many small businesses hadn’t really felt an urgent need to. Until the pandemic happened. Global lockdowns and “shelter in place” programs have transformed the way consumers shopped, got educated, and worked. For millions of businesses out there, this trend meant one important need: To go through urgent digital transformation, that is, start offering their products and services online.

Yet, most of those businesses lack both money and knowledge for digital transportation. McKinsey reports that small businesses are the most vulnerable to the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis. Adopting new technologies is the major struggle small businesses are facing right now.

Luckily, technology is finally catching up. Lots of platforms are coming up with affordable solutions helping businesses go digital without the need to hire or get trained.

1. Wix: Set up your ecommerce store

Wix offers a powerful ecommerce solution to those businesses struggling to set up a digital entity.

Wix handles everything walking you through the whole process step by step:

• Select your template, customize it and add your products
• Create your logo
• Connect to a payment processor
• Choose your custom domain
• Go live

Source: Wix

No changing name servers out figuring out where to host your site. No hiring a designer to create your brand identity. The platform will even automate your taxes and manage your subscription payments.

Why Wix?

It may be the most intuitive solution out there which makes it perfect for small business owners who are overwhelmed enough.

Wix pricing

Wix plans start at $23 a month. This tier comes with all the basic site building features and includes the ability to add unlimited products, manage cart abandonment, social selling, and more.

2. PayKickstart: Move your courses online

For those businesses selling on-site training and certifications, digital transformation is the only way to go.

There are many online training solutions these days to choose from, including those that are self-hosted, but not many of those are easy to integrate with your existing website.

PayKickstart offers an easy SaaS shopping cart solution that is quite easy to integrate with your existing set-up.

Source: PayKickstart

PayKickstart may need some time to figure out but they have detailed tutorials enabling non-technical people to set things up.

Why PayKickstart?

With its pricing and feature set, PayKickstart is targeting young entrepreneurs and small businesses, so it is a perfect match for our context here.

PayKickstart pricing

PayKickstart starts at $99 a month and that includes subscription payments, dunning management, multiple payment integrations, and more.

3. Botsify: Empower your customer service

When you move or expand your business online, you will likely struggle with your customer support. Online buyers are used to interacting with businesses on a continuous basis, whenever they have questions.

And if you expand their buying options to shipping goods to their doorstep, there will be more sales and also more questions on how long delivery is going to take and why it takes so long.

Hiring and training a customer support team is likely what you will end up having to do but it takes time and investment. You can scale your customer service and make it much more efficient by creating a smart chatbot to handle most of the common questions.

Botsify makes it easy by giving you a visual control panel where you can create your customer support bot.

Source: Botsify

There are many more ways to empower your customer support team, many of which are listed here.

Why Botsify?

Botsify dashboard is truly user-friendly which makes it perfect for small business owners who are figuring things out.

Botsify pricing

Botsify’s personal package costs $40 a month and it allows you to create two chatbots which should be enough for a small business website.

4. vcita: Align your marketing with your service fulfillment

Digital marketing can be pretty overwhelming and hard to manage. You need to analyze, follow-up, reach out, and do a lot more on a daily basis. No wonder few small business owners are willing to go through this.

Yet, now that digital transformation is unavoidable, it seems like there’s no way around it. When there’s no relying on local foot traffic, discovering new ways to find and engage customers is a must.

vcita has built a great marketing suite that aims at making small business owners’ lives easier. The platform handles email and SMS marketing, offers personalized marketing features and lets you segment your customers, and sets up automatic emails to reach out to your customers to revive inactive customers or engage new customers better:

Source: vcita

These messaging capabilities are especially powerful because vcita makes it easy to create custom audience segments based on your contacts’ business transaction histories. That’s because the platform comes with many more features helping small businesses to adjust to the new normal. These include customer communication portals, a powerful CRM, contactless mobile payments, and Zoom-integrated appointment booking tools.

Why vcita?

While there is no shortage of marketing platforms out there, vcita matches our list criteria perfectly: It targets small business owners that don’t have time to go through training to figure out what to do and allows them to quickly launch a marketing campaign right away.

vcita pricing

vcita starts at $19 a month, allowing one team member to use the platform. Again, it is a perfect start if you are looking to save while remaining productive and efficient.

5. WordStream: Keep your ad management in-house

Brick-and-mortar businesses often rely on local traffic but the pandemic eliminated that traffic source. Once a business moves online, businesses need to start building more sources. Of course, search traffic comes to mind but this source needs a lot of time to build up. Paid advertising is a fast way to quickly acquire customers until you build up SEO traffic.

Yet, PPC advertising can be pretty overwhelming.

WordStream offers a standalone tool for busy small business owners who have no time to figure out ad management or budget to invest in a third-party ad management solution.

The platform supports major PPC platforms including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Bing.

Source: WordStream

Why WordStream?

WordStream has developed this tool specifically for small businesses, so it has a perfect (and unique) combination of price and amount of time you will have to spend there (~20 minutes a week!)

WordStream pricing

The cheapest plan costs $49 a month and it comes with the dashboard, cross-platform reporting, and free ad creation tools.

6. InVideo: Create your ads in-house

If you are going to invest in the ads, you will need professional creatives for the ads to work. And when it comes to effective ads, nothing works better than a well-done video, especially when you are advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

InVideo is an easy-to-use video creation platform that will help you create those ads in-house. It is the most affordable solution I am aware of, and it does have a free trial, so you can test it out.

Source: InVideo

Why InVideo?

InVideo is the most affordable video creation solution I am aware of which is why I picked this tool for this article.

InVideo Pricing

InVideo allows you to create 60 videos a month for only $10. It also offers a free plan, so you can try creating those videos prior to deciding if you need to upgrade.

7. Finteza: Combine web analytics with finances

One of the most common struggles small businesses are facing when setting up an online presence is understanding their cash flows.

If you have been handling a small brick-and-mortar business for your lifetime, it is tough to grasp your finances when everything goes virtual.

Finteza helps with that by creating a clear report visualizing your online marketing channels, online payment effectiveness, popular products, and order amounts:

Source: Finteza

Why Finteza?

Finteza has a unique feature set that makes web analytics very easy to understand. No need to figure out advanced event tagging or click through endless reports: Finteza is extremely user-friendly.

Finteza pricing

Finteza’s analytics features cost $25 a month, and there’s also a 30-day trial for you to test the platform before committing.

8. Appointfix: Manage clients’ appointments

Most local businesses that still offer on-site services (barbers, nail salons, and others) have to comply with local occupancy regulations, so it is now required to have all appointments booked in advance.

Appointfix makes appointment scheduling easy for both businesses and their customers. The platform manages reminders, makes sure your business is not overbooked, and comes with a nice reporting feature allowing you to see how effective your business is.

Source: Appointfix

Why Appointfix?

Unlike other calendar management platforms, Appointfix keeps a detailed record of your customers which makes it easier for you to keep an eye on those who may be reached out to. It also supports recurring appointment scheduling which is one of the handiest features out there.

Appointfix pricing

Appointfix offers a free plan which comes with unlimited appointment schedules. If you need access to reports and email templates, it’s $12 a month.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is totally overwhelming and you may feel desperate. Yet, when done right, it may also turn your small business into a global one. By taking your business online, you will uncover new growth opportunities you didn’t even imagine. Good luck!

Ann Smarty is the Brand and Community manager at InternetMarketingNinjas.com. She can be found on Twitter @seosmarty.

A contact page is a medium that links you with your intended audience. Generally, it will be among the couple of pages that are mainly seen on your website. It is likewise one of the most vital parts to get your conversions. Regretfully, chances are you are slipping up or more that might be unconsciously costing you conversions. Some mistakes are more noticeable than others. Do you need to know whether you are already making any contact page mistakes?

Our article highlights the leading four contact page mistakes that might be costing you conversions. It likewise teaches you how to repair them.

Leading 4 contact page errors you need to stop doing

1. Insufficient or intrusive contact types

The expedition of a contact type is both attempting and sacred, and it takes some time to get it best however takes just a moment to get it all incorrect. Contact types usually fall into two classifications: Either too inadequate fields or lots of fields. Many locations that it involves inputting the maiden name of your maternal granny and, of course, the frightening phone number demand.

People wish to inform you what they require to say to you. If you do not allow them, you can miss out on a conversion. On the other hand, not everybody has the patience and time to complete twenty fields simply to be able to ask you if their discount code will be active. In this case, you might also be losing on a conversion by failing to explain each form’s purpose or properly to fill in their info.

Service

Construct your contact forms based upon your website’s purpose and your site’s target audience. If a customer feels like your form does not adequately let them interact their requirements, it is a bad kind.

It is a guideline that you are asking for too much from them if it takes more than 2 minutes to fill your kind. Instead of opting for the standard kind of contact type that needs a name, address, and the message that they get, develop your contact form based on your customers’ requirements.

Doing this will assist them to give tailored actions based upon their specific requirements. The questions on the forms are sufficient for them to determine needs and wants without being extremely intrusive.

2. Using just forms

Kinds are excellent. They are not the eventually convenient way for a prospective client to call you for one reason or another. Normally, when an individual is attempting to call you, it is most of the time, for something vital, and you do not wish to deny them of it.

Creating more than one medium for them to call you will make you seem relatively accessible. You don’t constantly need to follow the basic form. You can utilize other practical options such as email, chat, or call.

Solution

You do not need to add your contact number to your page. Add other ways for users to contact you. If you are not comfortable adding an electronic or physical address, you can use your social media icons. Wonder website has an outstanding example on this point.

Source: Wonder 3. Untracked form submissions Responds from filled and submitted kinds are not always ensured.

Individuals fill types and do not get actions sometimes and this boils down to the fact that no one was monitoring what came in. Failure to view your type submissions is one way of tossing a possibly vital opportunity away. It also speaks poorly about the management of your site, and the relationship you have with your users.

Service

Connect your contact forms to an account that you are likely to examine frequently. You can even assign this single task to someone. If you will not trouble to respond to users who call you, it does not make sense to have a contact form. Here’s an example of another reliable contact page by NJI3.

< img loading=”lazy”class

=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-143038″ src =”https://www.searchenginewatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Contact-page-mistakes-and-how-to-fix-them-Example-2.png”alt= “Contact page mistakes and how to fix them -Example 2 “width=”624” height =”343″srcset= “https://www.searchenginewatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Contact-page-mistakes-and-how-to-fix-them-Example-2.png 624w, https://www.searchenginewatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Contact-page-mistakes-and-how-to-fix-them-Example-2-300×165.png 300w “sizes=”( max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px”> Source: NTI3 You wish to make an effort to react to all queries that pertain to your website. You can take this to another level by composing positive confirmations with a name attached to your contact forms. Telling them that Joshua will get back to them prior to the end of 24 hours.

Doing this will force your users to fill and send the contact types.

4. Broken types

It is usual for things to break, nevertheless, leaving them broken is uncommon. Like many things, forms can be broken in numerous methods.

Examples of broken forms are:

• Submit buttons that do not work
• The forms that fail to acknowledge that you have completed all fields and keeps sending back mistake messages

Types can break for odd factors. You are not constantly to blame for damaged types, primarily if you utilize a third-party application. Your users will not see it in this light. They will take their conversions with them and flee your site.

Solution

Make sure to check your contact type at least as soon as every month specifically if you have not gotten submissions recently.

Doing this will enable you to spot any type of kind error as they come previously your users even see. One sure way for your possible consumers to tell if your form works properly is when a verification alert pops up not long after clicking on the send out button.

Conclusion

Contact pages are extremely crucial as it acts like a bridge that connects your company to the world exterior. And due to the fact that of the importance, you wish to guarantee that you are getting it all right. There are specific errors you may already be making that are costing you conversions. Our article provided the leading 4 errors and their options that we hope will help you get more conversions.

Grace P. is a Content Writer at Monify Media.

While the advertising industry focuses on Google’s 2022 expiration date for third-party cookies, a failure to reside in the here and now is costing brand names daily. A cookieless truth is imminent, however advertisers can’t pay for to run out the clock, willing an identity service into presence.

Today’s environment is molded by personal privacy policy, changing internet browser policies, and pandemic-induced customer behavior shifts. Brand name attention should be trained up the funnel: Upper-funnel branding and mid-funnel awareness will specify brand name success in the coming years, asking a strategic pivot to material and context today.

The truth of cookies today

Google’s choice is the last action in a long journey toward a cookieless reality. Current restrictions in Safari (iOS) and Firefox successfully conceal 40 percent of brand names’ US audiences from their targeting and attribution efforts. Basically, advertisers reliant on cookies are already losing out.

While marketers anticipate the forthcoming retirement of cookies, many harbors hope that the advertisement tech market will deliver an option in between now and Google’s scheduled doomsday. Regrettably, that reasoning doesn’t hold:

A one-to-one cookie replacement doesn’t exist

Cookies power a number of disparate elements of adtech, and replacements will feature constraints. A mix of new “services” will fill spaces in measurement, targeting, or attribution, however each will have drawbacks, adoption curves, and application costs. Even with brand-new innovation, it won’t be organization as usual.

Maintaining the status quo overlooks the genuine problem

Google’s decision is a direct response to customer personal privacy needs. Furthermore, the pandemic has actually basically transformed consumer behavior, demanding a prioritization of the customer experience at the brand level. If personal privacy and UX aren’t at the heart of a brand’s post-cookie plan, even a full-fledged replacement isn’t sufficient to remain competitive.

Going up the funnel

It is clear that marketers need to update their marketing stacks to compensate for cookie depreciation by 2022. What’s equally clear? Brand names must revamp their fundamental techniques to optimize efforts across the entire customer journey. Those predisposed to experimentation today will be far ahead of the competition when it concerns connecting with customers tomorrow.

It goes beyond technology.

I acknowledge it’s a little uncommon for an item man to inform people there’s no one-stop option for all of their obstacles. And do not get me wrong– some very cool tech is in advancement to take on the cookie depreciation fallout. All the exact same, online marketers must focus on completion goal: The goal isn’t a click from somebody on their cookie list. It’s to notify and affect customer habits through a beneficial brand experience.

When it pertains to executing their marketing strategies, advertisers require to keep their eyes on the prize and double down on material– and the context in which it appears. Required proof?

Industries that require a resurgence

The pandemic has actually devastated particular markets, like hospitality and airline companies, more than others. Brands aren’t trying to drive direct sales right now. Rather, they’re highlighting the value their services and items provide and showing their role in the consumer’s brand-new regular. “Buy now” banners don’t achieve that. Smart contextual targeting of pertinent content marketing does.

Less rack searching

The pandemic has actually proven that ecommerce is here to stay. Buyers are shunning brick-and-mortar organizations in favor of their online counterparts. Individuals naturally gravitate to the familiar when purchasing online, indicating brand names that flourished on point-of-purchase screens should now prioritize top-level awareness amongst consumers looking into particular product classifications.

Greater focus on product research

Even quarantined for the foreseeable future, individuals are making important purchases: appliances, cars, furniture, soft items, you name it. Customers are buying online, and extra time in the house translates to deeper item research study and evaluation. To be in the consideration set, brand names should deliver valuable mid-funnel content to influence purchase affinity and intent.

Instead of focusing on the deprecation of cookies, advertisers need to train their concentrate on the market characteristics and strategies that can affect their bottom lines today– by rotating to material and context. Rather of chasing after clicks and flooding low-fidelity audience profiles, today’s marketers are smart to purchase the strategies and innovations that develop affinity, purchase, and awareness intent that will sustain their brand names for the long run.

Eugene Cherny is SVP of Product at Nativo.