Digital Marketing Archives | Page 2 of 5

Improve Campaign Performance with Conversion Rate Optimization

Talk to any business owner about their marketing goals and you will likely hear the same thing: they all want to increase their sales. The process to achieve this goal, however, can involve different actions depending upon your marketing strategy. You can spend a great deal of money on advertising to reach your target audience, but wouldn’t it be fantastic to close more sales with the least number of customers? Don’t threaten me with a good time!

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) can be defined as the practice of increasing the percentage of people who perform specific actions on a website, or those who “convert”, based on the goals of your campaign. A conversion can be a purchase, phone call, or form fill among others. An increased conversion rate can yield a greater return on your marketing investment but how does one go about running a successful conversion rate optimization plan?

It’s All About the User

In order to increase the conversion rate, we must understand our customers (website users) and the things that drive them to convert. Without this understanding, we are not able to make data-driven optimizations to ad campaigns or websites and changes made would be baseless. Once we understand our users and their behaviors, we can adjust ads and websites to influence more conversions.

The CRO Toolbox

There are a number of different applications that can help identify user pain points on websites, track user behavior, and provide insights on your audience profile. Hotjar is a website analytics tool that tracks and records user behavior including clicks, scrolling, pageviews, and cursor hover. By viewing recorded web sessions, you can identify areas for improvement in design or functionality and make changes that improve the user experience (UX). Google Optimize is a tool that allows you to easily set up and measure the results of A/B tests of different landing pages. Google’s Analytics tool can help you identify your audience by providing user information such as demographics, interests, and other products that interest them. This can be crucial to helping you form proper messaging within your website and ad copy.

Winning CRO Strategies

Now that you have the tools to help you understand the behaviors and interests of your audience, you can analyze the data and get to work on making and testing website and ad adjustments. The goal of conversion rate optimization is obviously to improve the conversion rate of your campaigns. There are a number of different methods you can practice in order to drive a winning CRO strategy. Since every business and customer profile is different, figuring out which methods work the best is a natural part of the process. Here are some questions you may want to consider:

Does the customer fully understand my product/service and the value it provides?
Does my web page contain too much industry jargon?
Is there a way to convey a sense of urgency that could drive more conversions?
Is the customer left with too many unanswered questions that may cause them to choose to buy from a competitor?

Through an evaluation of your website content using CRO tools, adjusting your web pages might be simple. If you hypothesize that a change might work better than the current content, it’s important to test the hypothesis using methods such as A/B testing (one of the CRO tools). Keep in mind that conversion rate optimization is a cyclical process of collecting data, analyzing data, adjusting content, and testing. Understanding your customers’ interests and behaviors can make a huge difference in revenue.

Improving ad campaign performance through conversion rate optimization is 2^nd nature to us and we love collaborating with businesses and their owners in order to drive campaign success. Give us a call at 713-309-6380 or reach out through our contact form on the website.

Human to Human: How to Personalize Your Marketing

Consumers are getting personal! And they want businesses to treat them like people, too. Personalizing your marketing strategies will go a long way in connecting your business to your customer. We are social animals and need to feel connected to each other. According to Salesforce data, an average of 84% of consumers say being treated like a person is key to winning their business. And over 95% say that they will stay loyal to a company that they trust. Relationships are key to winning and maintaining customers, especially in this day and time where a lot of marketing is done by machines or artificial intelligence. By using the tools available to us today, you can tailor your marketing to reach consumers on a more personal level by leveraging information that is uniquely relevant to them. It’s important to make a strong first impression and follow through with personalized notifications and messaging to make the entire interaction with your ad a personal experience for the consumer. Salesforce suggests there are some important questions you need to ask when preparing your marketing campaign to make sure it focuses on the person you are trying to reach.

Instead of “what do we want to show”, ask “what do they want to see?”
Instead of “what do we want to sell”, ask “how can we show value?”
Ask “what makes us better than everyone else?”
Ask “how will this make our customer feel?”

Focus On Value and Relationships

Don’t assume people care about you or your product! When you focus more on value and relationships, you begin to recognize how your products fit into the lifestyle of your customer. Knowing your audience can help you tailor your marketing efforts to fit their interests, lifestyle, family situation, socioeconomic status, etc. And when you can tap into their trust sensors and understand the emotional impact of your marketing efforts, then you connect the human value. When your customers know you value their business, the relationship will naturally grow.

Marketing to Emotions

Marketing to emotions must be realistic! For instance, when you see ads with people working out – they’re always smiling. That’s not exactly how it works in real life! People working out usually aren’t smiling. The six primary emotions are love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness, and fear. When planning a campaign, stop and ask how your ad might make your customer feel or what it might make them believe about your company and/or product.

Audio can affect emotions too! In a recent article, Spotify and Neuro-Insight studies show that sound can impact our brain by effecting the emotional, memory, and engagement centers. Using four metrics, Spotify explains that through Engagement (relatability & relevance), Emotional Intensity (emotions), Long-Term Memory (memories, feelings, and themes), and Long-Term Memory for Details (specific message), we can create a pretty good picture of how the consumer will connect with the ad and remember it.

Make your Social Content Personal

Most of us share content on social media daily. Is your social media content more personal or more social? Get Response explains LinkedIn data shows how content with a quote will yield a higher click through rate by approximately 30%. LinkedIn also studied social posts comparing images with people vs. objects and the images with people had higher CTR and conversion rates!

*LinkedIn Marketing Solutions/Orbit Media

Keeping your message consistent and authentic can build your brand and increase visibility.

Know Your Audience

Marketing campaigns usually put groups of people into one large demographic (i.e. W 18-34). However, the interests, motivations, and lifestyle within that group could be very different! An 18–20-year-old woman may be single, enjoys going out with friends and partying, and is probably on a fairly tight budget. A woman 30-34 is most likely married, probably with kids, doesn’t go out partying much, and has a little more wiggle room in her budget. Knowing your audience and marketing to those who will find value in your service is key to a successful campaign. People may live in the same city, work in the same industry, or be the same age and/or gender, but that doesn’t mean they will all be interested in the same things.

Tell A Story

Finally, you can make your campaign more memorable by telling a story! People may not always understand your ideas or know all about your product, but they will remember a story – which ties back to the emotions we talked about earlier. Telling your story can take the consumer from the world that is to the world that could be with your brand tying the two together.

Personalizing your marketing strategies will help your customers feel more connected to you and your business. It doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive – it just has to be real.

Achieve your marketing goals and increase brand awareness by personalizing your advertising efforts and focusing on value and relationships.

At Brand Ranch Media, we love helping clients just like you come up with creative ways to utilize available tools to meet your marketing goals. To speak with an expert, give us a call at 713-309-6380 or send us a message on our website.

Marketing Trends in 2022

It’s that time of year again. The final three months of the year are marked with back-to-back-to-back holiday celebrations and most companies already have their holiday marketing plans set. Business owners and marketing professionals alike start setting up marketing initiatives and budgets for the new year. At the end of 2020, we made a few prophetic insights into marketing trends to expect during their 2021 campaigns. Now, we shuffle and flip our tarot cards of advertising and read into the marketing trends to look for in 2022.

Digital marketing automation will continue to evolve.

Google has slowly introduced automated ads into their search and display ad types. These responsive ads take different ad copy and creative input in the platform by the advertiser and use machine learning to show the best performing combinations of the ad assets available to users based on the individual’s preferences. Budget strategies have also become fully automated and are aimed to get the best results based on the goal of each campaign within specific budget parameters. Other digital ad platforms such as Microsoft Ads, Facebook, and LinkedIn utilize similar automation concepts. Expect to see marketing automation continue to improve with new features and better results allowing marketers to focus on other ad management aspects while the automated systems provide support in some of the ad optimization work.

Google’s search algorithms will continue to get smarter which will change website SEO.

In June 2021, Google released an algorithm update it calls, “MUM”. MUM has the ability to translate user searches into different languages as well as go beyond providing results that only answer the original search query. One practical use is utilizing search when in different countries. An English-speaking user on vacation in Italy might want to find fun places to visit in Rome. MUM will bring up local results and translate them from Italian into English so that the user receives localized web results rather than results from an English-language website. MUM can also serve web results that go beyond the initial search query. Using the same travel scenario, when the user is planning a trip, they usually have many questions such as air travel, where to stay, things to do, and how to get around. The MUM update seeks to show results that can answer all of these related questions through only one query. The bottom line for content creators is that keyword placement within content is going to become less and less relevant while focusing on providing well-rounded, quality, and informative content is going to be much more sustainable in the long run.

Image optimization is going to become more vital for SEO.

Image optimization has evolved. Not only do images need to have a descriptive file name and a descriptive alt img tag, they also should be uploaded to websites using proper image formatting and file sizes. Without proper image formatting, websites can load much more slowly which can cause ranking issues. Some companies may have to go back and reformat their website images in order to keep SEO compliant. It might be an expensive process but well worth it considering the amount of business you may lose because of a slow-loading website and a drop in search engine rankings.

Core Web Vitals will find a happy medium.

Launched this past Summer, though announced in 2020, Google provided ample time for website owners to prepare for their Core Web Vitals update. The update added some additional ranking factors to the search algorithm regarding website performance related to site speed in three categories: loading, interactivity, and visual stability. Google also provided a tool to indicate and troubleshoot Core Web Vitals issues through its Chrome Browser called, “Lighthouse”. Our experience working with optimizing for Core Web Vitals and utilizing Lighthouse has shown that the ranking signal is evolving and will likely continue to do so until Google finds a happy medium on just how much ranks will be affected.

Small and medium-sized businesses will invest more into First-Party Data collection and usage.

This one is not only a prediction but also a suggestion. With the almost near extinction of 3^rd party cookie tracking, it is going to be much more difficult (if not nearly impossible) to retarget website visitors in digital marketing campaigns. Facebook’s ads platform is even saying don’t bother with trying to retarget, and if you do, don’t expect to gather very accurate results data (but more on that next). Instead, focusing on collecting first-party data from users is the best method for targeting audiences specifically interested in the services a business provides. The easiest way to start a first-party marketing list is to download and format your customer list so that you can upload to various marketing platforms. There are many different target audiences you can create using this list. If you haven’t already worked this strategy into your marketing plans, do so now.

Facebook ads tracking will get better in a world without third-party cookies.

With the rollouts of iOS14.5 and iOS15 this year, Apple has officially changed the digital advertising game revolving around 3^rd party cookie tracking. With this type of cookie tracking eliminated on iOS devices (or rather, the ability to opt out of this method of tracking), Facebook has been racing to figure out alternative tracking methods to keep their revenue stream, Facebook Ads, relevant and effective. Working within Facebook’s Marketing Expert program, we gain first-hand, direct access to the newest updates within Facebooks ad platform. Thus far, Facebook has done a good job adapting to a cookie-less world and they will continue to improve upon their systems moving forward.

Advertising spend on connected TV will increase.

The 2020 pandemic helped cause a shift in consumer behavior. One of those shifts was viewership of ad supported YouTube video content. Stuck at home, many viewers switched from the smaller phone and tablet versions and started to watch videos on connected TVs. More than half of all YouTube viewers now watch YouTube on TV screens. The cost of advertising on YouTube is much cheaper than cable or broadcast TV and you can still reach a massive audience with better targeting capabilities. Advertising on connected TV is a great marketing strategy that businesses should not ignore.

Email marketing strategy will need to evolve.

Changes in cookie-based tracking has also brought upon changes in the way that email platforms will allow reporting data. Email providers will no longer allow for email marketing platforms to utilize custom tracking code to record click data that occurs within the email itself. Marketers will have to become more creative in bringing users to their website through emails in order to record activity data. Expect marketing emails to be a little more vague while they try to lure you to learn more on their website.

As a full-service marketing agency, Brand Ranch Media develops and manages diverse marketing strategies that can propel your business into solid year-over-year revenue growth. Our experienced marketing experts bring diverse skillsets and understand all components of successful marketing campaigns. There is always time to adjust your marketing goals and that’s where we come in! Call us at 713-309-6380 or contact us to discuss!

Top 5 Ways to Collect First-Party Data

Collecting first-party data to help drive marketing campaigns has become the hot topic over the past year. Businesses have long relied upon third-party marketing data to hone in on their targeted audience and that practice has left some scrambling to find other ways to reach a more captivated buyer. As search engines have slowly blocked websites and advertising platforms from collecting third-party data on consumers, marketers are having to devise new ways to reach targeted audiences more likely to purchase the products they sell. There are many ways to build a first-party marketing list. In this article, we will discuss our top 5 ways to collect first-party data.

First-Party Data vs. Third-Party Data

Before we dive into some of the best ways to collect this data, it’s important to understand the difference between first-party and third-party marketing data, how it’s collected, and the benefits they provide to digital marketing campaigns. First-party marketing data is contact information collected directly from the customer. This information usually consists of, but is not limited to, an email address, first name, last name, and phone number. First-party data also tracks user behavior collected directly from your website or web application. This data can be uploaded to various digital advertising platforms which will match with digital user profiles allowing advertisers to directly show ads to these users not only based on their contact information, but also based on the various ways they interact with your website or web app.

In contrast, third-party data provides information about a users’ behavior across the internet on other websites they visit. This includes, but is not limited to, purchase behavior such as specific products and product categories, general interests, types of actions they take such as lead generation form fills and phone calls, and much more! Advertisers use this data to create different audience profiles and target their digital marketing efforts towards them.

Goodbye, Third-Party Cookies

In the name of user privacy, search engines and internet browsers are slowly killing off the collection of third-party cookie data leaving many advertisers scratching their heads trying to come up with alternate audience targeting practices. The best type of data to use for audience targeting is your own first-party data. Whether you’re promoting your product to those who have signed up for your email list or retargeting a list of your current or past customers, these types of audiences are going to be your most valuable as they have already expressed interest in your business.

Collecting First-Party Data

Data intelligence software provider, Claravine, compiled a list of various ways to collect first-party data but you have to provide them with your personal first-party information in order to view. We’ll save you the trouble and share our top 5 favorites.

Newsletter Sign-Ups

Most company websites provide a blog to highlight industry-related information, showcase customer success stories, and even share their involvement in community events. Companies can repurpose their blog content and create a newsletter that they periodically send via email. Most people are willing to sign up to receive a newsletter if they feel that they will benefit from its content. This is a great way to advertise promotions and offers as well.

Write Expert Content

Similar to a company blog, creating whitepapers, videos, or eBooks is a great way to collect first-party customer data. The content should go a step further than a typical blog article and provide higher value to the user in order to entice them into giving away their information. This works particularly well in the B2B sales model and can help fill the marketing funnel to target decision-makers more specifically at various stages in the purchasing process.

Discounts and Rewards Programs

Offering a membership-based rewards program will definitely help build first-party data. Consumers are always looking for ways to save money and love the feeling of getting something for “free”. A discount or rewards program will also allow you to collect more information other than just a name and an email address. The more information you can collect from customers, the more targeting capability you will have for your digital marketing campaigns.

Events

Hosting an informative industry event will not only allow the opportunity to collect information from potential customers but it will also provide you valuable face time with key decision-makers. By attending the event, you already know these buyers are serious about your product and the data you collect can be used to focus remarketing efforts or create audience profiles of individuals that share similar traits. An event doesn’t have to be 100% business-centric either. Why not host an old-fashioned cookout and label it as a community social event?

Collaborate with Other Businesses

Partnering with similar businesses can be a win-win situation for the involved parties. For example, a local HVAC company could team with a local Plumbing company and share contacts to include in each of their digital marketing efforts. Businesses can also co-host an event where interested customers can leave their contact information for future follow-up. A business might also consider influencer marketing where they team up with an individual who has a large following such as on social media or a video platform like YouTube. The leads generated by the influencer can be used as first-party marketing data.

Regardless of where your business stands with first-party data, it’s never too late to take strides towards compiling it. A great place to start is with your own customer list. This data can be uploaded to various digital marketing platforms for immediate use in campaign targeting.

At Brand Ranch Media, we love helping clients just like you come up with creative ways to utilize available marketing data to create custom audience targets. To speak with an expert, give us a call at 713-309-6380 or send us a message on our website.

Google Delays 3rd Party Cookie Phase Out

Advertisers can breathe a little easier as Google recently announced that they are going to delay the elimination of 3^rd party tracking cookies on its Chrome browser until late 2023. If this topic sounds familiar, you might have read our previous article where we discussed how 3^rd party cookie elimination would affect digital marketing strategies. In it, we suggested some alternative ways that advertisers could track online user behavior once 3^rd party cookie tracking got the ax. Cookie tracking is a practice utilized in most online ad platforms. By placing a “cookie” on a user’s web browser, advertisers can better understand that person’s online behavior and can therefore show them more relevant ads.

Why the delay?

Google received heavy pushback from other ad platforms and digital marketers alike. Many were left scrambling to develop alternative tracking methods to ensure that marketing efforts weren’t completely spoiled once Google made the switch. Many of the alternatives suggested didn’t sit well with online privacy advocates. Extending the cookie phase out will allow more time to find an alternative that satisfies Google, advertisers, and privacy advocates.

A Monopoly in the Making

In the UK, Google’s plan raised the eyebrows of antitrust authorities. Their main concern was that Google’s plan to eliminate 3^rd party cookie tracking on Chrome would put other advertising platforms at a severe disadvantage thus causing advertisers to move their marketing dollars to Google’s ad platform. One of these advertising competitors is Facebook, which makes the majority of its revenue through selling ads on social media and apps. Facebook utilizes a piece of website code (or pixel) to track its ad performance metrics. Most notably, the pixel enables the Facebook ads platform to track conversion data such as leads and sales and attribute them to ads. Without this trackable conversion data, it would be difficult to prove any kind of return on advertising spend. Digital marketing has typically benefitted advertising firms because it is much easier to prove returns versus traditional forms of marketing such as television, radio, and print. Google has stated that they are more than willing to work with the UK’s antitrust authorities in order to appease.

What’s Next?

From an advertiser’s standpoint, Google’s delay provides a welcomed extension. It gives other ad platforms a chance to finetune their current solutions and marketing professionals time to put those solutions in place. There was also an indication that perhaps Google wasn’t quite ready for its own update. It looks like we are all going to have to wait another couple of years for the next era of digital ads tracking.

Worried that your digital ads might not be up to snuff? We love helping businesses optimize their online presence and develop successful campaigns! Give us a call at 713-309-6380 or fill out our contact form to discuss!

2021 Digital Marketing Predictions: Update

In early December of 2020 we made some bold (but calculated) predictions for future marketing trends as well as set forth some marketing goals and resolutions that advertisers should focus on in 2021. With all the challenges that 2020 brought to the marketplace, businesses were forced to adapt to the changes in order to stay afloat. Consumer behavior also shifted and marketing strategies that once worked had to be adjusted to cater to the evolving customer.

As a recap, here are some of the trends and goals that we predicted would be major focuses of brands both large and small:

Trend 1: Companies will continue to improve their customer’s digital buying experience.
Trend 2: SEO will continue to stay relevant.
Goal 1: Focus on mobile site speed.
Goal 2: Focus on SEO to help fill the funnel for longer sales cycles.
Goal 3: Adopt a winning social strategy.

Fast-forward to six months later and we are nearing the halfway point for 2021! It feels as though this year has been shot out of a cannon and refuses to slow down. It’s been reported that consumer confidence in the US sharply increased in April after the previous increase in March indicating that consumer attitude, buying intentions, and fiscal expectations have reached pre-pandemic levels. Marketers seem to be taking note. In a worldwide survey conducted in March 2021 by research firm, Ascend2, marketing professionals were asked, “Which areas of the digital customer experience will you focus most on improving in the year ahead?” The top three responses were website optimization, social media, and personalization all reporting at about 45% for each response.

Overall, brand marketers want to improve customer experience through website optimization by making it easier for customers to purchase products using mobile devices, adding more ways for customers to reach a sales representative directly on the digital platform, and adding more content that helps the customer to make more informed buying decisions. Increasing the speed of a mobile website will not only improve the customer experience but it will also help with Google index rankings and eliminate a reason why a customer might leave the website and opt for a competitor. Adding content that answers common customer questions will help fill the sales funnel, especially for goods and services with longer sales cycles.

Marketers also want to focus on the social media experience of their customers. This can be achieved through personalized messaging, ad content, and providing multiple ways for customers to interact with the business without having to leave the social media platform. Facebook has pioneered social media advertising and has brought the same technology to Instagram. By personalizing the messaging and content of an ad, marketers can “speak” to consumers depending on where they fit into the sales funnel. Customers can also directly interact with businesses via Facebook Messenger Ads which can also help the business to pre-qualify shoppers through automated messaging options. With the changes released in the most recent update to iOS14, tracking user behavior offsite is going to be very difficult for social media apps such as Facebook. If marketers can interact with customers while offering seamless ways to conduct transactions directly on the social media platform, ROI (return on investment) will be much easier to prove.

So, how did our predictions hold up? We think very well.

A marketing team with the foresight to predict future behaviors and trends in the market is an invaluable asset to any business. At Brand Ranch Media, our experience and expertise in the broad spectrum of advertising can help position your business towards increased revenue while placing your brand in front of customers that have the highest intent to purchase. Give us a call at 713-309-6380 or send us a message to discuss how we can help drive your business to success!

How to Prepare Your Facebook Ads for iOS14

We are approaching the end of Q1 2021 and as advertisers anxiously await the full release of security and privacy updates for iOS14, we are closer to understanding how Apple’s plan to block user tracking for online apps is going to affect Facebook Ad’s ability to track performance metrics, especially pertaining to conversions. While we don’t know the exact date when Apple will release the update, there are a few action items to address within the Facebook Ads platform to prepare for in the meantime. So, let’s dive on in!

Verify Web Domain

Facebook suggests, as a best practice, to verify your web domain on the ad’s platform. There are a few different reasons why this is necessary. The one specifically related to the iOS14 changes applies if you want to have full control over what conversion events are reported. It’s also important if you want to assign access to multiple users who may manage different aspects of both ads and your related business pages. For those of you that rely on an advertising agency for Facebook management, they should already be familiar with domain verification.

Configure Conversions

There are limitations to the number of conversion events that you can assign utilizing the Facebook website pixel when the iOS14 update is complete. Moving forward, you will only be able to assign 8 conversion events per website domain. You can specify which conversion events you’d like to track through the Events Manager section of Facebook Ads and can assign them by order of importance. When running ads that focus on optimizing for conversions such as obtaining more contact form fills, you will need to assign that specific event as a top priority over all other events in order for the campaign to be successful. Ads may still take other events into consideration; however, the reporting will be based on the conversion event that you have specified.

Other Considerations

There are some other items to keep in mind with the iOS14 update regarding your Facebook Ads. If you are actively running ad campaigns with website pixel conversion events that you do not specify in the Events Manager, those ads will be automatically turned off and will no longer run. It’s important to work with your marketing team to narrow down those conversion events that are most important for your goals. You may notice that the delivery status might change for these specific campaigns if the ad has an unsupported event, contains a setup error, or if the event is currently updating after making changes. Changes to events take 72 hours to update.

You should also note that target audiences that were once robust may decrease in size and reach. One requirement of the iOS14 update is that apps must allow users the decision to opt out of ad targeting. If users opt out of targeting, this will affect both custom and retargeting audiences as they will decrease in size.

At Brand Ranch Media, we work directly with Facebook Marketing Experts on a weekly basis. They keep us informed on all of the latest developments within the Ads platform and the best practices to follow regarding campaign management and the latest updates. There are other considerations to make regarding the iOS14 updates. Feel free to reach out to us to discuss!

Display is NOT Dead

When talking with business owners and managers about Display advertising, there is often a disconnect or lack of understanding of current day digital display campaigns, their capabilities, and how they are best utilized. Many folks generally think that display ads are simply banner ads placed on news websites and sold directly from that news outlet such as the local NBC or ABC affiliates. By nature, these are definitely display ads, however, with this type of business structure, a business is charged a fixed price per 1000 ad impressions, the ad targeting is limited, and your audience is limited to those that browse the affiliate’s news website. These types of display campaigns underperform with regard to bringing in value to the ad purchaser, and as a result, we often come face-to-face with those that think display advertising simply does not work. However, display is NOT dead and in fact is far from it!

What is a display ad campaign?

A display ad campaign combines two different creative elements, copy and imagery, into ads that are shown across the internet on websites, videos, apps, and email platforms. Utilizing an ad platform such as Google Ads, display ads can target very detailed audiences based on demographics, interests, locations, types of products and services they are currently in-market for, and websites or topics they have previously browsed. Another key feature is that these platforms allow an advertiser more cost controls and eliminates the need to pay 3^rd party pricing which is often marked up 3 – 5 times the actual cost. Display ads can also target consumers who are more likely to interact with ads in a specific way such as website visits or lead conversions.

But wait, there’s more…

What are responsive display ads?

Responsive display ads allow for the use of multiple different combinations of ad copy and imagery to show the consumer a more personalized ad based on their related online activity. This helps drive increased click-through-rates (CTR) as the consumer is likely to see ad copy that is customized to their own interests. Different imagery is tested by the platform and via AI machine learning, platforms can determine which perform better to achieve the campaign goal. Utilizing responsive display ad creative often times increases ad engagement by 100% – 200%!

Using Display to Target Competitors

There are a number of different custom audience targeting methods to include in a display campaign aimed at better defining a potential customer. A custom audience can be created based on interests and behaviors, similar websites, and similar apps. For example, Tom owns a local store that sells authentic sports jerseys and wants to use custom audiences to help narrow down a very specific audience. He might want to target people that have visited his competitor’s websites, so he compiled a list of their URLs and creates a custom audience. To be even more specific, Tom wants to sell Houston Astros jerseys, so he creates a custom interest-based audience utilizing the keyword “Houston Astros Jersey”. He may consider targeting users of apps similar to MLB.com in order to reach Baseball fans in general. Through this type of custom targeting, an advertiser can reach consumers who have visited competitor websites and who also have a high intent to purchase.

How Display Can Drive Leads

No matter where a consumer fits into your sales funnel, display can help drive leads through the awareness, interest, decision, and action stages. Utilizing general audience targeting combined with interests and in-market segments that qualify buyers, display helps to build awareness and interest in brand and product. By generating remarketing audiences, you can reach buyers who have already interacted with your ads and explored your website. Ads targeted at these audiences help drive decisions and purchasing actions.

The bottom line is that when used in a strategic way, display campaigns can be very beneficial and can play an active role in your overall advertising strategy. If you don’t see the benefit in display advertising, perhaps you have never worked with a fully knowledgeable team of experts that can help steer you to marketing success. At Brand Ranch Media, we are those experts, and we want to prove to you that display is most certainly NOT dead. We want to hear from you so please reach out and contact us or give us a call at 713-309-6380 so we can discuss how to put display advertising to work for you!

2021 Marketing Goals and Resolutions

Stick a fork in 2020. It’s not only done – it’s overcooked. As we gear up to ring in the new year, marketers are reflecting on the past year, what worked, and changes to make moving forward. In our last article we discussed marketing trends that we expect to see in 2021. For today’s topic, we will set forth some marketing goals and resolutions that every advertiser should strive towards next year.

Mobile Site Speed

Google’s core algorithm update will go into effect early in 2021 with a focus on website speed as a ranking factor. Google will also index websites based solely on their mobile version. As more users turn to mobile as their device of choice when searching the internet, Google wants to make sure that they continue to provide the most relevant content that provides a great user experience. Fast mobile websites that provide great content will be rewarded with better rankings. Marketers and brands must ensure that the websites they promote provide the most optimal mobile user experience. There are many auditing tools available to help identify site speed and mobile usability issues. Doubling down on mobile, Google will also only index mobile websites. Any outdated websites that are not mobile-friendly will not be included in Google’s index and will therefore become completely obscure. Make sure that your website is fully optimized towards these very important ranking factors in 2021.

SEO or PPC?

Filling the sales funnel is important for every business. In the digital-heavy marketing landscape, it can be tricky to fully understand different tactics, how they work in the sales cycle, and when they are best utilized. Depending on whether you provide B2C or B2B products or services, the sales process may be shorter (B2C) or much longer (B2B). With a shorter sales process, you might find success with more of a focus on PPC ad campaigns and less focus on SEO. You will want to still have great content on your website to help the buyer decide to purchase. In a longer sales cycle, a little more focus on SEO can help at the top of the funnel when buyers are typically in the research phase. They have a need that they must fulfill and are likely wanting to learn more about a solution to their need. At this phase, having content that can answer specific questions that a buyer might ask is very important and can take the form of branded whitepapers, case studies, or blog articles. Quality, robust content on the main product or services pages will also aid in filling the top level of the funnel. Even traditional marketing platforms such as radio and television can be used to help drive direct or branded organic traffic to a website. As buyers get closer to the point of purchase towards the bottom of the funnel, PPC campaigns can be used as a decision-centric marketing tactic designed with calls-to-action that drive potential buyers and convert them into customers. Having a diverse marketing plan will help drive buyer decisions at whatever stage they are at in the sales funnel. Be sure that your marketing plan covers each of these stages in the funnel to ensure success.

A Winning Social Strategy

Social media platform strategy planning should be approached differently in 2021 than is has been over the past few years. In the past, a lot of focus has been based on a social selling strategy where hard sales tactics try to immediately convert the buyer. Ad platforms such as Facebook have also built-in conversion-based tools that focus on driving conversions directly on Facebook so that the buyer doesn’t even have to leave to go to the seller’s website. The social sales tactic slowly saw less conversions in 2020 and moving forward, advertisers will need to shift towards social commerce tactics. Where social selling focuses on the bottom levels of the sales funnel, social commerce focuses on the top level of the funnel and is meant to generate more interest in the brand and build trust with the buyer. The average modern user of social media has grown to distrust ads and advertisers alike, always feeling as though they are being sold something. A softer approach to social advertising will help regain the trust that was lost in 2020 and should focus on top-funnel strategies.

The New Consumer

A new generation of consumers has entered the market and advertisers should pay attention. Generation Z (Gen Z) are a much different type of buyer than the older Millennials (who are now turning 40) and Generation X (who are in their mid-40s and older). What has worked when marketing to Millennials and Generation X will not work with Gen Z. Advertisers will need to adjust their strategies if they want to reach the younger consumers. It is important to note as well that 40% of the consumers in the US fit into the Gen Z category so it is unwise to leave this largely untapped consumer out of your marketing strategy. Marketers and brands should research how Gen Z thinks, how they use the many different technologies available to them, and the best ways they can reach this audience and provide value to their everyday lives. This is a huge opportunity for advertisers that they simply should not ignore.

Share some of your thoughts in the comments section. We would love to hear about your marketing resolutions for 2021. Wishing everyone a great holiday season and a very happy new year!

Marketing Trends in 2021

It’s December 2020 – finally! We are less than a month away before we wave goodbye to this rollercoaster year. While we “deck the halls” and “keep our spirits bright,” we eagerly await 2021 and hope for somewhat of a return to normalcy in the new year. Digital Marketing Agencies, as a whole, actually fared well in the uncertain economy. The Facebook Ad Boycott in June had little effect on Facebook’s bottom line. Overall spending on search advertising didn’t take the hit that was forecasted as retailers turned to more online marketing strategies to make up for lost in-store revenue. Looking through our shades at the hopefully brighter future ahead, we have identified some marketing trends in 2021 that brands and advertisers can expect as we transition into a new calendar year.

No more 3^rd party cookie targeting.

Utilizing 3^rd party advertising cookies to track user behavior on websites throughout the internet is a practice this is slowly being burned to a crisp and tossed down the disposal. Search engines and device makers have already eliminated or banned 3^rd party cookie tracking or have plans to do so in 2021. Brands that are not properly prepared for this will have a gap in their digital ad audience targeting. It will be important to start implementing data collection tools and methods in order to serve ads to the most engaged users who are likely to convert into a sale.

Google Analytics has a new face.

The future of analytics is now and in the form of Google Analytics 4. GA4 utilizes an event-based tracking method that features AI learning designed to help advertisers make smarter marketing decisions based on specific actions users take when visiting a website. Though not quite 100% fully developed, it’s best to set up and configure a GA4 analytics property along with the global site tag property and configure custom conversion tracking. As 2021 rolls along, we can expect to see more features added to GA4 to make it the analytics powerhouse that it’s promised to become.

Companies will continue to improve their customer’s digital buying experience.

As shoppers were locked out of retail stores in 2020, brands shifted their dollars and strategies towards improving the customer’s online buying experience much sooner than previously forecasted. Improvements to the mobile buying experience were a large focus as well as virtual customer services. It is unknown how long it will take for retail shoppers to feel comfortable in a traditional shopping environment, however we could eventually learn that more and more shoppers actually prefer a digital shopping experience. Amazon is now where more that half of consumers begin their search for products surpassing search engines, retailer websites, and brand websites.

Search Ad spending will continue to increase.

Despite forecasters’ predictions for 2020 search ad spend, the reality is that rather than taking huge losses now and in the foreseeable future, search ad spend will be on par with the original 2021 predictions and actually surpass forecasted estimates in 2022 and beyond. This comes as large retail brands shifted their marketing efforts to enhanced digital strategies during the lockdown caused by the Coronavirus pandemic.

SEO will continue to stay relevant.

Google continues to make core adjustments to their search algorithm and announced in May that the next update was going to focus on page load speed and mobile-friendliness. SEOs will need to adapt to these new guidelines in order to maintain site rankings and competitiveness in the organic search environment. Google tools, such as Lighthouse and Page Speed Insights, will assist in identifying site speed issues. It will be up to the SEOs to make the proper site adjustments. Mobile web experience adjustments will also be worth the investment. Websites will refine their mobile versions to enhance user experience and more sites will invest in development of AMP encoded mobile site versions designed to load faster on mobile platforms. All of these proactive measures will positively contribute to site ranking.

Ad revenues will increase for streaming devices and apps.

As more households cancel their cable services and switch to one of the many streaming options, more ad dollars will be spent trying to target these customers. Devices such as Smart TVs and Chromecast show video advertisements on free streaming apps that provide viewers with television shows and movies. One YouTube ad option (managed through the Google Ads platform) is to target Smart TV screens as well as streaming apps downloaded to those devices. Expect this feature to continue to gain momentum as it provides advertisers a streamlined option to publish video ads without directly going through paid media reps.

Facebook Ads will be limited.

Starting in February of 2021, Facebook will start to limit the number of ads that a page can concurrently run. According to Facebook, “running too many ads at once can hurt performance.” SMBs (small and medium sized businesses) are not likely to see their ad account affected by the limitations, however larger businesses that utilize widespread regional advertising will find themselves having to identify and focus on the most successful types of ads for their business goals.

TikTok Advertising spend will increase.

The newest social media platform has taken the US by storm after already leading Asian countries such as China and India in total downloads and daily users. TikTok has not only attracted the younger generation – it has become popular with those between the ages of 30-50 which opens opportunities for more advertisers to join in on the craze and reach consumers through another medium. TikTok should be included in any brand’s marketing plan in 2021.

Podcasts and Music Streaming Ad revenue will increase.

More people are working from home and companies are offering this option as part of an employment perk. As more people ditch their long commutes to work, they are turning away from traditional radio broadcasts and switching to Podcast programming and streamed music apps. There is a big market for advertising on these platforms as most users opt for free streaming versions that are ad supported.