What is holding digital marketers back?

Did you know that Facebook got a massive 40% increase in ad sales worldwide with just a small change in wording. Instead of a call to action button 'advertise' they simply changed it to 'create an ad'. This was discovered by accident.

In France Facebook’s Translators had translated 'advertise' as 'créer un ad' or 'create an ad'. Sadly too much online testing is accidental rather than the result of rigorous testing.

Improving marketing with off-line and on-line testing

Offline and online testing is the best way to improve marketing results. And what marketer does not want to improve results?

Well, I would suggest that many online organisations are not taking testing seriously enough. For example, a recent survey of Digital Marketers by Adobe found that 49% of respondents said testing was not a priority and most companies spend less than 5% of their marketing budgets on testing…

Review your use of search retargeting with this new benchmark

Only a few years ago, 'retargeting' was the hot new practice in online advertising. Today, as Chango’s new Retargeting Barometer report makes clear, retargeting has entered the mainstream. Let’s take a quick look at this survey of marketers and agencies to see exactly what it revealed and why it should be of special interest to search marketers. Who responded? The Retargeting Barometer consists of responses from 51 U.S. and Canadian marketers working for brands and agencies in a diverse group of industries, including retail, financial services, travel, auto, CPG and B2B. One of the biggest takeaways was straightforward enough: retargeting has arrived, and it’s here to stay. Only a year ago, almost half of survey respondents had to form a new budget for retargeting. This year, budgeting was no longer an obstacle. Only 17% percent of respondents had…

Simple ideas to review for more impactful Pinterest, Google+, Facebook and Twitter Posts

We like useful infographics that prompt you to think about the way you do things and change them. Myclever Agency have designed a 'clever' (excuse the pun!) practical infographic to showcase how to create the perfect social media post and timings for engagement, across Pinterest, Google+, Facebook and Twitter, gathering insight from sources available on Bitly and Salesforce.

One size doesn't fit all for different networks, so it's interesting to see their point-of-view on how you should communicate differently through the different networks. Their infographic addresses key points for layout, content, CTA across the different platforms to leverage engagement and social sharing. We like it as it's simple and most of all practical.

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We like this simple PPC advice released by Finch on how to implement and optimize a PPC campaign for ecommerce sites, though it can be adapted across different sectors.

It's a useful checklist for those who are perhaps new to managing adword campaigns, in 9 steps for planning, execution and monitoring your campaign. For in-depth advice on how to manage and review AdWords for marketing managers working with specialists in-house or in company, see our 72 page 7 Steps to AdWords Success Guide. 

Here's a summary of the tips from the infographic.

1. Optimise for visits2. Optimise for conversions3. Maximise your ad creative - see our tips4. Define your keyword management strategy5. Reveal all of your inventory.6. Target your visitors.7. Optimise for revenue8. Optimise for profit ad9. Finally, see how your adwords rank.

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To opt-in or double opt-in, that is the question

Should I use single or double opt-in when growing my email list? It's a question I'm frequently asked. However I don’t see it as a binary question of one or the other and I advocate using both. Sounds odd? I’ll explain. The common concern with double opt-in is that it requires the customer to perform the additional step of opening an email and clicking a link to confirm they want to opt-in. Double opt-in leaks That means there is leakage, not everyone completes the confirmation step. This could be because they don’t get the double opt-in confirmation email, don’t get around to reading and clicking the link in the email or have a change of mind. The leakage is significant, 20% is not uncommon and I’ve heard of brands with 40% of people signing-up failing to confirm opt-in. So there is no question that single opt-in will…

New report summarises best and worst only copywriting practices

Value: [rating=4]

Recommended link: State of Digital Copywriting: Sticky Content Survey results 2013

This report makes for interesting reading if you're involved in writing content, in the on or off-line world, and feeling the pressure to optimise your process for copywriting so it gets the delicate balance right between benefits for brand, content marketing, SEO, the UX and social interaction. It's also useful reading if your managing copywriting within an agency or as a client marketer managing an agency.

Sticky Content have realised these increasing demands on copywriting and ran their own survey, to 'poll the market on qualitative issues around digital copywriting, content production' and to find out how attitudes are changing.

Sticky Content collated findings from an on-line survey and onsite exhibitions, comprising of Marketers, Copywriters and Content Editors, to identify best practice and challenges which companies are still facing, including industry insights…

How e-retailers can avoid Buyer's Remorse by considering where coupon codes are introduced in the checkout process

In previous posts I have mentioned something that in the offline retail world that is known as buyer’s remorse. But having recently seen so many instances of this simple concept being evident on so many retailers sites I felt that it warranted a post all of its own. Buyer’s Remorse, in the retail trade is what happens when customers have a sudden regret or recognition of a perceived barrier which introduces doubt into their mind forcing reassessment of their purchase before the purchase has even been made. Think about it. How many times have you been stood in a queue waiting to get to a till point to make a purchase. This added time at the checkout allows you the extra head space to re-consider what you have placed in your basket or trolley and suddenly…

Harness the value of marketing insights from controlled testing

Are you truly leveraging the potential of your traffic?  I’m going to show you why most companies aren’t and how you can today, with two phases. Editor's note: Chris Goward, the author of this post gave a well received webcast on website conversion on 28th June 2013. If you didn't make it, we hope you find his advice useful. His deck on conversion for mobile sites on Slideshare is also worth checking out. …

Exploring the opportunities and obstacles of targeting mobile users via the affiliate channel

Mobile is an area that is finally beginning to thrive and produce interesting outputs that can aid the understanding of consumer behaviour in an offline environment. To shed light on the intersection between mobile and affiliate marketing, I asked Angie Goodchild ( Twitter and LinkedIn) Mobile and Product Manager for TopCashback, to give me some of her views on mobile, the challenges that brands have faced and examples of new innovations.

1. A lot of clients within the affiliate industry have seen a massive spike over the last few years in sales via a mobile device – are you seeing similar trends on a publisher front?

We’re currently seeing about 20% of our traffic to the site via a mobile device. iPad is dominant (which can be expected for a site such as ours)…

Ideas on how to engage customers from Dr Michael Lu

With brands busy beavering away on social media activity, precious little thought is being devoted to how sustainable their strategies are. And the reality is that while their social media strategies may be scalable, the vast majority are certainly not sustainable. That was the message from Dr Michael Wu of Lithium and author of The Science of Social II). This post summarises his advice from different conferences. He challenged attendees of the London show to think beyond the existing social media thinking. Necessary because spikes in social activity such as Views and Likes only ever equate to a 'tiny blip' that doesn’t last long from a financial perspective. Successful brands must adapt a strategy that is both sustainable and scalable, he explained. But there is a problem with this... 'Not many people think about sustainability,' he told…