A briefing and ressearch on the impact of Google's new Tabbed Inbox

December 2013 update: Return Path have released a comprehensive study evaluating the impact of Gmail's tabbed inbox. We have added it to the end of Tim's post to enable readers to compare their open and delivery rates in Gmail. In August 2013, Google made two important changes to the Gmail inbox that all email marketers need to understand.

What has changed?

The two changes that Google have made are distinct, but have been introduced together. 1. Tabs added to the inbox separating promotional, social updates and other email 2. Ads that look like emails may be placed at the top of the promotional tab These changes are being automatically rolled out to all Gmail users. As Gmail users access their inbox they will see this popup to inform them about the inbox change: Then the Gmail web interface looks…

I recently covered the main trends in social media marketing which should affect your approach in 2014 in a webinar. If you couldn't make it, the Slideshare gives a summary of the 7 key issues that I covered in the webinar: 1. Google+ will be a major player among the social networks 6 2. Facebook isn’t going anywhere! 12 3. We’ll think twice about what we publish 17 4. Social Networks will crack down on promotional material 22 5. Social Media will be viewed as a sales tool, not just a marketing tool 25 6. It will be accepted that you can measure ROI on social media 28 7. Content will be key to the success of your campaign 32 Social media marketing trends 2014 from Smart Insights…

Survey shows the potential for Pinterest to drive traffic

December 2013 update

Social sign-in and sharing tool Gigya have released their latest social sharing report showing which could be helpful if you're asked that general question - which social network should we focus on?

The new infographic shows the dominance of Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest with Google+ surprisingly limited across consumer sites. It also has specific data on sharing for Ecommerce and publishing sites. Pinterest is even more popular on Ecommerce sites. They have also released a regional breakdown for the first time we think.

We know that social sharing is having an increasing impact on traffic and sales, but which social sharing channels have the biggest impact? Demographic information  on social media is becoming more accessible now through sites including…

In webinar we covered Six Trends showing techniques and examples businesses can use in 2014 to increase the value of Email marketing. The six trends, if you want to fast forward, are: Trend 1 – More Email 5 Trend 2 –Offline gets digital 16 Trend 3 – Majority mobile 21 Trend 4 - Video 33 Trend 5 – Open rate retires 37 Trend 6 – Intelligent inboxes 40 Email marketing trends 2014 from Smart Insights This Slideshare was presented as a webinar by Tim Watson of Zettasphere at the Smart Insights Digital Marketing Priorities 2014 summit. You can view all 6 recordings from the Digital Marketing 2014 Summit here. Content marketing trends 2014 from Stephen Bateman Integrated marketing trends from Dave Chaffey Mobile marketing trends 2014 from Rob…

10 last minute Christmas retail conversion hacks

Christmas is days away, but there may still be options to drive your your conversions and revenue per visit higher. Despite development lock-downs and short timescales, there’s still time for these types last-minute conversion hacks to give the gift of a higher conversion rate to your marketing team. Here are 10 I've seen used.

1.  Promote any gift wrapping or customisation options

Customers who are buying gifts will appreciate options like gift wrapping or personalised messages since it saves them time and money. Promoting these options on product pages and at the checkout can give a quick revenue boost – plus it gives customers an extra reason to buy from you. Selfridges offer a beautiful gift-wrapping option at checkout which includes their signature box:

However,…

A briefing on the new segmentation features for Google Analytics

Probably one of the most significant updates to be rolled out of Google analytics in recent times is the revamped segmentation feature, it is hard to understate its impact! In fact, when it was introduced Justin Cutroni of Google called it "one of the most important changes ever". Leaving aside the dazzling new layout and looks there are three incredibly strong new features which bare mentioning, in no particular order of importance they are: the ability to segment by "users" (...for which, read visitors) the ability to build sequential segments the ability to create cohort segments.

Users

The first of these is pretty emblematic of all that's changing in the world of digital analytics. Until recently the base level metric underpinning all web analytics data was the humble visit, that's now being usurped by The Visitor or User. The long term goal for all this is the…

A tutorial on creating dark posts - a technique many big brands are now doing newsfeed advertising

Facebook has become quite the place of the dark arts in recent years as brands seek to outdo each other in the advertising wars.

One of the features available to those in the know is the art of the "dark" or "unpublished" post. What this actually means is that the post will not appear on your timeline but can be accessed by anyone with a direct link (or by clicking through from an ad). They are used extensively by advertisers to create copy that then appears as a "Sponsored" piece of content.

A few months back, dark Image posts were the only way advertisers had of getting results into the newsfeed with images that took up a decent amount of real estate. In recent months, links with appropriately sized images have also been rewarded with a decent…

7 steps to a better project estimate brief and costing

Whether you use spreadsheets or an automated / integrated marketing project management service platform, the important thing is to get your estimating discipline right from the start. Whether you're developing an estimate for in-house digital projects or for your clients, a lack of accurate estimating will lead to an impact on your profitability and credibility for future projects. By ‘accurate’ I mean estimates that factor in all the resources / roles and time that will be required to meet the project objectives and at rates that the business has set to achieve a desired profit. Underestimating the time required, the numbers of people involved and / or the level of seniority or experience required on a project is sometimes done deliberately (in the belief that only low costs will attract new work). That’s a commercial decision for you to make but my…

Interactive video encouraging direct response

Episode 1, Scene 1. Boardroom meeting, charts showing sales figures on the up, 3 people sit around the boardroom table.

You can cut the tension with a knife...

Financial Director: 'OK, so what's the plan?'Marketing Director: 'We're going to create an online video campaign, everyone's doing it, we're going to do it better, it's going viral.'CEO: 'I'm sorry?'MD: 'We're going to get loads of views, people will feel really warm to our brand and they will buy from our company like never before.'FD: 'Can we measure that?'MD: 'Erm, not really.'FD: 'Does the sales team get leads?'MD: 'No but that's not the point, it will bring people to us, inbound mar…'CEO: 'You're fired.'Marketing Director faintsCut.

Video - the conundrum

Though there are signs that belts are loosening and that companies are investing in creativity, when communicating with their audience. However, one of the biggest challenges faced by the marketing dept is…

Interest in the value of Big Data continues into 2014

I'm not sure whether to be impressed by this infographic or annoyed. It shows both what's powerful about infographics and their weaknesses.

With the right headline, data and design, infographics can help raise awareness of an issue and associate a brand with a theme.  Kudos to McKinsey for getting the basics right, leading to it being shared by tens of thousands on Slideshare - interesting they're getting good exposure using the new infographic feature on Slideshare, maybe just because it's new. Expect Slideshare to be polluted by a lot of infographics in 2014....

Anyway, here's the infographic in question, weaknesses to follow...

The biggest weakness is that the claim of the headline isn't backed up by the data and worse still, the data sources they use are out of date - 2011 - heinous! Not…