Census of Digital Marketing Managers reveals improved integration needed in many businesses

Over 200 Digital Marketing Managers in the UK, working in companies with turnovers over £2o million, were contacted by an independent research agency commissioned by Marin Software for this census. The top 5 priorities revealed from their research were themed on integration; 46% of respondents will be focusing on improving their on and off-line integration, 37% working towards integrated digital marketing disciplines and Managers will be working across teams, more closely with their IT/Tech departments. In terms of digital marketing integration, 12% were not integrating it in their organisation and only 27% felt it was fully integrated. Download Marin's Software's 'UK Digital Marketing Manager's Census' Report for more details (registration is required). To help marketers find the right job in…

How smartphones are being used in the United States for shopping and travel purchases

Emarketer's research focused on US shopper behaviour to understand how American companies can target the mobile shopper. Emarketer estimates that there are now over 145 million shoppers using their smartphones, an increase of 23 million since 2013. However, it's interesting that they predict that this year only 1.6% of USA sales will be taken via a mobile, as it's a big influence in the lead to purchase decision-making process rather than a device for purchasing a product/service. Similar shopping habits to the UK where shoppers are inclined to use their mobile for researching products through the latest boom in showrooming and webrooming as 33% of Americans are showrooming on their devices. The graph below from their report shows where consumers are using their mobile app when it comes to purchase, with the biggest increase in lifestyle and shopping. …

An introduction to getting visibility in social streams by understanding the algorithms used by Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest

Google was the first major search engine to use a sophisticated algorithm to determine the relevancy of web pages in search results. Their ‘PageRank’ algorithm – together with a ton of other SEO ranking signals – became synonymous with the search engine and rendered many of the incumbents useless. Goodbye Excite and Lycos. Most social media marketers will be aware of the mysterious and ever-changing ‘EdgeRank’ algorithm employed by Facebook. I have written before on Smart Insights on the ranking / visibility factors for EdgeRank in Facebook’s news feed ranking algorithm which determines whether your post is worthy of dissemination and to whom. EdgeRank is also responsible for the way in which older (but apparently popular) updates often appear on top of newer pieces of content on news feed. EdgeRank is not dissimilar to Google’s PageRank algorithm which is…

Understanding the Irish online: the E-Commerce Marketer's secret weapon

Irish online habits have changed a lot in a very short amount of time. In some respects the Irish demographic is very representative of typical EU online behaviour but in others it is quite distinct. This particular profile of Irish internet users should give companies and marketers some clear ideas of the approaches to take when selling in the Irish market online. One of the most significant statistics in regards to the internet in Ireland is the penetration of broadband services across the country. According to Eurostat, 81% of Irish homes had broadband access in 2014. That is well above the EU average and means that more than 3 million people in Ireland are online. Irish Internet users also spend more time on the internet than the EU average.…

Practical 'non techy' steps to optimise your email campaigns for mobile

With the increase in consuming content of the move and email marketing being as popular as ever, it's not even a question to ask if we need to optimise our email campaigns for mobile. Salesforce in Canada have produced a useful infographic, listing 18 ways to help steer your email marketing to ensure your email is well received on mobile and tips include how to ensure your images don't pop out horizontally!. …

Five methods to prove the efficiency and effectiveness of SEO

Calculating and proving the value of SEO isn't easy. Not only is there the misunderstanding of how SEO works when discussing SEO with senior stakeholders, but there’s also the added complexity of measurement in a world of ‘Not Provided keywords’. While rankings can show us how we’re performing for a particular set of keywords, search results are now personalised and this does not demonstrate ROI. Factors including personalisation, localisation and limitations on the number of keywords one can track mean that rankings should be used more as a high-level KPI rather than a solid success metric. At an executive level, ranking data will not effectively communicate the true value of organic search so we need to find methodologies that will enable us to speak the ‘language of the board room’ and generate buy-in for further activity.

Structure measurement…

Let's find out what the experts think...

Last year here at Cicada, we worked with a number of new clients who had nice-looking websites produced by designers they know and trust. As we worked with these customers on the 'discovery process' at the start of the projects,  the same issue arose time and time again... While our clients thought their websites looked good, they couldn’t understand why they just weren’t doing well enough at getting visitors and converting them into leads. We had a good idea why this was, but to bring more oomph to our argument, we spoke to four experts in effective site design to find out their views on the differences between a brochure website that looks great, into one that delivers enquiries for your business. Our four interviewees are from different professional backgrounds within the digital industry, and we were intrigued…

The essentials of writing excellent content

Are you beginning to wonder about how effective content writing is? Maybe you’ve written some outstanding pieces that received only a lukewarm response. All those long hours of research on problem solving for your niche, then writing, editing and polishing posts for a handful of shares. It’s a bit worrisome, isn’t it? That’s because there’s a popular misconception about writing great content. The actual writing of the content is only half of the formula for success. You can write absolutely brilliant posts that are on topic, providing top-notch solutions for your audience - but if you don’t have a strategy for how to consistently produce and market it, it’s not going to do you much good. So, today we’re going to focus on the entire picture, not just one segment of it. Let’s start with some of the primary elements of writing excellent content for small businesses, then cover…

How can Digital Marketers use SEO ranking factors correlations?

Love them or loathe them, correlation studies seem to be everywhere when discussing 'best practices' in SEO. So we have to ask - 'how can we use them' and 'should we trust them'? Moz and Searchmetrics are the best known publishers of correlation studies who produce reports from sample sizes in the order of hundreds of thousands of webpages, with the purpose of identifying what’s important and what’s not in the world of search marketing. So how do you use them to inform your online strategy - do you try to remove yourself from all human emotion and blindly go with these numbers or do you ignore them and trust your gut instincts?  Or is there a middle ground? You can see the challenge from this recent Searchmetrics SEO Ranking factors infographic. …

Don't miss out on new email marketing tactics

We enjoy the style and content of the infographics from the Email Monks who always share good best practices and top tips for email marketing. Last year, was all about Responsive Design (email design) and Mobile Email.  So what's in store this year for the remainder of the year? Scan the infographic to find out their top 14 email marketing predictions which include email designs which are wearable and micro-targeting, as systems gather data from activity across social media. Please tell us any of your predictions?   Hopefully if you're a member of Smart Insights, you will have seen our Email Trends guide, but if not check that out too, it's a free download for all members.…