Amazon taps into influencer marketing using product recommendations

Brands introducing influencer marketing into their marketing strategy has seen a massive increase in 2017. It has been reported that 70% of marketers agree that creating ongoing ambassadorship is the most effective influencer marketing strategy. In 2017, 82% percent of brands were expected to spend more on video influencer content and increase their spend by 48%.

Amazon is one of the many brands who has seen the benefits of using influencers to increase revenue. In March this year, Amazon’s Influencer Program was launched allowing social media influencers to earn commissions on Amazon products they promote. Last week Amazon also announced they will be accepting sign-ups from YouTube influencers. They have introduced a self-service tool for YouTube stars that lets them request to join the program.

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Google reveals its 'secret formula' to how they plan, manage and optimize

In August Google launched re:Work, an initiative to share their management tools - such as how to run and set up meetings and setting goals. It is more HR than marketing orientated but it is a vital process of any business - and we wanted to cover OKRs - a technique relevant to marketers which we explain below. If you go to the site you will see that Google have split their tools and guides into 4 sections: Hiring, Managers, People Analytics, and Unbiasing. This type of 'behind the scenes' work is often overlooked but is a necessary process in any organization. What has been released cover basic management process and tools, but as the Harvard Business Review have noted in their review of re:Work: "Basic management practices…

10+ sites that are useful for keeping up-to-date with marketing, which do you prefer?

Staying up-to-date and constantly learning is vital in marketing, particularly since so many of the digital marketing platforms like Facebook, Google and LinkedIn are moving targets, with updates every week it seems. There is always a new update, a new tool to use or a new way of innovating your marketing practices. It begs the question of where is the best place to stay up-to-date, where do you find out about the latest changes to social media platforms or Google algorithms. At the same time, we need to review new communications strategies, for example, those made possible by inbound and content marketing, marketing automation and artificial intelligence and machine learning.

What sites do you use to keep your marketing knowledge up-to-date?

Regular readers of Smart Insights will know that we look to alert readers to the biggest changes which could benefit your…

Chart of the Day: How does use of Artificial Intelligence vary in different sectors

As with any new disruptive technology that is moving it's way up the hype cycle, Artificial Intelligence won't be uniformly adopted. It will be a better fit in certain sectors and for businesses of a particular type. As futurist William Gibson put it: “The future has arrived — it’s just not evenly distributed yet.”  This new research from the McKinsey Global Institute is useful since it looks specifically about how AI and Machine Learning will generate value in the future. One finding, which mirrors our advice for marketers is that businesses should focus on using machine learning applications to support the marketing and sales process and acquire skills where needed in this area. One example of the value that machine learning can generate in the report is about how Netflix has used a machine learning algorithm to personalize recommendations to its 100 million…

Chart of the Day: Looking to increase sales? Abandon Cart programs could be just what you need

The opportunities Marketing Automation provides your business is immense. I've always found that it is more difficult to decide which sequences to launch first as there are so many. I went back and counted the number of automation's ideas, in our 'for prioritization' queue and found we had over 30, which is crazy. If you just starting out on your journey to automate your marketing comms, you should build an Abandon Cart sequence. MailChimp, the email marketing provider, studied the results of 150,000 of its own users and found that Abandon Cart Series provide the greatest increase in orders per recipient. Source: MailChimp - Identifying the Most Profitable Automation for E-Commerce Businesses Sample Size: Automation data—collected from 150,000 businesses that use MailChimp Recommended Resource: Essential Marketing…

Use our RACE framework to discover your ability to Plan, Reach, Act, Convert and Engage

Two years ago we launched our free interactive marketing benchmarking tool to help members rate their 'digital readiness' for digital marketing as a whole and for the key channels like Search, Social media and Email marketing. Well, it's proved popular since it helps members score where they are now and then gives recommendations of how to improve in the future - to take their skills or marketing results to the next level. So in our recent UX members refresh - we have made it more prominent and put all the benchmarking tools in place.  We also renamed it to 'capability grader'.

Introducing our upgraded, free interactive tool!

I'm also writing this post to let members know about a simplification to the most popular digital strategy grader which you may want to try - it's here (available if you're signed in): …

Marketo forms a new alliance with Google Cloud

Marketo, a leading marketing automation provider, recently announced their new alliance with Google Cloud. Starting in 2018 both companies will join forces to migrate Marketo's platform from their own data centres to the Google Cloud Platform. The multi-year deal will enable Marketo to scale its infrastructure and create an integrated solution for marketers including what Google now call G Suite (Google Drive and Apps). Marketo is effectively simply a customer of Google, although some have suggested this could lead to acquisition. It's no secret that Marketo has experienced performance and technical issues as they have grown in size. It is a common problem for growing SaaS companies that try to host everything themselves. It's frustrating for their customers, but not unusual for the industry. It has been reported that running lists can take an unusually long time and users are having to 'game' the system to…

How to meet today's marketing compliance challenges with an online BrandHub

Marketing departments are bursting at the seams with opportunity. Upstream they are in overdrive producing content for niche targets, using multiple agency partners and designers. Downstream, content needs to be seamlessly distributed across a range of social, web, print and broadcast media. The challenges today are not only getting great work out the door, on time and on budget, but ensuring the work is compliant from a brand and legal perspective as well. As such, having a system in place that can cater for the full lifecycle of content from creation and collaboration, to creative approvals and the centralization of final artwork, is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but rather a must-have to streamline marketing operations. Especially, when working with tight marketing deadlines and multiple stakeholders. According to Tessa Court, the CEO of IntelligenceBank DAM, “most companies are undergoing a wave…

Chart of the day: 28% of internet users have watched a live stream on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram

According to a recent report, 28% of internet users who have watched a live stream on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, up from 20% in 2016. This increase will be due to the number of businesses introducing live stream into their marketing strategy. Social platforms now have live streaming tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, making it easier for anyone to go live. What does this mean for marketers? As time spent online on social media increases, more users will be engaging with live video content. Brands need to use this opportunity to reach a larger audience and engage their current customers. It also gives viewers the…

Internal links are important for ranking high on search engines

As a lanky teenager, basketball was always my sport of choice at school; I scored three pointers for fun, towering above my classmates to effortlessly send the ball sailing into the net. (Or at least that’s how I like to remember the pinnacle of my sporting achievements.) Now, as a seasoned SEO professional, I’m reminded of my days shooting hoops when I come across websites that neglect to build internal links. It may sound a strange analogy, but hear me out. Placing an internal link from one page to another is like a free throw, a simple chance to score points unopposed. Links give you a chance to direct website visitors to related content, while, in the background, they also point search engine bots in the direction of your most important pages,…