Chart of the Day: Audience breakdown of the top 6 sites

We all know that sites owned by Google have a large traffic share of the total internet population, however, do you know the other top performing sites? New research by UKOM shows the top 20 properties by unique visitors. As you can see, Google remains on top, with Facebook and the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) following behind in second and third place. It is interesting to note that almost half are news sites which gives an insight into the consumption of modern day news online. Overall, Google reaches 97% if the UK online population. However, UKOM also shows the breakdown of those top 6 sites to show that Youtube alone reaches more than all of Facebook's properties combined. Source: UKOM - UK…

Chart of the Day: How OTAs reach online vacation buyers?

With the rise of online price comparison sites and review sites now offering hotels and flights for purchase, the competition for the ecommerce travel industry has never been so fierce. So what are the top channels for reaching online vacation buyers? Well, new research by Global Web Index shows that there is no one dominant channel that vacation buyers use to research and discover brands online. Therefore a holistic marketing mix of different channels is necessary to reach potential customers at different touch points of the research stage. 46% of respondents stated they discover brands via search engines, this yet only 34% discover vacations via brand/product websites. This shows that your keyword strategy needs to be based on user search queries "cheapest holidays to France" "best places to visit in Australia", rather than branded keywords, in order to rank your site and persuade them to buy.…

How to get ahead of the ecommerce competition by keyword research, referral marketing, competitor analysis and viral marketing

In this post, we'll outline 4 marketing growth hacks to help ecommerce business, the tools to achieve this and how to use them.

1. Keyword Research

Knowing better keywords to target is one way to achieve growth successfully. When you run keyword research there are a lot of words that’ll show up on the results, but not all of them will be a good choice for your niche, so you have to aim for the right one. Having the right keywords in your SEO strategy will give you better content and a high(er) chance to rank in search. Targeting the keywords your potential audience use to find you and your content will make you easier to find. But take note that that is not enough to rank, in other SERPs there are chances…

Chart of the day: PDFs are the best content type for attracting sign-ups on a landing page.

Participants were randomly assigned in an experiment by ConversionXL. The team then even did a complicated ANOVA (analysis of variance), but in brief: PDF, followed by web content is the best content formats when also compared with video, for attracting sign-ups. Why? I can assume that although people don't mind watching videos, there is a scramble for the headphones on the office, or simply people would prefer to read something, in their own time. Here at Smart Insights, we host PDF resources and web-hosted resources, which you can read directly from our site, so as the person responsible for member content alongside our very own Dave Chaffey, I was very interested in this research. What did ConversionXL conclude? They concluded that PDF's and web content convert much more…

The challenges marketers face overcoming the hyperbole and mysticism that surrounds machine learning and AI

The marketing industry is abuzz with talk of how marketing applications of machine learning and AI will make us more effective and change the way we do our marketing. The problem is that while we’re all keen to embrace innovation and get a competitive edge (which machine learning most definitely provides), for many of us it sounds inaccessible and beyond our typical marketing capability. However, within the next five years, we believe machine learning will become an everyday skill that marketers will be expected to possess, built into our software and processes as standard.  The challenge for marketers today is in overcoming the hyperbole and mysticism that surrounds machine learning and AI, to understand what it might mean to them. It helps to first look at one of the main issues we marketers face - data. Too…

Chart of the Day: A survey of the effectiveness of organic and paid activities for charities including benchmarks for paid media, social media, and email marketing

This isn't brand new research, but since I know we have a fair few members who manage digital marketing for not-for-profits and charities I thought I would share it since I'm unaware of similar benchmarks in the UK. It's always useful to compare effectiveness and response of media with others in your sector and country. In this case, it's a really good report based on survey response from charities based in the US, but I think it's of wider interest. There is a great deal of analysis in this report in individual graphs for each channel and for website conversion, but here we'll just cover the summary. You can see that there is a useful analysis of fundraising which has a…

Chart of the day: Most user research is conducted to understand customers and their needs

Understanding customers needs and testing prototypes or wireframes are the primary reasons for customer research, according to a survey of over 2000 professionals by UserTesting.com Interestingly, over half (53%) conduct user testing, or use user testing results to inform senior management or stakeholders. It's great to see research is being used to show management and stakeholders evidence for a particular cause and to influence change, based on customer needs.

The power of user research is profound

The study also found that UX research is influencing better quality products and services, as well as that the voice of the customer is considered hugely important. User research is also having a positive effect on marketing campaigns too. It's great to see marketing teams are bought…

Sales teams have managed customer journeys using CRMs for years. Now, thanks to the rise of social media marketing, there are now IRMs for marketers to manage their influencers

Our list below covers the standout features of the 20 best CRM tools for managing your influencer marketing campaigns. [si_guide_block id="70611" title="Download FREE resource – Essential Digital Marketing Tools" description="To help highlight the range of great online marketing services available, this guide and the infographic accompanying it recommend the categories of tools you should consider and highlights the 150 most popular, most capable tools. "/]

1. Revfluence

Revfluence integrates messaging within their platform, so brands can easily offer partnerships to one of their 500,000 influencers with a single click. Analytics enables marketers to fine-tune success metrics, like attributing purchases to specific followers, analyzing comment sentiment on sponsored posts, and more. Revfluence even includes product shipment…

Chart of the day: According to research by Salesforce, over half of ad spend is allocated to Facebook (including Instagram) or search marketing (Including Google search)

In the previous year, 30% of ad budget was allocated to Facebook and Instagram and 28% was allocated to Google and Bing paid search ads. Facebook budget is expected to increase slightly by 1% to 31% and search budget allocation is expected to stay the same at 28%. Compared to other channels such as youTube, Display, and Linkedin, Pinterest and Snapchat etc. Facebook and Google are dominating the ad space with most ad budget allocated to them. Next year, 66% of digital ad spend will go to Google, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. Over the last year, 65% of businesses have increased their video advertising budget, with more money going on video on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. …

Insight into the different ways you can select a digital partner, and practical tips to ensure you end up with the supplier - and solution - that’s best for you

No matter what its nature, the ultimate success of your digital project will be significantly affected by the choices you make early on - such as those decisions taken during the supplier selection process. Fail to take the time to thoroughly assess bidding teams and the solutions they’re proposing and you could miss valuable opportunities, discover your teams have incompatible working practices or - in the worst-case scenario - be forced to run the selection process all over again. However, tailoring your process to deliver the greatest possible value is not always as easy as it sounds. Although the price might be at the forefront of your mind, in reality, there are a whole host of other critical factors to consider in…