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Pay-Per-Click Advertising

How To Leverage Visual Search For E-Commerce Growth

Visual Search and How it can grow your e-Commerce Business?

The power of visual search is nothing less than a superpower and since it’s arrival it had revolutionalized the way people make Google searches. From searching for clothes online to translating foriegn or local languages to their own, users have made adequate use of the feature that quickly spreaded to all the operating systems around the world.

How does this revolutionize your business you ask?

Here’s how

Visual information is the most consumed form of information by humans, and it’s the easiest to understand as well. Users searching for a particular product or service are more likely to visit your website if it has relevant and valuable visual data. Infographics are known for providing the most value in the least time. 

It’s crucial to keep in mind that visual search is different from image search, while the terminology suggests a direct relationship between them, things are quite different in both these cases. Image search is the old-fashioned way of searching for a particular term and then heading to the image section to find your match, whereas with visual search, the user uses tools like Google lens or Pinterest lens to reach their desired results.  

Videos

Videos are by far the most consumed form of content on the internet and byte sized content in visual form can be the most educational one. Platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Facebook have already captured a very big chunk of the video market, so much so that YouTube is the default video player for any MP4 file on almost all websites across the internet. Uploaders upload them on YouTube due to the vast exposure to relevant audiences and also for easier backlinking. 

Videos include thumbnails which is another way to use visual data, here targeted towards improvements in marketing. 

Drawbacks

While the AI is impressively smart and improving every moment, it’s important to know that it can still make errors. Objects might be identified wrong in some cases and in some, the main subject of the image might be ignored for a secondary highlight. What’s important to know is that these identifications are independent of individual searches, meaning that you can search with the same image again and expect different results.

How to do it the right way?

Well, there is no right way to do this but avoiding these mistakes and checking these basics is essential to get started with your visual content. It all boils down to optimizing your images the right way, here’s how you can do that.

  • Standardization

Maintain aspect ratio for images so as to avoid cropping on different devices the user is using. Keeping the images in standard size helps your site load much faster. A faster loading site helps in ways you don’t expect, reports show that more than half of the users will leave the page if the page fails to load in the first few seconds. 

  • Nomenclature and alt-tags 

Name your image files appropriately, meaning that the name of the file should relate to what the image tries to show, maybe like a brief description of the image. Alt-tags are phrases that are displayed when the image is unable to be displayed. Both of these should be related to the image content and should have keywords to make it easier for the algorithm to understand it.

  • Product information

The details and information of the product should be mentioned along with the brand details and specifications, this helps the search engine to classify your ad better and display it to the most relevant user that can be a potential customer. 

  • Structured data

Mentioning your prime Unique selling points in the product description makes it easier for the AI to segregate your data and also makes it easier for the user to decide upon availing your product. USPs are the turning point for a user at the bottom of the purchase funnel, instantly turning them into conversions. 

Conclusion

Visual search is an integral part of the modern day search engine ecosystem and simple strategies can be implemented to easily aid your ad-page rank the highest among all search engines. If you liked this article make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more! Catch us on social media @ Blustream integrated.

Categories
Pay-Per-Click Advertising

How To Maximize Google Ads Results with a low budget

Maximizing Your Google Ads Results

Some businesses invest large amounts of money into unsuccessful pay-per-click, or PPC campaigns and never see increased sales. 

Luckily, in the world of Google ads, not all campaigns are created equal, and spending more money does not guarantee better results. 

Ways that you can create traffic, brand awareness, and sales, for your business with Google ads, no matter what your budget is. There are many ways you can increase the value of your Google ads campaign without additional ad spending. 

  1. Set goals using the SMART framework.

As with any marketing campaign, your Google ads efforts should target a specific goal. Clear-cut goals make your campaigns easier to measure and optimize because you can track precisely what is working, and what you need to adjust. However, many businesses, especially those not familiar with Google ads, focus on ineffective goals, or they target too many goals at once. As a result, they have trouble, getting the most out of their Google ads spending. This is where the smart structure comes in. The structure helps you get focused, relevant and practical goals for your Google ads campaigns. Improved goals mean improved optimization, and improved optimization means, better return on investment. 

  1. Break down your budget and stick to it. 

It can be very tempting to throw money at PPC campaigns, especially when you are not seeing the return on investment you are hoping for. But investing more money in a Google ads campaign doesn’t guarantee that it will be more successful. To get the most out of every cent that you spend, break down your monthly budget into a daily budget, and then set that figure as your maximum daily spend. By optimising your campaign for a more specific daily budget, Google ads will run you a tighter, more optimized campaign. Keep in mind that, Google may occasionally go over your maximum spend to get you more results. If you are budget sensitive, consider setting a maximum, slightly below your exact limit. 

  1. Limit your options.

Limiting your ads campaign can help you make the most out of a small budget. There are three main campaign elements you should consider limiting- keywords, location and scheduling. 

  • Limiting keywords – It is challenging to rank for a wide variety of keywords on a limited budget. To find the best keywords for your campaign, use Google Keyword Planner. Look for keywords with medium to high traffic and low competition. The lower the competition, the less you will spend. This way you will get more clicks on a tighter budget. Don’t forget to limit your campaign by using negative keywords. Negative keywords tell Google when you don’t want your ads to display. Limiting your keywords reduces irrelevant clicks and wasted ad spending. 
  • Limiting locations- Google ads enable you to target customers from across the globe and, while showing your ad to a broad audience can seem like a good idea, it’s less effective than targeting specifically chosen locations. To get more out of your budget, limit where your ad shows. Rely on customer data to figure out exactly where your ads will convert most effectively.
  • Limiting ad scheduling- By default, Google ads will show your ad at any time of the day or night. But that’s not always a good thing. Ad scheduling limits when your ads are displayed. This feature reduces irrelevant clicks and conserves your budget. Consider running your ads during waking hours, business hours or over the weekend, whenever your audience is online. Use the customer data you have worked so hard to collect. If you see most of your digital marketing leads coming in on weekends, schedule your ads to deliver then. If you found that your customers are weekday morning shoppers, have your ads show on weekday mornings. Google ads offer a fantastic ROI, but only if you use them strategically. 

What needs to be understood is that a higher budget does not always mean more sales. It’s entirely possible to make the most out of a small budget with just a few optimizations. Apply best practices to your Google ads campaign and make your budget work harder for you. 

Tips to budget and forecast Google ads efficiently  

  1. Use conversion tracking

The best way to efficiently spend your budget is to use conversion tracking and conversion values. The best way to get the most out of Google ads is to use conversion tracking and to continue to optimize your campaigns over time. 

  1. Focus on monthly results.

Set a monthly budget ahead of time. The way Google ads works is when you set your budget. Google is looking at driving you the most conversions over a month. So they are going to try to get the most out of each day. But if you are changing your budget and going up way too much too often for going up and down, it is going to affect your overall results with Google ads. Keep your budget similar, and if you are going to increase it or decrease it, do it gradually. 

  1. Use the forecast tool in the Google keyword planner. 

Make sure you have a keyword list, choose your match type, set your conversions stats for your overall website, and review your forecast. 

  1. Daily over-delivery

Some days your budget will be overspent. Google ads do this to improve performance. 

  1. Shared budgets.

You can use shared budgets if you are running multiple campaigns and if you want to make sure you are spending a minimum amount per day, even if it has to be split between different campaigns. 

  1. Recommended budgets

The Google ads recommended budgets can help you improve performance.

Categories
Digital Management

CMOs in 2023: Challenges, Budgets, Digital Transformation & Skills

Digital Transformation for CMOs in 2023

If we look at classical marketing, it is the traditional marketing that packaged goods companies used to practice the four Ps of marketing. Classical marketers have a good grasp of the foundation elements of marketing. What do consumers think? What is psychology? What is the design? What is the purchase funnel and so on? This has done very well, from a classical marketer’s toolbox point of view, until almost the early 1990s. In the 1990s, we entered the third paradigm of marketing with the advent of the Internet on the one hand and the advent of Data analytics on the other hand. The coming together of data analytics and the internet changed marketing into its third paradigm. That is where a new breed of marketers started coming in. People who understood technology, and data, but couldn’t care less about the classic foundational elements of marketing. Since then there has been a dichotomy. So there are classical marketers and the current paradigm marketers who are all about data analytics, technology, etc. 

Traditionally if you look at the marketers, you will find that they came from the qualitative part. They had creative sensibilities, aesthetic sensibilities, and cultural sensibilities and they had intuition and innovation. This was a kind of mindset and series of skills and competencies that they had. When you look at the contemporary side of the equation, you are operating with analytics, logic, technology, and algorithms. In addition to the classical aspects of marketing and contemporary aspects of marketing, you need to understand the other areas that surround marketing such as how your business makes money and the aspects of how you credibly and precisely measure ROI. This means that you need to connect the dots between the market actions and investments you make to the business outcomes and the business results that you get. This requires a different set of skills. Many marketing organizations have bigger technology budgets than CTOs in those organizations. You need to understand data, and public relations, because there is a continuum between marketing and communications or public relations. Unless you understand how the world operates in the world of public relations and media relations, you are not going to be successful.

Digital marketing is a skill that requires the understanding of the market and if the latter is good at it, you need to ensure that you add value to their life and learning apart from just giving them a salary.

One way of doing exactly this is by constantly providing them with training campaigns and micro-courses to grab onto industrial concepts quickly. This will further add to their intelligence, taking their productivity up, and thereby ultimately increasing your return on investment.

Not only is this a clever way to mutually benefit the employer and the employee, but it also aids the relationship between them, making the corporate life more malleable to them.

Now that we know that mutual growth is a key point in retaining your employees, let’s see how important it is to digitize the already digitized marketing world.

What can CMO do to maximize marketing contribution to the company? 

There is a lot of talk about the rapid changes facing marketing and how marketers should become more social, data-driven, aligned with revenues, and accountable and there is a lot of merit in these recommendations. It is important to separate the strategy and tactics, align the strategy with stakeholder objectives, work on a method that can give great results, and know-how chief marketing officers can align and offer value to the company.

Keeping up with marketing trends enables your firm to stay in loop with the rapidly evolving digital marketing industry. As the industry accelerates through the asphalt roads of the internet and social media, trends are an important factor in deciding who’s up to date and who’s out of date. Encouraging your workforce to engage and track new trends is another smart move and will yield results that you can’t simply calculate.

On the other hand, taking feedback from your comrades makes them feel valued and in turn provides you with a checklist of pros and cons in your work ecosystem. Integrating ideas and add-ons suggested by them will further aid employee retention and mind this strategy works like a charm. 

This is not simply fooling your employees into a trap but instead is a way to factually add value to all the parties involved.

Top three objectives of Chief Marketing Officers

1. Align the company and the customer

Here, your primary stakeholder will be your customer. And the rapid rise of social media requires businesses to put customers at the center of their universe, and translate from product-centric to customer-centric organizations. Customers want to align with their favorite brands and they will reward the suppliers that deliver the products and services that they need. Companies are nowadays adopting changing technologies. But changing the culture is even more difficult. Voice of the customer tools are plentiful, and CRM is transitioned into social CRM which means that CRM technology has evolved from customer data management to engaging customers in dialogue for your beneficial purposes. Customers are not the same. So they should be segmented to properly identify and react to their objectives. Customers are not just those who purchase your products but also include industry influencers, social advocates, and media to which our customers subscribe to. It’s only clever for a CMO to make use of the available technology and information to understand and analyze profitable customer relationships, and changing trends or supplement company transactional data with social and other data. This aids him in finding the needs and wants of the customer, hence making the CMO an integral part of the company as they play a pivotal role in sponsoring and refocusing the company culturally. CMO is a person to research and delivers data-driven analysis such as top customers by criteria to the CEO so that the company can better align resources and solutions with customer objectives. Here the CMO can create the messaging to improve the brand and position the products of the company in such a way that they will be well received by customers.

2. Deliver the volume and the quality of leads

Deliver the volume and the quality of leads that are required to achieve revenue goals. In this role your primary stakeholder at the sales team, and sales and marketing, share a symbiotic relationship, marketers should not lose sight of the fact that the sales team is their customer. The goal is to deliver more leads or lots of leads. But instead, to deliver the exact number of leads and agreed-upon cost per lead to achieve a revenue target, you have to start with the end goal in mind to be successful. Management’s revenue target works backward, through the lead-to-customer conversion cycle to calculate the volume of leads needed. It is a complex model, because as the volume of leads rises, so does the cost per lead. Being the CMO of the company, you should find the equilibrium point of the company. 

3. Unqualified Leads

Too many marketers continue to send unqualified leads to the sales team which exacerbates the prevalent breakdown between marketing and sales. In the b2b space, research consistently shows that about 25 to 30% of new leads or sales are ready when received, and about 45 to 55% are not sales-ready when received. About two-thirds of this group will eventually become qualified and about 25 to 30% of new leads are not sales-ready when received and never will be. The marketers change the sales role from the lead verifier to lead qualifier when they transfer unqualified leads to the sales team. Marketers must automate lead nurturing processes to manage top top-of-the-funnel until they are objectively scored as sales-ready.

Categories
Digital Management

How to Attract and Retain Digital Marketing Talent

Attracting and retaining digital marketing talent

With a relatively sudden upsurge in the demand of digital marketing, it’s becoming furthermore important to hire better employees and keep them on your side to aid your business growth. After all competition exists, and to compete with the best, you’ve got to have the best.

Keeping your workforce happy and content is simply more practical than losing a productive team and then going on hiring a new one. Stats paint a clear picture of this with over 92 percent companies deciding to set focus on employee experience.

Coming up are 5 ingenious ways to ensure employee retention and satisfaction and grow your business with a one of a kind team. These are in no specific order and so all of them are equally important.

Starting up with probably the most important and wise tip, aiding them in personal and professional growth.

1. Aid their growth 

Digital marketing is a skill that requires the understanding of the market and if the latter is good at it, you need to ensure that you add value to their life and learning apart from just giving them a salary.

One way of doing exactly this is by constantly providing them with training campaigns and micro-courses to grab onto industrial concepts quickly. This will further add to their intelligence, taking their productivity up, and thereby ultimately increasing your return on investment.

Not only is this a clever way to mutually benefit the employer and the employee, but it also aids the relationship between them, making the corporate life more malleable to them.

Now that we know that mutual growth is a key point in retaining your employees, let’s see how important it is to digitize the already digitized marketing world.

2. Digitize your workspace 

Being a digital marketer, one is always enthusiastic about new and upcoming feats of technology and artificial intelligence. Integrating these breakthroughs into your workspace creates a more intriguing and user-friendly environment for the employee.

As important as it is for satisfying the employee, it’s equally important for your firm. AI tools are not simply a replacement to your workforce but a smart addition to it, which aids its overall productivity.

Furthermore, the ease of reduced hard work results in enabling the employee to run their creative brains on the right and more productive path.

3. Trends and feedback are a must 

Keeping up with marketing trends enables your firm to stay in loop with the rapidly evolving digital marketing industry. As the industry accelerates through the asphalt roads of the internet and social media, trends are an important factor in deciding who’s up to date and who’s out of date. Encouraging your workforce to engage and track new trends is another smart move and will yield results that you can’t simply calculate.

On the other hand, taking feedback from your comrades makes them feel valued and in turn provides you with a checklist of pros and cons in your work ecosystem. Integrating ideas and add-ons suggested by them will further aid employee retention and mind this strategy works like a charm. 

This is not simply fooling your employees into a trap but instead is a way to factually add value to all the parties involved.

4. Certification is a Gallantry award

Just as we told you, adding in value to the employee means everything to them. This includes adding value to their portfolio and thus their professional life. Certifications have more value than ever and at times can become a decisive factor in interviews.

A certificate highlights the skills and specialization of the candidate and ensures an employer of the quality of work the employee can deliver. Giving certifications to your employees in the fields they excel in boosts their confidence and empowers their resume.

This has a bilateral effect as it will increase the employee’s trust in the current firm and thus reduce the chance of him ever switching!

5. Employee satisfaction is the key

Overall employee satisfaction is going to be the deciding factor if your most productive employee will stay or not. Promotions and bonuses being the root of it, you also need to have an optimal work culture which gives importance to the mental health of your employees.

According to studies, more than 60% of American employees are stressed because of their corporate culture. If the employees are feeling mentally harassed by the job, it will either lead to them to quit the job or lose interest and focus all together. This is not good, neither for the employees nor for the employer.

Mailchimp is an email analytics tool that helps businesses track the performance of their email campaigns. It provides insights into email opens, clicks, and conversions, and offers a range of features to help businesses create and optimize their email campaigns.

Mailchimp offers a range of features for businesses to create and send email campaigns, including templates, A/B testing, and automation. It also provides insights into the performance of these campaigns, including the number of emails opens, clicks, and conversions.

Conclusion

Analytics tools are an essential part of any digital marketing strategy. They help businesses track and analyze their online performance and make informed decisions. The tools mentioned above are some of the best analytics tools available in the market and can help businesses of all sizes and industries.

We hope this article helped you learn something new and added value to your time. Want to stay up to date with the latest in digital marketing? Catch us on social media on our handles below and we’re there to help you.

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