Category: Marketing Strategies

Facebook Points To Neuromarketing Research To Illustrate That Mobile Is More Effective Than TV For Ads

Facebook recently released a study it commissioned from neuromarketing agency SalesBrain looking at how people’s brains respond to ads on smartphones versus televisions. It’s certainly worth noting that much of Facebook’s business depends on people buying mobile ads, but the findings indicate that smartphone-based content tends to resonate more.

Specifically, the study looked at how the brain responds via engagement, attention, emotion, and retention. They divided participants into two groups. The first group was shown ads ranging from movie trailers to brand ads at 30 to 120 seconds in length, first on televisions then on smartphones. The second group viewed the ads in the opposite order.

According to Facebook, people were more attentive and felt more positively toward what they saw on smartphones compared to TV. They found that people were more distracted and had to work harder to process what they were consuming on TV.

“We found that overall mobile was on par with TV with regards to emotional intensity and engagement,” said Helen Crossley, Head of Audience Insighs at Facebook IQ. “Having said that, emotions and engagement were significantly higher for a couple of the ads. People were equally likely to be as engaged on mobile as they were on TV. As an added layer on top of the neuro research, we also saw an uplift in message recall when participants viewed the stimuli on TV followed by viewing it on a smartphone.”

“We did not expect that the mobile viewing experience would produce more positive emotions. This was surprising,” said Dr. Christophe Morin, Founder and CEO of SalesBrain. “You would assume that because the TV screen is larger than a smartphone screen that the bigger screen would yield a more positive emotional response. It seems that when viewing a stimulus our neurological systems don’t really require a grandiose experience to feel a response. Overall, the more data that we seem to be exposed to, the more effort is placed on our brain. And, in some way, due to its size, the smartphone may provide a more efficient, less energy-demanding experience.”

“It is our conclusion that the smartphone experience is more immersive than the experience of TV viewing overall,” he added. “When the same ad stimulus played on a smartphone, the reaction was greater than TV on both attention and positive emotion, and, to some degree, on engagement, which was quite remarkable.”

While the conclusions drawn by the study definitely suit Facebook’s best interests as a business, they also make sense when you think about how likely you are to look at your phone while you’re watching TV. How often has your phone distracted you from your TV viewing? How often has your TV distracted you from your phone? I bet the former has happened a lot more.

The people behind the study discuss it more on the Facebook IQ site.

Images via Facebook

July 6, 2015
Google Analytics Remarketing Lists Extended To Search Ads

Google said on Thursday that it will now let advertisers use audiences (formerly known as remarketing lists) created in Google Analytics to reach people on Google Search without any changes to tagging.

Google’s Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) lets an advertiser tailor search ads to users based on their past activity on the advertiser’s website. This can now be utilized in conjunction with over 200 Google Analytics dimensions and metrics, and audiences can be used to re-engage customers across Google Search and the Display network with a consistent message.

Google has a case study looking at how financial services provider TransUnion used Google Analytics audiences to “spend more efficiently” on Google Search and get “impressive conversion rates and cost efficiencies”. You can take a look at that here. The company reportedly

increased its conversion rate by 65% and average transaction value by 58% while lowering both CPCs for existing customers and cost per transaction by 50% each.

There’s an Instant Activation feature, so you can start using RLSA by going to Property > Tracking Info >Data Collection from the Admin tab, and making sure Remarketing is set to “ON”. Then, all eligible audiences will start to populate for RLSA.

Google says there are three ways to create new audiences. You can use the Audience builder in the remarketing section of the Admin tab and select the relevant Adwords accounts, or if you have an existing segment you want to turn into an audience, you can click on the segment options and hit “Build Audience”. It will then take you to the audience builder. The other option is to import audiences from the Google Analytics Solutions Gallery.

“Once you have shared an audience with AdWords, it will appear instantly in your AdWords Shared Library and will show eligible users in the column List size (Google search),” says Google in a blog post. “Keep in mind that an audience must accumulate a minimum of 1,000 users before you can use it for remarketing on Google Search.”

This help center article on AdWords remarketing lists for search ads should tell you just about everything you need to know.

June 25, 2015
Here’s Why It’s Getting Harder To Ignore Instagram For Marketing

Instagram unveiled some improvements to its mobile apps this week, which could help marketers increase their visibility on the popular social network, which is increasingly becoming the “go-to social network” for a younger generation. New trending content and search features could help businesses attract more eyeballs.

Do you think Instagram’s new features can help you improve your marketing strategy? Share your thoughts in the comments.

New Marketing Opportunities

Despite its popularity, Instagram has never been great from a content discovery perspective, but that’s changing with these new features. As content becomes easier to discover, marketers have some new opportunities on their hands with a network that has already shown to be great for user engagement with brands.

There’s a new Explore page with trending tags and places and a more powerful search experience making it easier for users to find people, places, and tags. The new Explore experience includes trending tags and places as they emerge in real time.

“Through trending Tags and trending Places, you can experience moments like #bonnaroo or #fathersday from every perspective,” Instagram says in a blog post. “Rich visual content captures everyone’s unique take — not just what the community is talking about, but also what they’re doing and seeing.”

The trends are frequently refreshed based on what’s popular at the moment. If you’ve enabled location services on your phone, it may show you places nearby.

There are collections at the top of the Explore page, which feature interesting accounts and places in various categories. The content in the collections is editorially chosen by Instagram. They choose new topics to feature twice a week that it thinks the larger Instagram community will like.

The company says it’s always working to update the types of photos and videos it shows in Search & Explore to better tailor it for users, and may show photos liked by people whose posts the user has liked or posts that are liked by a large number of people. Note that just because you see a post in Search & Explore doesn’t mean everyone else is seeing it.

The new search experience is where the real potential is though.

“For everyone on Instagram, we’ve dramatically improved the ability to find what you’re looking for,” the company says. “With the new Places Search, you can now peer in at just about any location on earth, allowing you to scout out your next vacation spot in the South Pacific, get a look inside that hot new restaurant or experience your favorite music festival — even if you couldn’t make it this year. The new Top Search also lets you search across people, places and tags all at once.”

If your’e a brick and mortar business, the place search feature can surface your business and photos from users showing it off. You might encourage customers to share pics from your establishment.

The tag search feature can surface popular tags based on keywords, even displaying just how popular they are. Hashtags are already a major part of Instagram marketing, so there’s obvious potential here.

The new features are available in updates to the iOS and Android apps. It’s unclear if and when they’ll come to the web experience, which recently got its own revamp. The new Explore will only be available in the U.S. for now, but will launch in more countries eventually.

Big Engagement, Slow Adoption

A few months ago, we looked at a study from Yesmail, which found that while brands on Instagram experienced a 278% growth in followers in 2014, the number of brands adopting the platform was still quite low. The firm analyzed over 2,000 brands on social platforms and found that only 23% were on Instagram.

“Restaurants lead the Instagram-adoption rate, beating CPG, retail and hotel brands. However, only 31 percent of restaurants are on Instagram, compared to a whopping 86 percent of restaurants using Facebook and Twitter,” a spokesperson for Yesmail told WebProNews. “With 300 million users and 70 million photos and videos shared daily, Instagram’s high level of consumer engagement should motivate brands to adopt the platform.”

It found that hotel adoption of Instagram is about 30.8%, while retailer adoption and CPG adoption are at 23% and 16% respectively. Retailers included in the research saw an 8% increase in followers per month, on average. That’s double the rate of other social platforms, according to Yesmail. 80% of brands from the research have Facebook pages, while 82% are active on Twitter, 60% engage on YouTube, and over a third have a Google+ profile.

A newer study (from last week) from Yesmail found Instagram to be significantly better than Facebook for retailers when it comes o increasing follower counts.

“The report indicates that although Facebook is the status-quo, it is not the most effective social media platform,” a spokesperson for the firm tells WebProNews. “Retailers hoping to amplify their social media presence should explore new channels and invest in campaign metric tools.”

The study looked at the beauty, apparel, big box, electronics, and home goods categories across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Google+. Out of those analyzed, 91% have a presence on two or more social channels.

Apparel retailers in particular saw an average follower growth of 417% on Instagram last year. Apparel brands were also the most socially connected with 86% on four or more social channels and 60% present on all five channels tracked.

91% of brands were on Twitter, while 79% used YouTube, and just 43% were using Instagram despite its potential for follower growth.

According to the new study, the average follower growth rate for brands on Instagram is 237%.

“The focus on Facebook made sense years ago, but Yesmail Market Intelligence illustrated how follower growth for that channel has plateaued for most retail categories,” said Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing. “The answer isn’t necessarily to shift resources, but rather turn a serious eye to audience preferences and return on social investment. Social media has moved past the experimental phase, and retailers must know their audience and know the ROI of their efforts.”

It’s not just Facebook that has seen follower growth stall. It’s a similar story on Twitter. In terms of follower counts, Faceobook still had the highest by far with an average of 2.8 million fans per page. Instagram came in second with 300,000.

“Instagrammers are passionate about the platform and their love for amazing imagery. You’ll reach people who are open to new perspectives,” Instagram says on its business site. “Instagram’s simple design allows captivating visuals to take center stage. Each image or video fills the screen with nothing to clutter the experience. On Instagram your brand’s story will be surrounded by other beautiful content in a creative and inspiring environment.”

They have over 300 million monthly active users and see 2.5 billion likes and 70 million photos every day. According to a new report from BI Intelligence (citing data from Piper Jaffray), U.S. teens consider Instagram to be the most important social network – more than Twitter, Facecbook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, etc.

What does Instagram itself say about how businesses should be using it?

It just so happens that Instagram has its own content strategy tips and other tips for getting started. These are right from the corporate site:

This video from the company is a year old, but it gives marketers an idea about how to show off their brands on Instagram and engage with the community:

Instagram for Business from Instagram on Vimeo.

Instagram has a page for marketers to “find inspiration” here. It shows off the company’s “favorite examples” of brands using Instagram to “reflect their unique identifies”. it should at least give you a good idea about the type of stuff that works well. You can also check out case studies from brands like McDonald’s, Maybelline, Qantas, Chobani, Ben & Jerry’s, Mercedes-Benz, etc. here.

Is There a Science to Instagram Marketing?

Marketing on Instagram may not be a science, but this recent infographic from KISSmetrics treats it as such, and may give you a hand with your efforts:

++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

Source: The Science of Brands on Instagram (Infographic)

Advertising

While we’ve mostly been talking about unpaid marketing efforts here, Instagram is really just getting started with its paid options, and you’ll want to keep an eye out for more and more improvements and features in that area.

Earlier this month, the company announced it would start letting businesses of all sizes buy ads. Instagram first launched ads a year and a half ago on a limited basis, and has since expanded formats most recently to include carousel ads.

A New Way for Brands to Tell Stories on Instagram from Instagram on Vimeo.

Here’s a look at how early-adopting brands have used those.

The company says that across over 475 campaigns measured globally, ad recall from sponsored posts was 2.9x higher than Nielsen norms for online advertising.

Instagram will begin testing direct response ads in the coming months. These will enable users to buy products or download apps from the ads.

“People come to Instagram to follow their passions, from travel and fashion to cars and entertainment,” the company said in a blog post. “They want to see ads that reflect the things they care about. Advertisers also want to target their messages in more effective ways and reach people not just because of their age, location and gender, but because of the people, places and things they love.”

“Later this year, we will continue to connect businesses to the right people through expanded targeting options,” it added. “Working with Facebook, we will enable advertisers to reach people on Instagram based on demographics and interests, as well as information businesses have about their own customers. We will also improve the feedback mechanisms within Instagram to give people greater control and improve the relevance of the ads they see.”

The company is working to make advertising available through an Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces over the coming months in an effort to open op ads to businesses of all sizes. It says it will leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing, and measuring ads.

They’ll be opening the API to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies at first, and will expand globally throughout the year.

A lot of the news in the social media advertising industry of late has been related to ecommerce, buy buttons and the like. Instagram is reportedly working on some features that could make the service a better marketing platform for ecommerce businesses hoping to attract buyers.

In which Instagram features do you see the greatest potential for marketing? Discuss.

Images via Instagram, KISSmetrics

June 25, 2015
Twitter Just Made Periscope Better For Marketing

Twitter just added functionality to its Periscope livestreaming service that could make it more effective for business and marketing scenarios. Now, users don’t have to be on their mobile devices to watch streams that have concluded.

Web Replays are here! 🎉 Just open a Periscope broadcast link in the browser & you’ll be able to rewatch within 24 hrs pic.twitter.com/lYz6KfHWuj

— Periscope (@periscopeco) June 23, 2015

Before, you had to be using the iOS or Android app to view a livestream, but now if you click on a link from Twitter on your desktop, for example, you should be able to easily view the video with no problem.

Like before, the videos only stay up for 24 hours, but by making them viewable on the web, they’re being opened up to a much bigger potential audience. This could prove even more beneficial if and when Google expands its real time tweet feature, which it recently enabled on mobile, to the desktop.

Periscope recently became available to a lot more people when Twitter launched the Android app, so the chances for more people to watch these videos are rapidly growing.

Earlier this week, we looked at some advice Twitter is giving businesses and marketers for using Periscope to promote their brands, events, and offers.

“Brands can forge a more personal relationship with consumers by using Periscope to give them real-time access to moments that matter, from big announcements to fashion shows to sponsored events,” says Ross Hoffman, Twitter’s Head of Brand Strategy.

Though much of our internet use is increasingly taking place on mobile, there is still a great deal of importance left when it comes to the desktop, so this is a significant move for Twitter’s new service. Instagram recognizes this as well, and recently made improvements to its web interface. For B2B businesses, the web means reaching people who sit at their desks all week, so that’s something to consider now with your Periscope efforts.

June 24, 2015
These Marketing Tools Are Tapping Into The New Pinterest Ads API

In April, Pinterest announced its Marketing Developer Partners (MDP) program with the goal of helping businesses get more value of their Pinterest efforts.

“The program helps businesses optimize and scale their Pinterest marketing and improve Pinterest for Pinners,” a spokesperson for Pinterest told us. “The initial MPD program is made up of a limited, carefully selected group of developer partners who meet the needs of existing businesses on Pinterest and align with Pinterest’s core value of putting Pinners first.”

These partners include: Ahalogy, Buffer, Curalate, Expion, Newscred, Percolate, Shoutlet, Spredfast, Sprinklr and Tailwind.

At the time, Pinterest also said it was in the early days of testing its Ads API in the U.S. in an effort to help advertisers optimize their campaigns and find “sustained success” on Pinterest. The company is now talking more about this, and has revealed the first MDPs using the API. These include: 4C, Adaptly, Ampush, Brand Networks, HYFN, Kinetic Social, SocialCode and SocialFlow.

“We selected these partners because they’re building tools that address the immediate needs of Pinterest marketers and share in our vision of creating a better discovery experience for Pinners,” says Pinterest’s Jyri Kidwell. “We’re already hearing lots of positive things from businesses working with our MDPs.”

Jody Ford, VP of global growth at eBay, for example, said, “We want to make eBay relevant to consumers at the moment they’re inspired to shop, and Pinterest enables us to put the right content in front of the right people. By working with one of Pinterest’s Marketing Developer Partners, eBay can buy Promoted Pins to promote interesting trends and topics with Pinterest users, making them instantly shoppable. And we’re encouraged by early results, which have shown a significant increase in traffic from Pinterest to eBay.”

According to Pinterest, Adore Me, a lingerie brand, saw a whopping 4000% increase in Pinterest-referred revenue after working with 4C, using the Ads API. They have a case study on the brand available here.

Image via Pinterest

June 18, 2015
New Google Feature Means Businesses Need Apps For Search Marketing

The world of search engine marketing is ever-changing, and it’s no secret that mobile continues to take over the desktop. Google has a new feature, even beyond a related ranking signal for organic search on mobile devices, that gives businesses more incentive to have mobile apps for search marketing purposes. It essentially expands as search marketing-related benefit device-wide, as opposed to limiting it to the actual search results page.

At Google I/O, Google announced the launch of something called Google Now On Tap. It’s a new feature in the latest version of Android, which the company unveiled in developer preview. You’d be forgiven if you missed that particular announcement as the company made many of them.

Google Now on Tap is essentially a way for you to utilize Google Now on your own terms rather than in the confines of Google itself. While Google Now already served as a virtual assistant, this makes it even more so.

Do you see Google Now on Tap as a new opportunity to increase visibility of your content? Share your thoughts about it in the comments.

“Since we launched Google Now, we’ve been expanding the ways it can help and do more of the work for you,” says director of product management Aparna Chennapragada. “You can get notifications like where you parked your car, news stories based on your interests, or help with travel like your upcoming reservations. We’ve also gotten better at giving smarter answers to some of your questions (‘Is my flight on time?’) and at helping you get things done across your apps (‘Ok Google, play Sugar on Spotify’).”`

“We’re working to make Google Now a little smarter in the upcoming Android M release, so you can ask it to assist you with whatever you’re doing—right in the moment, anywhere on your phone,” Chennapragada explains. “With ‘Now on tap,’ you can simply tap and hold the home button for assistance without having to leave what you’re doing—whether you’re in an app or on a website. For example, if a friend emails you about seeing the new movie Tomorrowland, you can invoke Google Now without leaving your app, to quickly see the ratings, watch a trailer, or even buy tickets—then get right back to what you were doing.”

“If you’re chatting with a friend about where to get dinner, Google can bring you quick info about the place your friend recommends,” Chennapragada adds. “You’ll also see other apps on your phone, like OpenTable or Yelp, so you can easily make a reservation, read reviews or check out the menu.”

When the user taps and holds the home button, Google presents options for its best guess of what might be helpful in the moment. If it doesn’t provide the right thing(s), the user can say, “Ok Google” from any screen or app. If it works as advertised it’s pretty smart. If you’re listening to a band on Spotify, Google says you can simply ask “who’s the lead singer?” and it will get you the answer.

As Google notes, it shows apps from your phone that may help with what you’re doing based on context. It might tap IMDb for movie review, OpenTable for reservations, etc.

There’s an SEO element to all of this. App indexing. Google recently made App Indexing a ranking signal for mobile search results on Android devices, and announced that it’s starting to index iOS apps as well. Google Now on Tap is another reason to utilize app indexing.

Clickz says Google Now on Tap “makes app search optimization more critical than ever.” Emily Alford reports:

While the announcement comes as a boon to app developers, it also means that it’s now more important than ever for brands to think about App Search Optimization> (ASO) along with SEO, since Google is taking both into consideration for Now on Tap, according to Danielle Levitas, senior vice president of research and analysis for App Annie, which provides app ranking data and mobile analytics for businesses.

“Part of the reason Google is providing deep linking is to give developers another way to be discovered outside of the app store,” says Levitas. “SEO is still critical, but you’ve also got to think about ASO, which has to do with keywords for discoverability, how an app is described, and even its reviews. But Now on Tap actually makes mobile and the app experiences easier for brands to execute because they can think about discoverability as a continuum as opposed to these two very disparate platforms.”

Google says Now on Tap another way to get apps in front of users at the right moment. If you have an app with content that people need to see, well, that applies to you. Luckily, beyond app indexing, there’s nothing else you really have to do to be integrated with Now on Tap. Just have your app indexed by Google.

While optimizing for Google via app indexing is one thing, businesses will also need to market their actual apps in other ways to drive app installs. The more people who have your app installed, the more chances they’ll have to actually see the content within via Now on Tap. As the Clickz article points out, a lot of downloaded apps are rarely opened, and Now on Tap could be just what those apps need to get more engagement from the users who downloaded them in the first place.

In other words, if you’ve found app creation to be a waste of time in the past because you didn’t think people would really use your app, this means that people may actually use it more, provided that you can convince them of its usefulness enough in the first place to get then to download it.

Google does say it will have more details about everything once the release of Android M gets closer. In the meantime, I really can’t urge you enough to get your mobile apps indexed, and if you don’t have a mobile app, now is a better time than ever before to build one or have one built. It’s becoming a matter of visibility in Google, and that’s not even taking the Google Play Store into account, which is now doing paid search results like Google Search.

It’s actually possible that your business may be able to take advantage of Now on Tap in the future without having an app, as the company is reportedly considering including website content in the feature at some point, but that hasn’t been announced.

Does your business have a mobile app? Do you expect Google Now on Tap to make a significant difference? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Images via Google

June 2, 2015
Infographic Takes A Crack At The ‘Science’ Of Instagram Marketing

While the brands that are using Instagram as part of their marketing strategies are seeing a great deal of benefit from doing so, a shockingly low number of brands are actually making use of it. Based on various studies, however, that will change as more wise up to what Facebook’s visual social network has to offer.

Why aren’t more brands taking advantage of Instagram?

“Instagram is still a fairly new platform, and is late in the advertising game – the platform introduced sponsored posts just two years ago. It’s possible that before 2013, marketers didn’t view Instagram as a must-have, but rather as a nice to have. As engagement and users increase, I have no doubt that we’ll see more brands adopt the platform,” Bob Sybydlo, Director, Market Intelligence and Deliverability Yesmail recently told WebProNews after releasing a study on the subject.

Kissmetrics has a new infographic out looking at the “science of brands” on the platform, finding that experimenting pays off.

“Content testing and optimization still rule the Instagram game,” it says.

++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

Source: The Science of Brands on Instagram (Infographic)

These are consumer brands though. Is there any value to the platform for B2B businesses?

Last week, we looked at some findings from Social Media Examiner, which showed that B2B marketers have placed pretty much zero significance on Instagram. That does appear to be changing as well, however. The report also found that 40% of B2B marketers intend to increase their Instagram activity. That number is likely to continue to grow as well.

Via B2Bnn.com

June 1, 2015
Does Your Business Have The Time To Get Online Marketing Right?

The fewer people a business has, the harder it is to do marketing right.

Most small and medium-sized businesses don’t think they have the time or knowledge to manage their digital media efforts effectively, according to a new report from Thrive Analytics. 77% said as much, while 70% wish they could take advantage of digital media to help them expand their businesses and reach.

Is a lack of time preventing you from being able to take care of the marketing strategy you’d like to employ? Let us know in the comments.

The data comes from a survey of over 1,100 SMBs collected in January.

“The problem is most small business owners feel current marketing providers don’t have their best interest in mind,” says Jason Peaslee of Thrive Analytics. “Owners often feel marketing providers push “flavor of the month” products on them and don’t bother to learn what they actually need. Current providers are falling short on several fronts including poor product performance (60 percent), and poor service levels (55 percent). This contributes to high digital product churn rates (+40 percent depending on the product) and low satisfaction scores given to current providers.”

“Many smaller sized businesses have tried to go the Do-It-Yourself route leveraging their can-do spirit,” he writes. “However, they are falling short in a number of areas as well. Only, 55% have websites and those that do have websites don’t have mobile optimized ones (40% percent). Only 31% have a strategy to attract the mobile consumer and those that manage their own websites update them infrequently (58% percent every six months or more). This further illustrates the fact they need help as well.”

The report finds that 51% of small business owners have a positive outlook on their business for the year, and 31% are willing to increase budgets and invest in digital solutions if it makes sense for their business.

The biggest areas of anticipated growth are company websites, social media, mobile advertising, display ads, paid search, SEO, online video, and email marketing. Most of the categories with less anticipated growth are offline channels like yellow pages, radio, magazine ads, TV, newspapers, and outdoor advertising.

You can find the report here.

We recently looked at findings from BrightLocal, which found that smaller businesses are more afraid of increasing their online budgets compared to those with larger headcounts. Here’s a look at company size vs. planned spend on internet marketing in 2015 from that:

“From further analysis we can see that larger organizations are more bullish about increasing their online spend, while smaller (which make up the majority of our respondents), are less assertive,” said BrightLocal’s Ross Marchant at the time. “Not only is there a higher sense of uncertainty in the group, but there are far more who confidently say they will not increase their online marketing spend.

eMarketer is pointing to recent polling by Ebiquity for American Express OPEN, which despite Thrive’s findings that social is ranked as the second most effective marketing method, found that small businesses haven’t increased their social presences over the past year:

Businesses not utilizing Facebook more might be missing out on some serious clicks, as research from Nanigans we looked at earlier shows CTRs have jumped 260% over the past years as businesses take more advantage of video and multi-product ads. More on all of that here.

Is your business struggling with online marketing because of time and/or a lack of resources? Do you expect things to improve in the near future? Let us know in the comments.

Images via Thrive Analytics, BrightLocal, eMarketer

April 15, 2015