Month: March 2018

Why You Should Use HTML for Your Marketing E-Mails

producersdigital

There was once a time when there was a valid concern regarding the deliverability of HTML e-mails, but that is no longer the case. So if you aren’t using HTML for your marketing e-mails, you should. Here’s why.

1. HTML Drives More Leads

With HTML you can build in interactive hyperlinks and calls to action that take your content to the next level, generating more leads and sales conversions than plain text ever could.

  1. HTML Is Responsive

Another advantage of using HTML is the fact you can offer an unsubscribe option. This gives your prospects the opportunity to opt out of future e-mails from you, so your list is comprised of only the best, most qualified leads who want to hear from you.

HTML also gives you the huge advantage of gathering analytics, seeing who engaged and how. This enables you to track and measure audience engagement and refines your e-mail marketing strategy based on what you find out.

  1. HTML Design Isn’t Busy

Often marketers worry HTML e-mails will be too busy. Not true. You can make HTML e-mails just as clean as plain text e-mail but with all of the added benefits HTML offers. In fact, HTML provides the perfect balance between effectively branding your company and controlling the content message, ensuring the content is the focus of the e-mail.

  1. Even HTML Design Must Follow Best Practices

When using HTML, you still have to follow best practices. Keep your design clean, your copy short, and your call to action prominent. Take advantage of analytics and test subject lines and offers to see what works best to get your prospects’ attention. Remember though to only test one thing at a time or you won’t know what impacted the results you see. Most importantly, always, always use a good e-mail list!

HTML is really the only way to go when it comes to sending your marketing e-mails, so don’t be afraid to use it. You won’t regret it!

 

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Three Ways to Optimize Your Display Ads

producersdigital

Display ads can be a great way to increase your brand exposure and build awareness. But if you’ve ever run a display ad, you know that getting qualified prospects to click can be challenging. Luckily, I’ve found some ways to help. By using data analytics, you can make sure your ads are running in the right place at the right time, hopefully generating more clicks from better prospects. Here are three easy ways to do that.

  1. Audit Your AdWords Placements

The name of the game with display advertising is impressions. Google wants you to get the most impressions possible because that’s how they get paid. Google isn’t concerned with the quality or relevancy of those impressions. You need to be. You can’t just pick a topic or interest to target (like marketing) and call it a day. Your ad is likely to end up on all sorts of sites – many of which you won’t think are a good match.

Not every website on the Internet that matches the Google “marketing” definition will necessarily be a match for your company. The best way to figure out where your ads are being displayed, what’s working and what’s not is to audit your display ad placements. To do this you just open your display ad in AdWords, click on the Display Network tab, and then click Placements. You’ll see where your ad(s) were displayed, the number of impressions and clicks, conversions, etc., for each site your ad was displayed on. You will quickly be able to determine which sites are worth your ad dollars and which ones aren’t and proceed accordingly.

  1. Identify the Best Keywords

We have a similar situation here with keyword contextual targeting. When you determine your keywords, you have to remember that not every site Google selects using your keywords will be relevant. (The audit you do in step one above will shed some light on your keywords too.)

The best way to find the best keywords is to listen to how your prospects talk about your business segment. You can do this by opening one of your relevant paid search campaigns in AdWords, click on Keywords, and then Search Terms. You’ll see the exact searches that triggered your ad and the results they achieved.

Once you know these top-performing keywords and phrases, you can use them to build your contextual targeting keyword strategy.

  1. Look at Demographics

Demographic targeting can help improve the performance of your display ad(s). To see the demographics of the visitors to your site, open Google Analytics, click on Audience, then Demographics, then Overview, and then select Converters. If you have enough traffic to your site, you’ll see great demographics information you can use. If your site traffic isn’t stellar, you can run a similar report using the AdWords Report Editor in Google Analytics.

As with all other marketing tactics, the success or failure of your strategy is largely reliant on how well you use your data to guide your decisions. Pay attention and respond to what your data is telling you, and your display ads and all of your other marketing initiatives will perform better.