10 digital marketing trends to follow in 2020 (Video)
From online advertising innovation to social media, from programmatic to voice marketing, check what’s going on in Digital Marketing.
Here you can find the top 10 trends to follow (also) in 2020.
Posts
Top SEO tools by Google Search Volume Growth: the status in 2020
Exploding Topics by Brian Dean analyzed Google search volume growth for the most well-known SEO tools between 2014 and 2019.
Here’s the ranking of SEO Tools based on Google search volume growth over the last 5 years:
- KWFinder (Score: 6.12) – Keyword finder
- Google Search Console (Score: 5.75) – Checkup of index status
- Keywords Everywhere (Score: 5.56) – Browser add-on for Chrome or Firefox
- Answer The Public (Score: 4.45)
- Ubersuggest (Score: 4.24) – Keyword suggetsion
- SEMrush (Score: 4.08) – Full-Stack SEO Platform
- Seobility (Score: 4.02) – Full-stack SEO Platform
- Serpstat (Score: 3.69) – Full-stack SEO Platform
- Ahrefs (Score: 3.66) – Website and competitor audit
- GTmetrix (Score: 3.14) – Check site-speed and optimise performance
- Screaming Frog (Score: 2.33) – Map web pages
- SEOquake (Score: 1.02)
- Yoast SEO (Score: 0.87) – WordPress plugin
- Can I Rank (Score: 0.6)
- Google Keyword Planner (Score: 0.33) – Available with a Google Ads account
- Seed Keywords (Score: 0.24)
- Siteliner (Score: 0.09)
- Moz (Score: -0.08)
- Long Tail Pro (Score: -3.62) – Long-tail keyword suggestion
- Majestic SEO (Score: -3.63) – Ranking of many authority factors
- WooRank (Score: -4.22)
The above ranking is not based on their market share or usefulness, but it’s rather an indicator of their popularity among users.
Some of them are free (like Google Search Console or UberSuggest integrated in Neil Patel’s website), others are freemium, others are paid.
Among them, few are full platforms with many features including also non-SEO functionalities, others are only providing niche insights or services (like YoastSEO that is a very popular WordPress plug-in), but are still valuable.
Personally, I still believe that it’s better to test and improve search ranking of a website using a range of tools (and anyone has its own recipe or preferences), but still, focus on one that can provide many aspects. The most valuable platform, including everything you need to do SEO, is SEMRush, that has increased its features in recent years.
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Disclaimer: this post contains some affiliate links
Enhance your social media dataset to build and visualise insightful KPI’s [Free PDF]
Above, you can find the slides I presented at Digital First 2019, the leading digital event in Belgium (Brussels, 16-17 October 2019).
Social platforms offer a highly valuable snapshot of your brand and products health. From prospects to leads, from customers to employees – including enthusiasts and evangelists as well as haters and trolls – the full range of users that learn and interact with your social channels are continuously shaping your brand equity.
What are you looking at to measure and improve your campaign performance?
Looking at the right KPIs, beyond the usual suspects, and thinking of social channels not just as broadcast, amplifier or communication tools, but also as customer feedback and market research platform gives valuable information to improve communication (content, tone of voice, style) and the product portfolio – or at least its perception.
During the presentation, I have shown how to build a social performance dashboard with actionable insights, easy to understand by different stakeholders. With some little hacks to your dataset, it is possible to explore performance under different points of view, going beyond the usual metrics, by creating new ones and adding more meaning and context to your social media analysis.
Facebook Professional Services, the next big thing for Local Search? (2018)
Facebook Professional Services
Facebook Professional Services is a new feature – still unannounced – that can be the next big thing for local search in 2016.
Update: it’s 2018 and the feature hasn’t been announced or promoted yet, but it’s still there, quite useful.
With this move Facebook is entering as a direct competitor of platforms such as Google Places (recently re-shaped as My Business), Yelp, Foursquare, Tripadvisor and others in the #local search market.
All Facebook Pages with a physical location will be listed in their respective primary business category and cannot avoid users rating/reviews – in fact, to remove the possibility that users leave reviews the page does not have to be associated with any physical location (e.g. brand pages).
All pages can be linked to up to three categories, but only the main one will be relevant for indexation in Professional Services – mind that if you do not see your Page listed yet.
Ranking high and with a good rating is crucial to business success. Many prospective customers look for confirmations about their possible choice right before they are going to buy – what Google calls micro-moments. This fact applies in particular in mobile local search, but at the moment, Facebook Professional Services are only available on the desktop. Maybe a dedicated app will be released at some point?
In Facebook Professional Services, ranking level is determined by a combination that takes into account number of reviews and rating (and possibly other variables such as engagement, page authority, reviewers authority, etc.). Therefore, having many reviews is the first step to being sure that a local service ranks in the top ten – there are ten results per page/category/city. Besides, rating from relevant users is also important: generally a page with 70 reviews and an average rating of 4.4 ranks better than a page with 20 reviews with 4.9 average rating.
Are you looking to improve your local search ranking? Have a look at this Local SEO Guide for Businesses by Brad Richardson (Caseo, Canada).
SEO: 8 top ranking factors for Google in 2017 [infographic]
The Google algorithm keeps on changing regularly, making life harder and harder for SEO experts. Some people assume that SEO is dead, but in fact SEO is alive more than ever. Simply, the old way of doing SEO is dead, or at least it’s not bringing the desired results anymore, whilst a new set of SEO strategies and techniques is rising due to search engine algorithms that become intelligent more than ever.
Here is an interesting infographic, created and designed by Harris Myers, that lists the 8 top factors to keep in mind to rank high on Google SERP in 2017.
Content Marketing Trends in 2017: infographic
An interesting infographic by Jomer Gregorio, CEO at CJG Digital Marketing, listing some of the Content Marketing trends to watch out for in 2017.
In his work, Jomer summarizes predictions about the evolution of the following 8 aspects that characterize contemporary content marketing.
- Increase in documented content marketing strategy
- Rise of visual content
- Content getting more niche-specific
- More user-generated content
- Promotion to become a priority
- More video
- Influencer marketing
- VR (virtual reality)
Facebook Livemap: visualizing globalization through user-generated TV
Facebook keeps on packaging user-generated content to offer new product and create new potential advertising spaces. This time the news is called Facebook Livemap. No big announcements before revealing a collection of user-generated live broadcasts from all over the world. The fact that it is endless and unpredictable makes it addictive.
This format is something different than on-demand TV (think of Netflix), a concept that caused a lot of suffer to specialised traditional channels, not to mention the old generic traditional channels.
Traditional channels might get a space over there, maybe in the future they can also have the option to pay in order to gain prominent visibility, but they will always face competition of a potential army constituted by more than a billion users that can broadcast whatever they feel (or need), anytime, (almost) anywhere. Advertising is not interrupting the show, but is just “sustaining” it, or in the future it might be just the show. A different model, much less invasive and able to target users with unprecedented precision in the television industry.
Users can choose what and when the big brother can watch, but there is always a small brother hidden inside algorithms that knows what’s in the shadow, often more relevant for marketing than what’s publicly shown.
Geography is the channel and content is random. There could be a leak from a Bilderberg meeting, a pre-recorded footage, a real-time suicide, sex, cheating, violence, a baby that is just born, one who is dying, a natural disaster, a revolution, in involution, the biggest lie ever that will cause a revolution or just bullshit, most of the time – useful material for contemporary anthropologists. What’s the next show?
Facebook to discard Conversion Tracking Pixel in the second half of 2016
All digital advertisers that are currently using Facebook Conversion Tracking pixels have to move to Facebook Pixel by the second half of 2016.
Facebook pixel is a better solution for both building Custom Audiences (e.g. remarketing) and tracking any conversion (see image).
Custom Audience pixel will remain. However, it is advised to move to the new Pixel that enables to build everything.
The FB pixel can be implemented through Google Tag Manager or other tag management services, covering all pages of the website(s) along the customer journey.
There is no need to create and implement multiple Pixels as one can be shared among different Facebook Ad Accounts. Consequently, Custom Audiences and Custom Conversions can be created directly into each Ad Account according to specific needs.
* the Conversion tracking pixel will be disabled by the second half of 2016 as announced by #Facebook.
How to re-target LinkedIn users through other channels
Ok, this method might break some rule, but it can be an effective solution for specific goals, like a very focused lead generation campaign. Let’s imagine that your goal is to reach outside LinkedIn, some workers of a few competitors based in country x or y, or anyone that studied at university z.
Just follow these steps:
- (alternative/1: choose this at your risk) Create a fake user profile on LinkedIn, possibly a high profile consultant;
- (alternative/2) use your real profile;
- If you go for alternative 1, you need to get new friends: define your target audience and add LinkedIn users through the most appropriate search fields (industry, company, country, etc.);
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Dig into LinkedIn Groups
(extra/1) you can extend your contact list by joining the most relevant and popular LinkedIn groups that are related to your audience(s) industry and adding people that actively engage in conversation over there;
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Chase people suggested
(extra/2) you might further extend the list by adding people suggested by LinkedIn, if having profiles matching your target audience;
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Export your contact list from LinkedIn
Once you reach a certain amount of contacts (let’s say at least 300), export the contact list from #LinkedIn to a CSV format file, format it through a spreadsheet software using the function “text-to-column”, choosing comma as delimiter and save a new CSV file with just a column of emails;
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Split the contact list to create different targets
(extra/3) Let’s suppose that you want to target all HR people of company X but you want to advertise in French and German, depending on where are they based. In this case, you can split the list into many by selecting specific job titles, country and/or company, the only fields relevant for such purpose, to create multiple remarketing lists (see next steps) but only if the sub-lists contains enough contacts;
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Create a remarketing list on Adwords
On Google Adwords go to Shared Library, then Audiences, then select Customer Email and upload the CSV (one or many). Choose the duration up to 6 months, the time that your LinkedIn contacts will be able to be targeted with your textual and visual ads through the Google Display Network (that includes sites like Gmail and Youtube).
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Create a Customer List on Facebook Ads
On Facebook Ads, select Audiences, then Custom Audience and import the CSV file(s) – you will be able to target LinkedIn users also through Instagram (if they have an account).
Important Notes
- if the list is too small you cannot do any remarketing: the list should contain at least 100 contacts;
- this operation implies serious privacy issues (therefore, take at your risk) in fact, target contacts should be previously and adequately informed about this (either if you choose option 1=fake profile or 2=real profile).
Opportunities
- you can extend the list by using Lookalike audience on Facebook (with a similarity percentage from 0% to 10%) and Similar users on Adwords: this is an excellent opportunity in particular if your target audience is the right one;
- if you want to target LinkedIn users on Gmail, just add mail.google.com as Placement and the domain of companies that might send them an email as Display Keyword.
Twitter is going to broaden its ads audience
Twitter is going to broaden its ads audience. One of the reasons why Twitter has often been rejected as an advertising channel (sometimes also in our organisation) is that reach is was limited to users who are logged in into the platform.
However, the number of tweets’ readers are way more than Twitter users (it’s estimated around 700m), so this move is expected to bring new business to #Twitter and new opportunities for advertisers/business eager to reach a qualified audience.
There’s no mention about targeting options yet but probably, being impossible to segment anonymous un-logged readers, targeting should be similar to Youtube, based on tweets topic (or maybe even keywords and hashtags to narrow down the target).
Find out more about Testing Promoted Tweets on our logged-out experience.
Key Elements of a Digital Marketing Agency Proposal
What elements a client expects to see in a digital marketing agency proposal for a campaign aimed at promoting a certain product? Find out the essential elements here.
You will get a better idea about questions should be answered by the proposal, an ideal structure to adopt and some details that you might want to outline.
Customer Email list on Adwords: social is getting closer to search
New powerful targeting opportunity available in Google Adwords.
Customer Emails List (aka digital stalking) allows digital marketers to show ads on Google Search, Display Network, Gmail (new format available through the GDN options) or YouTube (now fully integrated into Adwords) to users who have provided their email addresses matching a Google account.
For example, you can retarget current or past customers or particular event attendees that agreed to receive commercial information – mind always privacy issues.
This way, it is possible to create a Custom Audience (as done with Remarketing lists) available for all accounts under a particular MCC.
It’s an interesting option for cross-country campaigns. The Customer Email list can be further narrowed at campaign-level with usual variables (geographic, demographic, placements, keywords, etc.) Email addresses have to match the ones of signed-in Google users.
Difference between emails lists and remarketing lists
This opportunity is more “powerful” than cookies-based lists (e.g. remarketing). With this offer, Google is getting closer to Facebook (where this option is already available), matching social with search. If you plan to pilot such campaign, it is fundamental to provide an opt-out service through which users can ask to be deleted. I think that the best option is to use a Solas form, sending possible requests to a campaign manager responsible for a prompt action whenever needed. Once uploaded, email addresses cannot be visualised by Adwords users (including admins) therefore to delete them it is necessary to re-upload a simple CSV list with the email address(es) that do not have to be targeted anymore.
Opportunities
An interesting option is to create different emails lists depending on segmentation (for example geographic, demographic, buying habits, etc.). In fact, this tool works very well with CRM tools.
If your budget is limited and your goal is to extend your reach among people that know your brand but don’t know some of your most recent products, its best use is to target emails list(s) excluding past visitors (remarketing list).
Further reading
Upload campaign cost data into Google Analytics: a new free tool available
Importing click and cost data for non-Google search engines and campaigns into Google Analytics allows to compare performance data for Google and non-Google campaigns.
OWOX, a #Google Analytics Partner, has created a free add-on that helps you quickly and easily import data from Google Sheets into Google Analytics. It is not the first tool for this scope, but it’s worth mentioning because it is free and easy-to-use.
Here are few simple steps to take to see your non-Google campaign cost data (for example Facebook Ads, Twitter, Linkedin or Bing Ads) into GA Views.
Here is a step-by-step guide:
- Create a Cost data schema on GA
- Download the schema (Excel template) as guidance. A typical format is:
ga:date ga:medium ga:source ga:impressions ga:adClicks ga:adCost ga:campaign ga:adGroup ga:adContent - Export cost data from Facebook Ads
- Install the Google Chrome Add-On, it will be available on Google Sheet (you need to access with a Google account that has been granted GA editing rights)
- Copy and past FB cost data into Google Sheet making sure that it matches columns of the GA schema (point 2)
- Start the Add-On from the menu and upload
Once done, cost data will be visible under GA / Acquisition / Cost Data enabling interesting business metrics.
Two final notes:
If something goes wrong data can be re-uploaded, they will be overwritten.
The cost data has to be daily, and the format of its first column (date) needs to be yyyymmdd.
Last but not least, a perfect correspondence between Facebook Ads URL parameters (medium, source, campaign and content) and the cost data spreadsheet is needed to match data on Google Analytics. Differently, you will find a mismatch between uploaded metrics and Sessions. Ideally, you can add two columns for medium and source while for the others, it’s advised to use the same name both in the URL parameters and in the FB Ads level (for example Adgroup matching Ad set).
Google Adwords hint: add a free advertising space on Youtube videos through CTA-overlay
You have a #Google Adwords account, and you have linked it to a youtube account. Why don’t exploit the opportunity to get free Call-to-Action overlay link placed on your video(s)?
If you have an AdWords for #video TrueView ad, you can now create overlays for video plays across #YouTube (whether the video play is triggered by a video ad or not). The overlay will appear as soon as the video begins to play and can be closed by the user. You can use the overlay to share more information about the content of your video or to raise interest in your channel, other videos, or additional websites. When users click on the overlay, they are directed to your external website as specified in the overlay’s destination URL.
There is no additional charge for this feature.
CTAs currently remain on the video for as long as the video owner chooses, even if the video is no longer being promoted.
(Source: Google, March 2015)
Here I’m not talking of the recently launched Youtube Cards, six different type of overlays that can appear on the right area of your video. In fact, you can run both CTA-overlays and Cards, tracking them differently (e.g. using a different “medium” parameter like youtube-cta and youtube-card) to find out which link is generating more visits to your website.
CTA appear in the bottom-left, clicks are not charged, can be tracked and work even when you do not run any campaign. Here is an example:
Step-by-Step:
- Link Youtube and Google Adwords (from its Video advertising section)
- On Google Adwords, create a video ad using one of your Youtube videos (even with a very small Cost-per-view and daily budget and you can even pause the campaign immediately after)
- Go to Youtube Video Manager and you will find an extra-tab called “Call-to-Action overlay”.
You are allowed to add a small logo 70×70 (ideally with an arrow pointing right!) that can also be transparent and the link does not have to be contextual, in fact, it’s a small free advertising space – despite the more contextual it is, the higher your CTR will be.
Some negative aspects:
- links are not auto-tagged therefore, you need to add URL parameters;
- a Youtube account can be linked to one Adwords account per time – it is a problem when having many Adwords account (e.g. one per country or SBU) and only one Youtube account (e.g. a global repository for all corporate videos);
- there is no automation available therefore to add/edit/remove any CTA-overlay you have to create a video campaign for each video where you want to add the CTA overlay, then edit every single video – if a Youtube account has too many videos, it’s worth adding a CTA-overlay only to the most popular, whilst the others are not expected to generate many visits .
About URL parameters that will allow to identify (on #Google Analytics) which channels/videos/campaigns are bringing more (qualified) visits to your site(s), the structure could be as follow:
- source: youtube-channel (you can have many Youtube accounts linked to an Adwords account);
- medium: video-cta-overlay;
- content (optional): your-video (name or id);
- campaign: here express something related to your cta that can be different than the video.
Top engagement drivers: how to get viral on Facebook
#Facebook Page Insights, among other things, help to identify what is the most engaging content for your audience. Some content gets viral, while other doesn’t get noticed at all.
Every content is a meme: some memes survive, going viral or being the source of new memes, while other doesn’t get noticed at all and disappear.
In this sense, #social media are not only a memetic machine, with their constant production or reproduction of memes, but also a memetic cemetery (despite some memes of the past can always come back to life, under any circumstance).
This analysis is neither exhaustive nor definitive but tries to offer an overview over factors that affect the viral reach of Facebook posts, either on pages or profiles.
Results are summarised in the above scheme that is the outcome of frequent observations through different Facebook pages.
Why do we post?
The scheme starts from publisher’s intentions, either posting as an individual or for an organisation/brand.
Drivers of our publishing activity could be divided into three main, groups:
- Individualism – it tells how we feel or how we want to represent ourselves to the world (or, at least, our audience)
- Altruism – it is probably the most valuable content because it is aimed at creating/sharing value with the audience
- Opinion – this can be the outcome of either an individual attitude or a wish to start/join a conversation and affect the public opinion
Most of what we post contains elements of any of the above factors.
Content focus: individual vs. general
While Individualism can be categorised as material embedding a personal element and focusing on the poster (e.g. a selfie), the other two categories (Altruism and Opinion) relate to the external environment (e.g. tech, politics, sport, arts, science, culture in general, etc.).
Unless talking about VIP’s (including social stars, even in very narrow fields) or well-known brands that despite talking about themselves have a strong influence on the external environment, general content has more chances to get viral than the individual.
Engagement factors
The expected consequent actions (reactions) made by our audience, will increase the reach of our content: this is the viral effect, an enormous benefit because it does not cost anything, differently than promoted posts. Quality has value.
To get a high viral reach, it is important to engage people that are social stars, since their actions on your posts usually are more effective regarding reach, but, in general, every little helps.
- Individualist content might be shared because of Empathy
- Altruist content can be multiplied when it is perceived as Useful
- Opinions tend to encourage Participation (either with a positive or negative feedback)
The actions that we expect from this #engagement are likes for an individualist content, share for a useful altruist content and comment for an opinion that drives participation.
How to categorise Facebook posts: some examples
We can try to attribute each content we see on Facebook to one of the following three categories and imagine what can be the expected reaction.
- Individualism: selfies, feelings, travel, self-made content, etc.
- Altruism: pets, recipes, reviews, guides, invitations, etc.
- Opinion: politics, violence, VIPs, activism, etc.
Some content stays in between two or even all three categories. For example, a video clip of a song can be posted to represent a personal feeling (individualism) and at the same time to help other people discover that particular content (altruism) and express an opinion that reflects the lyrics (opinion).
Support for a political leader/movement or complaints towards a brand/company’s customer services can be categorised as opinions and can have a follow up made of supporting (or detracting) comments – and relative comment-likes and comment-tags.
A selfie is an individualist content, while an #how-to #guide is (or, at least, try to be) an act of altruism that hopefully is perceived as useful and then multiplied by being liked and shared.
Affinity to your average audience increases engagement
Everyone has a different personality and Facebook knows that. Thinking of Lookalike audiences, we have to post with our audience in mind, more than content.
Knowing our audience enables to build an ideal average that should be our main content driver. The affinity of our content to our audience’s expectations is a core virality factor.
A Facebook Page with a very generic audience tends to have fewer occasions to gets its content viral due to high engagement-rate, while as opposite, content posted on a Page whose audience is very narrow and specialised can get viral with a high engagement-rate.
All factors count
Often many pages publish great content too generic and informative: its engagement-rate (and consequently its organic reach) will be very low.
Some content is too cold (for example a link to a technical guide) or too personal (for example a personal status about facts of little interest for the audience) or too introvert (something that nobody or very few people can understand or care of).
To get viral on Facebook, content need to be a mix of all factors proposed in the scheme [ individualism + altruism + opinion ] paying attention to audience’s closeness (including language and jargon) and possibly enriching text with hashtags if the content is about places, brands or trending topics.
Write your content (make it original), try to disseminate value – a strong factor, usually appreciated by your audience – and don’t forget to express your point of view because Facebook is a conversational platform after all.
Something missing: the dark side of analytics
Not all content is shared publicly. Therefore, its virality cannot be adequately measured. Often, good content is also multiplied by private messages (e.g. Facebook, Whatsapp, etc.), channels that cannot be tracked but still can increase reach, engagement, leads, conversions.
In fact, many of us are not willing to publicly share or comment anything, but it doesn’t mean that we are not interested in debating about with our best friend through private messages. We are not aware of what happen behind the wall unless we don’t start to track and read everyone’s private messages, but such amazing advanced tools apparently are available only to very few organisations/governments..
So don’t stick to what’s measurable, ignoring the dark side of analytics. What’s behind a “direct” source can be the outcome of your #social media marketing efforts.
The infographic is made mainly for Facebook, but can be useful also for content marketing in general and other social media platforms, in particular, Google+ and Twitter.
Feel free to download and share Facebook Engagement Factors (PDF)
Discrepancy between conversions on Google Analytics and Facebook advertising reports: VTC vs CTC
A digital customer journey: which channel will get (most of) the credit for a conversion? (Image credit: DigitSix.com)
Have you ever encountered a discrepancy between #Google Analytics performance reports by channel and what’s reported by advertising platforms’ reports, for example, #Facebook? The former is usually less generous than the latter, and you don’t know who’s telling the truth, right?
Let’s imagine a situation when you have been running promoted posts through Facebook and the outcome has been ten conversions according to the #Facebook Advertising Report (measured through the Facebook Conversion Pixel), four Assisted Conversions according to Google Analytics (Multi-Channel funnel report) and no Direct Conversion (still according to Google Analytics). What measure can be considered more reliable?
It depends on what you are trying to sell. If you want to know what is the best target audience, then go for the Facebook report. If you want to know what is the best channel to generate leads go for the Assisted Conversions report. Differently, if you are offering something that should not require much thinking before a conversion, then focus on the Direct Conversion report – where usually Search Marketing performs much better than #Social Media Marketing, in particular if targeting branded keywords.. a quick win!
The difference is explained by the methodology adopted to identify a conversion: Google Analytics takes into account only CTC (Click-Through-Conversions) while other platforms in their reports also show (or only) VTC (View-Through-Conversions).
#Google Adwords offers both options, but CTC (more meaningful for search marketing than for display) are deducted from VTC.
Some advertising platforms (like Adroll) make a clear distinction between the two measurement methods, while others (like Facebook) state it in a more subtle way:
“Facebook (then) matches that conversion event against the set of people an ad was served to/or that clicked on an ad so that we can provide you with information that helps you understand the return on investment for your ad spend.“
(source: https://www.facebook.com/help/435189689870514)
However, even on Facebook, you can still compare both methods also on Facebook report through the Attribution Window settings (image above).
Facebook Advertising Report: Attribution Window settings
Another aspect to consider is the time frame. Facebook offer three options: 1, 7 and 28 days, while in Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnel report you have 90 choices, from 1 to 90 days before conversion. Every platform has its options therefore if you don’t synchronise the method, you will get different results.
VTC methodology considers a digital channel like an offline channel (e.g. TV) since it takes into account all conversions completed after someone has seen an ad but has not clicked on it. Some way, it makes sense because a person might discover a brand or a product through a promoted post and still do not take any immediate action (e.g. click, comment, share, etc.) but search for it later through other channels.
Obviously, VTC is more generous towards the platform than CTC, which is a situation that requires the converted user to click on an ad, within a particular period of time. On Google Analytics, Multi-Channel Funnels take into account only CTC.
To make the story short, in a logic sequence, the highest performance regarding Conversion Rate, #ROAS, #ROI, etc. is measured considering VTC, and then CTC (Multi-Channel) and eventually CTC (Direct or last-click).
VTC will always include CTC
Digital agencies usually tend to show the best performance in their reports, but despite it might sound obvious to some people, it is always good to ask for a clear “legend” where it’s well explained what is intended by “conversion”.
The methodology applied should always be explicit and come before any attribution model. The best approach, therefore, is to produce different columns to outline the outcome of each methodology applied to determine conversions.
Changes on the Google Display Network: “Other Interest” category will be turned off in January 2015
The “google display network” (GDN) (formerly referred to as the “content network”) shows AdWords ads on sites that are not search engines. These content network sites are those that use AdSense and DoubleClick, the other side of the Google advertising model.Digital advertisers have been using interest category marketing since 2009 to connect with people across the #Google Display Network based on their interests. Since then, Google has added new and more powerful interest-based capabilities: affinity (for enthusiasts), custom affinity (for niche segments), and in-market audiences (for ready to buy shoppers).
As these more sophisticated audience tools offer advertisers more flexibility and control, “Other interests” will no longer be a targeting option for new and existing audience campaigns starting on January 15, 2015.
Categories of the Google Display Network
- Affinity audiences: Reach TV-like segments at scale to drive brand awareness. Kraft used affinity audiences to reach cooking enthusiasts to build awareness for their new ‘Fresh Take’ brand.
- Custom affinity audiences: Find niche segments that you custom-tailor for your brand. Electronic Arts used custom affinity audiences to engage fans of specific NFL teams in their recent Madden GIFERATOR campaign. They created 32 custom affinity audiences, one per NFL team, to reach fans of particular teams with display ads timed to the real-time action on the field.
- In-market audiences: Reach consumers while they’re actively browsing, researching or comparing products related to a category you choose. For example, the online car dealership Autobytel uses in-market audiences to reach customers actively researching specific models, price comparisons, and consumer reviews, as opposed to casual car enthusiasts.
Tips to promote mobile apps through digital channels
Making a #mobile app is not the final step to reach a broad mobile audience. In fact, your amazing app can be discovered only by a few friends if you do not push it in the market – or better, in the right market segment(s) – hopefully catching the right multipliers to benefit from a viral exposure. Here are some guidelines to boost your app reach.
#SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS (Facebook and Twitter)
- Ok, an obvious but fundamental step: always check if links to app stores work, in particular if you are using short links like bit.ly or goo.gl
- If you have Facebook Page(s) or Twitter profile(s) you can add covers to promote your App. Please consider covers do not have a broad reach since users tend to engage with your social media content directly on their timeline.
FACEBOOK ONLY
- Geo-target posts by selecting only people in the country with a relevant age range (e.g. 17-30). This way the target audience will be smaller but more consistent, increasing the conversion rate of relevant goals (e.g. clicks to the App store, downloads, usage of the app, clicks to your transactional site, transactions=hard goal) and the engagement rate (likes, shares, comments). As a result, there will be an increased post’s edge rank and, consequently, its organic reach. Geo-targeting is also a good way to avoid reaching fake fans that in some pages can easily be spotted by looking at the country of origin, different than your primary target country (in particular for pages with a high geographical focus).
- Image size matters. Ideally, shared images for Facebook posts (free or paid) should be 1200×1200 (they will have a max width of 504 with a variable height) while shared links should be 1200×628 (they will be 484×252). Remember the 20% text rule: no more than 20% covered by text or they will not be enabled to be boosted as promoted post/image/app/whatever.
- After changing the Facebook Page cover you should add a brief description with a short link to #mobile apps so if people click (or tap) on the cover to find out more, they will still be able to get straight away to the app store. I have noticed that Facebook page visitors on average about 1% of all page like(rs) and, if you are running promoted posts reaching a wide audience, page visitors can be something like 0.05% of your total Reach. A social media page should never be considered as a website; you can look at it as a repository of content that will be seen from another point of views, surrounded by other content that you cannot expect because each social media user has a different surfing experience. You can now add call-to-actions to Facebook covers but please remember to keep text under 20% of the entire space – check your cover here.
- #Facebook Advertising offers ways to promote #apps directly. Please do not boost links to app stores because they will not be approved as ads since they would violate their regulations. Here are the guidelines to run Paid Ads for Apps through Facebook Advertising platform:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ads-for-apps
To go further and measure App downloads, the Apps has to be registered and linked to the FB Ads account. More info here:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ads-for-apps/mobile-app-ads/register-your-app
Anyone running Google Adwords campaigns can benefit from Ads extensions to enrich their content. Such extensions also include links to App stores (iTunes or Google Play respectively, depending on the user device).
Here is an example:
Google Adwords App Extensions, an example
APP POPULARITY AND RANKING
App ranking is made of many factors. No. of downloads is just one of them, and it varies by country. Number of Downloads are not a good indicator of an app popularity, whose ranking is influenced mostly by “current installs per user”. Important indicators are also rating (up to 5 stars), positive comments, no. of app uninstalls (negative factor) and how fast users delete the app (it tells how attractive it is). A boost in the first 72 hours, benefitting of being listed among “new” apps, is just one of the factors in effect.
I am sharing a screenshot of Google Play insights. This #Android app has more than 100 downloads but in fact, the number of real users is about 50%:
Android app insights
For this reason, it is important to invite people to download and give five stars plus an excellent comment and possibly keep the app on their device(s).
The App should be categorised in the right category (free or paid), and its description and associated keywords should be relevant and translated into as many languages as possible otherwise, they will not be available in some App Stores (either iTunes or Google Play). Therefore, when a user clicks on an ad in a given country he/she will see an annoying message saying something like “App not available in this country”. The description and keywords should include relevant words also in foreign languages if appropriate wherever needed to increase the chances to be found by prospective users.
There are a few ways to check App ranking in different country mobile stores. One is Applyzer.com where you just have to create a free account to access details by country and sector.
For example, these are the top Education apps for iPhone in Italy in October 2014:
App ranking checker
It is interesting also to check performance of the same #iOS app in different countries:
Check your app performance in different countries
Unsplash: free do-whatever-you-want hi-res stock photos
In the era of copyleft and open source, there are still many cases when people steal images for their private purpose with no quoting, no backlink (or no-follow backlink), no request for permission.
If not the ultimate solution it seems an excellent resource for anyone looking for great, catchy, free, high-resolution images for social media posting. The risk is that some of them might get very popular at the end, reaching iconic status, but it is worth trying Unsplash.
All photos published on Unsplash are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means you can can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
The image bank Unsplash is chosen by popular platforms and digital tools such as Figma, Picsart, Lightricks and Notion. You can also find me there by visiting my Unsplash photographer profile.
How to sell photos online
If you are a photographer, you might seriously need to read this:
Guide: the best platforms to sell photos online
How to add a Facebook Conversion Pixels through Google Tag Manager
The right way to implement Facebook Pixel through Google Tag Manager
Facebook Conversions Pixels are great tools not just to monitor website or mobile apps conversions – those can also be controlled through #Google Analytics after tagging URLs – but they are also one of the tools needed to optimise campaigns (e.g. cost per conversion) or to build Lookalike audiences (see image below) that tend to reduce your spending on Facebook advertising by creating target audiences made of users whose interests are similar to the ones of whoever has already reached a goal relevant to your business. On average I have noticed a conversion rate always higher than other generic audiences, sometimes even double.
To implement Facebook Conversion Pixels (FBCP) you have to create it for a particular Ads account activated in your site and populated with users info (it is said that you need at least 100 conversions to build a lookalike audience list). Once created it can be shared with other Ads Accounts and it can work for different Facebook Pages managed through the same Ads Accounts.
Google Tag Manager makes possible to add Conversion Pixels whenever and wherever you need, into any web page or mobile apps, depending on specific conditions. The Conversion Pixel has to be placed into the HEAD of your web page but, as you know, Google Tag Manager (GTM), has to be placed immediately after the opening BODY tag.
The question is: will Facebook Pixel works if implemented through a GTM Custom HTML tag?
The answer is yes! After implementing FBCP, you can check if it is working using the FB Pixel Helper, a free extension for Google Chrome.
Facebook Pixel inserted through Google Tag Manager is working (source: FB Pixel Helper, Google Chrome free extension)
NOTE – However, I have noticed that if “support for Document.Write” is not active for the HTML tag, the FB Pixel apparently takes longer to load – however, it still work – and the result is as follow:
GTM support document.write off: FB Conversion Pixel takes too long to load