Happy summer, everyone! July is finally here and (and least us) couldn’t be happier. Summertime is usually a slow work season, but that hasn’t stopped the digital marketing world and there is a lot to cover this month. 

We have summed up the most important:

Digital Marketing News, Insights and Updates from July 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

• Google Launches Free Deals Listings in Search Results

As we always do, let’s begin with some updates from Google. This month Google is rolling out a new feature that gives online retailers in the US more ways to reach customers who are seeking discounts and special offers.

Google reported a 50% increase in searches for “discount codes” since the previous year. This means that customers are looking even more for ways to save money and shop at discounted prices. 

In response, Google is launching new features that allow e-commerce sites a new way to list deals in search results: 

• Competitive prices are highlighted in the shopping tab of search results
• Google Search will showcase the most important offers for sales such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday (in October)
• Google will showcase offers based on information regarding the discount, product popularity, site’s popularity and other factors. 
• An upcoming update will make it possible for deals to show on the main results page whether retailers pay or not for advertising. 
• Retailers are now able to customize their offers and indicate specifics, suchs as if a deal is only available for certain customers. 
• Sellers reports are updated with “Historical Best Seller Data” and “Relative Product Demand”

• Google Share 5 Insights Into Appearing in Google News

As you know, Google is always on top of users and site owner’s need to help them have the best online experience possible. So, this time Google is answering the most common questions and doubts about how news are shown in News and Search, giving valuable insights to help site owners have a better understanding on the subject. 

The 5 most common questions are: 

a) Where does news appear on Google

Google says that news content can appear on Google News, Google Search, Google Assistant, YouTube and Discover. Google News includes two ways information can be displayed: the “For You” feed that contains specific stories based on user interests, and “Headlines” which show stories for all users from a particular region.

There is also Google Search that includes the “Top Stories” carousel highlighting relevant news on timely topics, and the “News” tab that narrows the results to focus on specific queries. 

b) How do I know if my site is eligible to appear in Google News?

Google states that all sites are automatically eligible for Google news in Search without any application requirement. They emphasize that the important thing is for sites to produce relevant content with high levels of expertise, authority and trustworthiness, with a history of producing original news and that complies with Google’s News Policies. 

c) How can I check if my site is appearing?

The best way to know if your site is appearing, is to look at the performance reports on Search Console by filtering for Google News and Google Search. These insights will indicate if your site is getting traffic from boths sources. 

d) Can I do something to improve my visibility?

The ranking of sites is automatically determined by different factors such as relevance of the content, freshness, location and language. Publishers can access the Publisher Center to define certain aspects about their site that can help Google to Index it. 

However, eligibility is always determined by an automated process, which means that being approved and submitting content does not directly mean that it will appear in Search Results, Google News or News surfaces. 

e) If I follow everything Google says, why am I still not appearing?

According to Google one of the keys is to constantly produce relevant, original content that can be automatically detected by their systems and become more eligible if the site has risen to meet their criteria. 

• Google Launches Free Tools for Travel Marketers

We have mentioned in previous articles that global searches related to travel information, like “where to travel”, “can I travel” and “covid travel restrictions” are at a peak for some time now. 

Travel Insights with Google is being launched in the US as an effort to answer the travel industry needs and help businesses with free tools they can use to improve their marketing efforts and overall service. It includes:

• Destination Insights: provides information regarding the top demands per destination. It allows travel marketers to view demand data related to specific countries on specific dates.

• Hotel Insights: analyzes search trends that identifies where users are coming from and allows marketers to create stronger digital presences segmented to fit said information. 

• Focusing Facts: this information is nested within the Destination Insights and displays data related to queries suchs as “fastest growing destinations globally” gathering previous 84 days of data. 

• Demand Sizing: also a part of Destination Insights. It allows filters to compare interests amongst various countries. 

2. Marketing Tech News

• Vimeo partners with TikTok

The video software company has joined as a TikTok Marketing Partner. The social media platform users can now access Vimeo’s suite of video creation tools and still benefit from its broad user base. 

Both companies ran tests previous to the release of the partnership and saw that participants were able to highly increase the number of videos they create and reach a 50% higher click through rate of their campaigns. 

The main objective of this partnership is to help small and medium businesses create more content with better tools. Melissa Yang, head of ecosystem partnerships at TikTok said:

 “As small businesses recover and rebuild after a challenging year, TikTok is working on ways to make it easier to reach their community and grow their business. Our partnership with Vimeo provides small businesses with simple, effective video tools that rival what the biggest brands in the world have access to — and they drive real results.”

Vimeo and TikTok also invited some small businesses to try out a new AI-driven video production tool called Vimeo Create. A tool designed to advertise on TikTok and help brands produce creative content that adjusts to the platform without needing to rely on a production studio. 

Brands have reported great results and say they plan to keep running additional campaigns on TikTok. 

• Hubspot Reports an Increase on Marketing Automation  Techniques

Marketing automation keeps gaining ground as chatbot usage has more than doubled in the UK as a valid option to engage with customers since 2020. Hubspot has reported so on their Not Another State of Marketing Report 2021. 

One of the main reasons marketers are betting more and more for automated solutions, are the market shifts provoqued by the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to offer customers the most tailored virtual experience possible. 

“The different types of automation, across various industries, can provide marketers with a range of skills to improve their return figures and therefore a number of AI tools must be used, as opposed to one.” – Scott Brinker. VP of platform at HubSpot

The same way, live video is also becoming more popular with an increase of 40% marketing tactics using it in 2021, compared to 17% last year. Pandemic and consequential lockdowns have forced a shift on content production to be designed for virtual audiences, along with an increase on the time consumers are spending watching videos.

These changes are forcing marketers to adapt and shift the way they create content and how they engage and communicate with their audiences. Implementing automation strategies provide solutions to adjust marketing techniques to the times we are facing and to what customers are expecting from brands. 

• Google partners with GoDaddy

Google has announced a new partnership with GoDaddy with the purpose of helping e-commerce sites gain more online visibility. Google wants to help businesses get discovered easier and to connect better with shoppers by making e-commerce more open online.

With the new partnership, GoDaddy online stores are able to integrate their product inventory across Google with no additional costs. GoDaddy sites can now be discovered through Search, Shopping, Image Search and YouTube. 

Merchants can upload products directly to Google, create listings and ads all within the GoDaddy’s Online Store. By partnering with e-commerce platforms, Google aims to help more businesses to engage with shoppers that want to discover new products and brands online. 

3. Social Media Updates

• TikTok Launches 8 new Features for Livestreams

TikTok users who livestream have doubled during the past year. Taking note of this, the platform is rolling out eight new features to improve live streaming experience for both broadcasters and viewers:

• Schedule: users can now schedule, manage and promote livestreams in advance. 

• Picture-in-picture: this new feature allows users to pinn the livestream to a corner of their screen while they freely navigate. 

• Go live with a friend: a new feature called “Live Together” allows two users to broadcast live on the same stream. 

• Live Q&A: this feature allows creators to engage with their audience by answering questions live in real time.

• Top streams: TikTok wants to make it easier for users to find and tune into live streams from the “For You” and “Following” pages. Live sessions will also be discoverable through Chat, Gaming, Talents, Fashion and Daily Life. 

• Moderators: before livestream, users can assign a person to help them moderate the session by going to Settings on the right side of the stream launch screen. Features like muting viewers and removing disrespectful comments will be added in the upcoming weeks.

• Keyword filters: streamers can now mute words they choose during live streams by going to settings. They can also turn off or add limits to the comments. 

• Harmful comments alert: before posting a comment that TikTok detects as disrespectful, users will be prompted to reconsider their language and how they will be received by the streamer. 

• Pinterest adds Feature for Users to Make Money With Affiliate Links

Pinterest wants to help content creators to earn money through the platform by making it possible to get commissions with affiliate links. When a user tags a product on a pin idea and another user clicks on the link, the one who posted it will receive a commission. 

The platform has reported that “users are 89% more likely to exhibit shopping intent on products tagged in idea pins than on standalone product pins.” The same way that engagement with idea pins is much higher than standard pins. 

By simply tagging products on their idea pins, Pinterest creators can control the shoppability of their content. This feature will be available to business accounts in the United States and will continue rolling out to other countries in the next few months. 

• Twitter Tests Voting on Tweets

Twitter is constantly adding or trying out new features, and this time they are experimenting with an option that allows users to “down vote” or “up vote” a reply within a Twitter conversation.

The same as other social media platforms offer multiple icons for users to express how they feel about a post or a comment, Twitter has announced they want to try out a voting feature only available for Tweets replies. 

Twitter says that, for the meantime, this is only a feature destined for research, that doesn’t qualify as a dislike button and only the owner of the down vote will be able to see it. Twitter also clarified that this experiment, as they call it, has the intent to inform the platform about the relevancy of the conversations.

This feature will only be available for iOs. 

If you liked this summary of the most important Digital Marketing News, Insights and Updates from July 2021, we got more for you to read!

• 6 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your E-commerce Website
• 7 Tips to Increase Web Push Notifications Click Through Rate
• Hyper-Personalization: What is it and How it Differs from Personalization

If people don’t see it, they won’t buy it. 

You might have the best products, with top quality and an amazing e-commerce site with the most seamless shopping experience ever created. However, if you don’t get people to visit your site, you won’t make any sales. 

Of course the amount of traffic is not everything, quality matters. But the more people visit your website, the more likely you are to make a sale. Hence the importance of having a strategy that covers as many flanks as possible to drive traffic to your online store. So, this time we would like to share with you:

6 Ways to Drive Traffic to your E-commerce Website

1. Attract your target audience with Content Marketing
There are many types of content you can create: 

• Blog posts
• Whitepapers
• Success stories
• Videos
• Infographics
• Tutorials

Content marketing is great for both big and small businesses. It doesn’t require a huge money investment and you can use the channel and the type of content that best suits your industry, your audience and and your brand. 

One of the keys to a successful content marketing strategy is consistency through time. One blog post a year is not going to do anything for you, you have to constantly create and publish relevant content that’s aligned with your target audience interests in order to see results. 

2. Work on your SEO

People are going online right this minute looking for your product. You need to do everything you can to make sure your online store appears in the top results of those searches and one of the ways to do so is optimizing your SEO. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of combining different techniques that help improve the position of a website in search engine results and gain more visibility. The cornerstone of SEO are keywords, the words or phrases your target audience uses to find products like yours. 

You need to take your time and do a lot of research to find out which keywords suit you and are the most used by your target audience so you can focus your SEO efforts on those specific ones. There are a lot of online tools you can use to identify keywords such as Google Trends, Ubersuggest or Semrush. 

Once you have identified the keywords you want to target, you need to add them to your website’s content and metadata: slugs, SEO title, SEO description, images ALT description and headings (H1, H2, H3). It is also a good idea to create content that focuses on specific ones that are the most valuable to you. 

Just remember that, as the same as for content marketing, SEO optimization is a job that requires a lot of time and consistency in order to show results. You have to be patient and work on it constantly. 

3. Run paid ad campaigns

As we mentioned before, for people to visit your website, you need them to see your website. You need to get your online store in front of your target audience and paid ads campaigns are a way to do  just that. 

With SEO you gain traffic organically via search engines, while with ads, you pay different channels to show your site to your potential customers. You can choose to advertise on social media or on search engines and do retargeting campaigns to customers that are most likely to complete a purchase. 

For social media ads, each platform has its own system and they are very simple to use and set up campaigns is very easy. You can segment your audience by age, language, country and serve them tailor-made ads that have higher chances of getting clicked. 

The good thing about social media advertising is that you don’t necessarily have to have a big budget. You can promote posts to a very big audience with little money spent and achieve great results. This makes social media ads a great option for small businesses that want to get their brand out there with smaller budgets. 

The other option is to advertise on Google using Google ads. The downside of these paid ad campaigns is that it might be quite challenging to get good results if your budget is not as big as your competitors’. Google ads campaigns work with bids for each keyword you want to target. If your competition puts in a higher bid for the same keyword you are focusing on, their ad will show above yours because they win the bid and your ad won’t show.  

4. Send web push notifications to bring users back

Web push notifications are a great addition to any marketing strategy aimed to increase traffic to an online store. This channel allows online businesses to send messages and connect with anonymous users through browser-based notifications even when users have left the website. 

There are two types of web push notifications that can bring users back and increase traffic:

• Automated web push notifications: notifications that are triggered by individual user behaviour and delivered automatically with hyper-personalized messages based on users’ actions on the site. They are great for recovering abandoned carts when users leave without completing a purchase and you can create as many triggering scenarios as you want suchs as: category retargeting,  product retargeting, cross selling or recurrent purchase reminders. 

• Manual web push notifications: these bulk notifications are the equivalent of newsletters. They are sent to all users’ databases and are great to inform about offers, promotions or limited time flash sales like Black Friday. They are amazing at generating lots of traffic very quickly. 

The best thing about web push notifications is that, unlike paid ads, there’s no bidding competition or cost per click. Frizbit charges for number of unique sessions with no limit on the amount of notifications that can be sent. 

This makes web push notifications a great option for all business sizes, being extremely profitable for e-commerce sites. 

5. Social Media Marketing

According to a recent study, out of 7.82 billion people in the world, 50.64% of the population use social networks, regardless of age or internet access. This can easily be translated into: if you have an e-commerce and want to connect with your target audience, you must have a social media presence. 

The first thing you need to do when planning your social media marketing strategy for e-commerce is to identify which platforms suit your brand the best. Depending on the products you sell and your target audience, you will find more and better use to a specific social media channel over the others. 

Once you have decided, you are ready to start working on your editorial calendar and start sharing your content that will ultimately lead traffic to your e-commerce site. Keep in mind that the main purpose of social media is to create a community around your brand: take part in conversations, reply to comments and really engage with people. These actions will help you reach your purpose of driving traffic to your website. 

6. Referral programs

All of the tactics we mentioned above are great proven ways to drive traffic to your e-commerce website, but none will ever be as powerful as mouth-to-mouth marketing. That is why encouraging customer referrals is still one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your e-commerce website. 

Having good quality products and ensuring a great customer experience will help you get good comments, reviews and possibly, recommendations. But why stop there? Give your customers more reasons to talk good about you and make them want to recommend your products to their friends and family with customer referral programs. 

The thing is people trust recommendations from people they know and you can benefit from that by offering your existing customers a special benefit or reward from purchases made by their friends. 

This will be a win-win-win situation: you will get new customers and increase loyalty from existing ones and they will get a discount from products they like. 

To sum up…

By combining these tactics and tailoring them to your own business, you can drive traffic to your e-commerce website whether you are a small or big company. Don’t get overwhelmed trying to apply all techniques and once, it is best that you start slowly but with a good plan and scale it accordingly to your needs and requirements. 

Remember that, with most of these tactics, patience and consistency are key to success!

Make sure you also read:

• 7 Tips to Increase Web Push Notifications Click Through Rate
• Web Push Notifications Campaigns VS. Retargeting Ads Campaigns
• Guide: How to use Push Notifications for Online Stores

Web push notifications are the new channel every site is eager to use. From retailers online stores, private shopping, travel agencies and real estate, they have proven to be the most efficient way to stay in touch and communicate with customers. 

However, with its rising popularity it’s getting harder for brands to really stand out and deliver notifications that truly connect and engage subscribers. Even though web push notifications have very good opt-in rates compared to other channels (around 16,7%  overall acceptance), the truth is that many users don’t click on them upon delivery.

Given the fact that users receive between 33 to 85 notifications per day, we can’t stress enough the importance of creating excellent notifications to cut through the noise and get that subscriber to click on it. 

With web push notifications is not about using them just for the fun of it: brands need to optimize them in order to provide users with a great experience and get actual good results. So, this time we are going to focus on:

7 Tips to Increase Web Push Notifications Click-through Rates

1. Segment users based on their interests

The more relevant the message, the more likely users are to click on it, and targeting based on their previous behaviour is the best way to increase relevance.

Regardless of the type of online store you have, most certainly you have different categories and a range of products for different users with varied tastes. Not everyone is into the same things, which means that every sale, special offer or promotion you carry out is not going to be interesting for all of your subscribers.

For example, let’s say you have a sports e-commerce site and there’s a big soccer game between Spain and Italy coming up and you want to launch a special sale on both teams’ apparel. Instead of sending a manual web push notification campaign to ALL of your subscribers, use the segmentation feature and send it only to those that have visited or clicked on Spain or Italy soccer products.

Chances are that, if you send a notification like this to all your subscribers base, CTR is going to be very low considering that users from a sports site can be interested in many very different things, like yoga, running or tennis and only a few in something as specific as a soccer game between Spain and Italy. 

In scenarios like this one, segmentation can make a huge difference in the performance of your campaigns and conversion rates. 

2. Include an image

People are very visual. Including an image related to the product you are making reference to in the notification will increase the chances of users clicking on it when they automatically see the article they were interested in.

Push notifications that include an image have a 20% higher click through rate compared to those without one. There are a couple of things you should keep in mind when adding images to your web push notifications:

a) Depending on the browser and operating system, the image will be displayed differently. Notifications on Windows and Android devices will always show the image, while notifications on MacOS won’t include one. Some of Fribiz clients have opted for the alternative to include the product image in the place where the brands’ logo will normally appear. This way they guarantee that the product image is always visible regardless of the operating system.

b) A 1.5 : 1 width-height ratio is ideal for images. If you use other sizes it will be cropped and won’t be displayed optimally. Sometimes it happens that the product image from the web has a different ratio and it doesn’t display properly in the notification.

3. Use emojis

Frizbit offers its clients ready to use templates for their automated web push notifications campaigns. These templates include two versions so clients can implement A/B testing if they wish to. 

Version A is plain text, while version B includes emojis customised to fit the brand’s industry. In cases where clients run A/B tests to try out which option performs the best, B version with emojis always wins the race.

Web push notifications that include emojis have a click through rate 15% higher than those with just text. Of course, you should be careful and thoughtful about which emojis you are going to add and make sure they are pertinent with the subject of your notification. 

Using emojis is a very easy way to give your messages a little something extra to help them stand out, catch the users’ attention and increase CTRs. 

 4. Activate the Require Interaction feature for your notifications

By default web push notifications are shown to users for only 10 seconds, and then they disappear. What if the user is super concentrated on a task and doesn’t even notice the notification before it goes away? Or maybe they left the browser open and moved away from the computer. Or in some cases, there’s not even enough time to read the message before it disappears.

Taking this into account, the best option is to make sure the notification sticks until the user sees it and decides to click on it, or to close it. This is the best way to guarantee that they will see the notification when it’s delivered. 

Frizbit offers this feature that ensures a higher click through rate on your notifications. 

5. Send automated behaviour-triggered notifications

A triggered notification is sent to users as a response to a specific individual action they completed on the website. For example when a user adds a product to his cart and then leaves the site without completing a purchase, you can set up a notification that gets triggered by this action and delivered to the user after a certain period of time. 

You can set up as many scenarios to trigger notifications as you wish. At Frizbit we recommend 4 different ones that cover the entire shopping journey for a traditional e-commerce site: 

• Subscription
• Category Retargeting
• Product Retargeting
• Cart Abandonment

Depending on the industry and type of products you sell, you can also include:

• Post Purchase
• Monthly Reminders

Because these triggered notifications are completely based on individual behaviour, they are extremely relevant for the user that receives it. They contain information of interest for them which highly increases click through rate. 

6. Create urgency

Appealing to a sense of urgency is no new trick, but it works. One of the easiest strategies to increase any campaign click through rate is to tell users that they have to act “right now” or they will miss out on something really good.

The way to do it with web push notifications is by making use of the Title, Description and CTA to add text that emphasizes the fact that the offer is available for limited time or limited stock. You can use words like: now, last minutes, few units or hurry.

You can also include emojis that appeal to that sense of urgency and also make the notifications more visually attractive. 

7. Perform A/B Testing

After some time when you start getting data on the performance of your campaigns, you can go ahead and introduce A/B testing and test different variables through time until you get the perfect combination that works the best for your business and offers your customers the best experience possible.

Frizbit’s A/B testing features allows you to try different versions of the same notification and change as many parameters as you wish. You can also segment the audience and send each version to specific percentages.

Doing this will eliminate the guesswork about what type of messages perform the best thanks to the data collected during the time you run the test. Ultimately you will know your audience a lot better and be able to adapt and design messages that truly connect with them. 

Other factors that affect web push notifications click through rates

Even though there are many things that can be directly done to optimize campaigns, there also are a lot of external factors that can affect web push notifications performance like:

• Type of industry
• Incentives offered
• Customer’s relationship with the brand

These are all tips on how to increase web push notifications click through rates but the best advice we can give you is to always test your ideas. Start out with what you think is best and try it out. 

If you want to learn more about web push notifications:

• Web Push Notifications for the Travel Industry
• Private Shopping Sites: Web Push Notifications Strategies
• Real Estate Marketing: Boost your Business with Web Push Notifications

Web push notifications are the new retargeting channel any website can benefit from. Maybe you are used to communicating with your customer via emails, social media or even by phone, but have you been introduced to the power of direct, hyper-personalised messaging via web push notifications? Keep reading and let us tell you

Why and how can the travel industry benefit from web push notifications

Web push notifications allow websites to communicate with visitors using behaviour-based messages without requiring any type of personal data, even when they have left the site. Users that visit just need to accept (or opt-in) to become subscribers and start receiving notifications on their browsers or their mobile devices. 

The combination of all these characteristics make web push notifications the best channel to reach subscribers and encourage them to return to the website and complete an action, whether fill out a form or complete a hotel or flight booking. 

Everyone knows that planning a trip can be a bit stressful. There are way too many options regarding airlines, flight schedules and all bookings processes. It takes people a lot of time, research and comparison before making a decision and here’s where web push notifications come in handy for the travel industry. 

This channel has the power to make the entire process a lot easier for people planning a trip and for travel companies to increase customer engagement, satisfaction and boost revenue. 

By using a web push notifications platform that allows automation, the use of dynamic parameters and hyper-personalisation, any website from the travel industry can greatly benefit from this channel.

Let’s dive into how to boost your travel site marketing strategy with web push notifications

• Recover lost reservations

By using automated sequences of web push notifications, you can create campaigns that are triggered by user behaviour on your site. This means that when users search for a trip destination, accommodation or a specific tour booking but leave the site without completing it, a message will be delivered encouraging them to come back and finish the booking.

Thanks to dynamic parameters and behavioral recognition, this strategy is great to connect with users with highly relevant information. The notification sent can include details such as name of the destination, price, airline, hotel name, specifics about accommodation and pretty much anything you wish that’s available from your site. As a result of receiving such detailed and personalised information, customers are more likely to engage with the notification, resulting in higher CTRs and conversion rates. 

With this type of notifications, customers will land directly on the booking page, as if it was an abandoned cart from an e-commerce site, making it even easier to push them down the final stage of the marketing funnel. 

• Itinerary updates and changes

Remember that customers today want personalised experiences and catered services. If you can offer them that, you will be steps ahead of your competitors and one way to do so is to maintain a flow of communication with relevant information.

If there are changes on your customer’s travel itinerary you need to use all communication channels available to get that message across, making sure it reaches its destination on time. Web push notifications are the best way to do so.

Email might be the most common channel to communicate with customers, however it is not the fastest or most effective one. Web push notifications can reach them on both mobile and desktop even if they are not visiting your site and they will be grateful that you sent them urgent information.

You can send these types of notifications by using the segmentation feature of the platform. There you can choose exactly which subscribers you want to communicate changes and updates about specific destinations or bookings. 

This strategy is very useful during this pandemic times in which every country constantly changes the entry requirements (PCR tests, vaccines certificates). If a certain destination updated the type of document travelers need to enter, you can send them a web push notification informing them about the changes so they can be prepared. 

• Advertise travel deals, sales and special offers

We’ve been talking about automated web push notifications as a great strategy to stay in touch with customers. But there also are manual or bulk web push notifications. These types of campaigns are sent to all subscribers’ databases since they are not behavioural-triggered.

Manual web push notifications are great to communicate special deals, offers or promotions that are time sensitive or limited. If you have a special offer coming up with discounted flights, accommodation or tours, you can send a bulk notification to let customers know about it! This is a great strategy to generate lots of traffic very quickly.

If you want to be more specific, you can also use segmentation here and target users based on their interests. For example, if you are having a sale on Mediterranean Cruises, you might want to send a notification to users that previously searched for cruise vacations to alert them about the sale. 

It’s a wonderful strategy for users that still are at the first stages of the funnel and still haven’t decided on a specific destination or made any reservation intent. This will not only help you get more bookings, it will help customers benefit from discounted travel plans and they will certainly appreciate it.  

• Travel plan reminders

Traveling involves a lot of important information. Once a user has already made a reservation, you can use web push notifications to remind them of their travel details, like flight departures, delays or hotel check-in hours.

These are the types of messages that users appreciate and value the most. Web push notifications have the great quality of immediacy, so you can rely on them to guarantee important information gets delivered. 

By applying these strategies, you enhance user experience. They will feel the process was smooth and safe and will increase the chances of them repeating and booking their next trip with you. 

• Price drops

You can send and schedule manual web push notifications to alert users about price drops. If a user was browsing your site looking for interesting traveling plans and leaves without completing a booking, a great strategy to bring them back is to communicate price drops on destinations they expressed interest in.

Maybe a great hotel announced an offer, or a flight is selling the last seat at a discounted price. Let users interested know about these great deals and leverage that information to close the deal. 

When sending manual notifications about price drops, always remember to include a call to action button with a sense of urgency. Tell users that the offer is for limited time only, or that there are only a few seats left with the special price. 

Web push notifications for all the travel industry are a must!

The travel industry is a universe within itself. There are tons of agencies, airlines, accommodation finders sites, car rentals and more that a user can browse when planning a trip and all of them can benefit from the inclusion of this channel in their marketing strategy.

Web push notifications can help travel websites connect with users by offering a better user experience with hyper-personalisation. If you have been relying on traditional emails to communicate with your customers, you are definitely missing out. 

You can check out Frizbit’s success story with Corendon Airlines as a great example on how to boost your travel website with web push notifications. 

And if you want learn even more about this amazing channel, make sure you read:

• Real Estate Marketing: Boost your Business with Web Push Notifications
• Guide: How to use Push Notifications for Online Stores
• Social Media Retargeting VS. Web Push Notifications Retargeting

Digital marketing never sleeps and neither do marketing professionals when it comes to keeping up with trends, news and updates. Between coming up with new and innovative ways to catch people’s attention and not missing any news from Google, finding time to shut an eye might seem impossible. 

So here we are, gathering and sharing with you the most important:

Digital Marketing News, Updates and Insights from June 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

• Google delays third-party cookie phaseout one more year

In a recent blog post, Google updated us about their progress on their intention to eliminate third-party cookies. They announced that, even with the considerable progress they’ve had with Project Sandbox, more time is required to get things right. 

The aim of this project is to protect people’s privacy online, while still offering companies the tools they need to do digital business. Google believes that the online community needs “to come together to develop a set of open standards to fundamentally enhance privacy on the web, giving people more transparency and greater control over how their data is used.”

To achieve this, they feel the need to move at a slower pace to be more responsible. Google wants that boths users and publishers are protected, by making sure that cookies are not replaced with any sort of individual tracking or fingerprinting, and that advertisers have enough time to migrate their service and preserve their business models. 

We must take time to evaluate the new technologies, gather feedback and iterate to ensure they meet our goals for both privacy and performance, and give all developers time to follow the best path for privacy. – Google Blog

They stated that key technologies will be deployed for Chrome late 2022 and start phasing-out third party cookies by mid 2023 ending late 2023. 

• Google ads new feature that helps businesses display their information

Google is constantly updating and creating new tools to help businesses show more accurate and detailed information in Search and Maps so owners can easily connect with potential customers.

You can add details, such as contact information and opening hours, and create Posts to share updates, like special offers or new offerings, right from Google Search. Starting next week, you’ll also be able to create Posts about upcoming events including when and where they’re happening. Google Blog

New features allow businesses to change and share information directly from Search and Maps. They include:

• Easily show your services: businesses can now use the Edit Profile menu on Search to display their services. It’s even possible to show specialties if you offer personal care services, for example. For restaurant owners that work with Reserve Google, they can enable online bookings through their Business Profile.

• Accept takeout and delivery orders: Google reported a 230% increase in food ordering since last year. To adapt to this demand, Order with Google allows businesses to accept takeout and delivery orders through their Business Profile. Restaurants can also update their menus directly on Search and Maps.

• Automatically update your inventory: Google Searches for “who has” + “in stock” have grown by more than 8,000% year over year, which shows that shoppers are searching for products online before they head to the stores. As a response to this, eligible retailers in the U.S will be able to “get all their in-store product inventory automatically added to their Business Profile by signing up for Pointy from Google right from Google Search”. With this tool you can scan your products and they are automatically added to your Business Profile.

• Brave search engine launches public beta

Creators of Brave, the browser that puts user’s privacy first, have launched Brave Search Engine in a global public beta. They have announced it as a “real alternative to Google” that’s private, transparent and doesn’t surveille users.

Brave’s search engine works completely independently from Google, it uses its own independent index of the web. It’s available for desktop and mobile devices in any browser at search.brave.com. 

This search engine doesn’t collect user data which makes it impossible to sell, share or lose. They also claim to offer real transparency by not using any type of “secret algorithms” to show search results: We rely on anonymous community contributions to refine results, and community-created alternative ranking models to ensure diversity. 

The engine was developed by the former Cliqz Team as the company announced back in March of this year. 

2. Marketing Tech Updates

• Google Integrates with WooCommerce for easy Product Uploads

WooCommerce has launched an extension that allows sellers to upload their products to Google for free. This means that online retailers will have the opportunity to get discovered by more shoppers through Search, Shopping, Images, and YouTube.

By connecting a WooCommerce store with Google Merchant Center, all products and their information will be listed on  search results on Google. All the product’s details will be automatically updated when any changes are made on WooCommerce. 

It’s completely free to list products in the Google Shopping tab, and retailers also have the option to pay for ads if they wish to have more visibility. 

Through the new Google extensions, sellers have total control of their products listing, performance and analytics without needing to leave the dashboard and the opportunity to reach more users without extra work. You can get the extension here!

• Google Announces New Ads Creative Studio

With the intention of offering designers, agencies and brands better ways to work and create ads, Google has announced the launch of Ads Creative Studio. A platform to unify all of Google’s creative advertising tools. 

The objective is to help creative teams increase productivity and to simplify the process of designing compelling ads. Google says on their blog that “Ads Creative Studio will bring together a number of creative tools previously found across products like YouTube, Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360. “

Ads Creative Studio features include:

• Director Mix: this feature allows to create different versions of a YouTube video for different audiences with swappable elements.

• Dynamic display and HTML5 tools: they allow you to generate customized and interactive creatives for Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360.

• Audio Mixer: that allows you to create tailored audio ads for Display & Video 360.

• Shopify rolls out Product Updates for Shopify Developers

This month Shopify announced a series of updates for developers:

• Subscriptions support for PayPal Express: the launch of this feature represents the first additional payment gateway support after Shopify Payments with the hopes of offering support to more sellers around the world. 

• Partner-initiated app refunds: before this update, partners had to contact Shopify Support to issue refunds. Now, they can handle them directly through the Partner Dashboard.

• VAT changes for ecommerce purchases made within the EU: in order to help merchants comply with changes made to tax regulations for ecommerce purchases made within the EU, Shopify is adding new options to the tax settings. 

3. Social Media Marketing Updates

• Twitter is adding Subscribe Button to profiles for Newsletter Signups

In January 2021 we shared the news about Twitter acquiring newsletter platform Revue to help content creators share and monetize their work. As it was to be expected now Twitter is adding a new Subscribe button to profiles so people can sign up to newsletters. 

The button will appear on the user’s profile next to the mutual followers section. When signing up, the subscriber will receive a message letting them know that their email address will be sent to the newsletter owner and have the chance to take a sneak peek at the content before finally agreeing to sign up. 

This new feature will be available to all users that have a Revue account. 

• Instagram Announces New Features for Creators to Make Money

Instagram has become a business platform for a lot of people. With this in mind, they have announced the launch of three major new features to help content creators make money: Creator Shops, affiliate commerce, and a “branded content marketplace.

• Creators Shop: creators shop is designed for those who want to sell products using their personal profiles. It can be done in two ways:

• Existing products can be linked to both personal and business accounts
• New shops can be set up through the Instagram app linking their account to one of Instagram’s merchandise partners: Bravado/UMG, Fanjoy, Represent, and Spring. This feature will be available for creators in the US at the end of the year.

• Affiliate Commerce: this program aims to help creators gain a commission payment within the app when they generate a sale for a brand through a post in their accounts. It will feature a label indicating users that they will support the creator with their purchase.

• Branded Content Marketplace: this feature is designed to help brands connect with content creators and influencers that match and align their work. Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri said “We should be able to help brands find creators that are uniquely aligned with the work they’re trying to do and vice versa. If we can help with matchmaking, we can help drive more dollars to the smaller creators who can do amazing work for brands.” 

• Facebook Launches 4 New E-commerce Features 

Facebook is introducing new features to help online shops reach more people, get their products discovered and increase sales:

• Facebook Shops in More Places: online shops can now choose Marketplace as an additional channel to Shop tabs on Instagram and Facebook to sell their products. 

• Customer reviews: customer ratings will be expanded to products in Shops on Instagram with photos and videos from the community.

• Personalized shop ads: Facebook is launching new ads to personalize customer’s shopping experience and send them to curated collections based on their shopping history where they are most likely to make a purchase. 

• Expanded Access to AR Try-On Feature: Facebook is developing APIs to help more brands have access to augmented reality features that bring the “in-shop” experience to users online. They are also adding AR to some types of ads to encourage people to try on suggested products. 

Which digital marketing news from June 2021 surprised or interested you the most?

Make sure to also read: 

• How can Marketing Automation Help you Sell More
• Hyper-Personalization: What is it and How it Differs from Personalization
• 6 Multi-Channel Marketing Strategies for B2B

Marketing Automation is the answer to marketers’ pleas for a method that efficiently allows continuous business growth without additional workload or the need to allocate extra resources. 

All businesses, whether big or small, are constantly trying to increase productivity and improve processes. With the surge of so many new platforms and channels, it is very difficult to reach target audiences at the right time with the right message to cause an impact that leads them to conversion.

Leaving aside these external factors, in many cases the business own growth can become a problem. Let’s say your business has scaled a lot very quickly and you are receiving an overwhelming amount of queries daily but you haven’t optimized your processes. This causes you to neglect a lot of messages and leave hundreds of customers hanging without ever getting a reply. 

What does this say about you and your business?

It doesn’t look good and all of those customers are surely going to go for the business that did reply to them in a timely manner, even if your solution or product is much better than your competitors. 

So, what’s the answer to this issue? How can you ensure your business grows while maintaining excellent customer experience with the same resources and less time? The answer is marketing automation. 

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is the improvement of processes through software that automatically performs certain tasks normally done by people. This can include social media management, email marketing, lead generation, marketing campaigns and more. 

Through marketing automation businesses can respond better to both potential and current customers providing them a better user experience with personalized treatment that leads to a long-term relationship. 

There are different types of Marketing Automation you can apply to your business:

• Customer relationship management automation software (CRM)

This makes reference to CRM platforms that allow businesses to automate and manage all communications between them and their customers. Companies that have a very high number of clients need to work with CRMs as effective tools to manage their data. Otherwise, as the company keeps growing, it will be much and much harder to keep track of all queries and offer personalized and proper support to all clients. 

With CRMs businesses can make sure they don’t miss any message from customers, maintain a communication flow and answer any query on time, regardless of the amount of clients they have. Workflows are also optimized since every team member can access the CRM and get all the information needed from one place without having to ask or wait for another person to help. 

• Marketing campaigns automation

Digital marketing automation platforms allow businesses to automate messages they send to their subscribers. These messages are usually triggered by events defined on site that, once completed, activate a sequence to be delivered in specific time to the users that completed the action. 

This technology tracks user behaviour in order to automatically send personalized messages depending on the actions they took while browsing. It can be applied to email marketing, SMS marketing and web push notifications campaigns. 

Platforms that offer marketing campaign automation, like Frizbit, usually allow you to personalize the message so you don’t feel you are sacrificing automation for quality. With the use of dynamic parameters you can hyper personalize the content to fit each individual.

• Workflow automation

This might be the most common type of automation we are all familiar with. Workflow automation includes all softwares that allow you to manage other platforms and channels, such as social media. 

Later is a great example of a workflow automation tool. Is a social media marketing management platform that allows you to create, design, schedule, post and analyze your social media content all in one place. 

Benefits of Marketing Automation

When done properly, marketing automation can have a huge positive impact on any business:

• Increased efficiency: automation of certain tasks can help you and your team dedicate more time to issues and projects that are more deserving of your attention. For example, instead of manually posting on every social media channel you have, you can automate this task and let your team focus more on creativity and content production. 

• Better user experience: automation platforms usually gather user data that allows you to offer them a more personalized customer experience.The more relevant the message is, the higher the chances of an interaction and conversion. Keep in mind that these days, users are demanding more personalized experiences and will engage more with brands that offer them what they are looking for.

• More qualified leads: marketing automation helps marketers reduce the guesswork when it comes to approaching prospects. If a business uses an automation platform to send messages to leads, and to promote said content on other platforms, sales and marketing teams can work hand in hand to analyze results and optimize the automated sequences of messages to connect with the right prospects at the right time.

• Higher conversion rates: a personalized experience and better quality leads translates into higher conversions rates. Automation allows you to reach users that are more likely to engage with your business with messages that resonate better with them, increasing the chances of interaction. 

According to Adestra’s Marketer vs. Machine report, “Marketers say the biggest benefits of automation are saving time (74%), increased customer engagement (68%), more timely communications (58%), and increased opportunities, including up-selling (58%).”

Marketing Automation is a Win for Everyone

The thing about marketing automation is that everyone wins: you, your team and your customers. You will save time and money, improve the inner workings of your business, your team will have more time to dedicate to more important projects and tasks and your customers will be receiving a much more personalized experience, and that’s exactly what they are looking for. 

You just have to do your homework and decide in which areas of your business you want to start implementing which type of automation. Remember that, even if it sounds like a big and fancy word, automation doesn’t have to be expensive or mean a huge investment for your business.

Marketing automation is available and accessible for companies of all sizes. It’s even safe to say that small and new businesses can benefit even more from it, since automation is equal to doing more with less. 

If you are interested in learning more about what marketing automation can do for your business, check out Frizbit’s Success Stories section and see the results of our clients since implementing our marketing automation platforms. 

Check out!

• Hyper-Personalization: What is it and How it Differs from Personalization
• How to Conduct Successful A/B Testing: Go from Beginner to Pro
• Troubleshooting Web Push Notifications: Why I’m I not Getting Notifications

Hyper-personalization has the power to take any business to the next level. It might sound a bit clichè to say that we are currently living in a world with excess information and constant stimulation, but it is the truth. How many notifications, emails, messages and ads have you seen today? Think about it. 

How many of those do you remember the best? Probably the ones you felt were personally addressed to you. The ones that showed you or mentioned something you have been thinking and searching for. 

Customised experiences win the battle when it comes to catching people’s attention in highly competitive environments, like the Internet. That’s why businesses started using personalization techniques to increase the chances of their messages standing out with the hopes of making themselves relevant and memorable. 

However, times keep changing and it turns out that plain personalisation is not enough anymore. Adding the customer’s name on the subject line of an email campaign has always been a nice practice but it doesn’t cut it anymore. The time for hyper-personalization is here. 

What is the difference between Hyper-personalization and Personalization?

Personalised Web Push Notification

Hyper-personalized web push notification

Personalization uses basic customer provided data such as user name, gender or location to tailor messages that speak directly to a user as an individual. Hyper-personalization goes much further and includes user’s browsing behavioural information to address specific needs and desires to deliver highly relevant messages. 

This practice can be applied to almost every digital marketing channel:

• Emails: all types of emails can be highly customised  with very specific user information inviting them to come back to the site and complete an action based on their individual behaviour.

• SMS: the same goes for SMS marketing, with the added value of the immediacy of the channel.

• Web push notifications: web push notifications by Frizbit can retarget users through every step of the funnel with hyper-personalized messages that make the content extremely relevant. 

• Websites: hyper-personalization can even be used on websites. For example, imagine you go on an e-commerce clothing site and search for women’s accessories. Through hyper-personalization, the next time you go to that same site, you will get women’s accessories shown to you by default over the rest of the items. One of the most perfect examples out there is Amazon, the most customer centered shopping site.

• Retargeting ads: thanks to this practice, when you visit a site you will then get ads that specifically show you the product you expressed interest in. 

• Apps: this might be the most relatable example of hyper-personalization. Apps like Netflix or Spotify user AI to learn from your behaviour and suggest similar choices that you might also like. 

What is personalization?

Traditional personalization in digital marketing makes reference to the use of customers’ personal information to increase the relevance of promotional communications suchs as ads or emails. 

The most common data used for personalization are the customer’s name, purchasing history or general demographic details. This is the typical information you see on commercial emails that greet you by your name and recommend products based on your last purchase, for example. 

The objective of personalization is to create tailor made messages that increase the relevance of the content in order to connect with users on a deeper level.

All these years later experience has proven how important it is to offer users a personalized experience in order to engage and truly connect. That’s why, as everything, personalization has evolved throughout the years and now we begin talking about hyper-personalization.

What is Hyper-Personalization?

Hyper-personalization is the customisation of digital content based on individual behaviour. It is personalization taken to the next level by going further than collecting data provided by users, such as name and email address. Hyper-personalization may even use artificial intelligence to gather information about what consumers want and need to offer highly relevant content. 

In an interview back in 2000, Jess Bezos said: “Personalization is when you go into a bar and sit down, and the bartender puts a whiskey in front of you without having to ask what you want”

Data used for hyper-personalization goes from time of day, location, page views and specific details about products browsed, such as name, price, category and brand. By using this technology it is even possible to craft messages that adjust to the stage of the marketing funnel the user currently is. 

Beyond offering a better user experience, the objective of hyper-personalization is to enhance the relevance of the content to increase interaction and, ultimately, conversions. By gathering real-time behavioral data, brands can design custom-made marketing campaigns for each individual. 

How to achieve Hyper-Personalization

If you still haven’t entered the world of hyper-personalization, it’s time to take the step. We will share some insights on how to achieve it and start creating extremely customised digital marketing campaigns to connect, engage and efficiently convert.

• Data is everything: it is not enough to say that data is the center of everything when it comes to crafting hyper-personalized content. The information you gather from users is what is going to determine the quality of your campaigns. Basically, the more detailed data you collect, the more you can hyper-personalise the messages you send your users. 

• Use automation: collecting, organizing, interpreting and using behavioral data for each individual manually is just not possible. What you need to do is use an automation platform that automatically gathers data. Platforms like Frizbit collect all behavioural data points available so you only have to set up your multi channel marketing campaigns once. Combining this and the use of dynamic parameters you will be able to send hyper-personalized messages that deliver highly relevant content.  

• Multi-channel communication: by combining different channels with hyper-personalization, you will take your marketing strategy to a whole new level. Use a mix of web push notifications, emails and SMS to connect with customers with the most useful information through the channel of their choice. 

Benefits of Hyper-Personalization

By now you should be sold on the benefits of hyper-personalization and understand why it is so important for digital marketing strategies nowadays. However, we do have some key points we want to highlight:

• Highly improve customer experience

People online are saturated with information. Social media ads, display ads, videos, posts, emails and hundreds of other messages every day. Users are eager for personalized treatment and content that speaks directly to them. By using hyper-personalization to design the messages you send, you’re giving them what they want. It’s a win-win situation in which, both you and your customers, benefit: they feel catered and are more likely to engage with your brand, leading to the ultimate goal of conversion.

• Communicate at the right time

Hyper-personalization allows you to get useful insights about the times users are most active and most likely to engage with your content. Frizbit allows you to schedule campaigns to a specific time and day, configure recurring campaigns that are delivered periodically and triggered messages with custom timings, so that you can reach users at the time they are most likely to be online. 

• Reduce the gap between you and your customers creating long-term relationships

When you make the effort of catering to individual specific wants and needs, it shows. Your customers will notice it and start feeling more interested and inclined to engage with your content even in the long-term. Remember that more and more each day, people are expecting and demanding customised content and tailored experiences. 

Hyper-Personalization is not the future, is the present

Any digital business should understand by now how extremely important it is to offer customers a highly personalized experience in order to tilt the balance to their favor and reach their business goals. 

Whether talking about email marketing, web push notifications, sms or retargeting ads, hyper-personalization is the single factor that can make a real difference in the performance of your digital marketing campaigns. 

“A total of 86% of marketing professionals consider the effectiveness of an AI-powered hyper-personalization strategy to be changing for the better.” Source

So, if you haven’t tried it yet, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with Frizbit and see the results for yourself. 

You might find interesting:

• How to Conduct Successful A/B Testing: Go from Beginner to Pro
• Web Push Notifications: A Complete Guide for all Levels
• Social Media Retargeting VS. Web Push Notifications Retargeting

When planning  B2B marketing strategies, it’s common to primarily think of outbound and direct marketing techniques. Straightforward messages, cold calls and connection requests to prospects you might have identified through a thorough selection process are very common strategies. There are many available channels you should consider:

• Email
• SMS
• Web push notifications
• Ads
• Social media

In this approach it’s very important to be as persuasive and compelling as possible with the first message in order to cause a good impression and awaken the prospect’s interest. Strategies like these have been used in B2B marketing since forever and still give good results when applied properly.

However, with the appearance of new technologies, the expansion of the internet and growing competition, prospective clients are more invested into evaluating their options. If you did manage to catch their attention with the first contact through cold email or phone call, they for sure are going to conduct their own search to find out more about you before continuing with the conversation. 

That’s why it’s so important for companies to broaden their B2B marketing strategies and take full advantage of what new technologies and variety of channels have to offer. Creating a multi channel marketing strategy that covers all fronts and answers all the questions you prospects might have about your product or service is key to stay ahead in the game. 

But before getting into the specific channels you can include in your B2B marketing strategy, let’s talk about the angular stone that supports it: content marketing. 

Content marketing is your friend

If you’ve been working in digital marketing for some time now, you surely have heard a lot about content marketing and its value for attracting customers. It has become so popular in the past few years because it’s a much friendlier way to connect with potential customers than advertising or any other outbound marketing technique. Content marketing is the angular stone in which your multi-channel strategy will base. 

By presenting good quality content that offers relevant information and adds value appealing to the target audience needs and interests, content marketing has become the center of many digital marketing strategies for B2C. Nowadays, it’s the same for B2B. 

The main difference between one and the other is the objective. While in B2C the focus is centered on branding and engaging with users, in B2B the objective is to generate leads. Having this in mind, you should create a content strategy that focuses on analysis, data and information that answers the main pain point of your target audience and helps tilt the balance to your favor.

B2B audience is more rational, takes more time to weigh different alternatives and digs in deeper before making a decision. The content you create must center on covering all flanks and easily display all the information prospects might need to choose you. Here are a few examples:

• Blog posts centered around what and how your product or service works
• Whitepapers
• Case studies
• Success stories
• Client testimonials
• Video demos
• FAQs page on your website

Keep in mind a couple of things when planning your content marketing strategy, whether for written or audiovisual channels. 

a) Center all of your content around your solution and what would the customer gain if they choose you over your competitors. Use keywords to make sure prospects can find you when they search for similar products or services online: you want to be present. 

b) Consistency is key. It’s important for you to publish and share content consistently throughout time. Create a calendar and keep to it but always making sure you don’t sacrifice quality over quantity. Create a rhythm that suits you.

6 Multi-channel Marketing Strategies for B2B 

1. Email marketing for B2B

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools. It has been for a long time and it seems it will continue to be so especially when it comes to B2B. According to HubSpot, “from a study of 1,000 small business owners, email marketing was ranked as the second most effective medium for building brand awareness”.

To create a killer email marketing campaign go for automation. By establishing different scenarios that fit your own funnel, you can create automated emails sequences: they differ from regular email because they are automated and triggered by user behaviour. 

They are sent, for example, when prospects visit a landing page and download a case study. After a few days, they’ll receive an automated email, triggered by their actions, offering to schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss in detail about your solution and what it can do for them. You can create as many sequences as you see fit with hyper-personalisation of the message.

The best part about email marketing automation is that you can maintain an ongoing communication with your prospects through their journey and focus on lead nurturing. This will help you make your campaigns much more effective. 

2. SMS Marketing for B2B

SMS is a key channel in any digital marketing strategy for B2B. However, its potential is often overlooked and forgotten as, many times, it’s considered only valid for B2C marketing. But keep in mind that people use their phones when they’re working, scheduling meetings or looking for information.

According to a study conducted by The Boston Consulting, up to 70% of B2B searches are done on mobile devices. This makes it essential for businesses to be present and reach their prospects where they are: their phones. 

The same as for email marketing, you can use automated SMS sequences to schedule meetings, events, reminders or new information that connects you with your prospects by adding value and helping them make a decision. 

A few benefits of SMS marketing:

• Phenomenal open rates: 98% open rate
• Direct communication: 90% of the messages being read within the first 3 minutes after receiving the SMS
• Convenience: they´re short and display the information very clearly
• Reachability: no need for customers to download an app or install any type of software. 

3. Web Push Notifications for B2B

Web push notifications are the newest retargeting channel B2B can benefit from. They allow businesses to send hyper-personalised messages to prospective customers with useful and relevant information that helps them move down the sales funnel.

There are two types of web push notifications:

• Automated campaigns: define scenarios on your website or landing page and re-engage visitors inviting them to come back and learn more about your solution with messages based on their actions and behaviours. 

• Manual campaigns: send notifications regarding new case studies you release and news and updates about your business that adds value to your solution as a valid option to all of your subscribers.

The most attractive feature about web push notifications is that they don’t require visitors to share any type of personal information like their phone number or email address. They just have to click on “Allow” when the opt-in prompt appears to become a subscriber and keep up to date with any update. 

B2B marketing strategies can find a great ally in web push notifications. This channel allows them to engage with prospects and turn them into leads by bringing them back to the website with relevant information.

4. Landing Pages for B2B

Source

Landing pages are the number one channel of B2B marketing to get new leads. They’re usually the core of the strategy and creating one that works and effectively converts, can be quite a challenge. But if you’re planning your next strategy, a landing page must be part of it, so here are a few tips on how to make it the best it can be:

• Define your buyer persona: before taking any other step you need to know exactly who you are talking to and with what purpose. What do they need and want to know about your solution? What language do they use? What are their ages and education level? What’s the problem they need to solve? Defining all of this, will help you create the right message focusing on what’s really important for your target audience and setting the tone of the entire landing page. 

• Choose one goal only: the best performing landing pages are the ones that have one clear objective and guide prospects towards achieving it. Define what your goal is: getting email sign ups, getting demo requests or scheduling meetings must be very clear.

• Perform A/B testing: once you have defined all of the previous points and the time comes to go live with your landing page, it’s important that you perform A/B tests. Even though you have set clear goals and know your buyer persona, the reality is that the best way to get the best results is to let people tell you what works best for them. Begin testing the CTA, then the image or copies and make adjustments that help you make the best version of your landing page. 

• Create a traffic generator strategy: you might have created the best landing page in the history of B2B marketing, but if people don’t get to it is the same as if it didn’t exist. This is the moment to combine different channels in order to drive visitors to your landing page. Use a smart combination of ads, web push, sms and email marketing.

5. Social Media for B2B

Even though social media is the favorite channel for B2C businesses, the truth is B2B can also have a spotlight here. B2B marketing on social media is the perfect way to create brand awareness and generate connections within the community. Especially if you center your efforts on the right platform that suits you.

LinkedIn for example, was designed with the sole purpose of generating connections between professionals around the world. However, there can be a place for any business on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and new platforms like Clubhouse if they align their objectives with the type of content that prevails on each social media channel. 

You can use Instagram to share information capsules with graphic proposals that adapt to the media and also offer value to the customers. There’s the option to even do interviews, share webinar sessions through IGTV and save the content to be accessible in the future. 

With the appearance of audio-only platform Clubhouse new business opportunities are surfacing by opinion leaders creating rooms to share their vision and discuss with other professionals. 

The doors are open for any business to have a strong social media presence that brings them closer to their target audience by using a more human approach, lots of creativity and creating amazing brand awareness. 

6. Ads for B2B

No multi-channel marketing strategy would be complete without the use of ads. Whether you go for social media advertising, search marketing display ads or retargeting ads, paid media can really help you boost your online presence.

Source

It’s one of the main channels you can use to drive traffic to your landing page, for example. Another scenario is to use retargeting ads to increase your brand awareness after prospects visit your site and keep your brand on their top of mind with recurrent appearances on other websites and social media platforms. 

Combining channels is the road to success 

A B2B multi-channel marketing strategy is the way to keep in touch with prospective customers during their entire journey. You’ll be able to reach them with different approaches through the channel chosen by them, which has a direct impact on engagement. 

The ultimate goal is to create a conversation in which you solve as many doubts as possible, share relevant and useful information and build trust through time with your customers. 

Since we got your attention, check out:

• Real Estate Marketing: Boost your Business with Web Push Notifications
• SMS Marketing: 7 Tips for a Winning Strategy
• Cart Abandonment Recovery Strategies for E-commerce – Recover Lost Sales

Time is going by so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up with all digital marketing news and updates for every month. Google always keeps us on our tiptoes with constant updates, changes and new features for all of its products, new marketing tech is being developed every day and social media is a complete universe on its own. 

But don’t despair! As every month, we are to gather and sum up for you the most relevant:

Digital Marketing News, Insights and Updates from May 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

Google previews MUM

The biggest news from Google this month is the preview of MUM. It stands for Multitask Unified Model and this new tech was showcased mid May by Google’s Prabhakar Raghavan at Google I/O. 

Since 2019 Google’s search algorithm to understand queries has been powered by BERT, an extension of Natural Language Processing. This algorithm helps searches deliver accurate results by asking questions more similar to the way we talk naturally, instead of trying to think what type of keyword or phrase will actually give us the answer we’re looking for. 

Google has now announced the preview of MUM: a new tech 1,000 times more powerful than BERT. The biggest and most important difference is that MUM can multitask to help deliver more information: it’s trained in 75 languages and it’s multimodal, meaning it can understand information across text and images. 

According to Google, they have discovered that it takes an average of eight searches for users to get the information they want and complete a complex task. With the development of MUM they aim to solve this issue and help users get things done with fewer searches. Google says:

Imagine a question like: “I’ve hiked Mt. Adams and now want to hike Mt. Fuji next fall, what should I do differently to prepare?” This would stump search engines today, but in the future, MUM could understand this complex task and generate a response, pointing to highly relevant results to dive deeper. 

Google’s mission has always been to make information more accessible to everyone. They have already started running internal pilots with MUM and says to be very excited about how this new search technology can improve Google products and user experience. 

Google’s launching new features for smart bidding

Google is rolling out new features for Smart Bidding to make marketers life much easier, better manage their bidding strategies and improve campaign performance. 

• Top signals for Target ROAS and Maximize conversion: Top signals highlight some of the dimensions in which the bid strategy is automatically optimizing the bids depending on likelihood of users converting (device type, location, day of week, time of day, keywords). They currently report for campaigns that use Target CPA and Maximize conversions, with the launch of the new features, they’ll be available for search campaigns using Target ROAS and Maximize conversion value.

• Seasonality adjustments at manager account level: Smart Bidding takes into account seasonality to improve the performance of the campaigns. However, for specific times such as big sales or product launches, the adjustments had to be made manually for each individual account. With new features Google makes it possible to set them at the manager account level. 

• Maximize conversions with recommendations: Google will be showing new opportunities to opt into maximize conversions on the Recommendations Page: “These recommendations will show for eligible Search campaigns and can help you get more conversion value within your budget.”

• Target Impression Share simulators to predict performance: up until now Simulators to help understand how target bid and budget changes could affect campaign performance, were only available for conversion and click-based bid strategies. With the roll-out of new features they are expanding to Search campaigns using Target Impression Share.

New ad formats for local campaigns on Google

At its annual Google Marketing Livestream, they announced the launch of new formats for local ads campaigns: 

• Auto suggest ads: one of the new formats is called Auto Suggest Ads, which show ads based on the user’s location. When a user searches for a product or service in Google Maps, the auto suggest will show an ad of a nearby advertiser.

• Navigational ads: these new types of ads will be shown on the user’s screen when using Google Maps driving directions. So when a user is driving towards a destination, an ad of a nearby local business will appear on the screen and the user will have the option to add the destination to the route.

• Similar destination ads: another new ad format is Similar Destination Ads. They will show when a user searches for a local business and it’s closed at the time of the search. Google will then show a similar business with the tag “Similar and Open”. 

All new three ad formats will be available for local ad campaigns globally in the second quarter of this year.

2. Marketing Tech Updates

Microsoft Advertising announces Unified Smart

Acknowledging the importance of having a strong online presence for any business and how challenging it can be to manage it successfully, Microsoft has launched Unified Smart campaigns: a unified solution to manage social media presence and search advertising. 

With Unified Smart campaigns platform you can:

• Run ads: this new solution allows you to run ads on both search engines with Microsoft Advertising and Google Ads, as well as social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. 

• Manage social media: Unified Smart allows to publish, like and reply comments on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

• Reporting: additionally to being able to manage campaigns across channels in one single place, publishers can also see reports of search and social media in one place.

• Automate and optimize with AI: you can create ads, let them run for a while and then watch how AI creates additional ones for you, optimizing your campaign results. The same way you budget will be distributed by AI across channels to help you get the best ROI. 

The most interesting thing about the new Microsoft solution is that it is free to use. There are no charges, service fees or commissions. You only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad. That’s what makes Unified Smart campaigns so interesting for new and small businesses that wish to handle their campaigns all in one platform. 

Google expands its shopping integrations

Google is always considering its users needs and is now rolling out shopping integrations with WooCommerce, GoDaddy and Square. During the Google I/O they announced that they want to help retailers and consumers connect and build lasting relationships, hence the new integrations.

This open ecosystem approach means that retailers will have even more ways to get discovered across Google, and shoppers will have even more choice.

Retailers that use any of these e-commerce platforms will now be able to show their products for free across Google. A few days earlier Google announced the Shopify integration and has now revealed the expansion to the other platforms.

The aim is to help people discover new and easier ways to shop, and to offer retailers more options to connect with their customers. Google says that “As this generational shift to e-commerce accelerates, having a digital presence is just the minimum — it’s now imperative for you as a retailer to stand out and speak directly to your customers.“

Zoom announces all-in-one events platform

The popular video conferencing platform Zoom has announced the launch of Zoom Events, an all-in-one solution for digital events. It is scheduled to be launched this summer and it will combine features from Zoom meetings, chat, and webinars.

One of the interesting features is that you will be able to produce ticketed, live events for audiences of all sizes. All the process of organizing, managing and billing the event can be done in the platform, as well as keeping track of registration and attendance. 

The possibilities Zoom Events present are endless. You can host internal and external events for companies and businesses of all sizes. Conferences, classes, product launches and pretty much anything that has a space in the virtual world. 

This initiative finds its roots thanks to the on-going growth of virtual meetings during Covid-19 pandemic times. Zoom understands that digital events have found their way into our daily lives and it’s trying to make it as easy as possible for big and small businesses to adapt to this new reality and offer customers the best experiences they can. 

 3. Social Media Marketing Updates

Snapchat launches Public Profiles for Businesses

Snapchat had already launched Public Profiles for Creators, Shows, and Snapchatters and has now opened the doors for Business with Public Profiles: “Public Profiles for Businesses has launched on Snapchat, giving brands of all sizes a free, permanent home for all of their unique Snapchat content.”

Public Profiles for businesses offer brands the opportunity to house all of their unique content in one discoverable place. Some of the most important features include:

• Native store: you can link your Shopify ecommerce store to your Snapchat profile so users can browse products and even buy through the “Shop” feature. 

• Highlights: you can permanently showcase some of your content on your profile so that new users that visit for the first time get to know your business. 

• AR lenses: you can now publish lenses to your Public Profile so that snapchatters can discover them and engage continuously with them. 

• Public stories: so you can share any type of content of what’s happening behind the scenes of your business. 

With this new feature Snapchat is looking to catch up with businesses’ needs on social media nowadays by offering tools that allow them to engage and connect with their audience. 

New messaging features for Facebook and Instagram

New features are coming to Facebook and Instagram DMs to give users the opportunity to express themselves better with additions that go from new themes to the ability to reply to messages with photos or videos.

Facebook messenger new features

• Chat archives: users can now clear their inbox without deleting chats for good. With a swift “swipe to archive” option it’s possible to keep everything tidy and then access inactive chats in the future if need be. 

• Tap to record: for all those audio-lovers out  it’s now possible to record voice notes hands-free. With just one tap is sufficient to begin recording, and one tap to finish. This feature will be available also for Instagram in the future.

• New themes: new themes to customize chat screens are now available for both Messenger and Instagram DMs.

Instagram DMs new features

• Visual replies: Instagram has made it possible for users to answer direct messages with a photo or video they can take in the moment or choose from their camera roll. At the moment this feature is only available for iOS.

• Inbox seen states: users can now see from their inbox when someone has already read their message. This was only possible before when opening the chat. 

Twitter acquires Scroll

Scroll is a subscription based service that removes ads from new sites. From some time now Twitter has been focusing on offering content creators means to grow and monetize their content on the social media platform. 

With this in mind, most recently they acquired Scroll, a platform that removes ads from new websites for a monthly fee. The service will be integrated with Twitter into a subscription service they plan to launch in the future. 

Twitter’s VP of Product said, “As a Twitter subscriber, picture getting access to premium features where you can easily read articles from your favorite news outlet or a writer’s newsletter from Revue, with a portion of your subscription going to the publishers and writers creating the content.”

It seems that Twitter aims by this new acquisition is to offer users a subscription model to access an ad-free timeline by sharing revenue with content creators. 

Digital marketing news from May 2021

There was a lot to note and learn from the digital marketing world during the month of May. It was eventful and filled with very interesting updates to keep an eye out. 

What did you find most interesting?

If you wish to read something else, check out:

• Real Estate Marketing: Boost your Business with Web Push Notifications
• How to choose the right Web Push Notification Service
• Are Cart Abandonment Emails GDPR Compliant?

The real estate industry is no stranger to unexpected and intense fluctuations. Ups and downs are very common and especially during the last year with Covid-19 pandemic causing major economic uncertainty. Stay-at-home orders and job losses are a couple of reasons why people stopped looking for new homes. 

Real Estate Marketing

Is no secret that innovation and adoption of new technologies is key to success in any business. But if there has ever been a time when this is essential, it is now for the real estate industry. A seamless digital marketing strategy that integrates the newest channels plays a big role in growing the business and catching the attention of potential clients. 

Keep in mind that 92% of buyers use the internet to begin their house hunting, according to a study from the National Association of Realtors. This means that having a strong online presence that simplifies communication between buyers and sellers can make a huge difference to the success of the business. 

Web Push Notifications for Real Estate Marketing

Web push notifications are the new retargeting without ads channel that allows sites to engage subscribers without any type of personal data through their entire customer journey. With the use of dynamic parameters it’s possible to send hyper-personalised relevant messages based on an individual’s behaviour.

In this example of a web push notification for real estate using dynamic parameters you can see:

• Image of the apartment.
• Specific details about the characteristics of the listing, such as the number of bedrooms and bathroom and size in square meters. 
• City/Area of the listing

Even though web push notifications are more common for e-commerce sites, the truth is that this is an amazing retargeting channel for any type of industry. Real estate marketing can greatly benefit from the advantages of using them:

• Generate more leads from anonymous users: web push notifications don’t require any type of personal data such as email addresses from users. They just need to click “Allow” in the opt-in prompt from the browser to become a subscriber and start receiving them. This means that, by collecting subscribers, you’re creating an additional database of users you can contact later without the need of them filling out any form or sharing their information. 

• Reach users when they’re not on your site: this channel has the power to reach subscribers when they have left the web and are browsing any other site. 

• Reach through desktop and mobile: web push notifications can reach users on both desktop and mobile without the need of installing an app. 

• Direct communication: unlike emails, when using web push notifications you can communicate with users in real time. You don’t have to wait for them to check their inboxes in order to get the message across: as soon as they open their browsers the notification will be delivered. 

Now that you know how you can benefit, let’s talk in depth about how to boost your real estate marketing strategy with web push notifications.

First things first: Identify you user’s journey and define events in your site

The success behind any digital marketing strategy is planning. Before you start designing your messages and setting up your web push notifications campaigns, you must have determined different scenarios that trigger the messages based on users’ behaviour on your site. 

In order to do this you must have a very clear understanding of your business marketing funnel. What’s the process users go through from the moment they enter your web for the first time until they reach conversion? What stages do they experience? 

The sequence of messages you create for your automated web push notifications campaign is directly tied to every action and step users take while browsing your website. That’s why it’s so important that you have complete knowledge of how the decision making process goes for your target audience and how you can engage with them in every stage. 

It could look something like this, for example:

1. Initial visit to the real estate website: user enters the site for the first time
2. Chooses a location: country, city, neighborhood
3. Selects a listing category: could be apartments, houses, offices
4. Applies a series of filters: price, size, number of bedrooms/bathrooms
5. Viewing of a specific listing page
6. Finally filling out a contact form requesting more information 

If you determine that these could be the steps users go through when browsing for a listing, you can easily determine that you need to use automated web push notifications campaigns that are triggered by each and one of these events. If a user leaves, before going to the next one, he/she will receive a notification with the objective of pushing them down the funnel. 

Create sequences of messages with automated notifications

Once you’ve defined your triggering scenarios, you can go to the next step and create a sequence of automated web push notifications for each one: homepage visited, category viewed, listing viewed, form filled out. The objective is to keep the communication flowing through a period of time that helps maintain the interest and lead to the conversion. 

With a platform like Frizbit you can define as many scenarios you want with as many sequences as you consider appropriate. A combination of 5 events with 3 sequences each, would be ideal to  show great results. You can schedule them to be delivered after the amount of time you see fit, for example: 1 day, 3 days and 7 days after the event if the user still doesn’t convert. 

In real estate it’s a great strategy to appeal to a sense of urgency that the listing is going to be taken by someone else who is also interested, and sequences of automated web push notifications are a great way to do just that. Let’s jump right into some specific examples for every scenario:

Practical use cases of web push notification for real estate: 

a) Retargeting based on City/Area  

This would be one of the first things a user would do when browsing a real estate site. After entering the web, users will choose a category to start looking for options that interest them. This category could be a location for example, a country, city or more specifically, a neighborhood.

If users browse through a listing category and then leave the site without going any further with their search, you can retarget them via web push notifications reminding them about the listings in that city or area.  A category can also include a type of listing. 

b) Retargeting based on filters

Once users decide the category they want to browse, they’ll start applying filters to get the result that meet their needs the best. Parameters such as:

• Size
• Number of bedrooms
• Number of bathrooms
• Price

All can be used to later send hyper-personalised messages via web push notifications to inform them about new listings with the same specifics. The main benefit of using these parameters is that they appeal exactly to what users searched for: they have already expressed interest in this information and will be appreciative of getting a reminder suited to their needs. 

c) Retargeting based on listing viewed

Once a user clicks on a listing and visits its page, but then leaves the site without going any further with the process, you can send a web push notification with said information encouraging the user to come back a schedule a visit.

This message can include all the details about the listing the users liked, increasing its relevance and value. 

d) Schedule a visit

This would be the equivalent of a cart abandonment recovery message from an e-commerce site. You can send a web push notification to users that visit a page listing but leave the site without filling in a form to schedule a visit. 

e) Similar Listings Recommendation

Additionally to being able to create scenarios and sequences of messages with automated web push notifications campaigns for every step of the user’s journey, you can also create campaigns with recommendations. 

Once a user has visited and showed interest in a specific listing, adding filters for every characteristic, you can use this information to create an automated campaign that sends  notifications after a period of time you decide if the user doesn’t convert.

When people are looking for a new home, they want to keep posted about new listings that they might like. Going online every single day to check all the sites for new opportunities can be very exhausting. By sending web push notifications with recommendations, you’ll save a lot of time and effort to your subscribers,they will appreciate it and you’ll generate a lot of new visits and leads.

f) Favorites reminders

When people search classified pages, they look at a lot of different options before finding the one they like. That’s why these types of pages always have a “favorite” bookmark option to save the listing in a separate category.

With automated web push notifications campaigns you can use this information to send hyper-personalised reminders to users who have added a listing to their favorites. You can send reminders encouraging them to schedule a visit as soon as possible appealing to a sense of urgency that someone else is going to take it off the market. 

Tips and strategies to improve your campaigns: 

1. Send bulk campaigns to announce new listings and price drops

Manual web push notification campaigns are sent to all the subscribers list, unlike automated ones that are delivered based on individual user behaviour and triggered by events on the site. That’s why they’re the best channel to communicate important information you don’t want anyone to miss out on. 

Bulk campaigns can be sent immediately or scheduled to a specific date and time. This feature comes in hand when you want to plan ahead and make sure you communicate any update in a timely manner, even if you’re out of the office 

Specifically for the real estate industry that’s constantly changing with new listings and price drops that subscribers surely don’t want to miss, manual web push notifications become an invaluable asset. You can send bulk campaigns every week to alert users updating them about all that’s new.

Additionally, these types of campaigns are great quick traffic generators. Even though their objective resembles a lot to the objective of newsletters, in this case you don’t need to rely on users checking their inboxes on time to learn about important and time-sensitive information. 

Massive web push notifications campaigns reach users on time and get them to go back to the website encouraging them to take action immediately. 

2. Use segmentation

If you choose the right web push notifications service provider, you’ll have the chance to use a lot of features that will help you make the best possible campaigns. One of them is segmentation. 

By segmenting users you’ll have the ability to send them super relevant information that specifically suits them, which ultimately will improve the performance of your campaigns and improve overall user experience. You can use segmentation for:

• Localization: if there’s an industry that revolves around localization is real estate. If you target users by country, city or neighborhood you can send them extremely relevant information about new listings in their area as soon as they become available. 

• Listing type: you can identify users by the type of listing they want: if they are looking to buy or to rent, for example. Then, you can target them with a notification letting them know about new listings that might interest them that have the same features. This can also be applied with other characteristics like size, number of bedrooms or bathrooms.

3. Choose the right service provider

Keep in mind that before getting into specifics about campaigns, sequences and strategies the first thing you need to do is to choose the right web push notifications provider for your business. This is the most important step because depending on the provider you select, you’ll have more or less features to play with, amongst other things. 

Here’s a list of the most important ones you should keep an eye out for:

• Ownership and subscriber portability 
• Campaign automation by triggering events
• Personalisation capabilities
• Campaigns tracking and improvement: segmentations, A/B testing, scheduling
• Pricing plans
• Customer support and account management

Make sure you’re clear about what type of notifications campaigns you want to send and make a list of which features are the most important for you and your business. Is it important to be able to send automated notifications? Do you want additional features such as A/B testing capabilities?

Ask yourself as many questions as possible,as the type of web push notifications strategy you are looking to implement and then search for the right service provider that offers a solution suitable to your needs.

Real estate marketing, classifieds and web push notifications

Web push notifications are reigning in the e-commerce world bringing customers back, recovering abandoned carts and more. But the potential they have for other industries, like real estate and classified pages, is boundless. 

You can notify subscribers about new listings, price drops, let them know about new opportunities in a specific area they are interested in and include all sorts of details related to their searches. Keep in mind that, since web push notifications are so versatile and adaptable to any type of site, you can use all of these strategies for classified platforms as well.

With platforms like Frizbit this is possible. If you wish to try it out for yourself and unleash the potential of this new channel for your real estate business, get in touch to request a free demo trial. 

Make sure you check out:

• How to choose the right Web Push Notification Service
• Guide: How to use Push Notifications for Online Stores
• Troubleshooting Web Push Notifications: Why I’m I not Getting Notifications