The Blog

Related articles

1. The key Digital Marketing Insights from 2019 to 2020

2. Digital Marketing Insights from January 2020

After receiving positive feedback for the key digital marketing insights from 2019 to 2020, we have decided to keep this up monthly. Updating you with the most recent trends, events and updates within the digital marketing world. In this post, we are covering all the important updates that took place in February, on the following topics:

• Search Marketing Updates
• Marketing Automation Updates
• Content Marketing Updates
• Social Media Marketing Updates

1. Search Marketing Updates

To start off, we will take a look at the Google algorithm updates of the previous month. 

Google Organic Update 

This update probably occurred around February 8th. Although it has not been fully confirmed, it is noteworthy as it stresses the fact that several updates happen on a regular basis which could (negatively) affect any website, yours too. The specific changes are not published yet nor discovered. However, there is a noticeable impact and Google has made a habit out of announcing algorithm updates after the actual implementation. It is recommended to keep an eye on this. While this time it was not a core update, Danny Sullivan, Google’s liaison, has implied there were some tweaks. 

We do updates all the time. I would suggest rereading our general advice about this: https://t.co/aL4QObvvhH

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) February 13, 2020

Google Ads Updates

See the impact of campaign changes on ads performances

A new feature which was introduced on February the 12th helps you to understand the impact of changes to an advertisement campaign in relation to the performance. By cross-referencing the dates of the changes and the performance data, such as the conversion rate, gives additional useful information.

Google ads performance

Share remarketing lists

Users of Google Ads and their remarketing programme have since February 18th been able to share audience lists (a list of the people who have visited the website before) with the new feature. This means in case multiple people need access to the programme, a main Google ads manager can share authorisation over these audience lists. Which makes it easier to centrally control this programme and its remarketing efforts.

2. Marketing Automation Updates

A continuous growth in the marketing automation industry has shown a lot of potential as one of the most in demand tech solutions. But as new, popular markets evolve, changes are bound to happen. 

Chrome’s new v80 update

The version 80 of Chrome released on February 4th hugely impacted marketing automation, specifically web push notifications by means of blocking. In order to decrease unsolicited requests and spam, Chrome has outlined the proper ways to send the notifications and enforces it by having an automated system in place based on the ‘block’ and ‘opt-out’ rates. It comes with a new feature called the Quiet UI.

Another important feature is that Google started publishing Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) publicly. This means that anybody can access the accept/block rate of push notifications for any website.

3. Content Marketing Updates

Building a strong and desirable image in the eyes of the consumer by spreading the corresponding content is a vital part of retention. Although it can be hard at times as the consumers and trends are continually changing.

Video content

In the previous key digital marketing blog post, we saw the rising importance of video content. It is a highly engaging format and consumers even state they would want to see more video content of brands and businesses. Social media platforms such as TikTok, instagram and twitter have created the opportunity for businesses to spread their video content cost efficiently and without much effort. However, with an average of 300 hours of video content uploaded every minute to Youtube, generic advertisements get lost in the overwhelming amount of content. Just as personalisation could make difference on any other medium, it is no surprise it also applies to videos. 

Quora adds advertisement features

Two features have been introduced which facilitates companies with a way to keep track of conversions. Firstly, the Advanced Match utilises cookie-based matching to assess the value of your campaign on Quora. Very similar to the new Google Ads update, it contributes to more accurate reporting of the performance of a campaign. In addition, with the Conversion Windows advertisers can get a better understanding of the user behaviour in the period of time the customer gets converted into a e.g. customer or subscriber. With these additions Quora is becoming more advertisement friendly and adding value to the advertisers.

4. Social Media Marketing Updates

Read about the most important updates in the social media branch. What are the most popular platforms, tools and features?

The rise of TikTok

At the moment, with 500+ million active users, TikTok is a mobile app and social media platform for short videos. Mainly used by Gen Z and Millennials, the app has seen enormous growth. It was crowned to be the most downloaded app in 2018 and 2019, and has broken global records. With a large and still increasing number of users, TikTok is a refreshing new medium to market your products. Due to the popularity of it among the marketeers, the app has created a feature purposed for e-commerce while still catering to the target group in the same format. Although it is still experimenting with ways to monetise the content, it is predicted to have many possibilities in regards to advertisement.

 E-commerce on TikTok

Pinterest gains advertisement revenues

Just as any other platform which has undergone remarkable growth (for instance what is happening right now with TikTok), Pinterest has found ways to cater to businesses. Achieved with the help of measurement tools, the company accomplished to increase its predicted yearly revenue and engagement rate. This tool also provided advertisers with valuable information in order for them to analyse the customers in more detail.

These were the things that happened in Digital Marketing in February 2020. Also, read Digital Marketing Insights from January.

Related articles

1. The key Digital Marketing Insights from 2019 to 2020

2. Digital Marketing Insights from February 2020 

After publishing our comprehensive article on the blog concerning the key digital marketing insights from 2019 to 2020, we have decided to start off the new year by continuing to update you with the most recent trends, events and updates within the digital marketing world monthly. In this post, we are covering all the important updates that took place in January, on the following topics:

• Search Marketing Updates
• Marketing Tech Updates
• Content Marketing Updates
• Social Media Marketing Updates

1. Search Marketing Updates

To start off, we will take a look at the Google algorithm updates of the previous month.

Google Organic Updates

Broad core update 

On January 13th Google came out with the so-called: January 2020, Core Update. It had consequences for many websites and all categories, meaning it was a broad core update. Many were positively affected and it seems like Google is improving at determining the quality of content. Content that has seen a negative result are mostly those assumed deceptive because of misuse of affiliate links. Labelling links in the right amount and having valuable information has become more important than ever before. Either way, there have been SERP fluctuations, which makes it of utmost importance to be aware of the changes. As it happens with most noticeable updates, they have given an overview of what webmasters should know about Google’s core updates. 

Important change to the featured snippets and listings

Featured snippets are the answers to the questions users have, which have been deemed most relevant by the algorithm. These snippets are shown at the top of the search result page and taken directly from a website. 

Featured snippet

To marketers it is a manner to increase the web traffic without directly using financial resources. But more importantly, for the users it serves as a decluttering tool and helps allocating relevant information. On January 23rd, Google set a new policy in place in which featured snippets will no longer appear again as organic search results for an improved user experience.

If a web page listing is elevated into the featured snippet position, we no longer repeat the listing in the search results. This declutters the results & helps users locate relevant information more easily. Featured snippets count as one of the ten web page listings we show.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 22, 2020

Google Ads Updates

Test different scenarios with Smart Bidding 

Showing the advertisements to the right customer at the right time plays a significant role in the efficiency of it. With the bid adjustment tool, the frequency and timing of your advertisements will be determined by user behaviour. Before actually implementing it, a simulator can show the impact on your performance. Since the update of January 13th, it is possible to use the simulator in a more comprehensive way, demonstrating the possible outcomes when Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS) changes occur. 

Smart Bidding Simulator

Accelerated delivery is removed from Display, Video, App and Hotel campaigns

The rising popularity in video ads comes with necessary improvements to support this medium. On January 14th, Google provided the platform with standard delivery. Through increased mobile website speeds, it is intended to have a positive impact on conversion rates as it is in direct relation. Although it is still optional right now, starting March 31th 2020, it will be compulsory. 

Automated Imports of Offline Conversion Tracking into Google Ads 

Conversion data stored in offline (CRM) systems, can easily be imported directly into Google Ads with the offline conversion tracking released on January 23rd. Especially helpful in case when there are limited resources because transferring such data could be a difficult task.

2. Marketing Tech Updates

A continuous growth in the marketing automation industry has shown a lot of potential as one of the most in demand tech solutions. But as new, popular markets evolve, changes are bound to happen. 

Email Marketing is evolving

The use of traditional email marketing is becoming a saturated medium and marketers are aware of the decreasing value of it. As a result, automated, behavioural emails are rising in popularity. While the progression is surely but slowly, a majority does not know how to implement it correctly or even the importance of it. Despite it being a complicated and new approach to reach the users, platforms such as Frizbit are able to provide uncomplicated hyper-personalised marketing automation campaigns for customer retention. If you would like to see how it can improve your overall performance, request an online demo from Frizbit today!

Automated hyper-personalised email

Augmented Reality is becoming a marketing tool

AR technology has been around for a few years now but is still developing and being used in new ways. The most interesting AR products which we can expect or are already released:

• AR Studio by Facebook
• Chrome AR
• Apple AR glasses

Besides AR products, brands have been integrating it with their marketing and trying to create value with the customer. Some clothing stores have made it possible for users to try on the products by showing a visual of the product through the camera of the device. Gucci released an app in which people could choose one of the shoes from the newest collection. By pointing the camera at their feet, users could see the product on their own feet. Below you can see the workings of AR as a marketing tool. 

Gucci’s AR

3. Content Marketing Updates

Building a strong and desirable image in the eyes of the consumer by spreading the corresponding content is a vital part of retention. Although it can be hard at times as the consumers and trends are continually changing.

Long blog posts are better for Google

It is believed by many that a blog post should not be too long. But Google has been pushing content creators to do the exact opposite by rewarding more lengthy blogs, specifically those more than 3000 words. The reason behind this is because those long quality pieces turn out to contain the best fitted answers users might have and are looking for on Google. More informative and useful content is highly favoured in the ranking. Some other examples would be an e-book and a whitepaper.

GIFs

A Graphics Interchange Format, commonly known as GIF, are animated images which are popular among social media users purposed to communicate in a humoristic way through pop culture. By means of a GIF, businesses are capable of informally communicating with the consumer. By using the popular images and applying it to their company, brand or product, the people will resonate with the message and are more likely to share or remember it. GIFs is a supported format by many channels, such as: all social media, email and blogs. According to a survey 36% of millennials prefer visual expressions over words and believe to be able to communicate their thoughts and feelings better this way.

The matches are ending, but the excitement has only just begun. Who are you rooting for in the finals? pic.twitter.com/roFo0CZkW9

— Android (@Android) July 11, 2014

Memes

In line with the GIFs and the informal ways to communicate with consumers, memes are also used increasingly. Instead of in a .gif format the memes are just still standing images. Once again, regarding pop culture. 

the invention of brunch pic.twitter.com/3bpkiq4T3Q

— Netflix US (@netflix) June 2, 2018

4. Social Media Marketing Updates

Read about the most important updates in the social media branch. What are the most popular platforms, tools and features?

Youtube limits data collection

With the California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), new regulations have been set for the company Youtube in special regards to data collection of children. Until now this has been a much used medium to collect data from consumers for companies. But especially after the $170 million fine imposed by the US Federal Trade Commision, there has been a shift in the policy. Due to the new and possible future limitations by US laws, companies making use of Youtube’s data collection might consider gathering information elsewhere. Although the future of it is not set in stone, it is definitely worth looking at. 

Facebook becoming more transparent limits advertisers

While social media has been providing data cost-efficiently and easily, an increasing demand in transparency and user protection is forcing companies such as Youtube and Facebook to take action. The latest response of Facebook to this, is the addition of new available information to users about the campaigns targeted to them and the option to excluded from those lists. These lists consisting of personal information and interests are used to show the most relevant advertisements. Giving the users to opt-out of lists, decreases the influence advertisers have on to whom and when the ads are shown. 

Transparency of lists

Facebook not advertising on Whatsapp yet

The reach of Whatsapp with more than 1,5 billions users and worldwide popularity, it is a platform with revenue potential. Facebook, which owns Whatsapp, is planning on changing this free-to-use app and inserting some advertisements. 

LinkedIn has live-streaming for company pages 

Video is becoming a more prominent medium for companies to come into contact with, for instance: consumers and business relations. For individual users it has been possible to live-stream on the platform with LinkedIn Live. However, with the new update of January 15th, company pages also have the ability to live-stream any business related video content they might want to share. To become a broadcaster, one must apply.

These were the things that happened in Digital Marketing in January 2020. Also, read the key digital insights of 2019.

On the 18th of February, we organised the second meetup of this year about: ‘How to Use Push Notifications on your Website as a Growth Channel’. In this meetup, Ata Gür introduced us to the new digital marketing channel ‘web push notifications’ (a.k.a. browser push notifications), explained the best practices on how to use them and have an automated retargeting channel to recover conversions without spending any budget on advertising.

It was great to see the interest and engagement that everyone showed during the presentation. Next to that, it was nice to see how new contacts were made during the networking session. We recorded the full-length video of the presentation.

We also made a gallery of pictures of the event. You can check them out below.

We hope to see you at the next event!

Google Chrome has released a new update for its version 80 on February 4, 2020. This update has been hugely important for websites using push notifications so they can keep interacting with their users. This update comes with a new feature which stresses the importance of the user experience, because it will start blocking web push notifications from websites who are not using push notifications in a UX-friendly way. Based on the ‘block’ and ‘opt-out’ rates of a website and of a user, some websites will be automatically blocked from sending push notifications.

While it is supposed to decrease and prevent cross-site web push notifications and unsolicited requests, Google’s own developers highly recommend reading about their new updates in order to not have your push notifications automatically blocked. 

In which conditions will Google block my push notifications?

To avoid being blocked, you first need to know the scenarios that can make your push notifications become blocked:

The first scenario is where Google Chrome enables the blocking of web push notifications automatically based on the behavior of the user. For instance, if a particular user continually blocks push notifications, it will assume the notifications are disruptive to the user’s workflow. This would result in a bad user experience. 

Secondly, if a website has exceptionally low opt-in rates for push notifications, all push notifications will get blocked for every user. As Google gathers data (since it is still a very recent update), the effects of this will eventually become more prominent. 

Also in the future, we can expect new features of this update to contain consequences for websites abusing their web push notifications. 

“Later in 2020 we plan to enable additional enforcement against abusive websites using web notifications for ads, malware or deceptive purposes. This enforcement will be described in detail in a future blog post.” –PJ McLachlan, Product Manager Google Chrome

 The Quiet UI feature

The new Chrome update will also introduce a new feature called Quiet UI, which will be available on desktop and mobile. The function of Quiet UI is to give the user an alert that certain web push notifications have been blocked, and thus they will be given the chance to unblock it. 

With this, the users are also able to enable “quieter messaging” manually, or entirely disable the notifications. When enabling the quieter messaging, Google will once again block certain notifications which are assumed to be disruptive to the user. 

The New Chrome User Experience Report

On February 11, 2020, the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) was released. This publicly accessible report started providing an insight into notification permission responses by typical users expressed in rates based on four actions: allow, block, dismiss and ignore. Anyone will be able to look up these numbers for any website, which comes in handy with making comparisons and benchmarking. Furthermore, it has the option to visualize the chosen data as seen below: 

You can get more information on this new public data and how to check the opt-in rate of any website on this link.

How to make sure Chrome does not block your notifications

The regulations regarding web push notifications are changing and becoming more complex for website managers, but the main concern for these managers will always be providing a better UX. Managers should also have the same concern while using web push notifications on their website. 

The goal for these website managers to prevent any blocking is to increase the opt-in rate and decrease the ’block’ and ‘opt-out’ rates. Some ways to do this would be to follow Google’s best practices guidelines. These important practices include no irrelevant and excessive notifications, and requesting permission from the users in a timely manner. It has shown that first time visitors don’t enable notifications as quickly. With that being said, effectively using these practices are explained in this permission ux post and this 5 minutes video.

Another helpful tip would be to test whether your website and notifications are in line with the future updates. This can be done by checking your push notification permission process on Chrome Canary. This free-to-use browser allows you to test unreleased features of the upcoming Chrome versions. This way you will be able to test its effects on your website.

However, the most effective tip for making sure Chrome does not block your web push notifications would be to delight your users by sending the most relevant notifications at the best time for them completely based on their behaviour. Basically that’s why Frizbit exists. Behavioural push notification campaigns of Frizbit offer you to provide the most relevant engagement experiences on auto-pilot through web push notifications. With the use of hyper-personalised notifications based on user behaviour, the relevance of your notifications increases and minimizes opt-out rates. Request a demo on Frizbit.com

On the 17th of December, after a two year break, we organised our second meetup: ‘How to Get Value out of your Stubborn Freemium Users’. Mark Smit, CMO at ModelManagement.com, showed us a real-time growth hack on how to convert those stubborn freemium users.

After Mark’s presentation, people had the opportunity to network while having drinks and some food. It was awesome to see all the CMO’s, Digital Marketers, Product Managers and many more professionals come together to listen to Mark, ask him questions and network with each other.

Check out some of the pictures that we made below:

We hope to see you at the next event!

On the 28th of January, we organised our first meetup event of this year. Juliana Turnbull took us through the different essential elements of SEO and showed us some elements that we can implement within our WordPress CMS. After the presentation, people had the opportunity to network with each other along with a beer and some snacks.

CEOs, founders, marketers and other professionals attended the event. It was great to see so many people showing up. We would like to thank everyone that attended and Juliana Turnbull for speaking at the event.

We have made a gallery of the pictures that were made during the event. Check them out below.

2019 was a year full of new trends, events and updates within the digital marketing world. In this article, we are going to take a look at what happened in 2019 and what kind of insights you can use in 2020 for your advantage. We will do this based on the following topics:

• Search Marketing Updates of 2019
• Marketing Automation Updates of 2019
• Content Marketing Updates of 2019
• Social Media Marketing Updates of 2019

1. Search Marketing Updates of 2019

When it comes to search marketing, a bunch of things changed in 2019. Let’s first take a look at the Google algorithm updates, because they definitely had a big impact on search marketing in 2019.

Google Organic Updates of 2019

• Google Search March update

The first update of 2019 was a big one. The update mainly affected YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) websites. Google started favoring websites that are more trustworthy, especially when people search for sensitive keywords. 

• Google Search June update

In this update, Google started showing video carousels a lot more. In 61% of the searches, a video carousel will show up now. Also some news sites got affected. Google raised the quality bar for news content. 

• Google Search September update

The last core update in 2019 was one that again gave more priority to video content. YouTube even overtook Wikipedia in the US Google Index. This means that video content is very important for your SEO.

• The BERT algorithm

BERT is an open-sourced technique for natural language understanding. This update should improve the understanding of queries, especially the longer spoken or written queries. 

These were the major updates that Google rolled out in 2019. The conclusion is that authoritativeness, expertise, and trustworthiness are the most important factors in your content to show to Google. And since the showing of video snippets have massively increased, video content is more important than ever.

Google Ads Updates of 2019

Pay-per-click advertising has changed digital marketing forever. In 2019, Google said that it has generated 32.6 billion in revenue from advertising, which is an increase of 16%. Google Ads is still increasing and that is why it is important to look at what happened with Google Adwords in 2019.

• Removal of average position

Google removed the average position metric from Google Adwords because it does not tell the whole story. When you have the first position, it does not mean that you are shown at the top of the SERP. Organic searches could be on top of you for instance. So because of this Google decided to favour other metrics.

• Evolution of phrase and broad matches

In 2019, Google announced that phrase match and broad match modifiers now also show to same-meaning variants like synonyms and paraphrases. This means that your keywords can show up for more queries, that have similar meanings. Google is saying it did this because the intent behind a query is more important than the semantics within a query. 

• New affinity audiences and in-market audiences

In October, Google added two brand new audiences: seasonal event segments for in-market audiences and affinity audiences. With in-market audiences you can now target your ads to exclusively users that actively search for products or services like yours. With affinity audiences, you can target people that have shown an interest in a particular topic. 

• Bumper ad creator

Lastly, Google introduced a bumper ad creator for everyone. Not every business has the resources to produce professional videos. So that is why you can now create a series of six-second Youtube Ads in a very easy way. Perfect if you do not have the resources to do this yourself. 

These were the major updates that Google Adwords released in 2019. There are some other updates that we did not mention here. You can find a full list of the biggest updates in Google Ads on Google Ads Announcements.

2. Marketing Automation Updates of 2019

Marketing Automation has been becoming increasingly popular over the last few years, and as of now, on average 51% of the companies are using Marketing Automation according to Email Monday. CMOs are allocating one third of their budget in marketing technology. Also, according to Salesforce, the fastest increasing tech solutions are Artificial Intelligence (+155%) and Marketing Automation (+104%). 

• Multi-Channel Automation Platforms

What is becoming more interesting now are Multi-Channel Automation platforms. These platforms offer the ability to create and execute contextual marketing campaigns in multi-channel and they  are hyper-personalized for each user. Companies that use omnichannel strategies achieve 91% greater year-over-year customer retention rates than a business that does not use it.

But how do you create an omnichannel experience for your customers? There are popular multi-channel platforms such as Salesforce, Infusionsoft, Hubspot for B2B and Frizbit for Marketing Automation for e-commerce. These would help you engage with your customers in multi-channel. 

• Web Push Notifications

One of the other things that got hold of the marketing automation world is web push notifications. Through web push notifications, you can send personalised notifications to your customers on almost any web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Microsoft Edge. This channel is very effective and profitable, because you can send messages even if the users are not on your website and bring them back. Some platforms such as Frizbit embedded it to their automation platforms so that you can use it as a retargeting channel. So you can trigger push notifications based on user behaviour and run personalised campaigns, in cart abandonment or form abandonment.

• Chatbots

In 2019, the usage of Chatbots has increased even more. Chatbots have also become more AI-driven, capable of handling complex human interaction with ease and are now taking over traditional conversational services.

Most companies prefer in-built chatbots on their websites as they facilitate enterprises in providing instant customer interaction. For instance, Slack and Twitter messaging platforms are preferred by majority businesses.

Messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger have had huge success with Chatbots since opening up integration for brands. Over 60 percent of users who received a chatbot ping on Messenger engaged with the message.

WhatsApp Business allows brands to integrate chatbots with their API, opening up a whole new avenue for brand-user engagement. With 1.3 billion active MAU’s, this is a tremendous opportunity for businesses big and small. 

The use of chatbots in business will evolve in the coming years – the design and architecture inevitably improving. So watch this space and keep a close eye on what happens through 2020 if you have designs on having your own chatbot in the near future.

• Machine learning, AI and Hyper Personalisation

You are probably seeing it everywhere, Machine learning and AI. At the moment, it is the new world the marketers will benefit in many areas  from hyper-personalisation of messages to bid optimisation or from content creation to product recommendation. We will have smarter marketing platforms, which yield more returns and profitability. Now many tools have started implementing but we will have to wait a bit for a perfect solution for smaller to medium size brands.
When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is a perfect way to hyper-personalize your message to customers. But there are also companies like Amazon, that use AI, to recommend products to their users that are most likely to appeal to them. AI is very promising so you should follow this development carefully so you can be among the first ones that use this technology to their advantage.

3. Content Marketing Updates of 2019

Content Marketing offers a tremendous opportunity for businesses to boost their results. You should do this by delivering valuable and relevant content to users. This can improve your online reputation, build a community and grow supporters of your brand. In 2019, a number of changes evolved. 

• Video content

You are probably seeing it everywhere, video content. That is not surprising, because video is a highly engaging format for content. According to Forbes, 88% of the average user will spend more time on a website with a video than one without. And Hubspot is saying that 54% of consumers want more video content from a brand or business they support. So if you are not using video content in your content strategy yet, start using it now. 

• Podcasts

Podcasting has massively increased in popularity in the last decade. The amount of listeners has tripled in the last decade and it is expected to grow even more in the coming years. It is important though to not just start a podcast, but have an idea about what your goal is. Approach it as you do for the rest of your content efforts. 

• Content for voice

With the big increase of voice assistant usage like Alexa and Siri, the way people search changes a lot. While before, people would search for, ‘time China’, people now with the usage of voice recording search for ‘what time is it in China?’. This means that it is important for content marketers to start adapting their content creation for voice searches. 

• The state of content marketing

Backlinko analysed 912 million blog posts to understand the state of content marketing. This is what they found: 

• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing
• Long-form content got an average of 77.2% more links than short articles. 
• Question headlines got 23.3% more social shares than headlines that don’t end with a question mark.
• “Why” and “what” posts, as well as infographics, received 25.8% more links compared to videos and “How-to” posts.

4. Social Media Marketing Updates in 2019

In 2019, a lot changed on social media. Facebook had a massive redesign, Instagram got a new scheduling tool and LinkedIn expanded options for freelancers. 

• Facebook

As reported by Pocket-Lint Facebook got a massive redesign, described it as a much cleaner, with more of an all-white look. It also has a dark mode now too.

This redesign is supposed to put an emphasis on Groups and Events, which have become two of the biggest reasons people visit Facebook on a daily basis. The means the News Feed is featured less, which is probably good news for users overall. 

• Instagram

Instagram got a little less Insta with the new scheduling tool. You can now schedule feed posts and IGTV videos through Facebook’s Creative Studio. This new feature supports single and multiple photos along with videos. And you have the option to share it to your Facebook page as well. Once your copy and media assets are set, use the calendar to schedule the post. Hopefully the ability to schedule Instagram Stories is right around the corner.

• LinkedIn

LinkedIn has expanded options for freelancers who use the platform. Now you can “find an expert” post option. To create a new “find an expert” post, you would go to post an update like normal, select the “find an expert” option, and then answer a few brief questions about the services and skills you’re looking for. This will help freelancers decide if they’re right for the job and if they should reach out in hopes of cutting down search time. “Find an expert” posts also stand out a bit more on your feed to draw extra attention.

• Best Time To Post

During 2019, Sprout Social updated their best-times-to-post study. This is what it showed:

• Instagram: highest engagement on Wednesday and Friday between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. 
• Facebook: highest engagement on Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
• Twitter: the best days to post are Tuesday and Wednesday.
• LinkedIn: highest engagement on Wednesday between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

These were the things that happened in Digital Marketing in 2019. We also published a blog about what the marketing trends in 2020 will be. Check it out here.

The year 2019 is almost coming to an end, and what a year full of growth in digital marketing it has been. This does mean everybody is getting ready for the year of 2020. In this light we summed up 7 trends in digital marketing that are going to take off in 2020.

1. Start Using Alternative Channels

Email is still the most prominent marketing channel to use. But marketing emails are being less and less effective. There are companies that have seen their click rate for emails drop by 9,4% in 2019. This doesn’t mean we won’t be using email anymore, email will still be a prominent tool to use in 2020 and beyond that. What we will need to do in 2020 is making use of the other channels which can increase the marketing performance. A multichannel communication strategy allows you to connect with more leads, as well as stay top of mind with your customers. The next thing is that emails easily get overlooked or lost in the rubble, by using multiple channel you will make sure not to get overlooked. I will sum up some alternative communication channels below.

• Whatsapp Business: WhatsApp Business is a free app available on both Android and iPhone. WhatsApp Business makes connecting and interacting with customers easy by providing tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages.
• Chat Bots: This piece of software can interact with users while they are browsing on the website just like live chat tools, but with much more logic inside. Chatbots can communicate in a normal manner with people and are able to answer the frequently asked questions they have. So why hire someone to answer their questions while you can have a personalised service that is way cheaper.
• Web Push Notifications: Web push notifications are messages that are sent through a browser while the users are not on the website. You only have to opt-in to them to start receiving them, they can be send from both mobile and desktop devices. You can learn more about them on our web push notifications page.

2. Make Use of Multichannel Services

The amount of available marketing services is staggering, the average company has between 25 and 91 cloud services. This brings a lot of different problems with it, think about security for a second. That’s why a lot of companies are switching to multichannel services like Hubspot, Adobe Marketing Cloud, Marketo or Frizbit. Here you can take charge of different tools through one dashboard.

So, it’s expected that a lot of companies will be switching to an all-in-one marketing service that provides multichannel. It might be a good option for you too, we summed up some of the benefits for you.

• Less integration effort and time
• Faster page load time
• Less data shared with 3rd parties
• Flexibility on creating multi-channel campaigns

3. Expansion of Digital Marketing

According to the site TheDrum the global digital software industry will grow from $37.48 billion in 2017 to $74.96 billion in 2022 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.9% during the forecast period that is from 2017 to 2022. The worldwide digital ad spending will observe a rise of 17.6%, i.e., up to $333.25 billion in 2019. However, it will keep on rising till 2023 according to Softwaresuggest.

According to a study by the US Small Business Administration, a company should spend 7-8% of its gross revenue on marketing depending on the industry. For the year 2019, 50% of that budget should be dedicated specifically for digital marketing. However, it must increase to 55% in 2020. Criteo states that by the year 2022, close to 87% of marketing budgets will be spent on digital marketing.

Although traditional TV still has the most viewers (43%), online streaming (35%) has risen in popularity in the past five years. To see a higher ROI, a blended strategy for advertising is the best bet. Traditional marketers advertise on both platforms for the best results.

According to emarketer Google is still the number one in digital ads with 36,2% of market share followed by Facebook with 19,2 % of market share.

4. Hyper-personalise Your Messages

Artificial intelligence has brought about the phenomenon hyper-personalisation, which enables more appealing and individualised communication with consumers.

Communication with consumers that is deeply personal and tailored to them is what keeps messages interesting and make consumers want to interact with you.

Hyper-personalised messages enhance the customer experience by tailoring to each individual’s preferences based upon user behaviour. More than simply including the customer’s name in an email, hyper-personalised campaigns utilise real-time data and user behaviour to create the most effective automated, individualised communication strategies. Take a look at the cart abandonment campaign from Frizbit in the picture, here you can see we included the name of the customer, the name of the product, and a picture of the product.

Hyper-personalised messages create a dynamic experience for customers, making them more likely to return to your website and interact with it. Real-time data and user behaviour are used in hyper-personalised marketing efforts to create the most relevant and effective communications with each customer.

5. Make Automation Your Friend 
Next to hyper-personalisation, automation is going to play a bigger role next year because far too much time is put into manually created and delivered messages. In order to optimise efficiency and ROI, industries like e-commerce and travel would benefit greatly from automated messages through the high volume of customers. But not only them, a lot of other industries like SaaS, Media and B2B could benefit from them as well.

As automated messages are triggered by user behaviour, always the most relevant users receive it. That’s why both click rates and conversion rates are quite high. It is also time efficient because the messages are triggered automatically with user behaviour. This makes that you only have to set the scenario and template once and that’s it. There is no need to spend more time to write content of the and that’s why automation is time efficient.

6. Give Transparency to Customers

How a company handles the private data of their customers is vital for their success. In 2018, the GDPR policy was more actively enforced to ensure that companies handle customer data transparently.

Coredna also indicates that companies producing transparent and easy-to-digest information are likely to retain around 90% of their customers.

In short, In the future there will be more emphasis on this. Companies will have to give complete transparency of kind of data is shared.

Tips on how to be transparent

• Honest communication to and with customers
• Make sure that selling is not your only goal.
• Respond immediately to concerns
• Share news with your customers

7.  Get ready for Voice Searches

More and more people will start using smartphones with voice assistants though the massive growth in technology. Voice assistants can be handy for searching for certain places, reading specific texts loudly, and even sending text messages for you.

Voice search is also essential when using it for your business. It’s helping in the growth of voice search also raises the use of Artificial Intelligence.

Most of the people who are using search engines, use long sentences with specific keywords. In order to optimise the opportunity to be found in voice search results, use longer keywords and complete sentences. Also include any questions that people may ask concerning your products and provide detailed answers.

The time of the year everyone who sells online has been waiting for is finally here.

Christmas offers a great opportunity to amaze your audience. While there are numerous ways how you can amaze your clients, nothing beats an impressive Christmas marketing campaign.

I will first give you some numbers to show why you shouldn’t take the Christmas shopping lightly as a retailer.

• Around 20% of holiday purchases are based on impulse
• An average consumer will spend $1,048 on Christmas gifts and decorations in 2019.
• 56% of consumers plan to shop online.
• 73% of all consumers use their phones and tablets to search for the best presents, even if later they go to an offline store.

If you want to be a real winner this Christmas season, you should have your campaigns ready to go. Next to that you should not only be able to deal with the increase in sales but more importantly be able to catch the eye of your clients. This will happen with creative campaigns that will persuade them to buy at your store.

You can of course do this through the traditional marketing channels like email, but there is a clever marketing channel that is way more effective for bringing customers back. This channel is Web Push Notification.

Why choose Web Push Notifications for Christmas Campaigns?

Firstly, it is very easy to install web push notifications on your website and you can directly start collecting opt-ins after a 10-minute setup. Web Push Notifications also have x3 higher opt-in rate than emails according to Sumo, which means that you can build a new subscriber base more quickly than email and start re-engaging with your users.

Secondly, Web Push Notifications absolutely don’t require any personal data from the end user unlike email or SMS. With that, web push notifications are GDPR compliant by nature.

Also, you can reach both mobile & desktop users without having an app. It is the most engaging channel with an average CTR of 8.5% vs 2.4% on the email channel according to Mailchimp.

To give you an idea what you can do with this channel for Christmas season, we’ve put together some tips for christmas branding in push notifications and 7 Christmas Web Push Notifications campaigns to help you get a higher CTR and ROI than ever before.

Tips for Christmas Branding in Push Notifications

• Logo

  You can update your logo during the Christmas period, to give it a festive look that your clients can’t miss. This would definitely increase CTR’s in both manual and automated push notification campaigns. You can use a Santa Claus, hat, sleigh, snow, reindeer or christmas decorations, tree, candy, etc.

• Action Button

  The call to action button can be adjusted in combination with the logo, with another item related with Christmas as listed above.

• Image
  

  You can design custom images to grab your customers attention and get them to visit your campaign pages. It is also recommended to use christmas branding matching with the rest of the elements in the notification.

• Colours

  To let the message pop-out it is recommended to use contrasting colours. You can use a red or green colour over a light background, or white color over a red or dark background.

7 Not-to-miss Examples of Christmas Campaigns with Web Push Notifications

1. Free Overnight Shipping

To start the list off, we chose the free overnight shipping method but with a holiday makeover.  We give a certain urge to buy in the message by saying they have to buy before 9PM to get the free overnight shipping.

2. Christmas Discount

Christmas is for family, that is a given. Therefore, it is a great time to approach your visitors by wishing them a happy holiday season and offering them an incentive to start buying things at a discount on your website for their families.  

3. Christmas Coupon

Everyone loves coupons, right? Those coupons work especially good in the holiday season when visitors need to buy a lot for friends and family. For this notification we did a personalised version with image and call-to-action button where visitors can sign up and get a coupon.

4. Christmas Welcome Campaign with Sequence

Christmas is a good time to get new customers and with this campaign you can let them know you think about them in an automated way. The first notification will be sent when a visitor signs up to the platform and they can get more information through clicking on the action button with ‘Click here to get started’. Three days after the initial push notification the user gets the second push notification with some tips. Through this way you nurture your leads and you refer them back to your site.

5. Countdown till Christmas

Let customers know there is not much time left for Christmas shopping and give them the urge to shop through adding a timer or countdown to Christmas clock to your notifications.

6. Welcome Gift Campaign

Who doesn’t love free gifts? Everyone right. Give your customers a small gift when they sign up to let them know you are grateful that they signed up.

7. Xmas Gift Campaign

Why just leave it at giving your customers a small gift when they sign-up? Why not give them a gift as well just for Christmas to let them keep coming back to your site.

What is Hyper-personalization? How does it differ from traditional personalization?

Artificial intelligence has brought about the phenomenon hyper-personalization, which enables more appealing and individualized communication with consumers.

Traditional personalization in customer engagement has been used commonly in email marketing. This mainly consists of simply including some static fields from the customer database to the email body, such as a customer’s name or salutation.

Hyper-personalized messages, on the other hand, enhance the customer experience by tailoring to each individual’s preferences based upon user behavior. More than simply including the customer’s name in an email, hyper-personalized campaigns utilize real-time data and user behavior to create the most effective automated, individualized communication strategies.

Frizbit enables optimal communication with customers by taking all of the available data points that take individual wants and needs into account. The hyper-personalization offered by Frizbit can provide you with behavior-driven marketing campaigns in multi-channel, that you will only need to setup once before you start bringing your customers back and start increasing your revenues. 

Hyper-Personalization Can Help You…

1. Compose individualized, appealing messages with dynamic parameters

Not surprisingly, Frizbit allows you to address each of your users personally with their individual names included in your text. However, to take your campaign to the next level, Frizbit provides the ability to hyper-personalize your messages by using multiple dynamic parameters in both your text used and images displayed. Inviting, individualized language that makes use of the data points listed below will make your customers feel that they are valued, increasing re-engagement.

• Product Data: Products or services previously engaged with their names, categories, images, prices, etc.
• Purchase History of the User: Total amount spent, frequency of purchase, basket size, basket value, categories of products.
• Time of Engagement: Last time of visit, last time of taking an action, how many specific actions they took in a certain period of time, how often they visit, registration date
• Device Data: Device model, brand, operating system, version, browser used
• Browsing History: Web pages visited, terms searched, filters and sorting selected, time spent and actions taken on the website.

2. Nail the timing

Hyper-personalization enables you to figure out when users would be most likely to engage with your company. With Frizbit, you can either set messages to be sent at a specific, repeated time or at a time triggered after a specified user engagement. This way, if you want John to receive a reminder for an event that occurs at 8 a.m. every Tuesday, he can, or if you want Jane to receive a message 24 hours after she last visited your site, she can, too.

3. Target based upon user behavior  

Using hyper-personalization, you can make it so that certain user behaviors trigger specific messages. These can be sent to the users through the preferred channel at the time of the behavior or at a specified time after the behavior.  For example, a clothing website could individualize messages based off of what a user buys, how much a user has spent, or at what time a user has engaged the most. To prevent annoying your users, which may cause them to opt out of messages, Frizbit allows you to limit the number of messages received by a single user in a certain timeframe with the Frequency Cap feature and limit the lifetime of your messages with the Time to Live feature.

4. Use the preferred language of users

Frizbit has the ability to pick up on the preferred language of the user based on the default language on his or her desktop or mobile device or the language they choose to use on the website. This way, whether one is an English or Spanish speaker in the United States, for example, your company can communicate with him or her in a way they will understand and appreciate.

5. Make use of users’ geolocation

Knowing the specific time zone, country, city and even the local area a customer is located in is important when it comes to effective communication. Taking advantage of this information will make it possible to send messages at the times in which your subjects will be most likely to engage. Also crafting your messages differently for each city or country will yield improved results in your campaigns.

6. Segment using demographics

Further segment users based upon the following demographics in order to communicate more effectively.

• Name
• Gender
• Age
• Civil status
• Birthday

7. Choose the right channel

Whether a message is sent via email, text message, web push notification, or app push notification makes a difference in how it is perceived. For example, if you are sending a detailed progress update, an email would be the best route, but if you are reminding a customer about a sale ending in an hour, a quick text message would be the way to go. For registered users, you can use email and SMS, while non-registered users can opt to receive push or app notifications, so they do not feel invaded. With Frizbit, you can create automated and hyper-personalized campaigns in each of these channels, which will give you the freedom to choose which platform will work best for each message you wish to send.

With Frizbit’s hyper-personalization, you can create meaningful connections with your users through effective communication on a variety of channels. The artificial intelligence used will improve the reception of your products and services, increasing customer re-engagement. Register to Frizbit for an online demo to see how hyper-personalization can improve communication with your customers today!