Click here to watch the replay of the session in Spanish

On the 22nd of September, we hosted our first event after the summer break, and we must admit it felt like a great way to come back to the routine. As usual at our events, we enjoyed -which was maybe – the last open terrace networking session of the year with some mandatory beers. 

This time, the main topic of the event was the controversial ‘cookieless era’. And our main goal was to equip our attendees with the tools and strategies so that they could stay at the top of their game. Questions such as “Can I actually do retargeting without ads/third-party cookies?”, “What are the cookieless strategies I can implement?”, “What’s the difference between first-party and third-party cookies?” were answered by our host and CEO, Ata Gur.

So, if you couldn’t join us at the event, but still would like to learn more about the main takeaways, keep on reading to elevate your marketing skills.

To start off, it is essential to understand the customer journey that a user usually does while navigating a website with a conversion purpose, whether that is a sales or acquiring leads goal. 

The usual journey has 5 stages that customers go through until they reach the intended purpose. It starts with a 100% conversion rate and ends up with a 1% conversion rate and an estimated value of $25 USD. 

The key takeaway #1 is that client acquisition is indeed an expensive process already, so why not look further into retention to maximise all efforts?

As shown in this graphic, returning customers frequently represent a higher conversion rate than new customers. So, if you have an e-commerce and your sales goals aren’t going as expected, perhaps your focus shouldn’t be on “how to acquire new customers?”, but rather on “how can I better nurture my returning customers?”

At this point, you have seen why retention is crucial for any eCommerce business. Now, let’s move forward with the alternatives to the retention channels that you have:

• Email, SMS, social media, app push notifications & web push notifications: Belong to the owned media category and work with first-party cookies.

• Retargeting ads: Bring the customers back with third-party cookies, and a pay-per-click basis. The ROI is usually adequate, but the ‘cookieless era’ is their biggest threat. Many browsers are restricting its usage, such as Safari, Firefox and soon Google Chrome. This revolutionizes the way we are used to doing retargeting because every retargeting service provider like Facebook, Google, Criteo or other third-party providers will need to change or else become obsolete. 

You might be thinking: “Okay, but I still hear “cookies”, both first and third-party cookies. What’s the difference?”

To keep it short, the main difference is that with third-party cookies, our information can be accessible to all the ads network. Our information is available and shared with others who we don’t trust or know anything about. In fact, 72% of the users reported feeling observed and tracked for their online behaviour, according to Pewresearch.org. 

On the other hand, with first-party cookies, we can rest assured that our information will be stored safely, as it is directly anchored to the domain we are at. This means our information isn’t shared with others we aren’t aware of.

 

Alternatives to third-party cookies for retargeting

Now, let’s dive deeper into what it means that we are moving into a ‘cookieless world’ and what actions you can take to minimise the loss.

The first thing to have in mind is that the cookieless world is nothing more than a new system that is here to stay and is here to protect the privacy of users. As it is an imminent change, there’s no reason to avoid it or delay its implementation.

The key takeaway #2 is that now we need to move forward with understanding and building new cookieless funnels. Our efforts should be focused on first-party cookies channels.

In the following graphic, you can find an example of what a cookieless funnel can look like:

What are the main advantages of relying on first-party cookies, and what channels do you have at your disposal?

• The channels you can use are: push web, push app, email, and SMS
• The main advantage is that you can double your reach by attaining both registered and non-registered users (A.K.A. you don’t need a form to target users with push web and push app notifications)
• You can hyper-personalise the experience, meaning that automatisation doesn’t have to feel cold and robotic.
• You can interact with your audience before they even register with push web and push app notifications, even if they are not on the app or site.
• The interactions can be intentional, meaning you can set them up according to the behaviour of the user. 
• Users don’t stay in just one channel: maximise your marketing efforts so that you can target your users across their customer journey.

Key takeaway #3: Maximise your retargeting efforts by relying on first-party cookies channels.

Discover the benefits that Web Push Notifications can bring to your e-site

In this case, we are going to revise further our starred channel: Web Push notifications. We found there was an industry gap for this particular channel and have specialised enough, which has led us to know the ins and outs of it.

Web push notifications are the newest retention channels for websites, in which messages are sent by a website and appear on the screen of a user’s device. As we mentioned earlier, messages can be sent even if the website is closed, and they can operate without personal data. It is the latest and a very powerful digital channel for websites to re-engage and communicate with subscribers who opt-in to receive them, providing useful/interesting information.

Where can you use web push notifications or browser push notifications?

The coverage you get by using these notifications is great.  

For browsers, they are fully operative on:

• Safari
• Chrome
• FireFox
• Microsoft Edge
• Opera

On the other hand, in operating systems they work on:

• Microsoft Desktop
• MacOS
• Android
• iOS (coming soon with iOS 16 in 2023!)

Key takeaway #4: Web push notifications can bring a higher opt-in rate, increasing your reach and retargeting possibilities. Web push notifications have a 5% to 10% opt-in rate, whereas email opt-in ranks at a 2-4%. With the release of the web push notifications on iOS 16, it means the current rate is likely to increase by 50%.

 

What are the expected results? 

To make it clear, you can find in the following chart how all the different channels can be compared in terms of opt-in rate, click rate and reach rate:

With these graphics, we can see clearly that, on average, web push notifications have better performance rates than other channels, including social media posts.

Emails, on the first hand, require that users confirm their opt-in, which can easily push back the users to complete the action. Social media, on the other hand, usually prioritise paid ads, meaning that organic posts are hardly seen by your audience. 

With web push notifications, the opt-in only requires one click from the user. The click rate can be completely personalised and tailored to the part of the customer journey your user is at, making it relevant. Lastly, the reach is definitely one of its strengths as typically you aren’t competing with other brands, opposite to what happens in social media.

Another great advantage of using web push notifications is that they are completely GDPR friendly, as they don’t require the usage of personal data for them to succeed.

How do we use web push notifications at Frizbit?

We begin by analysing your sales funnel and creating hyper personalised notifications for each stage of the funnel. For instance, if in an e-commerce a user is interested in the category of the same product, but doesn’t add the product to their cart, they will receive a notification that helps them to go back and purchase a particular product. 

Key takeaway #5: Nothing is more relevant than sending the right message, to the right user, at the right time, through the right channel. And web push notifications can help to do this effectively. 

If at this point, you are wondering if the web push notifications can be beneficial for your business, you can apply for a free demo here.

First-party cookies retargeting strategies

We want to show you that moving on from third-party cookies is possible. You can do retargeting without relying on them while keeping in line with the newest GDPR regulations.

In the following graphic, you can see what an integral strategy, incorporating different first-party cookies channels, looks like:

In this example, we are showing a retargeting strategy for abandoned carts. As seen here, you can combine different channels seamlessly, creating personalised flows with specific timing options. 

What are the expected results you can look for with each channel?

Definitely, using all the channels strategically can represent an increase in sales or in your conversion goals. Each channel has a particular strength, and whether you should use one or another in a higher proportion depends on the purpose and industry of your brand. 

To summarise:

• The cookieless world is approaching, and we are leaving behind the so-known third-party cookies, which can limit the way we know on how to do retargeting.
• We recommend investing time and effort in developing strong owned media channels.
• Start creating first-party cookies retargeting funnels using channels like web push notifications, email marketing and SMS
• The key element of success for any retargeting strategy is to send the right message, to the right user, at the right time, through the right channel.

Having said this, we would like to thank everyone who took part in this experience and made it possible. Special thanks to Áticco Working Spaces for their collaboration and continuous support.

If you missed the event and want to have a deeper understanding on how to do retargeting without third-party cookies, the replay of the session is available here. 

Also, if you’d like to stay in the loop and attend our future events, make sure to join our Growth Marketing  Barcelona Meetup group.

We hope to see you at our next event ?

We are excited to share that we have launched a new overview of campaigns analytics on the Frizbit Dashboard so that you can see detailed reports of all your campaigns in one place.

In this view of campaign reporting section, you can see information about the following actions for each push notification, email and SMS campaign depending on the case:

• Received
• Clicked
• CTR (Click through Rate)

You can also filter by specific time periods and the campaign type. You can also download reports as PNG, PDF or CSV by clicking on the button at the right-bottom.

To access this panel, you just have to log into your Frizbit account, go to the left menu and click on Campaigns > Overview.

At Frizbit we are constantly making improvements to the product, to offer you the best possible product and we hope that this new functionality will be very useful for you and that you can see the results of your campaigns whenever you want.

We are at your service for any questions or comments.

We wish you a great November from the entire Frizbit team.

As a marketer, when you hear the term “Remarketing”, one of the first things to come to your mind are probably display ads. However, while ads are by far the most well-known and widely-used remarketing method, there is much more to remarketing if you know what you’re doing and have the right tech at your disposal! 

That’s why in today’s post, I will tell you all you need to know about remarketing – what it is, how to set it up, why to use it, and how to do it right.  While I will explain a bit about how web tracking and personalized ads work, I’ll also provide you with a few other strategies you can use and, last but not least, I will compare the different methods for you.

To begin, here’s a brief overview of what I’m covering is this article  in case you want to go straight to a specific section:

1. What is remarketing?
2. Is remarketing different from retargeting?
3. Why should you use remarketing?
4. What are the different remarketing methods and how do they work? 
   1. Display Ads
   2. Email and SMS Remarketing 
   3. Web Push Notifications
5. How Web Tracking works
   1. How does the tracking through cookies work?
   2. What is the difference between 1st party cookies and 3rd party cookies?
   3. What is going to happen once cookies are prohibited
6. Which remarketing method should you use?

1. What is remarketing?

To keep it brief, remarketing refers to all activities aimed at getting a customer who has interacted with your website in the past, to return to the site and, in the best-case scenario, convert. This can be done through a number of different channels such as personalized ads, email messages, or web push notifications, which we will look into in more detail in a bit.

2. Is remarketing the same as retargeting?

Even among experienced marketers there is some confusion regarding this question, so let me try to clear it up for you: 

Retargeting and remarketing are almost always used interchangeably, although according to some sources, there is a difference between the two:  

• Remarketing: includes all channels aimed at retaining customers including ads, emails and other methods
• Retargeting: originally only used when talking about retargeting ads

So, basically, Retargeting is one out of many ways of doing Remarketing. However, other sources claim the opposite, so don’t stress too much about this difference. 

It is more useful to know is that somehow it has established itself that Google uses the word remarketing, while most other competitors use the term retargeting to refer to all of their remarketing activities. For this article, though, we will keep it simple and only talk about “Remarketing”.

3. Why should you use remarketing?

Let’s face it, the vast majority of website visitors don’t make a purchase on their first visit. In fact, did you know that roughly 98% of these potential customers leave your website without having bought anything? The reason for this is not necessarily a sudden loss of interest in your products. Most of the time, people are simply reluctant to buy the first item they find. They need some time to consider your offer and compare the different options available to them. 

However, while shopping online, they are faced with A LOT of options, so you need to make sure that in the moment they are finally ready to make the purchase, your offer is fresh on their minds. And this is where remarketing activities come into play! They remind web visitors of products they previously showed an interest in and make it easy to complete the purchase with only a few clicks. 

But what makes remarketing so much more efficient than other marketing activities? 

• Precision: For one, you’re targeting customers who have already shown an intent to buy what you’re selling. Add to that that the messages can be highly personalized as you’ve already collected info on the user, and it doesn’t come as a surprise that with remarketing you can achieve an extremely high CTR and CVR compared to other methods.
• Cost: No matter which remarketing method you use, the CPC is low compared to other marketing activities.
• Effort: Most remarketing campaigns are easy to set up yourself. They can be automated so they don’t require too much upkeep.

The result of this is a much higher ROAS compared to other marketing methods!

What are the different remarketing methods, and how do they work?

a) Display Ads

As I already mentioned, this method is the oldest and most commonly-used remarketing channel. 

The way it works is pretty straightforward: A user visits your website and agrees to the storage of cookies on their device. Via these cookies you collect information about that user and their behavior. Once the user leaves your website, you can use the information you gathered in order to track them to other websites where you place tailored ads depending on what the user has shown an interest in.

How do you set up display ad campaigns yourself:

You can set up your own retargeting ads quite easily, all you need is access to your website’s code and an account on a remarketing platform. The most popular platform to use is Google Ads, but there are other providers such as: 

• Facebook
• Bing
• Youtube (video ads)
• Criteo
• Adroll
• Adform

Setting up a GoogleAds campaign only takes you a few minutes, but before you start, make sure you already have a general idea of what your campaign objectives are and which customer segments you want to target: 

• Do you want to drive conversions, increase your CTR, increase brand awareness, …?
• Do you want to reach all website users or only those who have bought on your site before, clicked on a certain category page, or fulfilled any other criteria?

Tip: If you are not sure yet, just take a look at the suggestions offered by Google

Strategies for targeting the right people

• Segment your customers into similar groups! Some examples for segmentation that work well are based on product pages viewed, based on the stage in the funnel, based on how often they visited over the last month,…

• Target visitors at an advanced stage in the funnel! These already showed the highest intent to buy and thus, are more likely to convert. E.g.: customers with abandoned shopping carts

• Cross-sell to existing customers! Customers who already bought from you are more likely to do it again.
• Schedule ads for times when the target audience is likely to see them! E.g. if your audience are teachers, you can assume that they have class in the mornings and can’t see your ads then,…
• Adjust where necessary! Try different things, with time, you will see on which sites your ads perform best.

Let’s look at the example of user A:

User A needs new running shoes which you are selling on your website. 

As soon as he opens your site, he is asked whether he agrees to the storage of cookies on his device. Impatient to get to the shoes, he clicks “yes” without giving it another thought.  

After some browsing, user A finds a pair of shoes he likes and puts it into his cart.

However, doubts start creeping in: Is it really a good idea to buy shoes online without trying them on first? And does he even need a new pair at all? And what if he can find a better pair elsewhere?… He just needs some time to think on it, so he leaves your site without finishing the purchase.

Anyways, over the next few days user A probably uses his computer for other things, be it to read the news, to buy a birthday gift for his sister, or to plan his next weekend trip. But surprise! When he opens the online newspaper, he sees an ad of the exact same shoes he looked at. And while he compares flights for his trip, the same thing happens! And again while he is ordering the gift for his sister! 

What happened here is that, since user A agreed to the use of cookies, you as the marketer knew exactly what he wanted and could follow him to other websites to show him highly personal ads.

b) E-Mail and SMS- Remarketing

This method is focused on customers who have already purchased something on your website in the past or subscribed to your newsletter. Once you have their consent to use their personal information you are able to contact them about specific offers relevant to them, such as promotions or offers similar to what they bought in the past.

If you don’t want to reach out to all your customers, but only to specific groups, just segment them. This way you can single out only those customers who meet the criteria you defined, e.g. 

• customers who bought a similar product in the past
• customers who abandoned their cart
• customers who looked at a product that wasn’t in stock at the time, but is now

Tip: There are ways to encourage more visitors to leave behind their contact information, e.g., by offering free gifts or discounts  in return.

Note: It is also considered email retargeting if you add your email subscribers to your ad network and configure targeted display ads specifically for that group.

To set up campaigns on your website, it is easiest to subscribe to an automation platform.

Let’s look at the example of User B:

In the past, User B bought a school bag from your site. You now have his email address. The summer holidays just ended, and you have a promotion for school supplies going on.

Because of his past purchase you know that user B probably has a kid who goes to school and conclude that he is likely to be interested in your promotion. That’s why his email address is added to a database of all customers who will receive this particular promotion. 

User B is feeling stressed since just the other day, his kid had come home from school with a list of materials for the next academic year, needed by next week. When he sees your personalized email about the promotion, he is relieved and heads to your site where he gets all his supplies.

 

c) Web Push Notifications

A relatively new remarketing method that is quickly gaining traction are push notifications. These messages exist for both mobile and desktop devices and can be sent either manually or automatically to contact website visitors whose personal information you don’t have access to. 

How it works is that first-time website visitors are asked whether they want to block or allow messages in a so-called Native Opt-In:

If someone who opted in now leaves the site, a message can be sent to his browser encouraging him to return to the site and finish the purchase. The great thing about it is that no matter what the user is doing on his computer, the message will appear on his screen until he either clicks it away or opens it, so there is no ignoring it.

Again, if you want to set this channel up for your website, it is best to get a subscription to a marketing automation platform which has the capabilities for web push-notifications such as Frizbit.

Let’s look at the example of User C:

User C opens your site to look for shoes. 

Since you are using web push notifications, she is asked whether she wants to block or allow messages in the Native Opt-In.

She clicks on “allow” and browses your site for a bit. Although there’s a pair of red shoes she likes, she ultimately leaves the site without buying it and without leaving her contact info. After all, the shoes will still be there tomorrow!

Later that day, she notices that she’s running out of dog food. When she opens her laptop to buy some, the following message is waiting for her on the screen: “Hey user C! Hurry! There’s only 2 of these red shoes left. Are you sure you want to miss out on them?”

User C is alarmed and doesn’t want to miss out, so she quickly decides to get the shoes before it’s too late.

5. How does Web Tracking work?

Since web tracking is the technology behind every remarketing activity, let’s take a closer look at how it works. I already mentioned that cookies make it possible for a site to track a user to other sites he later visits. But what is a cookie and how exactly  is it able to follow you across the web just like that? 

a) How does the tracking through cookies work? 

When you visit a website, your browser sends it a message called an HTTP request. The website then responds to this message – both with the content you ask for, and with small text files, the so-called cookies, that the site wants your browser to save. If your browser does indeed save them, every time you revisit the website a particular cookie was sent from, your browser attaches this cookie to the access request it sends to the website. In this way, the website can identify individual users by their respective cookies and learn about their behavior. 

b) What is the difference between 1st party cookies and 3rd party cookies? 

Usually, websites use external software to handle their cookies, and there are 2 types of providers for this: single website trackers via 1st party cookies  and multi-website trackers via 3rd party cookies. While 1st party cookies keep the info gathered by each of their client websites separate, 3rd party cookies make it possible to share user information collected by multiple individual website’s cookies among all of their client websites. This means that websites can not only track your activity on their own site, but follow you to other sites as well.

c) What is going to happen after cookies are prohibited?

Up until now, remarketing ad providers have been relying on 3rd party cookies. However, Google announced that Google Chrome, the most common browser in the world, will prohibit the use of 3rd party cookies in 2022. This means that the future of remarketing with display ads is in shades, at least until a new alternative is being developed. Other remarketing methods, on the other hand, such as email, SMS, and push notifications, rely on 1st party cookies, which means they won’t be affected by this dramatic change in regulations. Read more on The Future of Digital Marketing Without 3rd Party Cookies.

6. Which remarketing method should you use?

While you ultimately have to make that decision for yourself and it really depends on your goals and your budget, here you’ve got a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of each channel:

To summarize:

Remarketing activities are marketing activities aimed at getting customers to re-engage with a website they had already abandoned. 

Because you’re only targeting visitors who have already shown an interest in your site, this is much more efficient than most other marketing methods.

There are 3 main methods of doing remarketing:

1. Display Ads
2. Email and SMS Remarketing 
3. App and Web Push Notifications

Which one(s) you should choose for your site depends on your objectives and resources. While Display Ads is easiest to set up yourself, Push Notifications achieve the highest CTR and ROI.

No matter which channel you use, keep in mind that…

• … timing can make a huge difference. CTRs are generally highest in the afternoon

• … images and emojis make your messages more visually attractive and increase CTRs considerably

• … there is such a thing as too much! You don’t want to make your customers uncomfortable, so limit the number of messages you send. For web tracking, you have the option to put a cap on the number of times a visitor is shown your ad

If you found this article useful, make sure to also check out:

• Natura Reached a 16.8x ROAS Using Behavioural Emails and Web Push Notifications from Frizbit
• SMS Marketing: 7 Tips for a Winning Strategy
• Private Shopping Sites: Web Push Notifications Strategies

Here at Frizbit we are always looking for ways to innovate, make our platform better and fulfill our clients need with top notch technology. That’s why we keep improving as we grow so we can offer the best possible service and user experience.

We would like to share with you the latest

Frizbit Product Updates of Q2 2021

1. Launch of Campaign Analytics

Frizbit launched its campaign analytics so you can see all the performance metrics of each campaign. Based on the channel (email, sms or push notification) of the campaign, the relevant metrics vary.

2. Multi-product Cart Abandonment Emails

Frizbit now supports the use of dynamic parameters of multiple product in the same message. It’s very useful for cart abandonment emails or recommended products.

3. Flexibility of Trigger and Exception Events

Now you can select the same trigger and exception events for the same campaign. This allows marketers to decide if they would prefer to trigger based on the first event, or the last event. For example, you can retarget users either the first category or the last one.

4. API for Sending Messages

Frizbit now published its API to send messages via any channel and any content you choose. It’s an alternative method to sending messages via dashboard. Besides Frizbit’s marketing automation engine, if you would like to trigger messages through another system you can implement this API and do so.

5. Email Suppression List Management

Through Frizbit, now you can manage the list of email addresses in your blacklist. You can add email addresses manually or you can upload files with multiple email addresses to add them to your blacklist. Email Unsubscription can be done by users, but for special cases this gives marketers an option to  manage their lists manually.

Get in touch for a one month trial!

SMS marketing is only as effective as the strategy behind it. According to a survey by Statista, “in February 2021, nearly half of the respondents stated that on average they spent five to six hours on their phone on a daily basis”. Taking this into consideration, not having a SMS marketing strategy is a huge missed opportunity for your business. 

What is SMS Marketing?

SMS refers to Short Message Service. SMS marketing is a strategy focused on sending users messages regarding special offers, sales, reminders or updates through text messages to their mobile phones. People need to give businesses their consent to receive promotional SMS. 

There are different types of messages used in marketing that are all covered by the term SMS, but have different characteristics:

• SMS – Short Message Service: messages that are text only. 

• MMS – Multimedia Messaging Service: they’re messages that focus on sending multimedia files such as images, videos, GIFs or phone contacts. 

• RCS – Rich Communication Service: rich media messaging is the evolution of SMS. They allow to send text messages that include multimedia content and links. 

Are SMS marketing campaigns intrusive?

Popular belief dictates that SMS are intrusive. However, it’s important to note that said misconception can be caused because of the abuse in sending bulk/mass SMS. 

These types of campaigns lack segmentation and personalisation, so they can be perceived as annoying from the users’ end. If you implement a well-though automated SMS marketing campaign, the results will shock you. It’s an amazing channel with the highest ROAS, surpassing 100x (10000%).

“Frizbit SMS marketing campaigns have generated clients a ROAS of over 100x. 

Every SMS marketing strategy should be planned carefully and thoughtfully. Is not to be taken lightly as it presents a direct communication channel to connect on a more personal level with customers. In a study conducted by GSMA, 61% of people said that they would engage more with businesses if they offered a more personalised service. 

Here are some interesting insights on the effectiveness of SMS marketing: 

• 59% of users want their communications built into the phone – not as a separate app, that they need to download (GSMA)

• 77% of consumers are likely to have a positive perception of a company that offers SMS. (eRetailers)

• 83% of millennials open SMS messages within 90 seconds of receiving them. (OpenMarket)

• 75% of millennials prefer SMS communications for deliveries, promotions, and surveys. (OpenMarket)

• SMS messages have a 98% open rate compared to 20% of emails. (SMS Comparison). 

• SMS messages have an average click-through rate of 36%, while email click-through-rates are a dismal 3.4%. (DSIM)

• 90% of SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of being received. (SMS Global)

• Using short, branded links in your mobile marketing campaigns can help improve conversions by up to 34%. (Rebrandly)

• 77% of consumers said they opted-in to a brand’s text messages to receive coupons or deals. (Exact Target)

• 97% of companies found they communicated with consumers more efficiently after launching texting initiatives. (GSMA)

SMS COMPARED VS. OTHER CHANNELS

CTRs by channel from automated behavioural retargeting campaigns

 

Conversion rate by channel

If you’re already on board with the idea of including SMS marketing in your strategy, keep on reading for:

SMS Marketing: 7 Tips for a Winning Strategy

1. SMS Marketing Tip #1: Create an opt-in strategy

The first thing you need to think about when deciding to implement a SMS marketing strategy is how are you going to get SMS subscribers, people to opt-in and share their phone number with you. You have to design a strategy that allows you to collect subscribers to add to your lists. Here are a few ideas on how to approach it:

• Website pop-up: is one of the most common methods used to capture subscribers. You can add it to your homepage and include an engaging offer such a special discount in return. 

• During checkout: it’s normal to ask a lot of personal information through the checkout process, including phone number. Make sure you include a message that requests the users’ permission to send information and updates and be explicit about using their phone number for promotional purposes. 

• Email: if you already have an email subscriber list, you can use it to your advantage and send a campaign to direct them to a landing page asking them to leave their phone numbers. 

2. SMS Marketing Tip #2: Exclusive Content

A marketers life is a very hectic one. It’s understandable that we might not have the time to design a different message for each one of the channels we use to communicate with our audience. However, when it comes to SMS marketing success, exclusivity of the message is of utmost importance. 

Send exclusive offers and deals to your subscribers. Include a text that indicates the offer you are sending is for VIP SMS customers only! This type of message will make them feel special, helping you create a tighter bond with your audience, which ultimately decreases opt-outs, increasing CTRs and conversions.  By using a provider such as Frizbit, you can do this by using dynamic parameters and adding users’ names. 

Take the time to strategise specifically for SMS marketing. Design sales, promos and offers that are exclusive to this channel and make users know that. When you ask them to opt-in: make it clear that they will receive special and unique benefits from subscribing to your SMS marketing channel. 

3. SMS Marketing Tip #3: Segment your Audience

You might have thousands of subscribers to your SMS channel, but each of them is an individual with unique tastes and preferences. That’s why it’s so important that you segment your audience for every campaign you send. 

Your segmentation can be as general or as specific as you want it to be. You can segment from language, location, purchasing history, gender and much more. Taking your time to do this will highly increase the effectiveness of your SMS marketing campaign. 

Let’s say you’re an online sports store. There’s a big, important game coming up between two rival soccer teams and you want to send a special sale on their t-shirts. If you don’t segment your audience only to people who have shown interest in soccer, there’s a really big chance your CTRs are going to be really bad and you might end up with a lot of opt-outs from people who will find the SMS irrelevant and annoying. 

This goes for all bulk SMS campaigns you send. You have to take your time and segment your audience to deliver the right message to the right person. 

4. SMS Marketing Tip #4: Send a Sequence of Messages

With Frizbit, you can do  SMS marketing by automating messages to reach subscribers every step of the marketing funnel. You can set up triggered SMS that are sent a period of time after a subscriber completes an action on the website:

• Product viewed
• Product added to cart
• Post-purchase reminders

Design, automate and schedule a message for each event targeting users by behaviour. Event-based SMS are great to maintain a communication flow and seek an immediate response. 90% of the messages are read within the first 3 minutes after receiving it. By designing a sequence of SMS you keep your brand on the user’s top of mind with ongoing communication. 

In addition to that, by configuring a flow, you’ll have a long-term marketing strategy without extra work. The setup of the sequences only needs to be done one first time so you don’t have to invest more efforts every time you want to send out a campaign. 

5. SMS Marketing Tip #5: Include an Image

Is no secret that including images in your communications have a direct impact on click-through rates. In a study conducted by Simple Texting, they discovered that messages with an image had a 52% higher CTR than the ones that didn’t.

People are very visual and respond well to images. That’s why it’s always advisable to include a photo as long as is pertinent for the message and your industry. If you’re in real estate, include a photo of the listing the subscriber shows interest in, if you own a restaurant include mouth-watering photos of the plates you offer, or maybe you have an e-commerce so you can add images of the articles the person liked!

Remember that the objective is to make the communication as personalised as possible. Including a photo will make the message more relatable, as when users open it the first thing they’ll see is something they liked. 

6. SMS Marketing Tip #6: Include an appealing CTA

If you know anything about digital marketing, you might be tired from hearing about the “include a great CTA” tip. But the importance of the call to action justifies the repetition. The CTA is the element that closes the deal: this is when you tell people what to do. 

The copy of the call to action lets people know what to expect if they decide to click on that button. If you want recipients to finish a purchase, see what’s new, discover new products or to not miss out a sale,  tell them here. 

Put yourself in their shoes. For example, what would your reaction be if you get a SMS from a travel website with a wonderful photo of the Eiffel Tower and a copy that says “Paris in the Spring is beautiful” but nothing else. It doesn’t specify what you expected action should be, it doesn’t include a CTA saying something like “book a flight with 15% off before spring is over”. Don’t leave people hanging and include a CTA that lets them know what their next move should be. 

7. SMS Marketing Tip #7: A/B Testing

Either you’re a new or an experienced SMS marketer, A/B testing needs to be part of your strategy. You might have a lot of knowledge about your audience and have developed a strong instinct on what they respond to the best. However, these types of analysis will help you sharpen the strategy and make it the best it can be. 

Changing the CTA, the image or the copy can have a major impact on the results of your SMS marketing campaign. It’s important to try different versions of the same message, track their performance and adjust it in order to get better and better results each time. 

A/B testing your SMS campaigns will give you amazing insights on your audience likes and dislikes. You can then take that knowledge and apply it to your overall strategy to optimise and enrich user experience.

8. SMS Marketing Tip #8: Select the right provider

None of the amazing ideas you have for your SMS marketing strategy is going to be effective if you choose the wrong provider. You have to do your homework and research the features available from each option you consider.

Is extremely important that you choose a SMS marketing provider that offers automated and personalised SMS, rather than only bulk ones. The key of success with SMS marketing campaigns is automation and that’s exactly what Frizbit offers. 

In addition to complete automation and sending of campaigns triggered by users’ behaviour on the site, Frizbit also offers dynamic parameters for hyper personalisation. The SMS include:

• Sender ID
• User name
• Product name
• URL
• Call to action

Bonus tip!

To increase effectiveness of your SMS marketing campaign, we strongly recommend you to integrate it in a multi-channel marketing strategy. With Frizbit you can implement an orchestrated campaign that includes web push notifications, email marketing and SMS to offer users an enhanced experience and increase retention. 

Related blog post: 

• Marketing Funnel Explained: Optimize your Full Funnel Strategy
• Cart Abandonment Recovery Strategies for E-commerce – Recover Lost Sales
• Web Push Notifications Done Right – 7 Mistakes To Avoid!

A multi-channel marketing strategy is key to success for any digital business nowadays. Many companies opt for managing their communication with their customers over multiple channels, using different teams, third-parties or providers. This can result in customers receiving messages through a variety of channels that can easily overlap each other with repeated, irrelevant information and end up wearing users out. 

Companies should focus on personalisation and start to cater to their customers as individuals with personalised needs and interests, while managing their communications centrally. If you’re not engaging to your user’s preferences, they’re more likely to opt-out from all the channels you use trying to connect with them, due to finding your communication irrelevant and annoying.

In today’s day in age, customers have a lot of power over what type of communications they receive from brands by refusing to subscribe, refusing to share personal information and installing browser extensions such as ad blockers.  This leaves sellers constantly trying to find new and effective ways to get the end result necessary, which of course is to bring that customer back to complete a conversion. 

To adapt to this reality, businesses must strive to make it as easy as possible for customers to gain access to their site. This is made possible by the sheer orchestration of an automated, engaging, attractive and relevant communication strategy through different channels. This will allow you to interact with your users in the most effective way possible. 

Why should you use automated multi-channel marketing campaigns?

Value has more to do with being there for people, rather than selling the industry’s best. having this kind of mindset will result in an increase of customer retention. This is vital, because even a five percent increase in customer retention can raise profits by 25-95 percent. If you are not already sold by this statistic, imagine this: It costs from 5 to 25 times more to get a new customer, than it does to keep the one you already have. Therefore, it’s important to keep that user engaged by communicating through multi-channel marketing and a sequence of messages that’s relevant, useful and attractive.

The Performance Comparison of Each Channel (Email, SMS, Web Push, Ads)

Channel	Opt-in Rate	Deliverability	Average CTR
Email	1-3%	98.2%	17.2%
SMS	0.5-1.5%	>99%	35.4%
Web Push Notifications	5-10%	>98%	10.7%
Retargeting Ads	N/A	Depends on CPC	0.7%

Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy: Benefits of SMS, Email and Web Push Notifications combined 

• Reach more customers by offering multiple options for them to choose their preferred channel
• Engage customers through the channel of their preference
• Drive more traffic to your website/app, therefore generating more revenue
• Connect with anonymous users who prefer not to share their personal info, via push notifications
• Create a customer engagement journey through scenarios and templates designed for each channel to be sent at the best time
• Track performance of your campaigns on each channel through Frizbit user and campaign reports
• Optimize your communication and discover how to connect better with your customers on a more personal level with A/B testing and machine learning

Multi-Channel Marketing Strategies

1. Email Marketing

 

Email marketing has always been one of the most common and preferred channels for online businesses to get in touch with their customers. It’s a tool that offers many possibilities, especially if you use the correct provider platform to plan and send your campaigns:

• Ongoing communication: Frizbit is able to strategically build a sequence of emails that will grasp your user’s attention, bringing them back to visit your website once again. You can design messages series for cart abandonment recovery, product suggestions based on behaviour and much more to keep in touch with your customers during periods of time you can define yourself.  

• More leads: when a user decides to share their email address with you, you can easily start building a new leads database through email communication. With this information you have the possibility to get in touch with your customers on a more personal level. You can nurture those leads with inbound and content marketing campaigns that will create a more long-lasting relationship with your clients. 

• Hyper-personalisation: Customers appreciate and want to learn more about what you have to offer. Especially if you send a message with specific information that’s relevant and useful for them, helping you increase engagement. You can include their names, product name, image, price and more to make the email as personalised as you can, which will highly increase CTRs. ç

• Automation: Frizbit allows complete automation of the email sequences you create. this means you won’t have to invest lots of time to configure and send a campaign whenever you want, you’ll just have to do it once.

2. SMS Marketing

SMS marketing strategies have been around for a while, just like in the case of email marketing. There are many similar benefits of both channels, however SMS offer some additional ones worth revising that will help you take your multi-channel marketing strategy to the next level: 

• Immediate communication: SMS marketing provides an immediate channel of communication with your customers. If we keep in mind that most of us don’t separate from our phones for nearly 5 minutes a day, SMS is a great option if you want an almost immediate response from your customers. SMS also highly guarantees the delivery of the message, since you don’t have to wait for users to go online and check their inboxes like in the case of emails. 

• Closeness: Texts messages are an intimate channel of communication. They relate to close relationships which gives customers a feeling of a more personal and less commercial communication.

• Automation: As it does in the case of email marketing, Frizbit is able to send out automated and personalized text messages to each customer based on their actions on the site. The SMS can be scheduled to be sent after an exact amount of time after being triggered by an event on the web without adding additional work to your planning and execution.

 3. Web Push Notifications

Web push notifications allow a one click process to redirect customers back to your site. They’re short, direct messages based on users’ behaviour and delivered through their browsers when they go online. This is a very new channel, so its benefits are not so well known like in the case of email and SMS marketing:

• Reachability: web push notifications are delivered to the subscriber on both desktops and mobile devices, even if they’re not browsing your website. 

• Connect with anonymous users: in order to send web push notifications, you don’t need to request users to share any type of personal information like email address or phone number. Visitors only need to Allow them via  the opt-in prompt shown when they enter the website for the first time and, with just one click, they become subscribers. This allows you to connect with visitors, giving you the chance to turn them into customers. 

• Immediate traffic generation: with manual or bulk web push notifications sent to all subscribers, you can send flash sales alerts, out of stock availability, price drop alerts or special offer messages that can generate a lot of traffic to your site very quickly. 

• Full funnel communication: web push notifications messages can be completely automated and triggered by events for every single step of funnel. They offer a channel through which you can communicate with your subscribers with a specific message throughout the entire shopping process: first visit to the page, category viewed, product viewed and product added to cart. 

• Deliverability: web push notifications offer guaranteed deliverability. This channel is browser based, meaning that as soon as a subscriber opens up its browser, the message will be delivered.

4. Retargeting Ads

Retargeting ads are one of the main channels used by online advertisers to try to reconnect and bring back users to their site. By using retargeting ads, brands “follow” users that didn’t convert to show them images and messages inviting them to come back and finish a transaction. The benefits of including them in your digital marketing mix are:

• Branding: usually, retargeting ads are shown multiple times to the same person. This contributes to increasing brand awareness by displaying the image of the brand, its logo and, maybe the slogan during a period of time making it stick in the users’ mind. 

• Reach: retargeting ads have great reach, since they allow you to get to almost every user that accepted cookies. This channel allows you to reach people practically anywhere on the internet after they have visited your site only one time. 

Integrating multi-Channel marketing strategies

It can take up to twenty impressions across multiple marketing channels to convince a potential customer to take action. Keep in mind that people are usually not ready to make the purchase the first time they visit a web. Users need to see the message you are trying to convey multiple times before they actually begin paying attention and more so, before converting. You can greatly increase the possibility of that happening by consistent messaging across multiple channels with a well-though digital marketing strategy. 

It’s predicted that people will likely interact with at least two marketing channels out of the many offered. Platforms such as Frizbit ensure that you’re consistent with the information you send across all marketing channels in order to create a great experience for your customers. 

Start marketing your brand with a  multi-channel marketing strategy by signing up for a Frizbit demo! 

Meanwhile you can also read, 

• Cart Abandonment Recovery Strategies for E-commerce – Recover Lost Sales
• The Future of Digital Marketing Without 3rd Party Cookies
• Are Web Push Notifications GDPR Compliant?