The gift-giving (and buying) season is fast approaching! According to Statista, online retail is expected to double between 2016 and 2020. That also means the e-commerce realm is getting crowded. If you’re running promotions via social advertising, search engine marketing, or Amazon marketing, use our simple, data-driven tips to set yourself up for success.
Is there a certain amount of revenue you’d like to drive? A certain return on investment percentage you’re targeting? Are you trying to clear out stock for new products? Do you want your deal to be sitewide or just on certain products? Remember to incorporate your budgeted ad spend into your plan for the promotion. Will it drive enough sales to reach your goal? Know these goals beforehand, so that you can build your promotion and projections around them.
It may seem like a no-brainer, but not every deal will entice shoppers to buy. (For instance, don’t offer a BOGO deal on something nobody wants two of.) No need to offer deep discounts (10% can be plenty), but keep it simple, straightforward, and accessible. Here are some common promotions that perform well:
Give your sale enough time. Digital advertising is programmatic, which means that it needs time to gather data and optimize. (“Programmatic” means the ad buying is done via software, instead of the more traditional process that involves, you know...humans.) That means a one-day sale isn’t always your best bet for an e-commerce promotion. If you can run your promotion for a few days, you’ll be able to achieve more effective targeting and reach via digital advertising channels.
What about traditional one-day sales, like Memorial Day or Black Friday? If you can run the same sale for a full weekend or even a week, you’re going to see better results than if you run a promotion for just one day. (Cost per click also tends to spike on big e-commerce holidays like Cyber Monday, so be prepared to increase your ad budget, if you’re able.)
Coupon codes are great, but offering a discount without a coupon code can be more effective and user-friendly. It creates fewer barriers within the checkout flow, which makes for more conversions. Most e-commerce platforms (Shopify, WooCommerce) allow you to set up automatic discount links with plenty of opportunities for customization.
You may have noticed that Facebook has been in the news quite a bit recently. And here at Good & Gold, we’ve noticed because of that harsh spotlight, confusion and misconceptions about the way the social media giant actually works tend to spread rather quickly. We find ourselves constantly fielding questions from clients and friends about how the platform collects, stores, and uses data. Given all the questions, we thought it’d be helpful to address some of the more common Facebook misconceptions and do a bit of old-fashioned mythbusting.
Reality: You CAN, as long as you have an active account! Go to your account settings, then click on Ads. Here you can find out everything Facebook knows (or thinks they know) about you, including your interests, any current advertisers you’ve interacted with (including websites you’ve visited or apps you’ve used), and any categories it places you in. Categories include things such as what type of cell phone you use, what race Facebook thinks you are, what types of locations you visit (for example, maybe you frequent seafood restaurants), how engaged of a shopper you are, and more.
Reality: Yes...and no. When you delete your account, in theory most of your data is removed from Facebook’s servers within 90 days—but not your “shadow profile.” Shadow profiles are essentially data points on users and non-users alike that continue to collect information that Facebook stores, including when you make a purchase on or browse any page with a Facebook pixel installed (much of the web at this point). So, not only does the company collect data points on you if you delete your account, but that they are able to even if you’ve never had an account.
Reality: This used to be true, going back to 2013, but it changed this year. Previously, Facebook would beef up your user profile with information they got from Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai, and would allow advertisers to target you based on this information. Now, advertisers on the platform can only target you based on Facebook’s data or the information advertisers themselves provide Facebook about you.
Reality: No, Facebook doesn’t listen to your conversations—they don’t need to. They know your location, they know your friends, and they know your friends’ location. If your friend has spent the last week researching new stereo equipment, for example, and you’re hanging out with them, Facebook assumes there’s a decent chance that they might be telling you all about it. Or if your spouse has been looking at kitchen appliances and you spend a lot of time together in the same location, Facebook generally assumes that you may also be interested.
Also, you’re predictable. Yes, even you! But you have fairly well-defined purchase behaviors based on past purchases, and Facebook is smart and agile enough to figure it out and know that if you bought a new house a month ago you might be looking into window treatments today.
Reality: Based on the above, we know this isn’t entirely true. There are good reasons to hyper-target your audience, and it can help make your campaigns more effective. But assuming your own customer data is accurate, the truth is that uploading customer lists and telling Facebook to find lookalikes is likely the most effective strategy for your advertising campaigns.
Ranking appropriately within search engines like Google and Bing is an integral piece of the modern digital marketing puzzle. But how can you tell if your site is optimized for search or if anything is holding you back? And if something is wrong, where and how should you focus your energy on fixes? Luckily, it’s relatively easy for business owners to self-diagnose SEO problems without costly tools or coding knowledge. Read on for five easy ways to determine whether you have a problem.
What happens when you type in your business name, your products, or the types of services you offer into Google? Does your website appear on the first page of search results? More importantly, does your business appear above your competitors? If neither of these are true, it’s time to look under the hood and see what could be affecting your website’s organic search performance.
Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a web page’s content; data that often don't appear on a webpage itself, but do appear in search engine results pages (SERPs). They are generally placed in the “header” section of a page’s underlying code, and are a primary element that affects any website’s search performance.
The Two Most Important Meta Tags...
In other words, meta tags determine what searchers see when they seek out businesses like yours, and determine whether those searchers ultimately visit your website. You can view meta tags for any webpage by right-clicking within your browser window and selecting “View page source.” For example, if you look at the Good & Gold homepage, you’ll see our website’s source code, and, near the top, you’ll see our meta description for that page, which matches what you’d find when you Google “Good & Gold”:
Every page of your website should include these meta tags—without them, your website could be suppressed within search results, and searchers will be less likely to click through to your website.
4xx errors are a type of HTTP status code, which are three-digit codes that express a server’s response to a browser’s request. Any status code in the 200 range means the request was successfully completed—the server gave the browser the expected response. Meanwhile, a status code in the 400 range indicates a “client error”—the request was made, but the site or page couldn’t be reached because of an error on the website’s side of the conversation.
Because a webpage’s ability to successfully load is a very important aspect of usability, too many 4xx errors can have a significant negative impact on your website’s search performance. So...how do you know if you’ve got a problem if these pages can’t be found? Simple. Use a handy tool like Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider to crawl your website for 4xx errors.
So how do you fix 4xx errors once you find them? That’s where the hard work begins. One solution is to use a 301 redirect, or permanent redirect, to direct these URLs to another page, such as the homepage. But this isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Sometimes, it can pay to allow a page to return a 404 error so that it won’t be indexed and repeatedly crawled by search engines. Other errors require different, customized solutions to avoid confusing user experiences. If your site is rife with 4xx errors, it’s probably a sign you should get in touch with experts like us to create a tailored approach that pays off in the long term.
One commonly overlooked element of SEO is the consistent use of header tags, or <h1> tags. These tags are pieces of HTML that are usually styled to be the most prominent text on a page, and essentially act as a giant arrow for search engines, screaming “Hey! This is what this page is about!”
For that reason, header tags should always include relevant keywords and provide a concise and accurate description of a page’s content. For example, if you were to view the source code for this webpage, you’ll see that the header tag is the title of this blog post. These sorts of page-level keywords are influential ranking factors for SEO, while they also enhance your website’s usability and accessibility.
In other words, every page needs a high-quality header tag!
Information Architecture (IA) is the organized design of how information is structured. And a well-organized website, of course, is crucial for creating a pleasant (and high-converting) user experience (UX). But it’s also an important factor for SEO. Not only must a website provide an intuitive, well-structured taxonomy of content and information, but the way your content is organized within each page can also boost your SEO and help search engines to interpret your pages.
The best way to review information architecture is to take a look at your site map. Does it feel intuitive and easy to navigate. Is it a good representation of your business, and the scope of products and/or services you provide?
As for content: Are pages structured consistently, with an easily understandable hierarchy? Does each page contain the appropriate keywords, with original, engaging, accurate, and grammatically precise copy? Not only will low-quality content drive away your audience, but websites with duplicate content, incorrect grammar, and false information rank poorly within search engines.
Here at Good & Gold, our mantra when it comes to content strategy is to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time. Sounds pretty simple...but it’s not. Content can be “delivered” in many ways (via organic search, paid search, social media, email, etc), and each of those marketing channels requires its own set of overlapping tactics.
We believe that email is one of the most effective content delivery systems—direct, action-oriented, customizable, and immensely measurable. And by taking full advantage of the data and technology available on most email platforms, you can be absolutely sure that you’re delivering the right content at the right time, every time.
We have no shortage of thoughts about how to optimize your approach to an ongoing email newsletter using a data driven approach to template design, A/B testing, audience segmentation, and more. We can ensure that your audience is receiving your content and engaging with it. But how do you develop a strategy that drives engagement and revenue on an ongoing basis? In one word: automation.
First, it’s important to note that the true beauty of email automation is that it’s automated—once your system is set up and optimized, you don’t have to touch it. Your email platform is working 24/7 in the background, engaging your customers with tailored communication and driving revenue while you focus on other parts of the business. In other words, it’s well worth the up-front investment of time and energy to develop and implement a powerful email automation system.
Now, on to the overview: Unlike standard, one-off email campaigns, automations are targeted emails that are triggered when specific people meet the pre-defined criteria you set. For example, you could send an automated follow-up message to a customer when they buy something from your store for the first time. Or you could send a friendly reminder to a customer if they add an item to their shopping cart but don’t complete their purchase. Or, you might send a coupon to all of your customers on their birthday. Most email platforms offer a standard set of automation types with built-in triggers, but you can also create custom automations tailored to your business needs and customer behavior.
Once you’ve chosen your automation, developed your content, and set your sending criteria, your email platform will automatically manage your subscriber queue and email sends.
For the purposes of this post, we’ll summarize the four automations that we consider essential to any e-commerce business. But keep in mind that automations don’t apply exclusively to e-commerce—whether you’re marketing content, services, or products, there are automations that will help you engage with your audience. It’s also important that though automations are data-driven and not manually dispatched, they can feel very personal because they respond to individual actions and behaviors. So, take care to craft well-designed emails with clean, crisp copy and a friendly, unintrusive voice.
The simplest form of automation is also the most important: Welcome people to your world! Greet new subscribers with an introduction to your brand, your values, and a sense of what they can expect from your emails to come. This is also a great opportunity to encourage followers to become customers by sharing a promo code for their first purchase. Your welcome message should be friendly, concise, and authentic to your brand. If you have lots of content to share with new subscribers, your welcome message can also be expanded into an “onboarding series” that includes a sequence of tips and resources sent over a span of time.
With an average 40% open rate, the abandoned cart email is one of the most effective automations, and a must for any e-commerce business. After all, you’re reaching out to a person who was on the verge of making a purchase to nudge them over the finished line...it’s hard to find a higher-intent customer than that.
Here’s how it works: six hours after a customer abandons their online shopping cart without completing their purchase, send an email to encourage them to return to your store. Throw in a little extra incentive by including personalized product recommendations, or a coupon if they complete their purchase. (According to MailChimp, campaigns that include product recommendations generate an average of 31% more revenue than campaigns without them.) This email can also become a series of reminders over the course of a few days.
Once a customer has made their first purchase, it’s time to focus on retention: active, loyal customers are vital to your growth, and retaining existing customers is much more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. Enter the first purchase automation, designed to keep new customers solidly within your orbit. Quite simply, you’re thanking customers for their purchase—but it’s also important to invite their feedback and encourage them to consider additional purchases, often with a discount. Generally, the first email in this series would send an hour after purchase—if they don’t make a second purchase, another email would send 10 days later, and then another 20 days after purchase.
As we mentioned above, customer retention is vital to your growth. But inevitably, certain members of your audience will disengage over time for all sorts of reasons, many of them beyond your control. Those customers aren’t a lost cause, and they shouldn’t be neglected...they should be won back. Your re-engagement automation should be designed to win back customers who haven’t purchased anything from your store within a specific timeframe.
A standard re-engagement series might include three emails, one sent 120 days after last purchase, the next sent 120 days later, and the next sent another 120 days later. We recommend openly acknowledging why you're contacting them, and taking care to showcase new products and offer an incentive for making a purchase. Let customers know that you miss them, and that you value their feedback and engagement. As always, be clever, be authentic, and be clear about the purpose of your communication.
Now that you’ve got the basics, it’s time to build and implement those automations! And as always with email marketing, look at your reports frequently, address your weak spots, and build on what’s working. If one automation is working but another is falling flat, take a close look at the successful campaign (or series) to document and build on your recipe for success. And remember: No two audiences are the same, so your email strategy is unique to your business. Keep building, keep measuring, keep learning...and repeat.
We’ve all been there: You’ve gone so long without rebranding that your logo doesn’t even really make sense anymore. In fact, it looks more like a strange relic from the past than a mark that represents your company’s mission and values. And those colors...what were you thinking? Were those actually fresh at the time? You vaguely remember that you were somehow excited about this whole “brand identity” at the time—but that time just feels so far away now…
Sound familiar? It sure does to us. Without further ado, 10 surefire signs that you’re due (or, more likely, overdue) for a rebrand:
Facing the prospect of updating your logo and brand identity can be overwhelming—but really, it’s a great opportunity to take a good look at what you do and where you’re going. Your visual brand is at the center of everything you do, and it has immense impact on your ability to attract new customers, maintain an engaged audience, and convert website visitors. And if you don’t feel good about your brand, it’s a fair bet that potential customers aren’t that impressed either.
It is our firm belief that rebranding does NOT need to be the painful, drawn-out, expensive process it's cracked up to be. Here at Good & Gold, we work with our partner (and superstar designer) Jen Wick at Fort Wick to guide you through a clearly defined, goal-oriented, six-week rebranding process that will not only deliver a suite of logos and a comprehensive style guide, but will reconnect you with your organization’s mission and values.
Week 0: Project Kickoff
Before we get started, we’ll discuss and approve the project scope and final deliverables, and sign a contract that outlines those details.
Week 1: Plan + Design Discovery
In our first week of work, we’ll set clear project goals and parameters, audit existing collateral, and review a brand questionnaire in-person with core team members.
Week 2: Research + Moodboard
This week, we’ll gather information and conduct research on the project, conceptualize solutions, and pull references together. We’ll then create a design moodboard that illustrates key concepts, and review that moodboard with core team members.
Weeks 3-4: Concepts + Design Exploration
Major visual concepts begin taking shape at this point, with style elements forming around them. At the end of this phase, a presentation will be created of two visual concepts and their corresponding style variants.
Week 4: Design Review + Feedback
At the end of week 4, we will review the two visual concepts as a group and filter through the feedback of core team members. Clients then have several days to discuss internally, choose a single direction, and distill feedback.
Week 5: Refine Concept + Full Design Presentation
This week, we deliver a final brand expression guide presentation that includes a refined logo, brand assets, and colors and typography, as expressed through several key brand deliverable mockups (business cards, letterhead, case studies, presentations, etc). Core team members are invited to deliver feedback for final modifications.
Week 6: Perfect Final Design + Handoff
Finally, we deliver all assets for the brand: A suite of logos and assets in all needed file formats, as well as a comprehensive style guide and any other collateral included in the project scope.
Because any commentary on branding would be incomplete without a good blooper reel, we give you “15 of the Worst Corporate Rebrands Ever.” And finally, some advice from Fast Company on how to avoid a rebranding disaster.
First things first: Why do you need a content strategy to begin with? Because if you are an expert at anything (and if you offer a product or a service, you should absolutely be an expert in that product or service), sharing your expertise is the best way to naturally engage consumers and build the trust that will turn them into followers and customers. And because we are firm believers that high-quality content, delivered to the right people at the right time, is what makes the experience of your brand delightful.
At Good & Gold, we also believe that developing a content strategy is just the first step in your content journey. Once you have your plan in place, you’ll need to market your content through a strategic mix of platforms to attract and retain your audience, ultimately driving both engagement and action. Then, you should be obsessing over analytics to test user behavior, adapting over time to ensure continuously profitable outcomes.
Every company is different, of course, and has its own story to tell—but the following seven steps comprise our framework for discovering and developing the best content strategy for your brand:
What’s your aim for creating a content development and marketing plan? Sure, you probably want to drive sales and engagement, but how exactly to you want customers to engage? Are there particular products or services you’d like to focus on? And how do you want them to feel about your brand when they engage with it? Start by honing the Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals that will guide the rest of your process.
The next step is to clearly define your content's target audience. Are you hoping to reach your existing customers and draw them deeper into your brand? Or is there a new audience you’ve been unable to reach?
If you’ve created any content in the course of your business, review that content and determine how those efforts align with organizational goals. Can you leverage your past work to bolster your refreshed content strategy? Don’t force it, but don’t exclude valuable content just because it’s old. The best content is “evergreen,” and will hold up over time.
Here’s where the rubber hits the road: What concrete process will guide the creation, publication, and analysis of your content? Indeed, when you’ve created a great piece of content, the job has only just begun. You’ll need a consistent editorial process to organize, review, and approve that content; a clear process for effectively disseminating that content via the channels that you’ve chosen to align with your goals; and finally, a system with clear benchmarks to guide your analysis of success. Otherwise, you are shouting into the void.
Conduct market research. Sit in a room and throw out ideas. Look at brands you admire. Consider your own browsing habits and history. Ask around and poke around. Then whittle those ideas down into a clear menu of actionable content ideas. The more those ideas can be segmented into categories, the better.
Which media will best suit your content? Consider blog posts, e-books, infographics, videos, podcasts, case studies, and slide shows. What will resonate with your target audience, and what will work well with the marketing channels you've selected?
You’ve got your ideas, your chosen channels, your system, and your goals. Go forth and publish your content! But your journey doesn’t end here: Unfortunately, the strategy you came up with is not perfect, and it never will be, so you’ll need to test, adapt, test, pivot, test, and evolve some more. Your overarching aim should be to always keep the needle moving closer and closer to your goals. And when you’ve reached your goals? Make new ones.
Managing your social media effectively can sometimes feel like juggling a hundred different variables. When is the best time to post? How do you plan your content and stay organized? What about editing photos? Hashtags?? Worry not. We know your struggle, and have corralled our recommendations for the apps and websites that will make social media feel like a breeze. (Bonus: they’re all free!)
One of the most common complaints with Instagram is the lack of linkability. Sure, you can include a link in your bio—but what if you want to share multiple blog posts or external links in addition to your homepage? Enter Linktree. This website lets you create one bio link that leads users to an easy-to-navigate list of curated links. You can add, remove, and reorder links quickly and easily. Because when it comes down to it, social media won’t do you much good if it isn’t driving traffic to your website and converting followers into customers.
The free version of Linktree offers unlimited links, and for $6 a month you can also get access to link traffic analytics.
Posting at the right time each day on Instagram and Facebook is essential for getting your content in front of the right eyeballs. “What about the algorithm,” you ask? Good question! Yes, Instagram’s all-powerful algorithm will dictate when your post shows up on your followers’ feeds, but it’s also determined by how well your post performs. That means you still want to post when the majority of your followers are on their devices to inspire as much engagement as possible. In summary: Posting when your followers are online = more engagement = the algorithm adds your post to more users’ feeds = new eyes and increased engagement! Got it?
The other thing to remember is that the best time to post is going to be different for everyone. So, how do you know when the majority of your followers are online? Instagram and Facebook both have data available in the “Insights” sections for business accounts. Facebook will let you schedule posts for publishing later right in the platform. But when it comes to Instagram, Prime pieces it all together for you by tracking analytics (with more precise times than Instagram itself provides) along with scheduling and notification functions. There are plenty of free apps out there for scheduling Instagram posts, but they don’t offer the analytics that tell you when to post. Prime will send you a reminder right when that optimal time has arrived, making optimization a no-brainer.
Designed for simple, streamlined project management, Trello also happens to be our favorite content calendar platform for scheduling out social media posts. Trello’s kanban-based “card” system makes it easy to track ideas, adjust your calendar, and add photos, plus it allows multiple members of your organization to review content at different stages. Because even if you don’t have a large team working on your social content, it’s essential to get a set of fresh eyes on every post.
Pro tip #1: Adding the “Calendar Power-Up” will transform your Trello board into an actual calendar so that you can easily see the week or month ahead at a glance.
Pro tip #2: If you’re writing copy from scratch in Trello, download the Grammarly app to double-check your spelling and grammar as you write.
Ah, the almighty hashtag. If your goal is to build your Instagram followers and reach more people organically*, the effective deployment of hashtags is essential. Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per post, and your best bet is to balance popular, high-traffic hashtags with less popular, more niche hashtags. Simply start typing in a few topics that are relevant to your post, and Display Purposes will generate a balanced list of up to 30 hashtags. Then you can copy and paste the entire list or pick and choose your favorites.
*Important note: If you’re looking to really scale up your social media following and boost business, organic social just doesn’t cut it nowadays. Be sure you are supplementing your efforts with paid social posts, even if you only have a small budget to do so. We know that getting started with paid social can be daunting—read our blog post for an introduction, and feel free to reach out to us about our paid media services.
Photo-editing and filters are especially key for businesses and brands with a design or aesthetic focus—but any business will benefit from clean, colorful, professional-quality photos that reflect your brand identity. There are a lot of apps out there for editing photos and adding filters, (VSCO is great, especially if your vibe lends itself to moody, faded filters) but A Color Story is our favorite for a few reasons. A Color Story makes it easy to pick the perfect filters and edit photos to fit your brand’s style, and you can also create your own custom filters for reusing again and again. The app’s newest update allows you to batch edit multiple photos and plan your Instagram grid layout in advance!
Indeed, 2018 has arrived, and it’s time to lay your marketing groundwork for the year ahead. But where to start? We know it can be tough to figure out where to focus your efforts, so we've compiled our recommendations on three key areas that are likely to deliver the highest ROI and provide a solid foundation of digital marketing strategy. So grab some coffee, get comfy, and let's get planning!
A solid strategy for Search Engine Optimization is essential to every business. (Don’t know why? Read more background on why SEO is key.) We've got five simple tips to get you started.
Would you drive a car without a dashboard? Of course not, and that’s essentially what analytics are for a website. Google Analytics provide the basics regarding the health and performance of your site, while also allowing you to dig deeper to optimize and better serve your customers. We’ll show you how to properly set up your Google Analytics dashboard.
Social networks are changing constantly. You still need to approach social media with a solid strategy for organic traffic and engagement in mind, but in 2018, you simply can’t ignore paid social anymore. Our guide will get you started on the right foot.
As 2017 comes to a close, it’s time to start laying the foundation for your marketing plans in 2018. To help get you started, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 most important digital marketing trends to keep in mind when making those plans. From chatbots to consumer security, there will be a whole lot changing in the new year—so much that it was pretty painful to cut our list down to just 10 tips!
Focus your creative power on video this year! Did you know YouTube is the second-biggest search engine after Google? That will make it an even more important platform for advertisers. Video will also continue to be a key driver in Facebook’s algorithm, meaning video content is generally more likely to get your audience’s attention.
Leading brands like Kayak, Trulia, and Burberry are already making great use of this technology, with many more close on their heels. Enabling automated (but personalized!) experiences through platforms like Facebook Messenger will be key in 2018, whether those experiences are geared toward sales or general customer delight.
In 2017, MailChimp opened up its automation platform to everyone, making marketing automation accessible to more businesses than ever before. Abandoned cart e-mails, reminder e-mails, and lead-cycle nurturing are marketing tactics that you can (and absolutely should!) prioritize in 2018. (Pssst: This is a core service that Good & Gold offers—hit us up and we’ll set up your automations to run like a well-oiled machine!)
The main component of the SERP is the listing of results that are returned by the search engine in response to a keyword query, although the page may also contain other results such as advertisements. This subsection of SEO is becoming more important across Google, Bing, and their competitors. The ability to interact and learn things about your brand before or even without going to your site is becoming increasingly important, with AdWords Messaging Extensions and Bing In Search Chat Bots leading the way.
The major ad and retargeting networks will continue to invest heavily in giving advertisers more options than ever to target and retarget customers. Facial, voice (more on that later), and other types of recognition, as well as incorporating how your customers interact with the Internet of Things are all going to get bigger in 2018. The robot revolution is coming, people!
A multitude of battles over the rights of consumers are expected in 2018, and they’re worth watching. But with the government engaged in widespread deregulation, these battles are being waged by the corporate world. Apple already made it more difficult to serve remarketing ads through Safari in 2017, and Google is planning to severely punish non-secure websites in 2018. (If your website uses http instead of https, make installing an SSL certificate an immediate priority by early 2018).
Right now, 43% of US online retail sales happen through Amazon, and the marketplace is becoming more competitive by the day as a result. 2018 will mark a time for many brands to refocus their efforts here. Be sure to invest time controlling your branding, content, and products effectively on Amazon (as well as competitors like Walmart and Jet), which can be a little tricky. (This is another service we’re proud to offer. Get in touch to find out how we can help!)
Not only from a branding or social reach perspective, but from an SEO perspective, setting up successful content-driven campaigns will always be an integral element of any marketing plan. (If you need help with content strategy or content development, give us a shout!)
Instagram Stories have already leapfrogged Snapchat, and the platform is growing at a much faster clip than many other social media services. Setting up successful organic and paid campaigns on Instagram will be vital in 2018, particularly for e-commerce brands.
Siri is going to be eight years old next year, and thanks to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, voice search is finally gaining the foothold many thought it would years ago. Optimizing for voice search will inevitably be the next frontier for SEO.
Basically, Google Ad Grants allow nonprofits to advertise to millions of users on Google’s vast search network for free. With a Google Ad Grant, your organization has access to $10,000 in AdWords investment per month. That kind of money can go a long way when it comes to spreading the word about the great work your nonprofit is doing. You can use that money to bring new users to your website, target potential donors, encourage people to sign up for events, call out for volunteers, recruit new employees, and much more.
To qualify for an Ad Grant, your organization must be a registered 501(c)(3). In addition to its usual content rules, Google also imposes slightly stricter guidelines for how you can spend your grant:
That’s it!
If, you know, “$10,000 worth of free advertising” doesn’t convince you, there are plenty of other benefits to taking advantage of a Google Ad Grant.
Putting all that money to good use each month can be daunting, especially if you’re new to using Google AdWords. We can help! Here are a few key strategies to making your grant go as far as possible:
As a business owner, you’ve likely poured your energy into building your social team, finding the perfect filters, and vibing those captions just right. Why? Because you, just like everyone else, assumed that the larger your network, the more opportunity you’d have to gain exposure and develop the following of potential customers you need. After all of this hard work, are you seeing your engagement flatline or fall? It’s a common complaint, but there’s an explanation—and we can help.
Social networks are changing constantly, and organic reach has been declining since 2014, but that’s not because people aren’t using social networks—they are more than ever. In 2017, Facebook has seen a 20% drop in organic page reach. What does that mean? It means that even though Facebook’s one billion daily users are still sharing and liking posts, the volume of content has boomed, making it easier for your posts to get buried.
If the average user is exposed to around 1,500 stories each time they log onto Facebook (really active users might see up to 15,000 stories), then those posts all compete against one another for a user’s attention. Facebook’s algorithm (like many social networks) helps filter which posts actually get seen, using countless factors. So, how do you ensure your posts win the day?
This graph shows the most recent dip in organic engagement:
You still need to approach your social strategy with organic traffic in mind, but you simply can’t ignore paid social anymore. A consistent social strategy using content that is diverse and compelling will keep users engaged with your brand, while a paid strategy ensures that your brand is actually seen, by exposing your posts to the audience you’re after.
Here are a few examples of paid social posts that we’ve created:
With a limited timeframe and budget, we created this ad for the Center for Women’s Leadership’s annual Power Lunch—it was viewed by nearly 9,500 people and garnered 253 clicks, 243 reactions, 15 shares, 18 page likes, and at least two direct ticket sales with a spend of $300. We achieved success with this campaign by hyper-targeting the audience and using thoughtful and varied creative.
With a $1,500 monthly spend for this clothing company's Facebook ads, we’ve seen 9,000 impressions per month and 95 sales per month, with returns hovering around $5,300.
Creating a branding campaign for Stahl Firepit, we targeted Facebook video ads to friends of Stahl’s current followers and purchasers. With a mere $75 spend, we reached close to 3,000 people and gained 400 video views, which amounted to just $0.22 per video view.
First, consider the following when you approach paid social:
If your business sells products and you’re wondering if you should add dynamic display ads (sometimes known as Dynamic Product Ads or DPAs) into your digital marketing rotation, the answer is a resounding “yes!”
Traditional display ads are static banners that are displayed to potential customers based on any number of rules (for example: by placement, by abandoned cart, or by demographics). They display the same message and images to anyone who sees them, with additional messages and creative being input on a one by one basis.
This type of banner is still important as it sets the tone for your brand and allows you to include plenty of additional information, like details regarding a sale or new product launch.
However, for customers further down the funnel, dynamic ads can be more effective.
Here's an example of an AdWords static banner:
Here's an example of a Facebook static ad:
In contrast, dynamic ads target visitors to your website with images of products that they have directly viewed, abandoned in their cart, or are similar to ones that they’ve viewed or purchased. Each banner includes product images pulled from your shopping feed, customized for the specific user in question. Think of them as friendly reminders for your customer to return to your website and purchase a product they’ve already shown interest in.
It’s retargeting, super-charged!
Example of an AdWords dynamic banner:
Example of a Facebook Dynamic Product Ad:
According to our internal benchmarks, dynamic ads have, on average, a 9% higher click through rate and a 37% higher conversion rate than traditional static banners.
We suggest starting with AdWords and Facebook (as in the examples above) to get started. There are other platforms (including third-party retargeters such as AdRoll and Criteo), but we suggest getting to those later on in your marketing journey.
Yes, you’ll need to set up a Google Merchant Account, and either connect it to your product data (if you’re using Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento, this can be done through an automated feed) or upload data about your products (if you’re using Squarespace or a custom platform, for example).
Google’s Merchant Center Tutorials on YouTube is a great place to start.
Last month was our big digital conference month, with Carrie attending the Digital Summit in Portland and Spencer attending MozCon in Seattle. Afterward, we were buzzing around on Slack with a million ideas, not only for our clients but for internal solutions as well. We want to share all the exciting presenters and big ideas from this year’s conferences. We hope you find them useful!
Ann Handley— Digital Marketing & Content Expert
PLAYING IT TOO SAFE
Consumers expect brands to have a voice that matters. Being vanilla and playing it safe is no longer a strategy consumers have much patience for. You will quickly learn that your competitors who present their brand with bold statements, interesting points of view, and thoughtful messaging are winning the race—customers love them for it and these efforts are paying dividends.
YOUR STORY IS THE THING THAT SETS YOU APART
Use your company persona to create and tell a great story. That story doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are some examples of companies who excel at this:
IF THE LABEL FALLS OFF, CAN YOU RECOGNIZE THE BRAND?
Tyler Farnsworth—Managing Director at August United
Grow awareness, improve engagement, and drive your audience to take action. Here's How:
Geoffrey Colon—Sr. Marketing Communications Designer at Microsoft
AIDA = Attention——>Interest——>Decision——>Action
In today’s information-flooded world, the scarcest resource is not ideas or talent, it’s ACTION. How do you get there?
Rethink your group segmentations – swap age and demographics for consumer interests. Instead of marketing your product to, say, millennials, try to reach people who are interested in travel or lifestyle. (Not sure what your customers are interested in? We can help with that.)
Joel Klettke - Conversion Optimization Consultant
When building out effective landing pages, break them down into header, body, and call to action. Consider the following for every page on your website, particularly those where you’re asking people to exchange their information for your content:
In your hero image, focus on why the customer should care, what you’re talking about on the page, and who it’s for. In the body of your page consider how your content will improve their life, why it will work, and why they should trust you. And focus your call to action on what happens next.
Justine Jordan - VP of Marketing, Litmus
**We highly recommend keeping up with Litmus’s blog if your company uses email as a marketing channel.**
Find the right balance between subscriber needs and business needs in email. Switch up your email sends. Don’t just blast out “BUY NOW” messages all the time, instead mix them in with emails that are fun, relevant, and provide value to the customer.
Before you send an email, review Chad S. White’s Hierarchy of Customer Needs. Ensure that your e-mails meet as many of these needs as possible:
Make it easy for customers to both unsubscribe and manage their relationship with you. Remember that there’s no shame in unsubscribes, but you will have a problem if you make it difficult for your prospects and customers to do so, as they’re considerably more likely to mark you as spam in that case.
Purna Virji - Senior Training Manager at Microsoft
The future of search is moving in a more conversational direction.
While not a topic of her discussion, featured snippets in Google is a great example. To see what we’re talking about, try searching for something like “what to wear to a baby shower” and notice the article called out at the top of Google search.
Bing is handling conversational search in a really compelling way, by adding chatbot capability inside of the search engine result page. While it’s only available with a few select restaurants in the Seattle area at the moment, expect this to be coming to more and more searches in the near future. Try this search and click on the Chat button for an example.
We're excited to announce that starting today, we'll be offering regular tutorial videos on our blog! Our first is a guide to tracking form fill conversions in Squarespace as a goal through Google Analytics.
Here is the code snippet referenced in the video:
<script> window.location.replace("/thank-you"); </script>
If you want to use a url other than www.yoursite.com/thank-you just replace it in the snippet before setting up your page.
This video assumes you've already set up Google Analytics and have connected it to Squarespace. If you haven't done that yet, here's how: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205815608-Using-Google-Analytics-with-Squarespace
You might already know about the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO); we talk about it at Good & Gold a lot. Optimizing your website by ridding it of the technical issues that suppress your search appearance, lower your click-through rates, and hide your business from potential customers in the major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) is very important—but it’s only part of the battle.
If you have a physical location or serve a specific geographical market, there’s another crucial piece to the search marketing puzzle: Local SEO.
When we talk about “Local SEO,” we are referring to the process of ensuring that your business appears in all sorts of local searches. Part of this is ensuring that your Google My Business listing is correct; another is ensuring that your location data is appropriately tagged on your website. Here's an example of a Google Business listing for our client, Reverend's BBQ, which appears in the right-hand column of Google's search results page:
But if you’re like us, you don’t always conduct your local searches in Google or Bing. You probably search for a place to eat through Yelp; you might use SuperPages to find an architect, or CitySearch to find a local dentist. For this reason, it's important that your location information, your hours, your phone number, and your website be consistent and accurate across multiple platforms.
Additionally, local listings feed back into the major search engines, as Google, Bing, and Yahoo put a lot of trust in these local directory services. So ultimately, maintaining accurate listings on platforms like FourSquare, YP, and Localeze will help you boost your rankings in the major search engines as well. In other words, diligence with Local SEO will allow you to significantly multiply your online presence across platforms.
Recently, we've seen substantial client successes with Google Shopping campaigns, so we thought we'd share some insights. Since its introduction in 2012, Google Shopping has rapidly become the single most effective way to sell retail products via paid search. What follows is a brief overview of what these campaigns are, why they work, and how you can take advantage of them. Here goes!
Google Shopping’s history lies in a number of products, including Google Product Search and Froogle (a price comparison service that took advantage of Google to serve results). In 2012, Google made the decision to change the way that price comparison and visual product search worked, introducing a pay-to-play model that was directly managed through AdWords.
Today, Google Shopping allows merchants to feature their products visually at the top of search results, showing accurate pricing as well as shipping results. Google Shopping campaigns are powered by AdWords and Google Merchant Center, and are an invaluable element within any advertiser’s modern arsenal.
In many cases, you may see a carousel selection of ads for the top of the search results for a specific product. Below, you’ll see a standard search for a fire pit that displays a handful of Google Shopping results above regular text-based ads and organic search results:
Another example is when you search directly from the “Shopping” tab within Google. In that case, you’ll get results including prices, photos, and product descriptions. Here’s an example of the result for a specific product search in List mode:
Here’s an example of the results one might see searching for “change pouches” in Grid mode:
This month, we thought we’d share our approach to paid digital media, and more specifically, an overview of our retargeting services. The beauty of paid digital media versus traditional media is that you can accomplish a highly successful campaign at a much lower cost, while measuring results more precisely. Read on for an overview of our strategy, and some case studies to illustrate its impact.
Within the world of paid digital media, Good & Gold focuses on the following:
Each of these tactics requires a unique approach, but all share a common theme: set achievable goals, research your industry set, study your analytics, and adjust according to your results.
Retargeting ads are a form of digital advertising served in order to encourage users who meet a set of criteria (as designated by the advertiser) to return to a website. Generally, retargeting lists are based around web users who have visited a site but not converted, current customers who have not purchased in a certain amount of time, customers or leads in an e-mail database, or people who have viewed particular products.
There are two basic types of retargeting:
Our mission is to build timely, relevant, and tailored retargeting campaigns focused on the behavior, buying habits, and interests of website visitors. We know that it’s crucial to conduct diligent research and create clear goals before crafting a retargeting campaign, because industry benchmarks vary widely.
With retargeting campaigns, Good & Gold’s primary goal is to boost sales at a low Cost Per Acquisition (advertising dollars required for each sale) for our clients. In order to achieve the lowest Cost Per Acquisition possible, we carefully consider the following metrics:
Here are a few recent case studies from Good & Gold clients that illustrate the impacts of successful, integrated campaigns that include retargeting as well as search, display, and other channels:
You’ve probably been told that you really need to get your SEO in order. It's also likely that when you heard this, you weren't quite sure what "Search Engine Optimization" even meant.
Perhaps you did some research and figured out that, at its core, SEO has to do with how you’re indexed and ranked in places like Google and Bing. Great, you're on your way!
To most people, what translates as “successful SEO" is ranking first in Google for the specific terms that you choose. Well...that’s only partially correct—here’s why: Ranking first in Google for key terms that you’ve selected is a great sign, but this is a narrow view of the power of organic search and how it can help your business. And it would be a mistake to think of this as your singular goal.
The purpose of SEO is essentially the same as any other marketing initiatives you take: To get qualified eyeballs and potential customers to your website.
The answer is…maybe.
Here’s the thing: Most small businesses have a good sense of how they like to talk about their product. For example, perhaps you call a class that you teach the Underwater Picnic Container Construction Seminar. And you’ve hired an SEO firm to ensure that you rank first for that term in your area.
But what if nobody is searching for that specific term? What if your potential customers are typing “Underwater Basket Weaving” into Google and you're nowhere to be found in the results? If that’s the case, then you’re essentially paying for a vanity project.
Don't get us wrong: This doesn’t mean you should necessarily change your branding or how you like to talk about your product. After all, it's your product and you almost certainly have good reasons you talk about it the way you do. What it does mean is that you should be supplementing the way you talk about your product with keywords that reflect how people tend to search for your product.
The real goal of good SEO is to raise organic search traffic to your site that converts into sales. That means that when you reach out to an SEO firm, you should be asking for reporting that shows upticks not just in position across keywords but in organic search traffic.
When we start working with a client, one of the first things we do (this is the case for paid search as well) is build out a "keyword universe." There are a number of helpful tools to use for this, but one of our favorites is SpyFu.
A great starting point in this exercise is to figure out what keywords your competitors are concentrating on, and a tool like SpyFu will allow you to plug their sites in and spit back their keyword universe as well as estimates of how popular those terms are in common search engines.
Another good approach is to use Google Trends, type in the keywords you’d like to rank for and see how many people are searching for those terms over time on Google. You can even filter down by locality. If you’re trying to brainstorm keywords to plug into tools like Google Trends, keyword.io is a great resource as well.
Once you’ve got a robust keyword universe assembled, it’s time to work on building out strong content and meta data strategies founded in SEO best practices, both of which will boost your efforts significantly.
Beyond average rankings, you should measure SEO success the way you would any other marketing channel:
People come to your website. They browse around, maybe they buy something, maybe you pay for remarketing through the Google Display Network, AdRoll, or another service. Maybe they click on your social links and follow you.
But what if they don’t buy something? What if you don’t want to always pay valuable advertising dollars for display retargeting? What if they don’t (gasp) follow brands on Facebook or Twitter?
Oftentimes the most effective unpaid (or, in marketing parlance, owned) channel for our clients is not necessarily SEO or even social media, but e-mail marketing.
Here’s why:
• Email is a direct, long form, line of communication to your prospects and customers. You can often express things about your brand that are too complex for social media or that are too important to hope that customers serendipitously come to your website to learn.
• Especially when done on a consistent basis, e-mail marketing is excellent brand reinforcement.
• Email, for most small businesses or places starting up, is the easiest entry into lifecycle marketing, also known as upselling a customer to other products following their initial purchases.
• For growing businesses, especially those with inconsistent web traffic or limited advertising budgets, this channel provides quick, analyzable results (especially when paired with Google Analytics) that can be built upon.
Convinced that this is right for you? Great, to get started, you’ll want to pick an e-mail platform, decide on content, and set up a way to drive subscriptions on your site.
Would you drive a car without a dashboard? Of course not, and that’s essentially what analytics are for a website. They tell you not only the basics regarding the health of your site (how many visitors are coming, where they’re coming from, and what they’re doing) but also allow you to dig deeper (what pages people are going to, how many conversions you’re getting, what are the usual paths towards a conversion) and optimize from there.
In another post we’ll take you through building a basic dashboard to make sense of the various metrics you can see in an analytics program, but today we’re going to talk about setting up Google Analytics and beginning to collect data.
There are a few reasons to use Google Analytics. First and foremost, it’s free (with some rare exceptions at the highest end). Second is that it’s a service that’s so widely used that there’s an abundance of support documentation and an ample user base to rely on.
If you get to the point where you feel the need to hire an analytics point person, there’s no question they will be familiar with this platform.
Assuming you already have a Google Account, you’ll want to go to google.com/analytics and sign-in to Analytics. Next, follow Google’s instructions.
Once you’re in your new account you’ll want to go to your Admin tab, this will be on the top left hand of the page
Next you’ll go to the Account menu and select the option for New Account. This lives on the left side of the page.
Here you’ll set up a number of things, such as what you’re calling your account (generally this should be your business name), the website you’ll be tracking, and what industry you’re in. Google asks for your industry because they’ll use your data to create benchmarks that you and others can compare your success against. For more on benchmarks, check out this helpful support document.
You’ll also be asked to agree to a few data collection services, we suggest you say yes to all of these as they’ll help Google get you out of any jams or answer any questions you may have down the road.
You’ll then click on Get Tracking ID at the bottom of the page and accept Google’s Terms and Conditions.
This will give you a tracking code to add to your website, it should look like this one, with a unique UA code:
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-00000000-1', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>
If you have a standard website and are not using an overlaying content management system (CMS) you’ll need copy and paste this tracking code in the header of each webpage. However, we suggest that if this is the case that instead you install Google Tag Manager, and attach Google Analytics through there as this will make it significantly easier to implement tags for other services going forward.
If you are using a standard CMS, here are some helpful instructions for adding the code to your site through popular systems:
WordPress: http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-install-google-analytics-in-wordpress/
SquareSpace: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205815608-Using-Google-Analytics-with-Squarespace
Wix: https://www.wix.com/support/html5/article/adding-your-google-analytics-code-to-your-site
Finally, go back to your tracking page and you should see the following at the top of it:
Click Send test traffic and after a few seconds, you should see that there’s an active user on your site (that’s you!).
Great, you’re done! In future posts, we’ll explain setting up dashboards, conversion goals, and more, but for now, you’re collecting data and that’s terrific.
