• Digital ads are now blocked by 200 million people worldwide
• Lost revenue from ad blocking is estimated at 22 billion dollars
• Advertisers lose 7.2 billion dollars in digital ad revenue to bots
• 68% of marketers and agencies expect to see digital ad spend increase this year

Do the companies who pour more money into digital ads know less people are watching? And if they knew, do you think they might do something?

See if these statistics mirror your behaviors. Here are 30 straightforward facts why we are fed up with digital ads.

1. 083% of people say “not all ads are bad but I want to filter out the really obnoxious ones.”
2. 82% of people have closed a web page because of an autoplaying video ad.
3. 81% of consumers have closed a web page because of a pop-up.
4. 79% of people feel they are being tracked by ads.
5. 77% of people wish there was a way to ad filter instead of ad block completely.
6. 73% of people disapprove of pop-up ads.
7. 71% of people believe digital ads are more intrusive now than they were three years ago.
8. 63% of people say “most ads I see online don’t look polished or professional.”
9. 60% of online traffic is comprised of bots.
10. 57% of people say their pet peeve with digital ads are pop-ups that obstruct content.
11. 56% of consumers say “most ads are insulting to my intelligence.”
12. 51% of people use ad blockers because too many ads are annoying or irrelevant.
13. 50% of people use ad blocker because there are too many ads on the internet.
14. 50% of viewers are irritated by ads that take up the entire screen.
15. 51% of people think less of brands that use autoplaying video ads.
16. 51% of consumers believe websites should host fewer ads.
17. 50% of people use ad blocker because there are too many ads on the internet.
18. 50% of video ads aren’t seen by a real person.
19. 48% of people would abandon a website or app if it crashed.
20. 47% use ad blockers because ads are too intrusive.
21. 44% of internet users cite two ads as the limit for a website.
22. 42% of consumers are annoyed by pop-ups that interrupt their shopping experience on retail sites.
23. 40% use ad blockers because ads take up too much screen space.
24. 37% use ad blockers to speed up page loading time.
25. 36% of people would never visit a website or app again if it crashed.
26. 15% of people say “the ad tricked me into clicking.”
27. Only 8% of display ads are viewable by real people.
28. 8% of internet users account for 85% of clicks on display ads.
29. Only 6% of people like ads that re-target them ay digital ads are more intrusive now than they were three years ago.
30. The average person is served over 1,700 banner ads per month but only half of them are ever viewed.

Does this sound like you? Do you think companies will start producing better ads or will there be better filters to weed out the one that offend us?

Does you company need help creating a better ad experience?

Audience Segmentation

Audience segmentation is the process of dividing your potential customer base into subgroups based on a common set of characteristics such as behavior, psychographics, demographics, and customer type. 

It is an essential marketing discipline to find the customers who are looking and most need the products or services your company sells. To maximize the business value of audience segmentation, it is best to establish segmentation based on financial goals such as profits, sales, annual customer value or customer lifetime value.

The internet has made audience segmentation tools available that are accessible, trusted and often free to any business with a website.

Here are the 6 best audience segmentation tools to find customers that need you most.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics tool in the world and it’s free to anyone who owns a website. It’s designed for audience segmentation as the “add segment” tab is on every page. Segments can be build based on Users (New, Returning, Traffic Sources), Demographics, Geography, Device and Conversion Behavior. Google Analytics has Smart Goals where machine learning is used to examine dozens of signals about your website sessions to determine which of those are most likely to result in a conversion.

Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics was founded in 2008 by Neil Patel. It is highly ranked with a key difference vs Google Analytics in that it tracks people’s actions vs their page view behaviors. Kissmetric is an audience segmentation tool for marketers who are clear about their conversions. Kissmetric offers conversions funnels, A/B testing and can be integrated with popular ecommerce and email platforms. It’s very good for communication testing. Kissmetrics is for internet marketers likely to be focused on ecommerce. Kissmetrics has a 14-free trial with pricing that starts at $400/month.

Segment

Segment collects your customer data in one place and sends it anywhere.
This is helpful for organizations that want to enforce the same data standard across their enterprise. You can then power all your apps with the same data. Using this customer segmentation tool, you can even query your data in SQL for the most convenient experience. Segment also offers Personas, a new product built on the Segment platform. With Personas, you can make sense of your customer data and use it to deliver personal experiences throughout the customer journey. Segment’s pricing is similar to Kissmetrics.

Piwik PRO

Piwik PRO has a straightforward interface that any novice could dive into. This audience segmentation tool tracks visitors to your website and displays reports describing who they are and how they behave. The reports gathered using this tool demonstrate a better understanding of your audience. They are especially effective for a company that is looking to quickly be able to look and compare multiple websites. Piwik PRO is a good audience segmentation tool to consider if you’re experiencing reporting limitations with Google Analytics.

Optimove

Optimove is a Science-first Relationship Marketing Hub headquartered in Israel. It is used by hundreds of customer-centric businesses to drive measurable growth by scaling customer engagement. Optimove combines the art of marketing with the science of data to autonomously generate actionable insight, empowering marketers to deliver highly-effective personalized CRM campaigns across multiple channels. Audience segmentation is taken to an level of “emotionally-intelligent” communication that helps marketers maximize customer spend, engagement, retention and lifetime value.

Adobe Analytics

Adobe Analytics creates a holistic view of your business to truly understand your customer’s journey on the web. Forrester reports Adobe Analytics as the leader in customer analytics last year. Adobe Analytics Cloud allows you to closely track your digital marketing campaigns and their performances, recognize and create different types of data segments for remarketing, offer a customized shopping experience to your site visitors, and works with bare-minimum data latency, particularly during the periods of peak traffic activity. Adobe Analytics Cloud also connects to a wide range of native and 3^rd party tools to easily bring in 3^rd party data to the tool.  Adobe Analytics is an enterprise tool with pricing for a license that ranges from $30,000 to $300,000 a year.

No business should pursue marketing without audience segmentation. With this range of audience segmentation tools to meet the needs of any business, there is no reason not to.

Does your business need further dialogue on audience segmentation?

ROI research (Return on Investment) is a key consideration for companies pursing or thinking about pursuing the hottest digital trends:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Big Data
• Digital Transformation
• Influencer Marketing
• Mobile Apps

Each of these areas is about innovation with the goal of saving companies time, money and providing better and more personalized customer experiences.

But the reality is they are big endeavors that also require big investments and often infrastructure change. So how much? For how long is required? When does it pay off?

Here is the ROI research on the 5 hottest digital trends.

ROI research on Artificial Intelligence (AI)

70% of companies claim they’re using a form of artificial intelligence (AI). This includes machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and cognitive computing. Manufacturers worldwide are looking to technologies through artificial intelligence (AI) to increase efficiencies and avoid disruption from industry newcomers. KPMG surveyed 299 global manufacturing CEOs, and another 73 from the US. The conclusion for their ROI research: AI investment could take up to 5 years, 56% of manufacturing CEOs say.

ROI research on Big Data

Big Data adoption reached 53% of companies in 2017 according to the NewVantage Partners Big Data Executive Survey. 84% of survey respondents name factors related to speed, insight, and business agility as the primary reasons for big data investment. Tech Republic reports that ROI on big data can be delivered in 6 months if companies outline a very specific business case and outcome for the big data investments. Examples include sensors to shorten delivery routes or reduce in-transit theft. Behavior data to better understand consumer preference and relationship to sales. Wikibon research claims, the average Big Data project delivers a 55 cents ROI for each dollar invested.

ROI research on Digital Transformation

88% of companies report they are undergoing digital transformation. This year, according to IDC, companies around the world are expected to have spent a total of $2.1 trillion on digital transformation. The network is at the heart of any digital transformation according to IDC. No network means no business. Yet IDC has stated that in the next two years almost a third (30%) of large and midsize businesses will suffer a service failure due to mismatches in power delivery and IT workload profiles caused by hardware obsolescence. A DT-ready network can be surprisingly affordable achieving an average return on investment of 349% over five years and payback in as little as six months. Automation is an essential element of such a network; an IDC study found that companies lowered their networking costs by 33%.

ROI research on Influencer Marketing

75% of marketers are using influencers as a marketing tool and many plan to increase spending 43% in the next 12 months. A study on influencer marketing showed that it can give an ROI of 11X more than banner ads. A Celebrity Intelligence survey found for $1.29 beauty brand spend on beauty influencer, they are generating a return of $11.38. According to Tomoson, $6.50 in revenue is generated from every $1 invested in influencer marketing strategies. Finding the right influencers for the right campaign is one of the most frequent difficulties faced by nearly 68% of the marketers.

ROI research on mobile apps

58% of all connected consumer time takes place in mobile apps, according to digital research firm comScore. According to a report by Gartner, mobile apps will be responsible for generating a revenue of $77 billion by 2017. Mobile apps are a core ingredient in the future of tech in our everyday lives. ROI research on mobile apps is determined based on the function and goals of the app. It’s different to develop mobile games to make money than to create a free corporate app to enhance your brand and be able to connect more directly with your customers. But ROI is also pretty basic for mobile app. The primary markets are the Apple Store and Google Play. They offer tools for keeping a record of the times our app gets downloaded, as well as from which countries it was downloaded from and user performance data. You can also check the comments and opinions left by those who have tried our app and the error reports it may have generated to act accordingly and get these problems solved in future updates.

Does this ROI research help you in your pursuit of these innovative technologies. Could your company benefits from a ROI assessment for any initiatives you may be doing or thinking in these areas?

Mobile App marketing

Mobile App marketing matters. The number of apps available to Android users is 2.1 million on Google Play and iPhone users have 2 million available apps on the Apple App Store.

Mobile apps account for nearly half of global internet traffic and are an important channel to consider for businesses seeking to better communicate with customers.

But only 40% of smartphone users browse for apps in app stores. The majority find apps through search, websites, social media, ads, videos, reviews and recommendations.

Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come. A marketing plan for your Mobile App is as important as its development.

Here are 9 essential rules to follow for Mobile App marketing.

1. App store optimization (ASO)

Both Google Play and Apple’s App Store algorithmically prioritize certain apps in search results based on a variety of ranking factors (ratings, tags, screenshots, app title, download data etc.). However, unlike SEO (which primarily focuses on Google) app store optimization is not a one-size fits all game. The most important ranking factor when it comes to app store optimisation is your app’s title. If you’ve built a train time-checker app, then it’s recommended to use ‘train time checker’ in the title.

You can use Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool (with the device setting on mobile) to identify which terms and phrases are relevant to your app people search for the most on mobile.

2. Social media marketing and advertising

One of the most effective ways of acquiring mobile app installs has been through clever use of Facebook’s advertising platform. Use a combination of page promoted posts & sponsored stories targeted to mobile news feeds. Similarly, promoted tweets are another highly effective way of driving mobile app downloads when set up correctly. Start off with a small budget testing various different keyword segments, and scale up what drives the best cost-per-acquisitions. Reddit advertising is ridiculously cheap. Play around with advertising or contributing on niche social networks, such as Reddit or Quora.

3. Reviews, drive them naturally

Reviews are a huge aspect of app store optimization, as well as an important factor in convincing people to download your app. It’s extremely important that you find an effective way of driving reviews in a way that’s natural and won’t trigger Google or Apple’s spam filters. Offer something cool – be it some free credits or an extended subscription, giving the user something valuable in return for a review is a win-win situation that seems to work well.

4. Microsite with a blog for effective search engine optimization (SEO)

A micro-site opens up a whole host of marketing possibilities. If you’ve built an app that sells concert tickets in London, you could build a micro-site and do some SEO around it. If you ranked #1 for ‘London concert tickets’ you’d drive approximately 8,100 people searching for ‘London Concert Tickets’ to your app per month. If you create a blog on your site, you can find many other relevant keywords for your app and write blogs using these keywords in titles to continuously drive traffic to your site and, for there, to your app.

5. YouTube channel for app instructions

You can also create your own YouTube videos on how to use the app to deal with specific problems. This will help capture people that are looking for solutions to those problems, and convert them into users. Once they see a step-by-step guide on how they can use the application for their needs, they’re so much more likely to give it a try. Remember that even simple apps can be confusing to some people, even with instructions and onboarding. A demonstration is a great way to get customers interested in downloading and using the app.

6. Email marketing

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways of driving traffic, building advocacy, and converting leads to users / customers. Build a newsletter and offer your potential users information that’s useful and valuable to them. They’ll respect you for it and ultimately be more inclined to download your app.

7. Start Mobile App marketing before launch

From the minute the app concepts and designs are complete, you should be thinking of marketing it.  Figure out who your ideal users are, why they should download the app, and how to encourage them. If only 40%
search for apps through the mobile app store and the rest find the apps through YouTube videos, blogs, and tutorials online, among other options; that’s means your missing out on over half the audience you could have if you start Mobile App marketing early.

8. Use Mobile App marketing to engage with potential customers

In order to create the ideal app, it has to be designed to meet your ideal users’ needs. So you should get feedback from your target audience throughout the creation process. Seek out and engage with potential customers during the app creation process. Get feedback from real users through through your microsite, your blog, your YouTube Channel and social media.

9. Get more feedback from customers after launch

Mobile apps in app stores are often ranked on popularity and value, based on ratings. So you definitely want to get customer feedback and more reviews to increase the possibility of more downloads after launch. You should also include contact info in your app descriptions, so customers can reach out with more detailed feedback or questions.

Do these rules for Mobile App marketing make sense to you? If your thinking of developing a Mobile App for your business, do you need a Mobile App marketing plan?

Best digital marketing case studies are meant to not only inform us on significant accomplishments for this year but to inspire us in the year to come.

A digital marketing campaign is an online marketing effort by a company to drive engagement, conversions, traffic and revenue. 

While the best digital marketing case studies demonstrate integration, depending on the unique aspects of the business, certain channels can stand out.

Here are the 20 best digital marketing case studies of 2018 to inspire in 2019 across the areas of content marketing, ecommerce, mobile, social media, UX experience and video.

CONTENT MARKETING

• LEVONO: Developed a digital content hub called “Tech Revolution” to deliver technical news and technology information to IT decision makers for best digital marketing case studies of the year in content marketing. They were able to successfully engage with their target audience through this content marketing hub. The leads generated via Tech Revolution, were routed to their website, based on which sales executives were able to readily connect with consumers. The digital content hub had more than 250 articles with 34 million impressions, 308 link clicks, and was visited by 1,70,000 new web users, In terms of financials, $300 million in sales was attributable to this initiative alone.
• HUBSPOT: Coined the phrase “inbound marketing.” The main reason HubSpot has grown so fast is because of their content marketing strategy. Their blogs are central to their content strategy: one focused on marketing, the other on sales. The goal of these blogs is to help HubSpot acquire traffic to their funnel. Content marketing has been one of HubSpot’s main growth drivers. It helped the company go from being funded in 2006 to a $75 million run rate public company worth over a billion dollars.
• STR SOFTWARE: Attracted large businesses with big budgets and long, complex sales cycles. So instead of investing thousands of dollars to acquire each customer, STR Software decided to to set themselves apart by developing a content marketing strategy. STR Software promoted their “University” extensively throughout their site, including on their homepage, sidebar, and other articles. They also used email marketing to promote it to their audience. They saw 54% increase in website traffic, 67% increase in pageviews and 10% conversion rate on forms, up from 1-2 percent on other forms.

ECOMMERCE

• ENVELOPE.COM: Wanted to see if they could “rekindle the flame” and land some sales from hot leads using target followups in best digital marketing case studies for ecommerce. These are visitors who created an account and put an item in their shopping cart. So they tested out email sends at two alternate time lapses post cart abandonment; the first group sent the following morning at 11 a.m. and the second group 48 hours post cart abandonment. The emails sent after 48 hours delivered: 1) An open rate of 38.01%, 2) click-through rate of 24.71% and 3) a conversion rate of 40.00%
• RAW GENERATION: A company that makes drinking raw, unpasteurized juice from fresh fruits and vegetables more convenient. For their business, deal sites like Groupon, Gilt and Rue La La proved to be a major channel. After initially promoting on social media and getting no traction, Jessica, the founder was introduced to Lifebooker, a deal site. After promoting on Lifebooker, they hit a homerun. Once they discovered a marketing channel that working, they didn’t go seeking new marketing channels. Doubling down on the channel that’s working took ecommerce sales from $8K to $96K per month.
• BEARDBRAND: An Ecommerce store that sells beard oil and beard care products and that prides themselves in leading the movement for all the “urban beardsmen” of the world, chose not to put ads or not to put products on sale because they wanted their brand to be as consistent as possible in providing premium customer experience. Then focused on offering premium customer experience by using high-quality oils for beard care, high-end packaging, one-business-day shipping and offering no discounts on products. Within a year, they created an ecommerce business that went from $0 to $120K per month.

MOBILE

• CAROLINA PANTHERS: Wanted to elevate their ecommerce experience for their football apparel best digital marketing case studies for mobile. They enlisted the help of their official retail provider Delaware North Sportservice. One particular focus of the Panthers was to improve the mobile shopping experience. They not only looked at the desktop experience, but focused equally on the tablet and mobile shopping experience to be sure that customers would be able to navigate the site, find items, and checkout with ease –– no matter where they were shopping. Since the site has gone live, the Panthers mobile conversion rate, has increased 83%, with overall conversion rate growing by 37%.
• DUNKIN DONUTS: Launched a new text messaging promotion towards young adults in the Boston area. Via a local radio DJ, Dunkin’ Donuts advertised the text message promotion on-air and ran mobile internet ads encouraging people to opt-in to text message promotions. The result was 7,500 consumers opting in. 17% of participants forwarded or showed the text message promotion to their friends. 35% of the participants considered themselves more likely to buy lattes and coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. 21% increase in store traffic occurred due to the mobile promotion. 
• ARGOS: The British retail major wanted to deliver a multi-channel experience comprising 14 combinations of order and fulfillment. The British retail major wanted to deliver a multi-channel experience comprising 14 combinations of order and fulfillment. Its multi-channel sales comprised over 50% of the total sales. 

SOCIAL MEDIA

• CHEVROLET AND BUICK DEALERSHIP: Castle Chevrolet & Castle Buick GMC turned to Facebook Advertising, targeting the campaign to Facebook users who were located within a few miles of their showrooms as well as those that lived near Castle’s top competitors. The ads featured a map that showed exactly how close Castle’s dealerships were to the audience. The three-month campaign generated 2,212 unique visits to the dealership website at a cost of $0.98 per click. 23 vehicle sales were directly attributed to the campaign, providing a 23x return of advertising spend.
• DISNEY: Came up with a wonderfully simple idea. For every photo that featured Mickey Mouse ears and the hashtag #ShareYourEars uploaded to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, Disney would donate $5 to Make A Wish Foundation. The campaign for best digital marketing case studies of the year was a huge success and Disney ended up donating $2 million.
• SHUTTERFLY: A company who flagship products are photo books, came up with a promotion to offer a free personalised ceramic mug. And the audience they chose to target in best digital marketing case studies for social media? Mothers with kids at home. Using Facebook’s Offer Claims feature, Shutterfly reached out to their target audience and distribute a unique, single-use offer code to each person who clicked its ad. The three-day campaign resulted in over 16,000 offers reclaimed. But crucially there were 8,000 additional purchases generated, resulting in an 11-fold return on ad spend.
• STATE BYCYCLE CO.: Came up with a number of ways to reach out to cycling lovers. One of the most popular is their weekly photo challenge, where State Bicycle Co. reward the follower who submits the best snap on a given theme (e.g. the winner of the “most beat-up bike” theme landed themselves a brand new ride). State Bicycle Co. also offer unique discount codes on ‘Facebook Fridays’ and encourage followers to like posts to reveal sneak previews of new products. Since 2013 State Bicycle Co. has grown its followers from 4,500 to 480,000. Today, 12 per cent of State Bicycle Co.’s website traffic comes from Facebook, at a fifth of the cost per click of other platforms. Best of all? State Bicycle Co. attribute $500,000 in annual sales to coupon codes and traffic from Facebook.

WEBSITE DESIGN & UX EXPERIENCE

• CONCORDIA PLAN SERVICES: An insurance provider, had a major problem for best digital marketing case studies in UX experience. Its three disjointed websites made it nearly impossible for users to find information and forms. As a result, customers resorted to calling support with basic requests, tying up support lines, causing customer dissatisfaction and increased support costs. They consolidated three websites and over 800 disjointed pages into a single 60-page user-centric website. The new website makes it easy for users to find information, resulting in a significant reduction of support calls and resulted in an improvement in 92% customer satisfaction.
• HEARTLAND SENIOR FINANCE: (HSF): Australia’s largest leading provider of reverse mortgages, enables seniors to release equity in their property to help them live better in retirement. They developed content around solving problem to use keywords their customers used in organic search. They created a drop-down widget on the homepage which led to optimized landing pages, each focusing on one of the reasons for taking out a reverse mortgage. They did systems consolidations to ensure they converted as many leads as possible. In just a few months, the saw: 1) 29.5% increase in page views, 2) 25.38% increase in new visitors, 3) 81.2% increase in returning visitors, 4) 71.95% increase in guide downloads (leads)  and 5) 19.94% increase in conversion rate. 
• STANLEY: Consolidated two separate brand web properties into one site. The process needed to mitigate traffic disruption, improve traffic, and increase organic search results. So they focused on increase search rank of top performing keywords as the key measurement of web design success. The results? Almost 40% of keywords Stanley ranked for were on the first page of organic results, and the company generated a 100% lift in revenue.

VIDEO:

• CHILI’S: Decided to run a digital campaign to raise awareness of its 3 for $10 deal. The plan was to capture people’s attention using a made-for-digital 15-second creative spot that highlighted one of the meals from the promotion. Form ads — a new TrueView for action format optimized for lead generation — create a sign-up form that enables viewers to submit their name and email right below a video ad. It’s a quick and easy process that doesn’t interrupt the viewing experience. The campaign ended up generating over 7,800 form leads, a valuable addition for a campaign focused on brand consideration.
• OVERSTOCK: Personalized each of the 15-second pieces of creative on YouTube. While the first half was one of several funny plays on a person’s name, the second half was tailored to a specific set of products, like furniture, dining, or bedding. Overstock regularly used search ads. If someone is browsing online for, say, a table, the company can serve up a relevant ad featuring tables. Using a new YouTube tool, Overstock was able to take this understanding of what customers were actively looking to buy and apply it to video. Overstock used TrueView for action, a direct-response format, placing a call to action underneath the ad that told people to “Shop Now” or “Save Big.” When viewers clicked, they were taken directly to Overstock’s website. The direct-response video campaign an 80% increase in the conversion rate compared to other campaigns.
• NAVY: Shot their first made-for-digital creative and personalized it for those audiences for best digital marketing case studies of the year. The creative was built into over 60 different 15-second and six-second video ads, all tied together with the tagline “Forged by the Sea.” Finally, they served the ads in a specific order, making sure each viewer saw more than one. People who saw the ads two or more times were 16% more likely to consider joining the U.S. Navy, and users who saw the ads at least twice were 19% more likely to search for U.S. Navy keywords on YouTube within three days.
• PEEL: Sells thin phone cases, with the major selling point being they’re both functional and stylish. They used Facebook video ads to help tell the story of what separates their products from everyone else. When one of your brand’s major selling points is aesthetics, little details conveyed in video proved critical to messaging. The campaign proved successful resulting in a 16x increase in revenue and 3x higher ROI in best digital marketing case studies for video.

Do these best digital marketing case studies in 2018 provides inspiration for 2019? Does your business need direction in digital next year?