• 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?

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?

Affiliate marketing is an advertising model where companies (merchants) pays commissions to third-party publishers (affiliates) who generate leads or sales by featuring the company’s products and services on their websites or blogs.

Affiliate marketing has been a proven business model since 1994, just four years after the origination of the internet. It is one of the only marketing channels and forms of  commerce where no money is exchanged until mutually agreed-upon results are achieved. One can be either a merchant or affiliate with very little, if any, investment.

It is relatively easy to begin. Merchants and Affiliates sign up at reputable affiliate marketing sites such as Commission Junction (CJ), Clickbank, Ratkuten, PeerFly, ShareASale, Wide Markets and Amazon Associates to name some of the top sites. After completing the sign up process, code or text links are provided for the merchant and affiliates to put on their websites identifying any actions that come from their relationship.

Is it worth it? Here are 22 affiliate marketing cold, hard yet amazing facts.

1. 90% of traffic and conversions to affiliate merchants’ programs are driven by 10% of affiliates.
2. Over 80% of brands have affiliate programs.
3. 78% of CMOs admit affiliate marketing is their least mastered area of digital marketing.
4. 71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on a social media reference.
5. 67% of affiliates come from North America (US and Canada).
6. 66%% of affiliate programs fall in into 4 categories: Fashion (23%), Sports and Outdoors (18%), Health & Beauty (14%) and Travel (11%)
7. Nearly 50% of affiliate related traffic originates from a mobile device.
8. 55.5% of affiliates work from home.
9. 48% of affiliates make under $20,000 a year; 20% make $20,000-$50,000 a year; 6% make $50,000-$100,000 a year; 6% make $100,000-$150,000 a year and 3% make $150,000+ a year.
10. 40% of marketers say affiliate marketing is their most desired digital marketing skill.
11. 38% of marketers call affiliate marketing one of their top customer acquisition methods.
12. More than 30% of affiliate-related sales originate from a mobile device.
13. 16.6% annual growth is expected through 2021.
14. 15% to 30% of all online sales are generated by affiliate programs.
15. 10% to 15% conversion rate for pay-per-call affiliate campaigns vs 2% to 3% for online affiliate campaigns.
16. 10% of Amazon’s sales are estimated to come from affiliates.
17. 7.5% of total digital spend for retailers goes to affiliate marketing.
18. $5 billion in revenue was generated last year in the US by affiliate marketing.
19. $5 billion in revenue was generated last year in the US by affiliate marketing.
20. 600 million products are promoted online by affiliate programs.
21. Over 2,000,000 affiliates were on Amazon as early as 2008.
22. 1,000,000+ affiliate accounts are registered on ShareASale.

Do these facts convince you affiliate marketing is worth it? Is your business interested?

Better online reviews are now a key consideration for every organization, brand, doctor, lawyer, contractor, caterer, hotelier, restaurant owner and human resource department. And for good reason:

• 84% of patients use reviews to evaluate physicians
• 81% of females would not visit a restaurant which reports cleanliness issues from a review
• 76% of travelers said they would pay more for a hotel with a higher review score
• 72% of consumers say that positive reviews make them more likely to trust a local business
• 60% of job seekers would not apply to a company with a one-star rating
• 5%-9% increase in revenue for every additional star a business gets

The facts show better online review influence our buying decisions and impact revenue for every kind of business. But any business is not above getting a negative review and figuring out how to deal with it. Some even resort to writing their own positive reviews. Do they work? Hardly.

• Over 30% of users assume reviews are fake if there are no negative reviews
• 27% of people trust online reviews only if they believe they are authentic
• 20% of online reviews on Yelp are fake

How does a business get better online review authentically? Jessica Leone, an unapologetic word nerd, bookworm and Florida Gators football fan, let us know in an infographic she created, How to Get More Positive Reviews (and Deal with the Negative).

Here is a brief summary how to get more positive reviews and deal with the negative.

1. HAVE A CLEAR CALL-TO-ACTION ON YOUR SITE: Make it easy for people to see and go to where they can write a review.
2. SAY THANK YOU: A simple thank you page to customers with a request they leave a review goes a long way.
3. SEND A PERSONALIZE TEXT OR EMAIL: Ask if they will leave a review when your business and their experiences are still fresh.
4. SOCIAL MEDIA IS YOUR FRIEND: Use a display plug-in to share social media reviews.
5. FACE-TO-FACE: Asking in person for a review is 7X more effective than asking by email.
6. TALK TO VENDORS: For B2B industries, ask vendors and suppliers. 7 out of 10 people will leave a review if they are asked.
7. CONSIDER AN INCENTIVE: Zappos Rewards Program gives members 100 points toward products for leaving a review.
8. TIMING IS EVERYTHING: Ask consumers to leave a review when they are likely to be at their happiest. American Express found a happy customer will tell 9 other people about their experience.
9. SEND A FOLLOW UP: 20% to 25% of Esty purchases result in a review because they send a follow up email or text.
10. ALWAYS RESPOND: Whether positive or negative, respond to reviews. Harvard Business Review found hotels that respond receive 12% more reviews and their ratings increase.
11. REACH OUT TO A NEGATIVE REVIEWER DIRECTLY: 78% of consumers who receive a response believe the business cares about them.
12. SPREAD POSITIVE REVIEWS: Share and promote reviews on your website and social networks.

Here is the infographic.

Are these ways useful to you to get better online reviews?