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SMS
98% Open Rate
A few weeks ago we discussed a medieval form of marketing that many marketers are successfully using to improve their e-commerce bottom line – SMS Marketing.
If you already took some action on it and it worked out for you, great news!
However, if you are still among the 61% marketers who don’t use SMS, here’s some more food for thought:
- Open-rates for SMS are as high as 98%.
- Around 45% of people respond to branded SMS messages.
- 73% of marketers intend to increase their SMS marketing budgets even more in the next year.
- You don’t really need stats on how mobile marketing is one of the most disruptive forms of marketing.
Thinking of adding SMS marketing to your strategy? Here’s what you need to know about choosing the right platform for your SMS marketing campaigns.
There are many platforms out there that allow you to do this, but there are a few things you need to keep in mind when looking for the perfect platform for your requirements.
- Fully compliant. Find out how they handle things like importing contacts, managing opt outs, and what other types of businesses they allow to use their software.
- Offer scalability for your business. How many messages can you send out at once and how many of your team members can use your account.
- Short code availability and pricing. Whether you will be getting a shared short code or a dedicated one and the pricing involved.
- Keyword restrictions. If you are going to use a shared short code, look for a provider big enough to have multiple short code options. This is so that the one you want isn’t already in use by someone else.
- Automation. You don’t want to be manually creating your campaigns all the time. Look for the ones that offer automation and scheduling capabilities.
- On-the-go. Look for the platform that offers a mobile app. It’s not always convenient or even possible to manage your campaigns from a computer.
- Integration. Finally, one of the most important aspects of choosing the right SMS platform is that it should be easy to integrate with your existing services such as Zapier, e-commerce platform etc. For instance, you might want a platform that can automatically send texts to confirm shipping when someone purchases your product online.
Finding all this interesting and want to learn more about it? Head here to the detailed post.
Turning a first-time buyer into a loyal customer
Everybody here knows the potential of email. It’s a channel straight to your target audience with a high ROI on average etc.
However, what we are talking about today is using the power of email to turn first-time buyers into long-lasting, loyal customers. These are customers that buy and buy and buy again from you.
You’re running a 10x ROAS campaign on FB and you feel like Rocky Balboa after he beat Drago down. Now it’s time to turn all that effort into something even more prolific..
What does the CrazyEgg team have to bring to the table about creating loyal customers using emails? Find out here!
- Start by saying thank you: After someone bought your product, their mindset is either: Enthusiastic about the purchase. Or… Worried about the transaction success and shipment.
Therefore, an email to thank your customers will start to gain their trust and assure them that their decision to purchase from you was the right one.
Think of it this way – A “thank you” email is your first chance to make a good impression in their Inbox and it starts getting them accustomed to seeing your brand more often.
- Follow up with shipping information: Make sure your new buyers know exactly what’s happening with their order and constantly keep them in the loop about their purchase.
Extra tip: Consider adding information about your social media profiles, quotes from happy customers, or other ways to engage these first-time buyers with your brand.
- Welcome first time buyers to the community: Welcome emails are great for customer lifetime value (CLTV). This is your chance to make your customers re-engage with your brand and your website. Make it clear to them that they didn’t just join a newsletter, but a community.
- Provide help: For example, use tutorial videos or reminders that customers can always reach out to you to get information or to solve any problems they might be having.
- Track first-time buyer behaviour and personalize the offer: Let’s say that a new customer bought a sports watch from your store. This purchase hints that they are a runner, so direct them to some appropriate content. It could be training guides for runners, a guide to the best watches for runners, or running related discounts in your store.
- Run a contest and source user-generated content (UGC): Let your customers be active in your community. One way to engage with your first-time buyer email audience is to organize contests and limited-time-offer giveaways.
This allows you to benefit in two ways:
- You’re driving engagement.
- You’re sourcing UGC (free content, bruh!) which instantly makes your emails more trustworthy.
There we are. Now you’ve some new inspiration and ideas on how to turn first-time buyers into loyal-spending-customers. Let’s get those emails rolling!
SPONSORED
Media500 are a bunch of troublemakers… The good kind!
If you are on Facebook in any affiliate marketing group or attended any of the industry conferences, you’ve no-doubt met at least one of these troublemakers from Media500.
Their strength is in financial offers, biz opp, you know the kind, right?
But they are not your usual direct advertiser. They go far and beyond the norm to help any of their affiliates:
- Custom offers.
- Custom domains.
- Help you run if it’s a new vertical for you.
- Minimize chances of ad account issues.
If you haven’t met them yet, they will probably invite you to one of their legendary parties.
They create those parties as a reflection of them as a company and show that business and pleasure can mix if it’s a kick-ass network with a kick-ass crew.
Media500 also likes to get some of the industry’s top affiliates to open up about their stories and sometimes about their secrets. Just check out their weekly newsletter archive here.
If you don’t have an account already, sign up with Media500 here. We’ll see you at one of their parties soon 😉
Or hit up one of the affiliate managers there:
- Ilan, Head of Affiliates: live:ilan_546
- Moti, Affiliate Manager: live:moti.b890
- David G, Affiliate Manager: live:davidgrare
- D. Elgrod, Affiliate Manager: live:davide1498
FB’s take on Stories. 3D images to take over?
How you can make highly engaging Stories, according to Facebook. Plus, new features for 3D photos.
Unlock the true potential of Stories
Previously on WTAFF… We saw that Facebook is testing a swipeable hybrid carousel of feed posts and Stories. If that ends up becoming a reality, it will mean that Stories Ads will reign supreme.
Although, Stories are and will still be one of the formats that gets the most user attention on FB and IG. It almost goes without saying that being able to create high-value content is an absolute must.
This becomes even more apparent when you consider the future of marketing.
So, here’s a guide from Facebook itself that allows you to unlock the full potential of Stories.
Let’s see what they suggest marketers do to come up with creatives that catch users’ attention and perform well.
- Keep attention with speed: People are consuming Stories content faster than any other format. Use speed as a creative element in your stories to catch and keep the audience’s attention.
- Use sound: According to FB, Stories that used sound drove 80% more TOF (Top Of the Funnel) results.
- Test the use of stickers: Stickers draw attention to the product, as well as making the ad feel like it belongs to the environment and less like an ad. However, be careful. When they’re not used in the right manner, they actually drive the attention away.
- Design creative with your objective in mind: There is a 73% chance of product-focused creatives driving better lower-funnel metrics than people-focused creatives.
- Strategic CTA: Enhance the action you want your audience to take. Experiment with elements that emphasize the CTA.
- Split your Stories into scenes: Experiment with a fast-paced narrative. Use Stories for storytelling, but make it all happen quickly enough to keep users’ attention.
- Mix and match motion and static content: Mixed formats assets can drive 75% more results than creatives that only use either static images or videos.
Finish line. The general gist of all this is: People consume stories fast, so your content must be equipped to use speed to catch and keep their attention. Make it relevant to the environment and experiment around it.
New features for 3D photos
Talking about creatives, FB launched new features for 3D images.
Let’s have a look at these 3 short but interesting updates:
- 3D Photos in stories: You can now share 3D photos through Facebook Stories.
- 3D Photos Creation on the Web: FB added the ability to post 3D photos from the web, on your computer, in addition to iPhone dual-camera devices.
- 3D Photos Creation on Android: From next month, Android users will be able to create and share 3D photos on FB.
That’s so cool, Facebook. However, what everybody here is wondering about is: When are 3D Ads coming into action?
Soon, we’re hoping!
PPC audits: New Ads Editor, new features
How often do you do a comprehensive audit of your Google Ads accounts?
If you manage client accounts, you know there is always a chance that someone could come along and offer an account audit to convince your client that you don’t know what you’re doing.
The good thing is that most audits can be performed using automated tools, so it’s better to know what tools are out there so you know what your competition might be using.
While there are paid tools like WordStream and Optimyzr, Ad Editor 1.0, which recently got rebranded, became one very powerful tool when these 11 new features got added to it.
One of these features is new Custom Rules which take most of the load off your PPC Audits.
There are five new custom rules that can alert advertisers when:
- There are no responsive search ads in an ad group of a Search campaign.
- A video campaign isn’t targeting Google video partners.
- A video discovery ad group is targeting a keyword or topic.
- A TrueView campaign is only targeting YouTube search but only has TrueView in-stream video ads.
- A video campaign has a start and end date, but is using an average daily budget.
With these 5 new rules, you now have a list of 27 pre-built rules.
Performing a PPC audit
- Download the latest version of Ads Editor and download the accounts you want to audit to your local machine.
- In the new Editor, you can now open multiple accounts together in a single window.
- You will see a list of all the issues across all the open accounts on one screen.
- To find a list of issues to fix, navigate to “Account Level” >> “Custom Rules” where you’ll find the 27 built-in rules from Google.
- Double click on the number of violations to apply a filter to a view of the affected items. That way you get a list of things to fix.
You can also create your own audits with the help of advanced syntax.
Audits using Reports
Reports combine structural analysis with performance data, as well as bringing in data about performance and allowing you to filter issues that are more significantly affecting your campaigns based on the performance data.
Google Ads report editor has two predefined reports that provide auditing capabilities.
- The Campaign Details and Ad Group Details reports can be found under Reports > Predefined reports (dimensions) > Basic.
Final Thoughts
Auditing large PPC accounts demands a huge amount of time and having the right tools and automation is incredibly important.
There are many free tools out there, but it’s always worth trying out Google’s own offerings, such as the ones in the new Ads Editor and the Reports tab of Google Ads.
Update to NSFW Advertising Policy
Yesterday, Reddit updated his advertising policy which disallows advertisers from using “Not Safe For Work” (NSFW) ads and targeting on its ads platform.
What does this mean for advertisers?
- Advertising adult products and services is no longer allowed.
- NSFW subreddits are no longer be eligible for ads or targeting.
We know some of you running adult offers might not have even been aware that it was possible to advertise such products on Reddit. It doesn’t matter anyway, because the music is over now, the lights are off!
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Feel old yet?
It was April 21 1989 when the first Game Boy in history was released. This was the day that the gaming scene was revolutionized forever…
30 years have passed since that day. 30 years!
Yes, that grey brick that brought you so much joy when you were just a little boy/girl and didn’t have to worry about CTR, CR, ROAS, is turning 30 years old.
Feel old now?
Do you still play video games nowadays? Or do you just run game-install offers?
Whatever it is, Game Boy fever has already taken hold.
According to Subito.it, (the Italian equivalent of Craiglist) in the first two weeks of April, the platform saw a 72% increase in Game Boy related searches. Not only that, but prices for an old Nintendo laptop are ranging between €50 and €360.
What about the games? Pokemon Go and SIlver are currently being sold for about €350.
But there are also entire stocks that can reach up to 12 games, with classics such as Tetris and Super Mario Bros being offered alongside Batman, Star Wars, or Ninja Turtles..
So, what was your favourite when you were just a kiddo?