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MARKETING
Ryan Deiss’s 10 Commandments of Modern Marketing
Hey, there ain’t no marketing gods on this Earth… But this post from Ryan Deiss will definitely inspire you with some cosmic ideas.
The 10 commandments of marketing actually turned into 24 so, to save you a bit of time, we’re just going to report the big ones:
- Thou shalt build revenue first and brand second: If you read this newsletter, you’re definitely all about performance. So, this is a little reminder for you.
- Thou shalt write offers…not slogans: Great marketing inspires action, not merely information or entertainment.
- Thou shalt endeavor to piss at least a few people off: If your brand doesn’t have any haters, chances are it doesn’t have any raving fans either.
- Thou shalt not confuse the reason people buy with the reason people stay: After that ah-ha moment that leads people to buy, customers quickly forget the real reason they purchased. You gotta speak to both your customers and prospects.
- Thou shalt deliver big ideas using as few words as possible.
- Thou shalt tell stories. Tell stories of transformations, stories of identity, stories of triumph over a common enemy. Humans do not take action until they have first imagined themselves taking that action.
- Thou shalt entertain. While information may capture someone’s attention for a moment, the only mechanism available to hold that attention is entertainment.
You can find the rest of them on Ryan Deiss’s post.
And you? Do you ever feel omnipotent? We’re all guilty of that after some lightbulb moments, right? Well, if it ever happens make sure to share your illumination with the world.
A new identity verification program for Google advertisers
Google has announced an identity verification program for all advertisers which requires documentation of user identity and geographic location for advertisers.
It will first begin rolling out in the US before expanding globally in the coming months and will apply to Search, Display and YouTube.
Here’s what the program will require from your end:
- Personal identification methods.
- Business incorporation documents.
- Possibly other items to verify who you are.
- Operating geography.
Certain industries will be prioritized in the phased rollout and notified accordingly. Advertisers will have 30 days to submit the required verification, and failure to submit the information will result in ads being stopped.
If you are an agency that runs ads for clients, you won’t be required to verify. However, you will be able to go through the process on behalf of your clients.
How will this change the user experience? Just like on Facebook, users will see more information about the identity of the advertisers with a “Why this ad?” option.
This includes advertiser name, location and a toggle option to stop receiving ads from them.
Why is this verification required? Transparency.
“This change will make it easier for people to understand who the advertiser is and help them make more informed decisions when using our advertising controls.
It will also help support the health of the digital ecosystem by detecting bad actors and limiting their attempts to misrepresent themselves.”
For genuine advertisers, this change won’t make much of a difference. However, it might translate into low-quality advertisers being unable to enter the auction.
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Fact: Native ads are one of the most powerful ad formats that exist today. Native is the format users trust 24.4% more than social ads. That’s not to be underestimated!
The RichPush team knows this so they opened the Native Ads format for all advertisers! Now you can reach new audiences all over the world and scale up your performance with the same ad network you’re familiar with already – RichPush.
With over 450M+ subscribers all over the world, reach is not an issue. Neither is the ad format because push, in-page push, and pop ad formats are also part of their high-performing options.
Do you want to get an edge? Here are three tips to give you a headstart:
- The key for high performance is buying impressions of highly engaged and precisely targeted audiences only. Use the vast targeting options like Geo, Device, Browser language, New Subscribers Only, and more.
- Run ads on best verticals, geos and sources. To scale successfully, ask RichNative experts for traffic insights and whitelists right away.
- Save your time and budget. Use algorithms for optimization to adjust bids, blacklist or whitelist automatically.
If you want to find out the best verticals, the biggest geos, the highest-performing bid strategies and more, explore the full blog post on native ads by RichPush
Feeling ready now? Start your native advertising here.
Our checklist for better deliverability
We’ve often been asked for tips on how to improve open rates, inboxing and all that jazz. Well, this is our recommended checklist.
Oh, by the way, tutorials for how to implement each of these steps are just a Google search away. We’ve just listed the steps and why they’re important.
Preparation
- Setup Google Postmasters if you haven’t already. It’s how you follow your reputation with Gmail. Quite important!
- Test one campaign with GlockApps. This is a tool we use every single day. It’s also the only paid tool in this list. It provides us with an overview of inbox placement, checks for IP and domain blacklisting and more.
- Domain reputation. If you haven’t been involved in any shady tactics, your domain will most likely be fine. That should be reflected in Postmasters and in the previous GlockApps test.
- IP reputation. If you use a provider like MailChimp, Active Campaign, Klaviyo or so on, there’s a big chance the IP is medium reputation. This is manageable and normal, but if the reputation is bad you’ll have to change the IP.
Techie action steps
- Setup and verify DKIM. All mail software should support this. It’s a way to authenticate your domain and prove you are the rightful owner sending from that domain. It’s a simple DNS entry.
- Setup SPF and DMARC. Slightly more complicated but also very useful. Whatever software you are using, once you set this up there’s full alignment that the emails are coming from your domain. You can also set it so that anytime authentication fails on your domain, it is rejected or quarantined.
- BIMI and Gmail avatar. BIMI is a relatively new way to authenticate your domain while also helping you to stand out in inboxes with an avatar. In short, it shows a profile picture you choose. Gmail is still only testing this, but in the meantime you can also set your email address as a G Suite account and set the profile picture there. Helps open rates!
Non-techie action steps
- Whitelisting and dragging to Primary. You’ll remember this request from almost everyone. We also regularly ask for this because it’s just so freaking important. Ask nicely and it will help. Speaking of which, could you do us the favor, please?
- Clicks. Engagement, especially for Gmail, is extremely important. If your subscribers whitelisted you and regularly click in your emails, the chances of landing in Primary are much higher.
- Replies. Bigger than clicks, if you can regularly encourage your readers to reply, it helps massively.
- Compress images. The newer your domain and list are, the more you have to limit images and compress them. If you have a highly engaged list that’s been active for many years, you will be able to use images more freely.
- List hygiene. There’s no way around it… If people don’t want to be on your list but still refuse to unsubscribe, you have to do it for them. Segment out inactive recipients and watch as more and more people open your emails.
Implement all those steps and monitor your numbers for the next 5-10 campaigns. You should start to see an improvement. It’s not a one-and-done activity, continue to do the above regularly. It’s what helps us achieve a ~45% open rate on this newsletter!
As we said, how to do each of those steps is something easily found online… But if you want us to do an extremely detailed guide, including every single step with screenshots and post it on our website, let us know with a reply to this newsletter. See what we did there?
Now how can we ask for that click?!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- SEO: Google is rolling out a new feature to help users rephrase their search queries when it determines that it couldn’t find any relevant results on the web.
- SECURITY: Yesterday, we reported an iOS vulnerability that allowed bad actors to remotely infect devices. Apple, however, denied the allegations.
- FACEBOOK: Stories on FB get a new “Animate” option, allowing you to add basic motions to still images. Might be a way to craft creatives?
- MICROSOFT: Importing multiple accounts from Google to Microsoft advertising is now live. You can import an entire Google account, or limit the import to specific campaigns.
- FACEBOOK: Users on FB and IG will now be able to see the location of popular pages when they publish posts on the platform. They will also be able to see the country page managers are posting content from.
- GOOGLE: You can now add website links to “Call Only” ads on Google, giving your customers another way to reach out to your business.
BRAIN TEASER
I always follow you around, everywhere you go at night. I look very bright to people, but I can make the sun dark. I can be in many different forms and shapes. What am I?
You can find the solution by clicking here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
This will be remembered as the Woodstock of the twenty-first century
Everybody expected COVID-19 to cause a huge boom and accelerated innovation all over the world.
Some days ago, we even talked about how flights might change.
But what about music concerts? Those probably won’t be happening again anytime soon, at least on planet Earth.
But they will definitely happen on the interwebz.
Or, more accurately, they already have. Indeed, yesterday, 12M people attended the Fortnite Travis Scott concert. And headlines say it was “spectacular”.
However, it ended up being an absolute bloodbath as some users started to kill each other. We bet you couldn’t do that at Woodstock!
Live concerts can even be so elaborate that they look surreal, but have you ever seen a Godzilla-sized rapper walking across an ocean?