Monthly Archives: November 2021

For many businesses, social media is an intimidating landscape. You know that you need to be on several platforms to reach your audience, but you’re not entirely sure if your content is getting enough organic reach to make the time investment worth it.

To add to that, you’ve been collecting followers and page likes for years and your audience is somewhere in the thousands. Why then, do your posts only reach a few hundred people at a time?

Thanks to complex social media algorithms, your posts will only reach a fraction of your actual audience. This means that no matter how good your content is, it will never be seen by everyone who could benefit from it. Sure, every once in a while, a post may be liked, commented on, and shared so many times that Instagram or Facebook deem it worthy to be seen by the masses… but that shouldn’t be your only strategy.

If you need to get it in front of a lot of people to introduce a new product, announce an event, or just spread awareness about who you are and what you do, it’s time to invest in paid advertising.

Facebook Advertising

Within Facebook, you’ll find two types of paid advertising: boosted posts and Facebook ads. Let’s take a look at what each of these is and their pros or cons.

What is a boosted post?

A boosted post is a post that you’ve made on your page’s timeline that you can boost to an audience of your choosing for a fee. It’s a very easy way to get your posts in front of more people who may not know who you are and what you do.

When you boost a post, you’ll be asked a few questions to help optimize the experience. These include:

1. Who do you want to reach? This prompts you to choose a targeted audience who may enjoy your content.
2. What is your budget? Pick a max budget that you’d like to invest over the life of your campaign.
3. How long do you want to run your boost? Facebook will take your max budget and divide it by the number of days, then apply your investment accordingly.

Pros of Boosted Posts

• Boosted posts can be a great way to help your content reach more people.
• They are easy to set up as you work directly from your timeline.
• Compared to other forms of advertising, they can be more affordable

Cons of Boosted Posts

• These still show up as “ads” to your audience so they’ll know that you paid for the reach rather than it happening naturally.
• You have limited customizability when it comes to creating your ideal audience.

What is a Facebook ad?

Unlike boosted posts, Facebook ads are created in the Ads Manager where you’ll have many more customization options to choose from.

Pros of Facebook Ads

• You can choose where your ad is placed. In addition to the Facebook time and Instagram, you can also choose from the Facebook News Feed side ads, Messenger ads, Instagram stories, instant articles, and Audience Network.
• Be goal-oriented by choosing an objective early on in your ad building. This can help you align your marketing strategy with your business goals. You can choose from options like store traffic, conversations, and lead generation.
• Get creative. Facebook ads include carousels, allow for specific descriptions, and provide a call-to-action button to motivate your audience to do something.
• Customer your audience. Facebook ads give you more options to identify and reach your ideal audience. They also have advanced tools that allow you to create “lookalike audiences” and create overlapping audience types.

Cons of Facebook Ads

• Facebook ads can be complicated to create and require more in-depth knowledge of your ideal audience.
• Ads are created from scratch rather than boosting an existing post that’s already doing well.
• Facebook ads can be more expensive than boosted posts.

Boosted Post vs. Paid Ad

Both options can provide additional reach, so how do you know which is best for you? Even with knowing the pros and cons of boosted posts and Facebook ads, the real decision comes down to your goals and what you hope to get for your money.

Before we dive in, it’s important to note that whether you choose a Facebook ad or a boosted post, both will show up on your bill as an ad.

Boosted Posts are good for bringing your business more exposure because it helps your posts reach audiences that may not be familiar with your brand. They are helpful for raising awareness but are not necessarily effective for converting customers or donors.

Consider Boosted Posts If You Want To:

• Grow your following
• Develop brand awareness with a new audience
• Increase audience engagement on your Facebook page
• Improve visibility on your best posts
• Host promotions or giveaways
• Get more website clicks

It’s always best to boost posts that are already doing well with organic reach. This will allow you to maximize your budget while increasing engagement.

For example, let’s say that you’ve got an amazing success story testimonial. A customer used your product and had phenomenal results. You’ve got a relatable character, strong visuals, and a wonderful outcome. You’ve shared this story as a post and notice that it’s getting a lot of engagement from your audience. Hundreds have liked it, commented on it, and several have even shared it.

This presents a wonderful opportunity for you to boost the post and be seen by potential customers who may not know your business existed. You’re not necessarily looking to convert customers right then and there (although you certainly wouldn’t say no!), but rather to introduce your company and what you can do, to a larger audience. In this case, a boosted post may be the perfect way to spend your advertising dollars.

Maybe though, you’re looking to do more with your advertising budget. You want to capture leads, convert customers or donors, and see both a short-term and long-term benefit from your investment. If this sounds more like your advertising goals, you may want to invest in Facebook ads.

Consider Facebook Ads If You Want To:

• Convert website visitors
• Generate leads
• Drive traffic to your store
• Get orders for your store
• Have your videos seen by more individuals

Perhaps you just opened a new brick-and-mortar location or have expanded your business to sell products online. You not only want people to know about your business and what you do, but you want them to take action and shop in your store.

You’ve got a decent social media following, however, you’d like more than just your regular audience to know about your latest expansion. You understand your ideal customer or “avatar” and rather than build an audience from scratch, you’d like to target people who are just like your existing customers and are ready to buy. In this case, a Facebook ad will help you better reach your goals.

Boosted posts and Facebook ads both have their place in robust marketing and advertising plans. The key is to learn when to use each one so you can capitalize on your effort and get the best results for your business.

Like many of the people who currently work in the industry, digital marketing was born in the 1990s. Since then, the industry has evolved at breakneck speed, sprouting many more types of marketing.

From search engine marketing to account-based marketing, every brand can use a combination of these tactics to attract its target audience and bring in more revenue.

Read on to learn about the top types of marketing around today.

Types of Marketing

1. Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing refers to brand promotion on offline channels that were around before the rise of the internet. Think billboards, flyers, and radio spots.

Because information wasn’t as easily accessible and readily available, the majority of traditional marketing relied on outbound tactics such as print, television ads, and billboards.

2. Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing refers to intrusive promotion, such as cold calling, email blasts to purchased lists, and print ads.

This marketing method is called “outbound” because it involves pushing a message out to consumers to raise awareness on your products or services — regardless of consumer interest.

3. Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is focused on attracting customers rather than interrupting them. The majority of inbound marketing tactics fall under digital marketing, as consumers are empowered to do research online as they progress through their own buyer’s journey.

Inbound is built on three pillars: Attract, engage, and delight. Your initial goal is to create valuable content and experiences that resonate with your audience and attract them to your business.

The next is to engage them through conversational tools like email marketing and chat bots, and of course continued value. Finally, you delight them by continuing to act as an empathetic advisor and expert.

4. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing, leveraging technology that didn’t exist traditionally to reach audiences in new ways. This type of marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that live online.

Businesses leverage digital channels, such as search engines, social media, email, and websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

5. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, includes all strategies used to ensure your business is visible on search engine results pages (SERPs). With SEM, you can get your business in the number one spot when a user searches a particular keyword.

The two types of SEM are search engine optimization (SEO) for organic search results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for sponsored search engine results.

To get started with SEO, you must familiarize yourself with search engine ranking factors and produce content for search engines to index.

Pay-per-click SEM involves bidding on keywords to get your ads placed, through platforms like Google Ads. There are also ads management tools to make creating and managing PPC campaigns a breeze.

6. Content Marketing

Content marketing is a key instrument in inbound and digital marketing because it’s one of the best ways to attract your target audiences.

It involves creating, publishing, and distributing content to your target audience through free and gated channels, such as social media platforms, blogs, videos, ebooks, and webinars.

With content marketing, the goal is to help your audience along their buyer’s journey. First, identify common FAQs and concerns your buyers have before they are ready to make a purchase.

Then, create an editorial calendar to help you create and manage your content. It also helps to have a content management system (CMS) to make publishing easy.

7. Social Media Marketing

With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, brands can promote their business and engage with audiences on a more personal basis.

However, with social media, two things are key to success: relevant content and consistency.

No one logs on to social media looking for something to purchase, it’s important to balance promotion with entertainment. Compelling images and captions that encourage your audience to like, share and comment will bring your brand that much closer to gaining a customer.

Now onto consistency – it’s what keeps your followers coming back. How can they get invested in your brand if they rarely see it on their timeline? To make publishing content across platforms easy, there are a number of social media tools that automate the process.

8. Video Marketing

According to a 2021 Wyzowl study, 87% of marketers say using video in their marketing strategy has a positive ROI. Whether it’s for your website, YouTube channel, email list, and/or social media following, video can boost brand awareness, generate conversions, and close deals.

Some video marketing apps even allow you to analyze, nurture, and score leads based on their activity.

9. Voice Marketing

Voice marketing is leveraging smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home to add value to your audience and answer questions about their topics of interest.

Beyond optimizing your website for voice search by incorporating the right keywords, you can also get inventive by developing a Google Home action or Alexa skill.

For instance, Uber created an Alexa skill that allowed users to request a ride with a simple voice request. TED developed a feature that allowed Alexa users to play TED Talk based on topic, tone or speaker.

10. Email Marketing

Email marketing connects brands to leads, prospects and customers via email. Email campaigns can be used to increase brand awareness, generate traffic to other channels, promote products or services, or nurture leads toward a purchase.

Email regulations like the GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act require brands to comply with responsible commercial email practices, which boil down to three principles:

• Only email people who are expecting to hear from you. I.e. they’ve opted in.
• Make it easy for subscribers to opt out.
• Be transparent about who you are when you do make contact.

With that in mind, the first thing you’ll need to do is strategize how you’ll build your email list — the database of contacts you can send emails to. The most common method is through lead capture forms on your website.

Then, you’ll need email marketing software and a CRM to send, track, and monitor the effectiveness of your emails. To push your email strategy further and maximize productivity, you may also want to look into email automation software that sends emails based on triggering criteria.

To learn the ins and outs of email marketing, take the free email marketing course from HubSpot Academy.

11. Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing is the ability to have 1:1 conversations with your audience across multiple channels – meeting customers how, when, and where they want. It is more than just live chat, it extends to phone calls, texts, Facebook Messenger, email, Slack, and other channels.

When you’re getting started, you’ll first identify which channels your audience is on. The challenge, though, is being able to manage multiple channels without slow response times, internal miscommunication, or productivity loss. That’s why it’s important to use
conversational marketing tools

, such as a unified inbox, to streamline your efforts.

12. Buzz Marketing

Buzz marketing is a viral marketing strategy that leverages refreshingly creative content, interactive events, and community influencers to generate word-of-mouth marketing and anticipation for the product or service a brand is about to launch.

Buzz marketing works best when you reach out to influencers early and have a plan in place to generate buzz surrounding your brand. To track your efforts, invest in social listening software to keep a pulse on how your audience is responding.

13. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is designed to tap into an existing community of engaged followers on social media. Influencers are considered experts in their niches and have built loyalty and trust from an audience you might be trying to reach.

To get started with influencer marketing, you must first build your influencer marketing strategy and define what type of influencer you’re targeting. Then, you’ll want to create criteria for your influencer to ensure they align with your strategy and budget. Factors to consider include their niche, the size of their audience, and their current metrics.

From there, you can find influencers and reach out to them by:

• Manually reaching out on social media.
• Using an influencer marketing platform.
• Hiring an agency to do the research and outreach for you.

14. Acquisition Marketing

With any marketing strategy, your goal is to attract and retain customers. However, each type of marketing focuses on a specific stage of the buyer’s journey. Acquisition marketing focuses on the attract and convert phases to turn strangers into sales-qualified leads.

What differentiates it from other marketing types is that it extends beyond the marketing team, often involving collaboration with customer service and success teams. Why? Because satisfied customers are the biggest promoters.

Acquisition marketing can involve a number of tactics to turn a website into a lead generation engine, including offering freemium products, launching education hubs, tightening the copywriting on the site, conversion rate optimization, and lead optimization.

It may even include a lead optimization and nurturing strategy to facilitate the hand-off between marketing and sales.

15. Contextual Marketing

Contextual marketing is targeting online users with different ads on websites and social media networks based on their online browsing behavior. The number one way to make contextual marketing efforts powerful is through personalization.

A CRM combined with powerful marketing tools, such as smart CTAs can make a website seem more like a “choose your own adventure” story, allowing the user to find the right information and take the right actions more effectively.

Contextual marketing takes strategy and planning, so start off on the right foot by accessing HubSpot’s free contextual marketing course.

16. Personalized Marketing

Personalized marketing aims to create a tailored marketing experience for every user who comes across your brand.

This can be as simple as adding a user’s name in the subject line of an email or sending product recommendations based on past purchases. Software products like Versium Reach make it easy for marketers to target their B2B or B2C customers with powerful audience insights.

While it might seem a tad bit creepy, most consumers are OK with it if it makes for a better shopping experience. A 2019 Smarter HQ study reported that 79% of consumers felt brands knew too much about them. Yet, 90% of them were still willing to share information about their behavior and preferences for a cheaper, easier, and more enjoyable purchasing journey.

17. Brand Marketing

Brand marketing is shaping your brand’s public perception and forging an emotional connection with your target audience through storytelling, creativity, humor, and inspiration.

The goal here is to be thought-provoking and generate discussion so that your brand is remembered and associated with positive sentiment.

To begin brand marketing, you need to deeply understand your buyer persona and what resonates with them. You must also consider your position in the market and what makes you unique from your competitors. This can help shape your values and what you stand for, giving you fodder for storytelling campaigns.

18. Stealth Marketing

Stealth marketing occurs when brands promote their products or service to consumers who don’t realize they’re being marketed to. For instance, when you’re watching a television show, and see a branded product integrated into the shot. 

Before influencers were subject to ad disclosure regulations, they often used stealth marketing to advertise sponsored products. 

For this marketing style to work, brands have to find opportunities that align with their brand identity and values.

19. Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing is placing bold, clever brand activations in high-traffic physical locations to spread brand awareness.

Examples of guerilla marketing include altering outdoor urban environments, promoting during a live event without permission from sponsors or organizers, public stunts, and treasure hunts.

It can be a cost-effective way to garner widespread attention. However, it also has the potential to go left if its misunderstood by the audience or interrupted by weather conditions, law enforcement or other factors beyond the brand’s control.

20. Native Marketing

Native marketing occurs when brands customize their ads to fit the feel, look, and function of the platform on which they’ll be published.

Often, brands collaborate with publishers to create and distribute sponsored content to their audience. The goal is, by leveraging the brand’s editorial expertise and creating non-disruptive ads, it will increase conversion rates or create some brand awareness.

For instance, a recipe blogger could have a guest post from McBride Sisters Collection titled “The Best Wine-Infused Desserts For the Holiday Season.”

To benefit from native marketing, you’ll need to either reach out to media publications yourself or go through a native advert network that helps find and facilitate ad placement.

21. Affiliate Marketing

When a business rewards another brand – called an affiliate or affiliate partner – with a commission for each purchase made by a customer through the affiliate’s promotion tactics, that’s affiliate marketing.

It’s popular among influencers but can also be used by brands to promote products or services that align with their own.

If you already have marketing assets that are performing well, such as a website that generates leads or an engaged social media network, affiliate marketing is a great way to further leverage those assets. Choose a product or brand that closely aligns with what you sell – but does not compete with you – and promote it to your audience.

On the flip side, it’s a cost-effective method of spreading brand awareness and a good alternative to influencer marketing. You can leverage affiliate marketing to generate more revenue. And the best part is that every business can design its own rules when launching an affiliate program.

22. Partner Marketing

Partner marketing, also known as co-marketing, is a marketing collaboration between brands where they partner up on a marketing campaign and share the results. It’s a great lead generation tool that allows brands to tap into an audience they may not have reached yet.

For it to work, brands must align on their goals, have products or services that complementary and have similar user personas.

23. Product Marketing

Product marketing is much more than what it sounds like. It’s not just taking product pictures and launching campaigns. It’s driving demand for a product and its adoption through positioning, messaging, and market research.

Product marketers sit at the intersection between product, sales, marketing, and customer success teams. They work with all teams for sales enablement and aligned marketing strategies.

24. Account-based Marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a hyper-focused marketing strategy where teams treat an individual prospect or customer like their very own market. Marketing teams create content, host events, and launch entire campaigns dedicated to the people associated with that account, rather than the industry as a whole.

This strategy allows brands to design personalized campaigns for their ideal clients and dedicate their time and resources to prospects exhibiting high-intent behaviors.

Here’s how you can start:

1. Identify key accounts.
2. Create messaging based on issues that matter to them most
3. Learn how to put that messaging in action with HubSpot’s introductory ABM lesson.

Find ABM software that can enable your efforts.

25. Customer Marketing

In contrast to acquisition marketing where the focus is on acquiring new customers, customer marketing is focusing on retaining your existing customers. The end goal is to delight your customers with your product or service as well as excellent customer service to turn them into brand advocates.

The cost of acquisition is much higher than the cost to retain or upsell existing customers, so brands can benefit from investing in this type of marketing.

However, it does rely on constant improvement of the customer experience, i.e. the impression you leave with a customer after you’ve provided service.

Simple ways to do this include eliminating friction in the customer service process, providing self-service resources, like online knowledge bases, and using customer service software to manage and automate interactions.

26. Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Whose opinion do you trust more: Your friend’s or a brand’s? The answer is obvious.

That’s why word-of-mouth marketing is so powerful. While you can’t force it to happen, you can position your brand in a way that makes it easier to do so, like:

• Creating shareable, viral-worthy content.
• Offering referral and loyalty programs.
• Requesting reviews after providing a product or service.

27. Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing is a type of customer marketing that focuses on cultivating deeper, more meaningful relationships with customers to ensure long-term brand loyalty.

It’s not focused on short-term wins or sales transactions but rather on creating brand evangelists who will promote the brand.

The key to doing this is by focusing on delighting your customers who are already satisfied with your brand. Start by using customer feedback software to run a Net Promoter Score (NPS) campaign to help you find out who those customers are.

Then, come up with ways to turn those happy customers into raving fans. From there, you can request that they leave a testimonial, participate in a case study, or help you achieve your goals another way.

28. User-generated Marketing

User-generated marketing is when businesses leverage their audience to participate in creating marketing material.

It can be anything from a social media hashtag challenge that asks users to come up with a jingle, or asking users to share their pictures or videos using your product or service.

Why do brands use it? It’s cost-effective, builds connection with your audience, and increases brand awareness.

29. Campus Marketing

Some brands target college students, and who better to market to them than their peers?

Campus marketing is the process of promoting products or services to students on campus. It often involves brand ambassadors who bring awareness to the business.

You’ll often see campus marketers promoting products at event booths, hosting their own events, and handing out giveaways.

30. Proximity Marketing

Proximity marketing is a local and highly targeted marketing strategy that uses users’ location to show them relevant product or service promotions.

For instance, if you’re walking by an ice cream shop, you may receive a notification of a special discount for a flavor at that shop. There are a few ways to use proximity marketing:

• Bluetooth beacons
• Wi-Fi
• QR codes
• NFC
• Geofencing

Brands can also use it to organize treasure hunts, retarget users who don’t make a purchase, or simply learn more about user behavior.

31. Event Marketing

You’ve got an event coming up to launch a new product. Now, how do you get your target audience to show up? That’s event marketing.

It requires brands to plan a promotion strategy, develop creative assets to create anticipation, and determine the right channels to spread awareness.

An event – whether it’s a workshop, seminar, trade show, conference, or pop-up shop – helps brands connect directly with their target audience and build lasting relationships.

32. Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing encompasses in-person and virtual events, experiences, and interactions that forge lasting emotional connections between a brand and its target audience.

It takes event marketing just one step further with the goal of making the experience magical for attendees and providing something they can take with them after the event is over — other than just information, of course. According to independent HubSpot research, 61% of marketers surveyed said experiential marketing is one of the most effective strategies for their company.

At HubSpot, we do our best to make our INBOUND conference an immersive experience that extends beyond breakout sessions by including networking opportunities, parties and happy hours, food truck lunches, and other immersive experiences. Instead of a conference, INBOUND becomes a celebration.

33. Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing is a trigger-based marketing strategy that creates a dialogue between a brand and its audience. The brand adapts its approach based on the user’s behavior.

For instance, let’s say you’re on a bookstore website and searching for a memoir. The next time you log on, you may see recommendations for more memoirs from other authors. This strategy meets consumers where they’re at and adjusts to meet their needs.

34. Global Marketing

Global marketing is the process of scaling your marketing efforts to appeal to global audiences. However, it does require lots of market research to determine where a product or service may best resonate and how to market it to reach business goals.

Take, for instance, a food company based in Germany. If the team decides to expand to the United States, there may be changes in menu items, packaging, pricing and advertising to better reflect the audience.

35. Multicultural Marketing

Multicultural marketing is devising and executing a marketing campaign that targets people of different ethnicities and cultures within a brand’s overarching audience.

It involves in-depth research to understand those communities needs and values, and figuring out the right messaging to resonate with that group.

36. Informative Marketing

Informative marketing refers to the type of message that focuses more on the facts and less on emotions.

This marketing tactic highlights how your product’s features and benefits solve your customers’ problems and compares to your competitors.

37. Neuromarketing

Neuromarketing leverages neuroscience to gain insights into consumer decisions and predict behaviors.

Neuromarketing studies can involve tracking eye movements, analyzing brain scans, and tracking physiological functions in response to marketing stimuli.

38. Persuasive Marketing

Unlike informative marketing, persuasive marketing taps into users’ emotions. It aims to make an audience feel something, associate those emotions with a brand, and trigger desired actions.

There are many techniques, including the scarcity principle or adding .99 to a price, that can aid in persuading consumers to purchase a product or service.

However, it only works if you understand your buyer persona and know what will resonate with your target audience.

39. Cause Marketing

With cause marketing, brands tie themselves to social issues while promoting their goods. For instance, your favorite brand may advertise that a purchase from their brand will result in a donation to a certain charity.

It can also go beyond a campaign. Some brands’ entire identity aligns with a particular issue. For instance, luxury jewelry brand Civil donates 20% of its profits to underrepresented founders and entrepreneurs.

Whether it’s temporary or long term, you must answer three questions before starting with cause marketing:

1. What causes does my brand care most about?
2. How can we leverage our position to support those causes?
3. How can we tell my prospects and customers about our efforts and encourage them to get involved?

40. Controversial Marketing

Controversial marketing uses controversial topics to drive attention to marketing campaigns. It doesn’t aim to polarize audiences, but rather grab their attention and spark discussions.

There are pros and cons to this approach. On one hand, it has the potential to go viral and generate some buzz around your brand. However, there’s a risk that you turn off potential customers and negatively impact your brand’s image.

41. Field Marketing

Field marketing, a.k.a field selling, is a traditional form of marketing that involves going out to promote your products or services directly to your target audience. You can do this by distributing product samples, offering product demos, or leafleting in a community.

Best Type of Marketing

There’s no right or wrong way to do marketing — as long as it connects with your desired audience and provides a return on investment. Most companies use a combination of these strategies to generate leads and acquire customers.

Ultimately, you’ll want to choose what makes the most sense for your business based on your product, audience, and resources. 

C

You need people who you can email, and you need them quickly. Oh, and if you could get them pretty cheap, that’d be great, too.

That’s the mindset many marketers find themselves in when they’re on the phone with a list-purchasing company: We need new people to email to support our sales team. Acting on that moment of desperation, however, can cause more harm than good.

Yes, thousands of contacts are a credit card swipe away, but your email marketing program — a critical part of a well-rounded inbound marketing strategy — can seriously suffer. Curious why buying email lists is a legitimate email marketer’s kiss of death? Read on.

Plus, we’ll give you a list of squeaky-clean and effective ways to build your email marketing list without simply buying one.

Methods of Acquiring an Email List

Before we get into the pitfalls of buying email addresses, let’s review three ways marketers are currently able to acquire their email lists:

1. Buy an email list.

You work with a list provider to find and purchase a list of names and email addresses based on demographic and/or psychographic information. For example, you might purchase a list of 50,000 names and email addresses of people who live in Minnesota and don’t have children. There are several sustainable ways to use email marketing to grow your business. This isn’t one of them.

2. Rent an email list.

Also working with a list provider, you identify a segment of people to email — but you never actually own the list. As such, you can’t see the email addresses of the people you’re emailing, so you must work with the provider to send out your email.

3. Own an opt-in email list.

Someone voluntarily gives you their email address either online or in-person so you can send them emails. They may pick certain types of email content they wish to receive, like specifically requesting email alerts when new blog posts are published. Opt-in email addresses are the result of earning the interest and trust of your contacts because they think you have something valuable to say.

When it comes to rented or purchased lists, you may come across vendors or marketers who say, “This email list is totally opt-in!” This means the people on the list opted in to email communication from someone at some point in time — the list provider, for example — by filling out a form or checking a box to receive more content from that provider.

What “opt-in” lists don’t mean, however, is that email recipients opted in to receive email communications from your business. This is a critical distinction, and the next section of this post will go into more detail on why this type of “opt-in email list” (should be read with air quotes) is not a good idea for your email marketing program.

1. You’ll violate the rules of consent under GDPR.

Most email marketers around the world are legally required to allow recipients to opt out of emails they no longer want to receive. Contacts must be able to do this directly in the email message. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a European data privacy act that doubles down on the opt-in side of this relationship — and found that purchased email lists are simply not compliant.

GDPR has revamped numerous aspects of a digital marketer’s use of customer data throughout Europe — on a website, in social media, and via email. You don’t even have to work in Europe to fall under the act’s jurisdiction; if your recipients live in Europe, they’re protected by GDPR.

With GDPR now governing all email correspondence across Europe, adding an opt-out option to your email template no longer cuts it. Under this act, you must have explicit consent from your contacts to send them emails. Explicit, in this case, means the checkbox a person must click to opt into an email subscription isn’t pre-checked when they see it on your website. And when you buy your email lists, the people on it haven’t been given this option — making you non-compliant with GDPR before you send your first email.

Want some non-legal reasons to avoid the purchased email list? We’ve got those as well, below.

2. Reputable email marketing services don’t let you send emails to lists you’ve bought.

If you’re using email marketing software or plan to in the future, you’ll find that reputable companies will insist that you use opt-in email lists. You might be saying, “I’ll just use a non-reputable email marketing vendor.”

Alas, ESPs on shared IP addresses that don’t require customers to use opt-in email lists typically suffer poor deliverability. Why? One customer’s ill-gotten email address list can poison the deliverability of the other customers on that shared IP address. You’re going to want to hitch your wagon to the light side of the email marketing force if you want your emails to actually get into inboxes.

3. Good email address lists aren’t for sale.

Unless your company is in the middle of a merger or acquisition, you’re not going to come across a high-quality email list you can purchase. If it’s for sale, it means the email addresses on it have already been deemed non-responsive or unqualified for marketing outreach.

While bought email addresses might’ve at one time had value, they’ve likely been spammed to the ends of the earth — otherwise, they’d still be in the desiring hands of the company selling them. Think about it, would you sell or share the email addresses of those who have voluntarily opted in to receive email from you?

4. People on a purchased or rented list don’t know you.

I referenced this earlier, but it’s worth going into some more detail on this subject. Rented and purchased lists are sometimes scraped from other websites, which, I think we can all agree, is a dirty way to acquire email marketing contacts.

But let’s say the email addresses you’re looking to purchase were not taken from another site but rather earned legitimately. Email list purchase and rental companies might tout that those lists are “opt-in.” Sounds great, right?

Not really. Email addresses that belong to an “opt-in” list have opted to receive emails from, say, the list-purchasing company — not your company. Even if the opt-in process includes language like, “Opt-in to receive information from us, or offers from other companies we think you might enjoy,” the fact is the recipient doesn’t recall having a prior relationship with you, specifically. This makes it highly likely for the recipients to mark you as “spam” when you arrive in their inboxes. Hey, if they don’t recognize you or remember opting into communications from you … can you blame them?

​​After all, the most prevalent type of spam is advertising-related email — accounting for approximately 36% of all spam messages.

This takes us to our next point.

5. You’ll harm your email deliverability and IP reputation.

Did you know there are organizations dedicated to combating email spam? Thank goodness, right? They set up a little thing called a honeypot, which is a planted email address that, when harvested and emailed, identifies the sender as a spammer. Similarly, things called spam traps can be created to identify spammy activity; they’re set up when an email address yields a hard bounce because it’s old or no longer valid, but still receives consistent traffic. Fishy, eh?

As a result, the email address turns into a spam trap that stops returning the hard bounce notice, and instead accepts the message and reports the sender as a spammer.

If you purchase a list, you have no way of confirming how often those email addresses have been emailed, whether the email addresses on that list have been scrubbed for hard bounces to prevent identifying you as a spammer, or from where those email addresses originated.

Are you really willing to risk not only your email deliverability, but also the reputation of your IP address and your company? Even if you find the light after purchasing or renting email lists and decide to only email those who have opted in with your company, it’ll take you months (or maybe years) to get your Sender Score up and rebuild the reputation of your IP.

6. You can come across as annoying.

How do you like it when you get an email in your inbox from a company you’ve never heard of? I bet that’s not the kind of company you want to buy from or work for.

If someone didn’t ask to hear from you, it doesn’t mean they won’t want to hear from you later. It’s your job to prove to them — through helpful content and valuable offers — that they should stay up to date with your company via email. If you force your email content on anyone too early, even if you know in your bones they’re a great fit for your products or services, you risk preemptively losing their trust and their future business.

7. Your email service provider can penalize you.

Buying email lists doesn’t just damage your deliverability and brand reputation — it can also put your email account at risk. Email clients like Gmail, Yahoo!, and Outlook don’t want to be associated with accounts that recipients repeatedly flag as spam. Email service providers like AWeber go as far as immediately closing your account if it suspects you’re sending unwanted content.

If these consequences are too daunting, we came up with some alternatives to paid email lists that’ll gain your customers’ interests.

Paid Email List Alternatives

1. Shift your outbound marketing strategy to inbound.

Buying email lists is another form of outbound marketing — it’s the method that pushes messaging out to potential customers. Not only is it costly, but it doesn’t guarantee a higher ROI as a result.

When you shift your strategy to inbound marketing, you’re repositioning your business to build brand awareness and customer relationships through content creation and social media tactics.

2. Conduct lead generation campaigns.

Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and nurturing their interests with the goal of making them into customers. This can be achieved through effective marketing campaigns with enticing call-to-actions.

Some examples of lead gen campaigns include:

• Sharing blog posts with informational content
• Promoting product offerings across social media channels
• Offering product trials or coupons that lead to your landing page

Your business can get creative with campaigns to better engage your audience, especially with our next point in mind.

3. Show thought leadership through your content.

With the content your business shares to an audience, you have the ability to display thought leadership. This tactic is used in content marketing to build trust and gain credibility in your field.

To become a thought leader, your business needs to display brand helpfulness through informative content like tutorials, listicles, and other posts that help your target audience learn something new.

If you want to use both email marketing while implementing these alternatives, read on to see how to do it right.

How to Grow an Opt-In Email List for Free

Now that you’ve learned a few ways to acquire email lists, let’s explore how you can acquire them through the third method stated earlier in this article — the opt-in method.

Generating your own list of email contacts who have opted in to receive content from you doesn’t just comply with legal regulations and protect your brand reputation. It also presents you with opportunities to grow this list through genuine relationships with new customers. We’ve already written about clever ways to go about doing this, which you can check out here. But, below are the basic best practices that have a very big bang for their buck when it comes to consistently growing an email list.

1. Create gated assets so there’s a reason for people to give you their email address.

Webinars, ebooks, templates, etc. — these are all good long-form, premium content assets that people may find valuable enough to give over their email address. The more gated assets you have to put behind landing pages, the better — a wider variety of content will make it easier for you to attract a wider swath of people.

2. Create useful tools.

If ebooks aren’t your jam, create tools instead. I don’t recommend a one-or-the-other approach, but if you have more development talent than writing talent, this may be a more attractive option for you. These tools can be valuable enough to some of your website visitors that they’ll trade you their email address for a free demo of the product you built. Then, for your first email, ask them what they thought of the tool. It’s the perfect icebreaker.

For example, we created Website Grader — which is free to use, but prompts you to input an email address. We also took a similar approach to a more recent tool, the Blog Topic Generator.

3. Promote those gated assets on your marketing channels.

Now that you have some gated assets that can capture email addresses, spend a considerable amount of time making sure the world knows about them. You have plenty of channels at your disposal — social media, PPC, and email are common ones to turn to. But, none will provide lasting returns quite like your blog. Consider this scenario:

You promote your new gated assets by blogging about subject matters related to the content assets you’ve created. Put CTAs that lead to the asset’s landing page on every one of those blog posts.

Now let’s say your blog posts get about 100 views per month, and your visitor-to-lead conversion rate on the blog is about two percent. That means you’d get two leads from a single blog post each month.

Then, let’s say you write 30 blog posts a month. That means you’d get 60 leads in a month — two from each blog post. Now keep doing that for a year. The work you did to blog that first month will continue to drive leads throughout the year. That means you’re actually getting 4,680 opt-in contacts a month by the end of 12 months because of the compounding effects of blogging — not just 720 opt-in contacts (60 leads*12 months).

4. Run creative email marketing campaigns.

Most people don’t think of email as a lead- or contact-generating channel. But because people forward helpful emails to colleagues or friends, it can expand your database if you simply make forwarding or sharing email content easy for recipients. Include calls-to-action in your emails that make sharing an obvious choice for recipients, particularly with your most useful assets.

If you already have a pretty large database, you also likely have some contacts that have gone quite stale. If so, I recommend running a re-engagement campaign that can help you both scrub your list and prevent the kind of spam and IP issues I addressed earlier, as well as reawaken old contacts that might have forgotten about you, but would actually be great fits for sales.

5. Include sharing buttons in your emails.

Consider adding share buttons to your email so your email recipients can forward the emails they liked most to friends and colleagues they think would like it, too.

Have a few different buttons on your email template: separate social media buttons that produce pre-written social posts linking to a webpage version of your email, and an “Email to a Friend” button that transfers the email into a compose window so your contacts can instantly forward the message. Just make sure your email has an opt-in button so each new viewer can subscribe to more emails from you if they like what they see.

Attract Customers without Breaking the Bank

There’s already plenty of noise your business has to break through to get to your customers — so don’t let your paid email marketing efforts end in their spam box. Instead, we hope you use this article to devise a strategy to attract prospects with impressive content, assets, and tools that nurture them from leads to customer advocates.

This article was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a new blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of Black business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.

Over the last year and a half, entrepreneurs have had to revamp their marketing strategies to navigate doing business during a pandemic. This shift hasn’t been easy, especially for Black business owners. According to an H&R Block study, more than half of Black-owned small businesses experienced at least a 50% decrease in revenue during the pandemic.

As a Black woman who launched two businesses in the last year and a half, I’ve had to revisit my marketing strategy to avoid this dip in revenue. My goal was to pay close attention to who my audience is, keep track of performance metrics, and create engaging content without wasting time or money. The key was to use marketing tools that make our company more strategy-focused and data-driven.

If you have a small team, you don’t always have to hire more people to maximize results — you can invest in tools and systems to streamline your marketing strategies. Read on to discover seven high-quality tools that are user-friendly, cost-effective, and able to help you succeed.

7 Marketing Tools for Black-Owned Businesses

1. HubSpot

Best for: Customer Relationship Management

Price: Starts at $45/mo

If your marketing strategy is on point, you’ll have leads flowing in with ease. Keeping track of those leads can tell you what converted them to a buyer — this is key for knowing what’s working in your marketing strategy.

Our team uses HubSpot’s CRM tool to keep track of conversions, and when revisiting our marketing strategy, we look at two essential items:

• How did the lead hear about us
• What services/products are they interested in

Your marketing strategy should include a clear overview of your buyer’s journey, from awareness to decision making. HubSpot’s Deal Stages dashboard houses this important data. That way, you can keep track of each stage, and better nurture leads with relevant content.  

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2. Mailerlite

Best for: Email marketing

Price: Free, then $10 if you have less than 1,000 subscribers

My company Perfeqta started using Mailerlite this year and the benefits are endless. With the tool my team has been able to:

• Easily design landing pages and newsletter campaigns with a drag-and-drop editor.
• Create pop-ups and embed forms to add to our company website.
• Monitor subscriber lists and divide them into interest groups.
• Quickly access campaign reports to understand results.

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For those who are less email marketing savvy, Mailerlite’s academy program will walk you through its core functions so you can start building email campaigns within a few days’ time. Because of the free plan, this is one of the most cost-friendly options for all of its features.

3. Buffer

Best for: Social media marketing

Price: Free for three social channels – $10/mo per social channel for unlimited channels

Buffer is an all-in-one social media tool that my team uses to manage 12 different accounts. The dashboard is incredibly user-friendly, and it is easy to schedule (as shown in the image below), review, and publish content without having to change pages or switch accounts.

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Here are the key benefits that have allowed my team to maximize their time:

• Approval tool that lets you review posts before they’re published.
• Option to create campaigns and view analytics in one spot.
• Audience demographics so you know who you’re targeting.
• Download reports as charts and images to share with the team.
• A community management tool that lets you reply to comments and engage with followers from your desktop.

And here’s another bonus: If you’re a Black- or POC-owned or -led organization that engages in anti-racism work, Buffer offers a 50% discount.

4. Google Analytics

Best for: Website tracking

Price: Free

No matter the size of your business, tracking website analytics is essential for company success. There’s a reason why many companies use Google Analytics to track customer data — it’s easy to understand, even if you aren’t very familiar with metrics.

Here’s how my team uses Google Analytics to drive our marketing strategy:

• We can see which pages lead to conversions and turn people away, which allows us to make effective changes.
• We can see audience demographics, which gives us a better understanding of who our clients and customers are, where they live, and how they engage with content.
• We can better plan for future marketing campaigns and set attainable goals because we have clear data to reference.

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As you scale your business, you’ll want to track growth as closely as possible, so you know how to stay connected to your audience and serve them content they will engage with.

5. Canva

Best for: Content creation

Price: Free – $12.99/mo for Pro account

Once a simple software for quick, text-based graphics, Canva has become a full-fledged design suite. My team uses Canva to create content for social posts, presentation decks, flyers, proposals, and more — for only $13 a month.

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If you don’t have a designer on board, you can use Canva templates for inspiration and customize them based on your brand guidelines.  With a pro account, you can also:

• Import your brand fonts and create brand color palettes.
• Use Canva stock photos, which have become more diverse in ethnic representation.
• Collaborate with your team and comment feedback directly on posts.
• Plan your content and share it directly to your social channels.
• Organize files into folders to keep track of content.
• Export various file formats, including png, jpeg, pdf, gif, and more.

The platform also has a video editor, which helps eliminate the many hours spent creating quick, 60-second social media posts.

6. Asana

Best for: Building out a marketing strategy

Price: Free – $24.00/mo

Effective communication and project management are crucial for running two companies with multiple team members. Asana has made it incredibly easy for me to outline marketing campaigns, assign tasks to responsible individuals, monitor due dates, and link files to specific projects.

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My team creates visual workflows for our marketing strategies by making lists, cards, and a project calendar for each phase. Here’s how we break down some of our boards:

• Research and Discovery: This section includes links and files to outside research and our brainstorming notes.
• Content: We share links to relevant folders under specific tasks, so it’s easy to pull social media assets and navigate directly to Google Docs, where we write our copy.
• Technical Support: We send our technical specialist reminders to ensure she keeps up with regular website updates and tests our campaigns before they go live.
• Reporting: This is where we create visual charts to help us keep track of progress on an individual and team level.

Asana is also mobile-friendly, so everyone gets project updates sent directly to their phone and email.

7. Moz Pro

Best for: SEO & keyword research

Price: Starting at $99/mo

Spending endless hours creating content isn’t worth it if your target audiences won’t see it — Moz Pro helps ensure that this won’t happen. Use the tool to serve content to your audiences and rank higher in search results, drive traffic to your website, and monitor SEO campaigns, all of which are essential to growing your business and increasing visibility.

Here are the key benefits of Moz Pro:

• Keyword ranking and search visibility score to see what your audience is searching for.
• Link research to increase the number of high-quality links pointing to your website.
• Technical site audits to make sure technical SEO issues don’t go unnoticed.
• SEO insights and reporting so you can use data-driven insights when strategizing for multimedia content.

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Moz also has tons of resource guides to help you understand link metrics and analytics altogether.  

As Black business owners, it’s essential to have tools and systems that streamline your marketing processes while also supporting your business growth and team growth.

Remember, you don’t need to be an expert in every area of your business. Take advantage of the resources that have already been created by the experts so you can focus on what you do best – building amazing products and services that people love.

In 2018, Musical.ly, music sharing app, was purchased by Chinese tech firm Bytedance and merged with the firm’s new app, TikTok.

It started out as a video-sharing social network where users shared short clips of themselves lip-synching and dancing to trending music. It has since expanded to house more diverse videos and become a creative outlet for brands.

After the merger, TikTok’s active user base grew by almost 800%. Today, the platform has over 1 billion monthly users and brands are using TikTok ads to reach them.

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about TikTok’s advertising platform and discuss if it’s worth leveraging.

• Types of TikTok Ads
• How do Tiktok ads work?
• How to Set Up Your TikTok Account
• TikTok Ad Review Process
• TikTok Ad Examples
• TikTok Advertising Cost
• Should you leverage TikTok for Business?
• TikTok For Business Pros and Cons

The platform’s stated goal is to help businesses unleash their creative side by teaching them how to use the app through their e-learning service and guiding them through making advertisements on the Ads Manager platform.

The sole marketing format for businesses to use on TikTok is video advertisements. The TikTok For Business Ads Manager platform helps marketers create these advertisements, and they can choose from five different formats.

TopView Ads

TopView ads on TikTok are videos that appear once a day, immediately after a user opens their app for the first time. Here’s an example of a TopView ad by candy company M&M that they’ve created to advertise a virtual Halloween experience.

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TopView ads can be up to 60 seconds long, which is longer than the typical run-time for TikTok videos. Because of this, it’s perfect for businesses looking to advertise products or services that require longer periods of attention, like TV trailers.

In-Feed Ads

In-Feed ads are videos that appear on a user’s discovery page, otherwise known as the “For You” page. This is where users land when they open the app. The For You page features videos that the TikTok algorithm believes are of interest to the user based on their app activity.

These ads are the fourth video users see as they scroll through their feed. For reference, this type of advertisement is similar to those that appear in a user’s Instagram feed. Here’s an example of an In-Feed ad created by food delivery service GrubHub.

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In-Feed ads are especially valuable for marketers looking to use TikTok to drive sales conversions, as the videos can feature a call-to-action (CTA). Acorns, a finance business, has used the In-Feed CTA feature to prompt viewers to download their app.

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Some brands have created their own version of In-Feed ads by partnering directly with influencers. For example, Raising Cane’s Restaurant partnered with famous TikTok influencer Chase Hudson to promote their business.

@lilhuddy

this my way eating @raising.canes what’s yours #CaniacAmbassador #raisingcanes

♬ Stuntin’ On You – Tyla Yaweh

Users who follow Hudson would see this video within their For You feed.

Branded Hashtags

Branded Hashtags are advertisements that businesses use to inspire TikTokers to create content around a brand-related hashtag of their choice. Businesses using this ad format have exclusive access to the hashtag, which is not the case on other social media sites. Its exclusivity comes along with a high price tag, and reported average costs are around $150,000 USD for six days.

For example, say you’re a sportswear company that has just launched a new athletic shirt called Blue Shirt. You may create a branded hashtag called #InMyBlueShirt, where you encourage TikTok users who have your product to post videos of them doing physical activities in the shirt.

Jennifer Lopez, a music artist, has used the Branded Hashtag feature to advertise her song, Pa Ti. The hashtag is called #PaTiChallenge, and Lopez posted a video of herself dancing where she encouraged other TikTok users to take part in the challenge by replicating her dance.

@jlo

Let’s goooo! ✨🚨✨ Can’t wait to see and share some of your best #PaTiChallenge dances! Thanks for kicking it off @charlidamelio! @papijuancho

♬ Pa Ti – Jennifer Lopez & Maluma

The #PaTiChallenge hashtag has garnered 2.4 Billion views.

Hashtag Challenges can be featured on TikTok’s Discover page, where users can find new creators and browse trending hashtags. The Discover page is similar to Instagram’s Explore page.

The hashtag challenge #WorldSeries, sponsored by Major League Baseball, is featured on TikTok’s Discover feed, and the hashtag encourages users to post videos showing how they’ve celebrated baseball games. Clicking on the hashtag brings users to an internal landing page that features the sponsors’ logo, challenge description, and other videos using the hashtag.

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Brand Takeovers

Brand Takeovers are an ad format that can include TopView, In-Feed, and Branded Hashtags all at once. They can also be videos, gifs, or still images. The takeover aspect of these ads is that TikTok only features one business per day, and the starting cost is around $50,000 USD per day.

Guess, a fashion company, ran a Brand Takeover on TikTok to advertise their denim jeans. Over six days, their TikTok account gained over 12 thousand new followers and generated a 14.3% total engagement rate. Their Brand Takeover included Top View, Branded Hashtag, and In-Feed ads.

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Branded Effects

Branded Effects ads use 2D, 3D, or AR to add images of your products into TikTok videos. Brands typically create stickers of their products or create filters that TikTokers can use when creating their videos. These filters and stickers increase engagement and brand awareness, as using them typically involve playing brand-specific games.

Puma, a clothing company, used the Branded Effects feature to advertise their new soccer shoes. Their 3D sticker prompted users to play a virtual reality game with a soccer ball. They paired their Branded Effects sticker with a hashtag challenge that generated over 100,000 videos of user-generated content.

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How do TikTok ads work?

Setting up a TikTok ad is relatively easy.

First, you have to create a business account from which you will build, manage, and track your ads. The next step is describing your business and setting up your payment type.

Now, here’s where the fun starts. You can choose between two ad manager modes: simplified and custom.

In both options, you build your ad in levels. You first outline your campaign, then define your ad group, and finally create your individual ads.

Here’s the difference between these two modes:

• Simplified mode takes a simple and straightforward approach to ad creation, letting Tiktok’s algorithm do the heavy lifting.
• Custom mode gives advertisers full control over their ads with advanced customization options, such as A/B testing, audience targeting based on video and creator interactions, and ad combinations.

Choosing a mode isn’t permanent, you can always switch to another mode.

Now that you know how TikTok ads work, here’s how to set up your account and build your ad.

1. Create a business account.

2. Describe your business.

3. Enter your billing information.

4. Set up your payment type.

5. Select your ads manager mode.

   

6. Build your ad.

    

   Pro-tip: When building your ad, consider Promo, the video marketing tool that allows you to find video templates and create high-quality promotional videos.

7. Review and submit.

TikTok Ad Review Process

When you submit an ad for review, it usually takes 24 hours to review. To avoid any delays, you want to make sure your ad meets the platform’s ad requirements and follows its policies.

Here’s a checklist to use when reviewing your ad before submission:

• The landing page:
  • Is functional and mobile-friendly.
  • Delivers on what it outlines in the ad.
  • Matches the product name in the ad.
  • Is in the language of the region it’s targeting.
  • Doesn’t automatically download files to a user’s device.

• The ad:
  • Is free of spelling and grammatical errors.
  • Contains audio.
  • Is between five to 60 seconds.
  • Doesn’t include excessive use of symbols, spacing, numbers, or capitalization.
  • Matches the caption.
  • Is in the language of the region it’s targeting (or includes subtitles.)
  • Doesn’t include any prohibited products or services. Find a full list here.
  • Is not blurry or pixelized.
  • Follows standard video sizes: 9:16, 1:1, 16:9.

TikTok Ad Examples

1. Fly By Jing

In this TikTok ad, food brand Fly By Jing partnered with food influencer TiffyCooks to demonstrate how easy (and tasty) it is to use the brand’s product.

Leveraging a known influencer is always a great way to raise awareness for your brand and build trust with your audience. Another great thing about this ad is that the offer is clear: Users can get 10% off by clicking on the CTA and using the code.

2. Tiffany & Co.

To promote its latest partnership with Beyoncé and Jay-Z, the brand has launched a series of ads including the artists.

The ad is simple, but effective and leads users to a landing page where they can learn more about the campaign.

3. Omsom

In 20 seconds, this food brand accomplishes a lot.

The video effectively showcases hows how its product is used. The caption also gives users some background on the brand and tells a story in just a few words. In addition, the CTA leads users right to a product page (instead of the homepage) where they convert.

Lastly, too often, ads seem jarring because they don’t fit the feel of the platform. That’s not the case here. The ad feels so natural in the feed that you wouldn’t know it was an ad if you removed the #sponsored tag and CTA.

TikTok Advertising Cost

When it comes to budgeting for Tiktok advertising, here’s the breakdown. You can select a daily or lifetime budget, which can be changed at any point during your campaign.

At the campaign level, you must have a minimum daily and total budget of $50 USD. For an ad group level, your budget must exceed $20 USD daily.

As for the advertising cost, TikTok hasn’t released its pricing policy. However, there is some information out there.

In 2020, Digiday reported that TikTok had a cost-per-mille as low as $1. After running their own experiment, JungleTopp reported that the cost-per-click was $0.19 – much lower than Facebook and Instagram.

With this platform, you can choose between several bidding strategies that are optimized for specific goals.

Should you leverage TikTok in your marketing strategy?

Since peaking in 2020, TikTok has become a go-to advertising platform for many brands. As the number of users increased, the number of ads they saw also followed from 19% in 2020 to 37% in 2021.

A 2021 Kantar report ranked the short-form video platform in the number one spot for ad equity, surpassing Amazon, Instagram, Google, and Twitter. This isn’t the first time either – they also held that spot the year prior.

Despite this impressive ranking, the data suggests marketers are still unsure about the platform. According to the report, many marketers view TikTok as highly innovative but not quite trustworthy.

As such, many prefer to rely on tried-and-true media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

From a consumer perspective, consumers go to TikTok for authenticity and community.

According to a 2020 Nielsen study surveying global TikTok users, 59% of respondents said they feel a sense of community when they hop on the app. It’s also a major source of discovery for consumers, with 85% of users discovering new content they enjoy on the app.

As a result, the ads that are on the platform also tend to be more creative and a little less “commercial.” The study revealed that 68% of TikTok users globally find that the ads on the platform are unique and different from other social media platforms. In Indonesia, that figure goes up 23%.

So, the audience is there and ready to engage. However, the decision to use TikTok For Business in your marketing strategy ultimately comes down to your business goals and desired campaign outcomes.

To make the decision easier, we’ve compiled a list of pros and cons for marketers to use when making this decision.

TikTok For Business Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
TikTok Ads Manager will help you expose your content to new audiences. The ‘similar audiences’ feature helps you select lookalike audiences that are similar to your target ones. TikTok has a reported 1 billion monthly users and is available in 155 different countries. If your brand is smaller or less well-known, this could bring significant awareness to new audiences. 25% of TikTok’s user base is between 10 and 19, and 22% are between 20 and 29. If your target audiences are of different age groups, you could gain exposure to a new type of customer.	TikTok’s largest user base is not representative of all demographic groups. Since its primary user base is very young, the audiences that businesses market to on the platform may be significantly younger than the intended target audiences. Advertising on the app may require you to tap into a user base that may not understand the need for your product or service.
TikTok thrives off of informal, ‘behind-the-scenes’ content. Authenticity matters to Generation Z, and they tend to shy away from the ‘ sales-to-drive’ leads marketing ads. If your brand or business typically creates sales-driven formal content, utilizing the platform can help you diversify your content types and display a new, creative side of your business.	TikTok requires niche content. The type of content that TikTok calls for may not be in line with your brand mission. If you’re a more serious, sales-focused business, learning to adapt to the fun and exciting content required for TikTok versus just driving sales conversions may be a difficult skill to learn.
TikTok has higher engagement rates than Instagram and Twitter. In 2019, TikTok’s average engagement rate at all follower levels was higher than both Instagram and Twitter. Small accounts with just 1,000 had an average engagement rate of 9.38% . Even if you’re a smaller brand just starting on TikTok, you’re guaranteed to have an engaging audience.	TikTok For Business reporting tool can’t be integrated with other platforms. All marketers know that data is crucial to understanding the success of marketing campaigns. At the moment, it doesn’t seem as though the platform can integrate with your preferred insights tool. While the Ads Manager is convenient, it will require an additional step for collecting data that you can use to understand your campaign engagement and ROI.

Should you choose to incorporate TikTok into your advertising strategy, it can be a valuable tool for growth. While the app does call for niche types of content, brands and businesses can diversify their strategy and advertise to a new audience.

Whatever your final decision is, TikTok For Business is available to those who want to harness the app’s advertising potential.

Have you ever wondered why those pesky social media algorithms exist? Though it may seem like they gatekeep your content, algorithms aren’t out to get you or hide your content from the masses. Let me paint a picture for you.

You’re connected with hundreds of people — maybe even thousands — on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But when you log in to each of these social networks, it’s likely that you don’t want to be bombarded by every single update from every single connection. That’d be pretty overwhelming, wouldn’t it?

That’s how the folks from each of these social networks feel — and they’ve done plenty of user research to validate that feeling. In fact, that’s exactly why the news feeds — and the algorithms behind them — exist.

All three of today’s most popular social networks have gravitated toward an algorithm-based feed in the effort to create better experiences for their users. The trouble is, each algorithm works differently. What’s worse, they’re constantly changing, making it hard for marketers like us to keep up.

To help get it all straight, we’ve put together this simple guide on how the news feed works on the three most popular social networks: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Let’s dive in.

Note: Keep in mind that the algorithms are constantly changing. We’ll continue to write about major social algorithm changes as they happen.

Essentially, social media algorithms analyze user behavior and prioritize content the platform believes the user wants to see and is most likely to engage with.

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News Feed Algorithm

Each major social media platform has its own version of a “news feed” style algorithm. Below we’ll dive into the specifics of feed algorithms for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but here’s an overview of what the algorithms for these platforms factor in when prioritizing content.

Engagement

When you first create an account on a social media platform, you’re more likely to see a mix of random content that may not align with your interests. But over time, you’ll see the content will be more in line with your interests. How does that happen?

Social media platforms begin learning your interests and preferences very quickly based on what kind of content you engage with. Once a platform has a good idea of what a user is likely to engage with, they are going to prioritize that type of content in the user’s feed.

Time on Platform

Why does what you engage with matter so much? Well because the more time you spend engaging, the more time you’re likely to spend on a platform. When you spend more time on a platform, you’re susceptible to see (and buy from) advertising that is shown to you. And the more time you spend engaging on a social media platform, the more insight that platform has into your preferences, purchases, and habits.

Now let’s get into the details of how the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram algorithms work.

Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm

Since the inception of the largest social media platform to date, Facebook’s news feed has been focused on personalizing the social media app’s user experience. According to eMarketer, we spend about 34 minutes each day using the platform.

To give users the best experience possible, Facebook’s team of engineers are constantly studying user behavior and picking up signals that show what kind of content each user is most interested in.

How It Works

The Like button has always been the epicenter of Facebook’s user experience — not only because we see it on everyone’s posts, but because it allows us to personalize our experience (and influence everyone else’s). Since it was first introduced in November 2007, it’s helped Facebook’s engineers figure out which posts were delighting users, boring them, offending them, and so on.

Nowadays, the algorithm that governs Facebook’s News Feed has become much more sophisticated. It isn’t just about the Like button anymore — and not just because reaction buttons are now in the mix. In fact, Facebook’s algorithm is by far the most complicated of the three social networks covered in this post.

Here’s a quick rundown of the most important things Facebook’s algorithm takes into account.

Relevancy Score

When picking posts for each person who logs on to Facebook, the News Feed algorithm takes into account hundreds of variables — and can predict whether a given user will Like, click, comment, share, hide, or even mark a post as spam.

More specifically, the algorithm predicts each of these outcomes with a certain degree of confidence. This prediction is quantified into a single number called a “relevancy score” that’s specific both to you and to that post.

Once every post that could potentially show up in your feed has been assigned a relevancy score, Facebook’s sorting algorithm ranks them and puts them in the order they end up appearing in your feed. This means that every time you log in, the post you see at the top of your News Feed was chosen over thousands of others as the one most likely to make you react and engage.

Ads are given relevancy scores, too, so that Facebook can show users the ads that could matter most to them. Again, this is supposed to give users a better experience — but it’s also helpful for the businesses that are paying for the ads. It’s calculated based on the positive feedback (video views, conversions, etc.) and negative feedback Facebook expects an ad to receive from its target audience. (Learn more about relevancy score for Facebook ads here.)

Prioritizing Friends

Before 2015, Facebook was predicting what users want to see on the News Feed based on more indirect signals, like Likes, comments, and shares of others. Eventually, it added options for users to filter out posts they don’t want to see. But what about helping boost the posts users do want to see?

Through studies and surveys, Facebook found that many users were concerned about missing important updates from friends they cared about the most. In response to these concerns, the social media platform began changing the News Feed algorithm to give more control to the users themselves.

It started in April 2015, when the company began giving priority (in the form of higher relevancy scores) to posts from friends over the Pages they follow and promotional posts. Later that year, in July, Facebook introduced the “See First” feature, which lets you actually hand-pick which accounts — whether friends or followed Pages — you want to see first at the top of your News Feed.

Now, when you want to prioritize a person or page to “see first,” their posts will appear at the top of your News Feed. To prioritize the people or pages you want to “see first”: click the downward-facing arrow in the top-right corner of any Facebook page and select Settings.

In the window that appears, scroll until you find News Feed Preferences and select it.

Next, select Prioritize who to see first.

Finally, select up to 30 of your Facebook friends to add as favorites. You’ll now see posts from these individuals first.

Time Spent on a Post

Facebook started monitoring how much time users spend viewing certain posts. Of course, the time you spend on a post can vary depending on your internet speed, the length of the post, and so on — and the folks at Facebook are aware of that.

However, the platform’s strategists found that dwell time, the act of spending a lot more time on a particular post in their feed compared to the majority of other posts they look at, is a good sign that the content was relevant to them.

How does this play out in the feed? If you spend more time on a particular post, Facebook is more likely to show that post on your friends’ News Feeds.

Video Engagement

In summer 2015, Facebook surveyed users on how they interacted with video on their News Feeds and found that many people who were interested in a given video didn’t necessarily Like it, comment on it, or share it with their friends. Since engagement is one of the primary ways Facebook measures people’s interest in posts, it had to come up with other ways to figure out whether people enjoyed the videos they were seeing.

To do that, the company started monitoring other forms of video engagement — like turning on the audio, switching to full-screen mode, or enabling high definition. So if you turn up the volume on a video or make it full-screen, the algorithm will interpret that as you enjoying the video, and will show you similar videos higher up in your feed.

The update doesn’t mean users will see more videos in their News Feed — only those who already engage more with video-related content.

Facebook’s algorithm is very, very complex, but we hope that gives you a good idea of what it considers important so you can tweak your Facebook marketing strategy accordingly. Now, let’s move on to Twitter.

Twitter’s Timeline Algorithm

Whereas Facebook makes most of the decisions about what will show up in your Facebook News Feed, Twitter’s historically taken a very different approach with what it calls the “Timeline.”

Your Timeline is the stream of tweets from the users you follow that shows up on your account home page when you first log in. It used to be that your Timeline was made up of every single tweet from every user you follow, in chronological order. But the folks at Twitter found that similar to what was happening on Facebook, users felt they were missing all the best tweets from the people they care about most.

The changes made to the Twitter algorithm aren’t nearly as platform-changing as the ones Facebook has made, but they are somewhat of a departure from the real-time element that has defined Twitter since the beginning.

How It Works

The engineers at Twitter have attempted two different approaches for surfacing the “best” tweets first on your Timeline: the “While You Were Away” feature and the even newer “Show me the best Tweets first” feature.

The “While You Were Away” Feature

This feature was added as an attempt to rid users of whatever FOMO (fear of missing out) they might have been feeling from the chronological nature of the original Timeline.

Basically, it’s a recap of some of the best tweets you may not have seen otherwise. How do these tweets make the cut? It’s determined by “user engagement”.

You can’t turn off the feature, but how often you see it depends on how often you use Twitter. The recaps pop up more frequently for users who check the app less often.

The “Show Me the Best Tweets First” Feature

The “Show me the best Tweets first” feature is a little more similar to Facebook’s News Feed. Why? Because it actually changes the content on your Timeline based on a tweet’s relevancy, rather than listing tweets chronologically.

By default, Twitter’s algorithm puts the tweets it thinks you’ll find most interesting at the top of your Timeline, these posts are still recent and in reverse chronological order. These tweets are chosen based on accounts you interact with most, Tweets you engage with, and much more.

The “Best Tweets” Feature

The rest of the tweets will be displayed right underneath, also in reverse chronological order. Unlike the “While you were away” feature, these “best tweets” won’t be highlighted or indicated in any way — so you won’t be able to tell where the “best tweets” stop and the rest of the tweets begin.

There are two ways to remove these “best tweets” from the top of your Timeline. One is a quick fix: You can always refresh your Timeline to see all new tweets at the top in the live way you might have been used to seeing in the past.

But if you want to always see your Timeline live, then Twitter does allow you to opt out of this feature if you’d like — unlike Facebook’s News Feed.

To opt out of this feature: Tap the three-star icon in the top right corner of your screen. Then tap Switch to the latest Tweets.

Is Twitter Moving Away From a Real-Time Timeline?

There’s no reason to believe so — at least not right now. One of the three sections of your Twitter timeline is composed of tweets displayed in reverse-chronological order. After you scroll through the “While you were away” Tweets and “Best Tweets” you’ll be left with the tweets from your followers starting with the most recent.

What might be an emerging trend on Twitter is the opportunity to subscribe to people’s tweets. While this feature wouldn’t disrupt the timeline’s mostly reverse-chronological order, it could add just one more section to your feed that you’ll need to scroll through before seeing the latest updates from your followers.

Twitter isn’t the only social media platform iterating its algorithm to show the most interesting content first — Instagram’s algorithm is giving Facebook and Twitter a run for their money.

The Instagram Feed’s Algorithm

As of January 2021, Instagram has more than 1.2 million active users on the platform making it a hotspot for marketers in nearly any industry. However, it’s a newer platform compared to the other two on this list, so many of us marketers are still trying to figure it out. The best place to start is from the bottom up — with the algorithm.

Instagram’s algorithm has evolved since 2016 when it first began sorting users’ news feeds in order of relevance rather than recency. Now, the algorithm works similarly to its parent company’s — Facebook. Using machine learning to aggregate six factors, Instagram can determine what content you’ll appreciate the most and influence your news feed to prioritize that content.

These six factors shared by TechCrunch are:

• Interest: This is a prediction Instagram makes about how interested you’ll be in a particular post.
• Frequency: How often you use the app that will determine what posts you see first when you open the app again.
• Following: The more people you follow, the less likely you’ll be able to see everyone in your news feed.
• Recency: How recently was a post published? This impacts when you’ll see a post in your news feed.
• Relationship: Who shared the post and your connection to them will be a significant factor in how often you’ll see their content. This is influenced by tagged photos, engagement, and even how often you direct message them.
• Usage: The time you spend on Instagram affects the content you see as well.

What about the Reels, Shop, and Explore pages?

With the advent of Reels, Shop, and the Explore page, there are several opportunities for Instagram users to naturally affect the factors listed above by interacting with content outside of their news feeds. If you enjoy cooking videos, for example, you may see more of those types of videos and reels in your news feed.

Is Instagram removing likes?

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention one of the more controversial Instagram algorithm updates — removing likes. Removing one of the most popular features of the app was initially tested as a measure against bullying and increased pressure to post content that garners more and more social approval for young Instagrammers.

The change began in several countries including Canada, Brazil, and Australia. Ultimately, Instagram decided against removing like counts for all users, and instead gave users the option to hide public like counts on their own posts, and the ability to apply this change to all posts in their feed under account settings.

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Other Key Algorithms

In addition to updates in the main feed, it’s important to note that each main area of a social media platform has its own algorithm. That means the content that gets shown to you on your Instagram feed is operating on a different algorithm than the Instagram stories that are shown to you.

The biggest differences are between how users are shown photo and video content, respectively. Let’s discuss some of the other key algorithms that impact what content users see and when.

Inappropriate Language

Social media platforms are constantly on the lookout for ways to keep users safe, especially younger users. Platforms may scan content for certain words or subject matter that may be deemed inappropriate, which could lead to that content being deprioritized in the feed.

Copyrighted Content

Have you ever tried to add copyrighted music or video clips to a piece of content? Chances are, it was either quickly flagged and removed or potentially had lower reach. That’s because copyrighted content is often not included in the licensing agreements social media platforms have, and can be a liability, and can impose legal consequences for users and platforms responsible for distribution.

It’s best to avoid including copyrighted elements you don’t have the rights to and follow the specific platform’s guidelines for appropriate ways to incorporate elements such as music in your content.

Cross-Platform Content

While repurposing content is a common best practice among marketers and creators, doing so can have implications on content reach.>

In early 2021, Instagram announced the algorithm will prioritize recommending Reels that do not have visible TikTok logos, in an effort to discourage users from cross-posting TikTok content to Instagram. That means if a user downloads a video they have created on TikTok and shares the same video with the TikTok watermark to Instagram, the Instagram algorithm will potentially show that content to fewer people.

For maximum engagement potential, Instagram’s @creators account encourages users to create fresh content for Instagram instead of cross-posting content from other platforms (particularly TikTok). To get around this, some users take to third-party websites to download their TikTok without watermarks and post to Instagram.

It’s All About Content Quality

The key takeaway for brands and individuals alike is this: Quality is Queen.

These algorithms are meant to filter out irrelevant and poor-quality posts so that the highest-quality content gets through. Control over what users see and don’t see is a collaboration between the social platform and the user. The user interacts with what they find interesting and the social media platform takes note and shows you more of that the next time you open the app.

The big lesson for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram marketers like us is to remember that it’s our job to post content to social that’s interesting, entertaining, helpful, and/or relevant to our audiences. This means picking relevant topics, writing delightful copy, and posting compelling images and videos.

By following these best practices, your posts will have a better chance of getting shown to users — so you can continue to inspire, delight, and educate them.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Email marketing is continually evolving as subscriber preferences shift toward more personalized experiences. On average, 99% of people check their email every day, and the average email open rate is 17.61%.

However, that doesn’t guarantee your email will make the cut. Several factors impact email deliverability, opens, clicks, and conversions. So, what’s the first step to keeping your email KPIs strong? A clean email list. Clean email lists (with a great email marketing strategy behind them) will keep your email engagement high and your unsubscribe and spam rates low.

1. Limit unsubscribes.

The more people on your email list, the higher the likelihood that some have lost interest in your email. It happens. It could be a good idea to review engagement and remove any subscribers who no longer seem interested before they hit the unsubscribe button.

2. Decrease spam complaints.

Spam complaints are bad for your reputation with ESPs. If your emails are constantly marked as spam, your ESP might flag your account for sending unwanted solicitations. If this happens too often, your deliverability rate can suffer.

3. Improve deliverability.

The cleaner your list is, the greater the number of subscribers who want to open it. On the other hand, a list full of people who don’t engage, have changed their email address, or worse, never opted in will result in spam filters and bounces — both of which can hurt your deliverability.

4. Improve a reduced open rate.

Quality over quantity is the goal here. If you start to see your open rate decline, take a look at your list and check for inactive subscribers. Of course, you’ll want to attempt a reengagement campaign before removing them. If that doesn’t work, you should consider retaining only your active subscribers.

5. Keep costs down.

Many ESPs tier their pricing by the number of emails you send. In order to keep your costs down, you’ll want to remove the subscribers who are receiving your emails and never opening them.

All of these add up to one big red flag — your email subscribers aren’t engaged (or aren’t getting your emails). When people unsubscribe from your email list they are actively opting out of receiving your emails. If several of your emails get marked as spam, your deliverability rates will suffer.

Open and click through rates tell you how many of your subscribers are opening the email you sent, clicking on a link, and ultimately, if they’re interested in the content you’re sharing.

Making sure your email lists are clean and targeting the right audience increases your ROI and decreases the chances of your marketing emails being flagged as spam. Cleaning up your email lists gives you a better chance to reach and engage your audience.

You also want to consider the number of subscribers coming in every quarter — if it’s high, you might want to check your lists more often. If you’re seeing a high number of bounces, then that’s an indicator that it’s time to clean your email list.

Every company is different so clean up can happen monthly, quarterly, bi-annually, or annually but it should be done at least once a year.

1. Identify disengaged subscribers.

Before you scrub your list, you’ll want to identify whether a subscriber is truly inactive or simply disengaged. The former could mean you’ll need to remove them, while the latter might mean you still have a chance to win them over. A disengaged subscriber might just need some more targeted marketing to refresh their interest in your emails. After all, they did subscribe to your list at some point.

To do this, you’ll need to set some criteria for what “disengaged” means. Have they not opened an email in three months? One year? Have they not engaged with any campaigns? Have they not clicked on any links in six months?

Once you’ve identified your disengaged subscribers, you’ll want to place them in a separate list, filter for common themes, and identify a strategy to pique their interest. That could mean a discount code, a personalized subject line, or some other engagement strategy. The point is: before you write off these subscribers, give reengagement your best shot.

If reengagement doesn’t work, then you can truly mark the subscriber as disengaged and inactive.

2. Identify reasons for bounces.

Bounce rates are terrible for email deliverability, but not all bounces are created equal. There’s a difference between a hard bounce and a soft bounce. The former is a permanent issue, like an inactive email, and the latter is a temporary problem, like a full inbox.

You’ll need to remove emails that have a hard bounce, but keep an eye on soft bounces, as the problem could resolve over time.

3. Check for spam filters.

You’ll want to remove any subscribers that mark your email as spam immediately. Spam filters hurt your deliverability and your reputation. If a subscriber no longer finds your emails helpful, or worse, sees them as spam, then it’s best to part ways by removing them from your list.

4. Clear out inactive subscribers.

The final step in cleaning out your email list is to create separate lists for all the categories above and remove the emails from your list that are no longer active. It might be hard to part ways with these emails, but, in the end, you’re doing your deliverability and engagement rates a huge favor.

1. Make sure your list has good hygiene.

The key to a squeaky clean list is to have a great routine and stick with it. Create a schedule for cleaning up your lists by looking at your data quantity and quality. This will determine how often you will have to clean your list. No matter how big your list, if most of your subscribers are not interacting with your emails, it is time to assess why.

When looking through your email lists, check for duplicates, typos, and email addresses that have the word “spam” in them so that your emails are getting sent to the right person and are not bouncing. ”

2. Consider using double opt-ins.

A double opt-in is a way to ensure that your subscribers truly want your email. Here’s how it works: once a user submits their information to a form on your site, an email is sent to confirm their subscription. This does a few things: it gets them used to opening your emails, it signals to their email provider that your emails should not be automatically marked as spam, and it gives you an opportunity to ask them to save your contact info so emails don’t get lost. All around, a win.

3. Manage bounce rate.

Bounced emails happen when there is a typo in the email address, if the email no longer exists, or for a number of other reasons. Checking for bounced emails can increase your deliverability and email ROI. Email bounces are broken down into two categories: soft and hard bounces.

A soft bounce is a temporary deliverability problem, such as a full inbox or a server that is down. Resending emails to these addresses can be beneficial because they can go through eventually.

A hard bounce happens due to permanent deliverability problems, such as an invalid email address. When you have hard bounces it is imperative to remove these addresses from your lists to keep your Email Service Providers (ESPs) happy. ESPs track the number of bounces you generate with each send and use it when determining your email credibility. Getting too many hard bounces is equivalent to people automatically putting your emails in the Spam folder.

4. Use automation.

Marketing automation is for emails, too. You can have your CRM automatically send subscribers to certain lists (or tag them) based on their actions. Remember when we discussed moving inactive subscribers to a separate list? Well, instead of doing this manually, you can set up an automation that does this for you and triggers a reengagement campaign. Another way you can use automation is to remove subscribers from email workflows or campaigns that are no longer applicable to them.

5. Provide an “opt down” option.

Have an “opt down” option in addition to an “opt out” option. An “opt down” option lets your subscribers choose how often and which emails they want to receive from you. Unfortunately, subscribers can forget that they subscribed to your email lists, increasing the chance that they will delete, unsubscribe, or put you straight in the Spam folder — all undesirable outcomes. Providing an “Opt Down” option provides an opportunity for the subscriber to stay on your list without the overwhelm of receiving correspondence they don’t want.

6. Understand your email audience.

Before cleaning out your email list, take stock of how much your current audience aligns with your ideal audience. Look for ways to re-engage inactive subscribers by separating them into lists based on their interests and demographics. For example, you could create engaging welcome emails for new subscribers or whip up a discount campaign for older subscribers. Having multiple lists helps you to create campaigns that’ll drive conversion rates up.

All in all, the success of email marketing campaigns should not be measured by the number of subscribers but by the quality of the subscribers and the actions they take as a result of your email. Therefore, it’s better to deploy campaigns to 20,000 active and engaged people than it is to blast the email to 30,000 people if half of them don’t care, will delete it, or worse, report it as spam.

7. Remove inactive subscribers.

Inactive subscribers are those who do not open, click, or engage in your emails in any form. Having engaged subscribers will always be beneficial to your conversion rates, so by removing inactive subscribers you will drive up your open and click through rates for your campaigns.

Before you remove inactive subscribers permanently you can try sending them one last email campaign that could be a feedback campaign to see what will re-engage them. If all fails you’ll need to permanently delete them as subscribers to not hurt your email deliverability and conversion rates.

Start Cleaning Out That Email List

Email marketing is essential to any industry and doing a routine clean up can be beneficial to your company’s data reports and conversion rates. As long as you’re performing routine clean ups, maintaining your open and click through rates, managing bounce and spam rates, and engaging your lists with targeted emails of their interest, you will always have a squeaky clean email list.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2011 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

If you want to grow your business, great search engine optimization (SEO) is a must: Recent survey data found that 53 percent of all trackable website traffic originated from organic search, which means that if you want to get noticed, you need to show up at the top of search rankings.

The challenge? Many small businesses don’t have the time, skills or expertise necessary to handle everything that comes with a solid SEO strategy. From keyword research to content evaluation, from page optimization to internal linking, it’s easy for companies to end up with a generic web presence that doesn’t inspire engagement or drive conversions.

The result? It’s worth considering an SEO consultant or agency to help manage this process and maximize your impact. In this piece, we’ll tackle key outsourcing operations, including how it can benefit your business — and why SEO can’t be entirely outsourced. Then, we’ll break down top SEO pitfalls and offer actionable advice to find an SEO agency that best fits your brand.

Why Outsourcing SEO Can Be a Good Idea

Designing an effective SEO strategy isn’t a simple task. Companies have to consider how search engines are evaluating content, what aspects of SEO offer the most impact, and where they could change their current content to better align with search engine expectations.

This is especially critical as search engines like Google continually refine their ranking process. For example, page loading speed is now a factor in search result rankings. In practice, this expands the role of SEO; it’s not enough to simply weave in popular keywords and deliver high-quality content. Brands also need to consider the entire user experience.

As a result, it’s often worth outsourcing SEO services to ensure that your digital presence is generating maximum impact and capturing the highest volume of prospective customers. In much the same way that companies outsource their marketing efforts to experts, outsourcing SEO provides a way for brands to identify key strategic goals and then leave the complex process of meeting those goals to industry experts.

For small businesses and entrepreneurs, outsourcing offers the big benefit of time: Instead of learning about the ins and outs of SEO, testing new strategies, and refining results, business owners and managers can focus on customer conversions, product improvements, and new ideas.

Why Your Business Can’t Fully Outsource SEO

While it’s possible to outsource much of your SEO strategy to an agency or consultant, there are aspects of the process that still rest within your business. These include:

Your Keywords

Although an SEO expert can help pinpoint specific keywords of opportunity, you’re often the authority on the core keywords that define your business and operations. You know that if you stray too far from these keywords, your brand simply won’t be the same — and customers that do end up on your site may be there looking for something else. As a result, you always have a role to play in choosing ideal keywords.

Your Content

The content on your site is unique to your brand. And while SEO agencies have gotten much better at creating targeted content designed to attract your market, there are some aspects of your onsite content — such as information about the history and mission of your business — that you’re best-suited to create and manage.

Your Relationships

No matter how good your SEO provider may be, they can’t replicate the relationships you have with other businesses, suppliers and partners. This means that while they’re able to provide strategy for your SEO framework, you provide the connective tissue that makes it possible for your content to be posted (and reposted) across your industry network.

Your Brand Perspective

The unique nature of your brand perspective is what’s taken you this far — and it’s what will continue to drive your growth. Even the best SEO agency can’t be in your head; they don’t know what your brand means to you or how you want to communicate your message to the world. As a result, outsourcing SEO is ideal for laying a foundation for conversion and revenue, but it only works when paired with your perspective.

Your Growth Strategy

While you provide general goals to your SEO agency — such as increasing your rankings for a specific keyword by X amount or boosting total website visits — you’re still responsible for your overall growth strategy. Where do you want to be in a month? A year? Five? And how can your SEO partner help you get there?

Five Common Pitfalls to Avoid in SEO

Every business is different, but the principles of SEO remain the same: Rank higher in search engines for popular keywords to drive more traffic to your site. The challenge? Reaching this goal isn’t easy, leading some brands and SEO agencies to make potentially costly mistakes. Here are the top five pitfalls to avoid.

Keyword Stuffing

If there’s a cardinal rule of modern SEO it’s this: Don’t keyword stuff.

Stuffing is the practice of adding the same keyword over and over to your content with the intention of ranking higher. The problem? Search engines are now smart enough to detect this practice and will down-rank your site if keyword stuffing is detected. Generally speaking, one instance of your primary keyword per piece of content is enough to get noticed.

Duplicate Content

Next up is duplicate content. While more content on your site with keywords can help you rank higher, simply copying and pasting content — or slightly changing content to include a new keyword — lowers the overall value of your site and in turn your ranking.

Put simply? New content is always better than old.

Low-quality Backlinks

Backlinks can help increase the relevance and authority of your content — but only if they link to high-quality sites. If your content links out to sites that are continually keyword stuffing or don’t receive many visitor views, you won’t enjoy a bump in search rankings. In fact, links to these sites may hurt your overall standing.

Unoptimized Images

Images help capture user interest, but it’s not enough to simply put pictures on your site: You also need to ensure they’re optimized.

This starts with the image itself. Make sure it’s relevant and easy to understand. For example, if you run a construction company, use an image that’s related to the services that you offer and that’s high enough quality that users can immediately tell what it is. If the image is low-resolution or confusing, users won’t bother sticking around.

It’s also a good idea to look at the size of your images. Here’s why: The more images you have on your site, the slower it loads. Optimizing images for size (without losing quality) can help improve the user experience and your search rankings.

Muddled Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are snippets of text that offer a quick description of content on a specific page. Here, clear and concise descriptions are critical. Muddled or vague meta descriptions make it easy for users to overlook your site. Ideally, you want to use your primary keyword and provide a quick overview of the page in question so users know what they’re getting into.

Simply put? Ask questions. Not sure which ones to ask? We’ve got you covered.

Let’s explore each question in more detail.

1. What makes you different?

While the process of SEO is fairly straightforward, approaches differ significantly. Some companies rely solely on specific metrics, while others opt for a more organic approach or a more middle-ground stance. As a result, it’s worth asking agencies and consultants what sets them apart from the competition — what can they offer to boost your rankings and drive traffic?

Quick tip: Listen to what they say and then fact-check it against their own site’s SEO rankings. If they don’t show up near the top of their page for their own targeted keyword, consider looking elsewhere for help.

2. What’s your process?

Your prospective partners should be able to lay out their process in a way that’s clear, concise, and understandable. If you find yourself on the receiving end of too many buzzwords or big promises with no underlying proof, other choices may be a better fit.

3. What are your tools?

From the HubSpot Website Grader to Ahrefs, from SEMRush to Moz Pro, there are a host of SEO tools available. Many agencies will also have their own proprietary tools they use alongside these popular offerings — look for a provider willing to specify what tools they use, why, and how.

4. How long will results take?

Beware any company that promises instant results. SEO rankings don’t increase until search engine “spiders” have crawled the web to assess site changes and their impact. Generally speaking, substantive results start showing up around the 4-to-6 month mark.

5. What are your metrics?

Metrics matter in SEO. These include new referring domains, text readability, keyword rankings, organic search volumes, lead conversions, bounce rate, and click-through rate. All are relevant depending on their context and all measure different aspects of SEO impact. Always ask your potential provider what metrics they use and why, and ask for an explanation of how they impact results.

6. How often do you report data?

Data reporting is key to tracking SEO success. Some companies report results weekly; for others, this frequency is every other week or even monthly. Here, go with whatever you’re comfortable with — while longer reporting periods may show more change, they may also miss key indicators that strategies aren’t working or need to be adjusted.

7. Who have you helped?

Finally, ask for references. If your prospective SEO provider is as good as they say they are, they should have data that shows how they’ve boosted the impact of other brands. If they’re short on specific data and big on promises, tread carefully.

Solving for SEO

A solid SEO strategy can help your brand rank higher in search engine results and drive more traffic to your business. Outsourcing is a great way to jumpstart this process — the right agency can give you the advantage when it comes to getting noticed and capturing customer interest.

But outsourcing alone isn’t enough. Your brand perspective is critical to drive success and avoid common pitfalls. Not sure where to get started learning SEO? HubSpot has you covered.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2008 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Content. Links. RankBrain.

These are the top-ranking factors Google considers when it comes to showing results on the search engine result page (SERP). Given that much of search engine optimization centers around getting lots of good links to and from your website, it’s essential to learn how to make these links work for you.

In this article, we discuss what external linking is and why you should do it. We also reveal seven external linking best practices. At the end of this article, you’ll know how to use external linking to help your content appear higher on the search engine results page.

When should you link to other sites in SEO?

External links are hyperlinks that direct readers to a website other than your own. On the surface, using external links seems counter-intuitive—these links take people away from your website, after all. However, as we shall see later in this article, it’s one of the most essential sources of ranking power you can ever use.

Four Benefits of External Linking

Linking to outside websites, when done right, offers several benefits:

1. External linking improves your credibility.

When you add trustworthy and relevant website links to your content, it improves the credibility of your website. In addition, valuable external links provide your readers with references, which will enhance your website’s authority.

External linking is similar to the way you cite sources in a bibliography for an academic paper—it shows that you’ve created your content based on sound research.

2. External linking improves your SEO.

The external links you add can assist search engines in determining the usefulness and quality of your pages. High-quality pages usually link to other high-quality pages; thus, search engines will look at your content favorably, helping you rank higher.

If you link to an interesting article on a critical topic of interest to your business, Google uses this as one way to know what your website is about.

3. External linking is an easy way to create connections.

Other websites can tell when you’re linking to them. And the chances are that they might return the favor and link back to your website if the opportunity arises, which is great because the more quality backlinks you get, the better.

It’s an easy and positive way to reach out, make connections in your industry, and get your content in front of the right audience.

4. External linking offers readers more value.

Adding external links provides a better user experience for readers. These links lead to related information that adds to the value in your content without duplicating content. When readers see that you consistently link out to resources that’d help them understand a topic better, they’ll begin to associate more value with your website.

External Linking Best Practices

According to Google, linking is one of the most important factors for achieving high rankings, you must understand how to use external linking to your advantage. Here are key external linking best practices to adopt.

1. Make the links relevant.

When adding external links, don’t just add links for the sake of it. Instead, add links that direct readers to relevant content.

Good external links tend to point to related content. Examples of what you might link to include statistics, infographics, videos, etc.

Google and other search engines value users and want to show the most relevant results to their query. Therefore, when external links come from websites in the same niche, Google better understands the relevance of your content and its popularity, leading to a higher SERP ranking.

Example

2. Link to reputable sources.

The external link in the image above has 60% as its anchor text. It leads to a website that contains that statistic and other relevant information.

When linking externally, only link to sites that are authoritative and trustworthy. If you link to websites that promote clickbait content or aren’t professional, you’ll diminish your reader’s trust. And it could negatively affect how search engines rank your content.

If you have no choice but to link to websites where you don’t trust the content, use a no-follow tag. This tag indicates to search engine crawlers that the linked page shouldn’t be associated with your page.

Example

The latest content marketing report compiled by HubSpot is full of external links to reputable sources in the content marketing industry.

Image Source

3. Use anchor text correctly.

Let’s examine a practical example of what makes a good and bad anchor text.

We’ve got an article on HubSpot that talks about how to write a blog post. You can click here to read that article.

See what I did there? The word “here” is what is known as the anchor text for the link. And this anchor text is essential for search engines to read your website. Unfortunately, by using “here” as an anchor text, I’m giving Google very little help or hints about the content of the page I’m linking to.

Instead, here is a much better (and right) way to do this:

The right way: We’ve got a previous article on HubSpot that talks about how to write a blog post.

The second way is much better than the first for multiple reasons.

First, the link is easier for readers to click on (and know that it’s a link). But, more important is the fact that we now have the anchor text as “how to write a blog post.” So, when the search engine spiders “see” this link, they factor in the anchor text when determining what the target page is about.

So, use descriptive keywords in anchor text or keywords the linked page is trying to target. However, don’t shoehorn anchor text into sentences because it can look like spam, and readers might find it annoying.

After including anchor text, read it again. Does it look forced? Does the link look helpful and natural? You want the latter to be true.

Here’s an example where Google gives more information about how to write good link text.

Example

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4. Add helpful links.

How many external links should you use in your content? There’s no conclusive answer.

However, you shouldn’t overwhelm your reader with too many external or internal links. Your goal when linking should be to provide the best reader experience possible. You might end up losing readers if they feel they’re merely being used as part of your SEO strategy.

Example

This page from Backlinko has at least 150 external links and ranks #1 on the Google SERP for several queries. Therefore, you can have as many external links as you like as long as it makes sense to add them.

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5. Open external links in a different tab.

Your external links should open in a different tab, and there are various reasons why this is important. However, the most significant reason to have links open in a new tab is that this gives the visitor as much control as possible with their experience on your site.

Example

This article about statistics that prove why link-building is important contains external links that open in a new tab. This lets the reader continue reading the article while also taking a look at the information you linked to without losing one or the other.

6. Don’t link to competing websites.

It’ll be detrimental to link to sites competing for the same keywords. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “Best toys for dogs,” you shouldn’t link to a site that is already ranking #1 for this keyword.

Instead, link to websites that offer value to your content, like pages that contain general information. Using the “Best toys for dogs” example, you can link to a video about a specific dog toy you’re promoting that’s not on a competitor’s website.

Example

In the image above, HubSpot’s article about the best digital marketing tools doesn’t link to a competing article but links to specific tools like Ahrefs that support the article.

7. Conduct a link audit.

Spend some time every quarter (or within regular intervals) to audit your content for any outdated or broken links. Why’s this important?

When readers encounter broken or outdated external links in your content, it diminishes their experience, and they might begin to lose faith in your credibility.

You can use a tool like Check My Links to find broken links on your website.

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Build a Successful External Linking Strategy

Quality external links in your content provide more resources to your readers while building your content and website’s authority. When done right, external linking can even boost your ranking on the SERP.

So now is the time to implement all you’ve learned from this article and make external links work for you.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2007 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Posting to Instagram from your computer is a great choice if you don’t have your phone on hand or need to access company assets on your laptop. Or you might simply prefer to use a wider screen.

For these reasons and others, you might be wondering, “Can I post to Instagram from my computer?” We have some good news.

Why post on Instagram from your computer?

Instagram is a popular social media network for sharing photos that’s most commonly accessed through a mobile app. It offers a web version that makes it easy to post assets you may only have on your laptop and not your phone. 

For example, let’s say you’re a social media manager for a prominent brand. The last thing you want to do is have an absentminded mishap where you accidentally post brand content to your personal Instagram account (or, worse, vice versa) simply because you’re logged into both on your phone.

Alternatively, it might be easier to upload company posts and videos via your desktop, rather than having your smartphone open at work.

Plus, your company’s files might be more easily accessible via desktop than mobile. For instance, if you use Photoshop to edit company photos, it’s likely easier to click “Upload” from your desktop when you’re done editing, rather than sending that same photo or video to your personal phone.

Perhaps you simply prefer the larger screen of desktop. Or, maybe you don’t have access to a smartphone so you can’t download the app on your phone.

So there are plenty of good reasons to use Instagram on your computer instead. Here’s how.

While the social platform is primarily meant to be consumed in-app, it offers a nearly identical experience if you access it on your computer.

On Instagram’s web version, you can:

• Watch and reply to other people’s Stories
• Search for hashtags and other users
• Browse your feed
• Comment and like posts
• Reply to direct messages (DMs)
• View your notifications
• Access the Explore tab
• Post photos and videos to your profile

In other words — Yes, you can post to Instagram from your PC or Mac desktop instead of on your mobile device’s app or browser.

Now, let’s explore how you can post images and videos from your desktop computer.

Whether you’re on a Mac or a PC, you can post from your desktop computer. Instagram’s web version allows you to upload an Instagram post the same way you would via mobile, regardless of the platform you use. Below, we’ll discuss how to do it on:

• Chrome
• Safari

Once we discuss how you can post photos, we’ll also discuss how to upload a video to Instagram from your desktop.

1. Open up your Chrome browser.

The first thing you’ll want to do is open up Google Chrome. If you’re on Windows, you can do so by clicking the Windows icon in your task bar. Then, search through the applications you’ve already installed on your computer until you find Chrome.

2. Navigate to Instagram’s website.

Next, navigate to https://www.instagram.com by typing it into the navigation bar. Log in using your Facebook credentials or by inputting your email, phone number, or username. If you’ve logged into Instagram’s web version before, it might include an option to “Continue as [username],” and you’ll be able to automatically log in.

3. Click the “+” button next to the DM symbol.

Instagram’s web version has a top navigation bar that mirrors the navigation bar on the mobile app. It includes a search bar, a home symbol, a DM symbol, a plus sign, a heart, and a circle with your profile picture. Click the plus sign next to the DM symbol.

4. Click “Select from computer” to upload your media.

A popup box will appear with a blue button that says “Select from computer.” Browse until you find the file you’d like to upload.

5. Crop the image, zoom in, or add more media if needed.

Instagram gives you several options for editing the image prior to publication. You can change the aspect ratio, zoom in, or add more media to the same post.

The zoom-in option is right next to the aspect ratio button:

You’ll find the “add more media” button on the lower left-hand corner.

Click the plus sign to add more images to your post, if desired.

6. Choose a filter or make adjustments.

Next, choose a filter, just like you would in the app. You can also adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and other features.

Once you’re done, click Next in the top right of your screen.

7. Add a caption, location, alt text, and tags.

On the next screen, you’ll be able to add a caption, add a location, or tag people.

8. Click Share.

When you’re ready, click Share in the top right of your screen.

Done! You’ve now posted on Instagram using Chrome.

1. Open up your Safari browser.

The first thing you’ll want to do is open up Safari. To do so, open up Launchpad and find Safari in your list of applications. Alternatively, if you have it pinned in your task bar, you can open it from there.

2. Navigate to Instagram’s website.

Next, navigate to https://www.instagram.com by typing it into Safari’s navigation bar. If you visit the site often enough, Safari may also have a shortcut in your “New tab” page.

Once you get there, login with your preferred credentials. If you’ve already used the web version in the past, Instagram will allow you to log in with one click.

3. Follow steps 3 to 8 from the instructions above.

Once you are able to view Instagram from your Safari browser, you can upload an Instagram post the same way you would on Chrome — by clicking the “+” button, adding a filter or editing the photo, adding a location and caption, and clicking “Share” when you’re ready for your post to go live.

Want to upload a video instead?

How to Post a Video to Instagram Using a Desktop Computer

You can upload videos to Instagram from your desktop — which makes it easy to share professionally-shot videos that may not be readily available on your phone. That means you can share marketing videos and shoots you received from a freelancer or your in-house videographer.

Here’s how to post a video to Instagram on any web browser.

1. Head to the Instagram website on your preferred browser.

Once you’re there, log in using your credentials.

2. Click the “+” button next to the DM symbol.

Just like you would if you were posting a photo, click the + button in the top navigation bar of your Instagram feed.

3. Click “Select from computer” to upload your media.

Select your video file from the computer. We recommend uploading an MP4 file to avoid compatibility issues.

If your video is less than 10 minutes long, your file size should be no bigger than 650 MB. For videos between 10 minutes and 60 minutes (which is the maximum length), you should aim for a file size smaller than 3.6GB. Read more about Instagram’s video requirements here.

4. Resize your video and add more media if desired.

Instagram gives you two options for adjusting your video: Changing the aspect ratio and adding more media. For photos, Instagram also allows you to zoom into the picture. The option isn’t available for videos.

If you’re uploading a horizontal video, we recommend using a 16:9 aspect ratio so that it’s not cut off. If you’re worried about the aesthetics of your feed, stick to a 1:1 ratio. That way, there isn’t any white space when visitors visit your profile.

5. Choose a cover photo, trim the video, and toggle sound options.

Next, you can choose a cover photo (the image users will see before they click “Play”). You have the option of uploading a custom cover photo for the video, and you can also trim the video and turn the sound off if desired.

6. Write a caption, tag other users, add alt text, and toggle commenting options.

In the next screen, you can write a caption for your video, tag anyone who appears in the video, add alt text, and disable commenting.

7. Click Share.

Done! You’ve now posted your video on Instagram.

Alternative Ways to Post to Instagram from Your Computer

You don’t have to access Instagram’s web version to post on Instagram. If you find the web version to be too lacking for your day-to-day tasks, especially if you’re a social media manager, you can use a third-party service that offers social media scheduling software.

HubSpot’s social media management tool is one of the best options you can use to schedule Instagram posts from your desktop — no need to access the Instagram app or website itself.

Here’s one example of us scheduling a video post for Instagram using Social Inbox:

The great benefit of using this method is that you can schedule posts well in advance. You don’t have to access Instagram every time you want to add new media to your profile.

If you’re doing this regularly for your job, it might be worthwhile to explore all the social media scheduling tools at your disposal to choose the one best-suited for your business’ needs.

Using Instagram Like the Pro You Are

Now that you don’t have to worry about transferring photos to your mobile device or juggling your work’s social media account on your own device, you’ll be able to grow on Instagram efficiently and effectively. From there, the sky is the limit for creating posts and growing your audience in a scalable way.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.