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As a writer, I’ve never been very good at math. I know … shocking.

Most marketers can relate because as a bunch, we tend to be better at English and history than math and science.

However, as a marketer, we need to be able to analyze data and calculate the effectiveness of an article or campaign, even though math might not be our strong suit.

One of the calculations we need to run and metrics we need to track is return on ad spend (ROAS).

Below, let’s review ROAS. In this post, we’ll discuss what ROAS is, how it’s different from ROI, and how to calculate it.

Ultimately, ad spend is meant to measure the effectiveness of a specific ad campaign, not your overall ROI — more on that below.

Besides ROAS, you’ll most likely measure other metrics such as click-through rate and ROI. By measuring multiple metrics, you’ll get a more accurate view of your results.

Of course, measuring performance and tracking analytics is an important part of any marketing campaign.

By tracking performance, you can improve and iterate on your marketing techniques. Plus, data is one of the only ways to truly prove that your department brings in revenue, which is incredibly important.

However, it’s important to note that not everything can be measured with quantitative data. For instance, calculating brand awareness and sentiment is much more difficult. And while you can calculate downloads or email sign-ups, those might not always lead to revenue.

When you’re analyzing any data, it’s important to consider context and review qualitative data as well as quantitative data.

That being said, today we’re going to dive into ROAS specifically. Before we do that, let’s review how ROAS is different from ROI.

Ultimately, this means that the only cost considered in a ROAS calculation is the cost of advertising. On the other hand, the cost of an entire project or campaign will be considered in an ROI calculation.

The goal of your ads campaign, of course, will be to generate a positive return on your ad spend. However, how can you determine what that ad spend should be?

In the YouTube video below, HubSpot details how to determine ad spend by understanding the bidding system used by ad networks.

You’d use ROAS to help you determine how you spend your advertising budget and as a signal to determine if your campaigns are successful. This would let you know that you might need to evaluate your approach to running ads.

So, at this point, you might be wondering, “How can I calculate ROAS?” Let’s review that now.

While the equation is simple, you might face difficulty gathering the data needed to run this calculation. For instance, calculating the cost of an ad isn’t always easy. You’ll need to consider the cost of the ad bid, the labor cost for the time it took to create the creative assets, vendor costs, and affiliate commissions.

But it’s important to get an accurate estimate of the actual money spent on an ad to get an accurate ROAS measurement. If your data isn’t accurate, your findings won’t be either.

Additionally, if you don’t run an ecommerce business, it can also be difficult to measure the revenue generated by an ad. For example, someone might convert from your ad because they downloaded an ebook, however, they haven’t spent any money yet. In fact, they might not spend money for months.

To combat this, you can use a CRM software like HubSpot in conjunction with HubSpot Ads, to track revenue made from leads.

With a CRM and ads software, you can keep track of your data and tie it all together — marketing leads, ad results, etc.

Now, you might be wondering, “What’s a good ROAS?” and “How can I improve my ROAS?”

Well, a good ROAS is typically around 3:1. If you’re barely breaking even, it might be time to dig further into the accuracy of your metrics and evaluate your ads and bidding strategy.

However, it’s important to note that the objective of some ad campaigns might not be to make immediate revenue but to increase brand awareness. If that’s your objective, then a lower ROAS makes sense.

What is a good ROAS?

Depending on the medium, return on ad spend can be anywhere from $4-11 for every dollar spent on advertising.

In the graphic below, you can see the ROAS per dollar invested in the United States in 2018, by the medium.

For each dollar invested in digital search advertising, U.S. advertisers gained about 11 U.S. dollars, making it the medium with the highest return on advertising spending.

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How to Increase ROAS

To improve your ROAS, you can lower your ad spend and review your ads campaigns. You might want to optimize your landing pages or rethink your negative keywords.

Overall, ROAS is an important metric to track, but it shouldn’t be tracked in a vacuum. It’s important to look at other data and metrics to get the full picture of your return on investment.

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

As marketers, we know the importance of making data-driven decisions. The more information we have about our audience, the more we’re able to make effective marketing moves. 

In addition, having the numbers to back up the implementation of a marketing strategy is almost as important as the strategy itself. One of the ways to get this data is through social media testing, where you figure out what campaigns resonate most with your audience and help you meet your marketing goals.

In this post, learn how you can run a social media test to help you meet your marketing goals and discover high-quality tools that will help you do so. 

For instance, you might run a social test to learn if video campaigns are worth investing in on Facebook, so you create a post that measures impressions of an ad with and without a video attached. After the campaign, the interactions with your post will tell you if a video is a worthwhile investment for your brand, which makes this process so important.

The Benefits of Social Testing

Social media testing is important because it provides data-driven insights about your social media marketing activities. It allows you to analyze how different variables, like photo and video, affect performance.

Ultimately, social media tests provide data about how audience behavior can influence the structure of your campaigns. You’ll get a picture of what is successful for your brand, and you can create campaigns that you know will work. Instead of researching countless industry benchmarks, you’ll have concrete data specific to your business that comes from testing results. 

There are multiple types of social media tests you can run for your business, and we’ll discuss them next.

Types of Social Tests

Let’s say you want to know how copy affects an international audience on LinkedIn. Or, that you want evidence of a landing page performing better with a different image. Maybe you’re trying to identify if changing the tone of Instagram captions will lead to more audience engagement.

All of these scenarios are prime for social tests. They point out a problem that can be answered with data. This data would give insight about audiences interactions with brands on social media.

After identifying the goal, it’s time to pick the type of test. Let’s go through the different types and when you might use them.

A/B Test

A/B tests are likely the most common form of social testing. They look at a variable between two content types, measure the outlined goal, and provide results. So, consider running an A/B test if you want to test a single, small variable that may alter audience behavior.

For example, run an A/B test if you want to test out different CTA buttons on a Facebook ad or experiment with a post’s copy with/without emojis. The image below is an example of what an A/B test can look like. 

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Split Test

Split tests are often confused with A/B tests. In essence, they do the same thing: test two content types based on a goal. The difference is that a split test is more general than an A/B test; they’re used to determine big changes, and the two variants are often entirely different.

Use split testing if you want to know which layout of your Facebook Business page performs better. You can also run split tests to determine A/B test factors. For example, you can run a split test to determine which ad video cut you will use for a Sponsored Tweet, then A/B test different sections of the winning cut. The image below is an example of what a split test could look like on a business website. 

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Multivariable Test

Multivariable tests work differently than the two previously mentioned types, as they work with multiple variables instead of one or two. You can run a multivariable test to determine which of four ads works best. Alternatively, you can run one to assess the different makings of a post, like images vs. copy vs. captions.

Run a multivariate test if you want to see the results of more than two different elements. For example, compare the caption, image, and CTA of a LinkedIn post to see what audiences are responding to, or look at three versions of a GIF to learn how audiences react to them. The image below is an example of a what a multivariate test set up could look like.

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When you’ve picked out your social test experiment, make sure you’re imploring best practices so the results are helpful.

Social Testing Best Practices

Social media testing can be extremely helpful — if you’re executing them correctly. Otherwise, your test could be inaccurate, immeasurable, and ultimately, a waste of time.

The good news is that social tests aren’t hard to create or run. The bad news is that if you aren’t prepared to run one, your results won’t be usable. Make sure that when you design your test, you follow these best practices:

1. Have one specific goal.

When your social test has one identifiable goal, everything else falls into place: variables, unit of measurement and time frame. To illustrate this, let’s say your goal is to improve international engagement with your next Facebook ad.

With that goal decided, you can create the variables, so you decide to run an A/B test to determine which copy earns the most impressions. You estimate that because your impression ads usually run for a month, half that time would give measurable results.

You also know the direction of the ad, so your focused goal makes it easier to know what to look for during analysis. Impressions, for example, would be the metric to look at for the Facebook ad mentioned earlier.

2. Know who your audiences are.

If you decide to conduct a social test, your data will reflect the behaviors of a specific target market and how they engage with your messaging. 

Social testing is a great way to learn about the social media behavior of an audience segment. If you had little to no information about how your millennial audience would react to a new Instagram Story Ad, running a test would give you a data-driven answer.

Without knowing your audience, your data wouldn’t apply to a defined set of your target market. You’d have insight, but it would be unclear how results relate to your different audience segments. 

3. Take note of your current performance.

Before you run the test, know how your current campaign is running or note previous results. Then, at the end of your experiment, you can compare results and make informed decisions. The previous report will give the background information and context needed to analyze the social test findings.

Even if your marketing goals for your social test are different than previous campaigns, it’s still a good idea to refer to them for context. For instance, you may be testing for conversions rather than retargeting, but having an idea of what audiences prefer helps you structure your campaign.

4. Monitor your test periodically.

Don’t leave your test as soon as it begins — monitor it so you can adjust accordingly. A test that’s running for a month, for example, should be checked regularly for performance benchmarks.

If you use social test software or tools on social media channels, the report starts aggregating when your test starts. So, when you check-in, look at how you’re tracking for your #1 goal. Additionally, take note of what other metrics you see and how they’re performing.

You might find, for instance, that your conversion rate is low. You can monitor conversions for the duration of the test or make a minor tweak to try to improve performance. For the subsequent check-ins, you’ll have an additional metric to take into account.

When the test concludes, you’ll have the knowledge from previous checks to round out your perception of the completed report. Along with your intended goal, identify supporting metrics to understand how they work together.

5. Make your test timely.

How long should you run your test? Long enough to get the answer to your hypothesis. That doesn’t tell you much, though, so let’s add to that.

Ideally, your test should run for at least seven days. A week is enough time for your social testing software to compile a basis of data. It won’t be as concrete as a more extended test, but it’s a starting point.

After seven days, look at your performance and decide if you’ve gathered enough data to answer your hypothesis. If not, run the test for a few more days. Then, based on the nature of your campaign, fix the time frame to fit your business and your audience — but make sure you give yourself enough room for an actionable report.

Picking a test duration period ensures you won’t be wasting money and time. Instead of having a test run for too long or too little, figure out your time frame and budget during the planning process.

So, with these best practices in mind, you’re almost ready to run a successful social test. Before you get going, though, let’s talk about where — and how — to do that.

Where can I run a social test?

There’s a couple of avenues to explore when choosing where to run a social network test. If you’re running a test specifically for social media, the channel you’re using might have testing tools in their business software.

Running social tests on the corresponding media platforms is helpful because you don’t have to track different channels during the test. Additionally, you won’t have to worry about misconstrued data a third party might provide.

You can also run a social test using a CRM, like HubSpot. CRMs are a great choice if you want to test functions outside of social media — landing pages, emails, or other marketing activities. First, though, let’s talk about social media offerings.

Facebook Social Testing

Facebook offers tools to run A/B and multivariate tests for ads. You can access these tests via Ad Manager. Ad Manager tells you which ads (or ad tests) are running and their status. When you click on a certain test, details and metrics open.

Multivariate tests on Facebook are similar, except they can be found in the Experiments section of your Facebook Business account. Though the social tests are located in different places, the process for setting them up is largely the same.

Social testing on Facebook is intuitive, especially if you’re used to running Facebook Ads. After clicking “Create Ad,” you’ll be taken through a series of prompts to create, set metrics, and pick an audience. When you fill in the details, you publish it, and wait for the results.

Start small if you’re getting the hang of things. Its features are customizable, so the choice is yours in terms of time frame, audience, copy, testing options, and metrics. As your familiarity grows, tests can be scaled.

As an example, after running a social test on Facebook, bone broth brand Kettle & Fire found a 14 point increase in brand awareness. The marketing team wanted to raise online sales with a video campaign, and wanted to find out which video length was favored by customers.

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In a little less than a month, a 1.5 lift in purchasing consideration and sales conversions from the short video led to the answer. A Facebook test saved the team ad spend and informed them about their audience’s Facebook preferences.

Facebook delivers social testing results in a downloadable report. The software determines the winner based on the metric(s) you chose when creating the test. For information about running a Facebook social testing, check out this post about testing on the platform.

Twitter Social Testing

Social testing on Twitter leads to creating tweets audiences will interact with and enjoy. You’ll identify how they use the platform and know how to cater to their needs. Twitter’s testing tools are best fit for creative, targeting, and brand awareness campaigns.

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Twitter lets you social test Ads in an A/B format. To do this, after publishing the ad, go back into Ads, duplicate it, make the change, and publish the new variable. Track performance from the Tweet Activity Dashboard and campaign dashboard. 

Note that there’s no way to set an official test using Twitter, so you’ll have to analyze the data yourself. For instance, if you want to see if your new brand voice is taking flight, you’ll probably want to look at the amount of clicks and impressions your Ad earned.

LinkedIn Social Testing

If you’re not used to LinkedIn Ads, there’s several different types. They’re sorted based on campaign goal, like Conversion, or type of ad, like Carousel, Text, or Sponsored. It’s a great idea to test LinkedIn Ads for promoting — your brand, event, or job listing.

Dynamic Ads, which show up on the ride side of a user’s main feed are highly personalized. Under Dynamic Ads, there’s several versions: Follower, Job, Content, and Spotlight. These versions specify what the goal of your ad is — so if you want to let audiences know your company is hiring, you would run a Dynamic Job Ad.

If you wanted to make a similar Dynamic Job Ad on LinkedIn, you can run a test to see if your listing ad is compelling to job seekers. You’ll have the option to test image layouts, such as the company photo, copy, and central images, if applicable.

LinkedIn’s marketing team uses social testing for content and event promotion, as well as account-based marketing. They ran a test for a webinar Dynamic Ad to gauge if audiences preferred an image of the speaker or the company’s logo. According to one of LinkedIn’s senior marketing managers, Cassandra Clark, results included a 326% lift in click-through rate in the ad with the speaker.

To access ad results, check your Conversion Tracking dashboard, which will show you page and audience activity from your ads. While LinkedIn doesn’t have a formal testing feature, they do have an option for you to duplicate and tweak a portion of an ad, like Twitter.

CRM Social Testing

If you’re not running a test on a social media channel, using a CRM is another worthwhile option. With a CRM, you can set up tests for website content, like landing pages. 

In HubSpot, you can run social tests for web pages simply by accessing your dashboard and going to one of your web pages. Click the “Actions” hyperlink next to one of your pages, and you’ll find the option to “Run a test.”

HubSpot lets you run an A/B or multivariate (Adaptive) test. As you’re creating your test, you’ll have the option to look at testing tips, like figuring out what to test. Since HubSpot has a drag-and-drop editor, and tons of modules to choose from, you’ll have plenty of options. In the past, I’ve run tests for CTA buttons, images, headline copy, body text, and landing page layout through social media.

It’s commonplace for CRMs to have tools for running social testing. Some offer a niche version of social testing; for instance, MailChimp’s are for emails. When you decide to use a CRM for testing, do some research to determine which one will offer you the tools you need to succeed.

But, if you don’t know where to begin looking for software that offers social testing, here’s a list of tools for your benefit.

1. HubSpot

Price: Free plan, or $800 for Marketing Hub Professional

With HubSpot’s CRM, you can run A/B and multivariate tests. The tools are part of HubSpot’s Marketing Software and are included in the Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise plans. You can use HubSpot to test landing pages that are promoted through social media.

The CRM’s drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to configure variables for tests. In addition, you’ll have optimization features to make your page shareable and user-friendly, like social media badges. That way, when you promote the page on socials, your followers can share them with one click.

HubSpot’s testing tool is accessible from the landing page dashboard via “Run a test” from the drop-down menu. From there, you can choose your test type and get started. If you want an easy-to-use platform that lets you create and analyze social tests, HubSpot is a great choice.

2. OptinMonster

Price: Free plan, or $19-49/mo.

OptinMonster is a CRM that also offers built-in testing software. You can run A/B or split tests to increase conversions over time with tools that let you experiment with content, headlines, campaign triggers, styles, and layouts.

Once you set up the test, you can leave the software to do the work. It’ll show your test content to website visitors and collect data on conversion rates. Your report will determine the number of impressions, acquisitions, and page visits.

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You can use OptinMonster’s testing tool to test social media landing pages. Test the landing page’s effectiveness for your next ebook offer before it’s published on LinkedIn first. If you want a platform that offers intuitive tools for social testing, try OptinMonster.

3. Optimizely

Price: Case-by-case basis, contact sales for pricing

If you’re heavily promoting your website on social media, test it to learn how it performs among your audience. One way you can do that is with Optimizely, which provides marketing software solutions.

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Optimzely’s tools let you perform split and multivariate tests. Optimizely will count the number of website visitors and the metrics you pick, such as engagement, goals, conversions, and clicks. You’ll be able to apply custom audience segments that can be filtered based on social proof performance.

4. Leadpages

Price: Free, or $48-$199/mo.

If you want a tool specifically for testing landing pages you promote on social media, try Leadpages. This is software that was made just for building professional landing pages. You can use the split testing feature with the tool.

When you run split tests with Leadpages, you’ll be able to access its analytics the minute it aggregates traffic and engagements. At the conclusion, you’ll get a report that includes the total and unique visits, conversions and total conversion rate. Your report will also include specific insights about test variations.

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Keep in mind that you can’t set a time frame for your tests. From the analytics dashboard, you’ll be able to see how many days your test has been running. When you’re ready for the test to be complete, you’ll have to end it manually. 

5. Inspectlet

Price: Free, or $39-$499/mo.

Inspectlet was created just for testing. It’s a software that lets you test multiple different content types, including web pages. You can also create content variations for future social tests, like edited graphics.

The visual editor in Inspectlet makes it easy to code or create different pages. You can change your page’s design or code in real-time and access analytics as soon as the test begins. Inspectlet lets you track views, page elements, unique visitors, and custom events.

When you access your performance report, you’ll get the metrics based on the goals you set. This can be anything from tracking clicks, user engagement, custom events, or URL views. Basically, anything that you can track with the software can be measured.

Now, you have a couple of options separate from social media sites that you can social test with. With this in mind, you’re ready to run the test.

Think back to the example in the beginning of the post. Knowing all you do about social testing now, you’re fully equipped to run a video engagement experiment of your own. Will it be on a social channel or with testing software?

One of the many great things about social testing is how creative they can be — you can social test just about any piece of content, and social media sites are starting to make that process easy. Testing your social ads ensures you’re providing the most value to your customers, and now, you can.

I first heard about “hard skills” and “soft skills” in high school.

Hard skills seemed to be the ones that everyone wanted, and soft skills were just personality traits that were nice to have.

This worried me, as I saw myself as more of a people person than an academic.

But, as I transitioned into college and the workplace, I found that soft skills are just as important, if not more important, than hard skills. While technical knowledge can get you a first-round interview, how you interact with others in an interview and in collaborative projects can seal the deal.

Here, let’s dive into the difference between soft and hard skills — plus, how you can include both on your resume to stand out to potential employers.

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

According to an article by HubSpot, soft skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, emotional intelligence, and personality traits that make it easy to get along and work harmoniously with other people.

On the other hand, hard skills are specific, technical abilities required to do a job, and are usually acquired through education and experience. It’s helpful to look at these in comparison to each other, especially when building a resume.

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills on a Resume

However tempting it may be to mass-distribute your resume when applying for jobs, resumes are not one-size-fits-all. Today’s diverse workplace means that different roles require tailored sets of skills.

The “skills” section is an excellent place for customization because it highlights how well you fit into a role, as well as what makes you unique as a candidate. To figure out which skills to list, start with the job description of the position for which you’re applying in the “desired skills” or “requirements” section. Hunt for keywords a company is looking for, such as “project management,” “fluent in Mandarin,” or “proficient in HTML/CSS.”

For soft skills in particular, a tip is to look at the company website to get a feel for the culture/tone of the company and find out which qualities are most valued in employees. Specifically, if the company has “Careers,” “Mission,” or “About” sections, these are great places to start.

As an aspiring HubSpot intern, one scan of the “Careers” section of the website led me to notice that the “HEART” culture code was featured prominently. I knew it would likely be mentioned in the interview, which is why I listed soft skills like “empathetic team player” on my resume.

Feeling under-qualified for your dream job? Thankfully, both hard skills and soft skills can be improved over time. In addition to traditional methods such as classes and on-the-job training, taking online courses is an accessible way to improve both hard and soft skills. There are also certification courses, such as Content Marketing or Google Analytics, that not only provide training but also tangible evidence of skills for employers.

If you need help identifying and developing your soft skills, a personality or strengths finder tests like this one can help.

Examples of Soft Skills

Empathy

One of the key components of an emotionally intelligent employee/leader is empathy. If you can understand your coworkers and clients, you are better able to collaborate with them and build authentic relationships.

One way to practice empathy is to be an active listener: Hold space for whatever others are going through and try to understand their perspectives.

Communication

Going hand in hand with empathy, being able to communicate with people from diverse backgrounds is key in the workplace. In addition, with Slack, email, Zoom calls, and in-person meetings, an effective employee must know how to communicate clearly across various platforms.

Adaptability

In our ever-changing workplace, having flexibility and a positive attitude toward change is of utmost importance. Make sure to have concrete examples of your adaptability to bring up in a cover letter or interview.

As someone applying for a remote position at HubSpot, I made sure to highlight my previous remote work experiences. I also discussed my time in both the advertising and automotive industries to showcase my adaptability.

Examples of Hard Skills

Bilingual/multilingual ability

According to Fortune, globalization in this post-pandemic era is being “radically transformed.” As a result, knowing different languages can give you a major advantage in the job market.

In addition to English, Mandarin, German, and Spanish are the top languages desired for international business. If you haven’t spoken a foreign language since senior year of high school, an app like DuoLingo is a fun and straightforward way to help you brush up.

SEO Marketing

For all companies with an online presence, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), plays a huge part in attracting and retaining customers. Resources like The Beginner’s Guide to SEO from Moz (an SEO tools and software company) are a great way to start.

Data Analytics

Data analytics is the process of obtaining insights from raw data in order to observe trends and draw conclusions. The best method for mastering this skill is through “learning by doing” — and the great news is, many of the top data analytics tools are free.

You can start with trusty old Excel/Google Sheets and learn commands through video tutorials. Programming languages, such as R and Python, are in high demand due to their powerful data analysis capabilities, and both are free and open source.

And there you have it! Understanding the importance of hard and soft skills is critical to both landing a job and growing in one. Hopefully this post has helped you understand the full differences between the two.

You’ve spent months perfecting the script, storyboarding, finding the right taazyent, shooting, and editing. The end result? A blockbuster brand or product video.

With all that time invested, you can’t stop at just embedding the video on a homepage or sharing it on social media and hoping someone watches. Running a series of YouTube ads is one way to make sure more of your target audience finds the video content you’ve produced. And with new formats and tracking capabilities, you can also use this information to report on its ROI.

In this post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about YouTube ads and how to launch advertisements successfully as part of a fruitful YouTube marketing strategy. Let’s get started.

What’s New With YouTube Advertising

Advertising on YouTube is very different from running a PPC or paid social media campaign. There are specific creative constraints and a ton of options for this platform, and you need basic knowledge before you even scope out your next video project to make the most of the paid possibilities.

In recent years, Google has rolled out a series of changes that makes YouTube advertising an extremely worthwhile investment. Let’s take a look.

Targeting Based on Users’ Search History

A few years ago, Google announced it would allow advertisers to reach more viewers on YouTube — especially across mobile devices, where 50% of YouTube views take place. Among the changes it rolled out, possibly the biggest announcement was that advertisers would be able to target viewers based on their Google search history, in addition to their viewing behaviors YouTube was already targeting.

Marketers can now target ads at people who recently searched for a certain product or service. If the content of a video ad is closely related to a search the viewer has been researching, they might be more likely to watch the entire ad or click through the ad to the website.

Audio Ads

Audio has grown lately — you needn’t look further than podcasts and the new social media app Clubhouse. To keep up with the changes, Google is now allowing YouTube advertisers to create audio-only ads. While we’d recommend starting with a video ad first, you can later consider using audio once you’ve perfected your brand voice and learned what your audience likes to engage with the most.

Upgraded Data Attribution Models

Google has also upgraded YouTube’s data attribution model so you can better measure how users engage with your ads. You can also determine cost-per-conversion and see your YouTube ads’ performance alongside your Search and Shopping ads’ attribution reports.

Keywords are relatively less expensive to target on YouTube than in traditional Google Search, where the average cost per click is estimated to be between $1-2.

While great content is bound to be found, it’s important to be proactive about gaining the attention of prospects and educating those who are unfamiliar with your brand. YouTube ads allow you to do just that. It’s a cost-effective way to target your audience with a more engaging form of content — video or audio.

The Types of YouTube Video Ads

There are several key types of video ads in which you can invest on YouTube. Google outlines the basic formats here. Below, we go into more detail.

1. Video Discovery Ads

Video discovery YouTube ads show up on the YouTube homepage, search results pages, and as related videos on YouTube video watch pages.

This ad appeared after performing a YouTube search:

Once a user clicks on the ad, the destination video page features a spot on the right-hand column where a companion banner display ad will appear.

2. TrueView In-Stream Ads (Skippable Ads)

TrueView ads are the standard video ad type on YouTube. Advertisers only pay for TrueView ads when viewers watch or interact with their ad (for example, by clicking on a call-to-action), and videos can be easily customized to share a variety of content.

Advertisers only pay when a user watches the ad for at least 30 seconds or until the end of the video or if the viewer takes an action, such as clicking on a call-to-action. YouTube requires that skippable TrueView ads be between 12 seconds and 6 minutes in length.

TrueView in-stream ads play before someone watches the video they’ve selected on YouTube. Viewers sometimes have the option to skip the ad after watching it for five seconds. You can also make them play anywhere in the Google Display Network (GDN) — or sites that purchased Google video ad space.

In-stream ads let marketers customize video ads with different CTAs and overlay text, as highlighted in the skippable in-stream ad example below from Grammarly.

Notice that there’s another CTA from Grammarly on top of the right-hand suggested video columns.

What TrueView Videos Can Include

TrueView video campaigns can include people, dialogue, and music that was retrieved with permission — or is considered royalty-free. However, it’s best not to run a standard promotional commercial. Because these videos can be skipped, you need to give your audience a reason to keep watching, and product plugs historically don’t get the views you might expect.

Instead, tell a story with the time you have in this video. People love seeing case studies of those who faced a struggle that they can empathize with. It’s a source of entertainment that makes your brand memorable and less tempting to skip.

With TrueView ads, advertisers can gain a ton of information about the performance of their ads for optimization and testing purposes.

Using their Google Ads account, YouTube account managers can collect data on an ad’s completed views, partial views, channel subscriptions, clickthrough rates on CTAs, views sourced from a user sharing the content, and views on the brand’s other content that can be attributed to a person initially viewing a video ad.

These actions help advertisers better understand the full value of their video ad spend and where to allocate budget to increase results.

3. Non-Skippable In-Stream Ads

Non-skippable ads can play before, mid-roll, or after the main video. They can be 15 to 20 seconds in duration. Here’s an example:

Non-skippable mid-roll video ads appear midway through a YouTube video that’s 10 minutes or longer. On the desktop, viewers will see a five-second countdown, and on the app, they’ll see yellow markers where the ads are placed.

What Non-Skippable Videos Can Include

Non-skippable ads give you just as much freedom as TrueView ads in their allotted content. You can include people, dialogue, audio, and more elements that you find best represent your brand in 15 to 20 seconds.

Because non-skippable ads can’t be skipped, these videos are best created with a call-to-action (CTA) so you can optimize the attention you do have from the viewer. In other words, encourage viewers to click on your ad and receive something in return. Perhaps you’ve released a new product or are promoting a major event this season — use non-skippable ads to get those clicks.

Keep in mind that YouTube sells non-skippable video space on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. Make the click worth it.

4. Bumpers

Bumpers are the shortest type of YouTube video ad available to you. At just six seconds per bumper, these ad spots play before a viewer’s chosen video. It’s also non-skippable.

Bumper video ads obviously can’t tell a good-enough story in just six seconds, but they make terrific complements to larger video campaigns on a new product launch or event. Just be sure to use the six seconds wisely, and include only the components of your brand you want your audience to remember.

5. Overlay Ads

Overlay ads are a banner ad that hovers at the bottom of the video, as shown below. This type of ad is ideal to supplement your other in-stream video campaigns. A banner ad is a great way to avoid advertising your product in an intrusive way.

How to Advertise on YouTube: Launch an Ad Campaign

Once you’ve created a marketing video you want to advertise on YouTube, it’s time to create your video ad campaign.

If you haven’t made a video yet, here’s how to get started with Animoto or Wistia, along with a few great examples of YouTube ads.

Then it’s time to upload your video to YouTube.

Now, you’re ready to set up your advertising campaign. First, go to your Google Ads account. If you haven’t made one already, you can sign up with a Google Workspace email (either personal or business).

When you first sign up, the screen might prompt you to start creating a campaign right away. Look for an option that says “Are you a professional marketer?” or “Set up without creating a campaign” and click. That way, you can get to your brand new Google Ads dashboard.

When you access the dashboard, click the button that says “+ New Campaign”.

Goal and Campaign Type

You’ll be prompted to select a goal, then a campaign type. Choose whatever goal you’d prefer. Under campaign type, select “Video.”

Campaign Subtype and Strategy

You’ll be prompted to select a campaign subtype: Video reach campaign, outstream, or ad sequence. Choose “Video reach campaign.”

In the same screen, select your method for reaching your goal: Either “Efficient reach (Bumper, Skippable in-stream, or a mix)” or “Non-skippable in-stream.”

Campaign Name

Next, enter a name for your campaign. Leave the bid strategy as is.

Budget

Set your budget per day or for the entire campaign. Setting a daily budget can help you keep daily costs low while ensuring you don’t run out of money too quickly. Setting a campaign total budget can help you establish a fixed investment amount that Google won’t go over.

After that, choose a start and end date.

Networks, Locations, and Languages

Decide where you want your ad to appear.

• YouTube search results: Your video ad will appear in results for searches and will appear on the YouTube homepage, channel pages, and video pages.
• YouTube videos: This runs TrueView ads that appear pre- or mid-roll during a YouTube video.
• Video partners on the Display Network: With this option, you can choose for your video ad to appear before or around videos across the Google Display Network.

You should create separate campaigns for YouTube search results and YouTube videos, as this will help you to better track performance metrics. These ads are served to people performing very different activities and require a different amount of commitment from the viewer, so it’s best to monitor performance separately.

Next, define the location of users whom you want the ad to be shown to. You can also exclude certain locations.

Last, choose the languages that your target audience speaks.

Content Exclusions and Excluded Types and Labels

These options are for those who wouldn’t like to advertise their brands on videos that have profanity or sexual content.

Choose between “Expanded inventory” (excludes videos that have excessive profanity and graphic content), “Standard inventory” (excludes videos with strong profanity and graphic content), and “Limited inventory” (excludes videos with moderate profanity and graphic content).

Under “Excluded types and labels,” you can also prevent your ads from showing up in embedded YouTube videos and live-streaming videos. In addition, you can exclude content based on their content labels (G, PG, MA, and so on).

Related Videos

You have the option of adding related videos to appear below your ad. You can add up to five.

Advanced Settings

In the advanced options, you can specify the operating system, device, and carrier for more granular targeting. This is especially useful for mobile app ads, and there’s an option to increase or decrease your bid based on if the video ad is shown to someone on a mobile device.

You can set beginning and ending dates for your campaign, create a custom schedule for when your video ad should be shown, and limit the daily impressions and views for users. This all helps you to get the most return for your ad spend.

Demographics and Audience Segments

Next, define the audience you would like the video to be shown to — options include gender, age, parental status, and household income. You can also target individuals by their interests, such as beauty mavens, cooking enthusiasts, horror movie fans, etc.

Try running multiple campaigns to target different groups of users to discover who is most engaged, rather than including everyone you want to target in one campaign.

Keywords, Topics, and Placements

You can also target individuals by keywords, topics, or placements where you would like your video ad to appear. Keyword targeting with in-display ads can be a powerful tool for finding individuals who are looking for a visual answer to a question. Be sure to do your research, and try testing out different groups of keywords to see which leads to more views, clicks, or conversions.

Additionally, you can use video ads to remarket to people who have been in contact with your brand already. This can help you to re-engage those who are already familiar with your brand.

Bidding

Next, determine the max price you will pay for each view, which you can adjust to increase the number of projected views your video may receive.

Creating the Video Ad Creative

Last, insert the YouTube link for the video you would like to run the ad for. You will then choose whether you want this to run as an in-stream ad or an in-display ad.

For in-display, you’ll need to include a title and short description, which is entered on two separate lines. Note: Titles are limited to 25 characters, and the description lines are limited to 35 characters each.

In-stream ads provide you with the option to overlap a display URL on top of the video. You should use a vanity URL that directs to another final URL to make it more memorable. You can include advanced URL tracking options. In addition, a companion banner made from images from your video will appear on the right side of the video ad.

Click Done, then click Create Campaign.

Finished! Google will then prompt you to put in your credit card information (if they don’t have it already) so they can begin running your ad.

Linking Your Account

You should link your Google Ads account to the YouTube channel where the video is hosted if you haven’t already. On the top navigation bar, click “Tools & Settings.” Under “Set Up,” go to “Linked accounts.”

Choose YouTube from the screen, and you’ll be prompted to add a channel.

10 Tips for Optimizing Your Video Ads

Launching a video ad campaign is a great step, but there are some things you should set up prior to starting to pay for views. That way, you make the most of your budget and see the highest return on investment.

1. Define your metrics and goals.

When analyzing the results, there are four main categories of metrics you can track for each video.

Views and Impressions

Under the “views” category, you can better understand what percentage of the ad people viewed and understand how the ad drove earned views. You can also see how it increased views on your brand’s other videos.

Audience

This category can be used to track engagement metrics split up based on age, gender, household income, and parental status.

View Rate

The view rate could signal if the creative and message are interesting or entertaining enough for people to watch the ad. By increasing your view-through rate (VTR), you will lower your cost per view.

Conversions

Conversions will help you better understand if your ad is driving leads and returning a high ROI for your brand.

Depending on the goals for the brand, you should determine a few goals based on these metrics and formalize a plan for optimizing creative and trying different targeting criteria to improve results. Your goals should also determine the type of content you will feature in the ad — some metrics are better for branding goals and others will drive leads and conversions.

2. Track low performing placements.

If you’re running in-display ads that will appear across the Google Display Network, you can review where the ad has appeared in by navigating to Video Targeting > Placements > Where ads were shown > Display network from your Google Ads Campaigns dashboard. Review this list to see if any particular sites are contributing to poor performance for your desired metrics. Exclude these sites from your ad campaign moving forward to increase your average CPV.

3. Use a custom thumbnail image.

Design or use a high-quality still image from the video to entice a viewer to click on your video. Remember, this image needs to be legible by users on different devices, including mobile. If your image contains a person, make sure they’re looking into the camera. If you are featuring a product, make sure the background isn’t distracting.

4. Drive people to buy with cards.

A YouTube card is teased with a small “i” symbol, which the viewer can click to expand. You can time this appearance so only users who engaged with the video and content will see the notification.

With cards, you can feature a product related to or featured in the video to drive product purchases. You can also use cards to drive fundraising donations, traffic to a URL, or traffic to other videos as shown in the example below from our YouTube channel. Each format will allow you to customize the card with text, images, and other options.

5. Create calls-to-action.

When promoting a video on YouTube, you can include call-to-action overlays that link to a URL. You could link to a landing page, product page, information page, career page … whatever you’d like. You could also send people to a favorable report or interview featuring the brand.

6. Create a YouTube end slate.

Create an end screen to drive subscribers to your channel, promote your social networks, or increase interest in your brand. If someone has watched a video until the end, it’s a good sign they enjoy your content and might be interested in subscribing to your channel for future updates.

This end slate by HubSpot increases subscribers and social media fans while also highlighting other interesting topics its host has featured. Once you build the image, you will be able to annotate the end screen in YouTube’s video editor.

7. Use negative remarketing.

If you are running a campaign for a longer period of time and want to only attract new users to a brand, consider creating a list of people who your ad will not be shown to.

You can stretch your campaign budget and target only unique users by excluding those who have previously viewed the specific video, who have visited your YouTube channel, or who have shared, liked, or commented on any of your videos.

8. Use close captioning to cater to viewers’ needs and wants.

This tip applies to all YouTube videos — but it’s a general best practice that’s not followed by many brands. Include a quality video transcription you’ve generated and approved. Only user-uploaded transcriptions are indexed by Google because YouTube’s automatic captioning can be less than reliable. Depending on your target audience, you may also want to include transcriptions in various other languages. You can also offer users the option to download or visit a site page with the full transcription in your video description.

9. Qualify viewers.

Sometimes, your ad will be seen by people who have no interest in your product. Encourage them to skip the ad if the content isn’t relevant so you don’t have to pay for the view and they don’t waste their time watching irrelevant advertising.

10. Consider making your ad longer.

When it comes to TrueView ads, if the ad is under 30 seconds, you pay only if a viewer watches until the end. If the ad is longer than 30 seconds, you pay if the viewer watches it for at least 30 seconds. In both cases, you pay if the viewer interacts with your ad before it’s over. Consider this when you are coming up with ideas for content for the ad. You may want to put messaging at a certain point so uninterested viewers can skip the ad, or you might provide special offers towards the end of the video.

The Future of Video is Bright

Video content is a must-have part of your content strategy. This is even truer now that YouTube lets marketers target users based on their search histories. YouTube advertising is more targeted than ever, and it’s less competitive real estate than the world of Google Search because video content is newer to the content scene and less popular than blog posts.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s late and you’re working on a project that’s due soon.

You feel overwhelmed by your tasks and aren’t quite sure how you got here. You make a self-promise to resolve this issue but you don’t know how, so the cycle continues.

Consider this your WebMD diagnosis: You’re likely struggling with bad time management.

The good news is, time management is a learned skill. By following the tips below, written with cross-functional teams in mind, you can be on your way to getting back control of your time and working efficiently.

What can time management skills help a person do?

Time management is necessary for a successful personal and professional life.

When you manage your time well, you can be more productive and efficient. You have a solid understanding of what each task requires and you can plan accordingly.

It allows you to maximize your time and perform better.

Managing your time well also helps you produce high-quality work. When we struggle with this skill, we often rush to complete our tasks and can easily feel overwhelmed.

1. Learn your pattern of productivity.

Everyone has a different productivity pattern.

We’ve long separated people into two categories: Morning people and night people. However, there are many more facets to productivity.

Perhaps you’re more efficient during short sprints of focus, following the Pomodoro technique. Or you might prefer knocking out your top priorities in one stretch.

Find out what makes you most productive and use that to your advantage. If you notice you’re most productive in the early morning, use that time to cross your focus-heavy, high-priority tasks off your to-do list.

Building your work schedule around your natural patterns will make it easier for you to focus and be more efficient in your workflow.

2. Prioritize your tasks.

Name a better feeling than crossing something off a to-do list.

There’s something about completing a task that fills you with a sense of accomplishment and builds momentum.

My colleague and marketing manager for Channel Promotions at HubSpot, Jennifer Kim, calls written to-do lists her holy grail.

“At the beginning of each day, I like to take the time to manually write out what tasks I need to complete for the day,” she says. “It’s key for me to write out tasks manually versus typing them out because I’m able to get a better sense of what tasks will take the most time and what I need to prioritize as well as mentally get myself in the headspace to take each one on.”

She then cross-references this list with her Google Calendar to plan out her day.

Now that you have every task written out, how do you decide what to tackle first? Meg Prater, senior manager of the Marketing, Sales, and Service blogs at HubSpot, has some advice.

“I prioritize based on impact to the business. Is there a planning meeting with our VP? The prep work for that should probably come first in my week when I’m freshest,” she says. “When I prioritize based on impact, I end the day knowing that I handled the tasks that were most valuable to the business and our goals – it’s my North Star.”

Ranking your tasks ensures that you tackle the most important work first and can keep you from feeling overwhelmed.

3. Track your activities.

One issue many people face when managing their time is correctly assessing how long a task will take to complete.

It can be hard to stick to a schedule if you over- or underestimated certain tasks. The task that was supposed to take 30 minutes took two hours and that can throw off your entire day.

To avoid this slippery slope, take a week to track your activities.

Write down your most common tasks. For example, as a writer, my tasks include research, media creation, and sourcing, writing, editing, uploading. I also have administrative tasks to complete throughout the week.

Use a time tracking app like Toggl or Clockify to figure out how you are spending your time.

“Timing myself helps me to concretely see where I’m spending my time. Where are the time sucks? Am I giving myself enough time to recharge between tasks?” says Prater. “This allows me to be more efficient with my time allocation, and set time boundaries for tasks I’m spending too much time on.”

Once you know exactly what each task requires, you can make an accurate schedule and make adjustments to create a more efficient process.

4. Make collaborating easier.

If you work on a cross-functional team or project, it’s vital that you set up tools that will make it easier for you to work together.

Senior Audience Growth Manager at HubSpot Pamela Bump, who often works with several teams, has a few recommendations.

“If you’re in a role where you must do projects for different teams, like creating ad campaigns or email promotions, set up a form that cross-functional colleagues can fill out so your requests will all go to one place and can be reviewed at the same time.”

Consolidating your requests to one place makes it easier to review and ensures nothing gets lost somewhere.

Bump adds that you should notify your cross-functional teams once you’ve launched the form and how you would like them to use it. You can inform them via email, Slack, or even an internal blog post that can be easily bookmarked or referenced.

5. Take regular breaks.

You’ve created your schedule for the day. You’ve been working since 8 a.m., it’s now 1 p.m. and you can’t seem to focus.

Next thing you know, it’s one hour later and nothing has been accomplished.

Sometimes, we try to push through slumps when all we need is a break to decompress and get re-energized.

Whether it’s taking a walk, watching an hour of TV, or catching up with a colleague, it’s important to take some time away from your work.

6. Be flexible.

Not every day will work out exactly as planned, and that’s OK.

Managing your time efficiently also means leaving some room for the unplanned. Perhaps, you planned on working on task A and that’s not panning out.

If that’s the case, don’t be afraid to swap it out with another task. As long as you keep the momentum going, you can still be successful.

When Bump hits a roadblock in a task, she pivots.

“I look at my to-do list and see if there are any super-quick items I can tackle before getting started on the bigger item,” she says. “For example, if I pause to return an email or quickly schedule a piece of content to go live, I feel energized by knocking something off my to-do list and will be more motivated to work on the bigger task.”

Having structure is important, but leave room for tasks to move around.

7. Protect your time.

Protecting your time is one of the most important ways to manage your time well. It can look like saying no, delegating, and deprioritizing a task.

Saying “no” at work always feels like a risk, like it’s sending a signal that you’re not a team player. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Not every ask that comes your way is a fire that needs immediate extinguishing. Many things in our professional lives can wait,” Prater says. “Prioritizing those asks as they come in, saying ‘no’ when an ask isn’t in scope, and realizing when something is OK to wait until tomorrow to work on has been key for me.”

Prater adds that learning to delegate has been huge for her growth.

“I used to feel like I needed to control as much as possible in my sphere – to prove myself, or some nonsense like that,” she says. “Now, I trust the folks around me and view delegation as an opportunity for someone else to grow and develop. It frees up more of my time and has energized folks on my team with new skills.”

Don’t be afraid to redirect your colleagues when your plate is already full and lean on your colleagues for help.

8. Use project management software.

Are you bad at managing your time or do you just not have the right tools to support your workflow?

With project management software like Asana, Jira, and Monday.com, you can streamline your workflow and make cross-team collaboration that much easier.

It can also be a valuable resource when you feel overwhelmed by your tasks.

“Asana has been a huge help in organizing out my tasks. My team has an ongoing sprint board where we write out our top 3-4 priorities for the week,” Kim says. “In the case that if I ever find myself overwhelmed with all that’s going on, I can fall back to that sprint board and center myself on where I need to spend my time.”

The great thing about these tools is that they work well for individual and group projects.

9. Establish a routine and stick to it.

Imagine taking a different route to work every day. It would be hard to be consistent about when you’d arrive at work. I also imagine this constant change would create some unease and stress.

Humans are creatures of habits and we crave consistency. At work, having a routine helps you maintain productivity.

Whether you’re going to the office every day or working from home, set a routine for your day. Be consistent about the time you wake up and your pre-work tasks.

This process will help you get in the headspace to work once you’re finally at your desk. If you find that your current routine has some kinks in it, try something different.

10. Lean on your team.

While you decide how you manage your time, you can also get support from your team.

“I really lean on my manager to talk through situations when I do feel that there’s a lot going on,” says Kim. “It really helps to have her bigger picture perspective on what projects are most in line with my team’s goals. We’re also able to talk through whether there are areas that we can support each other’s load.”

Your manager can help you prioritize your tasks in alignment with your team’s broader goals. They can also help you protect your time when it comes to cross-functional projects.

Bump encourages honesty with your colleagues and your manager about your bandwidth.

“When working with cross-functional teams, it can be easy to agree to too many tasks and not have time to complete them all,” she says. “If you foresee a time crunch, reach out to your colleagues or manager and see what can be moved or adjusted if needed due to your changing priorities.”

The work doesn’t get done alone. So, make sure you’re leaning on your team to help you manage your time and achieve your goals.

11. Stack your meetings.

Ever have meetings spread out throughout the day? Doing work in between those can seem impossible.

It can feel like just when you’re getting in your groove, you have to stop to jump into another meeting.

“I find that when my meetings are scattered throughout the day without any significant chunks of free time I can devote to my own tasks, I’m unable to focus and do what I need to do,” says Kim.”

One way to prevent this is by stacking your meetings back-to-back, whenever possible. Have multiple one-on-ones this week? Try to knock them all out on the same day in a block of time.

Kim says this tactic helps her get into focus mode.

“I’m able to do my best work when I can get into the right headspace – whether that’s meeting mode or working mode – so this has been really effective for me.”

Bump suggests scheduling plan-oriented meetings on specific days of the week.

“This will leave you some wide-open time at the end of the week for larger projects like creating content or brainstorming new strategies,” she says.

12. Limit distractions.

You’re trying to get work done but your email inbox is pilling up and you keep getting pinged.

Distractions like these make it impossible to focus on your tasks and manage your time well. Thankfully, many of these communication platforms offer features to limit your distractions.

For instance, productivity software Boomerang offers a “pause inbox” feature that temporarily stops new emails from populating in your Gmail or Outlook account.

You can also use the “do not disturb” feature on your messaging software to prevent notifications.

You can also put a status like “Heads down – slow to respond” to let your colleagues know you may be unavailable for the next few hours.

13. Declutter your space.

Your space is a reflection of your mind.

If your space is messy, it can make it harder to focus and manage your time effectively. It can also contribute to feelings of being overwhelmed.

With this in mind, make sure your work environment reflects the state you want to be in. Remove non-essentials from your desk, add affirmations like “You can do it!” and “Breathe” to motivate you throughout the day.

You can even add essential oils to create a calming environment and play some soothing music in the background.

14. Take accountability.

You may be responsible for keeping track of your progress toward achieving your goal, and holding yourself accountable to the timelines and benchmarks you’ve established will help you stay motivated and positive at work.

Personal accountability leads to increased feelings of workplace satisfaction, creativity, and innovation, and there are a few ways to promote that while working on your long-term project, including:

• Sharing progress toward goals with others
• Setting up a personal reward system for each benchmark you achieve on the path to project completion.
• Tracking your progress so you can visualize what portion of your project you’ve successfully completed.

15. Review past performance.

Analyze and report on successes and challenges of projects for future goal-setting.

Once you’ve successfully completed a long-term project, don’t move on to the next one without first reflecting on your strategies for project management. What went well, and perhaps more importantly, what didn’t?

If your work is primarily comprised of long-term projects, you will need to continually refine and improve your approach to be as efficient as possible.

Document your processes and share them with your team so they can learn from your triumphs and struggles for their projects as well.

Managing your time is a learned skill that requires a lot of discipline and flexibility. It’s also something that requires support from your team, as those interactions impact your ability to complete your tasks.

While you may be an expert time manager tomorrow, following these tips will definitely help you improve your current process.

If your marketing team and the systems you have in place to attract leads are working properly, you’re likely seeing anywhere from 10s to 1,000s of new leads each week. If you’ve got a robust sales team, they may be able to contact every single lead within a few hours.

However, if you’re like most companies, your sales team has to prioritize in order to reach out to the “best” prospects quickly, while saving the “less likely” prospects for last. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be converted, there’s just a lower chance of securing those prospects as customers.

Time spent courting the wrong prospect is not only an exercise in futility, but it takes time away from your salespeople and prevents them from closing sales and making your company money. How then, do you make the job easier (and more lucrative) for your salespeople?

Predictive Lead Scoring can take the guesswork out of following up on leads. Let’s take a look at what it is and how it could help your business grow.

What is predictive lead scoring?

Before we define predictive lead scoring, it’s important to understand traditional lead scoring and its limitations.

Businesses have struggled with prioritizing lead follow-up for decades. In many cases, salespeople are left to their own devices, using their best judgment to decide who gets contacted first. Marketers and salespeople use data such as demographic info (age, marital status, industry, role), to rank potential customers as to how likely they are to buy. Those who rank high on this scale are contacted first, while others are contacted last, or if time doesn’t permit, not contacted at all.

The problem with this subjective process is that it’s … subjective. Salespeople are forced to rely on “gut feelings” and factor in their own historical experience to make this decision. Neither of these proves to be consistently accurate causing quality leads to slip through the cracks as they chase prospects unlikely to buy.

Predictive lead scoring is machine learning that takes this theory one step further by using predictive modeling algorithms to analyze data from past customers and current prospects to predict future outcomes. Put another way, predictive lead scoring has the ability to create an “ideal customer” profile based on past buying behavior, and then identify which current prospects best fit that profile. It removes the possibility for human error or bias and instead relies on hard data to make its predictions.

The Benefits of Predictive Lead Scoring

If your marketing and sales teams have been struggling with identifying top leads and are unable to follow up with everyone that enters your database, predictive lead scoring may be exactly what your company needs. With a multitude of benefits, it’s like hiring another department to assist in new customer acquisition.

The benefits of predictive lead scoring include:

1. Create Harmony Between Marketing and Sales

When there are so many leads coming in but not many sales being closed, these two departments may turn on one another. The marketing department doesn’t understand how they’re providing a large number of leads that Sales can’t close. And the sales department believes that quantity is more important than quality, and they aren’t getting any good leads.

Incorporating predictive lead scoring will help these two departments work together and produce more.

2. Save Time

An automated lead scoring system means that your marketing and sales teams no longer have to waste time vetting potential customers. Their time can be better spent bringing in more leads and following up on the right ones.

3. Remove Human Error

No matter how good (and quick) your employees are at reviewing potential customers, there will always be an inherent bias. People can’t approach a situation without drawing on memories of the past. No matter how objective they attempt to be, this bias will creep into every decision they make. Using a computer algorithm to make these decisions removes the possibility of human error or judgment.

4. Lightning-Fast Results

While it takes a little bit of time to set up, once predictive lead scoring is up and running, you’ll receive results considerably faster than you would if a person were doing the work. You receive high-quality, data-driven leads before a human employee could even get their coffee.

5. See Continual Improvement

As you close and service more customers, you’ll collect more data. The more data you have, the better predictive lead scoring works and the more data points you’ll have to work with.

Predictive lead scoring is ready to work for you and make your marketing and sales teams more efficient.

How to Incorporate Predictive Lead Scoring in Your Business

Now that you understand predictive lead scoring and how it can revolutionize your business, how do you get started?

HubSpot offers Predictive Lead Scoring software that integrates with your Enterprise CRM, providing machine learning that reviews thousands of data points across your contact base to identify your best leads.

These data points are drawn from analytics (website and email behavior), firmographic information about the contact’s company and their relationship within HubSpot, and interactions that have been logged in the CRM.

To use this feature:

1. Click the Settings icon in the main navigation bar of your HubSpot account.
2. From the left sidebar menu, navigate to CRM > Properties.
3. Search in the Contact Information property group for Likelihood to close and Contact priority.

Likelihood to close is a score that represents the probability of a contact closing as a customer within the next 90 days. It used standard contact properties and behavior to predict this. If the score or probability value is 22, that means there is a 22% chance of closing as a customer in the next 90 days.

Contact priority uses the Likelihood to close score to filter segments of your best and worst leads.

As you accumulate more data, the system will improve itself, providing even better predictions and guiding you towards the most important leads. Because the program requires data to do its job, you will not begin seeing values for Contact priority until you have reached 100 contacts.

If you want to see your organization grow and your team members flourish, predictive lead scoring is essential. Imagine what your business will look like in five, 10, or 15 years when the system you use to attract and acquire new customers is fully optimized.

Give your marketing and sales teams a leg up on the competition and try predictive lead scoring today.

Traditionally, the marketing field emphasized creative thinking over technical skills. But to build a successful career as a marketer today, you need more than a knack for pitching ideas and coming up with clever copy.

That’s where technical skills come in. These skills are earned from experiences or education (think, data analysis, project management, and computer programming).

Now more than ever, employers are emphasizing skills over pedigree. LinkedIn data from the past year shows a 20% increase in managers who don’t have a traditional four-year degree. This trend highlights the push toward skills-based hiring, which prioritizes a person’s capabilities over their credentials.

Hiring for skill rather than a degree is a good step forward for all, and it’s wise to leverage your strengths when going after a new role or promotion. That’s why you want to make sure you have the right technical skills for your career path to stay competitive and advance in your career.

Let’s walk through all you need to know about technical skills and which ones you should look to develop as a marketer.

What are technical skills?

Often known as hard skills, technical skills are easily defined and measured competencies you gain through training or education. They allow you to complete a job-specific task and often vary from one industry to another.

While technical skills are typically required for engineers, business analysts, mathematicians, and scientists, more industries than ever need employees with technical knowledge. In fact, Gartner found that 58% of the workforce needs new skills to successfully do their jobs. This is largely due to the digital transformation and massive increase in data, which requires people who can use technology to interpret data and take action to drive a company forward.

Before scrambling into a data analysis course, it’s important to realize that there are dozens of technical skills that don’t require you to become part marketer, part computer scientist. Let’s take a look at the different types of skills so you know which are right for you.

Types of Technical Skills

With rapidly advancing technology, nearly every role requires some sort of technical skill. Here are several types you may come across in the marketing world.

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While the skills associated with creativity, negotiation, stress management, communication, and public speaking are usually considered “soft skills,” categories like technology and analytical thinking involve technical skills.

Similar to technical skills, soft skills are learned through experience or education. These skills are harder to measure, but you’ll need them to communicate with your team, negotiate a project deadline, come up with creative ideas, and prioritize your workload.

For example, a project manager may have a positive attitude and excellent time management skills (both soft skills), but understanding the ins and outs of the company’s CMS system (a technical skill) is crucial for timely deliverables and successful projects.

Here’s an overview of the types of technical skills needed for different marketing roles.

Digital Media and Design

• Graphic design software (Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere)

• Content management systems (CMS)
• Image and file management
• Content curation

Project Management

• Project management software (such as Asana, Trello, or ClickUp)
• Budget planning
• Risk management
• Project planning
• Content management systems (CMS)
• Task management

Marketing and Content Creation

• Data analysis
• Campaign management
• Budgeting
• Content management systems (CMS)
• Interviewing
• Vendor management
• Pitching
• Copywriting
• Editing
• Researching and reporting
• SEO/SEM
• Digital ad management
• Social media marketing
• Content strategy

Technical Skills in the Workplace

Now that you know what type of technical skills apply to your field, how do you know which to develop? To understand which skills are most important for the future, LinkedIn performed a study to find the most in-demand skills—several of which apply to marketers.

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Technical skills like analytical reasoning, affiliate marketing, and business analysis are essential to succeeding as a marketer. But you’ll need more than those to build a thriving career. To understand the skills you need in the workplace, start by looking at job descriptions for positions you want now — and in the future.

Hiring managers often create a list of “required” and “recommended” skills they want candidates to have. Required skills are often the technical skills you need to perform the job well after you’re hired, while recommended skills are capabilities the company is willing to help you develop through training.

Once you’ve scoured job descriptions and created a list of technical skills employers look for, it’s also smart to talk with your manager about the skills you need to advance your career. They should be able to point you in the right direction for your individual development.

If you work for a supportive company, your manager may offer resources to help you work toward those skills. This could include stipends for books, courses, certifications, or schooling. Or it could mean putting you on projects that give you hands-on experience, like managing the budget for a social campaign or designing the visuals for the weekly email newsletter.

Technical skills in marketing vary by role, so it’s important to do your research and consider your career path before asking your manager for help. If they don’t know which direction you want to go, they won’t be able to provide the specific skills you’ll need to get there.

Look at the examples below to highlight the skills you already have and learn more about which ones you may need.

Examples of Technical Skills in the Workplace

Digital Media and Design

• Graphic and web design (Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere)

• UX/UI research and design

• Database management

• Animation

• Interactive media management

• Usability testing

• Photography

• Content management systems (Notion, Asana, Monday, Trello, WordPress, Squarespace, Wix)

• HTML, CSS, Java, or other coding languages
• Data visualization
• Video and audio production
• Typography
• Wireframing
• Prototyping
• Color theory
• User modeling

Project Management

• Microsoft Office
• Google Suite
• Content management systems (CMS)
• Project management software
• Budget planning
• Risk management
• Project planning
• Task management

Marketing

• Campaign management
• Managing budgets
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Search engine marketing (SEM)
• Content management systems (CMS)
• Vendor management
• Social media management
• Ad targeting
• Content strategy
• Brand positioning and strategy
• Paid media management
• A/B testing
• Digital strategy
• Email marketing
• Web analytics
• Automation software
• Conversion rate optimization
• Omnichannel strategy
• Event planning
• Product management

Content Creation

• Copywriting
• Technical writing
• Editing
• Pitching
• Researching and reporting
• UX copywriting
• SEO/SEM knowledge
• Content strategy and management
• Social media
• Email marketing

Analytics

• Data analysis
• Demographics reporting
• Digital media testing
• Google Analytics
• Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint
• MATLAB
• Python
• SQL and NoSQL
• Identifying key performance indicators
• Setting metrics benchmarks
• Linear algebra and calculus
• Data visualization
• Data cleaning
• Working with APIs
• Tagging

Technical Skills to Put on a Resume

After scanning the above lists, you may have more technical skills than you realized. So which should make it on your resume?

You want to highlight the skills you already have, or can easily develop, that are most relevant to the position. Aim for a list of 10-20 skills with a mix of both soft and technical skills. Pay attention to the skills listed in the “required” section of a job description because listing those on your resume will make you a more competitive candidate.

If you have a unique technical skill for your field that an employer is looking for (say, you’re a Social Media Manager and an Adobe InDesign whiz), bump it to the top of your skill list to make your resume stand out.

Keep in mind, certain skills are more in-demand than others. Here are the top 20 skills you should consider adding to your resume (if you have them), according to Indeed.

1. Cloud computing
2. Artificial intelligence
3. Sales leadership
4. Analysis
5. Translation
6. Mobile app development
7. People management
8. Video production
9. Audio production
10. UX design
11. SEO/SEM marketing
12. Blockchain
13. Industrial design
14. Creativity
15. Collaboration
16. Adaptability
17. Time management
18. Persuasion
19. Digital journalism
20. Animation

Of course, you don’t want to oversell your capabilities. Make sure you actually have every skill listed on your resume. If a future employer catches you in a lie, that will be the end of your opportunity for landing the job — and it could tarnish your reputation for future roles as well.

Importance of Technical Skills

Marketing, especially digital marketing, revolves around data. The global marketing data market is projected to grow to $52.3 billion in 2021, with nearly 62% of senior industry experts using a data-sharing solution to support their teams’ marketing and advertising efforts.

Marketers use data to connect with audiences, create innovative campaigns, convert people to customers, and keep buyers coming back. But leveraging data requires certain skills.

Having the sought-after technical skills lets you excel at your job and makes you a more competitive candidate for future roles. The more skills you have, the more opportunities you have to take on senior-level positions and earn a higher salary.

Consider the difference between the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics national wage estimates for Marketing Specialists versus Marketing Managers. Marketing Managers, who have considerably more experience and technical skills, make an estimated $80,500 more per year than Marketing Specialists.

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The correlation between income and technical skills is also consistent with other industries. In 2021, the largest average salary premium in the North American technology industry was estimated to be nearly $24,969 for IT automation expertise, followed by AI and machine learning with $14,175, and fintech with $13,799.

Needless to say, learning technical skills is one way to boost your income. But it’s not all you need for long-term career success.

Soft Skills vs. Technical Skills

Creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence are common soft skills, which are just as important as technical skills for landing a job and growing your career.

Whether you’re a social media specialist or a digital media analyst, you’ll need certain soft skills to complement your technical knowledge and get the job done. Each marketing role has its own requirements, so do the same research that you did for the technical skills. If you get stuck, consider if you have any of the following in-demand soft skills.

• Ability to meet deadlines
• Decision making
• Handling criticism
• Attention to detail
• Critical thinking
• Teamwork
• Time management
• Multitasking
• Organizational skills
• Prioritizing
• Problem-solving
• Working independently
• Working remotely
• Collaboration
• Persuasion
• Adaptability
• Emotional intelligence

Technical Skills Over Time

Mastering the technical skills you need as a marketer is never done. Technology evolves, algorithms change, and new social media platforms pop up often.

To stay on top of your game, you have to keep your technical skills sharp. Use them as frequently as possible, and pick up new skills when needed. I’ve witnessed many situations where a junior marketing hire teaches a seasoned pro a thing or two about developing a social media strategy or how to reach a certain audience.

Honing your technical skills is a life-long process. So never assume you’re safe to kick back and do well at your job without learning anything new. And when you do pick up a new skill or enhance a skill that you have, add it to your resume and LinkedIn profile.

Because for any role, employers want candidates who have the skills they need to do their job effectively and drive company growth.

Competition is essential for growth, but only when a business properly evaluates its competitors and betters itself to keep up. Even in marketing, analyzing the competition is healthy and can help inspire you to learn and adapt the business to better meet consumer needs.

Part of the way to do this is by understanding direct and indirect competition and how each can impact your work. Once you know the differences, you can determine how to best identify and evaluate your competitors — both direct and indirect.

What is direct competition?

When you think of a marketing competitor, you likely think of your direct competitors. Direct competitors are other businesses offering the same services for the same client needs in the same market as you.

So, let’s say your marketing firm primarily works with restaurants in the western U.S. There are certainly other firms focused on restaurant marketing specifically in the western U.S., and those firms would be your direct competition.

Even the smallest markets will have direct competition, which is important to prevent monopolies.

Direct Competition Examples

There are many examples of direct competition. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King are all direct competitors. Similarly, consider the infamous fast-food chicken sandwich wars, when major restaurant chains like Popeyes, KFC, Wendy’s, Zaxby’s, and more all launched chicken sandwiches to appeal to the same consumer base across the U.S..

Competition doesn’t just apply to huge, national or international brands. Two women’s fashion boutiques in a small, rural town are also direct competitors.

Digital companies also see direct competition. For example, Instagram and Snapchat offer very similar features, like disappearing stories and direct messaging, to their target audiences.

Indirect Competition Examples

Let’s say we have a client base in a small town. The customers are hungry, and often frequent the main drag to have dinner. Here, there are four major restaurants — all of which offer different types of food. Although the products they offer are different, the restaurants all stand for the same purpose: to feed hungry clientele in the town.

Similarly, consider a client who needs to buy gifts for a birthday party. One store sells clothing. A store across the street sells jewelry. Despite the different products, the two stores are competing for the same customer.

Direct and Indirect Competition in Marketing

When it comes to marketing, knowing your direct and indirect competition can help you improve your campaigns and even reach new audiences.

The aforementioned chicken sandwich wars are a great example here. Popeyes launched its highly touted fried chicken sandwich with a powerful marketing campaign. Direct competitors — other fast-food restaurants that sell chicken sandwiches — were able to use marketing to showcase their own entries into the so-called competition. 

The result? The chicken sandwich wars have been heavily covered by major media for the past couple years. Customers have lined up in droves at various fast food restaurants to try the latest and claimed-to-be-greatest chicken sandwiches.

On the other hand, analyzing your indirect competition can help marketers tap into a wider audience. If you know people shopping for gifts are choosing between your store and similar shops that offer different products, you can create campaigns to draw in those customers. Digitally, indirect competitors might be targeting the same keywords, and understanding that can help boost SEO and get your business to the top of the search engine results page (SERP).

1. Customer Feedback

One quick way to identify your competitors is to ask your current clients or potential clients. For example, if you have a potential customer come in with questions about your products or services, ask them some other businesses they are considering for this purchase. Send feedback surveys that ask customers what other brands they were considering and why they went with yours.

2. Market Research

This requires some digging on your end. If you have a brick-and-mortar, you’ll need to review similar stores, their websites, and their social media to get a better idea of their businesses. Customer surveys can also fall into the market research category.

3. Social Media

Many people share their purchasing experiences on social media and forum websites like Reddit. Check out the recommendations people are sharing for products or services that you also sell to help identify top competitors in your market.

4. Keyword Research

For indirect competitors, turn to keyword research. You can use the keywords you are targeting to identify other businesses that are targeting the same keywords, and ultimately, the same top spot on the SERP and the same audience.

5. Review the SERP

Speaking of the SERP, it can also be a handy tool to identify your competitors. Search your keywords to find what businesses are ranking highly for these keywords to see your indirect competitors.

Tracking and Analyzing Competitors

Now you know the differences between direct and indirect competitors, and you’ve narrowed down a list of both related to your business. What next?

It’s time to conduct a competitive analysis, which will help you improve your own business strategies when comparing them to your competitors.

There are several items to include in a competitive analysis: direct and indirect competitors, products/services sold, competitors’ sales tactics, pricing and sales, marketing and content strategies, and social media and websites.

This comprehensive data will give you a better idea of how your competitors are operating on every level, from the products they sell to their customer service, all online and offline.

Researching competitors, products, services, keywords, and marketing tactics adds up to a lot of data that needs sorted and organized, so HubSpot’s competitive analysis templates can make light work of these tasks.

For example, this Content Marketing Competitive Analysis Template can help you track competitors’ strategies across social, blogs, email, and SEO.

This multi-feature scorecard will allow you to compare your company to its competitors based on a number of customizable attributes.

There are many different templates to consider when creating a visual competitive analysis, so find the one that best suits your needs. You might find using multiple for different comparisons can also be useful.

Use Direct and Indirect Competition Analysis to Your Benefit

A little healthy competition never hurt anybody, but you have to know how to play the game. By identifying and analyzing your competitors, you can get a leg up on the competition by improving your marketing strategies, focusing on your target audience, and reaching potential new clients.

I love to travel, so my husband and I try to spend our vacations becoming immersed in a culture. It’s one of our favorite things to do together.

As a content creator, I’m predictably an avid content consumer as well. With my love of content and travel, I often pour through travel blogs looking for the best way to plan a trip and the best activities to do in a country. One thing that always helps me find what I need is content aggregation. 

Since they’re not solely for travel sites, content aggregators sites can be a useful strategy to reach new audiences. In this post, learn what content aggregation is and discover high-quality sites for featuring your content.

 

Essentially, content aggregator sites repost and collect content so viewers can see articles from various media sources all in one place. Usually, these sites are set up to aggregate content through RSS feeds automatically.

Content aggregation is different from content curation in that it’s automatic. With content curation, the content is actually selected by a person or team instead of gathered through automation, and it includes commentary or context. With content aggregation, there’s no original content at all.

So, now that we know more about content aggregation, you might be wondering, “What does this have to do with me?

How Content Aggregators Can Help Marketers

Well, to start, content aggregation can help marketers distribute content on multiple platforms, making it easier for people to find you. The more platforms you’re on, the more exposure you have to a variety of audiences that may not even know you exist. Given this, content aggregation is a tactic you could include in a brand awareness strategy. 

Additionally, using content aggregators to distribute your business content can help you become involved in your community, especially if you encourage interaction. For example, people can leave comments on your posts, have discussions with others, and also have conversations with you, generating a relationship and helping you attract new business. 

Before you get started, it’s essential to understand how to pick a content aggregation site. 

How to Pick the Right Aggregator Service

When it comes to picking the right aggregator service for your business, the most critical question is the type of content you’re hoping to share on it. For example, there are specific sites for news stories, others for blogs, and others focused entirely on social media content — you want to pick the one that aligns most with your needs (our list below will help). 

In addition, some aggregators cost money. If you have a strict budget, you’ll want to visit the pricing pages of the services you’re interested in to see if there are any fees. However, many services are free of cost and are curated by editors or algorithms, so your choice depends on your business needs. 

Let’s go over some different options of high-quality content aggregation tools that are worth considering.

Content Aggregation Tools

Blog Aggregators

A blog aggregator site is focused on blog websites. They can contain general blog posts or more niche-focused aggregators, such as a travel blog aggregator that’s focused on travel blogging content. 

Travel Blogger Community

Travel Blogger Community is a content aggregation site that I use when searching for travel blog content. You can request to have your content featured, and it is also curated by editors. 

 

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Travel Blogger Community is a great example of a niche site that may also exist within your industry, so be sure to do some research if you’re going to implement a content aggregation strategy.

Flipboard

Flipboard is a popular blog aggregator that allows users to create a custom feed based on their interests. You can create a profile, submit an RSS feed, and share our own personal content. You can also create a personal storyboard with content related to your business and link to it on your website via social buttons. 

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News Aggregators

News aggregator sites compile content from various high-quality news sources. These sites can be for general news, but also niche for location-specific news or industry happenings. 

Below we’ve listed some example news aggregator sites:

Google News

Google News displays the top news stories for the day, saving users a trip to their search engine. You can’t submit your content to the site as it is curated based on search history and location, but if your site gains traction, you increase the chances of being featured. 

Users can also customize their feed by “following” certain topics, sources, or searches.

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AllTop

AllTop aggregates content from various topics and sources, like top news sites and social media forums. Users can search for topics of interest and see the top stories or browse through the homepage. 

AllTop sometimes accepts site submissions, so be sure to check back periodically if you want to feature your content. 

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Pocket

Pocket is an aggregation site that features a wide variety of content that users can customize to meet their interests by clicking a “Follow” button. You can also bookmark content to read on-the-go on mobile devices — hence Pocket.

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WP News Desk

WP News Desk is a unique aggregator site that focuses on content related to the WordPress community. You can’t submit your own content to be featured, but if you run a high-quality WordPress blog that is informative for users, you may find your site featured on the aggregator. 

Feedly

Feedly is a content aggregation site that’s focused on helping users create their own feed so they aren’t overwhelmed with information overload.

This site has both free and paid plans, so users can aggregate content from as many sources as they want, and any niche they want.

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Information Aggregator Websites

Information aggregation websites contain exactly that — information. This can include blog posts, news stories, links to social media content, and any information that users can benefit from. 

Populrs

Popurls is a popular information aggregator. That allows users to choose the platforms they want information from to create a custom feed. Some popular sites it pulls from are Reddit, Huffington Post, The Verge, Google, Wired, and YouTube.

While you can’t submit your site to be included in this aggregator, it’s still a powerful content aggregator to be aware of if you’re going to start using content aggregation.

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Reddit

Reddit is one of the most popular information aggregator sites. It features trending topics from all different areas of interests, and is also a forum where people can comment and discuss the latest news. In addition, members of the site can submit content such as text posts, images, and links, so it’s great for marketers. 

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Social Media Aggregators

Social Media aggregators compile high-quality content from social media — Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Most social media aggregators help markets find user-generated content to share with their audience to build brand trust.

TaggBox

TaggBox is a social media aggregator focused on helping marketers develop brand trust and engagement through user-generated content. You create an account, select the tags that are relevant to your business, and you’re shown posts across different social media platforms that your audience has made about you. 

You also have the option to create a social feed of user-generated content to display on your own website, helping site visitors see your content in action and generate trust from other consumers.

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Tagembed

Tagembed collects and curates engaging social media content related to your business that you can then display on your website. You can generate a social feed from multiple sites, and share the custom content within your site for all users to see. 

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While it may not make up the core of your marketing plan, content aggregators are a unique and interesting tool for marketers to use to share their content and to gain exposure and become involved with your community.

So, you’ve designed a lead generation strategy and it’s working. Your website visitors are coming to your website, filling out your forms, and boom, you’ve got leads. Now what?

That’s the question I ask myself after re-watching all nine seasons of The Office for the 19th time. But it’s also the question we, as marketers, have to answer when consumers have passed that first threshold.

Once your visitors have shown an interest in your brand, how do you turn them into customers? That process is called a lead conversion.

Let’s dive into how to build your brand’s lead conversion strategy and how to improve your current conversion rate.

A lead goes through several stages before becoming a customer. They start as a lead, then grow into a marketing-qualified lead (MQL), and then become a sales-qualified lead (SQL). This means brands have to nurture their leads at every stage and create opportunities for them to take action toward becoming customers.

No two brands have the same process, as each will build a conversion path that is tailored to its leads. Below you’ll find a few tips on creating a lead generation strategy for your own business.

1. Gather information on leads.

Start with the data you have on your leads: source, industry, company, employee size, pain points – any information that will help you build a strategy that aligns with your leads’ needs.

Remind me to trademark “leads’ needs” after writing this article. Now, back to the important stuff.

“You will waste a lot of time building out a conversion strategy that is not based around facts about your audience,” says Marwa Greaves, Director of Global Messaging at HubSpot. “Ask yourself where your leads are. Are your leads most engaged in your newsletter? Your website? On messaging channels? Make sure you are meeting your audience where they are and not asking them to bend to your strategies.”

Jordan Pritikin, the Head of Email and Growth Marketing at HubSpot, also highlights another important element to consider.

“Understand why these leads are coming to your website in the first place. What is the underlying problem they are trying to solve?” says Pritikin. “If you can create email nurturing to help them solve that challenge, you’re much more likely to connect with them and convert them into a new customer.”

If you’re missing that information, work on obtaining it through forms and user research. From there, you can design a tailored conversion process.

2. Identify high-intent behaviors in each stage.

How do you know when a lead is ready to make a purchase? What behaviors will the lead exhibit? Having these answers is key to differentiating between leads who are ready to make a purchase and those who aren’t.

A lead who only reads your brand’s blog posts is likely not at the same purchase readiness as a lead who visits your pricing page. So, if you send an unqualified lead to the sales team, they will likely have a much harder time closing a sale.

How do you avoid that? Team up with your sales team to determine what signals low-intent and high-intent behaviors. Specifying those behaviors allows marketers to know what follow-up actions to take.

3. Use an SLA to align your sales and marketing teams.

A lead conversion strategy will struggle immensely without alignment between sales and marketing. One thing you’ll need to agree on is a handoff cadence that works for both teams. That’s where aservice-level agreement (SLA) comes in.

It’s typically used to outline an agreement between a business and a customer. However, it’s also used internally between sales and marketing teams to better align their lead conversion strategy.

An internal SLA should include each team’s goals, initiatives, and accountability measures for a given time frame, say Q1. That said, this agreement will require regular updates as priorities change with the business.

4. Build the lead conversion path.

Think of your lead conversion path as a trail of breadcrumbs guiding your leads to purchase. The path itself will include offers and calls-to-action to offer opportunities to convert.

Lead Conversion Strategy Example

Let’s use Zion, a fictional UK SaaS company, as an example. Zion’s sales and marketing teams have collaborated on an SLA, which includes the following: Marketing commits to sending 100 qualified leads to the sales team every month and the sales team commits to following up with those leads within a week of receiving them.

Both teams have also identified high-intent behaviors that will trigger automated emails and have implemented a lead scoring system. For instance, when a lead reaches a score of 95, this will automatically trigger an email sequence inviting the lead to schedule a product demo with a sales rep.

On the back end, that sales rep will receive a notification containing information on the lead, their activity, and a follow-up timeline. If the lead does not take action within a certain time frame, an automated, personalized email will be sent to the lead on behalf of the sales rep.

This is an example of the path Zion can build to convert leads, both on the customer-facing end and on the back-end between sales and marketing.

How To Calculate Lead Conversion

Calculating your lead conversion rate is simple: Take your total number of conversions, divide that by your total number of leads, and multiply by 100. That final number is your LCR.

Example time: Let’s say from January to February, you generated 105 qualified leads. From those leads, 20 became customers. The formula will look like this: 20/105 x 100. This means the lead conversion rate for that month was 19.04%.

Average Lead Conversion Rates

Because lead conversion happens at several stages across various touchpoints, no single average can be used across industries.

Your brand would benefit more from looking at conversion rates at a more granular level, such as by channel (i.e., email conversion versus landing page conversion) and/or by stage (i.e., MQL-to-SQL rate).

Lead Conversion Strategies

1. Implement behavior automation.

There are two reasons to use automation: it saves time, and it scales well.

Let’s say a lead is sifting through testimonials on your website. That may indicate an interest in your product. With this in mind, why not automate a follow-up email that could bring the lead one step closer to a purchase? This could be a free trial offer or a product demo.

According to Pritikin, emails based on behavior perform much better than other types of automated emails. However, Greaves encourages brands to broaden their perspective when defining those behaviors that suggest purchase readiness.

“Activity-based triggers are an easy win for marketers, but think outside the box when creating them,” Greaves says. “It’s not just views on your pricing page that may require an automated follow-up, it could also be views of other customer stories or reviews on your site.”

Here is a list of behaviors that could benefit from automation. The lead:

• Reviews your pricing page
• Schedules a product demo
• Signs up for a free trial
• Engages often in email marketing
• Inquires about product features through chatbot, email, or other channels
• Downloads a high-intent content offer

Working with your sales team to recognize those key behaviors will be instrumental in automating follow-ups that convert.

2. Nurture your leads through email.

Email nurturing is the process of engaging your leads through email marketing with the end goal of turning them into customers. When nurturing leads via email, offering relevant and valuable information is key.

This is when the data piece becomes important. Using the information you’ve compiled on your leads, you can deliver content that piques their interest, aligns with their goals, and solves their challenges.

There are a few tips to make your emails stand out:

• Personalize your emails with the lead’s name.
• Use automation software to trigger actions based on email engagement.
• Segment your email list.

3. Leverage social proof.

When leads are considering your products or services, social proof can help nudge them toward a purchase. Examples of social proof include customer testimonials and reviews, which give leads a look into customers’ experiences with your brand.

They are best used when leads are in (or close to) the decision-making stage. So, you’ll often see them on landing pages and pricing pages.

User-generated content is another great use of social proof and can be incorporated into your social media and email marketing content.

4. Use lead scoring.

If you’re having trouble aligning your sales and marketing teams on MQLs and SQLs, lead scoring can help.

Lead scoring works by attributing points to actions taken by leads and helps marketers know where a lead falls in the funnel. It also helps sales reps prioritize leads and know which follow-up actions to take. It also ensures that both teams are qualifying leads in the same way.

A well-qualified lead means one that’s more likely to convert once they reach your sales team.

5. Retarget through PPC.

Retargeting is a great way to reach leads that have considered your brand before but weren’t quite ready to make a purchase. When you retarget them, you can re-introduce offers they may be interested in or present new ones that align better with their interests.

Retargeting is a proven method for lead generation. However, according to Greaves, it can also work well to turn leads into qualified leads. With the latest restrictions on cookies – commonly used for retargeting ads – brands will have to rely more on first-party data for their retargeting efforts.

Let’s go over some additional aways you can generating more leads.

1. Start with the analytics.

If your lead conversion is low, your first step should be looking at your analytics. Specifically, your conversion path over a broad time frame to determine if the low rate has been consistent or is recent.

If it’s the latter, narrow down the period when the dip started and see what could have led to this change. If it’s been consistent, you may need to run various experiments with your conversion path.

Greaves recommends looking at your conversion CTA placements and the difference between them. You’ll want to look for the difference between high-performing and low-performing CTAs. If there are steep drop-offs on certain pages, that could indicate friction with your forms, like the length or the order of the fields, or even the type of information requested.

If the data shows that leads drop off shortly after the handoff to the sales team, it could be that marketing over-promised on what could be delivered.

With so many potential causes, start with the data to lead you in the right direction. Pun intended.

2. Define what high-intent behavior means for your business.

Many brands may have lead qualification issues and not even know it. Marketing may be sending their sales team leads and later realize that those leads aren’t ready for sales engagement.

How do you identify the leads that are ready? It starts with gathering the correct information. First, reach out to your sales team to determine what information needs to be collected. Then, create a comprehensive list of high-intent behaviors and low-intent behaviors that the marketing team will use to segment leads.

This process can help pass on more qualified leads to the sales team and drive your conversion rate up.

3. Experiment with the conversion path.

Think of your lead conversion path as a house. I know you might be thinking, “Why not go with a road metaphor?” but stick with me for a second. Regardless of the condition in which you buy your house, there will always be room for improvement. Things to remove, fix, add, and revamp. And as your tastes change, so will your house’s look.

It’s the same with your path. There will always be room to improve your path. Besides, your leads’ interests, goals, and decision-making processes may change over time and require a different approach.

“Lead conversion requires a lot of experimentation. You will not succeed if you set one strategy and forget it,” Greaves says. “Creating an experimentation process that allows you to test every part of your flywheel will allow you to learn more about your leads and your own internal process than you would have before.”

Although the work is never fully done, every experiment you run will bring you that much closer to converting your leads.

4. Automate lead nurturing workflows.

When trying to scale your lead nurturing process, automation is the name of the game. Manually sending out personalized emails to your leads might have worked in the early days, but that will quickly get overwhelming as your business grows.

Automation allows you to maintain the same level of personalization at a quarter of the time and resources. Once you’ve set up your conversion path, automate the follow-ups that will be triggered when leads exhibit certain behaviors.

These tactics can not only save your team time but also streamline the conversion process so that no lead falls through the cracks. This practice also leaves room for your sales and marketing team to focus on big-ticket items.

The key takeaway here is that lead conversion isn’t a one-and-done process. It calls for strategy, cross-team collaboration, and a whole lot of experimentation.