Category Archives: B2B

Did you know that the first video published on YouTube was only 18-seconds long?

Since launching in 2005, the video giant’s founders have learned time and time again that content doesn’t need to be long to engage audiences.

Now, following a nearly year long beta period – as well as the success of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and other viral video platforms – YouTube Shorts is in full swing and creators can now take advantage of the YouTube Shorts Fund.

Let’s talk about what YouTube Shorts is, how it works, and how brands like yours can leverage it.

What’s the latest with YouTube Shorts?

In September of 2020, YouTube Shorts – a YouTube app feature that rivals TikTok and Instagram Reels – began its first round of testing in India. The beta feature enabled users to see and create 15-second videos with musical overlays.

Even in its most basic beta form, the Shorts feature saw solid performance in India.

In late February of 2021, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced that videos on the India-based Shorts player receive 3.5 billion cumulative daily views.

The Shorts beta was fully released in the U.S. in March of 2021, surpassing 6.5 billion daily views.

A few months later in July, Shorts launched globally in over 100 countries.

With YouTube Shorts still in beta mode, marketers are wondering how they’ll take advantage of this video feature, what the final platform will look like, if it will have similar virality to TikTok, and how it could help brands better engage with YouTube’s more than 2 billion active users.

The truth is, as short-form video platforms grow more and more popular, it’s hard to know which will rise above the others. And, because the YouTube Shorts is still evolving, we can’t fully predict what using it will be like in the near future.

Here’s one thing we do know: YouTube houses millions of hours of branded content. As such, YouTube Shorts could be worth your time – especially if you already have a video strategy on the platform.

Below, I’ll walk through the basics of YouTube Shorts, and what opportunities it could provide for marketers upon its official launch.

When explaining why YouTube decided to launch Shorts, a blog post from the tech giant read, “Every month, 2 billion viewers come to YouTube to laugh, learn and connect. Creators have built entire businesses on YouTube, and we want to enable the next generation of mobile creators to also grow a community on YouTube with Shorts.”

“User-generated short videos were born on YouTube starting with our first upload, a short 18-second video called ‘Me at the zoo.’ As technology advances, creators and artists can now take advantage of the incredible power of smartphones to easily create and publish high-quality content wherever they are in the world,” the YouTube post added.

The post continues to say that consumers today enjoy bite-sized content that they can enjoy at any time of the day. A platform like YouTube Shorts allows viewers to step away from long-form video content and alternate as they please.

What YouTube Shorts Looks Like

YouTube Shorts is currently in beta in over 100 countries.

While we don’t know what Shorts will look like for certain when it moves out of beta, I took a few screenshots of the beta I recently discovered on my YouTube app to help marketers envision the potential user experience.

Creating YouTube Shorts

When you have the YouTube app, creating a Short is one tap away.

When you land on the home screen, you’ll see the “+” icon on the lower center navigation. Once you click it, you’ll see “Create a Short” from the menu.

When you tap Create, the Shorts creation interface will be similar to that of Instagram Stories in that it opens to a camera screen that allows you to:

• Record segments of a 60-second clip or a full minute-long video.
• Upload pre-created content from a camera roll.
• Film a “short” with back or front-facing cameras.
• Adjust video speed.
• Set a recording timer.
• Pick sounds for musical overlays.
• Add filters and text.

Here’s a quick screenshot of some of the platform’s features.

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Watching YouTube Shorts

Before the Shorts beta test, YouTube had already been testing a section of its site where shorter videos were placed, shown below.

Today, YouTube added a dedicated shelf for the Shorts feature to its app homepage where you can start to view Shorts created by beta testers as well as short videos YouTube already had on the platform.

When watching a Short, you can tap icons on the right bottom of the screen to “Like,” “Dislike,” or comment on the video. If they enjoy what they see, they can also tap the “SUBSCRIBE” to follow the video creator.

Once a viewer finishes a Short, they can swipe their finger up – like on Reels or TikTok – to see a vertical feed of more Shorts from other creators.

Users can also access this vertical feed on their home screen, by clicking on the Shorts tab.

What Makes YouTube Shorts Different from Its Competitors

As a marketer, seeing every social media platform launch Stories or short-form video features might be overwhelming.

And, now that so many have come out, you might be asking yourself, “Will YouTube Shorts provide more opportunities than Instagram Reels or TikTok?“

Well, we still don’t know yet. However, we think YouTube Shorts will be worth watching. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Short-form creators could see a bigger reach.

While Gen Z users flooded TikTok, causing its astounding early growth, YouTube, the second largest website globally, launched Shorts to more than 2 billion monthly active users.

Rather than wondering, “Will YouTube Shorts get awareness?“, ask yourself instead, “How do I tap into YouTube’s huge audience with Shorts?“

According to Nelson Chacon, HubSpot’s principal YouTube content strategist, you’ll want to know which segment of YouTube’s huge audience you want to market to before producing Shorts – or any other YouTube video for that matter.

Additionally, if you have a solid subscriber list, continue to create content that’s still relevant to them – even if it’s shorter-form.

“Your subscribers know your channel for its content and Youtube, as a platform, works best with consistency,” Chacon says.

For example, say you regularly create long-form content related to your product or industry and find that it engages your audiences. Chacon notes that you can use Shorts to create quick tutorials or step-by-step videos around those content topics.

2. Brands in most industries could leverage Shorts.

Because TikTok has a somewhat niche user-base filled with younger consumers, some types of brands, such as B2B companies, might have a harder time growing awareness there.

While YouTube shares similar popularity with young adults, the content on its platform is so vast that it brings in people from all sorts of age groups, countries, industries, and niches.

Ultimately, there’s a video for everyone on YouTube. With Shorts, more brands will be able to engage with audiences from a much wider range of audience targets.

For example, while a B2B brand might have difficulty connecting with Gen Z consumers on TikTok, they might be able to connect with professionals looking for industry-related content on Shorts.

Similarly, if you target older generations, such as Gen X, your short-form content might get more engagement on YouTube than TikTok.

3. YouTube Shorts could be less vulnerable than other viral platforms.

This summer and throughout the fall of 2020, TikTok was threatened with bans and censorship regulations.

Why is this concerning? If you’re a marketer who spends time mastering content strategies on a social media app, a ban or regulation of that app could mean that the content you’ve worked so hard on might never be seen.

However, because YouTube is one of the oldest and most successful online platforms, and it’s owned by the publicly traded Alphabet, it might be seen as more trustworthy to governments than viral apps that provide less public data security information – like TikTok.

4. Shorts could provide long-term benefits.

While Instagram Stories and Reels content expire by default after 24 hours, some YouTube Shorts beta testers say Shorts don’t disappear from YouTube – which could help grow long-term YouTube awareness.

For example, if a person who prefers short-form content stumbles upon your YouTube page, they can see all of your short videos, rather than only being able to access your longer content.

Or, if someone’s in a rush and searching for a quick how-to video related to something you’ve filmed, they might find and watch your short videos on that topic – even if you published them months ago.

How 5 Brands Use YouTube Shorts

1. Danessa Myricks Beauty

Have exciting news you want to share with your audience? Take a page out of this brand’s playbook.

In this countdown-style video, Danessa Myricks Beauty used a short to promote its launch in Sephora and build some anticipation.

In the first half of the video, multiple people can be heard saying “One more day.” Then, we see the CEO sending off a package to be sent to Sephora stores.

Here’s why this works: There’s no time wasted in this Short. It’s engaging from the very start and every frame serves a purpose. Secondly, there’s a clear message – the audience leaves knowing the 5Ws (who, what, when, where, why).

Lastly, this Short creates excitement for the brand’s growth and invites the audience to join in the countdown.

2. LYFE Marketing

Who said informative content had to be long? LYFE Marketing shows that you can create fun, engaging, and informative content in under 30 seconds.

In this Short, the brand breaks down color psychology. The talent in front of the camera simply points to the text which appears on different parts of the screen during the video.

If you don’t have a big media budget, this is an effective, low-effort method of creating content your audience will be interested in.

3. WebFX

Shorts are a great way to repurpose content. You can take content from a blog post, live stream, or downloadable report to create a short-and-sweet video.

Digital marketing agency, WebFX, created a short to explain the costs behind social media marketing.

With the use of graphics, WebFX delivers great information in a succinct way. It’s likely the brand has an article or other form of content that dives deeper into this topic.

But for social media, snippets are the way to go. When done right, they pique your audience’s interest and lead them to your website.

4. The Voice

To promote its new season, NBC’s The Voice created a Short featuring this year’s hosts.

What works well here:

• It serves as an ad for the brand.
• It utilizes text to emphasize certain phrases and keep the audience engaged.
• It includes a banner at the end with clear directions for viewers on when and where to watch the show.

5. Satori Graphics

Here’s another great example of how graphics and illustrations can take your Shorts to another level.

Satori Graphics is a popular YouTube channel to learn graphic design. The channel features hundreds of long-form videos on the topic and this Short serves as an extension of what’s already on the channel.

This tactic can work well for attracting new viewers to the channel, as a one-minute video is less intimidating than a 20-minute video. It’s similar to how you present a content offer at the end of a blog article.

A reader may be more likely to read a blog post first than read a 20-page report, as it’s an easier point of entry. The same concept can apply to Shorts.

How to Prepare for YouTube Shorts

While we aren’t sure how Shorts will evolve, it’s not too early to consider how you could implement it into your social media or video marketing strategy. Here are a few quick tips to keep in mind.

• Optimize short YouTube videos: Chacon says global creators should begin to add, “#shorts” to descriptions of videos that are 60 seconds or less.
• Identify short-form topics: Are there any topics your team creates content around that could be distilled into a few quick tips, steps, or data points? If so, you might be able to repurpose this information by creating a Short.
• Audit your short-form videos: Have you created Instagram Reels, TikToks, or other social media videos that would only need a few light tweaks to engage your YouTube audience? If so, you could test them on Shorts when the platform launches.

To learn more about YouTube Marketing, check out our Ultimate Guide – or download the free resource below.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in March of 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

In the marketing industry, we treat experts like they’re village elders, soaking up every tip and trick they have to offer so we can implement them into our own work, desperately hoping for similar results.

But, when you really think about it, marketing is always changing and experts often don’t have visibility into your unique context.

This naturally begs the question: what should you do when you can’t find a solution to one of your problems on the internet? To find the answers to your unique problem, consider channeling your inner Sherlock Holmes and become an investigator.

Investigators forage for information that’ll lead them to the answers to their own specific questions. And, as a marketer, one of the best investigative tools at your disposal is A/B testing.

Every company has a different set of customers, so there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for designing the most optimal website, crafting the most compelling copy, or building the most effective product.

To figure out which website design, line of copy, or product feature will produce the best results for your company, you must discover what your unique set of customers prefer.

To help you do this, we’ve curated eight of the best A/B testing tools that’ll help you optimize your website design, copy, product, and, most importantly, help you find the answers tailored to your needs

1. HubSpot & Kissmetrics’ A/B Testing Kit [Featured Tool]

Don’t know where to start with A/B testing? This tool may be just what you need.

Download the kit for free to get started with A/B testing in your business – an A/B test tracking template, a how-to guide for instruction and inspiration, and a statistical significance calculator to see if your tests were wins, losses, or inconclusive.

It’s ideal for businesses just getting started with A/B testing, or for businesses that need a way to track their existing tests.

Pricing: Free

2. Google Optimize

Google Optimize offers a set of tools under the Google Marketing Platform to help brands improve their website’s performance.

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Their A/B testing tool, in particular, offers more than just the standard A/B testing. Users can test more than two versions and can also run:

• Multivariate testing
• Split URL testing
• Server-side experiments

The best part? It’s free to use for all your testing and personalization needs.

Pricing: Free

Landing Page A/B Testing Tools

3. Freshmarketer

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Freshmarketer, which is the marketing arm of the business platform Freshworks, is a conversion rate optimization software that offers A/B testing and split URL testing.

Their A/B testing tool can test, target, and validate your experiment, integrate with Google Analytics, and even track the amount of revenue your experiments have generated.

Freshmarketer’s Split URL testing tool can help you test multiple variations of URLs, turn winning test variations into real web pages, and grasp the effectiveness of your web design by offering heatmaps of every variation of your split URL test.

Pricing: Starts at $19/month for A/B testing features

Web Testing Tools

4. VWO

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Trusted by over 4,500 enterprise brands including eBay, Target, and Virgin Holidays, VWO is an A/B testing and conversion rate optimization platform tailored specifically for enterprise brands.

In their suite, you can build A/B tests, Split URL tests, and multivariate tests with a drop-and-drop editor.

To gauge the performance of your tests, VWO offers a robust reporting dashboard. VWO also offers a SmartStats feature that leverages Bayesian statistics to help you run faster tests, give you more control of your tests, and reach more accurate conclusions.

Pricing: Upon request

5. Optimizely

With 24 Fortune 100 companies as customers, Optimizely is a digital experimentation platform for enterprise marketing, product, and engineering teams.

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Using their powerful A/B and multi-page experimentation tool, you can run multiple experiments on one page at the same time, allowing you to test various variables of your web design.

Optimizely also offers testing on dynamic websites, various experiment dimensions like an ad campaign, geography, and cookies, and various experiment segmentation parameters like device, browser, and campaign.

Pricing: Upon request

6. Omniconvert

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It’s a conversion rate optimization platform that offers an A/B testing tool, as well as survey, personalization, overlay, and segmentation tools.

Using their A/B testing tool, you can run A/B tests on desktop, mobile, and tablet. Additionally, you can turn winning versions of an A/B test into the control for a future test and leverage Frequentist or Bayesian statistics to validate your tests.

Omniconvert also blends their segmentation tool with their A/B testing tool to let you test over 40 segmentation parameters, like:

• Geolocation
• Traffic source
• Visitor behavior

This allows you to improve your website’s user experience, product features, and content’s ability to engage and convert.

Pricing: Starts at $167/month

7. Crazy Egg

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Crazy Egg is a website optimization software that offers A/B testing, heat mapping, and usability testing tools.

Its A/B testing tool lets you test variations of every single page on your website by adding one snippet of code to the pages you want to experiment on.

Crazy Egg also lets you build A/B tests without any coding experience, sends more traffic to the optimal variant of your test once it recognizes it’s the winner, and offers intuitive conversion tracking and reporting tools.

If you work for a small business, Crazy Egg is definitely a tool you should consider.

Pricing: Starts at $24/month

8. AB Tasty

With AB Tasty’s conversion rate optimization software, your team can build and run A/B tests, split tests, multivariate tests, and funnel tests with their visual editor.

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You can also leverage their advanced targeting to test based on various criteria like URL, geolocation, weather, and more.

To help validate your tests, AB tasty offers reports that display your tests and their confidence levels in real-time. This allows you to make decisions quickly and accurately.

Pricing: Upon request

9. Convert

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Trusted by brands like Sony, Unicef, and Jabra, Convert is an A/B testing and web personalization software that offers A/B testing, split testing, multivariate testing, and multipage experiment tools.

Convert also offers an advanced segmentation tool that allows you to segment users based on their historical behavior, cookies, and JavaScript events.

Additionally, Convert can gauge the performance of all your tests by reporting on a large mix of metrics, from your variations’ clickthrough rate to its return-on-investment.

If you want to use Convert in conjunction with your other tools, they offer a ton of integrations with third-party tools, like WordPress, Shopify, and HubSpot. Convert is best suited for small businesses.

Pricing: Starts at $699/month

10. Adobe Target

Testing your website is important, but what if you have other channels that you want to test? Adobe Target helps you do exactly that.

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Whether you’re want to test your app’s new home screen or want to experiment on your internet-of-things system, this tool’s got you covered.

In addition to testing on multiple platforms and devices, Adobe Target also offers testing on both the client and server side, offering advanced features for experienced teams.

Pricing: Upon request

11. Leadformly

Struggling to capture leads through your forms? Perhaps visitors are leaving right before reaching the final step. Or maybe they leave halfway through completion.

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In any of these cases, you want a tool like Leadformly to help you get to the bottom of this. Even teams with high-converting forms can still benefit from testing their forms, as they may discover additional ways to increase their CVR.

Pricing: Starts at $37/month

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

To succeed at our jobs, we often ended a wide range of skills, from simply communicating to in-depth product knowledge.

Soft skills, like communication, fall into the category of interpersonal skills, and they are typically expected of everyone, regardless of the position you apply for. In this post, learn what interpersonal skills are, examples of what they look like in action, and how to develop them and display them on your resume to stand out against other applicants.

Interpersonal skills relate to all aspects of life, from close relationships to business partnerships.

Interpersonal Skills in Organization

In the business world, interpersonal skills dictate how we get along with our team members. For example, suppose you sense tension at work. You may pick up on this and use active listening to get to the root of the problem and then use effective communication to come to a resolution.

Why are interpersonal skills important?

Many career paths come with consistent interaction with people, whether coworkers or teammates, so it’s crucial to know how to interact with everyone. Without them, it would be challenging to perform as expected.

Given this, employers look for people with strong interpersonal skills because it means they can work well with others and communicate in a way that drives business success. In some jobs, like customer service, strong interpersonal skills are critical.

Most critically, interpersonal skills help us interact with others in a respectable manner. Even if you’re a software engineer who spends most of your time on the computer, you still need to interact with your teammates and sometimes explain technical details to those who may not have the same know-how, which requires good communication.

There tends to be some confusion about interpersonal skills vs intrapersonal skills, so we’ll explain the difference below.

Intrapersonal vs. Interpersonal Skills

A few letters make up the difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, but they are different. Specifically, interpersonal skills are how you speak to yourself in your mind, and interpersonal skills are involved in conversations with other people.

However, both relate to each other through emotional intelligence. Having strong self-awareness (intrapersonal) can help you become better with interpersonal skills, as you’ll be able to manage your emotions, regardless of the situation, and respond accordingly.  

Types of Interpersonal Skills

There are various types of interpersonal skills, and many complement each other. Below we’ll list common interpersonal skills and give examples of what they look like in action.

• Communication — The way you communicate clearly and effectively with others.
• Conflict management — How you deal with troubling business situations as they arise, whether mediating an issue between colleagues or seeking solutions for a personal matter. Regardless of your level of seniority, conflict management is an essential skill.
• Empathy — Empathy is the most important interpersonal skill, as you need to have empathy, understanding, and care for those around you and that you work with daily.
• Leadership — Involves being able to motivate and encourage others, regardless of whether you’re in a leadership role, and being able to step up to the plate in scenarios where a leader is needed.
• Listening — Strongly relates to communication and empathy; you need to listen to your coworkers, so they feel comfortable, listened to, and valued.
• Collaboration — As an employee, it is crucial to be able to get along with others and work as a team to get the job done.

Examples of Interpersonal Skills

Type of interpersonal skill	Example of interpersonal skill in action
Communication	Non-verbal communication and body language, public speaking, verbal communication, written communication, ability to develop rapport
Conflict management	Problem-solving, active listening, mediating
Empathy	Being caring, compassionate, diplomatic, kind, practicing active listening, being understanding, developing rapport
Leadership	Encouragement, management, mentoring, motivation, dependability, consulting, constructive criticism, diplomacy, flexibility
Listening	Active-listening, curiosity, ability to focus and show that you’re focused, and listening to those who are speaking
Collaborate	Ability to see both sides, make people feel respected and valued, work in teams, and understand team dynamics

How to Develop Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are essential, regardless of the role you’re in. Here are some tips for developing your interpersonal skills and improving upon the ones you already have.

1. Leverage available resources.

Look for online courses or books from experts that explain the importance of interpersonal skills and give tips on developing them based on their own experiences.

2. Identify areas for improvement.

Identifying areas for improvement can help develop your skills.

You can ask for feedback from people who work with you daily and hear about areas that they think could use improvement. If you work in customer-facing roles, you can monitor your NPS scores or customer feedback surveys to get a sense of where they feel you fall short.

3. Ask for feedback, and learn from it.

One of the best ways to get a sense of your skill level is to ask for feedback on your current performance from people that interact with you every day, like colleagues, mentors, or bosses.

For example, maybe you work in teams on a day-to-day basis, and one of your colleagues says that sometimes they don’t feel heard by you. You can learn from their assessment and make an effort to practice active listening.

4. Practice your skills.

As with most skills, one of the best ways to develop them is by practicing them. Put yourself in situations where these skills will be required of you, like stepping up during team meetings and assuming leadership roles. As mentioned above, you can then ask for feedback from peers and learn what went right and what needs more work.

5. Recognize that there is no “end” to developing your skills.

Although your desire may be to be perfect, there is no way to be perfect. Everyone is always learning on the go and developing their skills, especially since role requirements can vary.

For example, working in customer service may require you to focus more on problem-solving and empathy, while assuming a role as a manager may require you to spend more time collaborating and conflict management. Recognize that there is always room for growth and development and, as long as you are aware of this, you’ll develop the skills you need to succeed.

Interpersonal Skills on a Resume

It’s important to emphasize your interpersonal skills on a resume, as many employers look for them. Sometimes interpersonal skills are referred to as soft skills instead of technical skills like having product knowledge.

The most important thing to do is to identify the skills you have that match the job description of the new role, so you can explicitly demonstrate how they’ll help you succeed.

Once you’ve identified these skills, you have three options for displaying them:

• A simple bulleted list of skills,
• A bulleted list of your job accomplishments and the interpersonal skills you have that have helped you achieve this success,
• In a summary of your experience at the top of your resume.

As mentioned above, there is no finish line for developing your interpersonal skills. Those you need for each job will likely change depending on your industry, and it is always important to continuously be learning. However, leverage the tips on this list, put yourself in situations where you’ll need to practice your skills, and you’ll find yourself succeeding in your roles, regardless of whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned executive.

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.

Image Source

Image Source

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.