Category Archives: B2B

SEO. While this is a strategy we’ve been aware of for a while, did you know that 89% of marketers say SEO is successful?

And since more than 50 percent of all website traffic comes from organic search and 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine, it’s not surprising.

However, what do upmarket companies, with thousands of web pages and keywords, do when they’re in the maturation phase of implementing SEO?

Instead of focusing on the small business and mid-market SEO strategies, they’ll need to begin focusing on enterprise SEO.

In this post, let’s review what enterprise SEO is, what tools to use, and what it looks like in practice.

What makes enterprise SEO different?

The main difference between small business/mid-market SEO and enterprise SEO strategies is that the tactics for larger organizations need to be scalable for thousands of web pages.

While a small business or mid-market company might have a few pages, or a couple hundred, larger organizations have thousands of web pages on their site. And it makes sense that the strategies that work for a small number of pages might not necessarily work for larger sites.

Why is enterprise SEO important?

Enterprise SEO is important because strategies that work for smaller businesses won’t work for larger ones.

One of the main strategic differences between the two is that small businesses usually aren’t targeting highly competitive, short tail keywords, while larger enterprise organizations are.

Additionally, larger companies need a specialized enterprise SEO team to keep track and maintain organic rankings. At smaller companies, the person in charge of SEO is usually also the content marketer and might even be in charge of social media.

When you’re targeting more competitive keywords, and have thousands of pages on your site, you need a dedicated team working on your SEO, instead of one jack-of-all-trades that’s spread too thin.

If you’ve worked at companies and felt like SEO just wasn’t working for you, it’s probably because you didn’t have a dedicated team with experts when your company needed it.

Enterprise SEO will benefit large organizations because their SEO issues will be more complex due to the number of web pages on the site, the number of backlinks already acquired, domain authority already acquired, etc.

As a larger site, enterprise companies usually have great brand authority. But that means you can’t undermine that authority by deleting or redirecting pages that have acquired backlinks and high page authority. You also need to keep this content up to date and fresh. And as you can imagine, the larger the company, the harder that is.

Ultimately, enterprise SEO needs to be smarter, scalable, and more sophisticated.

Now that we know why enterprise SEO is important, let’s discuss some of the more sophisticated strategies you’ll need to implement as a larger company.

1. Maintain page speed.

One of the technical SEO elements that becomes more complex with larger sites is maintaining page speed.

First, you’ll need to test your website speed with a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights to see how quickly your website loads for users.

Then, to improve the page speed of individual pages you can compress images, reduce redirects, and cache your web pages.

2. Group content in subdomains.

Another strategy for enterprise SEO is to group your content into subdomains.

A subdomain is a type of website hierarchy under a root directory, but instead of using folders to organize content on a website, it kind of gets a website of its own.

This subdomain is still closely associated with the root directory, but it will usually have a separate content management system, template, analytics tools, and more.

See the image below to get an idea:

This is helpful for enterprise SEO because subdomains can house a lot of content that would be difficult to manage all on one website.

While some SEO experts believe that Google’s crawlers could confuse a subdomain for an entirely different website from the main domain, others say its crawlers can recognize subdomains as extensions of parent domains.

Essentially, subdomains lead to a better user experience, which could result in better engagement rates, therefore improving your SEO. Ultimately, you’ll have to decide what works best for your company and have your enterprise SEO team discuss what would be best.

3. Refresh old content, but protect domain authority and backlinks.

One of the challenges for enterprise SEO teams is keeping content up to date, accurate, and refreshed for current industry standards.

However, you don’t want to delete old content that has high page authority and backlinks. Instead, you’ll want to refresh your content, while balancing the line of adding new information, without taking away secondary keywords that content is ranking for.

With an enterprise company, refreshing content is a delicate process. But it also needs to be scalable for your SEO team to find out which pages need to be updated and what would make them more competitive. The entire point of enterprise SEO is to have a process that’s scalable.

4. Quality content creation at scale.

Of course with SEO, quality content creation is one of the most important components of your site.

Again, on an enterprise level, this needs to be scalable for your SEO team to find new keywords to rank for and handoff to a content creation team.

Usually, your enterprise SEO team will choose target keywords and give writers guidelines on how to make the post competitive, whether that’s including secondary keywords, tips on image alt-text, including snippets, etc.

To implement enterprise SEO, you’ll need a team that is dedicated to creating content instructions and doing keyword research at scale.

5. Strategic keyword selection.

As we’ve been talking about, keyword selection becomes more difficult the more you’ve written about a topic. Sometimes it can feel like you’ve said everything there is to say.

That’s why you need a dedicated enterprise SEO team to conduct regular keyword research and content gap analysis to find new topics to write about.

6. Automation.

So we’ve talked a lot about doing things “at scale.” But how can you do that? One of the best ways for an enterprise SEO team to scale its processes is to use automation.

Automation can help with SEO tasks like keyword research, identifying problematic areas on your site, monitoring the quality of backlinks, analyzing title tags and meta descriptions, and more.

Additionally, you can use workflows to simplify project management. With larger organizations, you might have several locations with distinct websites and SEO needs. This means that your SEO teams should be using the same workflows so the process is scalable.

7. Don’t forget about technical SEO.

Besides page speed, there are more technical SEO elements that your enterprise SEO team will need to manage.

This means that your SEO team will need a scalable process for using 301 redirects, eliminating technical issues that hamper crawlability, etc.

8. Link building.

Again, one of the most important elements of SEO is link building. On an enterprise level, this becomes more complex (as does everything, I suppose).

The more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it gets from Google. You can use outreach strategies to find unlinked mentions and request to turn the mention into a backlink.

Additionally, you can always do cold outreach as well if you find articles where your site naturally fits. As a larger company, you’ll have the benefit of already having brand authority and recognizability.

9. Internal pillar/cluster content linking.

Another SEO task that will need to be done at scale is internal pillar and cluster content linking. Your enterprise SEO team could either find these internal links for your content creators during the keyword research process or could advise your writers to link to the pillar and any necessary internal content.

10. Create templates for your pages.

When creating new pages for your site, SEO plays a large role. That’s why your team can create templates that your developers can replicate over and over again in line with enterprise SEO needs.

So, now you might be wondering, “What does this look like in action?” Let’s look at some examples below.

Enterprise SEO Examples

1. HubSpot

HubSpot is a great example of enterprise SEO because while we might not have the same amount of employees as other big tech companies, we have over 35,000 pages on our site.

Additionally, our site ranks on the first page of several hundred thousand keywords, and in position 1 for over 30,000 keywords.

Because of the number of pages and keywords we target, this means that we need a highly specialized, dedicated enterprise SEO team to focus on backlinks, comarketing, technical SEO, and to protect our domain authority.

With enterprise SEO, we need to be careful about updating keywords on content that has high domain authority while keeping our content fresh and updated.

2. GitHub

GitHub has an estimated 81 million pages on its site. And the impressive part is that it ranks in position 1 on Google for over 80,000 keywords.

This means that the company is able to manage its site in bulk and focus on maintaining old pages, while still earning links to reinforce its organic rankings for hundreds of thousands of keywords.

3. Microsoft

Enterprise company Microsoft has more than 8 million pages on its site. With several varying products, it’s no surprise that the company ranks on the first page for over 1 million keywords. Additionally, it ranks in the number 1 position for over 450,000 keywords.

A major difficulty with Microsoft’s enterprise SEO is that the team is targeting very different types of keywords because of the variety of products. And they need to protect their domain authority across several industries from business tools to video gaming consoles.

The Future of Enterprise SEO

For large organizations, enterprise SEO is the future. To protect current domain authority and backlinks, while keeping content fresh and updated on thousands of pages, you’ll need a dedicated, sophisticated team of experts.

This means an enterprise SEO team will focus on strategizing how to enhance content, working on comarketing, attaining backlinks and protecting those backlinks, and more. The more pages your site has, the harder and more complex it becomes to maintain your SEO.

What are some advertisements that live rent-free in your mind? As a millennial, ads that will always have a place in my heart include Britney Spears’ iconic run as a Pepsi spokesperson, the enduring”got milk?” campaign (which is ironic considering myself and many others now prefer non-dairy alternatives), and the classic iPod silhouettes.

These ads were not only compelling, but they were also incredibly influential. As marketers, we know that if we want to persuade an audience, we need to evoke an emotional response from them. But how do you actually do that?

Before we discuss how to refine your persuasive advertising strategy, let’s review what it is.

Below, we’ll examine key persuasive advertising techniques you can use in your advertisements, examples you can reference if you ever need some inspiration and informative advertisement examples that are surprisingly just as compelling as the persuasive advertising examples.

1. The Carrot and The Stick

Humans are hardwired to move towards pleasure, like a horse towards a carrot, and away from pain, like a donkey avoids a stick. When people read or watch your advertisements, “carrots”, or promises of gain, can fill your prospects with hope and compel them to pursue that potential feeling of pleasure. “Sticks”, possibilities of loss, evoke fear in your prospects, which will compel them to flee from that potential feeling of pain.

Both tactics can pull your prospects into a narrative and evoke emotions that inspire your desired action. Carrots, like a product’s benefit, entice people to take the desired action. Sticks, on the other hand, like anti-smoking campaigns, evoke fear in people to stop doing a certain action and start doing the alternative. To better understand how to craft advertisements that feature a carrot or stick, check out these insurance copywriting examples below.

Carrot: “15 minutes could save you 15% on car insurance.” — Geico

Stick: “Get All-State. You can save money and be better protected from Mayhem like me.” — All-State

As you can see, Geico’s ad uses a small-time investment that could potentially produce big gains as a lure to get you to buy their product. Conversely, All-State’s ad uses the character”Mayhem” to evoke fear into people to stop using their”inferior” insurance and start using All-State’s.

2. The Scarcity Principle

People value objects and experiences that are rare — having something that most people want but can’t have, boosts our sense of self-worth and power. If you use words and phrases that imply scarcity and evoke a sense of urgency, like”Exclusive offer” or”Limited availability”, you can skyrocket your product’s perceived scarcity and consumer demand.

3. One Message Per Advertisement

To immediately hook people and persuade them to read or watch the rest of your advertisement, try sticking to only one message. Spotlighting your product or offer’s main benefit or feature will make it easy for your customers to understand its value and increase the likelihood of their conversion because you’re only conveying one message to your audience: your product’s main feature will benefit your customer’s life somehow, someway.

4. Write in the Second Person

Since your prospects primarily care about how you can help them, and pronouns like “you” and “your” can engage them on a personal level and help them insert themselves in the narrative you’re creating, writing advertisements in the second person can instantly grip their attention and help them imagine a future with your product or service bettering their lives.

5. Give Your Audience a Sense of Control

According to a research study conducted by three psychology professors at Rutgers University, the need for control is a biological and psychological necessity. People have to feel like they have control over their lives.

If you want to give your audience a sense of control, you need to give them the ability to choose. In other words, after reading or watching your advertisement, they must feel like they can choose between the option you suggest or another path. If they feel like you’re trying to force them to buy your product, they’ll get annoyed and disengage from your message.

To give your audience the ability to choose, and in turn, a sense of control, use phrases like “Feel free” or “No pressure” in your advertisements, like this example from Hotwire.com below.

6. Use a Call-to-Value Instead of a Call-to-Action

Call-to-actions are crucial for getting prospects to take the next step, but a “Download Now” or “Call Now” CTA isn’t always going to convince the more skeptical prospects to take your desired action. You need to make sure your ad’s last line of copy or quip is the best of them all.

So instead of writing an uninspiring, final line of copy like “Download Now”, write one that clearly communicates your offer’s value and gives a glimpse into your prospects’ potential life if they take your desired action, like this call-to-value prompting readers to download a blogging eBook: “Click today and be a blogger tomorrow.”

Persuasive Advertising Examples

Ready to see persuasive advertising in action? Check out these examples.

1. Nikol

Showing — not telling — your audience about your product’s benefits is one of the best ways to capture attention and get an emotional response. Obviously, Nikol’s paper towels can’t actually turn grapes into raisins, but this ad highlights the product’s absorbent powers in such a clear and clever way, they didn’t need to write a single line of copy.

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2. Heinz

In relation to food, the word “hot” has multiple meanings: having a high temperature and being spicy. Heinz brilliantly used the connotation of high temperature to highlight the spiciness of their ketchup, and their creative method of communicating the value of their product helped them instantly attract people’s attention.

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3. Mondo Pasta

With this crafty use of guerrilla marketing, Mondo Pasta perfectly aligns their copy with their creative — the guy slurping the noodle literally “can’t let go” because it’s a rope tied to a dock. By designing such a visual, unexpected, and literal ad with a seemingly one-dimensional prop, people’s eyes can’t let go of this ad either.

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4. Bic

Another example of guerrilla marketing, Bic takes advantage of an unkempt field to highlight the power of their razors. By just mowing a small strip of grass on a field, this ad is an unconventional, simple, and extremely creative way to catch people’s attention and spotlight a razor’s shaving capabilities.

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5. Siemens

Siemens’ skillful ad shows the benefits of their product by unexpectedly placing their washers and dryers in a library to show you that they’re so quiet, even a librarian wouldn’t need to shush them.

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6. Pepsi

“More Than OK” poked fun at how Pepsi usually takes a back seat to Coke, especially at restaurants. And by featuring a star-studded cast that included Steve Carell, Lil Jon, and Cardi-B (who hilariously and fervently backed up Pepsi’s OKness) their boldness to call people out for undermining Pepsi’s quality got a lot of laughs and persuaded a massive audience to reconsider their own perception of the soft drink.

7. Match.com

The year 2020 was challenging for countless reasons. Online dating company Match.com channeled the collective feeling towards the year with an ad depicting Satan meeting his perfect match – 2020.

Informative Advertising

Informative advertising is a form of persuasive advertising that focuses more on the facts. The main goal of informative advertising is to educate the audience on why they need your product instead of appealing to their desires.

It highlights how your product’s features and benefits solve your customers’ problems and can even compare your product to your competitors’ products. Although this type of advertising relies on facts and figures to trigger the desired action, the ad’s message is usually framed in a compelling way.

To better understand the difference between informative and persuasive advertising, check out these examples.

1. Miller Lite

After Bud Light took some jabs at Miller Lite for using corn syrup in their beer during their Super Bowl 53 ads, Miller Lite decided to throw a few punches back. A day later on Twitter, they revealed that their beer actually has fewer calories and carbs than Bud Light, which helped them persuade people that drinking Bud Light and Miller Lite actually have similar health benefits.

2. Siskiyou Eye Center

There’s an old folk tale that carrots can improve your eyesight, but science has actually debunked this myth. That’s why this Siskiyou Eye Center ad is such a creative informative advertisement.

While it pokes fun at this common fable, it’s still relying on the facts of carrots not being able to improve your vision and the Eye Center’s ability to provide quality treatment for your eyes to persuade people to do business with them.

3. Burger King

In 2020, Burger King released an ad showing a time-lapse of its famous Whopper over the course of 34 days. While it may seem like an odd choice to show its product in such an unappetizing light, the goal of this ad was to announce the company planned to remove preservatives and other artificial ingredients from its products to differentiate itself from key competitors.

4. Calm

Popular meditation app Calm experienced an increase in downloads by sponsoring CNN’s coverage of the 2020 US Presidential Campaign. Through clever product placement in front of an audience that was experiencing stress, the app was positioned as helpful a resource ready to educate on mindfulness during a turbulent time.

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5. Dove

In addition to creating popular body and skincare products, Dove has set out to educate its audience on the importance of body confidence, and the harmful impact fabricated social media imagery can have on the self-esteem of young people.

In the reverse selfie campaign, Dove depicts how social media users may be inclined to change their appearance for public approval. Other materials provided by Dove also share facts and statistics related to social media usage and body image.

6. Google

Last year, Google released a Black History Month ad called “The Most Searched” that was equally informative and inspiring. Showing clips of famous Black figures, each clip read “most searched” to indicate each person shown and event shown was a history-maker.

 

Persuasive advertising vs. informative advertising: which one is better?

Persuasive advertising and informative advertising definitely focus on different aspects of persuasion, but they still aim to achieve the same goal: convincing your audience to take the desired action. So whether you pursue one advertising strategy or another, remember that if you can trigger an emotional response, regardless of the stimuli, your ad will be a success.

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

As your business scales, your marketing team will grow and evolve too.

While this growth is happening, it’s important to maintain reliable avenues for collaboration and communication on your marketing team. Otherwise, your business won’t be able to perform at the highest level. The good news is that marketing collaboration software can help with this.

In this article, we’ll cover what marketing collaboration software is, why it’s important, and 20 of the best tools currently on the market.

Marketing Collaboration Software

Marketing collaboration software helps marketing teams maintain easy communication, manage projects and campaigns, prioritize tasks, establish schedules and editorial calendars, promote organization and productivity, and more.

Why is marketing collaboration software important?

No matter which industry your business is in, what size your team is, whether you’re in-office, remote, or a mix of both, marketing collaboration can help your team improve in a number of areas — all of which impact your bottom line. Some examples include improved and streamlined…

• Communication
• Teamwork
• Productivity
• Organization
• Efficiency
• Task management
• Scheduling
• Data sharing
• Transparency
• Content creation

Marketing Collaboration Features

Here are some common features found across many marketing collaboration tools today.

• Group communication
• Shared files, documents, calendars, notes, and other assets
• Task management and time/ progress tracking
• Document management
• Campaign management
• Editorial calendar
• Content creation capabilities
• Content, file, and data organization
• Integrations (to connect the marketing collaboration software to your other marketing and business tools)
• Audio and video conferencing
• Marketing automation
• Reporting and analytics

Marketing Collaboration Software

Here are 20 of the best marketing collaboration software available today.

1. HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a marketing automation platform that allows you to attract your target audience, convert website visitors, and run inbound marketing campaigns at scale. Marketing teams can seamlessly collaborate to plan and execute large-scale, omnichannel marketing campaigns.

Marketing Hub also allows for frictionless collaboration with other teams — such as sales — in order to offer delightful customer experiences. This is known as CRM-powered Marketing — HubSpot makes it possible by pairing marketing automation tools with an all-in-one CRM platform.

Pro Tip: Use HubSpot’s Marketing Hub to attract your unique audience, convert visitors into customers, run complete inbound marketing campaigns at scale, and automate redundant processes, all via one, easy-to-use platform.

2. Slack

Slack is a platform that allows for easy communication and collaboration on any scale. Slack Channels serve as central communication areas where you and your team can chat with one another and share relevant information, files, tools, and more.

Send messages via chat, host video calls, or speak with your team via voice call all without leaving the tool. There are also over 2,200 integrations and apps, such as Google Drive and Office 365, to help your team streamline workflows.

Additionally, the Slack Connect feature makes it possible to communicate and collaborate with teams at other companies the way you do with your own.

3. Trello

Trello is a collaboration and productivity tool for managing, tracking, and sharing work projects and tasks. The tool organizes your work into Kanban-style lists — that means your work is separated into categories for an easier workflow (such as to-do, work in progress, and complete).

Your team can communicate and tag each other on each project card, share and attach files, add due dates, move cards into different Kanban-style lists to track work, and archive cards once they’re complete.

4. Asana

Asana is a task and project management platform that allows both remote and distributed teams to organize and manage work. Teammates can collaborate on project lists, timelines, or boards, all of which have individual tasks and stages that you can customize, share, and archive. The tool’s messaging feature makes it easy to distribute, assign, and manage work.

Automate various project management tasks to save your team time and integrate your tool with one of 100+ apps that bring together all of your work to improve collaboration and coordination across your team.

5. Monday.com

Monday.com is a work operating system and project management tool that allows you to create workflows for any project. There are over 200 templates workflows available that marketing can use, as well as other departments such as IT, sales, design, web development, operations, and HR and recruiting.

Your team can manage and collaborate on all aspects of a project from a single location. The 200+ templates mentioned above are completely customizable and allow all team members to visualize your project, and its different stages, in a way that’s preferable to your team (e.g. map, calendar, timeline, Kanban-style list).

You can also integrate Monday.com with your other tools and apps to access and manage all parts of your projects and campaigns without leaving the tool.

6. Teamwork

Teamwork is a collaborative project management software meant for managing and delivering client work on time and on budget. You can simultaneously manage multiple projects of varying complexity with Teamwork’s Board View, dashboards, and project health status updates.

Hold all team members accountable for their part of a project or campaign by assigning responsibilities and using time tracking to determine how long certain tasks are taking.

7. CoSchedule

Rather than collaborating and handling your marketing via various spreadsheets, tools, calendars, and emails, CoSchedule’s actionable Marketing Calendar is where your team can see, schedule, and share all aspects of your marketing jobs and campaigns.

You can also share your calendar in a read-only format so higher-ups and other teams can view your project plans and trajectory without having to worry about someone accidentally making an edit.

8. Evernote Teams

Evernote Teams is a collaborative note-taking app ideal for managing, arranging, and organizing your thoughts, ideas, to-do lists, and more. The tool makes it easy to collaborate, sync, and share knowledge, as well as ensure progress is being made on certain projects and tasks.

Evernote’s Spaces provide visibility into progress on team projects as well as relevant workflows and documents. You can make, leave, and search across Spaces for notes and notebooks that you created or other team members created.

9. Sharelov

Sharelov is a cloud-based marketing collaboration platform for brands and agencies to manage their teams, campaigns, assets, projects, and work. No matter what you’re working on or what your creative assets include, Sharelov makes it easy to collaborate, share feedback, and approve assets, plans, and projects.

Use the tool to establish your teams, improve ease of collaboration within those teams, and track team and individual progress in real-time. Team members can provide feedback for each other for every creative — this simplifies the process of managing internal and client feedback and change requests across individual projects.

10. Acoustic

Acoustic is a digital marketing experience platform — the platform’s Marketing Cloud tool helps you better understand your customers and their behaviors at scale.

Acoustic allows your entire marketing team to manage and collaborate on campaigns, content, insights, and personalization, all via a single tool. There are AI-powered analytics and insights features to help you understand customer behaviors and experiences.

11. Zoom

Zoom is a video conferencing, cloud phone, webinar, and online events software. It makes team collaboration and communication easy, no matter the industry or whether your team is in office, remote, or a mix of both.

Use one of Zoom’s many available integrations to connect the software with your other business tools (e.g. HubSpot, Google Workspace, Slack, etc.).

Host Zoom Webinars or Events depending on the level of collaboration and engagement you’re looking for. You can also follow up on a discussion topic, share links, or communicate with others in real-time using Zoom’s Chat feature.

12. Lucid Chart

Lucid Chart is an intelligent diagramming software that makes it easy for teams to collaborate on the visualization of complex ideas related to your team’s processes, systems, and organizational structure.

Individuals and teams can map out progress around a certain task and determine what needs to be done next and what’s missing. Then your team can align on and apply all resulting insights using Lucid Chart’s common visual language, which streamlines collaboration.

You can also use Lucid Chart to create, manage, and collaborate on business process maps, user flows, cloud architecture diagrams, scrum teams, and data flows.

13. Canva

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Canva is a graphic design and publishing tool that allows your team to collaboratively plan, design, create, publish, and share a variety of content types including logos, social media posts, documents, graphs and charts, prints, and more.

The tool makes it easy to invite team members to review and edit designs via shareable links, email, or Canva folders. Canva also ensures your team has everything they need to use brand-ready and team-approved assets — there’s a Brand Kit feature where your team can establish and save templates, fonts, colors, images, logos, and more.

14. Click Up

Click Up is a cloud-based collaboration and project management tool that aims to bring all of your team’s work — docs, chat, goals, insights, and tasks — together in one place.

Within Click Up, your team can establish, refer to, collaborate on, and customize all aspects of every project including to-do lists, wikis and documents, emails, spreadsheets, events, reminders, goals, time-tracking, screenshots, recordings, resource management, and more.

Then, organize these project elements into one of 15 different views (e.g. list, box, mind map, Gantt) based on your team’s needs and preferences.

15. Funnel.io

Funnel.io is a data mapping and collection tool — it transforms collected data into automated marketing reports for your team to analyze, share, and build off of.

Once you connect all of your data sources — a process that Funnel.io makes easy with its over 500 marketing app integrations — it will be cleaned, organized, and mapped for you.

Then, decide where you want your finalized data and reports to go — whether in Google Data Studio, a data warehouse of your choosing, Google Sheets, etc. There, your entire team can identify insights and collaborate on how you’ll apply the information.

16. Domo

Domo for Marketing combines your marketing team’s data with data from sales, finance, and other departments within your company so you’re able to increase transparency, improve collaboration, and maximize ROI across the company.

Data visualizations and predictive analytics and alerts help marketers identify and pull out the most important insights from the data.

Set alerts for data that deviates and/or hits your goals to accurately track progress. Your team can then create real-time visualizations of data (without any code), and access and collaborate on those insights via any device.

17. Dropbox

Dropbox is a file hosting software that centralizes your team’s content and tools. It gives your team secure access to all of your files via one location. Your marketing team can collaborate with each other in Dropbox by storing, organizing, sharing, referencing, and downloading files.

Use the tool to manage team tasks, track file updates, and remain in contact with team members and even clients on projects. You can also deliver completed projects to higher-ups, other teams, or clients — whether they’re large files or a collection of files — with passwords, expiration dates, and delivery confirmation.

18. Wrike

Wrike is a project management software with features meant for increasing transparency and improving team-wide as well as cross-departmental collaboration. It allows you tocollaborate on work in real-time — no more communication across various channels such as email, meetings, and instant messages.

No matter the project, your team can use Wrike to make comments, edit work, set notifications, and build reports, and share insights with each other — all in real-time. You can also view your individual tasks, the responsibilities of other team members, as well as the status of specific projects to track progress.

19. Google Drive

Google Drive is secure, cloud-based storage software that allows you to store, share, and access files and folders — from Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more — via your mobile device, tablet, and computer.

Once you upload your content or files to Google Drive, you can create a shared folder for them to live in — this way, your team can access and collaborate on anything in the folder.

Edit and add comments to any of the files in the shared folder in real-time — if your team members aren’t already in the Doc, Slides, or Sheet, they’ll still receive an email notification about your edits or comments. You can also review the edit history on any of your files. And it’s alright if your files aren’t Google files — that’s because the platform supports over 100 file types including Microsoft Office.

20. Brightpod for Marketing

Brightpod is a tool that simplifies marketing collaboration and planning — it’s a project management and time tracking software meant for digital marketing and creative teams.

The tool provides clarity around your team’s projects, campaigns, tasks, workflows, and deadlines. Individual teams can collaborate with each other as well as reference and communicate about other projects that are going on across the team via a single dashboard.

All projects that are listed on your dashboard have milestones and tasks so everyone on the team knows what’s expected of them what progress on each task looks like.

Grow Better With Marketing Collaboration Software

Marketing collaboration software can help your team easily communicate, manage projects, prioritize tasks, organize content, and more. Start using one of these tools to increase team-wide productivity and teamwork.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Keeping your content up-to-date is challenging. The last thing you want is to have to chase down a number of specs scattered across the web for your latest NetLine campaign efforts. 

To simplify your life, as well as to keep everything straight for our own purposes, we’ve put together an always up-to-date collection of specifications for your NetLine campaigns.

Here’s what you need to keep your NetLine campaigns organized.

Everything You Need to Perfectly Fit Your NetLine Campaign

At the core, a first time (or even seasoned) customer really needs to consider three things when launching a campaign: 

• Your content
• Your filters
• And how you want to receive/act upon your leads

Regardless of your industry, goals, or budget, each campaign starts with the same thing: Your own content. 

Here’s what you need to remember when you’re creating or augmenting your campaign.

Adding and/or Editing a Content Offer

B2B Marketers, Publishers, and Agencies are able to use NetLine to amplify their content for a variety of use cases. With the information below, you’ll be able to prepare and launch in record time.

Supported File Types

NetLine’s platform supports a wide range of content formats, including some of the most common files shared across the web.

• .pdf
• .mp3
• .mp4
• .pptx
• .xlsx
• .zip

You can also use web-based links to add to your Content Library or select Alternative Formats to use live or on-demand content.

Bonus Info!

What’s the Largest File Size NetLine Can Support?

Naturally, this is a pretty important item to be aware of. Regardless of file format, NetLine’s platform can support a maximum file size of 40MB.

Describing Your Content

Making sure that your content has a compelling title and abstract give you the best chance to articulate what your materials discuss and why they’re relevant to your target audience. 

Here are some pieces to keep in mind when naming and describing your content.

Titles

As a rule of thumb, NetLine recommends titles containing 80 characters or less. Here’s what you’re going to want your titles to contain:

• Create an engaging title featuring important keywords speaking to your target audience. 
• Add a year or month reference within your title to establish timeliness. 
  • Example: “2021 Content Consumption and Demand Report for B2B Marketers”.
    

Abstract

Another rule of thumb here; we recommend that your abstract has between 700 to 1,200 characters. Nothing more, nothing less.

• Create an easy-to-digest summary of your content citing why the prospect will benefit from reading the content. Include a bulleted list of topics, stats, or other top insights from the content.

NetLine Cover Images

From the time we were children, we were taught never to judge a book by its cover. Well, we all know that, for better or worse, this is something that 100% happens. 

When it comes to giving your content a proper “face”, it’s essential to not only have something that’s relevant, it also needs to be compelling. While NetLine doesn’t specialize in creating killer cover designs, we do highly recommend that your awesome content has an equally awesome cover graphic (plus, our Campaign Success Kit can help you learn more about how to improve your designs based on all of our best practices).

Cover Image Specifications

Regardless of whether you’re uploading an eBook or a webinar, the specifications for our campaign’s cover images remain the same.

• 1200 pixels (width) x 1555 pixels (height)
• Maximum of 1MB
• .jpg, .jpeg, .png, or .gif.
  

Don’t have a cover image for your PDF? Not an issue. While we do recommend having one, you can skip this step and one will be automatically generated for you. 

You can also use our prebuilt Canva template to easily create a cover for your content.

Using NetLine Custom Questions

Adding questions to your campaign is not only a great way to enhance your lead gen efforts, it’s a way to learn more about your  ideal customer’s pain points, urgency, and/or intent

As you’re thinking of the best ways to leverage your custom questions, here are some tips and examples for getting the most out of this feature.

The 5 Types of Custom Questions

There are 5 specific types of custom questions that can be used in a NetLine campaign:

• Text Display Statement (Free)  
• Text Input  
• Single Checkbox Answer  
• Checkboxes—Select one or more answers  
• Dropdown List—Select only one answer  

Conditional Questions

While it’s not included in the list above, conditional questions are another type of custom question. 

A conditional question is a custom question that is tied to a previous question, meaning the rules around custom questions apply to any conditional questions you may opt to use in your campaigns.

How to Use Conditional Questions

Primary questions can have conditional questions (secondary questions) to answers selected from the list provided in the dropdown.

• Secondary questions must be created first so that you have questions to add to the answers selected in your primary question.
• To create these conditional questions, select a ‘Question Type’. Only ‘Text Input’, ‘Single Checkbox Answers’, ‘Checkboxes’, and ‘Dropdown Lists’ are allowed.
• After secondary questions have been created, you can create a primary question. Only ‘Dropdown Lists’ are allowed to have secondary questions.
• For each of the primary answer choices, you would like to ask a conditional question, select the appropriate secondary question from its column.

Additional Info on Custom Questions

Beyond knowing how to use custom questions, there are some additional pieces that all users need to be aware of.

• Campaign cost-per-lead will increase by $3 per custom question added.
• Adding custom questions could increase form abandonment rate.
• Custom questions cannot be used as filters; you will receive all leads despite the custom question answers.

How to Use NetLine’s Filters

NetLine’s filtering capacity is unmatched in the B2B industry. We’ve created an unrivaled audience database that gives context to which types of professionals are actively seeking content in more than 300 industries. 

While the core function of NetLine is as a B2B content syndication network, the core value we deliver to B2B marketers is based on our ability to filter audiences. All told, there are more than 35 million different ways for you to filter our audiences.

Thanks to the voluntary capture of first-party data, we’re able to filter by so many unique career variables because our greatest strength is understanding who is truly consuming your content. 

Let’s take a look at how many “parent” level options are available for each campaign.

Selecting Your Filters

In the image above, you’ll see there are six specific filter categories along with a corresponding dollar value. This means your campaign will add an additional $0-$6.25 premium for each filter chosen within a given filter category. (We have a great example of this in our Answering the FAQs About the NetLine Auction blog post.)

As a reminder, NetLine guarantees that you will only receive and pay for leads that request your content and match your selected filter criteria below. The cost-per-lead will update as filter values are selected.

Important Filter Recommendations and Reminders

While choosing filters isn’t a “requirement” within the Portal, we highly recommend that you do so. Without choosing filters, your campaign won’t reach your ideal audience and will reach your lead goal in record time—likely without being relevant or interested in your products or services. 

Here’s some other information we want to you be aware of before moving on from the Filters tab:

• Each additional filter value selected will increase the campaign cost-per-lead by $0.50 – $14. 
• Secondary level lead filters can be added by expanding the Job Area and Company Industry filters.
• NetLine automatically filters out: students, interns, consultants, and contractors as well as professionals working at companies of 1-4 employees at no cost. To receive these leads, select them in the dropdown menu.
• Country filtering includes individual US states and country selections.
• Filters can be updated at any time, monitor your campaign reports and submit updates to filters as needed.

How to Use NetLine’s Fulfillment Tools

Lead Fulfillment allows you to schedule lead files to be automatically emailed to you and up to ten other recipients. You can access the lead data of all fields that are collected directly in the NetLine Portal Leads tab.

Quick Facts on NetLine Fulfillment

• ‘Daily’ fulfillment is sent at 5 AM PST Monday – Friday.
• ‘Weekly’ fulfillment is sent Mondays at 5 AM PST.
• ‘Incremental’ fulfillment will deliver new leads you have not previously received.
• ‘Cumulative’ fulfillment will deliver all leads in every file.

• ‘Collected’ value is the mapped value to ensure your lead data is consistent with your internal naming conventions.
• ‘Display’ value is what the user will see when answering a question.

How to Setup or Edit Your Fulfillment Connector

While you’re always able to review your lead data within the Portal, NetLine also allows you to receive your leads via your preferred CRM or lead management tool. Whether you’re using HubSpot, Salesforce, ON24,  Marketo, or any other connector, NetLine makes real-time sync simple. 

Please note that by setting up email fulfillment you will be billed at the frequency your leads are delivered unless you are approved for monthly billing.

• Setup or edit the connector for this campaign and map the fields to your CRM. Once your setup is complete, click ‘Send Test Leads’ to confirm leads are mapped correctly to your CRM before submitting your campaign.
• Check out our Connector Resources to learn how to easily integrate the NetLine Portal with your CRM, MAP, or Webinar Platform.

Are We Missing Any NetLine Portal Specs?

This blog is a living, breathing document, so it’s entirely possible that we’re missing some of the latest and greatest information. But don’t worry! We’ll be sure to add updates as they happen and our Portal Support team is always aware of what you’ll need to optimize your campaigns. 

If you have any questions in the meantime, please reach out to [email protected] or use our Drift bot to chat with one of our experts.

Earlier this year, NetLine introduced the open lead gen marketplace—the first and only real-time bidding marketplace where Marketers can purchase B2B leads on their own terms. 

Beyond wanting to make sure that B2B Marketers from all sizes of organizations and sales cycles of varying lengths had access to the most engaged B2B first-party audience population on the web, we also want to provide our clients with every opportunity to get their campaigns to market as quickly as possible. 

This includes answering some of the frequently asked questions about Lead Gen, including knowing exactly how the Marketplace works, how it compares to other competitors, and any specifications your content needs in order to launch your campaign.

Why Did NetLine Create the Open Lead Gen Marketplace?

One of NetLine’s goals as a company is to Democratize Lead Gen for All. Our Chief Strategy Officer, David Fortino, said as much following the release of the product.

Historically, every B2B vendor in the landscape, including NetLine, had charged a fixed price to B2B Marketers based upon specific filters that aligned with their ideal customer persona values. Whether you were an enterprise technology company or a startup with multi-billion dollar valuation aspirations, you were charged the same exact rate for the same type of audience member as they registered for your content. 

Although auction-based pricing has never been used by B2B lead gen vendors prior to NetLine, (Marketers have been using similar features from Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and every other programmatic ad platform for more than a decade), for some reason, B2B lead gen had been stuck in this fixed market dynamic.

The Open Lead Gen Marketplace aims to change that and, technically, has changed it.

How Does the Open Lead Gen Marketplace Work?

Simply put, NetLine’s Open Lead Gen Marketplace allows B2B Marketers to manage their lead generation goals on their own terms in real-time. For the first time, a B2B Marketer can structure a content-centric lead gen campaign with their own pricing economics taking center stage. 

As our Chief Strategy Officer, David Fortino, said when we launched the Marketplace, this self-service model has, “made B2B lead acquisition more efficient, more cost-effective, and easier than it ever has been.” All of this aligns with NetLine’s goal of Democratizing Lead Gen for all.

Targeting

To best demonstrate how the Marketplace works is to walk you through a sample campaign build.

For this exercise, let’s say we’re targeting professionals in the US with a job function focused on those working in the Banking/Mortgage, Business, and Finance/Accounting fields. We’ll also focus on Manager and above (C-Level, Executive VP, Senior VP, VP, Senior Director, Director, Senior Manager, Manager) for the Job Level filters.

Now we can skip ahead to lead terms. You’ll notice here that there is a cool little optimization tip. In this case, it recognized that the campaign has excluded specific filters that would seemingly match the filters we’ve already selected. Let’s accept that recommendation and add it to our filters. 

With your filters chosen, you’ll now see a lead estimate generated for your campaign. At the same time, the performance forecast will also be dynamically generated based upon the viability of the campaign against the filters and known audience populations.

With all of these variables in place, the Suggested CPL is $21.25 CPL. This is where the Open Lead Gen Marketplace gets to flex its muscle: Through dynamic pricing and the CPL Override.

Let’s say, as the Marketer running this campaign, you know that the average selling point of your product is low compared to other products on the market and I need exceptionally high conversion rates in order to support more content-centric lead gen initiatives, the default CPL may not be viable. Historically, this would have been where a company would have walked from running a campaign with NetLine because the math just didn’t make sense. 

With dynamic pricing, you could drop your CPL to $15 within the CPL Override field seen below. While the performance forecast drops below the suggested score threshold, if this is within your budget, this represents a new opportunity for your business or your client.

 

Conversely, if your product or service was more expensive relative to some of the other options in the market or you simply wanted to command a greater share of voice, your CPL threshold will likely be greater. Just to show how much more impactful a higher CPL would be, we increased the Override to $35 and ended up with a performance forecast of 149.

The Marketplace is all about flexibility and allowing Marketers to control more of their own success on their terms. This is something that the market as a whole beyond Netline, has really conditioned today’s modern B2B Marketer to expect and we are happy to meet Marketers where they should be met.

How Does the Open Lead Gen Marketplace Compare to LinkedIn?

As you would expect, there are a number of differences between these two platforms. 

Let’s break down each platform to see how they compare and contrast.

Usage

At the core, each platform was developed to deliver leads to Marketers. NetLine is a B2B-exclusive platform while LinkedIn is open to businesses selling directly to consumers, as well. 

Beyond having a focus on generating leads, LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions platform allows Marketers to create campaigns with a variety of objectives, including brand awareness, video and website views, and the ability to promote career opportunities. The Open Lead Gen Marketplace is designed to do one thing and one thing only: Generate First-Party and Fully Permissioned B2B leads. 

Targeting

Targeting is one of the most scrutinized parts of any B2B Marketing platform.

LinkedIn’s Ad Targeting homepage describes its targeting capabilities as integrating your campaign’s, “targeting criteria to build your ideal persona.” NetLine’s Open Lead Gen Marketplace delivers audiences that allow you to target your ideal person. 

As we described in our answer to How Does the Open Lead Gen Marketplace Work?, B2B marketers can launch content-centric lead generation campaigns on a performance basis (CPL) within a self-service and thriving marketplace. In a matter of a few minutes, turn their content and attributable business outcomes beyond ToFu KPIs and traffic generation values. While LinkedIn’s platform might deliver your content to a similar audience, the Open Lead Gen Marketplace has a much greater likelihood of acquiring B2B leads from professionals who are truly interested in your product or service.

Data

For as much attention that LinkedIn gets within the B2B advertising ecosystem, when it comes down to extracting data from their audience, the advertiser is more than likely to receive a predominant supply of personal contact information. This tends to be a HUGE hurdle for Sales organizations to conceptually embrace as they tend to place very little value towards a free email address and/or personal phone number. 

When you consider for a moment that the vast majority of LinkedIn’s audience still views it as nothing more than an online resume, this harsh reality isn’t all that difficult to understand. 

Pricing

Consider the fact that LinkedIn never once attempts to absorb risk and exclusively relies on a mixture of CPC and/or CPM-oriented pricing models. Comically, they love charging you for all those meaningless vanity metrics like clicks and views all while masking that reality behind a message of lead generation. 

In the case of content syndication lead generation, you also receive earned media exposure throughout the duration of the campaign that you don’t pay for (in contrast to a CPM campaign). And in the case of CPL pricing, you are paying for leads which is directly aligned with your lead generation goals. (1+1=2).

“The simplest explanation is usually the best one.”

Effectiveness 

It’s common knowledge that display-oriented channels are rife with poor metrics, banner blocking, browser removal, and general distrust by audiences. Yet here we are: B2B Marketers continue tossing budgets against traffic-oriented initiatives and hoping for the best. This is especially true for those B2B marketers heavily invested in ABM platforms. Whether selecting LinkedIn’s CPC or CPM model pricing model, both have their drawbacks:

• Most CPM budgets will be spent on audiences that never react. Only 0.04%[1] of people that see a banner will click on it. Putting that another way, Marketers are knowingly wasting 99.96% of their budget.
• If using a CPC budget, the vast majority of the CPC budget will be allocated towards sending traffic to a landing page where a lead gen-oriented CTA and form will be presented. Sadly, only 2.35%[2] of the people that arrive at the lead gen landing page will convert into an actual lead. Putting that another way, Marketers are knowingly pouring 97.65% of their budget down the drain.

For these reasons, NetLine has always been focused on one specific outcome for B2B Marketers: High-quality, first-party leads exclusively controlled by a CPL model. By only paying for the leads that meet your exacting criteria, our clients keep the performance of our platform accountable, making it the most attractive option for B2B Content Marketers to generate leads.

While LinkedIn may have the advantage in its utility, the Open Lead Gen Marketplace has the edge when it comes to following through on its promise of delivering quality, first-party B2B leads.

Customer Perspective

Speaking of LinkedIn, we’d like to share Nathan Huet’s story with you and how he got to know NetLine and the power of a CPL-based model.

Formerly DocASAP’s Senior Marketing Manager, Nathan is a data-focused Marketer fixated on driving key objectives and results from his lead gen campaigns. As such, he used many different vendors to try and fulfill the demand needs for DocASAP. During Nathan’s time at DocASAP, NetLine outperformed LinkedIn.

“NetLine provides a tremendous amount of control over lead generation campaigns,” Nathan said, “far above what you could get from other DSPs or even LinkedIn Advertising. This, in addition to the lead knowledge you get, allows you to continually self-optimize your campaigns to only get the leads that meet your qualification criteria.”

“[In the past, we] had been relying heavily on LinkedIn Sponsored Content to generate marketing qualified leads from our content. I ran a small head-to-head test relying on our latest and greatest eBooks, and the results of the test were amazing. Netline drove a 60% lower cost per marketing qualified lead compared to LinkedIn.”

After presenting these results to his Director of Marketing, DocASAP re-allocated budget from LinkedIn Sponsored Content to NetLine, where they’ve been driving leads and further extending the reach of their content ever since.

More NetLine Auction FAQs

We’ll continue to add more FAQs to this blog as time goes along. If you have any questions in the meantime, please reach out to [email protected] or use our Drift bot to chat with one of our experts.

As marketers, we become experts in our target audiences. We know their typical demographic, what they like, the platforms they spend time on, and what they value in a product.

But unlike sales reps — who talk to and learn from their biggest prospects each day — we don’t always know tiny, but crucial, details about the brands or people we most want to sell to. So, how do we bridge the gap to better help our sales teams sell to high-priority clients? The answer to this question could be account-based marketing (or ABM).

While inbound marketing is vital for pulling general audiences and demographics to your site, service, or store, account-based marketing can help you to reel in prospects or qualified leads that are most likely to buy your product.

To show you just how beneficial account-based marketing can be, while also informing you of the challenges it comes with, here are 38 stats you should know in 2021.

37 Account-Based Marketing Stats to Know in 2021

General ABM Stats

• In 2021, 70% of marketers report using ABM, up 15% from 2020.
• 67% of brands leverage account-based marketing.
• “Researching Accounts” and “Identifying Target Contacts” are the top two tactics used by marketers within an ABM model.
• In 2019, the top five account-based tactics were sales development rep outreach, digital advertising, direct mail, marketing email, and events.
• Additionally, marketers strongly agree that personalized content (56%) and advanced data management (43%) are keys to ABM’s success.
• 57% of professionals say their companies target 1,000 accounts or under with ABM.

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• 90% of companies say the top goal of their ABM efforts is new business generation.
• Most organizations intentionally only pursue 38% of their target accounts at one time.
• By 2019, 55% of marketers rated their ABM strategy as “established” compared to just 43% in 2018.
• Primary tactics companies are using around ABM include identifying target contacts, creating custom content, researching accounts, and measuring results.
• Companies dedicated 29% of their marketing budgets to ABM in 2019.
• It’s estimated that ABM budgets saw an average increase of 41% in 2019.
• The most common metric marketers use to track ABM is revenue won.

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• Two other metrics marketers most commonly track to measure ABM efforts are the number of pipelines created and account engagement.
• In 2019, 7% of marketers reported a decrease in dedicated headcount for ABM teams, showing that this strategy is going mainstream and being implemented within regular processes.
• In 2019, 40% of the average marketing team was dedicated to ABM.
• 43% of companies implementing an ABM strategy are in the early stages.
• 57% of marketers say their organizations have implemented ABM for more than one year.

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Benefits and Challenges of ABM

• Marketing and sales teams that take an ABM approach together can be up to six percent more likely to exceed their revenue goals than teams less ABM-advanced.
• According to Rollworks, 87% of marketers say ABM outperforms other marketing activities.
• 62% of marketers say they can measure a positive impact since adopting ABM.
• 80% of marketers say ABM improves customer lifetime values, while 86% say it improves win rates.
• One in five accounts targeted through ABM becomes considered a qualified sales opportunity.
• Organizations with a strong Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) — which is similar to a buyer persona — achieve 68% higher account win rates.
• More than two-thirds (69%) of top-performing account-based organizations now have a dedicated account-based marketing leader.
• 70% of companies that started account-based initiatives in the first six months of 2019 have dedicated ABM leaders.
• Companies with mature ABM strategies credit 79% of opportunities and 73% of total revenue to ABM efforts.
• 42% of companies that missed their account-based objectives don’t have dedicated leadership.
• The most common challenge with ABM is delivering a personalized experience.
• The top three challenges of implementing ABM are delivering a personalized customer experience, knowing how to choose target accounts, and knowing what content to use.

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ABM Technology

• By 2021, over half of all sales phone calls will be analyzed by software.
• The conversational intelligence market was estimated to grow by 3x in 2019.
• Voice assistants will account for at least half of automated data entry by mid-2020.
• An estimated 55% of sales data entry was eliminated by automation by 2020.

Smarketing Benefits and Challenges

• The most common measurement of success for content marketing programs is Total Sales.
• 85% of marketers with an SLA think their marketing strategy is effective.
• Only 7% of salespeople said the leads they received from marketing were very high quality.
• Only 28% of salespeople said marketing was their best source of leads.

Create an Effective ABM Strategy

As a marketer, it’s important to know what makes ABM techniques successful and how they differ from other target audience marketing tactics.

Additionally, you’ll want to learn about the companies you’re interested in marketing to, similar to how you learn about a target audience. For example, before creating an ABM campaign, you’ll want to learn about the pain points of companies in your industry, company missions, and what their top decision-makers value in a product or service.

Once you discover valuable data about the accounts you’d like to market to and feel ready to create a campaign, check out our account strategy templates below.

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

Love learning about business and how some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs and companies are operating? Business podcasts serve as a great way to stay informed (and inspired) on the happenings.

All you need is your smartphone and a pair of headphones to tune in to everything from one-on-one interviews with today’s top leaders to recaps of the day’s most pressing business news.

So whether you’re a seasoned executive looking for something to listen to during your commute or just someone who’s always itching to learn something new, this list of the best business podcasts is for you. From Kai Ryssdals’ Marketplace to Tim Ferriss’ self-titled collection of wisdom, the following seven business podcasts will teach how to strategize, lead, and grow your business. 

12 Best Business Podcasts

1. iDigress Podcast

Troy Sandidge, host of iDigress Podcast, has a track record of generating over $100M for various business ventures. He’ll use his experience to expertly guide you through the world of marketing, moving you away from confusion and towards the techniques and tools that will help you forge a path to business success. iDigress is a great fit for all marketers seeking across the board advice, from how to identify a business direction to finding clarity in your messaging. 

Episodes are 30 minutes or less, making it a great snackable podcast for on-the-go listening. 

 

2. Radical Candor

Radical Candor is all about how to succeed at work without sacrificing your humanity and happiness. Amy Sandler hosts discussions about why it’s important to have honest communication when working (with yourself, management, and coworkers), and how honesty will help you build relationships that will lift you up and help you succeed. 

Topics discussed on the podcast include how to have candid conversations at work, how managers and business leaders can create a culture of guidance and feedback, and how to stand up for yourself in the workplace. 

3. Duct Tape Marketing Podcast

Duct Tape Marketing Podcast features interviews with expert authors and thought leaders who share actionable business marketing tips and resources. As a listener, you’ll learn about various topics like how to maintain happiness at work and best-practices for retaining customers. Fast Company named this podcast “One of the Best Podcasts for Business-Savvy Listeners.”

 

4. The Goal Digger Podcast

Jenna Kutcher, host of The Goal Digger Podcast, is an experienced educator and digital marketer. Described as a live workshop, the show helps businesspeople learn first-hand about how to define their own personal success and chase after their dreams. 

Topics covered include productivity hacks, creating business pitches, improving your website’s SEO, social media tips, and how to build the job of your dreams. Kutcher is often joined by notable guests and industry experts, like entrepreneur Lori Harder.

 

5. CodePen Radio

CodePen is an online tool for web developers to test HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code snippets. Hosted by CodePen employees, CodePen Radio contains personal stories about successes and failures they’ve come across when scaling their company. It’s great for professionals in the software industry, as you’ll gain valuable insight into everything involved in starting and maintaining a web software business. 

 

6. Choose Inclusion

Three hosts, Mike Hess, Nina Baliga, and UB Ciminieri, have authentic and honest conversations about the different ways diversity, equity, and inclusion impact businesses. It’s a great listen for all professionals as they discuss everything from developing a DEI program at your own business to being an active participant in workplace events. 

 

7. The MarTech Podcast

The MarTech Podcast, hosted by Benjamin Shapiro, shares the stories of marketers and the different ways they use technology to achieve growth and business success. Each episode features a different business leader and marketing professional, making it suitable for listeners in all industries. All guests provide insight into MarTech best practices through real-life experiences and recommend tools and tips for success. 

 

8. Brown Ambition

Brown Ambition Podcast features financial advice from two professional finance reporters, Mandi Woodruff-Santos and Tiffany Aliche. Listeners can leverage the host’s experience and learn how to make smart career choices that contribute to financial success personally and in business. 

The hosts also tackle issues commonly faced by communities of color, acting as a resource for groups often left out of financial wellness conversations. They also have entire Q&A episodes dedicated to answering listener questions, helpful for those with a unique situation they want advice about. 

 

9. Happiness At Work

Happiness At Work is an interview-based podcast featuring authors, entrepreneurs, coaches, and leading industry experts that discuss, well, happiness at work. 

It is great for business professionals looking to create a better work-life balance or those simply looking to maintain their happiness levels on the job. As a listener, you’ll learn actionable tips for creating a positive and uplifting workplace culture and the benefits it brings to the workplace. The best summary of the show comes from the creators themselves — “We believe that happiness at work should be the ‘norm’ and not the exception.”

 

10. Inclusion Works

Inclusion Works focuses on discussing the importance of creating a workplace culture that is inclusive to all communities. Hosts speak to seasoned DEI business professionals, like Jiquanda Nelson and Margot Slattery, who provide actionable advice on DEI strategies that work and help businesses thrive. 

 

11. HBR IdeaCast

HBR IdeaCast is a weekly podcast that features notable leaders in business and business management. Rotating hosts give listeners a different experience, and topics range from workplace innovation and productivity to creating a better work-life balance to managing employees. Running between 20 and 30 minutes, episodes are snackable and easy to consume on-the-go, or during work breaks where you’re looking to decompress. 

 

12. TED Business

TED Business is a great podcast for high-quality snackable business content. Host Modupe Akinola talks listeners through getting a promotion, setting realistic goals, and forming positive workplace relationships. You’ll leave with actionable tips for forging your path, as, at the end of every show, Akinola gives a mini-lesson on how to apply the tips discussed within the episode. 

Ready to Listen?

Select the show that best fits your needs, and start listening from wherever you are, whenever you want.

I’d venture to guess you get tons of emails in your inbox every day.

From coupons to daily deal sites, from newsletters to your mother wanting to know when you plan to visit — it’s a lot to sift through, never mind actually open. The average click-to-open rate is a slim 14.1%, so you’re not the only one.

What does it take for someone to actually open an email? Often, it’s the subject line. After all, it’s your very first impression of the email. From that first impression, you’ll do your best to judge the content inside.

So what makes a good email subject line? It’s a message that conveys urgency, curiosity, personalization, and so much more. But it’s up to you to make that distinction of which fits best in your business offer and appeals to your audience.

Let’s take a look at a few examples that, old or new, we’re crazy about — plus what makes them so great. We have 100 awesome subject lines to offer you already, but read on for 50 more that we found eye-catching.

(While you’re at it, check out our Out-of-Office Email Generator to make your email address even more delightful to your contacts.)

Subject Lines for Retargeting

1. “We Saw You Checking Us Out 😏”

Sender: DollsKill

A clothing brand like DollsKill uses cookies to monitor what its customers have been eyeing. By sending an email subject line reminding them of items they admired can reel customers right back into their next purchase. The statement itself has a playful and conversational tone that comes off flirty, a reflection of its company branding.

The emoji also adds more fun and temptation to the message — reiterating that “you know you want to” feeling regarding items they have already clicked on before.

2. “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring”

Sender: Warby Parker

Not too long ago, a HubSpot alum received this email two weeks before he needed to renew his prescription — talk about great timing. And when your eye prescription is expiring, it happens to be an excellent time to upgrade your glasses. By sending an email at the right time, Warby Parker increased its chances of this email getting opened.

But timing isn’t the sole reason we included this example. This subject line is brilliant because it appeared at the right time and with the right tone. Using conversational words like “uh-oh,” keeping the subject line sentence case, and leaving out the period in the end, the subject line comes across as helpful and friendly — not as a company trying to upsell you.

3. “The timer’s going off on your cart!”

Sender: King Arthur Flour

Similar to Warby Parker, this subject line makes use of urgency. If I don’t take action on my King Arthur Flour shopping cart — like actually buying the items — it will be cleared, and I’ll have to start all over again.

Okay, so maybe this is a low-risk scenario. But when it comes to my baking goods, I personally don’t like to take any chance of forgetting what I was going to buy. That’s where the personalization aspect of this subject line comes in: King Arthur Flour — especially its online shop — tends to attract both professional and home bakers who take all things culinary a bit more seriously than, say, someone who only buys flour on occasion from the supermarket. And wouldn’t you know? Those are the same bakers who probably don’t want to spend time building their shopping carts from scratch.

The moral of the story: Know your audience when you’re writing email subject lines. Is there something that they take seriously more than others? If so, incorporate that into your copy.

4. “What Did You Think? Write a Review.”

Sender: REI

I received an email with this subject line about a week after buying a portable stove at REI. I had just gotten back from a camping trip, too. It was perfect timing for them to ask me what I thought of it.

Companies ask satisfied customers to write reviews of their business all the time. But when you specifically send these requests to the people who just purchased something from you, you’re being smart with your mailing list and reaching recipients whose interest is still warm.

Another reason this subject line works? It’s not expecting a good review. REI is genuinely asking me what I thought of the stove I bought. Maybe I hated it (though I didn’t). The company just wanted me to speak up.

5. “A Sneak Peek for VIPs Only.”

Sender: Serena & Lily

Loyal subscribers can preview clothing collections via email, as seen here with Serena & Lily. By offering a “sneak peek”, customers know they have more exclusive access and will want to click open the email to see what they want before the general public can see it.

This concept keeps the customer relationship alive and coming back for more if the email marketing is done right.

Straightforward Email Subject Lines

6. “👗 Free (Cool!) Clothes Alert 👖”

Sender: Clover

First of all, we have a not-so-secret love for emojis in email subject lines. Personally, I’m partial to turquoise — so when I see an email implying that I might somehow be able to obtain free turquoise clothes, chances are, I’m clicking.

That’s part of what makes this subject line work. It draws the recipients’ eye by using visual content (emojis), and it hints at an offer of something free. That hint is an incentive to open the email because there’s something to gain inside.

7. “🐶 Want a Custom Emoji of Tullamore & 6 Months FREE Walks? Book a Walk Today for Your Chance to Win!”

Sender: Wag!

For reference, Tullamore is the name of my colleague Amanda Zantal-Wiener‘s dog. And the subject line she received, written above, is another winning example of perfect emoji placement — especially when it’s a cute dog.

Here’s a great example of how personalization goes beyond the email recipient’s name. Wag!, an on-demand dog-walking app, includes the names of its customers’ pets in a portion of its email subject lines. But this type of personalization is more than just a first-name basis. If there’s anything my colleague Amanda loves more than free stuff and baking goods, it’s her pup. Wag! knows that, and by mentioning Tullamore by name in the subject line — in tandem with an offer, no less — it caught her attention and piqued her interest.

8. “Best of Groupon: The Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)”

Sender: Groupon

It’s hard to be funny in your marketing, but Groupon’s one of those brands that seems to nail it again and again. After all, who can forget this classic unsubscribe video?

This subject line is no exception. The quip, “(Unlike Our Nephew Steve),” actually had us

laughing out loud. Why? It’s completely unexpected. The first part of the subject line looks like a typical subject line you’d get from Groupon, highlighting a new deal. The parenthetical content? Not so much — making this one a delightful gem to find in your inbox.

9. “Rock the color of the year”

Sender: Etsy

In six words, Etsy was able to promote a product solely by its color, and inform you that there is apparently a “color of the year.” The email is truly too intriguing not to open.

Etsy is an e-commerce website for user-created marketplaces, and the reason we were impressed by its subject line was because of the way it uses mystery to drive value into a suite of products. This email isn’t an invitation to buy clothing or jewelry; it’s an invitation to find out what the color of the year is.

10. “How to live at home 24/7”

Sender: Feather

If you’re anything like me, the COVID-19 pandemic had you wearing PJs from day to night, only changing when you had Zoom meetings at work. As a social distancing precaution, you likely used delivery services instead of going out and getting food on your own — which means that you were effectively living at home 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

This email from Feather, a furniture rental store, perfectly encapsulates a frustration many of us faced: How do you live at home 24/7 without feeling like you’re going crazy? With this subject line, Feather promises to help you find a solution by using furniture that makes it easier to stay at home for extended periods.

Try it: Use a “How To” subject line to tell recipients what they can achieve with your products. Then, in your email, include links to the products that will help them achieve those goals.

11. “Take $20 off your order of $25 or more”

Sender: UberEats

You don’t always have to make your email subject line flashy. In this case with UberEats, just the offer alone is good enough to make any hungry customer click.

Your product offering, if it’s appealing, can speak for itself in your subject line. Customers know they can take advantage of the opportunity in the body of the email, as I will for dinner tonight.

12. “Where to Drink Beer Right Now”

Sender: Eater Boston

Okay, you caught me: I’m a beer lover. But that’s not what hooked me here. The subject line arrived in my inbox just at the time I needed it: at 6:45 on a Wednesday evening. Absolutely. Genius.

Think about it: You’re just over hump day and want to decompress with a few coworkers after work. Right as you’re about to head out, you get a notification on your phone that says, “Where to Drink Beer Right Now.” Perfect timing makes this subject line something you can’t help but click on.

For your own emails, think about how timing will affect how people perceive your emails. Even if you send an email in an off-peak hour, you could get higher engagement — if you have the right subject line.

13. “1,750 points for you. Valentine’s flowers & more for them.”

Sender: JetBlue

It’s such a specific number … 1,750 … of course you’re going to open this.

Coming from an airline, an offering of “points” might as well be gold to someone who likes to travel. And, if that recipient also has a significant other, sending this email leading up to Valentine’s Day is a home run.

The best part about the subject line above is how particular JetBlue was about the number of points available. Instead of, say, “20% your next return flight of 1,000 miles or more,” this subject line gives it to you straight: 1,750 points, and all you have to do is buy flowers for your loved one. You’re already wondering how far you can fly with 1,750 points, I can tell.

14. “Free Oversized V-Neck.”

Sender: Los Angeles Apparel

I don’t know about you, but free is my favorite price when it comes to apparel. This brand has a simplistic and straightforward approach to its subject line by letting customers know what they can get in their next order.

And by keeping it short, it makes the subject line even more effective because the only other context the customer can see — is when they click open the email.

15. “Here’s that discount you wanted”

Sender: LAMODA

This subject line almost feels like it’s reading my mind. When I scroll through my endless emails, considering the businesses I want to buy from, I’m waiting for a discount or sale to be announced.

It’s straightforward and knows exactly what its customers want — key to getting clicks.

16. “3 ways to improve your Pins”

Sender: Pinterest

For those who love to curate their social feed, Pinterest is one of the best places to do it. For those trying to grow their following, they’re probably looking for all the advice they can get from the website itself.

Providing a numeric list of strategies to use in the ever-changing algorithm, it can prove useful to click on Pinterest’s emails periodically. This uncomplicated messaging in a subject line presents users with exactly what they’re looking for, right in their inbox.

Attention-Grabbing Email Subject Lines

17. “*Don’t Open This Email*”

Sender: Manicube

Ever been told to not do something? Being asked to refrain from something can actually have the opposite effect — you now want to do that thing even more.

That’s the strategy behind Manicube’s subject line. It’s a simple but effective way to make people curious enough to open your email. (Just be sure that the contents of your email have something worthy of that subject line.)

18. “Important Weather Advisory”

Sender: RCN

Any time we see a weather-related alert, our ears perk up. In RCN’s case, it isn’t just a way to lure recipients into opening an email. The subject line above is RCN’s way of updating its customers to potential power outages and driving attention to the brand that provides them with cable and Wi-Fi — even during inclement weather.

If you can hitch your email marketing campaign to an event you know people pay attention to, and have something helpful to offer in response, you’ll see your email open rate soar.

19. “What Can You Afford?”

Sender: Zillow

Imagine getting this subject line in your inbox from a website showing apartments for rent. It’s both exciting and encouraging (“Here are a bunch of apartments right in your budget. Yay!”), but also kind of competitive — pitting your cash against what the market offers. Would you click it? I certainly would.

Personalizing emails to cater to your audience’s emotions — for which there’s a broad spectrum when it comes to real estate — is key to getting people to open your emails. You don’t have to be a psychologist to know how to take advantage of them, either. In addition to principles like urgency, crafting an email subject line that implies scarcity is another great way to increase your conversion rates.

20. “As You Wish”

Sender: UncommonGoods

When writing emails, you should also think about the recognizable names and references that make people tick. For example, take this subject line from UncommonGoods forwarded to us from HubSpot’s Content Director, Corey Wainwright, who happens to be a die-hard fan of The Princess Bride. Apparently, “As You Wish” is a pretty big reference to that movie, so when she saw this subject line in her inbox, she just HAD to click.

Even though she knew the email was part of a larger-scale send, it almost seemed like it was tailored for her personally — after all, why else would it include a reference to Princess Bride in the title?

UncommonGoods knows its buyer persona like the back of its metaphorical hand. While it may not send emails to individual subscribers with references to their favorite movies in the title, it does have a general understanding of its subscribers and their interests.

21. “Not Cool, Guys”

Sender: BuzzFeed

We love BuzzFeed. If nothing else, its staff knows how to write great copy — and that sentiment includes an exceptional email marketing team. Many of my colleagues have signed up for BuzzFeed’s daily emails, and pretty much any day of the week, itwins for best subject line in their inboxes.

While there are a few of BuzzFeed’s subject lines here and there that aren’t anything to write home about, it’s the combination of subject lines and the preview text that is golden. They’re friendly, conversational, and, above all, snarky.

Here’s the text that followed the subject line above: “Okay, WHO left the passive-aggressive sticky note on my fridge. Honestly, who acts like this?” That conversational tone and snark pull us in over and over again — and it’s the preview text that completes the experience for me.

We’re not all equipped to be snarky writers, but most email platforms have the preview text easily available to edit. How can you use that little extra space to delight your customers (oh, and probably improve your email metrics)? Maybe you could use the subject line as a question, and the preview text area as the answer. Or maybe it’s a dialogue: The subject line is one person, and the preview text is another.

You get the idea. By using that space, you have more opportunities to attract new subscribers.

22. “DO NOT Commit These Instagram Atrocities”

Sender: Thrillist

No matter how humble people are, most don’t like to do things wrong … so why not play on that natural human tendency in an email subject line, especially if you’re in the business of helping clients (or prospective clients) succeed? Thrillist certainly does in the subject line above, and it makes the language even more vibrant by using do not — a great takeaway for B2B marketers.

Instead of using the typical contraction “don’t,” Thrillist spells it out and adds the all-caps for effect. That way, you’ll notice the subject line in your inbox, and then find it harder to resist clicking on it.

Think about how going negative in your marketing might be a good thing. For example, many of us have anxiety about looking silly and stupid, so figure out how you can play to those emotions in subject lines. Of course, it’s important to back up that subject line with encouraging, helpful content, so that you’re not just ranting at people all day.

Getting negative can get your subscribers’ attention — this subject line certainly caught mine.

23. “Everything you wanted to know about email copy but were too afraid to ask”

Sender: Copy Hackers

Here’s another great example of leveraging your audience’s full plate to your email marketing advantage. Who hasn’t refrained from asking a question out of fear of looking silly or out of the loop? Excuse me while I sheepishly raise my hand.

” … but were too afraid to ask” is one of those phrases that, to us, probably won’t go out of style for a long time. People seek insights from Copy Hackers — an organization dedicated to helping marketers and other professionals write better copy, as the name suggests — because, well, they have questions. They want to improve. And when that audience is too afraid to ask those questions, here’s Copy Hackers, ready to come to the rescue with answers.

What does your audience want to know, but might be too embarrassed to ask? Use that information to craft your content — including your email subject lines.

24. “Abra-cord-abra! Yeah, we said it.”

Sender: Quircky

This punny email subject line from Quirky is plain fun. We’re suckers for puns in the right situation.

What we like most about it is the second part: “Yeah, we said it.” The pun in the beginning is great and all — it refers to a new invention featured on Quirky’s site to help everyday consumers detangle their numerous plugs and cords — but the second sentence is conversational and self-referential. That’s exactly what many of us would say after making a really cheesy joke in real life.

Many brands could stand to be more conversational and goofy in their emails. While it may not be appropriate to go as far as Quirky’s subject line, being goofy might just be the way to delight your email recipients.

25. “🔥 Hot freebie alert! 15 free gifts, you pick 5.”

Sender: Shutterfly

Shutterfly, a company that allows you to print your photos on interesting products or other frames, gets visual with its subject lines by occasionally using an emoji. Due to the company’s nature and creative audience, the fire emoji in this subject line draws the eye without feeling desperate.

The email subject line also pops because it has a lot of buzzwords, including “hot,” “freebie,” “gifts,” and “alert.” In just one line, it can give the potential reader a good reason to open it, especially if they love using Shutterfly.

The content inside the email aligns perfectly with the subject line by announcing a freebie promotion. This strong alignment between the subject line and message keeps people from skimming the email.

26. “From chaos to calm ✨🏡”

Sender: Open Spaces

If you’ve ever had a cluttered home, you know how chaotic it can feel. Open Spaces takes advantage of that by suggesting how you’ll feel after you use the company’s products.

Its emoji choices also indicate how your home will look and feel: Sparkling clean. I’m not a huge fan of cleaning, but Open Spaces promises to make it easy in the simplicity of their subject line. The brand also proves that it knows its target customer exceedingly well — if you want to create “open spaces,” you likely won’t tolerate chaos in your home.

In the same way, try to allude to the feelings that your target customers want to feel, as well as their goals and inner desires. You can also let emojis speak for you. For instance, if Open Spaces had used the subject line “From chaos to calm: Get a sparkling clean home,” the focus would be off of the “from chaos to calm” piece, which is what readers most care about.

27. “Welcome Gift! Offer Inside 👀…”

Sender: EyeBuyDirect

When you subscribe to a business you’re new to, you’d hope you can get a perk before your first purchase. EyeBuyDirect makes its statement in a subject line that makes the prospect feel like subscribing was a good choice, and strikes curiosity.

Without specifying what the offer is, the customer has no choice but to click and see what they can take advantage of.

Now that we’ve covered the best subject lines in general, let’s dive into the best newsletter subject lines.

28. “Colorful things for colorful homes”

Sender: Baggu

I can’t speak for you but I’m a sucker for all things bright in color. And what makes this an attention-grabbing email subject line is that this brand is known for making reusable bags (hence the name).

This email makes its customers imagine a new type of product they could be revealing, and when I clicked, I was surprised to see all new items like towels, bedsheets and more.

Newsletter Subject Lines

Newsletter subject lines must work harder to get the recipient’s attention because they allude to information only. In contrast, a subject line offering a discount will automatically make the recipient want to click.

Newsletter subject lines must hook the reader and get them to click. The examples below do an excellent job at it.

29. “China Falls, Sleepy Unicorns, And The Deals Aren’t Bigger In Texas”

Sender: Crunchbase

The Crunchbase Insights email has an interesting way of wrapping details about all the stories it will present you in one subject line. This is eye-catching because it seems like an odd mashup of words, but gets to the point about three complicated stories at the same time.

When it comes to email, Crunchbase is known for its longer, text-based emails. They all read like a more conversational letter to the email recipient and casually discuss and hyperlink Crunchbase’s top stories. While the subject lines feel interesting and eye-catching, the emails often report deeper business news that cut right to the chase.

This subject line shows how you can be punchy, but also fun and creative when trying to pull in your audience.

30. “Watch Out for This Amazon Phishing Scam.”

Sender: WIRED

In this subject line, WIRED includes Amazon, a large company name. Including the name of a big brand can be a great way to boost open rates because people who enjoy or use products from big brands might click into a subject line that discusses them.

Additionally, when a brand name is combined with negative words like “phishing” or “scam,” people might open the email much more urgently so they can learn how to avoid running into the issue being discussed.

WIRED also lists the story last in its newsletter. This is an interesting way to get your readers to scroll through the entire email and see the other stories before they get to the story that led them to click into it.

31. “Buffer has been hacked — here is what’s going on”

Sender: Buffer

Next is a subject line from Buffer. A few years ago, Buffer got hacked — every tech company’s worst nightmare. But Buffer handled it exceptionally well, especially on the email front.

What we admire about the subject line is that it’s concise and direct. In a crisis, it’s better to steer clear of puns, snarky comments, and emojis. People want to see that you’re taking the situation seriously and be reassured that the world isn’t ending.

Because of the way the subject line is worded and formatted, you feel like Buffer is calm and collected about the issue, and is considering your personal safety. That’s pretty hard to do in just a few words.

32. “Google sees smartphone heroics in Oreo. It’s The Daily Crunch.”

Sender: TechCrunch

If you’re subscribed to a newsletter from a publication like TechCrunch, chances are, you signed up because you’re either interested in or want to learn more about technology. To reflect that, the media outlet crafts its daily email roundups (“The Daily Crunch”) with a subject line that reflects one of the latest, most compelling news items in the industry.

Here’s the thing: Staying on the cutting edge is hard, especially with something that evolves as quickly as technology. So, by writing email subject lines that reflect something recent and relevant, TechCrunch is signaling to email recipients that opening the message will help them stay informed and up-to-date on the latest industry news.

Think about the things that your audience struggles to keep up with — then, craft an email roundup and matching subject line that reflects the latest news in that category.

33. “Black Friday shoppers are the worst customers”

Sender: LinkedIn

This subject line is likely the boldest of the Black Friday emails you’d see in your inbox in the days before Thanksgiving. Yes, it’s a bit judgmental, but it actually came in a LinkedIn Pulse newsletter, promoting an article one of its users wrote on the topic of holiday marketing.

And there’s no doubt the title resonates with how some people feel during the most hectic holiday shopping day of the year.

LinkedIn has nothing to sell on Black Friday, so the subject line above does little harm to its business. Nonetheless, commenting on a popular cultural observation can show your confidence and help you relate to your community.

34. “New recipe alert 🚨”

Sender: Hello Fresh

While Hello Fresh is a food service that delivers meal packages to its customers, it also provides customers with home kitchen tips and tricks in email newsletters. These extra resources encourage home cooks to try new things, and being offered new recipe ideas is an exciting opportunity.

Using an emoji here is simple and draws the customer’s attention, while the offer itself can only be viewed in full when clicked — an easy way to draw in more aspiring home cooks.

35. “Tips to increase remote collaboration”

Sender: Asana

This simple subject line from Asana, a project management platform, gets straight to the point: If you open the email, you’ll find remote work tips and beyond. The subject line also effectively capitalizes on an increasingly common trend that rose during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Its simplicity and trendiness ensure that you’ll want to open the email.

And chances are that if you’re using Asana, you’re likely using it to collaborate with colleagues whom you might not see every day, even if you’re not fully remote. Asana effectively appeals to a wide range of potential users and buyers with this subject line.

36. “I got Botox — & THIS is what it looked like”

Sender: Refinery29

Okay, so maybe your business doesn’t involve Botox. But still — are you intrigued? I am, and despite my better judgment, I clicked.

That’s the power of leading your emails with a story: It sparks curiosity, which works in two ways. There are times when our natural curiosity can pique our interest without context, such as the example above. But in this case, the subject line implies that there’s an intriguing story ahead. Why the heck did this person get Botox? And what did it look like? As the saying goes, “Inquiring minds want to know.”

Think of the stories behind your industry, then find ways to include them in email newsletters and frame them within the subject line in a way that piques your recipients’ collective curiosity.

37. “Improve Your Website from Concept to Code 💻”

Sender: Namecheap

Want people to open your newsletter? Tell them how they’ll benefit straight away like in this newsletter subject line by Namecheap. It used this subject line for Inspire, its monthly newsletter, and like in the WIRED example, it left the subject line story last so users would scroll through the entire email.

Like many examples on this list, it uses an emoji to draw the eye and keeps the tone of the conversation more casual and fun. In contrast, the subject line “Improve Your Website from Concept to Code” feels much more wooden and unfriendly.

38. “The best options for grocery delivery”

Sender: Wirecutter

Simple, right? But effective. This newsletter’s subject line from Wirecutter gets straight to the point and solves one of the biggest challenges we faced during the pandemic: How to get groceries while social distancing. If you’d never used grocery delivery services up until that point, you’d likely be at a loss for what services to use.

Wirecutter realizes that and immediately invites you to open the email with a simple and actionable subject like.

39. “Mark your calendar for these key dates!”

Sender: Omaze

Omaze is known for raising money for charities across the globe in the form of raffling once-in-a-lifetime opportunities with each donation. Contributors love to learn more about the charities at hand, and the sweet prizes they could win along with them on a monthly basis.

By announcing its upcoming opportunities, it can help people choose which causes they’ll want to give toward, and be excited to contribute when the time comes.

40. “‘I didn’t realize architecture was so dangerous’”

Sender: Dezeen

Dezeen is an architecture and design publication whose newsletter subject lines always feature a comment from a user. Only one comment is chosen every week.

This approach is brilliant for various reasons: 1) It makes you wonder why the user made that comment and will make you click through. 2) It makes you want to comment on the publication’s posts to potentially get featured. And 3) It takes the work out of writing a subject line. Indeed, Dezeen doesn’t have to write a subject line at all, because its readers do it for them.

Here are a few comments that have been featured of late:

• “Absolute garbage”
• “The cardboard box aesthetic”
• “Meet The Flintstones”
• “Does it come with a smoke machine?”

If you have a publication that’s often commented upon, consider using one of the comments as your subject line.

HubSpot Email Marketers’ Favorite Subject Lines

Above are some of the best subject lines we’ve gathered, but we asked both former and current marketers on our team to give some additional favorites and what makes them so good:

41. “Show them what you’re made of”

Sender: Canva

“Using empowering, positive, and defiant language to leverage the use of Canva tools — love it.”

— Lucy Reddan

42. “Drooling over email designs 🤤”

Sender: Really Good Emails

“Emojis always catch my eye amongst the 100+ emails I receive daily. As an email geek myself, this subject line matched my interests and piqued my curiosity.”

— Ashley Riordan

43. “Can you help me name this dance, [First Name]?”

Sender: Marie Forleo

“It’s personalized and piques my interest because A) I’m being asked for input and B) I want to be in the know about this mysterious dance (#fomo).”

— Christina Perricone

44. “Who you gonna call?”

“If you can make a pun, include a social reference, or even just a familiar phrase, it’ll catch people’s attention.”

— Clint Fontanella

45. “Shoes You Can Wear All Damn Day”

Sender: Everlane

“Swearing is controversial in email marketing, but I think it worked really well in this email from Everlane. Not only was it a clever and concise way to introduce their new line of footwear called ‘The Day Collection,’ but it also aligned with the brand voice they use in other emails and across their website.”

— Anna Fitzgerald

46. “You were on point last week 🎯”

Sender: Grammarly

“Grammarly is so good about rewarding you and making you feel good about your writing.”

— Jordan Pritikin

47. “Hmm…No writing activity last week?”

Sender: Grammarly

“If or when you turn their plugin off, Grammarly’s retention strategy is great. They reach out with subject lines like these that immediately drive me to click through and turn their plugin back on. Very well done.”

— Jordan Pritikin

48. “‘Not intended for swimming’”

Sender: Dezeen

“I’m a sucker for architecture, and Dezeen’s weekly newsletter tells me the top new projects that come up, as well as their reader’s responses to them. My question is: What’s not intended for swimming? And if it’s not intended for swimming, why did the architect build it? Boom, you’ve got my interest. And my click.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

49. “Our #1 most asked question…”

Sender: Supergoop

“What an easy way to get me to click — by trailing off and leaving the rest of the content in the email. Nicely done, Supergoop.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

50. “[First Name]! You’re One of HubSpot’s Top Blog Readers 🎉”

Sender: HubSpot

“No one actually likes taking feedback surveys. Not unless you earn money, and not many of them offer that. When I received the above email from our very own HubSpot blog, I clicked straight through, and voila! There it was: A feedback request. Turns out, flattery does work.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

The Best Email Subject Lines are Simple and On-Brand

When writing subject lines for your emails, keep it engaging, simple, and on-brand. Don’t forget to appeal to the emotions and needs of your target buyers, and most importantly, have fun — include emojis, puns, or references to pop culture. Your emails will get opened, guaranteed.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s been several months since Apple’s iOS 14 update went into effect and the dust has begun to settle. One of the main questions has been, “How are advertisers handling the mobile tracking changes?”

Earlier this year, we talked about how this change could impact advertisers, but now, we want to follow up. Have any new strategies evolved? What have advertisers been doing to reach their target audiences?

In this post, we’ll discuss how advertisers have navigated the iOS 14 mobile tracking changes and give you a few tips on how to have continued success with social media and online advertising.

Wait, what happened with the iOS 14 update?

To summarize, at the beginning of 2021 Apple released a new update that would impact the way that advertisers reach their audience. With the iOS 14 update users needed to opt-in, or give permission, to an app to track their activity outside of the platform.

So, why were advertisers and marketers concerned? Well, a lot of ad campaigns target audiences based on their behavior online. If an app can’t track that information, ads will become less personalized, and in turn, could be less effective.

The concern for marketers was that they wouldn’t be able to deliver their ads to people based on certain activities, like if they’d visited their website, for example. This meant that ads would likely have smaller audience sizes and less accurate reporting.

Additionally, with this update advertisers are only allowed to use up to eight conversion events from a single website domain. This means if you run a campaign and track several different conversion types (like Lead, Landing Page Views, Purchase) you’ll now be capped at eight at any given time.

Now, you might be wondering, “What have advertisers been doing?” Let’s discuss it below.

How Advertisers are Navigating the iOS 14 Mobile Tracking Changes

While the iOS 14 update has made advertisers jump through some more hoops in setting up their ad campaigns (getting domain verification and aggregated event management), the update ultimately hasn’t been the death of retargeting or Facebook ads.

Of course, there have been changes. So far, it looks like more than 90% of users are opting out of data tracking. This is more than industry experts were predicting.

So, what have advertisers been doing?

1. Diversifying ad spend.

The main story of how advertisers are navigating the latest iOS tracking update is diversifying ad spend.

This means companies have shifted some ad spend that was previously allocated to Facebook to other platforms like Google because of the remarketing features and the ability to target users based on search intent.

2. Reporting Facebook success with Google Analytics.

While some money is still being used to advertise on Facebook, there are different ways of reporting.

Companies have begun using UTM parameters on their site’s URLs to generate data tracked by Facebook to Google Analytics. This means you can use Google Analytics to track some of the activity on your Facebook ad campaigns.

3. Using owned data for lookalike audiences and retargeting.

Strategies such as using lookalike audiences or retargeting an email list have continued to drive results. With privacy updates becoming a norm for the big tech companies, marketers will need to begin focusing on owned data to inform their campaigns.

With your owned data (such as an email list), you can target lookalike audiences or retarget those very people.

Keep in mind, you can still use the old method of retargeting campaigns because not all of your audience is on iOS devices. You can still use the channel as a cost-effective way to see some return on ad spend (ROAS).

4. Using other Facebook advertising options.

Besides these new ways of approaching ad campaigns, some advertisers are investing in other ways to reach audiences on Facebook.

For example, you can use the messaging objective to create a lead-generating chatbot on Facebook Messenger. There are options to retarget users who reach out to you on messenger and start conversations with new leads who click on an ad of yours.

Additionally, Facebook has another strategy that advertisers have explored: the Facebook lead ads (in-app lead form).

While using your own landing pages is definitely the preferred method, in a cookieless world, using lead forms on Facebook can help you generate leads and capture first-party data.

The iOS 14 mobile tracking changes have made Facebook ads less effective, but there are still ways for advertisers to target their audience and generate leads on the platform.

Nike. McDonald’s. Airbnb.

What do these three brands have in common?

All three have developed a strong global presence. It’s why you hear about the Whopper in Spain, or spot Nike Jordan’s on the streets of Indonesia.

Fortunately, global marketing isn’t just for big corporations anymore — nowadays, technology has significantly shrunken the ‘cost per entry’ when it comes to developing an international brand.

With social media and search engines closing the information gap between countries, I’m willing to bet some international consumers have already stumbled across your business’ website.

But the question remains: How can you properly market and sell to international audiences? And how can you ensure product-market fit with communities outside your own?

To investigate how startups and small businesses can scale their marketing efforts for a worldwide audience, I sat down with André Barrence, Head of Google for Startups LATAM.

Keep reading to learn Barrence’s tips for how startups can effectively sell to international audiences.

Let’s dive in.

4 Tips for Globalizing Your Marketing Strategy

1. Start with an understanding of your global user.

When developing a global brand, you want to start by identifying the most important factor: To whom are you marketing?

Your user(s) might vary in preferences or lifestyle from country to country, but their challenges — and how your product can meet those challenges — will remain consistent cross-globally.

In other words, how your product can help a user in the U.S. likely mirrors how your product can help a user in Europe or Asia.

As Barrence points out, “What is always a good first solution is to start understanding who your user is, and who your user is everywhere, you know?”

Barrence adds, “I think that startups begin building a product with a specific user in-mind — and startups operate on this idea of serving on a match need, or serving some particular challenge that hasn’t been sold yet. And I think the beauty of technology is that you can basically serve the entire world at this point.”

At this stage, using highly effective analytics tools is key to ensuring you understand your global target persona.

Additionally, you’ll want to use data to determine which region(s) seem most interested in your products or services. This information will help you select a few countries for which you want to create a targeted, localized marketing strategy.

2. Figure out which stories appeal to different audiences globally.

While your product might serve the same needs across the globe, the stories you tell to highlight your product’s key benefits will vary significantly.

As Barrence puts it, “Once you’ve formed a hypothesis on who your user is and why they’re searching for your product, you’ll want to build a marketing strategy that is locally relevant, because the worst experience is when you’re trying to solve for a local need of yours, and for something you’re facing in your own country — but the product that you’re searching for is built for a different experience entirely.”

This is where it’s vital to build credibility in local regions.

Credibility, Barrence adds, is a critical component that is oftentimes forgotten in the hustle of scaling a startup. Startups are often driven by performance — such as traffic, or user acquisition — and building a brand is usually an afterthought.

This is a mistake, particularly when globalizing your business.

“Startups are great at a performance mindset,” Barrence says, “but each time you’re attempting to reach new markets, you want to make sure you’re building a brand, as well.”

Barrence adds, “Once you test a few ways to position your brand in a local market, you’ll want to start developing a more robust strategy for acquiring those users or creating stronger relationships with them.”

3. Pay attention to local flavors when taking your product to the market.

There are a few key factors Barrence encourages every startup to take into consideration before expanding into new, international markets.

First, it’s critical your marketing team understands how to position your product in a new regional space.

As Barrence told me, “It’s very hard for a startup to easily take a position in the [Latin American] market, for instance, because startups in LATAM already understand the user, and they know how to communicate with them and position themselves in the market … So ignoring the local flavors in how you take your product to the market is a big mistake.”

While he acknowledges this doesn’t have to be perfect, Barrence does tell me the bare minimum requirements when marketing to new international audiences includes:

• Designing a localized version of your product — including language, user interface, and experience.
• Translating your materials into the local language, and using more relevant, local examples or references in your marketing messages.
• Offering support in the local language so users can access help easily when they have questions.

If you don’t have the time or resources to follow the above tips, you might want to reconsider whether it’s a good idea to globalize — since without these fundamentals, your users will have a poor user experience and your brand value will suffer.

Which leads me to my next point …

4. Know when globalizing isn’t a good idea for your business.

There are plenty of startups and small businesses that likely have untapped potential in markets outside of their native countries … but there are still others who should focus their efforts locally, at least for the time being.

So — how do you know which category your business falls into?

Ultimately, Barrence says it comes down to whether or not you have a strong foundation. As he puts it, “One big mistake startups make are scaling prematurely; and the second big mistake is ignoring the signs that you haven’t found product-market fit.”

If you try scaling prematurely, he warns, you risk compromising your existing user’s experience and the health of your entire company. So it’s better to be cautious here.

He continues, “I think testing the waters and making sure you know how to navigate not only the market, but also how to navigate your product and operations within that market, is key.”

Barrence advises, “Not having enough strong evidence for product-market fit is the potential dark side of globalizing your marketing efforts … [If that’s the case], you should focus on building a successful business within your own country first.”

As the world becomes increasingly connected, you’ll want to dive deeper into your analytics to determine whether there is already a demand for your product or service outside of the U.S. — and, if there is, how you can address that demand with fresh, localized content or even revamp your marketing messages to ensure they’re global-first.

Ultimately, the decision to globalize your marketing efforts isn’t an easy one, but it could have big pay-offs in the long run. Among other benefits, globalizing your marketing materials expands your consumer-base and provides you with more opportunities to reach — and sell — to more customers.