B2B – Page 54 – i4Lead – Clever Digital Agency

With over five billion internet users globally, and more than 4.8 billion active social media users, it stands to reason that digital marketing is vital for reaching a larger audience than you could through traditional methods alone.

Digital marketing can help you better engage prospects, turn prospects into leads, and ultimately convert leads into loyal, delighted customers — but which digital marketing tips are worth following when time is of the essence?

To help inspire your marketing team and invigorate your 2023 digital marketing strategy, we’ve cultivated a comprehensive list of digital marketing tips from marketers here at HubSpot as well as industry experts.

Table of Contents

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is a broad term that encompasses any type of brand promotion in the digital space, from social media to blog posts to paid advertising.

Marketing is a general term that refers to content that has:

A sales goal (for example, a Facebook ad for a clothing line’s summer sale).
General brand awareness and education (for example, that same clothing line sharing tips on Instagram for how to wash their items).

The benefit of digital marketing is that it’s more scalable than traditional or offline marketing.

Traditional market tactics include billboards, print magazine features, event marketing, direct mail, and in-person presentations, to name a few techniques.

The opportunities presented by digital marketing for brands are limitless.

Types of Digital Marketing

Before pursuing a plan for your business, it’s important to understand the different types of digital marketing and the opportunities each presents.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that, as the name suggests, takes place on a social media platform.

There are dozens of social media platforms that each have more than 100 million active users, but most brands focus on the most prominent for marketing their brands:

Instagram
TikTok
Facebook
X (previously Twitter)
LinkedIn
YouTube
Pinterest

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Social media, while incredibly powerful, is a borrowed platform. A digital marketing strategy can’t rely solely on social media because you don’t own your followers or channel subscriber list.

Platforms change, become obsolete, shutter, get banned by the government, and mistakenly suspend accounts without review. While your Instagram account or YouTube channel may be free, you metaphorically rent the space on the platform because you can be evicted anytime without notice or cause.

Social media is a wonderful place for lead generation, but you have to capture those leads. This fuels the need for another form of digital marketing: content that you own.

Proprietary Marketing Channels

The goal of social media marketing isn’t to simply build an audience; it’s to build an audience and inspire them to follow you from social to a proprietary marketing channel that you own.

There are many proprietary marketing channels that businesses own, with some of the most common being:

Website, blog, digital shop, etc.
Email list and SMS list
Company mobile app
Client or contact roster

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Traditional forms of proprietary marketing resources include a Rolodex, direct mailing list, and physical storefront, to name a few. These types of marketing are done organically, which brings us to the third type of marketing we’re going to examine.

Paid Digital Marketing

Paid advertising is the most aggressive and advanced form of digital marketing.

Some examples of paid digital marketing:

Social media promoted posts
Influencer marketing
Website banner ads

Look with an inquisitive eye on your next social media scroll or YouTube search and it won’t take you more than 30 seconds to notice paid digital advertising on your screen. Advertising and organic marketing are closely related but different types of marketing.

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Paid marketing is like pouring gasoline on a fire: Ads can result in huge growth, but if you pour it on while your flame is too small, your fire will go out. Your organic digital marketing efforts are essential in growing a strong fire that can withstand advertising.

Here are some of our favorite tips to help make it happen for your brand.

Marketing Research Tips

Ahead of every successful marketing campaign, social media carousel, or blog post is a well-developed plan. Use these marketing research tips to help you get to know your audience and craft a tailor-made plan for them.

1. Craft highly relevant content with AI personas.

An essential part of any digital marketing strategy is understanding who your target audience is, and that comes from developing your brand’s persona.

Sometimes called the “brand personality,” “ideal client avatar,” or a similar alias, this is a description of your client that you remember every time you create content. Many brands will have more than one persona to represent different stages of the buyer’s journey.

Understanding your brand’s personality has long been viewed as a hallmark of effective marketing, but it’s even more important in the age of AI because marketers need to tailor AI-generated ideas and mold them to fit their brand’s unique client.

“Many marketers are using AI for content production, but it’s important to note that whatever content is generated by AI, you still have to edit it, proofread it, and humanize it,” said Isabella Bedoya, founder of MarketingPros.ai.

“My favorite use case for AI in digital marketing is how accurate it is with creating audience personas, which allows you to craft content strategies and content pieces that actually feel relevant to your target market.”

While a brand persona is a behind-the-scenes digital marketing task, it’s one that has an impact on every aspect of your marketing that goes out to the viewer.

Use AI to help generate different brand personas for your brand and then plug those characteristics into our buyer persona generator so that you can share this with your whole marketing team.

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2. Routinely update your understanding of your customer.

Knowing your ideal customer is a starting point, but it’s not the ending point. Just as every individual evolves, your customers will evolve and you’ll need to continually get to know them.

“Keep on top of the pulse of the customer, and hold yourself accountable to it,” said Ari Plaut, a Product Marketer at HubSpot.

“Schedule monthly time to shadow your support team and your sales team. Your best content ideas will come straight from the source — your customers.”

3. Match your content to every stage of a buyer’s journey.

With the exception of kiosks at the mall selling magnetic bracelets that claim to radically improve balance, companies almost never sell a product to a customer the day they learn about it. Instead, customers go through what’s called the buyer’s journey from awareness to purchase.

It’s important to match your content to customers at every stage of that journey, or your content won’t resonate with a large part of your audience.

“Personally, I think a big ‘Ah-ha’ moment for our customers when talking about ads strategy is when we tell them they need to match their content offer to a moment in the buyer’s journey,” said Alex Girard, an Associate Product Marketing Manager at HubSpot.

“It doesn’t make sense to target an ad for a sales demo at someone in the awareness stage. It also doesn’t make sense to target an awareness stage offer, like a recommended blog post, at someone who is ready to buy.”

Content Creation Tips

With your marketing research complete, it’s time to start creating content.

Before exploring specific tips for creating content for Google search and social media, let these guidelines help you create content that resonates with your audience and converts.

4. Don’t just write about your products or services.

A brand that only talks about themselves in their content marketing is a brand that’s going to leave a lot of money on the table with their digital marketing.

“Don’t just write about your products or services on your blog. That can immediately alienate anyone who isn’t already close to purchasing,” advised Karla Cook, a Senior Manager of the HubSpot Blog Team. “Instead, invest the time in learning about what your target audience is interested in, and develop content that aligns these interests with what your brand can offer.

“For example, if you’re selling coffee makers, you might create a blog series that looks at different ways to improve your morning routine.”

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5. Use AI to help generate content ideas.

Generating content ideas is one of the most important and time-consuming parts of marketing, and AI can help lighten the load. While AI can’t replace the human creativity and execution that great content requires, it can help immensely with ideas generation.

“AI has been great to give ideas, an outline, or be a starting point for content that I write,” content creator Karolina Kubala shared. She doesn’t recommend leaning on AI completely, though.

Karolina offers this advice: Use AI like a guide on a canvas, but paint the picture yourself with your own creativity.

“I use ChatGPT as a starting point with content I create, to help me with an outline or give me a good direction.”

Using AI to free up time for your higher-impact tasks is a popular trend. Our State of AI research found that 83% of professionals using AI say that it enables more time spent on the most impactful work.

6. Personalize your content.

With an abundance of shopping options at their disposal, consumers want to feel like the companies they purchase from offer a personalized experience.

Customers need to understand how your content contrasts against the other products and services that they’re weighing, and they see that contrast when you personalize your brand.

“Personalize your content to differentiate your business from competitors and create a unique customer experience,” shared Clint Fontanella, a Junior Staff Writer at HubSpot. “More than 40% of customers switch brands due to poor online personalization.”

If you’re not sure what makes your content unique compared to your competitors, use AI to help you understand.

7. Use AI to analyze your reviews (and your competitors’).

Sometimes your customers or clients can articulate what makes your offer unique better than you can.

Tap into that potential by using AI to analyze the sentiment of past customers through review mining. Or, perform the same analysis on your competitors’ reviews to find opportunities.

“This allows you to track your own and your competitor’s reviews for patterns, things to improve, common phrases, etc.,” said Rahul Choudhary, founder of Beef Up Media.

He offers these steps to anyone who wants to try this technique for themselves. Gather reviews for ChatGPT to analyze in a spreadsheet, and prompt it to answer these questions:

What are the common struggles, challenges, or pain points that the reviewers were facing?
How did the product/service help them?
What are the common outcomes that the reviewers received?
What are the common drawbacks of the product/service?

“And voila!” said Rahul. “You can use this information to optimize your marketing efforts, website messaging, etc.”

Conducting research is a task that 48% of marketers report using AI for, and this is an easy way to try it for your own brand.

8. Leverage industry experts.

See huge returns by leveraging industry experts in your digital marketing.

“Be sure to include industry experts in your content marketing programs,” said Amari Gonzalez, content marketing manager at LinkedIn. “Industry experts have taken a lot of time to build trust within their audience.” Brands leverage that trust by featuring a familiar face that represents industry expertise and credibility.

Amari suggests including experts in any area of your content marketing:

Blog posts
Social media posts
Videos
Ebooks
Reports
Advertisements
Podcasts

In addition to the implied endorsement your brand receives by collaborating with experts, they may share the content with their audience when it’s published.

Industry leaders being represented in your marketing touches on a type of marketing that’s much older than the pixel: word of mouth.

This can be done organically in the ways above, or you can invest in influencer marketing. Influencer marketing has been growing in popularity for years, and it’s still holding strong in its return on investment (ROI).

Our marketing industry trends report found that influencer marketing offers the 2nd high ROI of any 2023 marketing trend.

9. Leverage video testimonials.

Video marketing specialist Doug Dibert, Jr. refers to YouTube as an untapped goldmine. Where to start? He says the answer is video testimonials.

“Imagine a thrilled customer sharing how your product or service transformed their life,” shared Doug. “These authentic tales, more persuasive than any 5-star review, will fill your YouTube channel with compelling content.”

“Sprinkle in some Video SEO magic, and you’re on an express journey to the next level.” When optimized for YouTube search, videos can appear in both YouTube search results and Google, which means tapping into two search engines with one piece of content.

Our marketing industry trends report predicts that YouTube will see more growth than any other platform in 2023.

10. Remain consistent in design when launching a campaign.

It’s easy to run away with creativity when an ads budget is involved, but remember to remain consistent so that consumers recognize the campaign across platforms.

“When launching an integrated campaign on multiple channels, make sure you tie together your creative design and messaging so there is a red thread throughout the campaign,” shared Brittany Geoffroy, a Marketing Manager of Global Acquisition.

Social Media Marketing Tips

Social media marketing is one of the primary marketing channels that brands invest in today. Try some of these tried-and-true methods today.

11. Use your DMs.

Social media isn’t a megaphone where you loudly share your message with whoever will listen. It’s a two-way street where brands will engage both publicly (in comments) and privately (in direct messages) with their viewers.

Using direct messages (DMs) for customer service has the third highest ROI of all our 2023 marketing trends and is expected to grow further in 2023, and they hold enormous weight when it comes to digital marketing. DMs can be used to:

Answer questions from potential buyers.
Troubleshoot problems that existing customers have.
Engage and respond when happy customers share your product online.

At the heart of the growth in DM popularity is the desire for audience members to feel a sense of real community.

Being as responsive in private as you are in public is also a key factor in building trust and genuine dialogue with an engaged community, which 90% of marketers say is crucial to a successful social media strategy.

@blogilates

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♬ Dreamy Vibes – Ocean Bay Jazz

12. Spread content across platforms (with care).

It makes sense to reuse social media content across platforms, but simply downloading a TikTok video and uploading it as a Facebook reel won’t do much for your digital marketing goals.

Only 17% of marketers share identical content across platforms; instead, 48% of marketers share similar content but with some tweaks specialized to the new platform…

Dimensions
Trends
Demographics

Make your audience feel like you care about their viewership. Avoid making your content look lazy, like leaving a watermark from a past platform when you repurpose it on platform number two.

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13. Try short-form videos.

While video has been popularized by YouTube for years, it’s reached a new level with the advent of short-form video. This term generally refers to videos that are under 60 seconds and are vertically-oriented instead of the previously standard horizontal.

This content sensation started on TikTok in 2020 and has earned a lofty place on most platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Our research has found that short-form video is the type of social media content with the highest ROI, and the format which will see more growth than any other format in 2023.

If you haven’t figured out short-form video for yourself yet, try one of these popular format types:

Displaying how your product or service work
Answering audience questions
Client testimonials or reviews

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Search Engine Optimization and Website Marketing Tips

Social media is an active form of digital marketing where you’re actively putting logs on the fire every day to engage with your audience.

Digital marketing aiming for Google traffic, on the other hand, is a more passive inbound marketing strategy.

Search engine optimization (SEO) writers at your company can write a well-optimized blog post that ranks on Google and passively brings viewers to your website for months or years. Here’s how to capitalize on the opportunity.

14. Incorporate SEO into your overall content strategy.

Even though SEO is an old trick, it’s one that marketers are still getting results: SEO clocks in as the third trend marketers will spend the most money on in 2023.

“While positioning a blog as a pure thought leadership publication has its merits, incorporating an SEO strategy into your topic selection and blog writing is the best way for long-term traffic growth,” shared AJ Beltis, a HubSpot Content Optimization Specialist.

“Use sites like Ahrefs or SEMRush to find out what people in your industry are searching for and talking about as a first step to maximizing your blog’s potential.”

15. Manually research Google’s rankings.

While there’s an endless list of software that conducts keyword research for you, your research doesn’t stop once you find a great keyword opportunity.

The next stage of your research requires you to go to Google and see what’s ranking and learn from it.

“It’s important to do manual research and see for yourself what types of pages Google is ranking,” shared Sarah Blocksidge, marketing director at Sixth City Marketing. “Do thorough competitor research and see for yourself what types of pages are ranking well.”

Even though you can use AI to provide actionable SEO insights, as 37% of bloggers do, no program or algorithm renders this step of your research moot. Sarah recommends asking yourself these questions during research:

Are they product and service pages? Blog posts?
How are they structuring their headers and metadata?
Does their content thoroughly answer a question or provide definitions and FAQs?

16. Don’t underestimate backlinks.

Getting a backlink to your website means that someone else links to your website from their website, and these are powerful for SEO.

“Marketers are increasingly shifting their SEO strategies from keywords to topics,” shared Braden Becker, a Senior Staff Writer at HubSpot.

“In other words, the more keywords you target that all belong to a similar topic, the more expertise you’ll demonstrate, and the better you can perform for each individual keyword. But expertise and organic traffic don’t happen at the same time.”

Braden additionally suggested, “While topics are important to building your reputation, you still need the backlinks — a major ranking factor for Google — to back it up.”

After you create content on each topic, Braden suggested taking these steps to get a sense of how your content will perform:

Share the content in as many ways as you can.
Network with people in your industry.
Track how many other publishers are linking back to your content.

17. Target multiple search engines (Pinterest).

While the search engine conversation always starts with Google, it doesn’t end there.

Pinterest is also a search engine, but unlike Google, it won’t index and rank your pages on its own. The foundation of Pinterest marketing is creators uploading a thumbnail image (called a pin) summarizing every webpage they have.

“Pinterest is the best place to share everything you’re creating, from content to products,” said Nadalie Bardo, Pinterest expert. “With a bit of SEO and a graphic, you can level up your traffic!”

Nadalie shared this list of content ideas to repurpose onto Pinterest:

Blog posts, podcast episodes, and YouTube videos
TikToks, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts
Product listings, sales pages, and work-with-me pages
Infographics and illustrations
Inspirational quotes, or artwork
Affiliate content and product reviews
Photos and videos

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Digital Marketing Big Picture Tips

Digital marketing is a large machine with many moving cogs, changing components, and rapidly-evolving landscapes.

It’s important to keep your eye on the big picture to stay on course, and market reporting along with these tips can help.

18. Focus on the long-term.

The focus of digital marketing should always be on long-term goals, despite any pressure to cut corners.

“I’m a marketer, and I understand the pressure to deliver leads to sales each month. But employing short-sighted tactics that generate some attention and may result in a momentary spike ultimately won’t set you, or your customers, up for success in the long-term,” said Jeff Vocell, a HubSpot Product Marketer.

“As marketers, we should focus on generating demand through helpful and customer-centric campaigns. Focus on delight, no short-sighted acquisition.”

19. Pivot as audience preferences shift.

With new features being introduced constantly across marketing channels, it’s important to have a flexible approach and not pass up opportunities because you’re unwilling to match your audiences’ shifting preferences.

“Businesses constantly need to ensure their digital strategy remains relevant to their target audience,” shared Kristen Baker, an Associate Content Strategist at HubSpot.

”For instance, if you’re targeting a group that’s primarily active on Instagram, focus on that platform and consider using your resources to create engaging Instagram Stories, instead of spending too much time making YouTube videos. However, pay attention to if, and when, your audience’s preferences shift.”

While an annual strategy and goals list is nice, you may need to pivot as your audience’s preferences evolve (maybe more than once per year).

More than half of all marketers pivoted their strategies in 2021, and of that group, 83% said that they altered course two to four times in a single year.

20. Follow consumer trends.

Your audience’s preferences are unique to your organization, and on the other end of this moving pendulum are consumer trends.

“Read consumer trend reports, and then brainstorm ways that your brand can leverage the insights to help convert followers to customers and customers to brand evangelists,” recommends Mikayla Catoe, co-founder of BEGOOD Creative Marketing Agency.

For example, here’s a fascinating find from The Coefficient Capital Consumer Report. Given the chance:

Gen Z survey respondents would prefer to improve their mental health by 25% (over physical health).
Millennials responded the opposite.

“Brands should list ways they can use this trend to their advantage and list the costs associated with each to determine which makes the most sense from a logistical and financial perspective.”

21. Try new things.

While pivoting is often strategic, sometimes marketing encounters a need to go all the way back to the drawing board and start throwing things at the wall.

“If you see that something could be working better, go back to the drawing board and try something new,” said Meredith Hart, a Junior Staff Writer at HubSpot.

“This can apply to internal processes within your team or with your digital marketing efforts.”

When it comes to your digital marketing efforts, that experimentation could look like:

Creative email subject lines
A themed blog series instead of one-off
Trends and humorous content

You never know what kind of content is going to resonate with your audience until you try it out. Sometimes the most unexpected content can get the biggest results and help you stand out.

For example, has your brand ever tried humorous content? A reported 66% of social media marketers said that funny content is most effective at standing out in a crowded digital space.

“Small changes can have big results,” Meredith encouraged.

22. Invest in AI-powered personalization strategies.

Once you have established Google rankings and website traffic coming in on a regular basis, you can use AI-powered personalization strategies to tailor the user experience even further.

“This involves tailoring content, offers, and recommendations to individual users based on their behavior, preferences, and past interactions with your business,” shared Yogesh Kumar, digital marketing manager at Technource.

Tailored AI can produce personalized recommendations by analyzing data from:

Social media engagements
Purchase history
Website interactions
Email responses

23. Understand the big picture when analyzing an advertisement’s performance.

When you leave the organic marketing domain and enter paid advertising, understanding how to tailor and pivot your content is even more important because ad budgets aren’t endless.

“If your ad isn’t performing well, don’t just look at the messaging itself, but see if there’s a mismatch between what someone is searching for, the messaging you are showing them, and the landing page on which they end up,” shared Cathleen Smith, a CSM at HubSpot.

“With that bigger picture in mind, when you see a ‘bad’ ad, look at all the different pieces of your campaign to determine what needs optimization.”

When your ad under-performs, look at the big picture and ask yourself: What is the overall journey someone is taking to get to the point where they see your ad?

For example, examine the journey someone takes after seeing a Google ad. Someone had to:

Search for a keyword you chose.
See your ad.
Have it resonate with them.
Click on the ad directly.
And then have the landing page feel relevant and easily digestible.

24. Become a growth leader for your company.

“Marketers have never had a better opportunity to be growth leaders,” said Jeff Vocell, a HubSpot Product Marketer.

“Marketing has historically been responsible for attracting new leads and then passing them off to sales.

Today, in a world where customer experience has to come first, marketers have an opportunity to architect the path to growth through sales and services as well.

“Instead of solely thinking about how you can bring in new customers, start to ask yourself and your colleagues around you:

What happens when this lead is passed over to sales?
And what happens when sales pass them to services as a customer?

“It’s likely you’ll find opportunities for advocacy and marketing embedded in those moments that will help you grow better.”

Conclusion

Have you been inspired by these digital marketing tips and strategies to boost your brand’s marketing? Marketing is an ocean, and I hope that one of these fish speaks to you and motivates you to deepen your seas.

B2B

The Best Marketing Jobs and Careers for You to Pursue in 2023 (BIR NNP)

i4lead Jan 8, 2024

Marketing seems simple, but it gets more complex as you break it down. If you don’t already know about marketing careers, scanning jobs online could convince you that this isn’t your dream job.

But marketing is fun. Marketing a company is essentially grabbing a bullhorn and saying, “Hey! We love this company, and here’s why you should, too.”

Marketing is also incredibly dynamic and diverse. It offers positions for people of all strengths. Whether you’re equipped with creative ability or analytical prowess, marketing’s got a spot for you.

In this article, we’ll break down what marketers do. We’ll show you how you can get into marketing and the different marketing jobs that are out there. We’ll give you what you need to map out your marketing career and pinpoint your goals. Let’s get started.

According to Merriam-Webster, marketing is “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.” But the job involves much, much more than that.

The day-to-day activities of a marketer depend on what they’re marketing, whom they’re targeting, and what platforms they use to promote products or services. There are too many marketing roles and functions to provide a single definition applicable to everyone in this field.

Before we dive into the various positions you can find within a marketing department, let’s discuss tools and education necessary to become a marketer.

What You Need to Be a Marketer

There’s not a single, definitive path to any job field. Marketing comes from people with all kinds of backgrounds — journalism, psychology, and more. I’ve mapped out a career path as it’s the most straightforward way to jump into a marketing job. Later in this article, I’ll dive into how to get a marketing job.

Education

If you’re serious about a long-term marketing career primed for growth and variety, a bachelor’s degree is the way to go. Four-year programs teach you the skills and competencies needed to join and excel in the competitive, fast-paced landscape that is the marketing world. They can help with public speaking, creative problem-solving, logistics, sales, and analytics.

The following degree programs can lead to a career in marketing:

Marketing
Management
Business
Economics
Psychology
Communications
Public Relations
Journalism

Nowadays, it doesn’t matter as much what you major in as it does where you go to school or what you get involved in. Organizations like the American Marketing Association, National Association of Sales Professionals, or Pi Sigma Epsilon (a co-ed marketing fraternity) can help you get connected outside the classroom and off-campus.

Some marketers choose to extend (or return to) their schooling by pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) or graduate degree in marketing. Both programs offer in-depth studies of marketing, but they differ in education specifics and structure.

MBA programs focus on the humanity of business, such as people management, organizational behavior, and leadership. Graduate marketing programs study consumer behavior, changes in the domestic and international marketplace, and growing digital trends.

You can combine these programs, of course, but their cost and completion time can be an issue for most students.

While we can’t tell you if graduate school is the right choice for you, we can encourage you to research your options for career success. Here’s a great article from U.S. News to help you figure out if an MBA or master’s program is for you.

Internships and Co-ops

While a degree (or three) may not be in the cards for you, an internship or co-op most certainly should. There’s no better education than real-life experience, and internships allow you to learn on the go while you’re still learning in the classroom.

Marketing internships are valuable because they help you determine what kind of marketing you want to do. Do you like the creative side of marketing, or do you like working with numbers and analytics? Does promoting a single product excite you, or would you prefer to work on overall brand awareness?

Marketing departments have lots of moving parts, and internships and co-ops help you determine exactly which projects and promotions you’d like to join.

Lastly, internships are valuable currency in today’s job market. Think about it: Thousands of students graduate each year and enter the workforce. That’s not even considering how many workers are changing their minds and careers to pursue marketing jobs.

With some real-life experience under your belt, you automatically become a highly desirable candidate to employers. Some internships can lead to full-time jobs, too.

Many educational institutions offer internships through their business or communications departments, so if you’re still in college, start there. Universities worldwide hold valuable relationships with local businesses that will hire students while still in school.

If going through your college or university isn’t an option, sites like WayUp and Chegg Internships can help you find open positions. Idealist is an internship site that focuses on nonprofit roles, and Global Experiences helps you find international opportunities.

And, of course, you can always find open internships through LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Indeed.

Skills and Aptitudes

Surgeons possess incredible patience and stability, psychologists are fantastic listeners, and chefs have excellent memory. Like any other professional role, great marketers tend to carry a particular set of skills. These can be skills you’re born with or skills you develop and fine-tune through schooling and real-life practice.

Either way, the following skills and aptitudes are typically required to excel in any marketing role:

Creativity. Whether you’re writing a business plan or a campaign brief, being able to creatively spell out your vision is a must in the marketing field. In today’s world, grabbing consumers’ attention isn’t easy. Marketers have to constantly think up new ways to attract their audience and entice them to make a purchase — great marketers are creative.
Problem-solving. Imagine the conundrum marketers faced when DVR came out and commercials became futile. What about the overwhelming switch to mobile versus desktop? These trends in the marketplace forever changed the way businesses sell, and marketers were on the front lines of those shifts, huddling and figuring out how to solve new problems that came their way. Great marketers are problem-solvers.
Passion for numbers. Even the most right-brained marketers have a passion for numbers and ROI. How else do companies know that their promotional efforts are working? Whether they’re tracking retweets, click-throughs, or video views, marketers live and breathe metrics. Great marketers are analytical so they can prove the value of their work.
Curiosity. The marketing landscape is ever-changing, and opportunities arise every day for businesses to promote their products in new and exciting ways. But marketers wouldn’t be able to seize these opportunities if they don’t continually ask, “What if?” Great marketers stay curious and are lifelong learners.

Now that you know what’s recommended (if not required) to thrive in a marketing role, let’s take a look at the job market for marketers. How many people are looking for marketing jobs, and what companies are looking for them? Is there room for growth and innovation?

The Marketing Job Market

According to Statista, marketing jobs are expected to grow 10% from 2020 to 2030 — a faster rate than average for all other jobs, and likely not stopping any time soon.

Marketing and promotional campaigns are essential to every company, regardless of industry, as organizations seek to grow and maintain their market share.

That’s why marketing jobs are available at all kinds of organizations — large firms, startups, small businesses, and nonprofits. Do some companies offer better marketing jobs than others? No, not really. But there are some companies that excel at different types of marketing and offer opportunities for different kinds of employees.

Marketing is also a great career if you’re looking for a remote job. 35% of full-time employees in the United States have the option to work remotely. Another 23% have the option to work remotely part-time. And according to LinkedIn, remote jobs in marketing increased by 177% in 2021.

Here are some places to start your research on companies for marketers, based on a variety of factors:

Top companies for marketing jobs (LinkedIn)
10 companies that are defining innovation in branding (Fast Company)
Top companies for remote marketing jobs (FlexJobs)

Today’s job market is thriving, and there’s more opportunity than ever to dip your toe into the proverbial marketing waters. But what are these specific opportunities, you ask? Below we’ll break down the various marketing jobs and marketing career paths available.

Any given marketing department manages a variety of positions, projects, and goals. The difference between these roles can be minute or major — it all depends on what medium they’re working with, what they’re promoting, and who they’re promoting to.

1. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing refers to marketing through digital channels like search engines, websites, email, and mobile apps. In the last 30 years, the rise of the internet, smartphones, and big data has completely changed the way companies market and promote their products and services. In turn, these shifts create many new marketing careers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) / Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engine optimization refers to organically optimizing web content. This helps search engines index your content, which makes it easier for your audience to find.

Search engine marketing is paying for advertising space on said search engines. SEO, SEM, and their ever-changing trends have become such an influential part of online marketing that people are specializing in it — and companies are hiring for it, too.

Email Marketing

Email as a marketing medium may seem more traditional, but email’s impact is still strong. Email marketing uses a single channel to reach current and potential customers through creatively-written emails and digital promotions.

Growth Marketing

Growth marketing (or hacking) is a relatively new term and refers to marketing that targets the entire funnel — not just the top few tiers. Growth marketing takes into account the fact that retention is a major factor of growth and so it prioritizes both customer success and customer acquisition.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing, since it’s mainly executed online, could be considered a segment of digital marketing. But the career path has become so impactful that we believe it deserves its own section.

Content like blogs, ebooks, white papers, and guides are critical components of a solid inbound marketing strategy, and content marketers are the people who create them. Content marketing refers to marketing via long-form content, websites, blogs, and even audio and video content.

Marketing Copywriting

Copywriting is a foundational part of marketing and advertising. Content and copywriters create copy for:

Blogs
Websites
Ads
Email
Landing pages
Social media

They use language to encourage, educate, and inform. In the process, they entice customers to buy, stakeholders to engage, and leaders to support the business.

Graphic Design

Graphic design is a subset of content marketing that focuses more on the visual appeal of web and print content. Graphic designers typically work on:

Website design
Ad designs
Infographics
Images used in marketing or promotions

Content Creation

30% of social media marketers are investing more in short-form video in 2022, while 29% are trying it for the first time.

To keep up with this kind of trend, businesses are investing in content creation. Content creation focuses on digital content like video, podcasting, and other new media. This focus gives brands an opportunity to connect with customers where they spend the most time online. This strategy can speed up business growth.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing leverages social platforms to promote a company and its products. Some specialize in one or two platforms, while others manage multi-channel promotion.

Social media marketing also helps brands connect and engage with audiences in new and authentic ways.

Community Management

Community management focuses on community-building for businesses. This role helps to connect customers, employees, and stakeholders.

Adding a community manager for engagement can help a brand:

Improve brand reputation
Share updates
Grow with customer needs in mind

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

The main goal of content marketing is to use content to educate, interest, and convert readers into customers. But content can’t always do that on its own. That’s where conversion rate optimization comes into play.

3. Product Marketing

Product marketing is all about setting the tone for how, where, when, and why a company promotes its products and services. Product marketers are typically assigned to one product or product line. They act as chief advocate and strategist for that product.

4. Brand Marketing

In today’s economy, a company’s brand plays a major role in how consumers shop. According to a 2022 survey of U.S. consumers from Salsify, 46% of shoppers will pay more for a brand they trust. This consumer behavior has paved the way for roles in brand management and public relations.

5. Event Marketing

Company-run events are a popular way to interact with and entertain potential customers and clients. Event marketing brings together your community, delights your customers, and puts a friendly face to your brand name — especially for B2B marketers. For this reason, companies need event marketers.

6. Niche Marketing

As online shopping and social media expand the reach of big brands, it’s become more important than ever to stand out. Niche marketing focuses promotional efforts on small defined segments.

Niche marketers use their personal knowledge to target the unique needs of a specific audience. Whether your focus is health and wellness or travel, your niche could be your path to a career in marketing.

7. Marketing Analysis

In the marketing world, numbers are king. No other factor has the power to shift campaigns, change budgets, hire and fire employees, and draw investors.

Marketing analysis is a unique role. While most companies hire internal analysts, third-party consultants and agencies also exist to help businesses interpret and apply data findings. Regardless of whom they work for, data scientists — specifically marketing analysts — read and interpret digital data to help businesses and marketing departments make better business decisions.

8. Marketing Strategy

While many careers in marketing focus on tactics, as you advance you may develop an interest in strategy. Marketing strategy involves creating long-term plans that connect business goals to customer needs. Strategists create the playbook for how you can find the right prospects and make them loyal customers for your brand and products.

As you review these choices, it’s important to note that different marketing positions can have the same or similar titles. Job titles are often less important than job descriptions in marketing. The same can be true about whether an open role is at the entry, mid, or leadership level.

So, when searching for marketing jobs, look at and assess each job description individually.

1. Digital Marketing Manager

Career path: Digital Marketing

Responsibilities

Digital marketing managers develop and support the online identity and sales for a brand. This is often a multi-dimensional role that could include:

Data analysis
Paid ad placement
Email marketing
Content marketing
SEO
Social media management

Responsibilities for this role might also include presentations, and developing and executing marketing campaigns.

Skills

To succeed in this role, you will need to be a flexible and strategic thinker. Skills in a range of marketing tactics, including copywriting, research, and design, are useful. It’s also important to have skills in building and maintaining professional relationships.

Income

Digital marketing managers make $47,000 to $101,000 per year.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) / Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Specialist

Career path: Digital Marketing

Responsibilities

SEO specialist responsibilities include:

Improving the ranking of a website on a search engine results page (SERP)
Conducting keyword research
Making technical SEO recommendations
Designing site architecture
Analyzing and applying metrics on website and keyword performance

Skills

The skills and qualifications required of graphic designers include proficiency in graphic design programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, knowledge of design elements, excellent verbal and visual communication skills, and experience creating visual art for marketing purposes.

Income

Graphic designers make between $35,000 and $66,000.

8. Content Creator

Career path: Content Marketing

Responsibilities

A content creator works individually or as part of a team to create

content for a range of media and channels.

Content creators include:

Podcasters
Social media influencers
Video content creators
Blog writers
Newsletter authors
Video game streamers

Skills

Successful content creators balance creative skills with the ability to research and analyze data and consumer habits. Depending on their target audience, a content creator might need skills in SEO, promotion, or production to thrive in this role.

While some content creators work independently as freelancers, others work full-time for brands. Independent content creators also need to develop entrepreneurial skills.

Income

Content creators earn $17,500 to $83,500 per year.

9. Social Media Marketer

Career path: Content Marketing

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of social media marketers include:

Managing a company’s social presence
Monitoring online conversation
Organizing customer service through social media
Creating content for social channels
Staying up-to-date on social media trends and news

Skills

The skills and qualifications required of a social media marketer include excellent verbal and digital communication skills, a creative and innovative approach to digital marketing, proficiency in all social channels, and experience in public relations or public brand management.

Income

Social media marketers make between $37,000 and $86,000.

10. Community Manager

Career path: Content Marketing

Responsibilities

Community manager responsibilities vary widely depending on the business goals. Usually, their ultimate goal is community-building. Many manage communications in online groups and communities, including social media, for a brand. Some also represent the brand at online and in-person events.

Skills

The ability to multitask and organize is essential for community managers. This is because this position requires communication on many platforms at a fast pace. Other valuable skills for this marketing role include:

Patience
Enthusiasm
Empathy
Data analysis
Flexibility

This role offers support and clarity to audiences that include business leaders and new customers. This means that a top skill for this role is staying informed and positive as needs change.

Income

Community managers make $52,000 to $64,000 per year.

11. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Specialist

Career path: Content Marketing

Responsibilities

CRO specialists focus on optimizing websites, user flows, and content offers to drive the most conversions — whether a conversion means making a sale, securing a lead, or getting a subscriber. The responsibilities of a CRO marketer include:

Auditing content to measure effectiveness and ROI
Influencing content creation to ensure impact
Measuring how visitors and readers interact with your content
Using data to optimize for improved performance

Skills

The skills and qualifications required of CRO specialists include experience auditing and creating digital content, ability to A/B test and measure content impact, and proficiency in online content platforms and analysis tools.

Income

CRO specialists make between $30,000 and $96,000.

12. Product Marketer

Career path: Product Marketing

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of a product marketer include:

Determining overall messaging and positioning of the product
Mapping the buyer’s journey to purchase the product
Collaborating with the product creators, designers, and other marketers

Skills

Besides the marketing skills listed above, ecommerce specialists may also need skills in:

User experience
Web design
Coding

The ability to work with different teams is also important.

Income

Ecommerce marketing specialists make between $34,000 and $78,000 per year.

17. Marketing Analyst

Career path: Marketing Analysis

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of a marketing analyst include:

Using data to influence campaign impact, allocate funds, determine how to design and optimize a website, set the prices of products and services, and more.

Analysts also identify new opportunities and initiatives as well as develop metrics, benchmarks, and standards for future performance.

Skills

The skills and qualifications required of a marketing analyst include data analysis and management, fluency with programs like Microsoft Excel, SPSS Statistics, and SAS, and knowledge and experience with trends in big data.

Income

Marketing analysts make between $43,000 and $80,000.

18. Marketing Strategist

Career path: Marketing Strategy

Responsibilities

A marketing strategist develops and communicates strategic plans to meet business goals. They also pull together the efforts of different teams to execute those strategies.

Besides broad marketing strategist positions, there are also roles for:

SEO strategists
Content strategists
Social marketing strategists

Strategists sometimes cover the day-to-day tasks for their area of expertise, but they are usually focused only on strategy. For example, a social media manager will design and publish posts on social media. But a social media strategist will develop and research the targeted campaigns and customer targets that inform those daily posts.

Skills

Advanced experience and technical knowledge. Awareness of SEO, SEM, and marketing news and trends is also important. Besides bringing knowledge and experience, strategists should also have strong skills in:

Time management
Communication
Presentation
Management

Income

Salaries for marketing strategists range from $51,000 to $152,000 per year.

The outlines above are only a partial list of popular marketing jobs and career paths. It’s clear that there’s a lot of opportunity. But that doesn’t mean that marketing isn’t a highly competitive field.

With ever-changing trends and consumers, marketers must be at the top of their game when applying to and thriving within their roles. Next, we’ll dive into how to find, apply for, and get a marketing job in your chosen field.

How to Get a Marketing Job

Getting a marketing job might feel complicated, but it’s not impossible. There are a few things you can do to ensure you’re applying for the right jobs and promoting the best version of yourself in the process.

1. Figure out what type of role you want.

Before opening a job application, you must figure out what type of marketing job you want. As we explained above, there are plenty of marketing jobs available — and we hardly scratched the surface.

Do yourself (and your potential employers) a favor and perform some self-analysis before deciding which jobs to pursue. Review the jobs we’ve described above and research others that spark your interest. Take a look at how marketing impacts your day-to-day life and see which components intrigue you.

Do you find yourself gravitating towards the creative parts of marketing, or are you excited by the analytical side? Both play an important role in marketing, but the jobs for each will differ.

Make a list of what you’d like to do in your role. If I were building a list of “wants,” I’d say:

I like writing and telling stories.
I like research.
I like working with analytics only to help me create better content.
I like working with a team.

Determining what kind of marketing jobs interest you will give you much more clarity in your job search and will help you decipher which specific roles best match your interests and skills.

2. Find jobs matching your interests.

There are a few ways to go about finding marketing jobs. First, throw your search query in Google. If you’ve decided you’d like to design marketing materials for a company, search “marketing design jobs” or “graphic design marketing jobs” and see what comes up.

Second, check out job board sites like Indeed, Glassdoor, and SimplyHired. These sites aggregate available jobs and make it easy to set filters for salary, location, company size, and more. They also include suggested jobs in the search results so you can easily discover related roles.

Lastly, check out available jobs on company websites. If you’ve discovered a few companies for which you’d love to work, go to their websites directly and see what kind of roles they have listed.

Also, some roles might have different names at different companies and might not come up in common search results on job boards. For example, one company’s “blogger” might be another company’s “content creator.”

3. Review job descriptions.

Once you’ve found a few open jobs to which you’d like to apply, take a close look at the job descriptions. This is when you’ll compare your list of “likes” from earlier to the terms in the job descriptions.

From my list above, I’d look for words like “writing,” “editing,” “content creation,” “research,” and more. This process will help you find the best-fit roles, which will, in turn, increase the likelihood of securing an interview — and the job.

4. Market yourself.

Outside of a job application, cover letter, and interview, there are other ways to boost your chances as an applicant. As a marketing candidate, you must be able to market yourself. In fact, your “marketability” speaks volumes to companies and managers, sometimes more so than your application material.

As you search for and apply to jobs, make sure your digital presence is spotless. Review your LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social channels and ensure they all promote the same message and self-image. Google your own name and make sure all results reflect positively on you.

Also, depending on what role(s) you’re pursuing, consider creating a portfolio or sample of your marketing chops. If you’d like to find a position in social media, create some sample posts to include in your application. If you’re pursuing a public relations role, build a contingency plan to discuss in your interview.

These steps will help you stand out from the crowd of marketing applicants and will skyrocket your chances of landing the job.

Example Marketing Career Path

Each career in marketing is as unique as the person pursuing that career. Besides being a great career for creative people, marketing is also a popular choice for remote work.

That said, marketers that begin their careers right after college have many options for advancement. The outline below will give you some ideas of what your career path could look like in marketing.

Entry-Level

There are entry-level marketing jobs for every career path in marketing. These roles are a great way for recent graduates and those who are new to marketing.

Entry-level marketing jobs cover a wide range of skills, but most will include:

Research
Administrative work
Customer service
Helping with creative work

These roles can help you learn the basics of marketing, and help you decide where you want your career to go. They’re also a good time to develop professional soft skills.

If you’re just starting out, this post offers more advice on how to secure a job in marketing.

Mid-Level Marketing Careers

Once you’ve been working in an entry-level role for some time, there are a few different paths you can follow in marketing. Sometimes your next step will depend on the company you’re working for. Other times it’s a decision you’ll need to make for yourself.

Marketing strategy, freelance marketing, and marketing management are all great next steps. Let’s talk about each one of these choices.

Marketing Strategy

If you enjoy the day-to-day work, you may want to deepen your knowledge and responsibilities by taking on a strategist role. These careers may include some leadership. But the focus is on marketing and connecting tactics to business results.

Freelance Marketing

Another option is to develop your own business as a freelance marketer. This will give you a chance to expand your knowledge and skills. It’s also a chance to experiment with new approaches to marketing.

If you’re curious and want to learn more, this resource for marketing freelancers can help you get started.

Marketing Management

Marketing managers also take on new know-how and responsibilities. Besides the day-to-day work of marketing, managers are leaders. Depending on your company, this role might involve strategy, budgeting, or data analysis.

Marketing management also might include training and managing other people on your team.

Marketing Leadership

After 10-20 years of work experience in marketing, you may be looking for a leadership role. In your path toward leadership, you may also pursue additional studies. Many marketing leaders pursue MBAs or certifications over time.

Again, leadership role specifics will vary by company and industry. But, these are some positions that you may seek out as a marketing leader.

Director of Marketing

The director of marketing is a multifaceted role. Besides developing and executing marketing strategies, it might include:

Evaluating research and reports
Overseeing promotion and advertising
ROI analysis
Assessing market conditions
Reviewing customer data
Competitor analysis

Some marketing directors will report to a VP or CMO. Others will lead marketing for their organization and manage a team of mid-level marketers.

Vice President of Marketing

The VP of Marketing is responsible for a company’s marketing results. This role works across departments within a business to improve and support its teams and the business. Besides managing a team of marketers, VPs may also take an active role in:

Hiring
High-level project management
Market research
Campaign and strategy innovation

Chief Marketing Officer

Chief Marketing Officer, or CMO, is usually the most senior marketing role. The modern-day CMO doesn’t have a generic, one-size-fits-all background. Their primary responsibility is the return on investment from marketing activities.

There are many similarities between the vice president of marketing and CMO roles. In cases where a business has both a CMO and one or more VPs of marketing, the CMO will usually focus on high-level strategy while the VP works on tactics.

The CMO may also be responsible for managing teams across different company branches and locations. They build and develop teams and networks to execute on top organizational goals.

Marketing Job Resources

You don’t have to pursue a marketing job on your own. Looking for some resources to help you better understand specific marketing components or brush up on your skills? Check out the communities and courses below. Bonus: Some of these certifications can make you a more desirable marketing candidate, too.

Courses and Communities

Find a Career in Marketing That Works for You

Marketing is a career path that’s going to last because it’s part of every business. As businesses grow and change, their approach to marketing gets more competitive and complex.

As digital advances and new roles change the face of marketing, you need to develop new skills and get specific about the roles you want.

Whether you’re creative or analytical, a leader or a tactician, there’s a job for you. As you keep learning, the right opportunity will appear. What you do with that opportunity is up to you.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

B2B

I Took a Deep Dive Into ASO Marketing. Here’s What I Learned.

i4lead Jan 6, 2024

Confession — I have a long history of skin allergies. Recently, I’ve been searching for an app that would let me track all the cosmetics that I use (or plan to) to spot ingredients that could potentially cause skin irritation.

I was overwhelmed with the options.

I eventually found the “one,” but it got me thinking — how much work did it take from the app creator to make it rank at the top of search results?

As a marketer, I asked myself: What ASO marketing strategy did they use? And what makes or breaks an app’s ranking if there are millions of them across app stores? I decided to find out.

On top of my own research and experience, I also reached out to ASO experts and took a popular app store optimization tool for a spin. Here‘s what I’ve learned.

What is ASO Marketing?

ASO Marketing Tactics to Master

ASO Marketing in Action (With Technology)

Best Practices of ASO Marketing

What is ASO Marketing?

ASO Marketing, short for App Store Optimization Marketing, is a strategy that aims to improve your app’s searchability and number of impressions in mobile app stores, like those from Apple and Google.

Some sources refer to it as App Store marketing, while others go for the colloquial “SEO for mobile apps.”

Naturally, the number-one goal for ASO optimization is maximizing app downloads, but there are a few extra ones that you can add to your list. These are:

Boosting brand visibility.
Gaining positive app reviews and improving ratings.
Engaging your audience.
Diversifying your marketing efforts.
Increasing traffic to your website.

ASO Marketing Tactics to Master

1. Localize your app listing.

Human language is full of nuances. Just because we speak the same language, for example, English, doesn’t mean that the same words have the same meaning in every country.

Let’s take “soccer” and “football,” for one. The first is used in the U.S., while the second is in the U.K. and other English-speaking countries.

If you launched an app that lets users track live match scores, then you‘d have to adjust the terms you use for each market. After all, you wouldn’t want an NFL fan to land on an app they’re potentially not interested in, like soccer finals.

Keyword localization is a vital ASO tactic that many brands turn to, including TeamUp, a cloud-based calendar solution for fitness businesses.

Laia Quintana, their head of marketing and sales, says: “After we realized that our users across the globe use different terms to search for fitness solutions, we tailored our app store keywords to match these local terms.”

Quintana says this strategy significantly improved their visibility in those regions.

“We saw an impressive 30% increase in our app downloads within the first quarter of implementing this strategy. This brought our total downloads to over 100,000,” Quintana says.

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2. Optimize your title & subtitle.

If you want your app listing to stand out, then you must pay a lot of attention to its title and subtitle. They must be both catchy and searchable, i.e., include terms that are relevant to the potential user’s goals.

But how do you get them right? You‘ve guessed it — by experimenting and analyzing what did and didn’t work.

This has worked particularly well for Magee Clegg, founder and CEO of Cleartail Marketing. He says that after putting a stronger emphasis on their clients‘ app listings and including carefully selected high-volume keywords, they’ve seen a significant spike in app rankings.

“For instance, one of our clients experienced a 120% increase in organic downloads within a month after we optimized their app title and subtitle,” Clegg says.

That said, while searching for relevant keywords, remember that there are strict character limits on both app stores — as of late 2023, both Apple and Google allow a maximum of 30 characters per title.

This brings us to the next ASO tactic.

3. Check your app’s search results on both Google Play & Apple App Store.

When someone searches for your app name or enters a relevant phrase, they‘ll see something slightly different depending on whether they’re using an iOS or an Android device.

The Apple store will display your app‘s title, subtitle, icon, and relevant images. Meanwhile, Google Play gives far less context, showing only your app’s title and icon.

This means that it might be far easier to “sell” your app to an iOS user since they’ll be able to see some in-app screens and a tagline.

In Google’s store, you have to make the magic happen through the app title itself. One way is to make it descriptive. You can inspire yourself with Notion’s title below:

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4. Use image sequences.

While cliche, an image truly is worth a thousand words when it comes to ASO. But adding static screenshots will no longer cut it — the top four app store optimization mistakes in 2022 were all attributed to the wrong use of visuals.

According to Linda Zheng, CEO of Rexjewel, the more eye-popping and interactive they are, the better. Based on the jewelry brand’s app experiences, she recommends taking on a “visual storytelling” approach.

“We launched the ‘Jewel Journeys’ visual series on our app listing,” she says. “This initiative replaced standard screenshots with a sequence of images narrating the story behind each jewelry piece.”

The result was striking. Zheng reports “a 15% increase in daily downloads, with over 12,000 new users downloading ‘Rexjewel Interactive’ in the first month post-launch.”

As Linda sums up, what has helped them grow their user and customer base exponentially was embracing technology — not only in their jewelry app but also in the app’s store optimization experience.

5. Understand your audience.

Your ASO marketing strategy should begin with getting to know your audience. Answer the following questions:

Who are they exactly? (Look into demographics.)
What do they expect from the app they’re searching for?
What problems are they trying to solve?

Your app listing must, most of all, speak to your potential users and answer their needs. There are hundreds — if not thousands — of apps to choose from. Your copy has to go beyond SEO optimization; it must be persuasive and relevant.

6. Pay attention to icon sizes.

Some users are aesthetes, so a visual presentation of your app also matters. Every time I download a new app, especially when I know I will be using it on a daily basis, I check the images.

I want to be certain that the UI is easy to navigate around and pleasing to the eye.

So, before publishing your listing, ensure it includes good-quality images and icons that nicely show what your app is capable of. Bear in mind that when it comes to sizing, each app store has its own criteria. Here are a few examples:

iOS — 1024 x 1024 pixels.
App icons — 180 x 180.
Navigation icons — 66 x 66.
Tab bar icons — 75 x 75.
Google — 512 x 512 pixels.

7. Include captivating preview videos.

Preview videos are an ASO tactic that works well on both app stores, though you might not be able to use the same recordings. The Apple Store lets you add a maximum of three videos, each 30 seconds long.

One of these will autoplay without sound when your listing comes up in search. It’s how many users will form their first impression of your app.

So, make sure the video is both visually attractive and that it demonstrates the features and in-app flow well.

In the case of Google Play, you can only add one recording, but it can run as long as you wish. This means you might need to take on a different ASO marketing strategy for each platform.

8. Check what your competition is up to.

Before you start working on your app listing, take a quick look at your competitors — treat them as a source of inspiration. Pay attention to:

The keywords they rank for. Type the keywords you plan to use in the app store search bar, and check what brands come up at the top. Analyze their listing, and see how they use the keywords in the subtitle, app description, etc.
The app description. What do they focus on in their copy? How long is it?
The images. What do they show?
The reviews. By reading what users say about the competing apps, you’ll know what they care about. Use these insights while creating your app listing.

9. Try to maximize your downloads.

Did you notice that the most popular apps usually appear at the top of search results? That’s because the number of downloads impacts app rankings, i.e., the higher it is, the more visibility you gain.

They also act as social proof — a lot of people think that since the app has been downloaded so many times, it has to be good. To maximize your downloads, work on boosting your conversion rate.

10. Backlinks matter in ASO (yes, really).

Backlinks are hardly the first ASO factor most of us think of (at least, that’s been my experience). Yet, it’s hardly surprising that this traditional SEO ranking factor also plays a certain role here.

Google’s app store looks at the number and rating of domains that mention your app. Similarly to how Google ranks websites, the more authoritative sources mention you, the more credibility it gives your app.

The link between backlinks and the Apple App Store is less apparent. Still, if a user finds your iOS app through a website and downloads it, then you‘ll boost your user statistics.

And if they also leave a good app review, then you’ll have two ASO factors playing in your favor.

11. Monitor your results continuously and optimize your strategy.

ASO optimization is a never-ending story. New apps are added to app stores, users’ behavior changes, and Google updates its algorithms — all of which impact your app’s ranking.

This is why you should continuously monitor your app’s performance. And to do it effectively, you need to set some KPIs like downloads, user retention, conversion rate, etc.

Whenever you notice your KPIs deteriorating, find out why that is, and implement an improvement plan.

12. Keyword density matters — but its importance varies between app stores.

Keyword density is how frequently you use each phrase in your listing. Google Play analyzes how often you use a term in the app description, but Apple does not.

Still, most sources put the ideal keyword density anywhere between 1% and 3% (or 4–5 times) per description. Bear in mind that it depends on how long your text is.

It’s worth keeping the number of keyword repetitions under control to avoid keyword stuffing accusations — both app stores could penalize this behavior.

ASO Marketing in Action (With Technology)

There are plenty of ASO tools on the market. I decided to try out one of the most popular tools, ASOdesk, to show you what they’re capable of.

One of the reasons I chose it is that it offers a free two-week trial — and I like to take the software for a spin before I commit.

It’s easy to get started. After signing up, you see a simple onboarding sequence where you select your goals. You can use it to:

View, reply, and analyze reviews.
Optimize your listing.
Boost your keyword strategy.

To begin tracking your metrics, all you have to do is provide the name of the app or its app store listing URL. For this demo, I’m going to choose the payment platform Wise.

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After clicking on the Keywords tab, you can see all the ones you should rank for. Some of the suggestions included “wise app” and “receive money.” Some of the other terms included names of competitors.

This could make sense for creating comparison websites, but whether this suggestion works for your app listing is questionable.

You can also inspect all the keywords your app ranks for. What I like is that there are separate tabs for Top 1, Top 2-5, and Top 6-10 positions.

I can easily see which keywords Wise is a clear winner for and which ones it still needs to work on to reach top search results. For each keyword, you can also see its daily impressions.

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ASOdesk lets you take a deeper dive into all keywords. Among others, you can check what new terms you’ve started ranking for, which keywords you’ve lost, and, overall, which went up or down in rankings.

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I also like the long-tail keyword suggestion feature — ASOdesk analyzes which combinations of terms could be worth including in your listing to reach high-intent prospects.

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Going further, I decided to try out the Page Builder feature. Some of the things you can do here include checking your description for character count, keyword density, and the number of queries for each of the phrases you use.

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Now, do you remember how I mentioned keeping track of your competitors? Well, that’s exactly what ASOdesk lets you do. You can add your competitors to see how your app ranks in comparison. For this experiment, I chose Revolut.

Below is a screen of Revolut’s keywords — notice that you can see the same information as for Wise, i.e., Top 1, Top 2-5 positions, etc.

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After adding a second app, you can now run a keyword gap analysis, i.e., see what terms they rank for that you don’t. You can check each term for popularity to see if it’s promising enough to include in your listing.

Better yet, you can also get a glimpse of your competitors’ listing copy — the character count, daily impressions, and popularity of keywords, along with their density in the descriptions.

This can come in handy when evaluating successful, i.e., high-ranking listings.

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In short, it’s a comprehensive tool, which allows you to work on literally every aspect of your listing. The fact that you can compare your app against competitors gives you a great opportunity to spot patterns and improve your listing.

The interface is friendly, making the learning curve soft, especially given the number of features it offers. Overall, it’s worth giving it a shot!

Best Practices for ASO Marketing

1. Ask users for reviews.

Social proof can do wonders for your ratings, so don’t hesitate to ask your users for reviews.

Magee Cleeg says that “both the quantity and quality of these reviews affect an app’s ranking. We encourage our clients to solicit reviews in an organic and user-friendly way within the app itself.”

This strategy led to a 35% improvement in the rating of a client’s app, “which in turn had a positive impact on its search rankings.”

2. Refine your listing by reviewing user feedback.

You should make your app feel as relatable to your target audience as possible. One of the best ways to do this is by looking at what users say about your app online. Among others, you can read app store reviews or run a survey.

What adjectives do they use to describe the experience and benefits? What emotions does your app evoke? Make sure to use these terms when writing your listing copy.

This approach has worked for Ilay Ayhan Turkmen, business development manager at YouParcel, who also serves as a board/advisory member at a few startups.

While working on one of the app optimization projects, the company “regularly updated app content based on user feedback and trends, ensuring it remained appealing and met evolving user needs.

These tactics led to a 30% increase in app downloads within the first quarter after the ASO overhaul.”

Ilay says that this feedback-in-the-loop approach helped prove the role of ASO in its entire mobile app marketing strategy.

3. Run A/B testing.

It’s hard to get your app listing right the first time, so I encourage you to run A/B tests to figure out what works best. There are a number of elements you can test, including:

App description copy.
Copy length.
Headings and subheadings.
Screenshots.
App icons.

Just make sure to change one component at a time. Otherwise, you won’t know what impacted your results.

Sudhir Khatwani, founder of The Money Mongers, says that by A/B testing the icons and images, they managed to increase their engagement rate by 20%. Pretty impressive!

4. Adjust text length for each app store.

Google Play and Apple App Store users see different elements of your listing — both in search results previews and when viewing the detailed page.

As mentioned earlier, both platforms let you create a title of up to 30 words, but they differ in other aspects.

For example, there are no subtitles in the Android store, but you can add a description of up to 80 characters. Meanwhile, iOS relies on the title and a short subtitle only.

The bottom line is that you should regularly check how each app listing appears for various users, as it’s vital in encouraging them to click through and, ultimately, download your app.

What I learned…

As someone who’s worked primarily in SEO, I can say that ASO bears a lot of resemblance to its website counterpart.

In the case of Google Play, some analogies stem from the fact that Google uses similar ranking signals, like backlinks, across both platforms.

While working on your ASO marketing strategy, here are some things to keep in mind:

Select your keywords wisely – consider their popularity and difficulty score.
Localize your listing for specific markets. This means not only using the right spelling but also terms that are most popular in each country.
Don’t be afraid to run A/B tests. After all, it’s hard to get your listing right the first time.

And, lastly, remember that ASO isn’t a 100-meter run; it’s a marathon, where you have to continuously analyze and refine your app listing to reach those top results.

Good luck!

B2B

Social Media Copywriting: Expert Tips for Composing Text on 5 Different Platforms [Bookmarkable]

i4lead Jan 6, 2024

Most of us know that nailing social media copywriting and maintaining an active social presence is essential to a brand’s marketing strategy. After all, over 90% of marketers say that social media is essential to their business.

And yet, managing it continues to be a source of frustration for many.

That’s understandable — there are many moving parts to a successful social media strategy. There’s knowing the right frequency with which to post. There’s the measurement of any ROI on these efforts.

And there’s determining what the heck to post to each channel.

Different channels have different audiences, peak times, and character limits.

That’s why we put together the guidelines below to compose copy for five social media channels: Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Snapchat. So read on — and start writing.

How to Compose Text for 5 Social Media Channels

Facebook

Let’s start with a look at Facebook’s audience:

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According to the Pew Research Center, 69% of all online adults on Facebook continue to be the highest-utilized social network. It’s a great place to start building an online community.

And remember, 90% of social media marketers say building an active online community is critical to a brand’s success in 2023 – so your efforts will not be wasted.

But out of the channels we’ll cover here, it also has the highest usage rate among the 65+ audience.

When composing text for Facebook, it’s essential to remember these data — especially if that’s who your brand is targeting. Let’s say you’re creating a marketing budget and want to decide how to allocate a portion for social media.

While we encourage having a presence across all channels, if you’re aiming for the attention of the 65+ audience, this might be the best network for an ad spend or a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign.

Focus your energy here, and then repurpose that content for other channels.

So, let’s go over some basic ground rules:

Make sure your formatting is correct. That’s a big reason we discourage auto-posting duplicate content across multiple channels — you risk including an “@user” tag that’s only fitting for X or Instagram.
Facebook’s character limit on status updates is 63,206. That’s far from ideal. People don’t visit Facebook to consume long-form text or stories. Buffer has found that Facebook posts with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement.
Less text allows greater focus to be placed on any visual content that accompanies it.

Facebook is an excellent avenue for creating an online community and promoting your external content — things like blog posts, reports, or videos. But don’t just post a link without a description.

Be sure to accompany it with brief, attention-grabbing text that signals what the content is about or poses a question that it answers.

Expert tip: Facebook is a great place to create community with your audience, but you need to be strategic with your posts.

Neal Schaffer suggests, “You need to make sure that your posts are aligned with your business goals as well as the reason why people liked your page in the first place!”

He says, “Not only will this best practice strengthen your relationship with your audience, but it will also grow your audience.”

X (Formerly Twitter)

X has become an increasingly popular social media platform. The platform is growing 30% faster among Gen Z than other platforms, like Instagram.

Even though only 7% of marketers think X is the most effective platform for building an engaged community, it is well worth the effort to include crafting the perfect copy for posts as part of your marketing strategy.

Posts for most users have a maximum of 280 characters. For X Blue users, the character count is 10,000. Even though some users have a higher character limit, the ideal post length is around 240-259 characters.

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Remember that hashtags are an effective way to indicate and summarize your message when composing copy for posts. Nearly 87% of social media marketers think users will use social media instead of a search engine to search for products.

So, creating a hashtag specifically for your brand is an excellent way to become discovered by users who might be using hashtags to search for posts or products.

But exercise some restraint with hashtags, and make sure the text accompanying them comprises most of the post. Limit it to one or two — these posts have a 21% higher engagement than those with three or more.

What is social media copywriting; graphic showing successful types of Twitter content

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Notice how music site Pitchfork uses X to promote its top songs and albums for the year.

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The post makes the most of hashtags, using the same tag the publication used to promote audience voting. The post also uses eye-catching graphics with alt text. This makes the post accessible for screen readers and optimized for SEO.

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LinkedIn ranks as the fifth largest social media to provide a high ROI for marketers. The platform has become an interesting content distribution channel.

Users can share simple post updates, usually business-related (think: job openings and professional conferences), and push them to X simultaneously.

However, we don’t recommend that — see our note on the problems with identical content across different channels.

But in 2012, LinkedIn introduced its Influencers program, which recruited notable business figures to guest blog on LinkedIn’s publishing platform.

Eventually, that platform became open to all LinkedIn members in 2014, positioning it as an outlet for people to share original content with an audience much larger than they may have received on their own domains.

That’s part of decentralized content: A concept that allows users to share their work published elsewhere on a content creation platform.

Unlike most social media — where limited content is displayed — the full text and images of the work are shared, with the original author and source credited, on a site different from its origin.

That makes LinkedIn an excellent place to re-post and link to your blog content. But why make the duplicate effort? Well, consider this: 16.4% of all online adults use LinkedIn.

Does your blog have that kind of reach? If it doesn’t, you can reach LinkedIn’s larger audience by syndicating your own content on their platform, drawing more attention to your work.

According to Tim Queen, the character limit for these posts is 3,000 characters.

Expert tip: Re-posting your blog content on other social media platforms requires little knowledge of character counts.

Tim Queen suggests, “If you limit yourself to 2200 characters or 300 to 400 words, you can share your story on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook without the need to edit a word.”

Keep character limits in mind when crafting your social media copy.

Instagram

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Instagram continues to be a favorite social media platform among users and social media marketers alike. 25% of social media marketers say it is the best platform for growing an engaged audience.

Since Instagram is, first and foremost, a platform for sharing photos and videos, the primary focus should be on your visual content. But it’s helpful to provide context that lets users know what they’re viewing — within reason.

Like many other channels we’ve discussed, people don’t use Instagram to read long-form content. And while Instagram doesn’t appear to specify a maximum number of caption characters, it’s cut off after the first three lines.

That’s why we recommend limiting captions to that amount, and if you require more text, make sure the most important information — like calls-to-action — is included in the first three lines.

Hashtags, @mentions, and extraneous details can go toward the end of the copy.

Here’s an excellent example from Vulture. The post starts with an eye-catching image and a well-known actor — Timothée Chalamet.

The copy in the caption gives the post context, noting that it’s a story about the actor’s heartthrob persona. The post also mentions the writer and image’s illustrator expanding its reach.

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Using your caption to provide context is especially important when sharing videos. These typically automatically play without sound, so use the description to let them know what they can’t hear — and maybe even motivate them to listen.

And about those hashtags: Unlike X, it’s okay to use more than two here, but it’s advised to use less than eight.

According to Instagram, the sweet spot seems to be around three to five hashtags — those Instagram posts seem to get the most engagement.

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As for Instagram Stories, there isn’t a ton of detail on character limits there, but because the text overlays the visual content — which is the focus — don’t obscure too much of the photo or video with a caption.

Expert tip: Instagram captions should be short, sweet, and to the point.

Ashlyn Carter suggests that you should “apply any headline copywriting tips you’ve learned to write that first line on Instagram.”

Since Instagram only shows a short snippet of copy to those scrolling through their feed, your first line should draw your audience in and keep them engaged.

Snapchat

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While we‘re on the topic of not obscuring visual content, let’s discuss Snapchat. Again, because the focus here is on the visual, you’ll want to prevent distracting viewers from it with too much text.

According to Teen Vogue, Snapchat’s character limit is 80 per post. The word “snap” implies brevity, so try not to ramble.

The same goes for your Snapchat story: “a compilation of Snaps that a friend has posted to their Story over the last 24 hours.”

Here’s a fun example of how the Food Network created an entire Snapchat story based on the idea of coffee. It began with a small promo on “3 Ways to Step Up Your Iced Coffee Game” under Featured Stories:

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Then, it shared a series of animated images and videos all about the topic, ranging from recipe tips to clips from the network’s show, “Cutthroat Kitchen.”

It took a simple topic — coffee — and expanded it into engaging, consumable content to highlight what the brand does best.

Notice that for certain parts of the story, there’s a call-to-action at the bottom to “Watch” or “Read.”

While Snapchat doesn’t make this entirely clear, it seems like that’s strictly a feature of ads and not something that can be added organically.

However, if your budget permits, adding these CTAs is another way to drive attention to your longer-form content.

Get That Copy Right

Managing your brand’s social media presence is no simple task, but it’s more than possible. And now, writing creative, compelling copy for your various platforms can become a fun task.

And, if you need inspiration for the content you’d like to share on your social media platforms, AI tools, like HubSpot’s Campaign Assistant, can help you write copy in minutes.

Before writing, draw some information about your audience composition for each social network. Then, see how that compares to the user data from Pew Research Center.

From there, you can see where you have the most active audience and how you can repurpose content from one channel to draw attention to another one — and attract website traffic.

How do you create and repurpose copy for social media? Let us know in the comments.

B2B

What Is Content Writing? Plus 12 Tips to Take Your Content to the Next Level

i4lead Jan 6, 2024

Content writing can mean many things.

Crafting social media copy for a small business, drafting press materials for an insurance brand, and posting an essay on AI Ethics to Medium are all forms of writing that fall under the content writing umbrella.

So, what is the actual definition of content writing?

Content writing is creating and editing written content for the internet. That means blog posts, articles, social media posts, website copy, etc. What unifies all these types of writing is the purpose.

Content is intended to be consumed, and writers create written content that enriches the connection between a brand and its target audience.

Read on for a deep dive into content writing and some tips to bring your content writing to the next level.

Content creation is a critical component of most businesses’ marketing strategies — as of 2020, 70% of marketers now actively invest in content marketing.

This means the role of a content writer is more in-demand than ever before. However, the role varies depending on both industry and business needs.

For instance, some businesses invest heavily in a social media strategy, while other companies prefer creating content in the format of blog posts or e-books.

Regardless of format, a content writer is critical for creating high-quality content that represents and strengthens a brand’s voice while attracting, engaging, and delighting the right audience.

Simply put, content writers are the storytellers of their brand. They convey meaningful, helpful, and insightful messages to inspire and move an audience to take action — that action being a final sale.

When done right, content writing can convert readers into prospects and prospects into paying customers. So, you must consistently create helpful, engaging content for your business‘s bottom line. But that’s easier said than done.

To help take your content to the next level, let’s dive into some of my favorite content writing tips.

12 Content Writing Tips

1. Write unique and original content, and go above and beyond what you find online.

Whenever I start a new blog post like this one, I start with plenty of online research — but that’s not where it ends.

After Googling relevant topics, including “content writing tips,” I begin creating an outline using some of the information I find online.

However, your piece will never rank if you just copy-and-paste the same information that already exists online — and, even if it does, when your readers catch on (and they will), they’ll lose trust in your brand as an authority within the industry.

Once I finish my rough outline (including about 60% of the information I found through online research), I fill in the remaining 40% with unique, original insights.

Suppose I know about a topic personally (as with “content writing” since I‘m a content writer). In that case, I’ll fill in the outline with original anecdotes, tips, or personal examples.

However, if I know very little about the topic, that doesn‘t mean I simply use what’s already online. Instead, I‘ll contact internal HubSpotters who are experts on the subject or use other original internal company resources.

I’ll also conduct external outreach via my social networks to find a reputable source willing to provide tips, quotes, or original examples to beef up my piece.

Additionally, I‘ll look for content regarding the topic across a wide range of sources — including YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, and podcasts — to ensure that when readers come across my content, it’s comprehensive and unique.

Why should they stay on your page if they can find the same information elsewhere on Google? As a good content writer, it’s your job to take your content to the next level.

2. Write a good hook to grab your reader’s attention.

Sometimes, writing a good hook is easy — particularly if the topic is intriguing or exciting to you as the writer.

But what about more boring, mundane topics, like Rel=nofollow?

Sometimes, writing a good hook requires pulling back and looking at the bigger picture.

For instance, while rel=nofollow isn’t the most fascinating topic (in my opinion), what is interesting to me is SEO and how SEO can directly impact a company’s ability to reach new audiences — plus, how Google has needed to change regulations in recent years due to an increase in illegitimate sites.

This means when I started writing 3 Reasons Why SEOs Are Upset About Google’s Rel=nofollow Announcement, I used that angle to inspire my hook and painted a picture: Myself as a Wikipedia editor, writing about zebras, and getting paid $500 to link to a fake news website.

(Now you‘re interested, aren’t you?)

My creative writing background helps in this case, and I’m willing to bet your passion for writing will also help you create exciting hooks.

The introduction and hook are often your best opportunity to use your writing skills to inspire, move, surprise, and delight your readers. Take advantage of that space by thinking: What would make me and my friends want to keep reading?

3. SEO-optimize your content for search engines.

Your writing can be stunning, but no one will ever read it if it’s not SEO-optimized.

As a content writer, you must become familiar with SEO when it comes to writing.

An SEO-savvy writer can help you ensure your content ranks on whichever platforms you publish, including YouTube, Google, or even social sites like Instagram.

Plus, you can use SEO to ensure you‘re writing about the most popular topics related to your products or services and covering the right sub-topics when you’re writing about a given topic.

For instance, “content writing tips” is a keyword phrase I found when conducting keyword research on the topic of “content writing” as a whole.

It’s not necessarily a sub-topic I would’ve considered covering in this blog post had I not done the research to recognize HubSpot readers are seeking out that information.

Learning key SEO tactics will help you become a writer more attuned to your readers’ challenges and ensure you create content that more accurately answers those challenges.

4. Consider how you can attract an audience across a wide variety of platforms.

While SEO is critical for ensuring your content ranks on search engines like Google, it’s not the only opportunity for distribution.

To reach a wider audience, learning how to write content that performs well on various platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, or email is helpful.

Plus, you might be a content writer whose sole job is to write newsletter content or social media copy, depending on your business needs.

To ensure your content reaches and inspires audiences regardless of their preferred platform, you must consistently consume content via email and social media to pick up writing tips specific to those sources.

5. Incorporate multimedia components to break up the text.

Try incorporating videos, images, graphs, or other multimedia content to break up the text and make it easier for your readers to consume — mainly if it’s long-form content, like pillar pages or whitepapers.

Consider, for instance, the blog post I wrote: “How to Develop a Content Strategy: A Start-to-Finish Guide.”

That blog post is long, with over 3,000 words. To break it up, I embedded videos and other multimedia elements (like blockquotes) to keep the reader engaged throughout.

This is also an excellent opportunity to increase traffic to your company’s marketing materials.

For instance, if you have a new company podcast, try embedding episodes in relevant blog posts to drive listeners to the podcast while providing additional value for your readers — a win-win.

6. Segue into appropriate and relevant calls-to-action.

As a content writer, your job isn’t just to create good content (that‘s what novelists are for). It’s also to ultimately convert those readers, listeners, or viewers into prospects and customers.

As such, you must learn how to appropriately include relevant CTAs throughout your content, particularly if those CTAs can help your readers learn more about the topic at hand.

Consider, for instance, the relevant CTAs embedded in the body text of HubSpot’s YouTube video, “How to Understand Facebook Video Insights (Guide)“:

These in-text CTAs direct YouTube viewers to explore other HubSpot offerings, including HubSpot Academy social media courses.

The CTAs aren’t jarring or off-putting — instead, the content writer did a good job ensuring the CTAs were relevant and truly valuable for the viewer.

When creating your content, you must consistently direct your audience to various business offerings to convert those viewers into prospects and consumers.

7. Edit, edit, edit.

Whenever I finish a first draft of a blog post, I take a few hours off and then return to it at the end of the day. With a fresh perspective, I can edit for minor grammatical errors or fix structural issues.

Good content writing is impossible without good content editing.

We‘re all human and will continue to make mistakes in our writing. That’s okay, as long as you remember to go back and edit for those errors later.

Additionally, minor grammatical errors can ultimately make or break a reader‘s trust in your brand. Suppose they notice you’ve forgotten periods or misspelled words.

In that case, they might judge that your content isn’t as authoritative and clean as other content on the web and look for future information elsewhere.

8. Jam-pack value into every sentence.

When I worked with an editor a few years ago, she consistently told me: “If your sentence isn’t telling the reader anything new, delete it.”

This was a tough pill to swallow. That meant I needed to delete some of my most moving sentences. But it‘s a fair point: In content creation, you must move quickly onto your next point, or you’ll lose your reader entirely.

Most of your readers are busy people with plenty of distractions, including other businesses’ social posts, blog articles, or YouTube videos. Make it easy for them by making your point — and then moving on.

9. Play around with interesting angles.

Good content writers consistently test out new, surprising angles to keep readers engaged and coming back for more.

Consider, for instance, how often “consumer product” has been written about. If you‘ve ever researched the topic, I’m willing to bet that you’ve already seen various angles as different content writers try to make an old topic feel new again.

But, have you ever seen consumer products compared to water before?

Articles like “Be Like Water — A Guiding Principle for Consumer Product” do an excellent job of finding new angles to pull readers’ in, even if those readers have seen plenty of consumer product-related content before.

The more unique and surprising your angles are, the more likely you are to capture new audiences.

10. Incorporate original quotes from thought leaders or colleagues to paint a well-rounded argument.

No matter how good my writing is, my readers still don’t necessarily want to hear my advice on protecting your mental health while working from home.

That’s why I didn’t try to tackle the topic myself — instead, I found a psychologist to provide well-researched, helpful tips to take my piece to the next level.

Even if you‘re an expert, consider how you might provide alternative opinions to create a more well-rounded argument.

If you’re writing a blog post like “Video vs. Podcast: Which Is Better For Your Business?” — see if you can get quotes from podcasters and video producers (or your internal colleagues who feel passionate about the subject).

Expert quotes or original insights will impress readers and show them that what they’re finding on your website they won’t find elsewhere on the web. And that’s powerful.

11. Tell the reader why what you’re writing about matters to them and their daily lives.

Let’s say you’re creating an ebook: “A Comprehensive Guide to Excel.”

Not exactly what excited you most when you majored in English, was it?

Imagine how your readers feel: Sure, they might download your ebook if they need the information to excel (ha, ha) in their jobs, but they won’t necessarily be excited about it.

Consider, however, how critical Excel is for specific functions.

Excel can help a company’s financial department analyze year-over-year performance to determine how much budgeting a marketing team will receive in the upcoming year.

That budget contributes to critical growth and the business’s ability to reach and convert new customers. Without it, the marketing team won’t be able to increase brand awareness as effectively as they’d like — and the business will suffer.

When you recognize that Excel can be tied to a person‘s job security, it suddenly becomes much more fascinating, doesn’t it?

Content writing is about more than just creating pretty sentences.

It’s also about telling readers why a topic should matter and how your content can help them improve in certain areas of their lives — work, family, health, or travel. Now, that’s purposeful.

12. Ground your advice with examples.

As I‘ve covered these content writing tips, I’ve tried to include a few relevant examples (i.e., my Rel=nofollow blog post).

Examples can help ground your advice and drive a message home — and they can also help demonstrate how readers can apply your advice to their lives.

When writing about loftier, less tangible topics, you must show your readers what you mean rather than just telling them.

But what better way to demonstrate the importance of examples than to…show you some examples? (Great segue, huh?)

Let’s dive into some examples of powerful content writing next.

Examples of Content Writing

1. “Wikipedia’s Value In The Age Of Generative AI” – Selena Deckelmann

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Why It Works

Staying on top of current trends is essential for content writers looking to capture readers’ attention.

From a fresh and exciting perspective, Deckelmann, Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, touches on one of today’s hottest topics, generative AI.

Can people use AI to generate new Wikipedia articles? Would they be any good?

Deckelmann uses these issues as a springboard to deliver her perspective on AI ethics and Wikipedia’s value in a changing digital landscape.

2. “The Player Series Players: Haim Discusses Their Fender Love” – Fender

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What We Like

Fender’s blog post entertains and fosters an emotional connection with the audience. The content serves a marketing purpose while offering entertainment value to the reader.

Fender’s profile on the band is a fun read for fans of the band and the brand alike. It also features an embedded video that supports the content (and offers an SEO bump, too).

3. “The 5 Best Morning Routine Ideas Of Highly-Productive People” – Trello

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Why It Works

Everyone seems to love ice baths and optimized morning routines these days. Trello’s article is an entertaining and topical piece of content that aligns with the brand’s story.

It offers valuable content for readers and features actionable examples with social proof.

Trello’s article never discusses or promotes its product. Yet, it still strengthens the marketing muscle. Helpful content like this helps to drive SEO and reinforces brand loyalty.

4. “Retailers, No Need to Spend a Fortune on Voice AI to See Results” – SoundHound

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What We Like

SoundHound’s blog post focuses on a particular segment of their customers: retailers. Great content writers craft each piece with a purpose and audience in mind. This post exemplifies that.

They also make use of statistics and specific examples to drive home the value that their product delivers:

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Use statistics and examples in your content writing that demonstrate the value of your product whenever possible.

5. “Holy Basil: Our Antioxidant Friend” – Parallel Health

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Why It Works

Parallel Health is a startup that creates custom skincare solutions based on your personal skin microbiome. The above blog post focuses on the benefits of an antioxidant-rich natural ingredient in their products.

This post speaks to skincare connoisseurs with a penchant for science, which accurately describes their target audience.

The post makes readers feel good about using their product, which is always how you want to make your customers think.

Generative AI in Content Writing

Generative AI is here, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Using tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and our free AI Content Assistant, content writers can generate blog posts, titles, captions, and other content ideas just by asking.

However, this doesn’t mean generative AI does the content writing for you. Generative AI is best used as a tool to help you along in the writing process. You’ll still need to personalize the AI’s output and align it with your voice and needs.

Here are some tips for effectively implementing Gen AI in your content writing strategy.

1. Give context.

When prompting your generative AI of choice, give it the context of what your content will be about, your goals, and who your target audience is. Be as clear and descriptive as possible when prompting your AI.

2. Be specific

Tell the AI about specific keywords you want to hit, the length of your post, and any other structural information relevant to the type of content you want to create. Do you want a bulleted list of points as opposed to whole paragraphs? The more detailed instructions you can give, the better.

3. Workshop your prompts.

If your AI didn’t output what you sought on the first try, reiterate, rewrite, and adjust your prompts to get the best results. You can ask your gen AI to review and expand on specific segments until you are happy with the results.

4. Use AI to summarize.

Let’s say you are researching an upcoming post, which requires you to read many other articles for inspiration and fact-finding. You can use generative AI to summarize a lengthy passage.

Copy and paste your source text and ask the AI to summarize the input as a bulleted list.

Just like that, you’ve saved time and have access to key takeaways and points that will inform your content writing process.

5. Be you.

Generative AI is exciting and convenient but is not a replacement for human content writing. Remember, AI is trained on existing content, but only humans can create something out of nothing.

Use AI for inspiration and jumpstart your writing process, but don’t copy and paste the output verbatim, or your content will end up generic and lacking your personal touch.

B2B

I Took a Deep Dive Into the Marketing Funnel, Here’s What I Learned

i4lead Jan 5, 2024

Ever felt the thrill of coming into work only to notice that plenty of new leads have started signing up for a product demo through an article or asset you’ve created?

I can tell you, from personal experience, that few things give you as strong of a motivation boost as this. After all, it’s proof that you must be doing something “right.”

That said, it takes a lot of time to work out where to find your target audience. A lot of it comes down to building the right marketing funnel strategy, i.e., deciding what types of collateral to use at which stage of a lead’s readiness to buy.

Today, we’ll learn a marketing funnel and tips for designing your own.

What is the marketing funnel?

Stages of the Marketing Funnel

Tips for Building a Marketing Funnel Strategy

Marketing Funnel – A Practical Example

What is the marketing funnel?

The marketing funnel describes all the stages your prospect has to go through before becoming your customer — from learning about your company to making the purchasing decision.

In short, the marketing funnel acts as a map to guide your prospects to conversion (and beyond).

If you closely analyze what happens at every stage of your funnel, you’ll be able to understand how to influence prospects to move them to the next stage. Eventually, they become your customers.

A well-designed marketing funnel can translate into stronger brand awareness, higher loyalty, and more sales.

Stages of the Marketing Funnel

There are various approaches to the marketing funnel — some divide it into just three stages, while others break it down much more granularly.

Based on my marketing experience, I believe the following demonstrates how leads become customers well.

1. Awareness

Potential buyers enter the marketing funnel when they first come across your brand.

Depending on the types of content and channels your company appears on, this can be anything from finding you in a Google search, watching a video on social media, or downloading a free ebook.

The first stage should be built around educating leads and building an expert image in your category.

2. Interest

This is when prospects become aware of your brand’s existence. Since you pique their interest, they start engaging with it.

They might, for instance, visit your blog, check out your profile on social media, or even sign up for your newsletter (if you’ve really made a great impression on them).

3. Consideration

It’s evaluation time! Prospects intensify their efforts to gather as much information about your brand as possible. They will look for testimonials, product reviews, and pricing and closely review your offering.

Remember that just because they’ve shortlisted you doesn’t mean you’ll be their final choice. They will most definitely compare your product or service against competitors.

4. Decision

The Decision stage is when the lead is ready to become your customer. For example, they might decide on it while participating in a free demo of your tool or — if you’re in e-commerce — by putting items in their cart.

Your role here is to help them finalize the deal as easily as possible, creating a distraction-free customer journey.

Tips for Building a Marketing Funnel Strategy

1. Power your funnel with user-generated content.

While forming an opinion on a product or brand, people seek authentic, i.e., unsponsored, opinions from real-life users.

That’s why many brands are now investing in user-generated content (UGC) on social media to take leads down the funnel.

Unlike collab posts published on influencer channels, UGC appears on the company’s social media profile. As it turns out, this type of marketing collateral is also extremely popular.

HubSpot’s study on social media trends found that 22% of Instagram users watch branded “Stories” from businesses more than once a week. Moreover, 36% also admit liking, commenting, or sharing them.

One company that has found great success with UGC is Travel-Lingual. Its founder, James Smith, says they’ve started using a branded hashtag and asked their community to post their travel photos, stories, and experiences via social media.

“Not only did this build community, but it also created a ton of genuine content,” he says.

And here’s the best part — this user-generated content became their funnel’s foundation.

“We strategically re-created these stories across all our channels, from blogs to social media. Potential travelers could connect with these real experiences, building a stronger bond with our brand,” Smith says.

This let Trave-Lingual see a 30% increase in engagement rates and 20% more conversions from leads to bookings.

2. Blend engaging blog content with email follow-ups.

A lot is happening in the content world, with AI entering the game at full speed and Google continuously introducing new algorithms (think HCU, core, and spam updates) to improve the content.

Brands are competing for people’s attention, and even though the bar is set high, they still see producing good quality content as an effective marketing funnel strategy. Back it up with smart email follow-ups, and you get a recipe for success.

That’s precisely what Money Mongers do.

“We started by crafting blog posts that hit right at the heart of our audience’s curiosity. These weren’t just any posts; they were packed with insights and aimed to make our readers feel like they were learning something valuable,” Founder Sudhir Khatwani says.

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Khatwani recalls that his team played detective with their analytics. They spotted which posts were the hot favorites and used this intel to send out emails that weren’t just spammy sales pitches.

“These emails were more like a friendly nudge, offering deeper dives into topics our readers already showed interest in. Think free ebooks, webinars — the good stuff,” he says.

What was the result?

Their email list and sales grew by 40% and 25% in three months, respectively.

Sudhir adds that it was all about making their audience feel heard and giving them content that was enriching but didn’t push hard for sale.

3. Use personalized email campaigns.

Although there are plenty of communication channels brands can use to reach their prospects and customers, email is still among the most popular. And if you add personalization to it, it can also be deemed the most effective.

According to HubSpot’s 2022 marketing survey, email has the third highest ROI of any channel. Automation can help you send the right emails at the right time for each lead.

This isn’t news to the cofounder of Gate2AI, Nathan Clark, who regularly uses personalized emails as part of their marketing funnel.

“The key was to tailor email content at every stage of the funnel based on user interactions and preferences,” he says.

The brand used different content at various stages of the customer journey.

At the awareness stage, they use informative and engaging content to capture the audience’s attention. In the consideration stage, they sent targeted emails with case studies and success stories showcasing the practical applications of our AI tools.

“Finally, at the decision stage, we introduced limited-time offers and exclusive benefits to encourage conversions,” says Clark.

Thanks to personalizing their communication, Gate2AI has boosted its conversion rate by 20% and increased customer retention by 15%.

4. Create top-of-the-funnel collateral around FAQs.

One of the ways to catch a lead’s interest in the Awareness stage is to create content relevant to their situation, for example, articles based on frequently asked questions.

Justin Chia, founder of Justjooz, ideates blog post ideas by analyzing people’s common questions on tech, the industry Justin operates. He then creates content answering those questions in a way anyone, not only tech-savvy readers, can grasp.

“Over three months after starting this blogging strategy, website visits increased by 40%,” Chia says. “More readers now check out our other pages, too. It seems the posts lead people to our site in a natural way.”

For Justjooz, educating people, building trust, and taking them down the marketing funnel naturally is better than running paid ads.

Content that circles user questions and problems can also be used further down the funnel, as I discuss next.

5. Adjust marketing touchpoints to your customer journey.

What’s the secret to an effective marketing funnel? There isn’t a single answer. However, according to Yeespy CEO Peter Michaels, it comes down to two key elements:

Aligning touchpoints to guide prospects as they explore your product or service.
Making sure that your funnel reflects your customers’ journeys.

“In our SaaS journey, one standout strategy centered around a webinar series targeting mid-funnel prospects seeking in-depth insights into our industry,” Michaels says.

The company ideated webinar topics based on their customers’ pain points. The goal of this MoFU collateral was to position the product naturally as a solution.

They leveraged ads and email campaigns to attract a niche audience, i.e., one looking for a solution like theirs.

“The webinars, hosted by industry experts, provided high-value content, establishing credibility and trust among attendees,” Michaels says. “And the results were remarkable — we witnessed a 40% increase in webinar registrations compared to previous campaigns.”

Moreover, Michaels notes that over 30% of attendees progressed to demo requests or trial sign-ups, resulting in a 25% increase in conversions within the mid-funnel stage.

This marketing funnel tactic works since it provides leads with substantial value while subtly guiding them toward the next stage.

6. Create comparison page funnels.

The more competitive the industry you operate in, the harder it might be for leads to tell what makes your solution better than others on the market. Here’s where creating comparison pages can be very effective.

Josh Gallant, founder of Backstage SEO, has helped several startups boost traffic and visitor-to-lead conversions by creating these product landing pages.

“For one client, we launched ~40 comparison pages that drove 2-3K organic visits per month, with an average visitor-to-lead conversion rate of around 10%. That’s ~200 inbound leads every month from a relatively small number of visits purely because of how high the purchase intent was of the visitors,” he says.

To take comparison page visitors further down the funnel, you can add an actionable CTA like “demo request,” which hands them over to sales.

“Bonus points if you create custom responses tailored to the competitor page where the conversion took place,” Gallant adds.

This experience has made it one of the most popular content formats Backstage SEO recommends to clients.

7. Create a seamless experience for your prospects and leads.

A good marketing funnel strategy goes beyond creating personalized content and selecting the proper communication channels. It’s also about how the information is presented to the viewer.

Christy Pyrz, the Chief Marketing Officer of Paradigm Peptides says their team has made ease of access a central part of our marketing funnel strategy.

“A common mistake that businesses make is to either create too many lead-ins to reach the desired information or present it in a manner that is either confusing or overwhelming, which leads to frustration and eventual abandonment,” Pyrz says.

Pyrz says the team recognizes the need to access information quickly and seamlessly. As a result, they limit on-page promotions, avoid an overabundance of field forms, and eliminate irrelevant or frivolous information.

Marketing Funnel – A Practical Example

Let’s now put theory into practice. In this scenario, I will design a marketing funnel strategy for a customer feedback tool.

The target users of this software are Customer Success teams who need to analyze their clients’ satisfaction and loyalty levels. This will help them keep the churn rate under control.

To do this, they are looking for a feedback collection tool that will let them:

Spot low customer sentiment levels.
Take proactive and reactive measures to retain unhappy clients.

Awareness

The lead is looking to find ways to keep their customer retention rate high. They start looking for information online — search via Google, look for videos on YouTube, or read Reddit threads.

Let’s say that they’ve popped the “how to improve customer retention” query into search. Brands can use it on their website and blog copy as a long-tail keyword to increase traffic.

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Your website happens to be among the top three results for the phrase. They click on the link and start learning about the ins and outs of high client retention rates. Your content covers common causes and potential ways to fix customer dropoff.

While reading the piece, they also learn about surveys as one of the methods to check customer sentiment. You introduce them to concepts like Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys.

Examples of marketing collateral in the Awareness stage:

SEO-optimized educational articles, for example, “How to keep customer churn under control” or “Best practices for a high survey response rate.”
Free ebooks on topics related to customer satisfaction.
Social media content with tips and unique insights.

Consideration

The prospect is now aware that they’ll need a platform to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty to reach their goals. So, they start researching tools.

They now begin looking up terms like “best tools to gather feedback” in Google. They read reviews on third-party sites, check out testimonials on customer feedback tool websites, etc.

Examples of marketing collateral in the Consideration stage:

Case studies.
Reviews on G2Crowd, Serchen, Capterra.
Answers to tool-related questions on Quora/Reddit.
Testimonials.
Social media posts focused on specific tools.
Landing pages — tool comparison pages that help your tool stand out.

Decision

It’s decision time; the prospect starts shortlisting their options and testing the tools — focusing on those that offer a free trial. They take a deeper dive into the features and pricing.

Remember that leads who sign up for a freemium/free plan are not your clients yet. They’re still in the decision stage.

Technically, they already have an account in the tool and can even run a simple NPS or CSAT survey, but they aren’t a paying customer yet and can opt-out easily.

Examples of marketing collateral in the Decision stage:

User onboarding sequences. It’s super important to make them engaged to avoid dropout.
How-to videos.
Knowledge base articles.
Pricing landing page — one that explains what each plan offers.
Case studies.

Getting Your Marketing Funnel Strategy Right

You can use plenty of tactics to build an effective marketing funnel strategy. Before creating the collateral for each stage, ensure it fits the context of your lead’s journey.

Are they ready to learn about tools? You cannot, for instance, expect a prospect to read your case study if they don’t know if your solution resolves their problems.

As with many other areas in business, creating the “right” marketing funnel is a trial and error endeavor — but it’s worth the effort. Good luck!

B2B

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Ultimate Guide + Expert Tips

i4lead Jan 5, 2024

Search engines are a part of daily life. Set up your search engine marketing correctly, and it can also be a part of your daily business growth.

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is one of the most effective ways to grow your business and reach new customers.

While you must employ organic strategies to attract traffic over the long term, sometimes you can’t properly compete on the search engine ranking pages without putting money behind it — and that’s where SEM comes into play.

For instance, consider what happens when I type “hiking boots” into Google:

REI clearly has an effective SEO strategy, as its “hiking boots” page ranks first organically. However, paid advertising appears at the top and dominates search results.

With 49% of surveyed shoppers saying that they use Google to find new products, your business’s products or services must appear at the top of a SERP when a user searches.

This isn’t always possible organically, particularly when other businesses pay to ensure their products appear above yours. When this is the case, you must invest in a SEM strategy.

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

How an Ad Auction Works

SEM Strategy

Best SEM Tools

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

Search engine marketing is the process of using paid advertising to ensure that your business’s products or services are visible on search engine results pages (SERPs).

When a user types in a certain keyword, SEM enables your business to appear as a top result for that search query.

SEM is technically an umbrella term encompassing all search engine marketing, but it’s generally used to discuss paid search marketing. When speaking specifically about organic marketing, we’re talking about SEO.

As a content marketer, I’ve seen brands mistakenly turn to ads to solve their problems.

Short-sighted brands sometimes skip the step of developing and testing their offers and think that they can run enough ads to make up for the lack of development.

This is a costly and ineffective way to approach lead generation.

Ads are like fuel on a fire. Without any kindling (great offers), your fire is entirely dependent on you adding more and more gasoline to stay alive. Instead, why not add fuel and more logs to the fire?

You do so by developing a search engine marketing strategy that spans organic and paid advertising.

Take a free Google Ads course in HubSpot Academy.

SEO and SEM Compared

SEO and SEM are strategies that help your content appear in search results, but they have different functions.

SEO, or search engine optimization, allows your content to appear in organic search results. These listings show up on result pages based on Google’s analysis of their content and how it relates to search queries.

Most search engine results pages are organic search results:

While SEO is free because you don’t need to pay to have your content included, quality SEO can be time-consuming. It’s a long-term investment in getting traffic to your website, and it isn’t a perfect solution for all marketing goals.

Some search queries will be too competitive for your website to rank in search engine queries. This is where search engine marketing helps fill gaps.

Using paid advertising, you can appear at the top of search results when the organic search results are too competitive for you.

While marketers can (and do!) discuss SEM vs SEO at length, they should work together to execute your digital marketing strategy.

SEM Statistics

What do the numbers say about search engine marketing? Here are some compelling statistics:

70+ percent of shoppers buy online using their phones. (SEMrush)
More Google searches happen on mobile than on desktop. (Smart Insights)
Approximately 40 percent of ad spending in the US comes from search advertisements. (Statista)
When comparing the top organic result on Google with the top sponsored result, the organic SERP gets 19x more clicks. (First Page Sage)

To ensure you can use SEM to advertise your products or services on the SERPs properly, we’ve cultivated a list of the best SEM tools and the components of an SEM Ad Auction.

How an Ad Auction Works

Once you’re ready to invest in SEM, you must enter into an ad auction. There are many different search engines, but we’ll focus on the ad auction in Google Ads (formerly called Google Adwords) for our purposes.

Simply put, every Google ad you see goes through an ad auction before appearing in the SERPs.

To enter into an ad auction, you’ll first need to identify keywords you want to bid on and clarify how much you’re willing to spend per click on each.

Once Google determines the keywords you bid on are contained within a user’s search query, you’re entered into the ad auction.

Not every ad will appear on every search related to that keyword. Some keywords don’t have enough commercial intent to justify incorporating ads into the page.

For instance, when I type “What is Marketing?” into Google, I don’t see any ads appear.

Additionally, even if your keyword is a good fit for an ad, it doesn’t mean you’ll “win” the bidding. The ad auction considers two main factors when determining which ads to place on the SERP: your maximum bid, and your ads’ Quality Score.

Quality Score

Your Quality Score impacts where your ad appears in search results, which is called your Ad Rank. This score estimates the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

You can find your Quality Score, reported on a 1-10 scale, in your keywords’ “Status” column in your Google Ads account.

The more relevant your ad is to a user, as well as how likely a user is to click through and have an enjoyable landing page experience, all factor into your overall Quality Score.

Having a high Quality Score should be a top priority of your strategy.

If you don’t prioritize it sooner, you’ll deal with it later. Here’s one founder’s experience with improving their ad Quality Score:

“In the early days of SEM for Zeralabs, our campaigns had a mediocre Quality Score,” shared Sophia Tang, founder of Zeralabs.

Sophia says, “By optimizing our ad copy and landing pages to be more relevant to our targeted keywords, we saw a clear improvement in ad placements and reduced our average cost-per-click, even without focusing on stats.”

SEM Strategy

SEM strategy involves optimizing paid search ads with a specific goal in mind.

To create a good strategy, you must understand how paid ad platforms work and effectively manage variables that affect performance, such as keywords, budget, and copy.

With this in mind, here are some factors that should go into your strategy if you want to earn paid ads success.

Exercise: Choose a keyword that you’re considering running ads for. Find the ads ranking and study them as you read through the recommended strategy below.

Try to understand other marketers’ decisions when implementing their search engine marketing.

Keyword Intent

Pay-per-click, or PPC, strategy starts with choosing the right keywords to bid on. That means researching to determine what keywords to bid on or, in other words, what queries you want your ad to show up for.

Start by brainstorming brand terms, terms that describe your product, and even terms that describe your competition.

“Understanding the user’s intent behind a keyword is crucial. Are they looking to buy, or are they just gathering information? This will guide your bidding strategy,” shared Dominik Mąka, head of SEO at LVBET.

Dominik has managed $10 million in ads and has many insights on SEM for beginners.

“For instance, keywords with high buying intent usually have a higher cost-per-click but can offer a better ROI,” Mąka says.

If you have a small budget, you may only want to bid on keywords with buying intent.

However, if you have a larger budget, you may have room to bid on keywords targeting earlier stages of the buyer’s journey or even terms loosely related to your products.

Target Audience

When viewers click on your paid ad, they should feel that the content instantly resonates. You achieve this by designing ads that match the needs of your target audience.

Remember that ads should be highly relevant to precisely what users are looking for when they enter their search query.

Align your ads with the interests and desires of your ideal viewer, and then meet them where they’re at in the buyer’s journey (also called the customer journey).

Keyword Volume and Competition

If no one’s searching for your target keywords, you won’t get any results from your ads. At the same time, keywords with extremely high volume attract more competition (and sometimes lose relevancy).

When doing keyword research, relevant high-volume and low-competition keywords are a sweet spot, but they may be challenging to come by. It becomes a balancing act between demand (volume) and budget (competition).

Where to start?

“If you’re new to SEM, start with a modest budget and focus on long-tail keywords that are less competitive but still relevant to your business,” Dominik Mąka said. “As you gain more experience and data, you can increase your budget and target more competitive keywords.”

Keyword Cost

Ad placement is determined by the bid you specify for the keyword and the quality score Google has given your ad. Higher offers and higher-quality ads win the best placement.

With this in mind, high-competition keywords end up being more expensive.

However, bidding too low means your ad will not be shown, so you’ll want to ensure that you can be competitive based on how much competition is for the keyword.

“When starting with SEM, it’s incredibly important to ensure you’re only targeting keywords that are important to your business, and if your budget is small, that you only focus on transaction keyword types,” shared Justin Silverman, founder, and CEO of Merchynt.

“Focusing on broad keywords and ones that people search when just looking for information is going to drain your budget quickly and result in very few leads,” Silverman says.

Account and Campaign Structure

Theoretically, you could lump all of your keywords together in a single bucket and display one ad for the aggregate lot. But your budget would be eaten up by a handful of high-volume keywords, and your quality score would decrease.

That’s why structuring your Google Ads account properly is so important.

“Your account structure matters,” shared Dominik Mąka. “This not only makes your account easier to manage but also allows for more targeted ad copy and landing pages, which can improve your Quality Score and lower your cost-per-click.”

There are several levels for Google Ads campaign organization:

Ad — the copy that’s displayed for the keywords you’ve chosen.
Keywords — the queries you’re bidding on.
Ad group — sets of like keywords grouped by theme.
Campaign — the highest level for managing ad groups.

At each level, you can determine what’s working and not working, making you more informed about performance and how your money is being spent.

Copy

At the end of the day, when your keywords are chosen and your account is structured, you still have to write suitable ads and “earn” the click.

An ad is made up of a few components:

Title
Display URL
Description

Understand exactly what the searchers are looking for with their queries and see if you write a great ad that makes your offer attractive.

Keep in mind also that SEM isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it activity.

Ongoing PPC management helps you eliminate budget waste, experiment with ads, and optimize keywords you’re bidding for to ensure you get the most ROI from your efforts.

Landing page conversion

Ads will bring users to your webpage, but if zero percent of the users convert, you won’t move the needle on any of your digital marketing goals.

Qualities like load speeds, user interface, and value proposition impact the conversation rate of your landing page. Test and tweak both the copy AND visuals on your landing page to keep improving your conversion rate.

“Meticulous ongoing optimization is critical. Check search terms, ad copy, and landing pages constantly to increase relevancy. Kill waste rapidly and scale what resonates. Leverage platforms’ algorithms with tight, agile management,” shared Jason Smit, CEO of Contentellect.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint; paid search requires long-term commitment and skill development, and a steep learning curve exists. But patient mastery of SEM fundamentals will yield huge returns over time,” Smit says.

Learn more about improving conversion rates with this landing page design tutorial:

Or get inspired with these landing page examples.

Analytics and Reporting

Are viewers being compelled to make a purchase, join your email list, or start a free trial when they visit your ad landing page? If not, it’s time to make changes.

“It’s essential to remember that SEM isn’t static. Trends change, consumer behaviors shift, and algorithms get updated. Consistent tracking and optimization are your keys to adapting successfully to these changes,” shared SEO consultant Milosz Krasinski.

“With a blend of well-defined objectives and a nuanced understanding of ad extensions, you can develop a robust, adaptable SEM campaign that not just meets but exceeds your goals,” Krasinski says.

Search visibility alone won’t make all of your marketing goals complete.

In my experience working with clients who run ads, the ones who excitedly engage with the data are the ones who have the most beneficial expertise and continue to see results long-term.

To make search engine marketing work for you in the long term, you need to constantly evaluate and react accordingly to improve results. The following tools can help.

Best SEM Tools

1. HubSpot’s Ad Tracking Software

The HubSpot Ads tool helps you go beyond traffic and click metrics to analyze precisely how ads are influencing contacts where they are in the buyer’s journey.

This will help you understand which ads work, justify SEM as a channel, and integrate your advertising with the rest of your marketing efforts.

2. SEMrush

SEMRush allows you to conduct extensive keyword research, keyword rank tracking, site audits, traffic analysis, and more.

SEMRush is a fantastic tool for finding opportunities to rank for long-tail keywords organically, but additionally, you can use the tool for various SEM efforts.

For example, you can use SEMRush to determine where your competitors are concentrating their marketing efforts and analyze their regional presence. This will help you determine how much money you want to put behind specific keywords.

Additionally, SEMRush enables you to discover your main paid search competitors, determine which keywords they’re bidding on, and study the composition of their ads.

This is vital information when you’re cultivating your own paid strategy and are trying to figure out how to out-rank other businesses on the SERPs.

3. Google Trends

Google Trends allows you to track the search volume for a particular keyword across a specific region, language, or time frame — which can enable you to identify which search terms are trending and which aren’t.

Since you don’t want to put money behind a decreasing popularity keyword, this is a handy tool for your SEM efforts.

Additionally, mainly if you work for an e-commerce business, gauging interest in your product or service in a certain geographical area is undoubtedly powerful for ensuring you tailor your paid efforts to specific locations, saving you money in the long run.

4. Keywordtool.io

One of the most helpful features of Keywordtool.Io is its ability to tap into Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, Instagram, X, and the App Store so that you can segment your keyword research through various channels and better target your efforts.

Additionally, the tool takes your base keyword. It provides you with variations of words and phrases, which allows you to cultivate a more extensive list of possible keywords you might want to include in a paid ad.

Using Google Autocomplete to provide relevant keywords, the free version of Keywordtool.Io lets you generate up to 750 long-tail keywords and keyword suggestions for every search term.

Plus, you can use the tool to analyze search trends on Google to ensure your desired keywords are increasing in popularity and will continue to serve you well over the long term.

5. Google Ads Keyword Planner

Use Google Ads Keyword Planner to research relevant keywords for your business and keep track of how searches for certain keywords change over time.

The Keyword Planner will help you narrow down a list of possible keywords to ensure you choose the most effective ones for your business.

Additionally, Keyword Planner will give you suggested bid estimates for each keyword to determine which keywords work with your advertising budget.

Best of all, once you’ve found your ideal keywords and are ready to launch an ad campaign, you can do it all from within the tool.

6. SpyFu

Ever wish you could see which keywords your competitors are buying on Google or check out which ad tests they’ve run?

With SpyFu, you can simply search a domain, and you’ll see every keyword that a business has bought on Google Ads, every organic keyword for which they’ve ranked, and every ad variation they’ve had in the last 12 years.

7. WordStream

WordStream is an advertising management solution that can help you research, measure, and optimize your ads for performance. You get access to advanced reporting features for data analysis and tools for creating great ads.

In addition, WordStream has alerts and workflow tools to help you make decisions about your campaigns.

Conclusion

Are you ready to grow your business with SEM? Online marketing is an endless puzzle with countless ways to advance your goals, and paid search results can be a pivotal and powerful puzzle piece when leveraged correctly.

With the above tools and a killer strategy, SEM can be an excellent strategy for lead generation. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t start your PPC campaign today.

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

B2B

Weird Words in English: 100+ Terms You Need to Know from 2023 and Beyond

i4lead Jan 4, 2024

In 2023, the Oxford English Dictionary again updated its lexicon, adding 80 new weird words and phrases.

From technological jargon like “Bitcoin” and “Deepfake” to colloquial gems such as “Bestie” and “Binge-Watching,” the OED continues to capture the ever-evolving tapestry of the English language.

The words newly added not only reflect technological advances but also capture the cultural zeitgeist. They tackle everything from the trivial — like “First-World problem”— to the more contentious, such as “Techlash.”

The dictionary‘s embrace of such diverse terminology means there’s something in this year’s list for everyone.

You‘re bound to react whether you find these additions eye-rollingly modern or a fascinating snapshot of our times.

Some words may make you chuckle, while others may have you questioning whether they should have made it into the dictionary. So, buckle up, word nerds. You’re in for a linguistic treat.

100+ Weird Words in English You Need to Know

Adorbs, adj.

A colloquial abbreviation for “adorable” often used to describe something extremely cute or appealing.

Adulting, n.

The practice or act of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult.

Amirite, int.

An informal variant of “am I right,” seeking agreement or, sometimes, playfully undermining the preceding statement.

Anti-Establishmentarianism, n.

A stance of opposition or animosity toward established authority or the establishment itself.

Antigodlin, adv.

In a slanted or diagonal manner, typically not aligning with usual or established directions.

Antigram, n.

A word arrangement that, when reorganized, yields a meaning contrasting or opposed to the initial word or phrase’s sentiment.

Awesomesauce, adj.

A playful term meaning exceptionally good or fantastic.

Backwash, n.

The passing of water or other liquid through a filter in the reverse direction to normal flow in order to flush it clean; an instance of this. Liquid used in such a process.

Bae, n.

A term of endearment, often used to refer to a significant other or a loved one.

Baked Potato, n.

A potato baked whole and served in its skin.

Basic, adj.

Boring, unoriginal, or not interesting. Used to describe something that everyone does and is there for overdone.

Beardo, n.

A colloquial term for someone with a beard or an individual stereotypically associated with having a beard, such as an intellectual or hippie.

Beatboxer, n.

A performer who uses amplified vocal effects to imitate the sounds and rhythms of hip-hop music.

Bestie, n.

A person’s best friend; a very close friend.

Bet, adj.

A slang term used to show affirmation, agreement, or approval.

Binge-Watching, v.

The act of watching multiple episodes of a television series in quick succession, usually through streaming platforms.

Bitchingly, adv.

As an intensifier: very, extremely; In a resentful manner; complainingly. Also: in an unpleasant or contemptuous manner; spitefully.

Bitcoin, n.

(A proprietary name for) a digital payment system introduced in 2009, having its own unit of account; the unit of account of this system.

Blobfish, n.

Any of several bottom-dwelling deep-sea fishes of the family Psychrolutidae (fathead sculpins), which have large heads; spec. Psychrolutes marcidus of Australian and New Zealand waters, having gelatinous flesh and a distinctive sagging face.

Bookaholics, n.

Individuals who are extremely fond of reading or buying books habitually.

Bridey, adj.

Characteristic or reminiscent of a bride, often in the context of appearances or behavior.

Bro Hug, n.

A friendly embrace shared between two men, typically denoting camaraderie.

Bussin’, adj.

Extremely good or excellent.

BYOD, n.

Bring your own device, the policy or practice of allowing employees, customers, etc., to connect to an organization’s network using their own smartphones, computers, etc.

Cap, n.

Slang term for a lie or lying. When someone says, “No cap,” they mean they aren’t lying.

Cheddar, n.

Slang term for money.

Cheugy, adj.

Old-school, uncool, or outdated. Often used to describe items that were popular for Millennials in their youth but are now out of style.

Chronically Online, adj.

Someone who spends so much time on the internet and social media that they lose touch with reality. They may think things are more popular in the real world than they actually are because they spend so much time on the internet.

Citrusy, adj.

Of a smell, taste, or color: characteristic or suggestive of citrus fruit. Also having such a smell, taste, or colour.

Conlang, n

An artificially created language.

Crap Shoot, n.

A situation or undertaking regarded as uncertain, risky, or unpredictable.

Crazy-Pants, n.

An individual devoid of logic, rationale, or intellect; someone with extreme quirks or eccentricities.

Dance-Off, n.

A competition in which individuals or groups compete against each other through dance.

Deepfake, n.

Digital content manipulated to convincingly replace one individual‘s likeness with another’s, often with malicious intent.

Dish Dog, n.

An individual hired to cleanse plates and execute various basic chores in a kitchen; a culinary assistant.

Dumpster Fire, n.

A situation that is disastrously chaotic or out of control.

Emojis, n.

Digital icons or symbols used to convey emotions, ideas, or responses in electronic communication.

Era, n.

A period of time in a person’s life. This word as a slang term took off after Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which showed off music from different periods of her artistry.

Evil Genius, n.

A malevolent spirit imagined as accompanying a person and seeking to influence him or her to do evil, and often paired with an opposed benevolent spirit; a person who exerts an evil influence; a person with an exceptional capacity for wrongdoing or malevolence; (also) a highly intelligent criminal or villain.

Farmhousey, adj.

Resembling or evoking the ambiance of a farmhouse, particularly its cozy and rustic charm.

Fell Off, v.

When someone, usually a celebrity, declines in popularity or performs worse than they have in the past.

Finsta, n.

Someone’s secondary Instragram account where they post funny or less-polished photos. Finstas are usually only shared with close friends.

First World Problem, n.

A problem affecting the First World and its inhabitants. A cause of frustration or dissatisfaction regarded as trivial, arising only as a result of the economic and social privilege, access to technology, etc., associated with the First World.

Flexitarian, n.

A person who follows a primarily but not strictly vegetarian diet.

Fuhgeddaboudit, int.

A colloquial expression suggesting “forget about it,” often used to imply something is not worth the trouble or is unbelievable.

Glam-Ma, n.

A grandmother who is fashionable or glamorous.

Glamping, n.

A type of camping that involves luxurious accommodations or amenities, combining “glamour” and “camping.”

Glitter Bomb, n.

A prank involving the unexpected showering of glitter on someone, often sent as a surprise package.

Glow Up, n.

To dramatically improve or get better.

GOAT, n.

An acronym for “greatest of all time,” denoting someone or something deemed the best in its domain.

Godzooks, int.

Expressing surprise, alarm, frustration, etc.

Groomzilla, n.

A man overly obsessed or domineering in orchestrating the specifics of his wedding.

Group Hug, n.

A hug shared by three or more people in a group, typically as an expression of support or solidarity.

Hangry, adj.

A state of anger or irritability resulting from hunger.

Hashtag, n.

A word or phrase preceded by a hash and used to identify messages relating to a specific topic; the hash symbol itself, when used in this way.

High Muckety-Muck, n.

A person of high status and influence; an important person, a bigwig.

Hip-Hopping, n. adj.

The action of hip-hop. Of or relating to hip-hop.

Honky-Tonker, n.

A person who owns, works in, or frequents a honky-tonk. Also a performer of honky-tonk music.

Ick, n.

A feeling of disgust or dislike toward a certain trait or behavior.

It’s Giving, v.

Used to describe the look or vibe of something. Followed by an adjective.

IYKYK, adj.

An abbreviation for if you know, you know.

Jerkface, n.

A person deemed contemptible or obnoxious.

Lamester, n.

A person who is unexciting, lacks distinction, or is viewed as socially awkward or disconnected.

MacGyver, v.

To ingeniously and creatively use everyday objects to solve problems, named after a TV character known for such skills.

Noob, n.

A person who is inexperienced in a particular activity or field, especially in online gaming or internet activities.

Nothingburger, n.

An event or situation that, despite being hyped or publicized, has little significance or impact.

NPC, n.

Non-player character. This refers to a character in a video game that you can interact with and talk to; however, no real person plays the character. The player is controlled by code written for the game. NPC can also be used as a slang term for someone with no personality.

Out of Pocket, adj.

Out of left field. Inappropriate. A statement or occurrence that seems to go out of nowhere.

Periodt, adj.

End of sentence. Signals the end of a discussion or thought. This word may also be used to emphasize a point.

Pescatarian, n. adj.

A person who eats fish but avoids eating meat; someone who includes fish in an otherwise vegetarian diet. Keeping to a diet that includes fish but not meat; of or relating to pescatarians or their practices.

Phablet, n.

A device that combines the features and size of a smartphone and a tablet.

Pop Idol, n.

A pop star with immense success and an exceptionally loyal fan base.

Puggles, n.

A breed of dogs that is a cross between a pug and a beagle.

Rizz, n.

Short for charisma. Another word for charm or attractiveness. Someone who is charismatic or very good with people has rizz.

Salty, adj.

Bitter, angry, or upset about something.

Schmoozefest, n.

An event marked by superficial or insincere conversation and networking.

Sciency, adj.

Of a somewhat scientific or technical nature; having an interest in or aptitude for science.

Selfie, n.

A photographic self-portrait, esp. one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.

Shook, adj.

Shaken or emotionally shocked. Disturbed.

Skelpie, n.

A cheeky or naughty youngster, particularly a female. An individual perceived or handled as of minimal value. Primarily referenced in historical settings.

Skype, v.

To have a spoken conversation over the internet using Skype software, freq. while viewing live images of one another on a computer screen or mobile device. To participate in a conversation or event in another location by using Skype software.

Slay, v.

To “nail it” or “kill it.” To do something excellently. To be very good or impressive at a task.

Spit Take, n.

A reaction in which someone spits out what they’re drinking in response to something surprising or funny.

Sus, adj.

Short for suspicious. Refers to odd or untrustworthy behavior.

TBH, n.

Chiefly in online and electronic communication, to be honest.

Tea, n.

Drama, gossip, or interesting events that have occurred. People asking for tea or for you to spill the tea want to know what happened.

Techlash, n.

A potent negative response or backlash against major tech companies, their personnel, or their products.

Teen Idol, n.

A notably accomplished young performer or musician, frequently a male, with a passionate, primarily teenage, and often female following.

Touch Grass, v.

Get off of the internet and go outside to do something in the real world.

TP, n. v.

Toilet paper; to cover (a building, trees, etc.) with toilet paper, typically as a prank.

Twittersphere, n.

The collective community of Twitter users and the conversations and interactions occurring within this environment.

Un-PC, adj.

Not politically correct.

Upcycling, n.

The operation or process of reusing waste materials to create a product of higher value or quality; the action or process of repurposing or renovating an old or unwanted item to make it more attractive, valuable, etc.

Vibe Check, v.

To see what the mood surrounding or feelings toward a situation is.

Vlog, n.

A blog where the medium is video, often published on platforms like YouTube.

Vom, v. n.

A colloquial abbreviation of “vomit,” either the act of vomiting or the substance itself.

Wackadoodle, n. adj.

Alteration of wackadoo. Crazy, mad, eccentric.

Wardrobe Malfunction, n.

An instance of an article of a person‘s clothing slipping out of position, tearing, etc., so as to expose part of the wearer’s body or otherwise cause embarrassment.

Worstest, adj.

An emphatic, non-standard version of “worst,” often used for humorous or dramatic effect.

Yas, int.

An enthusiastic exclamation expressing pleasure, excitement, or agreement.

Yeet, v.

To throw something. This usually shows that the thrower used a high degree of force.

YOLO, int.

An acronym for “You Only Live Once,” often used to justify reckless or adventurous behavior.

Zombocalypse, n.

A hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario where zombies have taken over.

B2B

55 Funny Commercials We Love From the Last Five Years

i4lead Jan 4, 2024

It seems like every commercial is trying to be funny these days, and it makes sense because humor is a way to sell your brand without outwardly selling something.

By appealing to a consumers’ funny bone, you’re able to engage with them and help them remember your brand.

Incorporating humor can work for almost any business or any product. Businesses with highly specialized or expensive products can take advantage by appealing to all audiences.

Businesses with small budgets can still take the time to make a clever joke.

The bonus is that someone who interacts with your marketing may not be your target customer, but they could very well share your information with someone who is. It’s all about brand awareness.

When it comes to humor, it’s important to be authentic. The brands that make humor work know their persona and their audience well enough to know what will make them laugh.

That being said, here are 55 funny commercials from the last five years and why we love them.

Pop Culture Commercials

Commercials Starring Comedians

Commercials Featuring Celebrities

Parodies

Commercials With Unexpected Twists

Pop Culture Commercials

1. PopCorners

This commercial turned heads in 2023, with big-name actors like Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul renewing their titular roles from Breaking Bad. The serious nature of the show juxtaposed the humorous nature of the commercial.

Bryan Cranston, as Walter White, tells Jesse to “Say. Their. Name.” Paying homage to his infamous line in the show, “Say. My. Name.” Ultimately, this funny commercial stole the show at the 2023 Super Bowl.

Pro tip: If you’re using parody in your funny commercial, be sure to do your research and sprinkle in as many references to the original as you can.

2. Old Spice

Have you ever not laughed watching an Old Spice ad or interacting with them on social media? It seems like they can do no wrong when it comes to their marketing.

Most recently, Old Spice teamed up with the cast of The Witcher to make a commercial that pokes fun at how all those characters in old fantasy worlds really smell.

An indication of Old Spice’s success is how they’ve been able to make their marketing go viral. This is no easy task, especially when there is pressure on marketing departments to generate revenue.

But we can see that Old Spice’s decision to not be so focused on a hard sell is paying off.

What we like: Old Spice’s marketing may seem outlandish, but when you interact with their brand, they work hard to be worth remembering.

This brand awareness serves them well when you go shopping and think of their over-the-top funny marketing.

3. T-Mobile

Another favorite pop culture commercial is T-Mobile’s new ad featuring Zac Braff, Donald Faison, and bizarrely John Travolta, who sing a “Summer Nights” parody about how wonderful T-Mobile streaming is.

T-Mobile really covers their bases when it comes to nostalgic viewers, targeting lovers of the 1978 film Grease and the 2001 TV show Scrubs.

The trio of actors actually have quite a bit of chemistry together, helping sell the absurdity of a musical number about television streaming.

Pro tip: When it comes to picking who will star in your funny commercial, don’t forget about charisma. You will want someone who can really sell the humor in your commercial without coming off as goofy.

4. Pepsi

Ben Stiller stars in the 2023 Pepsi Zero commercial that pokes fun at the idea that actors in commercials are only acting; they don’t genuinely like the product. Ben Stiller acts as a superhero, a man proposing, and a friend of a robot, all proven to be disingenuous.

Pepsi is notorious for having celebrities such as Cindy Crawford, Beyonce, David Beckham, and more sponsoring the brand. This funny commercial addresses the elephant in the room: Do these celebs actually like Pepsi?

The answer isn’t as important as you might think because when you really think about it, who cares if Beyonce actually enjoys Pepsi? The commercial reframes the question by asking you to try Pepsi and decide for yourself.

Pro tip: Be self-aware of people’s preconceived notions of your brand and use those ideas as a jumping-off point for your commercial.

5. Paramount+

Sylvester Stallone steals the show in Paramount’s commercial “Stallone Face,” which also features cast from Paramount shows such as Dora, Reno 911, Beavis and Butthead, and more.

Stallone tries to climb up a giant mountain of his talking face when the stone mountain suddenly needs to sneeze.

Everyone watching, including his real-life daughters (who are not impressed), holds their breath, hoping the mountain won’t sneeze him off. It’s ridiculous and hilarious and showcases the shows on their platform well.

What we like: Absurdity can be a way to incorporate humor into your commercial without thinking of witty quips.

6. M&Ms

Another commercial that took an unexpected turn was the 2022 M&M commercial “Meet The Parents.” A nod to the movie Meet The Parents, this commercial shows a young woman bringing home her boyfriend for the first time.

His face and body are covered in tattoos, and the yellow M&M says, “What’s all over your… shoes?”

Instead of pointing out the obvious tattoos, they talk about the flowers on his shoes and his occupation as a botanist, winning over the girl’s father, who loves to take care of plants.

Pro tip: If you want a funny commercial that isn’t generic, be sure to first address the situation in a way your viewers would expect and then take an unexpected turn.

7. Wonderful Pistachios

As society becomes more health-conscious, companies are finding ways to entertain consumers in their marketing while promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Wonderful Pistachios is a brand that has paved the way by using humor to encourage healthy snacking.

Their motto has been “Get Crackin'” for a while now, focusing on the joy of cracking open their pistachios.

Wonderful Pistachios’ 2023 commercial features PAC-MAN, who eats the pistachios just like the dots in the video game.

Viewers will chuckle when he runs into a giant bag of pistachios and somehow expresses confusion despite his lack of facial features.

Pro tip: Nostalgia can play an important role in marketing. Identify your key audience or ideal consumer and ask yourself which era they might be nostalgic for.

Pop culture references that target their nostalgia can win you some brand awareness.

8. McDonald’s: Next Stop, McDonald’s

The second McDonald’s commercial on our list, the UK commercial “Next Stop, McDonald’s,” makes good use of the 80s “Oh Yeah” song by Yello, made famous in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

A family in a car notices that the next stop has a McDonald’s, and they all give each other a knowing look, raising their eyebrows to the beat of “Oh Yeah.”

This look passes from car to car stuck in traffic, including a giant bus full of people, a tour bus, and a biker gang, all driving towards the upcoming McDonald’s.

What we like: This commercial gives off very retro vibes, not just from the popular 80s song, but with the color choices, outfits, and cars.

If you’re going to give your commercial a retro vibe, be sure to pay attention to small details like wardrobe and makeup.

9. GM (General Motors)

In the Dr. Evil General Motors ad, Austin Power’s nemesis, Dr. Evil, takes over GM and decides that he can’t be the number two worst enemy of the world, coming second to climate change.

Dr. Evil decides to help save the world first and then take over the world. Seth Green and Dr. Evil argue childishly before going to fix their carbon footprint by having 30 new electric vehicles by 2025.

What we like: One of the safest types of humor for a funny commercial is self-deprecating.

If your company has a reputation for something not great, consider poking fun at yourself and showing your audience that you’re aware and trying to be better.

10. Uber Eats

If you’re a fan of the Netflix show Bridgerton, you will love the Uber Eats commercial “Period Romance,” which stars Bridgerton lead actress Nicola Coughlan.

In the commercial, Nicola watches the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice and dreams of Mr. Darcy when she searches her Uber Eats app for period romance, and a man who looks like he’s straight from a Jane Austen novel appears at her door.

Be careful what you wish for, though, because her Darcy-esque man has some really outdated takes, like being shocked by her ankles, asking what is in her dowry, disbelief at her status as a working woman, and using her crockpot as a chamber pot.

In the end, Nicola really just wanted some period relief products delivered, not a period romance male lead.

What We Like: The Female Gaze is having a moment in pop culture, and this commercial really leans into this idea and how it might be too good to be true.

11. Uber

Different from Uber Eats is the car service Uber that serves as a modern approach to taxi cabs.

Similar to the Uber Eats ad in pop culture references is the ad “Airport Dad,” which features the social media phenomenon where kids film their fathers being stressed and high maintenance at the airport.

The commercial includes many of the Airport Dad tropes, such as protecting the passports, ensuring pick up and drop off go smoothly, getting to the airport so early it’s funny and more.

Pro tip: If you’re going to use pop culture references, you’ll need to do your homework like the creators of this ad did and get as many aspects right as you can.

12. Bud Light

Another 2023 Super Bowl commercial turned heads as a couple dances to hold music while drinking Bud Light. Bud Light commercial uses Opus No. 1, made by Tim Carleton and Darrick Deel in 1989.

It went on to become one of the most famous hold call music when one of the creators worked at Cisco as a Call Manager and implemented it into the calls.

What we like: The song choice for a funny commercial should be taken seriously. Check out trending sounds on TikTok and other platforms before committing to a song.

13. Life Cereal

Getting kids to eat healthy is sometimes an impossible task, to the point that it feels like a good ‘ol Western standoff. A dad tries to get his daughter to eat healthy, while his other child says, “She never eats anything healthy!” in the Life commercial “Standoff.”

The cereal wins over the little girl, and the commercial ends with “Mikey likes it!” The ending tagline might be confusing for viewers who are on the younger side because it’s an inside joke referencing Life’s campaign “Mikey likes it” from the 80s.

Pro tip: If you’re going to reference past campaigns in your ad, be sure that your target audience fits the age range required to remember.

14. Hulu

We’ve all got our favorite TV shows, and some may say that we can be a little obsessive about not hearing spoilers before we watch them.

In the commercial “Be Obsessed: Give In,” Hulu fans plug their ears and scream “la, la, la” to avoid overhearing spoilers about their new obsession TV series.

The obsession worsens with couches that have an imprint on them that looks like you’ve never moved from that spot and fights between couples for watching new episodes without them.

The commercial tells the viewer to embrace it and be obsessed.

What we like: Some of the tropes in this commercial are nothing new, but the delivery is hilarious.

When the wife asks her husband if he watched The Bear without her, he is dressed like the main character Carmy and replies, “Yes, chef,” which is what they say in the show.

Commercials Featuring Comedians

15. GM

The second GM commercial we like stars Will Ferrell, who is being chased by zombies, with funny quips like, “If you’re going to be kidnapped, why not be kidnapped in an EV (electric vehicle)?”

GM uses contradiction in this commercial, with easygoing, joking Will Ferrell contrasted with the grim, dusty desert swarming with zombies.

What we like: The entire commercial is about 30 seconds, making it one of the shorter commercials on our list. Yet, the important ideas are still conveyed, and the quick pacing matches Will Ferrell’s witty nature.

16. Peloton

A Peloton commercial went viral during the holidays of 2019, but not in a good way. In the commercial, a woman’s husband buys her a Peloton, and she uses it throughout the coming year.

Audiences were conflicted about the commercial, calling the commercial “only for rich people” and “sexist.” So when the holidays of 2021 came around, the bar was pretty high for advertisers at Peloton.

Luckily, the 2021 commercial “A Fitness Carol,” which spoofs the character Ebenezer Scrooge in the classic A Christmas Carol, wasn’t controversial, just funny.

This commercial features comedian Bob Odenkirk and focuses on the absurdity of a grumpy Scrooge using a Peloton and finding Christmas joy played well in light of the controversy.

The commercial ends with the line, “When your workout’s a joy, it’s a joy to workout.”

Pro tip: Put careful thought into your tagline; you want something catchy and something people will remember.

17. Lays

The “Stay Golden” Lay’s commercial is one of the funniest commercials of 2022 due to its comedian cast of Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd.

The commercial begins with the two actors sharing a bag of Lays and reminiscing on all their experiences involving Lays, which include singing to Shania Twain in a convertible, extreme airline turbulence, being kidnapped, a turf war, buying a haunted house, and a wedding between Seth and the ghost from the haunted house.

What we like: If you’re going to show multiple, back-to-back funny scenes, they need to ramp up in both humor and intensity to keep viewer interest and get a big final laugh — just like Lays does.

18. Pepperidge Farms

There will never be an advertising campaign as iconic as “Pepperidge Farm Remembers” or more parodied by Family Guy or Futurama.

Sometimes, your commercials can be funny and memorable for the wrong reasons, and that’s the risk you take when you create an earnest, serious commercial.

This may be why the current Pepperidge Farms commercials focus on being lighthearted and funny, making fun of themselves before anyone else can.

In the commercial “Tasteful Observations,” comedic actress Hannah Waddingham, known for playing a proper British lady, eats Pepperidge Farm cookies and remarks on their buttery and flavorful taste, saying, “There are a million ways to describe Pepperidge Farm cookies.”

She stops, realizing that “It’s not proper to talk while you’re eating.” There’s a pause as she eats, and then her rigidness leaves when she says, “That is a damn fine cookie.”

What we like: Making your audience laugh can also influence them to buy more, as long as they can also reference the joke to the brand. So, make sure to mention your brand name multiple times to increase your chance of future association.

19. Old Navy

Another contemporary comedian, Natasha Lyonne, stars in the Old Navy commercial “The Pixie Pant.” In the commercial, Natasha is walking on the set when someone compliments her pants.

She goes through a stressed inner dialogue where she says, “Love to hear it, hard to own it, the overthinking begins and bingo-bango. Just own it!” She turns to the complimenter and says, “Thank you, they’re Old Navy.”

What we like: Natasha Lyonne is a great example of a comedian who appeals to younger crowds, which is important for a brand like Old Navy.

20. Amazon

The most watched ad on YouTube in 2022 was Amazon’s Alexa commercial featuring Scarlett Johansson and SNL comedian Colin Jost.

Colin tells Alexa to turn on the football game, and Alexa closes the curtains, chills the rose, and dims the lighting.

Scarlett remarks it’s like she read his mind, and then it cuts to a scene where they both wake up, and someone has bad morning breath because Alexa immediately orders mouthwash.

Alexa turns on a blender to drown Colin out and basically just exposes all their secret inner thoughts for comedic effect.

What we like: This commercial plays on gender or relationship stereotypes, yet the jokes are new and not the outdated misogyny the advertisement world is occasionally prone to, making it a fresh take.

21. Nike

A room full of babies gets a pep talk from comedian Bobby Cannavale in the Nike commercial “Unlimited Future.” Bobby lectures them about how unfair life is and how they don’t even get to choose their names.

As the camera zooms into their name plates, you realize they are all famous athletes.

Bobby says, “You don’t get to decide how your story begins, but you get to decide how it ends,” and a baby gets excited and stands for the first time at these words.

What we like: Similar to other commercials on this list, you really can’t go wrong with a lot of cute babies and a comedian as your spokesperson.

Commercials Starring Celebrities

22. Mountain Dew

Star basketball players Zion Williamson and Zach LaVine play themselves in a video game in the commercial “Level Up Your Game.” The game trash-talks them as they miss slam dunks and other throws, getting more and more personal.

The basketball players take a Mountain Dew break and are able to get the hang of the game and finally score points.

What we like: Food commercials are different than a lot of other products because you watch the actors or, in this case, basketball players, consume the product on camera.

Mountain Dew does a good job of making their drink look delicious and energizing in this funny commercial.

23. Heinz

You know a commercial is going to be good when it begins with the disclaimer “based on a true story.” Ed Sheeran explains his vision for a Heinz commercial in the video “Ed’s Heinz ad.”

He sets the scene by describing a super posh restaurant with pictures on the wall, fancy silverware, a jazz piano player, and a hostess who leads him to the table.

The waiter comes over and describes the specials, which are fancy meat, fancy vegetables, and so on, as Ed says, “Sounds fancy!”

Ed says the food looks good, but there’s something missing, and reaches into his bag to pull out a bottle of Heinz ketchup, to everyone’s shock and horror.

Time slows down as he adds ketchup to his meal, the waiter screaming. The ad ends with Ed asking, “So, that’s my idea. Do you want to do it?”

What we like: There’s something so clever and meta about having a commercial idea come from a celebrity, having them narrate the ad, and then end by asking if Heinz wants to make the commercial, essentially making it a non-commercial.

24. Frito-Lay & Pepsi: Unretirement

In the commercial “Unretirement,” former NFL players watch a game and reminisce on how much they miss playing when one of the players suggests that they unretire.

Eminem’s song “Without Me” starts playing with the chorus of “guess who’s back” while they suit up again.

At first, fans are enthusiastic about these legendary players joining the team again.

Still, this enthusiasm is short-lived as their age begins to show, falling asleep on the sidelines and asking for a senior discount on Pepsi and Frito-Lay products.

The scene ends with the players realizing they’d rather just watch the game at this point in their lives. This commercial was popular enough that Pepsi and Frito-Lay later made it into a series.

What we like: A collaboration between two products can be an excellent way to get more bang for your buck. Before choosing a partner, be sure that their product values and offerings align with yours.

25. Frito-Lay & Pepsi: Road to the Superbowl

The second Pepsi + Frito-Lay commercial on this list is “Road to the Superbowl,” featuring Eli Manning, Jerome Bettis, Terry Bradshaw, and Victor Cruz as they make their way to the 2022 Super Bowl in a giant bus that says “Super Bowl LVI or Bust.”

Peyton Manning is not enthusiastic about leaving, so they attach a hitch from the bus to his living room to bring him and Eli along. Victor and Eli end the commercial by jamming to an Olivia Rodrigo song.

Pro tip: Enthusiasm and great acting are the best ways to sell the jokes you feature in your commercial.

26. Dorito’s

“Jack’s New Angle” features Jack Harlow, who, while in the recording studio, sees someone eating a perfectly triangular Dorito chip and becomes obsessed with the triangle musical instrument.

Jack finds unexpected success by involving the triangle in his music, becoming more famous, and autographing fans’ triangles.

The commercial gets more chaotic as people become increasingly obsessed with triangles, replacing the British pound and getting its own award, “triangle player of the year.”

What we like: This commercial’s take on absurdity is engaging, which is what makes it actually funny. If you want to make a funny commercial that focuses on a ridiculous situation, be sure to use fast clips and rapid pacing.

27. BIC Lighters

One of the most iconic friendships has to be between Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. What do these two have in common? Well, it involves a BIC Lighter, which can be used for grills, candles, and other items that need fire.

This commercial is a tongue-in-cheek approach to suggesting that BIC lighters can be used for recreational drug use, but it is not obvious enough to get anyone in any real trouble.

What we like: Your product could be used in an unexpected way; listing off all the ways it can be used is a great way to show its value.

28. Sprite

Another example of a commercial that isn’t afraid to get meta is the Lebron James Sprite commercial featuring Lil Yachty.

The commercial begins with Lebron telling us he will never tell us to drink Sprite, even if he was in a commercial (which he is) and it was on the cue cards (which it also is).

The director is upset as Lebron walks off set and approaches a table of men who are eating hot tacos. A cold Sprite could ease their burning mouths, but he still won’t tell them to drink Sprite.

He would only tell you to if you “wanna Sprite,” which is the tagline for the commercial.

What we like: Reverse psychology is what makes this commercial funny and also what makes the Sprite look delicious.

Parodies

29. Coors Light

When you’re a brand as big as Coors Light, you have more than one product you need to buy commercial space for.

But what if you’re buying astronomical Super Bowl ad time? Coors Light products such as Miller Lite, Coors Light, and Blue Moon all compete for the same commercial in the ad “The High Stakes Beer Ad.”

In the style of a Mission Impossible movie or other action thriller, this commercial features different Coors Light product lovers fighting each other in ridiculous combat to get the most screen time.

What we like: If you’re going to feature more than one of your products in a commercial, you’ll want to do it in a memorable way, like this ad. Make sure that each product gets sufficient screen time and viewer attention.

30. Google Fiber

Google Fiber’s commercial “What’s happening with the internet?” is unusually menacing.

In the ad, a girl clicks through her laptop, downloads tons of content with her super fast internet, and mocks Google Fiber’s ability to be so quick. The commercial parodies common horror movie tropes and pacing.

The ending tagline suggests that this kind of speed might take some getting used to.

What we like: Quick, succinct commercials can make a big impact if done correctly. If you’re limited to less than thirty seconds, use that time to make your viewers laugh and showcase your product.

31. Charmin

Voted the “sassiest” brand on Twitter, Charmin has found a way to stand out in a highly saturated market. Bathroom humor is a topic that is often perceived as being overdone, but when you see one of Charmin’s ads, you don’t feel that way.

The Charmin “Theatre of the Behind” commercial plays into this potty humor with a parody of a Shakespearean monologue on why you should “enjoy the go.”

What we like: Charmin consistently creates commercials with the same light-hearted, potty humor that fits their brand. Think deeply about your brand before deciding which type of humor to use in your funny commercial.

32. Texas Tourism

Parody works well in the Texas Tourism commercial “Get your Go Big or Go Home trip to Texas.” The narrator starts by saying, “Have you ever noticed that tourism commercials use camera angles that make everything look really big?”

As the camera shows stock footage of sizzling steaks and giant theme parks, the narrator says, “That looks like a great vacation!” The main woman of the commercial interrupts to say, “Hold on, we don’t need these camera angles to make this look like a fun vacation because it actually is.”

The commercial ends with the tagline “Let’s Texas.”

What we like: A funny, self-aware narrator can show you don’t take yourself too seriously and open up your audience to your message.

Commercials With Unexpected Twists

33. Tubi

It’s very rare that a commercial gets as much buzz as the 2023 Tubi Super Bowl commercial got.

Super Bowl fans were confused when it looked like the announcers were back reporting the Super Bowl and suddenly interrupted by their TV opening the Tubi app and playing Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

As someone who watched this occur in real-time, it was hilarious seeing everyone in the room scramble to find the remote and turn it back to the Super Bowl, only for it to be a clever prank.

Pro tip: If you want to pull off a commercial prank, you’re going to need to be convincing. Test out your commercial on people who aren’t aware to work out any kinks beforehand.

34. Max (Formerly known as HBOMax)

As more and more TV shows and movies end up on streaming services and away from cable, people are getting frustrated with all the subscriptions they have to pay for just to watch their shows.

Max addresses this in their commercial “Grandma Has to Go.”

In the commercial, the father complains about how expensive all the subscriptions have gotten. Instead of offering to cut down on subscriptions, he says, “Grandma needs to go,” offending his mother-in-law and her daughter.

The daughter suggests that they get Max instead because it has more of the movies and shows they actually want to watch.

What We Like: This is another example of a commercial addressing problems that their industry is known for, giving them a competitive edge instead of ignoring them.

35. Dollar Shave Club

If there is a company out there that embodies the effectiveness of using humor in marketing, it’s Dollar Shave Club.

This is a company that, a few years ago, consisted of about 10 employees, just trying to find a way to compete in an industry filled with iconic, long-time brands.

How did they expect to be able to compete with such big names as Gillette and Bic? The only way they knew how: by taking to social media to share their story.

You could probably call it the “ad seen around the world,” with over 17.5 million views on YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. Trust me.

Being a small company, they couldn’t afford a production crew, ad space on TV, or anything glamorous right off the bat. So they took to good-old YouTube with their CEO as the main character to talk about why their blades are “f***ing great.”

In an interview with the New York Times, CEO Michael Dubin expressed his firm belief in using video to tell stories and that the concept of using humor to promote a “smart business” led to the video going viral.

What we like: Shock value can go a long way in a funny commercial. Consider what your brand image is, and if you’re unconventional, make your commercial memorable with edgy quips and language.

36. Axe Body Spray

Another tongue-in-cheek approach to a funny commercial is Axe’s “Flipping the Haters” commercial. Axe invites “haters” of their brand who say their worst nightmare is someone next to them on the plane wearing Axe body spray.

Unaware of who is sponsoring them during the experiment, each participant smells the newest Axe body spray and expresses their admiration of the scent.

By introducing the participants to their hatred of Axe body spray, their review of the scents is given more meaning when they end up liking Axe’s newest fragrance.

What we like: If you’re aware of some of the negative stereotypes your brand holds, don’t be afraid to address them like Axe does in this commercial. Let your “haters” change their minds on how your brand has changed and adapted to modern times.

Iconic Campaigns

37. Subaru

In their series “Dog Tested, Dog Approved” commercial series, golden retrievers try to sneak off with a car in the middle of the night, driving offroad as a retriever family, and more.

This campaign started over ten years ago and has just recently been brought back due to popular demand.

The cute golden retrievers show how durable the car is while also making viewers smile.

What we like: These short commercials still make a big impact by being so unique and memorable, and of course, cute puppies never hurt!

38. Progressive: Fast Casual

One of my favorite contemporary commercial campaigns is the Progressive commercials that focus on new homeowners that are turning into their parents.

The ad “Fast Casual” focuses on a millennial who encounters a Chipotle-like restaurant that is fully customizable.

Overwhelmed by the number of choices, which he deems similar to a “science experiment,” the Progressive spokesman chimes in that they can’t save you from becoming your parents, but they can save you on home insurance.

What we like: This campaign has been widely successful because it humorizes and brings attention to the generational divide happening between millennials and boomers.

Satire can be an excellent way to bring humor to a potentially touchy subject.

39. Progressive: Replay

Have you ever been betrayed by your child being too honest with people and telling them things you would rather stay private?

The second Progressive commercial on our list is “Replay,” which features two moms talking about getting together to watch the upcoming game when one of the mom’s daughters chimes in to say, “She said she doesn’t want to watch the game with you” because they “talk too much.”

While the mother denies ever saying this, the replay doesn’t lie.

Pro tip: Children and babies in commercials can be a relatable way to make your audience smile and laugh.

40. State Farm

When you think about it, there are probably few industries more difficult to market than insurance because it’s not particularly exciting and it can be expensive.

Maybe that’s why every major insurance company is jumping on the humor train in an attempt to breathe life into this essential but pretty uninteresting industry.

Ten years ago, State Farm introduced us to the “everyday” character of Jake.

We can probably all recite in our sleep the TV ad featuring a customer calling “Jake from State Farm” at three in the morning as his wife comes downstairs to see him on the phone, refusing to believe he’s actually talking to an insurance agent.

State Farm refreshed this commercial in 2020 by introducing us to Jake, mixing the old commercial with the new one.

What we like: Their ability to take an everyday person and make him iconic has helped State Farm triumph in a very competitive marketplace. By building off an older, iconic commercial, State Farm has kept brand awareness, but they haven’t rested on their laurels.

41. Allstate

Another insurance company? I know; I could probably list several others, but Allstate has made one of the most significant and effective transitions in marketing strategies the industry has seen.

Today, Allstate is taking a completely different approach to marketing by using a “character” named Mayhem.

Mayhem represents all of the freak accidents or situations that you could never envision actually happening, but with the reassurance that even under these circumstances, Allstate has you covered.

The marketers at Allstate have come up with the wildest situations in their advertising, it’s always humorous and fresh in the consumer’s mind, like this recent competitive brother commercial.

What we like: Allstate is another great example of a brand that hasn’t been afraid to switch things up. Like State Farm, they have been able to transition seamlessly from one concept to another, which is a truly invaluable skill in marketing.

Hilarious Animation

42. Facebook

Have you ever wanted to meet your sleep paralysis demons in a virtual reality? If you have, you’re in luck because that’s pretty much what happens in the “Tiger & The Buffalo” ad for Facebook’s metaverse.

In the commercial, art onlookers are sucked into a piece of art that features different jungle creatures, and honestly, the whole thing is a little unnerving.

So what makes this commercial funny and not just outright terrifying? Surreal and absurd elements make this commercial into a horror comedy.

The people jamming to the art and music are so unbelievable it’s laughable. It’s hard to say if this was Facebook’s intention, but either way it’s pretty funny.

What we like: Going against the norm can feel risky, but if your jokes and humor are predictable, they will blend in with the thousands of commercials that exist. Having your actors give an unexpected reaction is an easy way to lighten the mood.

43. Pepsi & Frito-Lay

Ok, ok, one more Pepsi + Frito-Lay commercial — a devious snowman steals a Christmas party snack stash in the commercial “Melt For You.”

The song “Make My Dreams Come True” by Hall & Oates plays in the background while the snowman ransacks the Lays and Pepsi soda cans, narrowly avoiding a dog by sliding outside and performing a forward flip trick on a wooden board that serves as a skateboard.

The ending shot shows the snowman with his snowmen friends, who replace his missing carrot nose with a nacho cheese Dorito.

What we like: Animation can be a great way to include cool tricks in your commercial without needing a stunt person to perform them.

44. Clash of Clans Mobile Game

One of the most-watched commercials of 2022, with over 135 million views, is Clash of Clan’s “Welcome to CLAN CAPITAL!”

The commercial features brilliant animation, with a clan member monologuing about a magical place while he slowly dies, when he’s suddenly crushed by a boulder right before telling his clan where the magical place is.

This cycle begins with another leader hit by an arrow, and right before he says where the place is, he’s crushed by a giant.

By the third monologue, they finally discover that the magical place where clans can battle together was there all along if they just turned around.

What we like: The stunning animation is most certainly why this commercial has so many views, and it really sells the mobile game as a beautifully designed space for friends and family to play together.

Silly Commercials

45. Hyundai

Hyundai addresses the increasing popularity of women’s football (or soccer, depending on your country of origin) in their commercial “How Far We’ve Come.”

This commercial doesn’t have an over-the-top sense of humor but rather lets the women football players have the last word, kicking around men who don’t want them to play and disobeying a police officer.

Hyundai’s commercial is partnered with FIFA Women’s World Cup, making it a sort of two for one commercial.

Pro Tip: If humor or jokes aren’t a big part of your brand, consider a tongue-in-cheek approach that focuses on empowerment or pushes against the status quo.

46. Heinz

Heinz has always been a leader in the advertising space and their recent commercials are no exception. “It has to be Heinz” works as a straightforward, funny commercial.

The commercial starts off relatively normal, with someone putting Heinz ketchup on their steak.

Then it ramps up with people getting tattoos of Heinz ketchup bottles, stealing ketchup from a room service cart, slipping ketchup into a dead man’s pocket at a funeral, and dipping nigiri sushi into ketchup in front of a horrified sushi chef.

This commercial works well because it doesn’t start off completely absurd but reels you in with increasingly crazy situations.

What we like: Don’t feel like you need to over-explain what’s going on in your commercial. Trust that your viewers are smart and will deduce what’s going on.

47. Chipotle

Chipotle makes the ridiculous concrete by asking, “What if a burrito could change the world?” A brother and sister sit at a table; when the brother looks at his burrito and muses if it has the power to change the world while his sister rolls her eyes.

He then goes on to describe how the ingredients in the burrito could be grown using permaculture, saving water and soil, making animals happier, buying more locally, emitting less carbon, and more.

By the end of his rant, his sister asks him, “Are you still talking?” and the commercial ends with the tagline, “How we grow our food is how we grow our future.”

Pro tip: If you’re working to ensure your product has a positive change to the world, silly humor is a great way to highlight these possibilities in a way that isn’t self-aggrandizing.

48. Coke

Coca-Cola is no stranger to making absolutely incredible ads, with iconic retro commercials like “Buy the World a Coke” and the Micheal Jordan Coke commercial.

Music is a key element for any Coke commercial. Hence, it makes sense that they would partner with comedian and musician Tyler the Creator to make the commercial “Open that Coca-Cola.”

In the commercial, sluggish people are revived from the summer heat by drinking bottles of Coke, with zany dancing and ridiculous circumstances like Grandma breaking it down by the dinner table or becoming a conduit for electricity with all their energy.

What we like: Music and dancing, if done correctly, can bring an incredible amount of energy to any commercial.

49. TikTok

In the TikTok commercial “Search it, learn it,” a father and daughter move into a new apartment and turn to the TikTok app to help them learn how to clean carpets, which books to add to their library, budget meals, and more.

The ending scene inverts expectations by revealing that the dad is moving into the apartment, not the daughter, as so many other commercials depict.

What we like: Your funny commercial doesn’t need to be constant jokes. Consider how a meaningful pause adds humor to a commercial or a knowing look between actors over a silly situation.

50. Robinhood

Have you ever wanted to be a CFO? In Robinhood’s “Run Your Money” commercial, being the CFO of your money is shown to be possible with the investing app.

The main actress is transported to a corner office, with employees working hard to grow her money, expanding into a crypto department, all in the comfort of her own pajamas and home.

Robinhood ends with the tagline, “No one runs your money like you.”

What we like: The tone of this commercial is more playful and silly than outright joking, like some of the other commercials on this list. Silly can be hard to get right; make sure your viewers won’t roll their eyes by not overselling your product.

Comedic Storytelling

51. Apple: Focus Mode

Have you ever felt stressed out by tons of texts and calls coming through on your phone?

Apple addresses this phenomenon in their commercial “Focus Mode” which features several people running away from their dinging phones as if their phone were a misbehaving, overeager dog.

Apple ends with the tagline “Relax, It’s iPhone.”

This commercial creatively tells the story of being always available for a phone call or text and focuses on their new solution, a button that puts you on do not disturb mode.

What we like: Let your main thing be your main thing. Don’t spend your whole commercial only addressing the problem; give equal time to your proposed solution to customer pain points.

52. Spotify

Perhaps no other funny commercial that tackles the absurd is more believable than Spotify’s “Let the Song Play.”

How many times have you delayed leaving your car and going inside because the song you’re listening to just got to the best part?

Spotify listeners drive past waiting, eager grandparents, ignore their bosses, and hold personal concerts in their car listening to Sia’s “Elastic Heart.”

Spotify is known for young, fun commercials, and this is no exception. The song choice of “Elastic Heart” really ties together a younger crowd of Gen Z and Millenials who both love Sia’s music.

What we like: This commercial contains no dialogue, and it doesn’t need it. The hilarious situations speak for themselves, and the music lets the app’s offering shine.

53. Grammarly

One of Grammarly’s features is the ability to make your tone sound more confident when you write. The commercial series “Get Your Tone Right” focuses on how easy it is to slip into unsure language when writing emails or chats to your team.

In the commercial, Dave, head of marketing, wins over clients and gets his team’s support using Grammarly’s tone modifier.

What we like: Because this commercial is one of a series, it’s easy to compare it to its predecessors. What really turns up the charm in this commercial is a personable voice-over that tells the story with funny quips and observations.

54. Amazon

The second Amazon commercial that makes this list is “Separation,” which depicts a couple fighting and the boyfriend moving out of their shared apartment.

They continue to share an Amazon account and get frequent updates on what the other person is buying, such as a sports bra to get healthier, cups for hosting a party, and a red dress for clubbing.

These frequent funny reminders of packages being shipped keep the couple from forgetting about each other, leading to their subsequent reunion at the end of the commercial.

What we like: This is another example of a commercial with no dialogue, just excellent storytelling. Amazon turns up the relatability by showing realistic purchases after a breakup and how those might influence a relationship.

55. Clorox

Clorox is a classic American brand, one that has been trusted for decades to clean homes around the world. They realized they couldn’t just ride on the coattails of this “classic” persona forever and have taken a more modern approach recently.

Their motto today is “Start Clean,” and their newest commercial uses a feel-good approach to humor in a commercial.

The young girl in the commercial tells the story of her first day of school, and her happy spirit is oblivious to the messes she makes.

Clorox focuses only a short amount of time in the commercial to actually cleaning up these messes, showing the viewer that letting kids be kids might result in messes, but it will also result in happiness.

Pro tip: Don’t be afraid to be genuine and wear your heart on your sleeve. Comedy doesn’t need to always be satirical or pessimistic; showing humor in everyday situations is an excellent way to strike the right chord with your viewers.

Use Humor to Enhance Your Sales

There’s a lot that we can learn from contemporary commercials, especially when it comes to what audiences are finding funny now.

Humor is incredibly relative. What may be hilarious to one person is cheesy to another or off-putting to someone else, so sprinkle humor into your commercial wisely. Don’t forget that creating a genuinely funny commercial is only half the battle.

Use comedy in your commercial in a way that makes your product and brand stick out in an oversaturated market, and you’ll be able to increase both sales and smiles.

B2B

Duplicate Content Issues on Your Website? Easy Ways to Find and Fix Them

i4lead Jan 4, 2024

It’s easy to be fooled into thinking SEO is just about link building or ranking first for specific keywords.

While those are important factors, and staying up on best practices is essential, resolving duplicate content issues should be your top priority.

Often, the hidden cause of lost rankings and decreasing traffic isn’t that someone else does better at link building or keyword optimization.

On the contrary, the problem lies in finding and fixing issues on our sites that prevent searchers from finding us.

And when it comes to duplicate content, the devil is in the details — finding it and fixing the problem it causes on our sites. Luckily, you have control over your website, so you have the power to fix it. That’s precisely what I’m covering today.

What is duplicate content?

Duplicate content simply refers to identical chunks of content on different web pages. If it’s a sentence or a phrase, it’s not usually an issue. After all, there are only so many ways to say, “Contact us about our services.”

What’s more, if you frequently write about similar topics, you most likely have some common phrases

For instance, on my blog, I talk extensively about brand messaging, my framework for copywriting and content creation, and marketing strategy.

And if you read several articles from me — whether on my blog or a guest post — you’ll find several places where I may repeat my explanations of my approach.

That’s not what has the potential to cause problems unless you use deceptive tactics and behaviors to move your site up in the search rankings, which can cause a red flag for Google and its spam policies.

However, when you have entire articles, pages, or sections repeated word for word, or when multiple page versions are indexed, it can be challenging for Google and other search engines to know which articles to prioritize.

And because search engines rarely show duplicate pieces of content, they choose the best version for each search, which may differ from the page you most want to drive traffic to.

It’s important to note that people think of duplicate content in two ways — internal and external.

In this article, I’m primarily focusing on internal duplicate content, not content plagiarized elsewhere on the internet, which is a growing concern with the rise of AI.

However, in the tools section, I’ll also show you how to find and resolve duplicate content issues from across the web.

Why is duplicate content a problem?

In my experience, one of the biggest problems with duplicate content lies in even knowing that it exists on your site in the first place. When we create articles or products for our sites, it’s easy to hit publish and move on.

Sure, I might come back and update the article or make an edit or two, but by and large, with everything else going on, it’s not always top of mind to regularly check for duplicate content. But it should be.

Because it’s a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know,” and as I always say, it’s what you don’t know that causes you the most significant problems. And if you’re unaware of a problem, it’s impossible to fix it.

Causes of Duplicate Content

If you start checking for duplicate content regularly, it’s essential to understand how to fix it and what causes it in the first place.

According to Beth Bovie from Revelo, “Duplicate content errors may come in the form of duplicate title tags and meta descriptions, as well as content within an article. After auditing one client’s site, I found they had over 800 duplicate content errors.”

With that in mind, let’s dive into some of the biggest offenders for causing duplicate content.

1. URL Parameters

URLs can often contain additional parameters because of how they are being tracked (marketing campaign IDs, analytics IDs), or the CMS a website uses adds its custom parameters.

I see this a lot when email marketing software or social media posts appends tracking to links when people click out of platforms.

For example, the following URLs could all lead to the same page:

http://www.example.com/page1

http://www.example.com/page1?source=organic

http://www.example.com/page1?campaignid=3532

2. Printer-Friendly Pages

Often, a web page will have an option to produce a printer-friendly version of that page. I often see these links leading to duplicate content issues on websites I visit.

For example, the following URLs would lead to the same page.

http://www.example.com/page1

http://www.example.com/printer/page1

3. Session IDs

Sites may often track a user’s session across their website so they can tailor content. While this happens across many different industries, I see this frequently in e-commerce sites like Amazon.

In the example below, Amazon personalizes content to remind me of my recent searches.

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And where Amazon stores my cart until I either buy, remove, or save items for later, other e-commerce stores remember what I added to my shopping cart the last time I visited.

When this happens, the site often appends session IDs to the URL, which causes duplicate versions of a page to exist. And although Amazon likely has solutions for this issue, smaller e-commerce businesses may not.

The example below illustrates what URLs leading to the same page might look like:

http://www.example.com/page1

http://www.example.com/page1?sessionid=12455

4. Repetitive Product Descriptions

E-commerce sites, in particular, can have a lot of repetitive product descriptions, whether due to having similar products or products that live in multiple categories.

The example below illustrates something I’ve seen on many retail sites, where a specific product is often found in multiple groupings.

While the product page and its content remain the same, you find it with three different URLs—one featuring a collection, one featuring best sellers, and another featuring items on clearance.

http://www.example.com/collection/widgets/widget1

http://www.example.com/best-sellers/widget1

http://www.example.com/clearance/widget1

Jarik Oosting of SmartRanking sees this often, agreeing that this type of duplicate content “jeopardizes SEO rankings and creates confusion among users.”

Duplicate Content Issues

While the most obvious duplicate content issues stem from decreased searchability, there are other repercussions for the same content.

1. Search Indexing

If a search engine doesn’t know what page to index, it might index all or none of the pages, creating problems for your searchability.

2. Domain or Page Authority

When search engines encounter multiple versions of a page, they might struggle to assign link authority accurately, which can decrease the authority of your content and entire site.

3. Searchability

When search engines don’t know what version of the page to rank for a relevant search query, not just one but all of your relevant pages might appear further in the results.

Additionally, if users go to the wrong link, they may not get the exact information they’re looking for.

4. Diluted brand credibility

When search engines are confused by duplicate content, they may display older — possibly outdated — content to your audience, which can decrease consumer trust in your brand.

Of all the SEO experts I connected with, I found Anatolii Ulitovskyi of Unmiss had the best summary of these problems.

Ulitovskyi explained that duplicate content ultimately “confuses search engines and dilutes the authority of your website, leading to lower rankings, decreased organic traffic, and a negative impact on user experience.”

Tools for Finding Duplicate Content Internally

When I connected with Kyle Roof, founder of High Voltage SEO, he said, “I’ve found that a combination of automated tools and manual checks works best to identify and rectify duplicate content.

Being familiar with your CMS can also offer insights into potential sources of duplication.”

However, if you’re wondering how to check for duplicate content, there are several tools you can use for your site. Here are three of the best out there.

1. Siteliner

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Siteliner scans entire websites to identify duplicate content, broken links, and other issues.

Using it is almost a no-brainer. It’s as easy as typing in your site URL, waiting a few minutes, and then getting a comprehensive report that highlights specific areas of your site to fix.

And I find it very affordable. The freemium version gives you up to 250 pages free, and additional credits are $0.01 each.

What we like: “Siteliner is my go-to tool. It’s fast, offers a comparative analysis, and pinpoints the exact duplicated content segments,” says Ajay Porwal of DroidOwl.

In addition to affordability, I’ve found it incredibly easy to use. I love that Siteliner provides detailed information on duplicate content. It calls out your top issues and shows you how to fix them.

Best for: It’s great for beginners and pros alike — and it’s so easy to identify areas on your sites to fix.

Pro tip: After identifying your duplicate content and determining which pieces to fix first, take a look at the other areas of your site. The better your site experience, the better your site will perform in search results.

2. Google Search Console

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While not specifically a duplicate content tool, Google Search Console is relatively easy to set up and gives you great insights into the health and performance of your site.

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By clicking on “Search Results” under “Performance,” you can see the most visited and clicked-on URLs. As you look through these, you can keep an eye out for any pages that have duplicate versions by watching for things like

HTTP vs. HTTPS

http://www.example.com/page1
https://www.example.com/page1

WWW vs. no WWW

http://www.example.com/page1
http://example.com/page1

An end slash

http://www.example.com/page1
http://www.example.com/page1/

Appended tracking

http://www.example.com/page1
http://www.example.com/page1?source=email

Additionally, Search Console gives you valuable data on site indexability, including if there are any reasons Google isn’t able to index pages.

What we like: I find it’s usable for people with even the most minimal tech understanding, making it one of my favorite tools for improving website searchability.

I also particularly love the ability to see what search terms people use the most to find your site so you can prioritize updating posts that are direct to them.

Best for: Google Search Console is great for people who likely have minimal duplicate content or don’t publish a ton of new content on a regular basis. It’s also fantastic for people who are tiptoeing into the world of duplicate content.

Pro tip: Watch your email every month for Google Search Console updates on your site, and use this as a reminder to prioritize a few new site improvements.

3. Screaming Frog

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You can download the Screaming Frog web crawler and use it to crawl 500 pages for free. This application lets you do a lot of different things, including finding duplicate content problems.

Many of the SEO experts I connected with, including Janis Thies of SEOlutions, recommend Screaming Frog. Thies says, “It’s by far the best tool for a complete crawl and overview of your technical data.”

What we like: Screaming Frog is incredibly comprehensive. Here are some of the ways it works.

Page Titles/Meta Descriptions

You can find duplicate page titles by simply clicking on the tab “Page Titles” or “Meta Description” and filtering for “Duplicate.”

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URLs

You can also find pages that have multiple URL versions by simply clicking on the “URL” tab and sorting by “Duplicate.”

Best for: This is probably one of the best solutions out there. It’s ideal for people with a little more technical know-how who know what to do with the duplicate content they find.

Pro tip: For a complete guide on all the different things you can do with Screaming Frog, check out this post from SeerInteractive.

Tools for Finding Duplicate Content Externally

Earlier, we touched on the difference between internal and external duplicate content. With that in mind, here are our favorite tools for checking for duplicate content outside of your site.

1. Grammarly Plagiarism Checker

Grammarly is known for helping people write clearly and concisely.

Many people aren’t aware that their Business Plan (currently $12/month with an annual plan), also features a plagiarism checker to confirm that your content doesn’t appear elsewhere on the web.

Simply click the option on the bottom of the right-hand toolbar (if using the web version).

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What we love: If you’re already using Grammarly, it’s an easy way to make sure that content doesn’t appear elsewhere on the internet.

Best for: Grammarly’s plagiarism checker is great for content that you’re about to publish, but you can also go back to previously published content, paste it into the tracker, and get a sense of any outside duplications.

Pro tip: Their plagiarism detector sometimes flags things that aren’t actually duplicated content. So take it with a grain of salt and look for big-picture items.

In the below example, the checker flagged one phrase in my article on brand messaging. The phrase? “Instead of forcing a square peg into a round hole.”

In addition to it being common, the site it referenced was one about a recently passed bill in Illinois.

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All in all, it’s good news. I know that the press release referenced is in no way duplicating my content (or vice versa).

2. CopyScape

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CopyScape is my favorite external duplicate content checker. It’s as easy as dropping your URLs into the search box and finding out if and where any duplicate content exists.

But what it can do goes even deeper.

CopyScape Premium allows you to upload or paste entire articles to find out where else your content may have been shared (and indexed) for roughly $0.01/100 words.

Plus, they have a tool—CopySentry—that will check specific pages every week or day, depending on the options you choose.

What we love: CopyScape is easy to use, inexpensive, and up-to-date. It’s less likely to pull random phrases and more likely to identify social media shares.

Best for: I find that CopyScape is one of the best tools out there for ensuring that no one has lifted your content. The most technical knowledge you need is copy and paste to start checking your content.

Pro tip: Run anything you’re about to publish through CopyScape to ensure that you haven’t accidentally lifted a phrase in your research or excitement about a source!

Fixing Duplicate Content

By now, I’ve shown you how duplicate content can impact your organic traffic and web rankings. But, as James Maxfield of Dark Horse explains, most “duplicate content work is just housekeeping, tidying up your site to improve how Google crawls and indexes it.”

With that in mind, now it’s time to show you that it’s also something that you can easily fix. Here are four ways you can start “tidying” things up.

1. Canonical Tag

Using the canonical tag, you can tell search engines what version of a page you want to return for relevant search queries. The canonical tag is found in the header of a web page.

The canonical tag is the best approach when you want to have multiple versions of a page available to users. If you’re using the HubSpot COS, this will be taken care of automatically, so no manual labor is required.

If you’re not using HubSpot, you’ll need to go into the <head> section of the primary page and add <link rel=“canonical” href=”https://www.example.com/main-url-goes-here”/>

Even though the URL in the browser bar might read https://www.example.com/main-url-goes-here?source=email-TN1.0-S-sendtosite, the canonical tag ensures that the primary page gets the authority.

Get more information about canonical URLs here.

2. 301 Redirects

A 301 redirect will redirect all legacy pages to a new URL. It tells Google to pass all the link authority from these pages to the new URL and to rank that URL for relevant search queries.

The 301 redirect is the best option when you don’t have any need for multiple versions of a page to be available.

If you’re using WordPress, there are several plugins that can help you set up redirects.

My favorite is simply called 301 Redirects.

Setting up a redirect with this plugin is as easy as typing in the URL you want to redirect away from and the one you want people to go to instead.

3. Meta Tags

You can use meta tags to tell search engines not to index a particular page.

<html>

<head>

<title>…</title>

<Meta Name=”Robots” Content=”noindex, nofollow”>

</head>

Meta tags work best when you want that page to be available to the user but not indexed, e.g., terms and conditions.

As a HubSpot user, it’s easy to add noindex tags. Here’s a quick overview.

4. Google Search Console

If the page with duplicate content is causing you massive headaches and you can’t resolve it easily or quickly enough using the other methods, you can use Google Search Console to request that Google remove content from its search.

Go into Console > Indexing > Removals and make a new request.

From there, click New Request, and choose “Temporarily Remove URL” if you want something to be removed for around six months.

Alternatively, if you’re changing the content on a page and want to be sure that the current snippet is cleared until the next crawl, choose the “Clear Cached URL” option.

Generally speaking, most people and businesses won’t need this.

That said, there may be times when you need to make sure content isn’t appearing in search any longer, and I find that people gain peace of mind knowing that there’s an option in their back pockets.

Solving Duplicate Content Means Implementing Solid SEO Processes

When resolving my duplicate content issues, I’ve found that the best offense is a good defense.

George Bates of Limelight Digital agrees, saying, “We’ve found that by adopting a holistic approach that combines automated tools with manual audits, we can more effectively locate and resolve duplicate content issues.”

How often should you check in on your website health, including duplicate content? Every SEO and web expert will likely give you a different answer.

My response is that it depends — where your site is hosted, how much content you have, and how frequently you publish new content.

At a minimum, I’d recommend reviewing any automated reports at least once a month and then doing a more detailed analysis periodically.

That can include:

Performing content audits.
Reviewing Google Search Console performance and indexing reports.
Implementing canonical tags.
Creating an internal linking strategy.

And, if you find that other sites are regularly lifting your content, it’s possible to disable the “Copy text” function when people right-click on your site, which can make it significantly more difficult for them to plagiarize your content.

The bottom line is that duplicate content is a real problem for sites, but one that can be easily solved using the advice above.

If you want to learn more about duplicate content, watch this video series from the SEO experts at Dejan SEO on how you can fix it for your site.

And if you’re looking for more SEO tips, check out this article from Hubspot’s own SEO experts.

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Category Archives: B2B

What is digital marketing?

Types of Digital Marketing

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Marketing Research Tips

1. Craft highly relevant content with AI personas.

2. Routinely update your understanding of your customer.

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Content Creation Tips

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5. Use AI to help generate content ideas.

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9. Leverage video testimonials.

10. Remain consistent in design when launching a campaign.

Social Media Marketing Tips

11. Use your DMs.

12. Spread content across platforms (with care).

13. Try short-form videos.

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16. Don’t underestimate backlinks.

17. Target multiple search engines (Pinterest).

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20. Follow consumer trends.

21. Try new things.

22. Invest in AI-powered personalization strategies.

23. Understand the big picture when analyzing an advertisement’s performance.

24. Become a growth leader for your company.

Conclusion

What You Need to Be a Marketer

Education

Internships and Co-ops

Skills and Aptitudes

The Marketing Job Market

1. Digital Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) / Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Email Marketing

Growth Marketing

2. Content Marketing

Marketing Copywriting

Graphic Design

Content Creation

Social Media Marketing

Community Management

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

3. Product Marketing

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