Mobile Proves to Be Fruitful for Email [Infographic]
Anyone who owns a smartphone will not be surprised to learn that more and more people are opening and interacting with email through their mobile device. The opening statement of the writeup accompanying this infographic says it all: “The mobile channel produces fertile results in terms of email opens and read time.” So what does that mean for digital marketers? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this reiterates the importance of focusing on designing for mobile first. That is, thinking in terms of what would look good on mobile, whether an image will look right, and whether the content will be as functional across devices. This is especially important when it comes to email, you’re sending something to somebody’s inbox which inevitably will result in some kind of notification — it should be worth it for them to open the message and see what’s inside. Direct Marketing News
Influencer Marketing Is Rapidly Gaining Popularity Among Brand Marketers
Influencer marketing is undeniably growing in popularity — and not just among digital marketers. It’s increasingly common to hear non-marketing related upper management asking questions about influencers, and more specifically about how to strategically implement a marketing strategy that fully utilizes their expertise and influence. Channels like Instagram and YouTube have greatly accellerated this shift. Using more inflencer-based marketing programs is one of the key ways that advertisers are combating the rapid adoption of ad blocking capabilities. This post from eMarketer cites some new studies and information that shed light on exactly how popular influencer marketing is becoming and why. eMarketer
Half of Digital Shoppers Will Use Phones to Buy in 2017
The statistic listed in this article’s title doesn’t surprise me at all. I can think of more than one time where I’ve accidentally spent way too much money shopping on Amazon or eBay while waiting for my oil to get changed or even during a TV commercial. Shopping via mobile web and mobile apps is as much a part of my shopping experience as brick and mortar stores, if not more so. As the article summarizes: “Bigger smartphones make for bigger sales, rising at a $20 billion clip over the next three years. This means it’s important for eCommerce sites in particular to be optimized for the mobile user. Direct Marketing News
33 Thought-Provoking B2B Social Media and Marketing Stats
Citing the 2016 B2B marketing trends report, author Tom Pick goes through a list of important statistics for B2B marketers. The key takeaways are that digital and social marketing budgets are increasing, marketers want programmatic advertising — although they aren’t sure what that really means, lead generation remains a key focus, and B2B organizations are still unclear on the value of social media. B2B marketing has it’s set of unique challenges, but it’s good to know what the state of the industry is and that if you’re confused, you aren’t alone. See the rest of the stats for more information, you’ll be glad you did! Webbiquity
Snapchat Gains Momentum: New Research
A new study revealed that Snapchat is rivaling Facebook in average daily video views. What’s more is that Snapchat users tend to be more engaged with the content they’re viewing simply because the nature of the platform is interactive. So what does this mean? We already know that video is an effective platform for engagement, but how many marketers are really considering Snapchat as a viable platform for their marketing efforts? If anything, this new data shows us that using Snapchat as part of your social media strategy is worth considering. Social Media Examiner
Google Will Discontinue Flash Ads in 2017 (So Update Your Displays)
In my quest to learn everything I can about digital marketing, I’ve spent my fair share of time learning from developers and programmers about the ins and outs of web design and development. There are two very persistent inside jokes: Adobe Flash and Internet Explorer. While Adobe Flash may get a bad name, most people can agree that it’s a platform that isn’t exactly mobile friendly. As the article states: “Adobe Flash Player has had a slow demise. Complaints about security, openness and battery usage on cell phones have floated around for years. In November 2011 Adobe signaled the approach of the end when it cancelled Flash Player for mobile devices and shifted engineering staff to Web standards like HTML5.” The moral of this story? If you’re stilling still running Flash ads on Google, it’s time to make the switch to HTML 5. Small Business Trends
AdWords Automated Bidding Gets An Overhaul: Welcome, Portfolio Bid Strategies
Google is making some big changes to their automated bidding. The first of which is a change in what we call ‘flexible bidding’ — making the change to ‘portfolio bid strategies’ to “better indicate that a single strategy can be applied across multiple campaigns, ad groups — and keywords, in some cases.” The two big changes are that managers no longer have to dive into shared libraries to create or add bidding strategies and advertisers can have different CPA goals for different ad groups. This change will, Google hopes, improve workflow and efficiency in their advertising platform. Search Engine Land
What were the top online and digital marketing news stories for you this week?
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! I’ll be back next week with more online marketing news. Have something to share? Tweet me at @Tiffani_Allen or send it to @toprank and use the hashtag #trnews!
Infographic – Direct Marketing News
