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Imagine this: you’re working on a campaign and have two ad versions. Both have targeted copy, engaging headlines, and eye-catching images but both have different call to actions (CTAs). Both actions serve your objective but you’re unsure which would resonate with your audience more, so what do you do? 

This is where you can use split testing to help answer that question. After we answer what is split testing, we’ll explore how split testing works and how you can use it to your advantage in your internet marketing strategy. 

What is Split Testing?

Split testing is a method of comparing two versions of a marketing asset to see which one performs better. It diverts your traffic equally to each asset so you get an accurate sampling. This can be a disadvantage since you need an audience big enough to get accurate results and the traffic to support it. 

When you’re testing elements, it’s best practice to only change one element, such as different headlines, layouts, or copy length, while keeping the rest the same. This allows you to see what specific change performs well and which doesn’t.

What is A/B Testing?

When you do a split test, you need to use an A/B test. A/B testing is a similar tactic in that you’re seeing which element performs better. Some of the elements you can test are headlines, call to actions (CTAs), images, text copy, and landing pages/web pages.

One of the biggest differences is with A/B testing you’re not always splitting your audience exactly 50/50. When you use any type of testing, you’re seeing which elements work best with your audience. Like split testing, it’s best to limit your changes so you can isolate what elements work best.

To run a successful split test, you need to have A/B testing. But to run an A/B test, you don’t need to always have split testing.

What Can You Split Test?

One of the best features of split testing is that it isn’t limited to just one area. You can use split tests across your digital marketing tactics and use the results to create or adjust your strategy. Learning what factors you can split test can help you design a more effective experiment.

Content Marketing

Considered a long-term marketing strategy, content marketing focuses on building trust and relationships with your audience through quality, and relevant, content. It can take the form of blog writing, script writing for videos or radio ads, and webpage content.

Marketers need to have patience when using content marketing because, for example, it can take online web pages 4-6 months before they start ranking in Google search results. So to make sure your content is in a position to succeed in search engines, marketers can split test: 

  • CTAs
  • Text length
  • Image-heavy copy vs. text-heavy copy
  • Headlines
  • Message intent 
  • Webpage layout

Split testing reveals valuable insights into your target audience’s preferences and behaviors. This knowledge empowers you to craft content that truly speaks to their needs and desires.

Social Media Marketing

With the rise of social media usage among people, social media marketing has become a favorite tool of marketers. It’s a great way for companies to reach their target audience and drive traffic to their websites. 

Social media marketing includes posts, captions for images or videos, and targeted ads. Different elements you can test are:

  • CTAs
  • Text length
  • Post content
  • Headlines 
  • Post time
  • Background sounds
  • Message intent
  • Link destination 
  • Images 

By taking your results, you can help build a social media campaign that resonates with your audience and that they engage with. 

Email Marketing

A form of direct marketing, email marketing has been around since the beginning of email. When done correctly, it can build relationships with your audience, increase brand awareness, and promote your business.

One of the toughest parts about email marketing is you need what you’re sending to stand out because people get so many emails in a day. You need to hook them immediately so they want to open your email and not automatically delete it. 

When you’re crafting your email, you can test:

  • Subject lines
  • Templates
  • Audience segments
  • Send times
  • Personalization vs. general messaging
  • CTAs
  • Text length
  • Image-heavy copy vs. text-heavy copy

Testing different elements allows you to pinpoint the variations that will get your audience to click on and open. This translates to higher engagement rates, conversions, and overall campaign success.

SEO Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) marketing’s goal is to improve a website’s visibility in search engines, such as Google, by gaining qualified traffic. With Google users searching for information/products each day, search engines are one of the biggest traffic generators for websites. 

SEO plays a key role in improving your ranking positions since better rankings mean more traffic, which can bring more brand awareness. To improve these rankings SEO marketers use several tactics including metadata and ads. Areas they can test are:

  • Keywords
  • URLs
  • Landing pages
  • Schema markup
  • Linking strategies
  • Title tags/meta descriptions
  • Page loading speed
  • Mobile responsiveness

Split testing is a continuous process, like SEO, so by consistently testing and optimizing your website, you adapt to your audience’s preferences and maximize your long-term impact.

PPC Marketing

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is a type of online marketing where advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of their ads. Typically PPC marketing is through search engines, such as Google Ads, and marketers bid on keywords. However, PPC marketing is evolving and starting to look like paid social marketing.  

With that change, PPC ads can also include social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Elements you can test are:

  • CTAs
  • Headlines
  • Text length
  • Keywords
  • Text intent
  • Landing pages
  • Visuals
  • Dayparting
  • Ad objectives

Using split testing on PPC ads helps you gain a higher return on your investment or ROI. This means you’ll be spending your marketing budget on ads that you know will work and meet your goals.

How Do You Design Effective Split Tests?

To get accurate results in your testing, you need to set up an accurate test.

1. Define Goals & Target Audience

First, you need to determine what your goals are and what you want to achieve.  Knowing that gives your test structure and a direction to go in. 

Make sure your audience is equally split or as close to an even split as you can get it. This allows you to create a fair and unbiased split test.  

2. Select What to Test

As noted above, there are many different elements that you can test. However, to get the best results, you should only test one element at a time so you need to determine what’s the most important. Is it your CTA? Or do you want to see if a longer text piece captures more attention than a shorter one?

3. Create Variations

Once you’ve decided what element to test, now you need your variations. Make sure you’re creating clear differences for your team to compare. Otherwise, your test won’t yield any useful results.

When you’re creating your variations, you can create two for an A/B test or you can create more to do an A/B/C/D, or multivariate, test. Just remember to only change that one element across all variations and keep everything else the same. 

4. Set Up the Test

Now that you’ve determined your goals and what elements to change, it’s time to design your test. First, you need to determine how long you want to run your test. It needs to be long enough that you can collect sufficient data but not too long that it starts to skew the results. It’s a best practice to run a test for two weeks but you can add more time if you aren’t seeing results.

There are several tools you can use to help you set up your test and collect data. Some of them are HotJar (free), HubSpot (free), and Optimizely (paid). Research each one and see which options would work best for what results you want to gain. 

5. Analyze Your Results

Once you get your results in, it’s time to see what happened. Did one CTA perform better than the other? Or did changing when a campaign was launched make a difference? This is where you can use your analytics to track the key metrics related to your goals. 

Once you look over all your data, then you can reexamine your marketing strategy and implement what you’ve found. 

Two people sit at a desk and point at a tablet. The desk is covered in papers.

What are the Benefits of Split Testing for Me?

The obvious answer is to see which option resonates with your audience better, which is important. However, there are a few more subtle benefits you’ll get from split testing. 

Once you find out which option is best, you’ll be able to reduce your bounce rates. For example, you test copy length and discover that your audience responds better to shorter copy with more images. Moving forward, you can tailor your copy to meet your audience’s preference.

Another related benefit to reducing your bounce rates is you can increase your engagement rate. By being able to capture your target audience from the beginning, you’ll keep them on your site longer. This increases the chance they interact with your content more, whether it’s more blogs or other landing pages on your website. 

You can also use split testing to try a new marketing strategy before you launch it. You can see what works and identify any risks. Since this is just a test, you’ll have time to make any changes to your strategy and fix any issues you find before a launch date.

Once your launch occurs, you can use the split testing results in your reporting to show why these changes are necessary and how they can benefit your business. Having data to support your reasoning strengthens your argument and gives examples of why the changes are beneficial. This is especially helpful when you have an important launch and want to reach the maximum percentage of your target audience. 

You’ve learned what split testing is—now it’s time to contact our team today to integrate it into your marketing strategy.

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The average person spends 152 minutes on social media daily. That’s 2 hours and 32 minutes of consuming content on any given day. 

And if your business is lacking an effective social media optimization strategy, that’s over two and a half hours you could be missing out on to nurture customer relationships. 

Social media optimization (SMO) — not to be confused with search engine optimization (SEO) — is essential to your business’s organic social media strategy. If your account isn’t designed to be discoverable and shareable, the odds of new users finding your account are left merely to chance.  

Luckily, there are some fool-proof steps that you can take to boost those odds. Unlock the secrets to expanding your messaging, strengthening your credibility, and nurturing customer relationships through SMO. 

What is Social Media Optimization (SMO)?

You’ve heard of word-of-mouth advertising. When it’s done right, it can be an extremely powerful and free marketing tool. Think of SMO as the digital version of word-of-mouth advertising. 

Put simply, SMO is the process of refining your organic social media accounts to increase your brand’s reach and visibility across various platforms. 

It goes beyond the basics of simply existing on a social platform. It’s deeply understanding your target audience and crafting valuable content for them to engage with and share on the platforms they are most likely to be on. 

To help better explain the concept, let’s clarify what SMO is not. 

SMO vs. SEO

Though SEO and SMO have similar intentions, they are two different marketing tools. SEO is the strategic process of maintaining site health through technical improvements and writing content to boost website visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). 

In the same way that SEO keywords help users find your site in the SERPs, SMO helps users find and engage with your business on social media. 

They are both long-term strategies intended to drive traffic organically to their respective channels. 

SMO vs. SMM

Unlike SMO or SEO, social media marketing (SMM) is usually a paid social media effort with a pointed objective. The goal of SMM is to drive web traffic, generate leads, or raise brand awareness to a targeted audience through paid social marketing channels.

You’ve probably seen SMM hard at work on your own social media feeds. Because businesses are paying to reach their desired audience, SMM is almost impossible to avoid. You’ll know it’s a paid effort because it’s labeled as “sponsored content”.

SMO on the other hand, will always be discovered organically because it’s a free marketing strategy. 

8 Benefits of SMO

Optimizing your social media accounts can benefit your business in many ways. Aside from boosting your brand awareness, SMO can help your business:

  1. Reveal a personal side by participating in online conversations with your audience.
  2. Acquire intelligence by listening to customers and observing competitors.
  3. Establish trust and credibility by solidifying your online reputation.
  4. Increase the influence, shareability, and linkability of your content— a great way to work in tandem with SEO! 
  5. Establish your business as a trustworthy, authoritative resource.
  6. Identify valuable users who can act as potential brand ambassadors.
  7. Analyze your target audience and how they associate with your brand.
  8. Find, learn about, and create compelling content that may be overlooked by Google.

If those benefits sound desirable to your business, stick with us to learn how to achieve them.

SMO Strategies

When it comes to putting SMO into practice, there are on-page and off-page optimizations that are recommended to boost your brand’s awareness. Therefore, a comprehensive SMO strategy is two-fold: it requires optimizing your social media accounts and your website. 

Social Media “Off-Page” Optimizations.

With “social media” in its name, you’ve probably made the connection that SMO requires work on your social media accounts. There are so many things to optimize for on your social media sites that it helps to split the off-page SMO strategies into 4 buckets:

  1. Profile Optimizations
  2. Content Optimizations
  3. Post Engagement Optimizations
  4. Community Building

1. Profile Optimizations

Profile optimizations refer to refining your social accounts to accurately describe your business. This includes ensuring all business information — name, address, phone number, and site URL — is up-to-date and the same across all platforms. 

It also includes crafting an engaging bio or “about” section on the platform to help your account get found in search. Your bio should answer the following basic questions:

  • Who you are
  • What you do
  • Where you’re located 
  • How to reach you

If your company is already utilizing an SEO strategy for your website, try to use a primary keyword that you use on your homepage in any of those descriptions. This should help boost your visibility when people search for a related keyword.

screenshot of Tower Marketing's Instagram and Facebook profiles

In this example, you can see that Tower Marketing uses consistent keywords, such as “full-service team” and “digital marketing,” to describe who we are and what we do. The address indicates where we are located, and our contact information makes it easy to reach out.  

2. Content Optimizations

Content optimizations are related to the nature of the content you’re posting on your accounts. Are you posting topics that your intended audience is interested in? Do the graphics fit your messaging and reinforce your brand voice?

Understanding the desires of your target audience is incredibly important to your SMO strategy. If users aren’t interested in your content, they won’t share it and you won’t actually be expanding your reach. 

After you’ve nailed down the content you should be posting, it’s time to optimize your content for engagement. 

3. Engagement Optimizations

Engagement optimizations refer to the strategies your business can use to boost the performance of your posts. Perhaps the most obvious engagement tool you can use on social media is hashtags.

That’s right, hashtags are still effective in 2023! They help categorize posts into a digital filing system so that when a person uses a social platform as a search engine, all posts using that hashtag are accessible in one place. 

Adding hashtags to your posts can ensure your content is filed in the digital system, increasing the chances of having new users discover your account. Experts recommend using 3-5 hashtags per post. 

 Aside from hashtags, two of the most important engagement tactics to consider are the frequency and timeliness of posts. 

You’ll need to find the balance between posting regularly to keep your business top of mind without coming across as spammy. Determine the number of posts you’re comfortable with publishing per week or month and stick to it. 

In addition to the volume of posts, the time that you post can directly impact engagement. If you’re posting on a day of the week or at a time when your audience is least likely to be active on social media, the post’s engagement will likely suffer. 

Using industry research is a good place to start, but don’t be afraid to fine-tune your strategy based on the analytics you observe. Take note of high- and low-performing posts and analyze what factors contributed to their success. 

When you can pinpoint what works and what doesn’t, you have a roadmap of dos and don’ts to implement in the future. 

Also, keep in mind that every platform’s user demographic and algorithm is different, so your cross-platform strategy might have to vary slightly, too. 

4. Community Building

Once you’ve done your due diligence to refine your profile, content, and engagement strategies, the final off-site SMO strategy is community building.

Remember, social media is an extension of your business, so the way you present yourself can impact your online reputation. The best way to ensure that your reputation is positive is by actively engaging with your followers.

This can include a plethora of things:

  • Liking and responding to comments/questions promptly. 
  • Responding to direct messages. 
  • Sharing other posts that your audience might be interested in.
  • Creating private groups for followers to engage with you and other like-minded users.

When you engage with your followers by showing interest and empathy, you’re building a reputation of trust. 

In recent years, many social media platforms have introduced features to help with audience engagement. For example, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and X (formerly Twitter) all have a poll option, which invites users to share their opinions.

a screenshot of Tower Marketing's LinkedIn poll

Here’s another example from Tower Marketing’s LinkedIn account, asking users to share how they help get out of a creative rut. 

When you utilize these features and ask the right questions, you’re showing your audience that you care about hearing from them and not just sharing about yourself — something that can be a powerful tool for maintaining your community.

Website “On-Page” Optimizations

On-page SMO focuses on your website. More specifically, it entails optimizing the shareability of your content to control the way your posts are shown, shared, and displayed when distributed to a third-party site or social media platform. 

Use Sharing Buttons

Making a webpage easy for users to share is a no-brainer. If you don’t already employ social sharing buttons on your website, that is the first on-page optimization you should be implementing. Adding social sharing buttons to your website content makes it simple for users to distribute your content to their networks.

In the same way that you should link to your website on social media, your website should link directly to your social accounts, too. Most businesses do this by nestling buttons in the site footer. 

a screenshot of HubSpot's website footer that shows links to their social media accounts

Here is an example of how HubSpot displays the links to their social media accounts. The icons are subtle but large enough to easily be found. They also communicate to site visitors what platforms they can find your business on. 

Utilizing Rank Math SEO

If you use WordPress as your CMS, the Rank Math SEO plugin is a great way to optimize your pages and posts for social media. Rank Math adds a tag to your website that allows your business to edit how your site content is displayed on social media and/or search engines when shared.

Using Rank Math’s social tab, you can

  • Create a custom title, description, and image.
  • Generate social media images.
  • Customize Facebook or Twitter cards based on your needs.
a screenshot of Rank Math's social optimization tab

Why does this matter? Because when you don’t optimize for SMO, it can look messy. Long headlines or descriptions might be truncated, leaving out important information intended to garner interest. 

Previewing your posts using Rank Math’s social tools tab allows you to adjust your content and ensure the most important information is visible to your audience.

screenshots of Rank Math's SMO tab

Here’s an example of using Rank Math to shorten the blog title and description for the Facebook card. On the left, you can see how the text is cut off because it’s too long. On the right, the description text and the title were both shortened to keep the social display less wordy and to the point.

SMO Tips & Takeaways That You Can Start Implementing Today

I don’t think enough businesses are strategically thinking through the opportunities available when they optimize their website and content for social. Here are some final SMO tips and actionable tactics that your business can start employing today.

Tactical Optimization Tips

  • Focus on what matters most. It’s not about optimizing for everything — it’s about optimizing for what you want to be known for. Write content that is specifically for your audience.
  • Be social. Remember that SMO isn’t about sales. It’s about people and creating relationships and trustworthiness. Connect, interact, and most importantly, be human. Sales will come as a result.
  • Try different calls to action. A good CTA helps increase engagement, so it’s figuring out which CTAs work best for your audience to click through.

Visual Optimization Tips

  • Use the right image dimensions when posting images on different platforms. This maintains an organized feed and ensures no images are cut off or distorted. 
  • Post high-quality images. If you can, posting your own images tends to do better than finding and posting an image from Shutterstock. Authenticity is honesty is trust. 
  • Keep your branding consistent across all of the platforms you’re active on. Don’t confuse your users. Colors, logos, and images should emulate your website.

Topic Optimization Tips

  • Use social media chatbots. Not everyone has time to respond to every user on social media. Social media chatbots are a great way for you to respond to users by programming responses based on frequently asked questions. 
  • Use keywords from organic search and PPC. Including well-known search terms is a simple (but effective) way to optimize your social profile pages.
  • Learn from your competitors. What sort of posts are performing well for them? Who do they interact with the most?

Audience Optimization Tips

  • Know your audience. Use analytics tools that are freely available to create content that you know your audience is interested in.
  • Learn from your community. Ask questions and get firsthand insight from those who engage. Use this information to improve your products/services and business offerings.
  • Look for opportunities to engage. Find people you want to connect with and figure out how to start a conversation with them. Be social.

Conclusion

If you want your website to be found by the right people — the users who matter — SMO is essential to your marketing strategy. Great content can only be great if it’s found. 

Does your business need help implementing on-site or off-site SMO strategies to expand your reach? Our full-service digital marketing team is equipped to help. Reach out to a team member to schedule a consultation. 

Speak With Our Team

This blog was originally published on December 18, 2019, and rewritten on November 3, 2023.

Encouraging brands to embrace digital marketing opened the doors for new opportunities and success, however, it also brought along a new set of challenges, one of those being a constant flood of marketing industry jargon.

In this blog, we will help you cut through the clutter and provide basic digital marketing terms you should focus on when building a strategy that will help you and your business succeed.

What is Digital Marketing – And Why Should You Care?

Marketing is everywhere, but when people think of it, they often think of billboards, magazines, television commercials, and even ads on the radio.

These are what we refer to as traditional marketing techniques. However, like most things, as the world has evolved, marketing has too.

Digital marketing is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the Internet or other forms of digital communication.

According to the Pew Research Center, three in ten U.S. adults claim they are “almost constantly” online. This explains why businesses are choosing to focus on digital marketing rather than traditional techniques. Using the Internet allows businesses to reach more customers in a shorter amount of time and with less effort. In addition, digital marketing is known to be more cost-effective.

a woman types on her laptop, the screen showing charts and graphs

Digital Marketing Key Terms

For brands to get the most out of digital marketing services they need to have a basic understanding of digital marketing terminology and the ability to differentiate these terms with buzzwords.

Buzzwords are words or phrases that are trending during a certain period. These words, or jargon, won’t have the same effectiveness as those that experienced marketers use and know.

Below, we’ve broken down some important digital marketing terms to start with as you build your knowledge.

Organic

When it comes to digital marketing terminology, you should know the three primary terms marketers will often use when they are discussing how to drive traffic (a term we will cover below) and gain leads. The first term is organic.

If someone finds your site on a search engine without clicking on an advertisement or other type of promotional content, it is considered organic traffic.

This is a natural way of spreading brand awareness and generating leads. For example, sending out email newsletters, publishing monthly blog posts and social media posts (not advertisements), or other pieces of content that don’t require a set budget.

Paid

The second way to drive traffic and gain leads is through paid marketing techniques. These include advertisements or campaigns that require a daily or lifetime budget. For instance, running monthly social media advertisements on LinkedIn.

Typically, businesses will find that paid campaigns perform better than posting organically. This is often because platforms will allow you to use detailed targeting. However, having a balance of both paid and organic marketing is beneficial since you’re likely to reach more people overall.

Referral

If a user finds your site without organically searching or clicking on a paid ad, it’s known as referral traffic. When someone visits a hyperlink from a social network or website and ends up on your site, search engines can recognize this as a referral visit.

Many businesses will also use UTM codes to track exactly where these users are coming from. Doing this allows you to see which social networks or sites are bringing in the most traffic.

Traffic

As promised above, the next digital marketing term everyone in the industry should be aware of is “traffic”. Simply put, traffic refers to the number of users who have visited your website or social media profiles.

This metric is crucial for every brand, but especially those who are trying to increase brand awareness. It’s important for marketers to not only see that traffic is coming through but also to locate where users are coming from.

For example, in Google Analytics, you’re able to identify if a user came to your site organically (in a search engine) or through a paid ad. Determining this will help you build a marketing strategy that is aligned with your overall goals.

Session

As we mentioned previously, you can track the traffic for your site in Google Analytics, but to do that you need to understand another key digital marketing term known as sessions.

Every time a user visits your site, they start a session, and after 30 minutes of inactivity, the session ends. This means if someone is on your site for even a second, they are counted as a session. In the same respect, if a user leaves your site and comes back a few hours later or the next day, it’s counted as a new session.

However, most businesses don’t simply want to know if people are visiting their site, but also how long they’re staying. This is where engaged sessions come into play. When a user stays on your site for more than 10 seconds, completes a conversion (we’ll discuss more about this below), or has at least 2 pageviews, it’s considered an engaged session.

While sessions alone can be helpful, engaged sessions are arguably more important because they show businesses that users are absorbing information on their site and therefore becoming one step closer to becoming leads or customers.

Lead

The primary goal of any company or business is to gain customers and increase revenue. Marketers can assist them in this by creating strategies to bring in new leads. A lead is any user that shows interest in a brand, product, or service.

Depending on the company itself, the quality of leads may vary, however, for the most part, a qualified lead refers to someone who fills out a contact form, requests a quote, signs up for a trial, or takes any other action that pushes them closer to becoming a customer.

Conversions

We’ve mentioned the term conversions a few times, which is appropriate because, in many ways, these are some of the most valuable metrics in digital marketing. When creating a marketing strategy, marketers will break down a number of actions they want users to take.

Conversions can vary in importance, what the business is trying to achieve will greatly impact what types of conversions digital marketers decide to set up.

This could be viewing a landing page, clicking a contact button, or downloading a file, a conversion happens whenever a user completes a desired action.

Call to Action (CTA)

A digital marketing term you’ll hear frequently is a call to action or CTA. This refers to the next step a marketer wants the audience to take to push them further through the sales funnel.

Usually appearing at the end of a content, ad, or email, a good CTA will be clear and concise. Often CTAs will include a direct link for a user to click on.

Whether it leads to a contact form, product page, or another resource, the goal of a CTA is to keep the reader engaged and interested in a service or product.

A/B Testing

Also known as “split testing”, A/B testing is a digital marketing term that describes the process of comparing two variables to determine which performs better.

For example, if you are experimenting with email headlines and want to see what is more effective, you can send out two emails that have the same copy, and list but contain different headlines.

Based on how each performs, you can determine which headline is stronger. This is a technique digital marketers use in several areas to improve conversion rates and optimize their content.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Commonly referred to as KPIs, key performance indicators, are how marketers measure their progress against an objective.

There are two types of indicators to be aware of when creating goals: lagging and leading. Lagging indicators assess the current state of business performance while leading indicators work to predict future success.

It’s important to take into account both types because while lagging indicators aren’t helpful with making ongoing adjustments, they can help you shape your goals which should be based on leading indicators.

two people type on their laptops at a table. the table top is covered in pieces of paper and sticky notes

Tactical Digital Marketing Terms

Now that we’ve covered some of the basic digital marketing terms, it’s time to dive into the specifics.

Generally speaking, 4 main types of services go hand-in-hand with digital marketing. In the following sections, we’ll explain what these are and what terms are specific to the work they do.

Basic SEO Terms to Know

Search engine optimization, or SEO, refers to the process of improving a website to increase its visibility in search engines, like Google or Microsoft Bing. The main goal of SEO is to increase traffic and attract users who will become leads, customers, or an audience that continues to come back.

Title Tag– The name of a specific web page. These will appear at the top of a web browser or in search engine results.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)– The page of results users see when they type a word, phrase, or query into a search engine.

Meta Description– Tied to a specific page, these are used to describe web pages and encourage users to click on links in the SERP.

Keyword– A word or phrase a user types into a search engine to find what they are looking for. Using keywords in titles, headings, and body of texts will help improve a page’s ranking.

Ranking Factors– The criteria applied by search engines when evaluating web pages to decide where each page should fall on the SERPs.

Events– A metric that records a specific user interaction or occurrence on a website, for example clicking a button, submitting a form, downloading a file, and more.

Conversion Rate– Measures the number of users who converted (taken action) as a percentage of the total number of users who visited a site. This can be calculated by the total number of conversions divided by the total number of clicks.

Basic Content Marketing Terms to Know

Content marketing involves the creation and distribution of valuable and relevant online material that is intended to promote a brand as well as spark interest in its products or services. These materials include a wide variety of content pieces from blogs to whitepapers.

Buyer Persona– A detailed description of a business’s ideal customer, outlining their customer’s desires, pain points, demographics, etc.

Bounce Rate– The percentage of users who enter a website and leave rather than continuing to browse pages within the same site.

Landing Page– Any page on a website where traffic is sent to prompt a specific action or result.

Copywriting– The process of creating content for web pages, blogs, or social media posts to convert users.

Customer Journey– An outline of the different steps users will take to become qualified leads, customers, or clients.

Sessions Per User– The average number of sessions each user engages on a specific site or application. This can be calculated by dividing a site’s session count by its user count.

Basic Email Marketing Terms to Know

Email marketing helps you reach potential customers, increase brand awareness, build customer loyalty, and promote other marketing efforts. The messages in emails can include valuable content, updates, coupons, or exclusive offers.

Email Automation– An email marketing strategy that sends specific messages according to certain triggers or scheduled times.

Dynamic Content– Email content that changes based on a user’s data, preferences, and behaviors to show them specific messaging.

List Segmentation– A process of breaking down email lists into smaller segments to create personalized messages.

Email Deliverability– The ability to successfully deliver emails to users’ inboxes.

Drip Campaign– A series of automated messages or emails sent to leads regularly and over a scheduled period.

Open Rate– The number of email recipients who opened an email.

Click Rate– The percentage of people who opened an email and clicked on a link or ad within the email. This can be calculated by dividing the number of emails clicked by the number of emails sent.

Click-To-Open Rate– The percentage of people who opened an email and then clicked a link within that email. This can be calculated by dividing unique email opens by unique email clicks and then multiplying by 100.

Basic Social Media Marketing Terms to Know

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms to interact with customers to build brands, increase sales, and drive website traffic. Social media can be shared organically and can be used for paid advertising.

Impressions– The number of times content has been shown on the feeds of social media users.

Engagement Rate– A metric that shows how much interaction a social media post or ad campaign earns from users. This can be calculated by dividing the total engagement by total followers and then multiplying by 100%.

Conversion Rate– The percentage of users who follow through a social media post or ad’s call to action.

Cost Per Click (CPC)– A metric that determines how much advertisers pay for social ads based on the number of clicks the ad receives. This can be calculated by dividing the advertising cost by the number of clicks generated by the advertisement.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)– The number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of times an ad is shown.

a laptop is open on a table next to a row of cacti in cute pots along a windowsill

Staying educated about basic digital marketing terminology is beneficial for businesses because it gives them the ability to not only understand what other competitors are doing online but also the chance to create a marketing strategy that will put them ahead of their competition.

With this knowledge, you have the opportunity to build relationships with like-minded people who can help tell your brand’s story and achieve your goals.

Interested in learning more about digital marketing? Browse our case studies to see some of our recent marketing projects.

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This blog was originally published on March 30, 2021, and updated on November 1, 2023.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a universal roadmap to achieve a successful marketing campaign. And it can be frustrating to put the work in, and the budget, and ultimately not see the results you deserve. 

We’ve seen this frustration happen time and time again. Which is why we’ve written this blog. We’ll outline the logistics behind Google Ads audiences, and our best practices when it comes to getting to know your audience better.

What is the Google Ads Platform?

We are going to be talking a lot about Google Ads Audiences, and to start the conversation, it’s important to have an understanding of the Google Ads Platform. Feel free to start exploring the platform and get some hands-on experience. 

Within the Google Ads platform, you can obtain resources and valuable insights into the different aspects, including your google ads audiences of choice. There are a multitude of tools to help you find keywords, reach new and existing audiences, and test different strategies.

Breaking Down Google Ads Audience Segments

There are multiple types of audience segments you can create in Google Ads. But we’re going to focus on Google Ads’ in-market audiences, affinity segment targeting, and custom segments.

By utilizing these three types of audience segments, you can capture users who are highly invested in your company or product and users who are in the beginning stages of the buying journey.

  • Affinity Segments. If you’re creating a brand new audience or starting from scratch, affinity segment targeting is a great way to capture users in the beginning stages of the consumer journey. 

    This type of Google Ads audience emphasizes a user’s interests, rather than their recent spending habits. We recommend using affinity segment targeting to raise brand awareness and reach new users.

  • In-Market Segments. Going a bit deeper into the funnel, Google Ads’ in-market segments capture users based on recent purchases or ones with transactional intent. This is a great Google Ads audience to take advantage of when you have a clear understanding of your users and what they want from you.

  • Custom Segments. Google Ads’ custom intent audiences allow you to get very specific with your audience and target users based on keywords and URLs. This type of Google Ads audience comes with time and is especially useful once you have success with the platform.

    So let’s say you’re a home improvement company but you want to focus a specific ad on kitchen repairs. You can include distinct keywords related to this topic. You can also include different URLS that are relevant and have information on kitchen repairs.

Building Your Google Ads Audience

As you begin building your Google Ads audience, you’ll first have to decide between “observation” and “targeting.”

In Google Ads, showing the two different options you can choose, targeting and observation.
  • Observation. Google will observe how certain criteria perform within your ads without limiting the reach of your ads. Essentially, it’s going to watch how the ad performs and better the audience/ad based on these observations.

    We recommend using the observation feature for building newer audiences and any Search or Display campaigns.
  • Targeting. On the other hand, targeting is going to put you in control of who sees your ad and where it’s shown. Just like Google custom intent audiences, this is for specific audiences and specific content.

    We’d recommend using targeting once you have a solidified understanding of who your audience is and are looking to capture users who are further into the consumer journey.

Once you’ve chosen observation or targeting, the next step to building your Google Ads audience is to include demographics. You can choose between a wide variety of segments, including age, location, and household income. 

You may also decide to set up exclusions in your audience. Just like in social media advertising, exclusions are important to incorporate so your ads aren’t shown to people who are unlikely to interact with your product or service. 

Pro Tip: We encourage you to connect your Google Ads and your Google Analytics 4 accounts so you can get a full picture of your customer’s journey. This connection allows you to better understand conversions and events happening from users interacting with your Google ads.

Who Are You Targeting?

Now that we’ve laid out how to logistically set up your audience, it’s time to outline how to decide who’s best to target and how you can access a more in-depth understanding of your audience.

The marketing funnel with the top starting at awareness and the last one being advocacy.

Look At the Stages in the User/Buyer Journey

There are five stages in the user/buyer journey, but we’re going to focus on the following three: awareness, consideration, and decision. If your marketing budget allows for it, you should be creating separate ads for users in each of these consumer stages.

  1. Awareness Stage. When a user is in this stage, they’re browsing for general ideas, products, and services to help them solve a problem. They aren’t at the stage where they want to make any purchases. They’re simply gathering information.

    Google search queries in this stage are going to be more general, like “best running sneakers” or “new garage door.”

  2. Consideration Stage. Moving down the funnel a little, users in the consideration stage are going to start getting a bit more specific and finding a solution to their problem. In the awareness stage, they were looking for a change, but in the consideration stage, they’re looking for a solution.

    Search queries could include “best shoe stores near me” or “should a professional install my new garage door.” 

  3. Decision Stage. The last stage of the user buying journey is where someone is going to be very intentional about their searches because they’re looking to make a purchase. They’ve done the research and know what product or service will solve their issue.

    Google search queries are going to be specific like “HOKA shoes for running marathons” or “real-wood overhead garage doors.”

Your goal should be to capture users at every stage of the buying journey. Which means finding relevant and valuable keywords and language that matches each step of the process. Not sure how to find the right keywords for your ads? Don’t worry, we’ll get into that now.

Consider the Intent of Your Audience

Within each stage of the user/buyer journey, there are different intents for the consumer. You should recognize each intent so you can create a specific ad targeting their needs or wants.

a graphic that highlights the four different types of keyword intent.

There are four different types of intent keywords. They are information, navigational, commercial, and transactional. By getting a grasp of each of these, you can create different audiences for each consumer stage. 

A general rule of thumb is as follows.

  • Information intent keywords are going to target users in the awareness stage.
  • Navigational and commercial intent keywords are geared toward users in the consideration stage.
  • Transactional intent keywords capture users in the decision stage.

Now, you can combine keyword groupings and reach multiple stages at once within your ad campaign. But, the language would have to be fairly general in order to attract all three stages. 

This is why we recommend focusing on one stage per campaign with your keywords, language, and targeting so you can make each ad more personable for the user.

Tips to Knowing Your Audience Better

It’s easier said than done to know who your audience is and to craft ads that target specific segments. But we’ll outline some of our best tips so you can feel confident that you’re getting to know your audience and giving them information they engage with.

Do Your Research

First and foremost, do as much research with the tools you already have. Within your Google Analytics 4 account look at engagement metrics and see what users are doing on your site. If you have a page that’s getting a lot of traffic and conversions, you can continue this momentum by creating a supporting Google Ad. 

You may be surprised to see how much insight you can also get by talking to your leadership, sales team, and marketing team.

  • Is the sales team noticing a product or service that’s selling really well?
  • What initiatives is your marketing team taking that you can support through Google ads? 
  • Are there blogs already written on topics you can advertise?
  • Are there specific goals your leadership would like to see achieved this year? 

By involving these departments in your marketing blueprint, you can ultimately create a comprehensive and well-rounded strategy. 

Also, look at what your competitors are doing! They could spark ideas for advertising topics or landing pages.  See what they’re doing and how you can put your unique value proposition into it to capture your audience’s attention.

Create a Target Persona

You benefit greatly from creating a target persona for every stage of the user funnel. What are the characteristics of someone in the awareness stage, or the consideration stage? How will the language of these ads differ from someone in the decision stage? 

By having a clear outline of each stage and a target persona, you can truly start to craft specific language for each consumer stage. These personas also help you narrow down what your targeted users are searching for.

A lot of times businesses focus on their brand voice and tone when really they should be focusing on what customers are searching for on Google.

Do Some A/B Testing

By testing different Google detailed demographics, intent keywords, and audiences you can get a full picture of what people are responding to and what’s working well (or not working well) with your advertisements. 

When you’re testing different characteristics, make sure you’re not changing everything at once. In fact, we recommend only changing one thing at a time so you have a concrete idea of whether the different feature benefited your ad or not.

Find the Right Keywords

We talk a lot about using intent keywords in your SEO and content marketing strategies, but you can also take full advantage of them within your Google ads. Especially when using Google’s custom intent audiences. 

As we mentioned above, there are four different types of intent keywords. By utilizing and grouping these together, you can create audiences that attract a user from any stage of the consumer journey. 

We recommend using the Keyword Magic Tool from SEMrush as a great start to finding relevant and valuable keywords for your campaigns!

Additional Tools

Here are a few additional resources our team uses to find the best insights for a great Google Ads audience.

  • Organic Insights in SEMrush. You can see keywords, landing pages, users, and conversion insights within this tool. See where your audience is going, what pages they are most interested in, and topics that are sparking their attention.

    You can also see where your competitors are ranking well and what topics they are advertising. Ultimately, this is a great tool to connect your SEO and content strategies with your Google Ads campaigns. 

  • Google Trends. This is a great starting point to find trending topics or see specific keywords and how they trend over time. Maybe you have a seasonality factor to strategize for and you notice there’s a trending topic in the spring that you should be targeting.

  • Microsoft Clarity. Our SEM team uses this tool to see where our audiences are going when they land on the site and what pages are gaining the most traffic. It can also help you see what CTAs and buttons are working really well on your page which can then be mirrored in your Google Ads.

Get in front of the right people and reach new users by utilizing Google Ads audiences. Have questions about how to get started? Our PPC specialists are here to help!

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This blog was originally published on June 16, 2021, and was updated on August 1, 2023.

If you work in business, you’ve probably heard the terms “marketing mix” or “the 4Ps of traditional marketing” at one point in time. But with the booming success we’ve seen in the digital marketing industry, have you considered how to integrate those concepts into your internet marketing strategy?

Learn how the digital marketing mix uses the 4Ps —plus 3 additional Ps — to master the nuances of successful online marketing.

The 4 Ps of the Traditional Marketing Mix

The traditional marketing mix is defined by Phillip Kotler as a “set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market.” That “set of marketing tools” is what’s commonly referred to as the 4Ps.

The 4Ps are the foundation of any successful marketing plan. They include:

  • Product
  • Price
  • Place
  • Promotion

For years, the 4Ps have been the go-to model for building a marketing strategy. But, in the era of internet marketing, referring to only the 4 Ps can limit your brand’s reach. 

According to WordStream by LocaliQ, 72% of marketing budgets are reserved for digital channels, increasing digital marketing’s share of advertising to 55%. With that increase, the concepts of product, price, place, and promotion also needed to grow.

The digital marketing mix is an expansion of Kotler’s traditional marketing tools. The 7 Ps of digital marketing include product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. 

Defining The 7Ps of The Digital Marketing Mix

Let’s jump into defining the digital marketing mix and explaining how using these 7Ps can help you build on your existing approach to better reach your customers. 

1. Product

Product refers to the ‘thing’ you offer that your target audience wants. This can be a physical, tangible item, or an intangible service. From clothing or water bottles to home insurance or a digital marketing agency, a product is the item or service the user seeks to fill a need.

If it helps, think of the product in terms of supply and demand. All consumers have wants and needs. You are in business because you offer something that is wanted or needed by a consumer. Your product supplies that consumer’s demand.

Focus on the Consumer First

A lot of businesses think they have a great product and then try to market it to the public and fail. Harvard Business School professor, Clayton Christensen, reports that over 30,000 new products are launched every year, only 5% of which succeed. 

Most times, it’s because of poor market research. They have not asked the fundamental question: Why do people want this? 

If there’s no need for your product, it won’t sell. Understand the consumer demand first and then design your product around that need. From there, identify your unique selling point (USP) that makes your product valuable to buyers and differentiates you from competitors.

Product Questions to Ask Yourself:

  • What does the customer want from my product? What need(s) does it satisfy?
  • What is my USP?
    • What advantages does my product offer to meet the user’s needs?
    • How do I differentiate my product/service from competitors?
    • Are there features a competitor product has that mine does not? Are there features that the consumer does not deem valuable or worth paying for?
  • Does my product have a name? How is it branded?
  • How do I intend consumers to my your product? Are they using it correctly? Where will they use it?

Answering these questions can help you understand the end user’s view of your product and can help drive additional marketing decisions because you understand what problem your product solves.  

2. Price

Price is what the consumer is willing to pay for your product. While it’s a generally easy concept to understand, it can be tricky for many businesses to apply — prices that are too high push users to search elsewhere; prices that are too low cut into your profit margins. 

Understanding your target audience and the relationship between perceived benefits, price, and value can help simplify the process. If perceived benefits increase or price decreases, the perceived value should generally go up. But if perceived benefits decrease or the price increases, the perceived value goes down.

Tower Social July Benefits 1 jpg The Digital Marketing Mix: How the 4Ps Have Evolved in the Age of Internet Marketing

If consumers don’t see any perceived benefits in your product, or if they decide the benefits aren’t worth the price, your product’s value will decrease and you’re less likely to make sales. 

Opportunity Cost

Since a large part of the pricing model relies on what consumers perceive as valuable, your business needs to understand what the consumer feels they are losing out on by choosing your product over the others — also known as the opportunity cost. 

Here’s an example: I have $350. I can spend it on Facebook ads that might generate leads, or I can use it on Google text ads. If I spend the money on Google ads then I forfeit the opportunity Facebook ads might bring in. The loss of those potential Facebook leads is the opportunity cost.

In this situation, I have to make the decision of what I find more valuable. Will Google or Facebook get me the leads I need? Which is the most cost-effective? Which is easier to manage? Where is my target audience most likely to be?

Your customers will ask themselves similar questions before making a purchase: will this product make my life easier? Am I getting my money’s worth? If you can anticipate those opportunity costs, you can use them to your advantage to choose a price that’s appropriate in your market.

Factors That Affect Product Pricing:

There are so many factors that can impact the price of your product, some of the most common including

  • Competitive offerings and prices
  • Market share
  • Product branding and quality
  • Materials or input costs
  • Customers’ perceived product value and fair price.

Depending on the factors that are most important to you and your target market, you can price your product appropriately using one of the following approaches:

  • 1. Demand-oriented pricing: set the price based on the demand for the product or service. If demand is high, consumers might be willing to pay more for the product.
  • 2. Cost-oriented pricing: consider how much it costs to make your product and markup accordingly so you see a profit.
  • 3. Profit-oriented pricing: determine your business’s profit goals and test out prices that yield your desired return on sales (ROS). 
  • 4. Competition-oriented pricing: price your product similarly to your competitors to compete with their market share.

Pricing Questions to Ask Yourself:

  • What is my product’s perceived value in the eyes of the consumer? 
  • What is the lowest cost I can charge while still selling enough to be profitable? 
  • Is my target market price-sensitive? What effect will changes in price do in the marketplace? 
  • Should I increase or lower the price?
  • Are my prices competitive?

Don’t forget to also consider making adjustments to your price. Seasonal discounts, trade-in deals, and other cost-saving measures can prove to be successful in many markets. Make sure you have a plan in place to monitor your price to handle the ebbs and flows of demand.

shutterstock 102061732 jpg The Digital Marketing Mix: How the 4Ps Have Evolved in the Age of Internet Marketing

3. Place

Place refers to where the consumer is able to purchase your product. It solves the complicated process of getting the product from the manufacturer into the hands of buyers. 

Traditionally, place referred to strictly brick-and-mortar locations. But the internet has added some complexities to this principle of the digital marketing mix, opening the door for many more distribution channels to meet consumers where they are. 

Ecommerce sites can be an incredibly useful place to sell your product. In 2021, retail eCommerce retail sales exceeded $5 trillion US dollars globally — a number that’s projected to rise above $8 trillion by 2026. 

If your site is lacking online retail capabilities or you’re not selling your product through third-party marketplaces online, you’re limiting your place strategy. It’s one of the easiest ways to increase your brand’s reach.

Places and Accessibility

Smartphones (and the internet in general) allow the consumer to have a 24/7 marketplace accessible from anywhere at any time.  It is critical that your brand exists in the digital space. Not only that, your business should easily found and active in that space.

Examples of Online Places Include:

  • Websites displaying interactive ads
  • Search engines highlighting shopping ads
  • Google search results
  • Emails
  • Social channels such as Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest

Making your products accessible to the users at a time and place that is most convenient to them will give your business a competitive advantage. 

Place Questions to Ask Yourself:

  • Where is my target market searching for products? Are consumers looking in brick-and-mortar stores? Online? Direct sales?
  • Do I have access to the medium or channel? Do you have expertise and knowledge of how these channels perform? Can I optimize the efficiency of these distribution channels?
  • Where are my competitors most active? Where do they push their products? Are they utilizing a channel that I‘m not?

Because there are so many more “locations” or channels for the consumer to find your product, deciding on the placement of your product can be a challenge. It’s crucial that you get to know your target audience to determine which distribution channels are most likely to convert into a lead or sale.

Erica screenshot The Digital Marketing Mix: How the 4Ps Have Evolved in the Age of Internet Marketing

4. Promotion

Jim Blyth defines promotion as “the marketing communications used to make the offer known to potential customers and persuade them to investigate it further.” Simply put, it’s your strategy for getting people to notice your product or service. 

Thanks to modern technology, businesses have more channels than ever to communicate through. A few examples can include Google My Business listings, sponsored ads, Instagram posts, email newsletters, and much more.

These tools can help your brand personalize your marketing by tailoring your message to a specific user. Using GA4 and consumer engagement reports, you can even determine where your audience is most active and segment them according to mobile devices, browsers, and operating systems.

Which Channels to Use

When deciding on distribution channels, it’s important to make sure it fits your audience and your brand. Here are some major online distribution channels:

  • Search Engines
    • Organic search results (e.g. Google and Bing)
    • Paid/sponsored listings (e.g. Google and Bing)
  • Display Ads
    • Banner Ads
    • Interactive Ads
  • Social Media (posts and Ads)
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube
  • Digital word-of-mouth
    • Forums (e.g. Reddit)
    • Wikis
    • Influencers (e.g. bloggers)
    • Business listing (e.g. Yelp)

Promotion Questions to Ask Yourself:

  • What potential channels are available to communicate my message?
  • Where are my competitors promoting their products or services? Where are they active that we’re not?
  • Which is the most effective channel to communicate through? 
  • What is an appropriate cadence for our promotion? 

How you choose to promote your product or service can make all the difference in converting leads into sales. 

5. People

In the digital marketing mix, people refers to anyone who represents your product and comes in contact with the consumer. Aside from your customer service team or sales force, people can include your employees, business partners, or anyone that consumers associate with your brand. 

It’s important you’re hiring people who understand your brand’s vision and believe in your goals. You should be able to trust that when they come in contact with customers, they’re representing your brand in a positive light. 

This is increasingly important if your brand is on social media. 

Social Media Relationships

Social media, online forms, emails, and other internet platforms have created a way to interact with customers directly. These added relationship factors give your brand the ability to:

  • Respond quickly to users asking questions on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc.
  • Add insightful recommendations via Quora
  • Respond to negative reviews on Google Reviews or Yelp 

Businesses that are utilizing these platforms can leverage the power of relationship-building where customers are active. Interacting with your customers directly on these platforms can strengthen trust and keep consumers coming back to your brand.

People Questions To Ask Yourself:

  • Do my employees understand our brand identity?
  • Do my business partners understand our company goals?
  • Is our company culture positive?
  • Are my employees skilled in basic social media strategy? 
  • Have I set clear expectations for my employees to follow when interacting with customers?

The bottom line: your people represent your brand. How they interact with customers can make or break their perception of your product or service. 

shutterstock 2277964435 jpg The Digital Marketing Mix: How the 4Ps Have Evolved in the Age of Internet Marketing

6. Process

Process is defined as the core tasks and operations required to deliver the product or service to your customer. This can refer to anything from logistics and shipment and delivery to wait times and check-out processes. 

If your customers find your processes to be too complicated — for instance, the time from placing an order to receiving it is too long — you’re likely to lose out on future sales. 

To optimize your processes and create the best experience for your potential customers, it’s critical to understand the user journey. If you can simplify the sales funnel and make the process from initial brand discovery to purchasing feel natural, the greater your chances are to convert. 

Process Questions To Ask Yourself:

  • How easy is it to navigate through our website? Is it easy to make a purchase online?
  • How long are our delivery times? How does this compare to competitors?
  • Do we have enough staff to cover the amount of purchases/requests being made?
  • Are there any internal process barriers keeping us from delivering customer value?
  • Have our customers complained about our process? Where are they dissatisfied? 

Listening to customer feedback can be a really useful tool for defining your process strategy. Take customer complaints as an opportunity to reevaluate your current process and strategize how to fix it. 

7. Physical Evidence

The final P in the digital marketing mix is physical evidence. It’s the proof that your product or service exists and is credible. In the online universe, your brand’s digital footprint can serve as your physical evidence. 

Your website is the most important measure of physical evidence for most people. If it’s up-to-date and easy to navigate, your brand can seem more trustworthy. 

Personal touches like thank you notes, confirmation emails, and receipts after a purchase can be another piece of physical evidence to keep your brand top-of-mind for customers. 

Additionally, it’s important your brand is represented on social media. You should be prioritizing creating solid brand awareness across multiple platforms and channels. Existing on these platforms and staying active can build credibility.

Physical Evidence Questions To Ask Yourself:

  • What post-purchase procedures do we have in place? Is there anything we could improve on?
  • Are we represented across multiple channels? Is our branding consistent across each?
  • Does our website provide a positive first impression? Is the UX positive?
  • Are we actively responding to customers on social media or via email? 

The more time you spend expanding your message across multiple channels and platforms can greatly increase the value the customer finds in your brand, product, or service. 

An Integrated Marketing Approach is Best

Increase your share of voice by choosing an integrated marketing approach. When you start using the 7Ps of the digital marketing mix, you can multiply your reach using a consumer-centric strategy.

computer displaying analytics

Digital Marketing Mix Checklist

  1. Identify the product or service. What is the Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?
  2. Research and understand your target audience. Who are your potential customers? What do they search for? Is your product relevant to their needs?
  3. Research and understand your competition. Is the market highly competitive or are you a pioneer? What can you learn from other businesses competing in this space?
  4. Assess the channels (space) where your customer engages with your product. Understand the pros and cons of each platform/place.
  5. Test your digital marketing mix. Ask customer-focused questions:
    1. Does the product meet the user’s need(s)? (Product)
    2. Is the pricing right? Or does it need to change? (Price)
    3. Where are the consumers? Are your marketing channels delivering as expected? (Place)
    4. Is your marketing message resonating with the target audience? Do they understand? Do they feel confident in making a purchase? (Promotion)
    5. Do my employees positively represent our brand? (People)
    6. Is it easy to purchase and receive our product/service? (Process)
    7. Can we be found across multiple marketing channels? (Physical Evidence)
  6. Review your marketing plans & adjust each of the elements to cater to your user, market, and business needs.

Need help implementing an integrated approach to your marketing plan? Our digital marketing team has been solving that problem for our clients for over 25 years. Contact our team for a consultation.

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Editor’s note: This blog was originally published on June 16, 2020. It was updated on July 28, 2023.

Whether you’re looking for the best search engine for research or simply checking the weather forecast in your area, it’s a widely held belief that there are few (if any) search engines better than Google.

From the first time it appeared to the public, Google has had its grip on internet users worldwide. After reading this blog, you’ll understand why Google is the best search engine as well as how your business can leverage its many benefits.

When Did Google Come Out?

In 1996, two graduate students attending Stanford University wondered if there was a new (and better) way to search the World Wide Web. Together, they decided the answer was yes.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page would go on to invent one of the most popular search engines in the world. Working out of their dorm room, they created “Backrub”, a project that used backlinks to determine the importance of individual pages on the internet.

By the time 1998 came around, Brin and Page founded Google. The name change was meant to play off the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. They believed this name reflected their mission of organizing the world’s information in a way that was accessible and useful to everyone, everywhere.

What began as a small online search firm would turn into a search engine with more than 50 internet services and products that can be used by businesses, developers, and anyone else looking for information.

Individual searching Google on laptop.

Why is Google so Popular?

“Google it”.

It’s a familiar phrase to hear someone say or even think to yourself. For years, Google has been the go-to search engine for internet users across the globe.

In 2022, studies showed that Google was visited 89.3 billion times a month, making it the most visited website by a landslide. To this day, Google has a market share of over 93%, which causes people to wonder – why is Google the best search engine?

While other search engines have continued to grow and become more efficient in many ways, Google remains the majority’s choice. As simple as it is to tell someone to “Google it”, the process behind the scenes is far more complex.

Search Engine Algorithms

One of Google’s central claims to fame can be attributed to its search engine algorithm. These algorithms make the user’s experience a top priority.

Search engines collect formulas that will help them determine the quality and relevance of a particular ad or web page. A large result of Google’s popularity came from their creation of complex algorithms which improve an individual’s search process.

Google has reported that its algorithm changes hundreds of times a year, making its results more timely and accurate than any other search engine. In addition, Google uses more than 200 ranking factors when determining which results to show to a viewer and in what order.

The precision of a search engine algorithm works to ensure that users are getting the information that they need immediately, rather than having to scroll through pages of search results.

Search Engine Features

Another substantial reason why Google is the best search engine is its various features. Search engine features are the additional elements an individual will see on the result page.

Search engine features don’t only make the user’s experience better, they can also be beneficial to the business or website. In order for businesses to get their site content to appear in search results, they should follow a few key practices:

Also known as SERP features, Google offers an assortment of characteristics that provide the user with a more efficient and comprehensive search experience.

Search Engine Trends

When weighing search engine pros and cons, it’s important to mention Google Trends. These trends are search terms that are popular on Google. Businesses can benefit from search engine trends for a variety of reasons, including:

  • Businesses can research popular topics and see how they are currently or will be trending in the future. This allows them the opportunity to create content that will drive traffic to their site.
  • Businesses are able to watch the pattern of trends which gives them the advantage of knowing when to expect certain volume drops.
  • Businesses can also use trend patterns to anticipate and leverage a surge in specific search activities.

Google offers both basic and advanced trends, which vary depending on the precision of the data and analytics shown.

Marketing team using Google Analytics.

Closing Thoughts: Why Google is the Best Search Engine

While Google has successfully mastered many unique characteristics to make its search engine the most popular, it hasn’t forgotten about the basics.

At the end of the day, a reliable and efficient search engine has 3 things:

  1. Speed. As of 2023, Google processes an average of more than 100,000 search queries per second. In addition, according to tests run in 2022, overall Google Chrome is the fastest search browser in the world when returning results.
  2. Significance. Google is known to crawl more web pages than any other competitor, leading them to gather a more relevant set of results. Its search index contains hundreds of billions of web pages and is over 100,000,000 gigabytes in size.
  3. Simplicity. Throughout the years, Google has kept a single-minded focus on its goals: search and the user experience. Through building A/B testing frameworks to investing in data center technology, Google has managed to keep its site clear, concise, and convenient.

Interested in improving your site’s rank in Google SERPs? Our SEO specialists know everything when it comes to optimizing websites.

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This blog was originally published on June 15, 2020, and updated on July 18, 2023.

On July 31, 2019, Google announced a new way to unify both app and website measurement with their new platform Google Analytics 4 or GA4 with the plan to sunset Universal Analytics in the near future. 

After the original announcement, there have been many delays in the official plan to sunset Universal Analytics (UA)  after backlash from many businesses. But now, there is an official date of July 1, 2023, in which Universal Analytics will stop processing your business’ data. 

 The switch to GA4  has huge implications if you rely on Google Analytics for measuring your KPIs, but being prepared is the best way to combat the inevitable confusion and questions you have when the switch happens. 

Our goal is to help you understand eight of the main differences between Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics so you are prepared to start making those business decisions you rely on. 

Main Difference #1: Google Analytics 4 Interface

The most striking difference you’ll immediately notice in GA4 is the new interface. The GA4 interface looks very different from UA.

The Google Analytics 4 default interface
Google Universal Analytics interface

Right off the bat in GA4, you’ll see more data in the home section that’s generated by Google’s “automated insights” feature. These insights are automatically created by Google using its new machine-learning capabilities. They’ll trigger automatically whenever GA4 detects spikes or falls in your data. 

You’ll also notice there are new navigation features. In GA4, you will see on the left-hand side of the property “Home, Reports, Advertising, Exploration, and Configure.”  When you compare this to Universal Analytics you will see “Home, Customization, Realtime, Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions.”

Side by side comparison of the sidebars between Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics

When comparing Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics, all the navigation options on Universal Analytics are now under “reports” in Google Analytics 4. Under the reports function, you’ll be able to see where your users came from, what valuable actions they took on your site, and much more. 

Most importantly, there are two new navigation options “Exploration” and “Advertising” which are brand new to Google Analytics 4.  

Exploration Report

Out of all the changes to the platform, the most valuable to businesses is the new Exploration Reports. 

Exploration Reports in GA4

With the exploration reports, you will be able to track your key business metrics in much more detail than in UA. These reports allow you to perform custom analysis and gain insights into your app and/or website’s performance. 

The Exploration reports provide a variety of visualization options, such as charts, tables, and graphs, to help you understand the data more easily. Additionally, you can use the “Analysis” feature to apply machine learning algorithms to your data and uncover deeper insights. 

The Exploration reports are particularly useful for identifying trends, tracking user behavior, and measuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. We suggest learning Google Analytics 4 exploration reports as soon as you understand the basics of the new interface, as it yields the most powerful insights.

Advertising Report

The Google Analytics 4 advertising report provides insights into your paid media efforts with a focus on attribution modeling.

Google Analytics 4 advertising report "snapshot"

The GA4 advertising report allows you to track key metrics, such as impressions, clicks, and conversions, and analyze the data by dimensions like ad creative, campaign, or audience. You can also use the reports to monitor the cost and return on investment (ROI) of your advertising campaigns.

Most notably, the “conversion paths” allow you to see your performance across all inbound advertising campaigns including Facebook, LinkedIn, Spotify, Google Ads, and more. 

The advertising reports, if you use them properly, will help you optimize your advertising spend, refine your targeting, and improve the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Main Difference #2: Event-Based

Besides the initial interface differences between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics, the next biggest difference is the use of events in GA4. 

Every metric in Google Analytics 4 is an event while Universal Analytics is hit-based.

This means when you are analyzing your data in GA4, everything from a page view to a form fill is an event. 

While Universal Analytics can record events as well as page views, GA4 provides a more comprehensive view of user behavior and engagement.  Comparing this to Universal Analytics, which tracks and measures the number of times a page is viewed by the user. 

Main Difference #3: Session Scope

If you are comparing your Google Analytics 4 vs Google Universal metrics, you may notice, they are not the same. Why? There are a couple of different answers, but the most notable is the way GA4 defines sessions. 

Firstly, GA4 defines sessions as “when a user opens your app in the foreground or views a page or screen and no sessions are currently active”. Whereas in Universal Analytics, a session is “ a group of user interactions with your website that takes place within a given time frame.” 

The main difference between Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics sessions is that GA4 uses sessions as a period of user activity whereas Universal Analytics sessions are a period of time. 

Google has also said sessions in your GA4 property may be lower than your Universal Analytics property because “Google Analytics 4 does not create a new session when the campaign source changes mid-session, while Universal Analytics does create a new session under that circumstance.”

Secondly, GA4 sessions are based on events, rather than page views. A session in UA is calculated as the time between the first and last hit. Whereas GA4 is calculated as the time between the first and last event.

Lastly, a single session in GA4 can be across multiple traffic sources where a UA session stops when the original campaign source is stopped.

One last note about sessions in GA4 is the metrics associated with them. Since GA4 is based on events, there are new session metrics within GA4.

These include:

  • Engaged Sessions
    • An engaged session in GA4 is a session that spent 10 seconds or more on the site/app or viewed 2 or more screens/pages or had a conversion event.
  • Engaged Sessions Per User
    • Engaged sessions per user is the number of engaged sessions divided by the total users on your site and mobile apps.

Main Difference #4: User Scope

Another distinction between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics is the way the users on your site are measured.

In Universal Analytics there are two user metrics: total users and new users. In Google Analytics 4, there are now three user metrics: total users, new users, and active users.

As mentioned above, since everything in GA4 is based on events, the user metrics are also based on events. 

These new metrics mean: 

  • Total Users: Number of users who had an event
  • New Users: Number of users who had an event occur for the first time
  • Active Users: Number of users that had an engaged session

In Google Analytics 4, the primary metric is active users, whereas in UA it is total users.

Main Difference #5: Pageviews

Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics differ in their pageviews measurement methodology, making it difficult to make an accurate one-to-one comparison between the two platforms.

Page views are defined in two specific ways between the two platforms: 

  • Universal Analytics: Total number of pages viewed
  • GA4:  Total number of app screens and/or web pages the user saw

Please note, the metric of unique pageviews which is measured in UA is not measured in GA4.

Main Difference #6: Conversions

When you switch to GA4, you’ll notice a disparity in conversion tracking. GA4 uses an event-based system, meaning that each site conversion is treated as an event, rather than a pageview. This results in each user action on the site being tracked as an event.

With the addition of events, comes more advanced methods of conversion tracking in GA4. Most notably, conversion modeling. 

Conversion modeling uses the machine learning capabilities of GA4 to estimate the number of conversions that may have been missed due to data gaps or incomplete data.

The machine learning model uses data from users who did convert on your custom conversions and those who did not convert. This allows you to identify patterns and correlations that may indicate which user behaviors are most likely to learn to convert. 

Alongside the conversion modeling comes the addition of cross-device tracking. This means you can track how your users are converting whether they are on your website or on your mobile app. This makes tracking GA4 conversions much easier than Universal Analytics. 

A great example of how GA4 has led to more conversions is McDonald’s in the Hong Kong Market. They were able to successfully increase in-app conversions by 550% while utilizing the various machine-learning algorithms in which GA4 operates. 

Main Difference #7: Bounce Rate & Engagement Rate

One of the more popular metrics you could gain valuable insights from in Universal Analytics is bounce rate. This is the percentage of sessions that contain a single page view on your website. 

However, in GA4 since everything is event-based, the definition changes. The GA4 bounce rate definition is the “percentage of sessions that were not engaged sessions.”

When using Google Analytics 4, it’s preferable to examine the engagement rate rather than bounce rates, which is a significant factor that sets it apart from Universal Analytics.

The engagement rate in GA4 is the percentage of engaged sessions. This can be more helpful than bounce rate as you can analyze and decide which pages have low engagement rates and strategize how to increase the engagement rate on those pages. 

Main Difference #8: Filters

In Universal Analytics, it was industry standard to create multiple views within each property. Usually, this was to segment and filter out data that wasn’t valuable to your business. 

When you migrate to Google Analytics 4, you won’t see the filters you were used to seeing. Instead, you will see only two “data filters” in GA4. These are “developer traffic” and “internal traffic.”

Google Analytics 4 default data filters

The developer traffic filter is a predefined filter that allows developers to exclude their own traffic from analytics data. These filters are automatically applied to each GA4 property when created. (It’s worth noting that these are not foolproof and may not catch all the testing developers are doing on your site. )

The internal traffic filter in GA4 is a predefined filter that allows website or app owners to exclude traffic from their own organization’s network or devices. 

Those are all the filters you can add in GA4. You cannot exclude certain IP addresses, include only your operating country of business, or segment your site’s content. 

This means that all traffic in your GA4 right out of the box is similar to an “unfiltered” view in Universal Analytics. This means you can be making assumptions about your data and users that may not even apply to your business. 

While there are less robust filters in GA4 vs Universal Analytics, there are several ways to “create a view” in GA4. The best way we would recommend to create “views” would be to create custom reports in GA4 using the filters in there. 

For instance, if you wanted to look at only United States event conversions, you would create a custom report and add the filter view “County = United States”. You can apply this logic to other segments you wish to view including channel grouping, all events, etc. 

Google Analytics 4 custom report
Google Analytics 4 custom report
Sidebar of Google Analytics 4 custom report

These are just eight of the main differences between Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics. There are countless differences between the two platforms, but ultimately, the switch to GA4 will give you a better understanding of the actions a user takes on your website or app. 

Interested in improving your marketing efforts through data analysis? Reach out to our team to develop a custom plan that helps you track and meet your business goals.

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Many factors make up SEO. There is image, on-page, technical, video, and off-page SEO just to name a few. But local SEO is one of the most accessible and valuable subsets of search engine optimization that nearly anyone can pick up. 

Throughout this post, you will gain the necessary knowledge it takes to reap the many local SEO benefits for businesses. From understanding what the current local search ranking factors are to directories to add your business to, you’ll be dominating the Google Maps pack in no time (well, maybe in a couple of months as we SEOs like to say.)           

Local SEO vs Organic SEO

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the practice of improving your business’s visibility in the local results provided by Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Think of Local SEO as your business information in Google Maps, Waze, or on Apple Maps. 

For the sake of simplicity, we are going to be talking about Google for the rest of this article. Like most of the search engine industry, Google has a stronghold on the market. As of 2021, 42% of all local searches involve clicks on the Google Map Pack. 

An easier way to think about what local SEO is is to remember the last time you went on Google to look for something you need. Whether it was a “burger near me,” “tree trimmer”, or “bookstores”. When you search those queries, you are browsing and finding the best local business for your needs, and it is Google’s purpose to deliver the best possible answer to your search.

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What the Google Map Pack looks like on desktop for “burger near me” in 2022.

What is organic SEO?

Organic SEO is what makes up the rest of your search engine optimizations minus local SEO. This includes making your product and service pages, blogs, etc. more visible on search engines that do not include utilizing the map packs. There are a variety of techniques to boost your company’s page on SERPs or Search Engine Result Pages, many of which we at Tower have covered which you can read here. 

Tower SEO Diagram 01 How To Reap The Many Local SEO Benefits for Your Business
Local SEO is just one of the many parts of SEO.

Key Differences Between Local SEO & Organic SEO

While both local SEO and organic SEO fall under the parent category of “search engine optimizations” there are a few key differences between them. 

  • Local SEO focuses on ranking higher in the map packs or on ranking higher for local keywords on your website 
  • Organic SEO focuses on ranking higher in other SERP features such as related questions, or instant answers.

Why Local SEO is Important

Web users are looking for information regarding products and services; they want results that are fast and within proximity. For example, when I search for “landscapers in Lancaster, PA” I see local landscape contractors in the search results. 

Several years back if you searched for “coffee shops“, top spots would’ve gone to Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, or Seattle’s Best. Now I see results for coffee shops located in Lancaster, PA such as Square One and Passenger. These results are more relevant and are even based on how close they are to my current location.

The real reason why local SEO is so important to local businesses is the ability to compete with national brands. This can be very difficult or impossible to do with organic SEO. Below are two screenshots that show the real importance of local SEO for local businesses.

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The same SERP for “outdoor patio furniture” shows how your business can benefit from local SEO.

When “outdoor patio furniture” is searched for, local companies are given. These companies would not likely be able to outrank the companies in organic SEO if it wasn’t for their Google Business Profile.

The same search result, in the second screenshot, shows that national businesses are given directly under the local SEO results. Because of local SEO, smaller businesses are able to be placed higher up on the SERP. 

Most Important Local Search Ranking Factors 2022 & Beyond

Now that you have a solid understanding of the importance of local SEO, it’s time to dive into the ranking factors that will bring your business even higher up on the local SERPs. 

Listed below are the most important local search ranking factors in 2022 and hopefully beyond. However, these ranking factors change all the time. In fact, Google made 4,500 changes to its search algorithm in 2020 alone. 

These are the ones that have the highest impact on your local SEO rankings and have been the most consistent throughout the inception of Google My Business which was created in 2005. 

#1) Google Business Profile Factors

If there is only one thing your business does for local SEO, we recommend making sure your Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business, is up-to-date with your business information. 

Whether you have claimed your profile or not, there are important factors that go into your profile.

  1. Business Name. Make sure this is the same as your business. If it is not, you can potentially be ranking for the wrong name.
  2. Categories. Most importantly, you want to choose a “primary category” for your business. You can then add up to nine supporting categories. It’s important to note that you cannot create your own category, so it’s best to choose a general category if you can’t find one that perfectly suits your company.
    • There are hundreds of options to choose from when selecting your business categories on your Google Business Profile. The most important one is the “primary category”. You can up to nine supporting subcategories as well.
    • Google suggests “ Choose a primary category that describes your business as a whole and be specific. When you start to enter your category, choose a category from a dropdown that shows up.
    • Google also suggests “If the category you want isn’t available, choose a more general category that still accurately describes your business. You can’t create your category.”
  3. Website URL. While this can be technically any page on your site, we recommend having your website URL be your homepage. We also suggest adding UTM codes so you know where the visitors are coming to your site from. 
  4. Hours. It is best practice to make sure that when your hours change, you also update your Google Business Profile. Be sure to add in “special hours” too, including holidays, special events, or anything else that you may need to close your store for (weather, electrical problems, etc.). 
  5. Service Area. Specifying your service area is very important for your local SEO strategy. You can add up to 20 service areas per profile and these should include any areas your business is capable of delivering to or providing a service for. You may also opt to provide your address so users have a better idea of where your service areas are.  

In addition to those factors you can optimize, Google states there are additionally three reasons for how they decide to show your profile. 

  1. Relevance. Google refers to relevance as “how well a local Business Profile matches what someone is searching for”
  2. Distance. Google defines this as “Distance considers how far each potential search result is from the location term used in a search. If a user doesn’t specify a location in their search, we’ll calculate distance based on what we do know about their location.”
  3. Prominence.
    • “Prominence refers to how well known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels, or well-known store brands are also likely to be prominent in local search results.”

#2) On-Page Optimizations

While on-page SEO is often associated with organic SEO as mentioned above. Its importance still remains one of the most important local SEO ranking factors you can control on your website. 

Homepage Content

Your homepage receives the most views and should be filled with descriptive content to explain what your business offers, your industry, and the audience your serve. Users coming to your site should not question what your business offers. 

Text and Context

Is there a useful amount of text on each page? Having enough content on each page is critical in helping your customers understand what your website offers, not only to humans but to search engines, too. 

You have a short period to convince the user that they have landed on the right page. It is integral to craft content that is useful, relevant, and that reassures the user they came to the right page, otherwise, they leave your site.

Optimize Key Areas

Keep in mind that search engines also need to understand your web pages so they can deliver the best results for each search query. That is why it’s essential to have your local optimization set up.

A simple yet very effective way of implementing local SEO is to make sure the city and state of your business are included in the title tags and meta description. Other areas to optimize include the main heading and body of content of each web page.

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Can you guess the Tower Marketing local SEO client?

#3) Local Business Schema

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This is more of an advanced level local SEO strategy but adding local business schema is one of the best ways to tell search engines about your business besides using the Google properties. 

With local business schema, you can tell Google about your business in more detail including departments, reviews, and hours to name a few of the properties you can add to the local business structured data. When you add structured data to your homepage, your business may show the prominent knowledge panel on the side of the SERPs. 

Our team of SEO specialists can help your business rank well using schema. We have the knowledge and expertise to get your business ranking higher than ever on Google Maps. 

#4) User Reviews 

Reviews act as an immediate indicator to users. A business with consistently low reviews and ratings is not considered trustworthy and as a result, can lose a lot of business. Positive reviews encourage users to at least visit your site because it is easier for a user to trust other users, rather than a business that over-promises.

When it comes to ranking on different search engines, not all business reviews carry the same weight. Encourage your audience to leave reviews on sites that will have the biggest impact on your search rankings. 

#5) Backlinks

As with organic SEO, external backlinks have been a key part of the local SEO ranking algorithm. Backlinks essentially work as a “points” system for search engines. The more “points” or backlinks your site has, the more search engines see your site as trustworthy. This is also one of the most easily measured local SEO metrics. You can monitor your backlinks through a variety of different platforms to gauge your success.

Some of these “points” will have higher domain authority than others. For example, having an external backlink from a local directory such as a visitor center or a statewide tourism site will most likely have a higher domain authority than a website that your site is on that looks spammy such as the one below.

To learn more about which local SEO directories you should add your business to, check out our guide on the top free & paid local directories now.

How To Reap The Many Local SEO Benefits for Your Business

#6) Internal Links

Another local SEO ranking factor regarding links is your internal links. Like backlinks, internally linking has been a tried and true ranking factor for SEO. Site architecture and linking to the pages you are trying to gain local visibility to, through other methods such as blogs, is a great way to show search engines what pages you want to rank high for. 

For example, if you are a business with multiple locations, having in your main navigation bar a “locations” drop-down with each of your store locations in it is one of the best ways to tell search engines this page is important for your local business opportunities. 

#7) Behavioral

The last main local SEO ranking factor for 2022 that we are going to focus on is user behavior. For these user behaviors, we’re going to focus on actions the user can take directly on your Google Business Profile. While Google has never said directly that clicks and click-through rates are a part of SEO ranking factors, they have hinted at it and many industry experts agree clicks are a ranking factor.

Key behavioral actions users can take on your Google Business Profile. 

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The behavioral actions a mobile user can take on your Google Business Profile.
  • Directions. This includes how many people request directions to your business regardless of if they arrived at your business from their destination. 
  • Website Clicks. This is clicking on the URL you have provided on the “website URL” feature.
  • Clicks to Call. Very similar to the directions behavior, this is how many people click on the call button.
  • Click Through Rate to your profile. While Google knows this about your business, you may not know how many people actually click on your business profile. 

Local SEO can be very daunting but it also is one of the most accessible parts of the search engine optimization ecosystem. But when you fully understand what goes into ranking well on the SERPs, you’ll reap the many benefits of local SEO for your businesses. 

Creating a comprehensive and cohesive SEO strategy for your business takes a team of experts to pull off. Our experts are skilled in boosting your search results, not just through local SEO, but through all aspects of SEO.

Contact Our Team Today

This blog was originally published on September 25th, 2017. It was updated on October 18, 2022

Creating a genuine connection with your customers via email can sometimes be difficult. Messages sent on such a large scale often feel cold, impersonal, and ill-timed. 

Fortunately, email marketers now have the resources at their disposal to create purposeful communications that meet contacts at each stage of their journey and provide content tailored specifically to their needs. 

These personalized email marketing tactics will help you elevate your email marketing and develop a more meaningful relationship with your audience.

What Is Email Personalization?

Personalized email consists of more than just inserting someone’s first name at the beginning of your email message. Your goal should be to create a personalized experience – a customer journey that feels organic and responsive. 

The first step in this process is to understand how prospects and customers interact with your business specifically and develop a strategy accordingly. Every brand is different, so knowing the needs and expectations of your contacts is essential for successful personalized email interactions.

The Benefits of Personalized Email Marketing

Looking for evidence of how effective these personalized email marketing tactics can be? Here are some eye-opening statistics to consider:

  • 71% of consumers expect companies to offer personalized communication, and 76% get frustrated when it doesn’t happen. (McKinsey & Company)
  • 90% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences. (123FormBuilder)
  • 90% of U.S. consumers find personalized marketing content somewhat to very appealing. (Statista)
  • Segmentation of email campaigns can increase revenue by up to 760%. (Hubspot)
  • Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. (Campaign Monitor)

4 Highly Effective Personalized Email Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using

Leveraging the strategies outlined below will help you deliver more meaningful content and product offerings to the people who’ve entrusted you with their contact information and personal data.  

1. Segmenting

Before you hit send on your next email campaign, ask yourself: Is this relevant to everyone on my list? 

Segmenting is a powerful tool used to create niche subgroups you can then target with more relevant messaging. It is essentially the opposite of the outdated “spray and pray” email marketing strategy (sending each message to everyone on your list regardless of a contact’s likelihood to interact with it).

The segments you create might include those who have (or have not) opened an email, clicked a link, or made a purchase. The beauty of segmenting is that unlike static lists of contacts, segments will update automatically in real-time based on your subscriber’s behavior.

Segmenting is also important for creating a clean and well-maintained email list, which is an integral part of effective ongoing email marketing.

2. Timing

Sending the right message to the right person at the right time is the key to successful email marketing, but the timing aspect of that winning formula often isn’t given as much thought as it deserves. 

Here are some examples of common drip campaigns and when they should be scheduled (of course, every business is different, so you may need to make adjustments according to your own customer base):

  • A welcome email should go out immediately when someone provides you their email for the first time.
  • An abandoned cart message should be sent while your offering is still top of mind. Reaching out less than an hour after they leave your site is probably too soon, but more than three hours after may also be too late.
  • An email asking someone to review a product should be sent a few days post delivery/installation so the consumer has time to evaluate their purchase.
  • A re-engagement email should be sent 3-6 months after the last time someone opened an email from you. 

Automated emails like these that trigger based on a contact’s actions almost always result in dramatically higher open dates than a typical monthly newsletter. 

Anniversaries and birthdays are also ideal times to reach out to customers via email and offer them coupons, discounts, or promotions.

ManLookingAtWatch SizeReduced 4 Personalized Email Marketing Tactics to Boost Engagement

3. Personalized Content

Personalized content is created using the data we store on our contacts, from first and last names to their pronouns, job title, or geographic location. 

Having accurate information about your contact is key to creating personalized messaging. It’s also important to gather this data in a straightforward and transparent way. (See this article explaining why you should never rent or purchase an email list.)

You can ethically acquire information about your potential and current customers in the form of newsletter sign-up forms, interest surveys, contests, quizzes, or gated coupons. 

Including this information in your subject line, preview text, or email body is fairly simple and straightforward. It typically consists of using a placeholder like %FIRSTNAME% or %LASTNAME% that will pull in the data dynamically for each individual. 

The more challenging task? Using those personal details in a way that feels natural. 

Below are a few examples of personalized subject lines I’ve received. Some were excellent and engaging, while others felt clunky and forced. 

Good example:

Welcome, Danae! Here’s what you need to know.

This example is both friendly and straightforward. The addition of the first name and emoji usage is the perfect way to offset the overall frankness of the message.

Bad example:

Danae, create crazily effective content!

Simply tacking on someone’s first name at the start of a subject line you’ve already written will always feel forced. Personalization needs to be used deftly to have the desired effect. 

Good example:

Wondering where to begin, Danae? We have a few ideas

This subject line addresses the fact that I may be looking for guidance, and the inclusion of the first name here implies the information provided will be relevant to me specifically.

Bad example:

Marketing insights for Danae

This makes me feel as though I’m being spoken about, not spoken to. It also lacks the conversational tone I’m looking for when a subject line includes my first name.

Here’s a quick rule of thumb to follow: if the person’s name can easily be replaced with “you” without drastically changing the tone of the sentence, it’s worth considering a rewrite. 

Another personalization tip to keep in mind: People like being spoken to like a person and by a person. Instead of sending emails from your company name with a no-reply address, use the real name and email address of someone in your business (you can then set up email filters to avoid replies flooding the individual’s inbox).

4. Dynamic/Conditional Content

Conditional content (also known as dynamic content) can consist of images, text, or any other element in an email that is shown to (or hidden from) a contact based on actions they’ve taken or their personal data.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, this simple diagram shows the framework of an email with conditional content.

However, we do not recommend sending only image-based emails. With HTML emails, you can create more dynamic content.

ConditionalContent 01 4 Personalized Email Marketing Tactics to Boost Engagement

Conditional content is ideal for messages that contain wording and images applicable to most recipients, in addition to interchangeable elements that enhance the experience when selectively chosen for smaller groups of individuals.

By combining the tactics and technology behind segmenting, timing, personalized content, and dynamic content, you can build hyper-personalized marketing emails that leave a lasting impression.

Ready to create email messaging that resonates with the person behind the screen? Learn how we can help!

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