This article was updated in January 2023
Keeping up with digital marketing trends has always been a notable point of interest at the turn of the year. In an ever-changing marketing climate, it makes sense to adopt the most relevant tactics for your business as they may not only make tracking results easier but actually help you deliver more of them.
Based on recent experiences, Bloom’s digital marketing experts have narrowed down 5 simple tactics that can ensure a straightforward navigation through your marketing goals for the year. In this article, we explain how to make your life just a little easier by showing how to take advantage of these tactics.
Table of Contents
1. Launch a Performance Max Campaign
2. Migrate to Google Analytics 4
3. Implement Automated Email Flows
5. Run an on-site A/B Test to Improve Conversion Rate
1. Launch a Performance Max Campaign on Google Ads
Google is lending a hand to advertisers with its delivery of the Performance Max Campaign.
Simply put, with the information gathered by the advertiser, just one of these campaigns can automate all targeting and delivery measures for ads to be displayed onto every Google property: YouTube, Gmail, Discover, Search & Display.
Why a Performance Max Campaign?
A Performance Max Campaign is a resourceful addition to your keyword-based Search campaigns as it helps find more converting customers amongst all of Google’s channels.
Still, this type of campaign doesn’t just throw around ads wherever it can but instead uses machine learning to predict a leading blend of channels and displays for your specific ads and audiences.
Launching a campaign takes up precious time and money of which can often be yielded inconclusive or low results. Launching a Performance Max Campaign, on the other hand, helps you stay time and cost-efficient as you get to engage customers and optimize your budget across all Google channels in one shot.
Read our latest post on Google’s Performance Max campaigns.
2. Migrate to Google Analytics 4
If you haven’t yet, it’s the time for you and your marketing team to switch over to Google Analytics 4 and here’s why.
GA4’s aim is to better answer the marketer’s need to understand user behavior. As a result, the platform switched its philosophy, which once focused on sessions, towards a complete, user-centric outlook. The platform achieves this by showcasing an all-encompassing view of user behavior across devices while ensuring a better respect of user privacy.
Take a look at the important changes that make GA4 worth the switch:
- No More Session-Based Models
Gone are the days where session-based models measured user interactions within a given time frame. Event-based models alternatively measure each user interaction as its own event, allowing for greater specifics on the actions and context of a user.
- Extensive Interaction Tracking
Marketers now can easily track events (or interactions) with your content using Enhanced Measurements. Events may include Page Views, Scrolls, Outbound Clicks, Site Search, Video Engagement, and File Downloads.
- Cross-Device Tracking and User-Centric Measurements
Analytics can follow a singular customer journey across several devices either with Google’s signed-in data or your own identifier for signed-in users, or both. Regardless, GA4 will choose the best tracking combination for each scenario.
- No More Channel Groupings
“Mediums” are the new “Default Channel Groupings”, therefore it is crucial to set your corresponding UTMs from the get-go.
- Forecasting Trends
GA4 is said to be a great tool in predicting significant trends with its advanced machine learning models.
- App Data Collection
If you own an app on top of your website, GA4 will collect both types of data together so you won’t have to sweat over multitasking across two different properties.
3. Implement Automated Email Flows
Balancing both automated messaging while remaining personable and relevant can be quite tricky. You can help nurture your relationship with customers, leads and subscribers using personalized and automated communications via flows.
What’s a Flow?
A flow allows you to trigger a series of messages to be sent out when someone either:
- Joins a list;
- Is added to a segment; or
- Makes a purchase
Make flows and triggered messages a part of your email marketing strategy with the help of Klaviyo, a user-friendly and reputable automated email flow tool. Step by step, Klaviyo will guide you into using different best practices to start building your own flows, all the while ensuring you always deliver your own personable touch.
Start with these 4 basic flows:
- A welcome series flow to showcase who you are and convert first-timers
- An abandoned cart flow to convert those who already have cart, whether they’re current customers or not
- A post-purchase flow to thank a purchasing customer and let them know of other related products that could be of interest
- A winback flow for those who’ve purchased from you in the past but have not yet returned
Find out which flows and triggers are the best fit for your business here.
4. Create Reels on Instagram
Instagram reels play, without a doubt, one of the biggest roles in becoming viral on Instagram. This short-video format not only has the power to rack up views but also to increase your follower count and engagement rates.
As of recently, Instagram redesigned its homepage to feature reels at the front lines, thus ensuring that the reel alone gets a high view count.
Reels have become a key frontier for organic reach on the app. The more people you reach with your Reels, the higher your chances that follower count and engagement rate will grow.
Hootsuite
Getting Discovered
As a business, reels may be something worth looking into. Instagram has gotten better at pushing reels that audiences enjoy and expect to watch including entertaining, funny, creative, and educational content.
Your business can use reels as an opportunity to showcase your more human side, authentically captivating your audience with educational, informational and work culture videos.
The implementation of shopping and branded content features in reels have also made it possible for businesses to promote their products and collaborate with influencers. For example, the branded tag feature ensures transparency from all parties by disclosing when reels are branded, conveying a safe space for businesses and influencers to create, share and boost content.
5. Run an on-site A/B Test to Improve Conversion Rate
With all the data collection tools available today, it makes sense for you to spend the necessary time to optimize your website with real data. Don’t back your website optimization strategy on guesses, instead you’ll want to base your decisions on real data.
One of the oldest but truest ways to go about optimizing a website is through A/B testing.
What is A/B testing?
A/B testing concerns the randomized experimentation process of presenting two versions of a website’s variable (headline, design element, etc.) to distinct visitor segments, at the same time, in order to establish which version drives better results.
In the A/B acronym, A represents the original version, while B represents the new version of the latter. Depending on which version yields the best results, the “winner” of the test will be the one to implement.
The goal of A/B testing will vary among business types as one may be trying to convert qualified leads and the other, the sale of a product. It will be up to your business to determine what’s most important.
As a crucial element in Conversion rate optimization (CRO), A/B testing takes a look at both quantitative and qualitative data. With these insights, you’ll be able to evaluate:
- User Behavior;
- Engagement Rate;
- Pain Points;
- Satisfaction with Website Features (new or revamped); and
- More.
Why A/B testing?
Whether you represent an eCommerce store, a B2B business or a media publishing house, each will undeniably face its own tale of conversion challenges. But without A/B testing, you will always be losing out on potential business revenue.
Learn, start and don’t stop A/B testing here.
Final Words
We hope that this article gives you a little more insight into what to include in your 2023 digital marketing strategy. In our experience, these simple yet effective tactics have shown to be conducive for any type of business, big or small.
Need help launching these tactics? Reach out to us here.