The Covid-19 pandemic has rocked all spheres of life and led to a conscious awakening that has not spared the digital content world. Many marketers have found themselves considering what they do, how they do it, and what impact they generate.

Things are certainly changing everywhere, and with content, we see new trends gaining a foothold, like the strong emerging role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools in content creation, creative process, and strategizing. 

People no longer have time to spend on content that doesn’t speak to their needs, problems, and goals. It has resulted in a vigorous drive towards personalization. This is the opportune time to re-strategize and pick up new digital content strategies. Let’s get started: 

Why Is a Content Strategy Important? 

Let’s start by defining what a content strategy is. It’s a plan of action that ideates the processes, workflows, timelines, and guidelines for creating and producing helpful content. 

Your content strategy may be as detailed as possible, including content ideas & types, assigned roles, content plans, design specifications, publishing schedules, content objectives, preferred writing styles, target audiences, and publishing platforms. 

It may dive into the post-production processes, such as the periodic auditing and updating of the content. You may also focus on the governance of the content, including assigning roles to different team members. 

The content strategy often culminates into a calendar that contains publish dates for various pieces of content. Because the calendar is a big part of the content strategy, many may simply assume that a calendar is the only thing they need. For instance, a simple content strategy example may look like this: 

Well, the calendar is only one part of the equation.

Digital Content Types 

What is digital content? It’s any content distributed through electronic means via the internet. 

Publishing blog posts offers the lowest barrier of entry for most businesses. But there is a wide range of content types that businesses need to focus on as part of their content strategy for the web. 

Let’s discover more content types, with a focus on what you need to do going forward: 

• Web pages: You probably have your main website pages, such as the About us page or homepage. As part of your strategic content strategy, think of creating more useful landing pages. For instance, you may consider comparison pages, “Us vs. Them,” to target customers at the decision stage. You may create lead capture landing pages to gain email subscribers organically. Landing pages may also contain useful tools like calculators. 

• Emails: With over half of the world’s population expected to have an email account by 2023, emails must take center stage in your digital content marketing strategy. Don’t just share blog updates as it’s the norm. Think of enriching the subscriber’s experience by sharing exclusive newsletters to make their time more worthwhile. 

• Display ads: Often referred to as banner ads, display ads contain a short piece of text, image, and URL. They are shown on third-party websites that have signed up to advertising networks such as Google AdSense. Display ads have often received a bad rep for being annoying. It may be time to reconsider them and focus on native display ads, which don’t exactly come across as intrusive. 

• Videos: With better engagement rates than all types of content online, it’s essential to plan to create videos when you’re building a content strategy. Don’t just plan for marketing videos. Consider educational videos that teach customers about your services, such as tutorials. Host live webinars and repost them on your website or YouTube. Try collaborations with influencers and authority figures in your niche. 

• Podcasts: It’s hard to talk about digital content without mentioning podcasts. Many acclaimed businesses now publish podcasts from the Fortune 500 companies to Mom-and-pop stores. Think of generating a unique idea in your niche, finding a good host, and interviewing industry professionals 

• Blog posts: if you are trying to grow your organic search visibility on Google for various keywords relevant to your business, there is no better way to do it than publishing articles, guides, news pieces, etc. Blog posts make up a huge chunk of most digital content strategies, but don’t just write articles for the sake of it. Offer a new perspective on a topic with insightful reporting and fresh ideas. 

• Social media posts: Your social media posts also fall into the digital media content category. The best advice regarding posting on social media entails making 75% of your posts unrelated to your services and products.

• Case studies: What results have you achieved for your client? Has your business undertaken unique research to ascertain a particular cause of a problem? Well, case studies are highly shareable, and linkable pieces of content that you should consider creating that are part of your content strategy for the web. 

• Infographics: Infographics utilize a combination of images, graphics, and short texts to present information in a highly visualized way. They are still relevant in 2021, with the right infographic having a chance to go viral and attract many backlinks. 

• E-Books and white papers: You can use e-books to grow your email subscriber’s base. Create insightful E-books with exclusive and detailed content. Ask users to provide their email in return for downloading the e-book. You can also consider writing a white paper. It offers an in-depth look into challenges facing a particular topic and advocates for specific solutions.

One of the most successful website content strategy examples comes from HubSpot, an online platform that provides CRMs, among other tools. They follow the inbound content marketing methodology to create content targeted at different stages of the customer lifecycle. They have gone as far as publishing marketing courses complete with certificates. 

Understand Your Audience 

The motivations, behaviors, and preferences of the populace have changed in light of the pandemic. Long-held assumptions about what people want may not hold. 

Facebook noted that more consumers want advice and information that will help them enhance their financial health. The drive towards financial literacy resulted from the financial nervousness brought about by lockdowns, layoffs, and complete disruption of major industries. Financial businesses with this insight can find ways to create valuable content and utilize more engaging formats instead of primarily relying on ads to pass their message. 

You need to have a firm understanding of your audience before you create digital content. It means having specific details about who they are as individuals. Relying on gut feeling and old-fashioned guesswork will not cut it this year. All the insights about your audience need to be factual and backed by hard data from market research. 

What is a Persona? 

A persona is like a fictionalized profile of a character meant to represent your core target demographic. You need to build a highly detailed persona because having someone with tangible attributes makes it easier to personalize and tailor your digital media content. 

The best way to build a persona entails carrying out in-depth research about your audience. You can give your fictional character all the attributes of a real person, including a name, age, occupation, hometown, educational background, likes, hobbies, motivations, and background. It’s like creating a fictional Facebook profile populated with all details. 

The New Paradigm in Content

Is content marketing broken? Many brands are struggling with their content marketing. They are falling prey to common pitfalls such as:

• Using too few tactics;
• Not correctly overseeing the content marketing strategy;
• Lacking a detailed plan;
• Failing to produce engaging content; 
• Spending too little; 
• Focusing on few platforms; 
• Failing to update their content strategies to adapt to emerging situations. 

Additionally, most marketers find it hard to attribute the ROI of their content marketing efforts. Based on a marketing survey featuring 600 respondents, only 39% stated that they successfully tracked their content marketing ROI. 

Brands need to adopt a new way of doing things focused on innovation and the creation of valuable content. Here are some focus areas to consider going forward: 

Augment Reality (AR)

Augmented reality, in simple words, refers to the technology that superimposes digital visual elements on a user’s view of the physical world through the use of devices such as a smartphone camera. 

The technology has proved useful in certain fields, such as real estate, where buyers can use virtual staging apps to render 3D furniture in living spaces. It has permeated into advertising, with platforms such as TikTok offering AR Ad formats through branded effects. 

The barrier to entry has become lower as several platforms have popped up to help content creators build augmented reality content without coding. 

Virtual Reality (VR)

While AR renders digital elements in the real world, virtual reality is entirely virtual, not physically existing but digitally simulated. Users can fully immerse themselves into virtual reality environments by using headsets. Smartphone and desktop users can also enjoy VR content such as 360 videos. 

Is it possible for ordinary brands to add VR to their marketing content strategy? Yes, it’s entirely possible, and the most accessible gateway is to create 360 videos such as walkthroughs, explainers, etc. Such videos offer better interactivity than regular videos. 

You can similarly supercharge your marketing efforts with the 360° video ad format offered by Facebook. The format is fresh and dynamic and may attract more engagements. That’s what Aitarget found out when it helped Forex4you, an online broker platform, experiment with 360-degree videos. 

Following A/B testing against regular videos, the VR videos reduced the cost of registering new customers by up to 20% and improved other key metrics. 

Strong Personalization 

So, what exactly is personalization, and how does it fit into your marketing content strategy? It’s all about tailoring the message based on user attributes such as their interests, geographic location, language, parental status, life events, household incomes, gender, and age range.

Up to 61% of people expect brands to customize their experiences to fit into their preferences. Many marketers also believe that personalization can boost business profitability. 

Start by personalizing your user experience. Think of creating digital content that accommodates different users and their needs. For instance, if your solution targets various verticals, you may publish several landing pages to showcase your products’ value. Consider localizing your websites by showing a translated version of the website based on the user’s preferred language. 

Personalize your digital ads to boost their effectiveness. If you have not installed tracking codes from different platforms, take this as the best time to start. You can record customer interactions and build custom audiences for remarketing. 

When running ads, you may tailor the message based on what you know about them. For instance, an e-commerce fashion website may decide to show suggestions for more shoes after someone views the shoe category on their website. 

The only limitation with personalization is that teams may need to create a huge volume of creatives with personalized messages to cater to different audiences. Aitarget has addressed this problem through the automation of the creation, testing, and upgrading of creatives. Its AI-infused solutions allow brands to leverage their existing assets, such as product images, to build effective overlay ads and videos. 

Content must be dynamic 

Dynamic content is simply not static. It changes following specific factors such as user’s behaviors, preferences, interactions, and characteristics. For instance, e-commerce stores implement dynamic content through product recommendations. Users receive suggestions for similar products based on items they have previously viewed or added to their carts.

Similarly, you can include dynamic content as part of your website content strategy by showing ads or content relevant to the user’s lifecycle stage, awareness, consideration, or decision. It’s also possible to implement dynamic pop-ups to pass different messages or offer personalized incentives. 

H3 Mastering multiple touchpoints 

Don’t expect that all users will interact with your brand through your website. The average user runs through various platforms and devices on a given day. It’s vital to master multiple touchpoints as part of your content strategy. For instance, a customer may first encounter your brand through an online advertisement. 

Before they visit your website, they may decide to check what you post on social media, and it helps to have a solid social media content strategy. The customer may check out your website and subscribe to your email. 

Before they purchase your products, they may check product review sites. It helps to enhance this touchpoint by asking past users to leave reviews. Additionally, the customer may have a few questions to ask before making the purchase decision. Offering them a live chat option can be an enhanced touchpoint. 

Innovation & AI 

As you build your content strategy, take advantage of recent innovations such as the proliferation of artificial intelligence tools. Your writing team can speed up its workflow by using AI copywriting tools to create draft articles and social media posts. 

Some AI tools can help generate a digital content marketing strategy complete with keywords and topic clusters. If you are having a hard time generating creatives for your campaigns, you can similarly use AI-driven creative management platforms. 

With Aitarget Tech, you can solve many of your creative challenges, including:

• Creating dynamic ads from static assets such as product feed data and images; 
• Generating ads for omnichannel marketing without the need for extensive editing; 
• Automating campaign management following a rules-based approach; 
• Improving ads for the best performance as the tool gathers insights by utilizing its advanced ML algorithms to find correlations between the best performing elements of ads. 

To see the full capability of the AItarget platform, you can find your relevant vertical here. 

Social media advertising tips for beauty brands from a private business breakfast with Facebook, Aitarget, L’Oréal, and Scentbird

In late June, a private business breakfast for beauty was held by Facebook and Aitarget, with special guests of L’Oréal and Scentbird, in a Moscow jazz club.

We have collected the key insights from this event to share with you here.

If Facebook and Instagram don’t perform, change the product

Creatives are responsible for the success

Popov noted that the more precisely a product hits an actual need of the audience, the easier it is to do marketing for it. At the same time, strong analytics and creatives focused on performance are important.There are no hard rules for creatives, but there are several formats or approaches that perform better than others. “For example, video as a whole works for us,” says Popov. “Unboxing as a separate video format works for us worse than funny videos. Generally, humour for perfume is a bold decision, because perfume is a luxury category. The charisma of the person speaking determines much more than what he says.”

Smartphone rules the future of shopping

The industry is under constant pressure from a lack of user attention and the rising influence of mobile phones. Brands should set up their purchase funnel for mobile and adapt their advertising to this kind of consumption.

This is related to the preferences of Generation Z, a huge group of сonsumers (e.g. in the USA, Generation Z forms almost 28% of the population and is the largest generation group) who watch about 68 videos on social media platforms per day.

To grab the attention of this audience, brands should use their common language in videos.

Formats narrow the distance

Collaborative Ads is Facebook’s new ads format which connects brands and retailers.

Brands want measurable online sales and retailers need quality traffic and high conversions, so Facebook has launched this partner product. Now a brand can share their product catalogue with a retailer and track sales on their website, while Pixel data about the retailer’s audience is kept private.

All in all, this solution increases sales efficiency for both partners.

Personalisation and well-executed targeting reduce conversion cost

The Aitarget Video Tool created personalised videos which tripled reach, reduced cost per 10-second video view by three times, and reduced CPC by 25%.

The audience segmentation for creating personalised messages delivered the results and helped the brand to find consumers of beauty products sold in pharmacies, inform them about the issue of sun protection, and make individual offers.

We are excited to announce that Aitarget have earned the Facebook Marketing Partner badge for Creative Platform, which complements the badge for Advertising Technology that we received in 2016. Facebook offers many promotional opportunities, and Facebook Marketing Partners expand them even further. Let’s find out when and why it is worth cooperating with Facebook Marketing Partners.

In short, Facebook Marketing Partners are technology companies and agencies. Facebook Marketing Partners supplement Facebook’s advertising tools and make crafting and fine-tuning campaigns easier and more efficient. The areas cover interactions between business and Facebook and vary from campaign and community management to organizing a sales system.

If you need to solve any of the following tasks, working with a partner will make it faster and more convenient:

1. Campaign management (automation at different levels)
2. Community and Pages management
3. Creative solutions (everything connected with creation and improvement of visual content for advertising and social networks)
4. Feeds for Dynamic Ads creation/adjustment
5. Lead generation
6. Analytics (especially for mobile apps)
7. Management of messengers and chat rooms with clients
8. Integration of online and offline conversion
9. Sales through Facebook
10. Advanced pixel management
11. Launch of Collaborative ads (product ad format that partners retailers and brands that sell through them)

How to Сhoose a Partner

Facebook has built a directory where you can conveniently search for a partner with sought-after features. Being a Facebook Marketing Partner for Creative and Advertising Technology ourselves, we recommend considering the following when making your choice:

• Badge

The directory includes both badged and non-badged partners (the hallmark is the blue icon).

The difference is that the technologies and expertise of badged partners have been tested for quality and reliability by Facebook.

• Qualification

Badged partners’ profiles indicate the type of solution that they were badged for.

Here are the solutions you’ll see most frequently.

Advertising Technology

Advertising Technology was the first established certification category and marked the beginning of Facebook Partners. It still has the strongest requirements: a partner must present a successful product based on Facebook API. The key benefit of such products is that they allow them to create ever-green Facebook campaigns that constantly and automatically improve themselves.

Who to contact: Aitarget, Kepler, Kenshoo, Merkle, Marin Software, Sprinklr, and many others

Creative

Building and testing creatives are the only things that advertising platforms have not yet learned how to fully automate, unlike how it is for bidding and targeting. Facebook tools are constantly getting smarter, and they already know who to show ads to, when, and at what price – better than a marketing specialist can.

But what to show? This question is increasingly complicated, as there are now dozens of placements and formats, each requiring particular specifications. This coupled with the need to constantly change and update creatives because of burnout, leads to brands and companies lacking resources needed to keep up when creating effective creatives. This is what Facebook creative partners help to cope with: there’s a 10 times difference between the performance of an inefficient creative and that of an engaging one.

You can build on-brand and product videos in a matter of seconds, launch individually templated ads enriched with any data, and set up personalization that appeals to your audience’s interests/behavior (or even implement third-party data like weather or pollution). Some creative partners collaborate with bloggers to set up measurable conversion promotions.

Who to contact: Aitarget, Canva, Captiv8, Chute, Influential, Insense, Loomly, Magisto, Sprinklr, Ripl, and others

What’s the result of collaborating with a Partner?

It all depends on the category and service capabilities of the company. For example, our creative platform takes up smart crafting, producing ready-to-launch creatives for all kinds of placements and formats at each funnel stage, from brand awareness to conversion.

It is good at:

• Making videos based on any source data, including product feeds and corporate identity. This makes it so you don’t have to attract developers or designers.
• Creating personalized videos for your audience depending on their interests/life events/product use conditions, even if it is the weather, geography, or any other 3rd-party data. This allows you to treat your customers individually.
• Building brand and product videos in just 45 seconds in branded templates enriched with additional data (prices and special offers, ratings, and reviews from the website). This lets users select products while still watching the ad.
• Making feed-based creatives better, supplementing them with all kinds of data. This allows you to highlight the best angles of your products.
• Automatically testing and selecting the most conversion-packed creatives and targeting to achieve business results quicker.

Here are some examples of how we can extend the default Facebook functionality available to everyone.

Philips was able to explain why a climate complex is necessary for every home by demonstrating the real level of pollution in every city

Philips’ air purifier sales grew 6.6 times. The premium model became a bestseller in the brand’s online store. In comparison with the average value, Cost per ThruPlay decreased by 52%, CPC by 15%, while the View-through rate increased by one point. Polluted cities with a low BAQI value had the lowest CPC.

Askona, Russia’s largest anatomic mattress and sleep product manufacturer, added product reviews to its Facebook dynamic ads.

The number of purchases increased by 19%, and the percentage of visits that resulted in a purchase increased by 2.3 times. Income generated by ads with overlays increased by 19% with equal promotion costs.

Summary of Facebook Marketing Partners for Advertisers

1. Facebook Marketing Partners are technology companies and agencies.
2. Partners are necessary for those who want to extend the built-in functionality of Facebook, get more convenient access to support, and use higher-level advertising.
3. While choosing a partner, you should be focused on business tasks and goals.
4. To understand the status of a partner, pay attention to what they have been badged for.

Today, about 12.5 million ads crafted through our platform are displayed on social media every second. Yours could be among them, so contact us at info@aitarget.com or request a demo and we will discuss tailoring our solutions for your tasks today.

Instagram launched a new type of professional account – the creator account (for bloggers and opinion makers). Together with this, some new features appeared. Most of them are available in standard business accounts. Let’s investigate how to use and where to find them.

The article was first published on Digital Doughnut

Growth Insights

How does it work? You can see which posts brought you more engagement. Also, a new feature shows your daily or weekly audience dynamic split.

Account type: Business only.

How to find it?

1. Switch personal profile to Instagram business account.
2. Click “Menu” in the upper right corner.

 

 

3. Choose “Insights” and the publication for review. Here you can find information about your audience and its actions for a certain period of time.

 

 

Stories About You

How does it work? Rather than only being able to see and interact with stories that mention your account in your Inbox, this new feature collects such stories from the past day and creates a story reel for you at the top of your Activity Tab.

Account type: Business and creator.

How to find it?

1. In your Activity Tab. All active Stories about you are fixed at the top of the page in a separate notification.

 

 

Minimum Age

How does it work? The new Age Gating tool allows you to set a minimum audience age for your account. Younger users will not be able to see your page. By the way, you can set the minimum age by country (for example, 21 years by default, and 18 years for Canada).

Account type: Business and creator.

How to find it?

1. Switch your personal profile to Instagram business account.
2. Go to your profile.
3. Click “Menu” in the upper right corner.
4. Inside the “Settings” tab, select “Business”

 

 

Then set a minimum age globally (for all countries), or for each country individually.

 

Flexible Profile Displays

How does it work? This feature allows business accounts to choose whether they publicly show or hide some information (business category, address, phone number, etc).

Account type: Business only.

How to find it?

1. On your profile page select “Edit Profile” and click “Profile Display”

 

 

2. In the “Profile Display” tab, choose which information you want to show in your bio.

 

3. Save changes with the “Done” button.

 

2-Tab Inbox

How does it work? Now messages in your Inbox can be divided into Primary and General sections. This update allows users to select important messages from the whole list of conversations, ignore the less important ones, and to control notifications.

Account type: Business and creator.

How to find it?

1. In Direct under the search bar select the tab you want.

 

 

2. By the way, all your existing messages in Direct are automatically added to Primary tab. Swipe the dialogue line left to switch them to General tab.

 

 

3. It’s even easier for new messages. Before accepting the request, choose the right Inbox.

 

It’s the final countdown: only 14 days left till Christmas day. Aitarget has gathered some tips on launching effective ads during the holiday season, when the auction is hot, and the competitors are fighting for each customer.

For some, Christmas means a few days of rest, but for retailers it is an opportunity to make profit. According to Facebook statistics, 22% of US users first start to think about holiday shopping in October or before. Aitarget, TSUM (luxury department store in Moscow) and 12storeez (Russian fashion brand) have highlighted some basic tips on how to make the most out of the holiday commotion through Facebook and Instagram ads.

Getting ready

Learn your audience in advance

What do they like more? What increases engagement? To answer such questions, use Facebook Attribution, which helps track your ad statistics on external websites.

Split-text is also a very useful tool: it will help you understand what kinds of ads your audience responds to better. According to Facebook statistics, learning your audience will help you increase your CPA by 71,9% on average.

Don’t forget that each new ad will require research time. In order for your campaigns to bring in more conversions at the right time, start in advance. Valeria Sosunova, Marketing Manager at 12storeez, claims that since Christmas’ content is relevant only for a limited period of time, the main goal is to get as much profit out of it as possible.

• Valeria Sosunova, 12storeez Marketing Manager

There aren’t any difficulties per se. There’s a large amount of creative content that you want to capitalize on while it’s relevant. Each new announcement needs a learning phase, which takes hours away from possible sales.

It’s high time to begin getting your audience ready for Christmas. Artyom Nikolaev, Digital Marketing Specialist of the eCommerce Dept. of TSUM recommends not dragging your ad launches out, since users start planning their holiday shopping out in advance:

• Artyom Nikolaev, TSUM eCommerce Department Digital Marketing Specialist

We begin getting ready for Christmas’ in mid-November. This is because the look is very important for the premium segment. The look is an integral part of corporate events, parties and holidays. Therefore, thoroughly preparing the look for the evening requires time to make a decision. This is why we begin warming our audience up 1,5 months before the clock strikes on Christmas Eve, giving everyone time to make it to the store a couple of times and try on some new looks.

Warming up the interest is one of the main methods of working with your audience in fashion e-commerce. Piquing the buyer’s interest in advance guarantees a high level of user activity on the very first day of launching capsules and Christmas’ special editions – says Svetlana Vartsaba, Digital Marketing Manager at 12storeez:

• Svetlana Vartsaba, 12storeez Digital Marketing Manager

We start getting ready for the holiday season in the first half of November. Campaigns aimed at increasing interest for the new collection are launched, resulting in fairly high activity right off the bat. The period from mid-November to mid-December is completely devoted to the Christmas’ capsule.

Choosing the ad format: image or video?

Static images are a classic, you can’t go wrong with them, but video is getting more and more effective. However, it’s important not to go overboard. According to statistics, users’ attention dissipates quite quickly, which is why the video has to be clear and to the point, and should last on average no more than 10 seconds.

Since clients almost always interact with your brand on the go (which is all the more true in the holiday season), use suitable formats. Dynamic Ads, Carousel, Collections and Instant Experience all perfectly suit users interacting with your brand on mobile. In comparison to other formats, they bring in better e-commerce results in the holiday season. You can show your whole wide range of products and offers. For example, Artyom Nikolaev recommends Carousel.

• Artyom Nikolaev, TSUM eCommerce Department Digital Marketing Specialist

To create a personalized offer for our target audience, we use various selections of looks in carousel format, where every item matches every product in the product description. The main thing is that the user has to be able to find the exact product that is available, and the exact product they saw in the Facebook or Instagram ad. This increases conversion much more than links leading to catalogues.

Valeria Sosunova recommends using feeds, since they increase conversion better than other formats:

• Valeria Sosunova, 12storeez Marketing Manager

The main source of conversion is the feed, which means promotional posts. Next is the compilation format, using the product feed, an announcement with one picture.

 

Tell a story

Adapt your ads not only to the feed, but also to the Stories format. You can, by the way, use interactive stickers on the latter, since they arouse the users’ interest — arrows and calls to action (purchase).

Many check social networks to find ideas, and ads in Stories can lead them to purchase something either immediately, or after some time. According to Facebook statistics, every second user visits the product page after seeing Stories ads.

 

Let’s get to work!

Have an offline store? Lead the customers there.

The percentage of online shoppers in US grows each year. For example, the amount of holiday purchases in 2018 increased by 33% in comparison with the previous year. However, many still value the ability to «go» shopping, especially before holidays, since you can find a gift for your friends, as well as yourself.

To draw customers to the store, Facebook suggests the Store Traffic objective. In order to activate this function, add the store address into the profile info and… open up your store

P.S. Lately, there’s been a shortage of delivery people during the holiday season, as well as traffic jams, which increases the time one has to wait for delivery. The customers will be thankful to know where the store is, where they can get the product themselves.

 

 

How about a party? Caring about your customers increases their brand loyalty.
And what can be better than inviting a regular (or potential) customer to a cool event? It’ll help you, as well: You will finally be able to see your target audience, and be able to work with them better in the new year.

 

Let’s get back to online customers. Help those who are looking for gifts.

Christmas is a family holiday, meaning that the whole family needs gifts. Try to predict who your target audience will want to give gifts to: young men and women usually try to find something for their partners and parents, users over 40 — for their kids. For example, create a product guide — a list of gift ideas for all family members: from razors to stuffed animals. The audience will appreciate your help.

 

 

The percentage of users looking for products on the internet in 2018 has increased by 19% in comparison with the last year. This is why you should only show the offer your audience needs in your ad. Target your campaigns towards specific groups which will take interest in your product. In case of a specific (unusual) offer, Valeria Sosunova suggests targeting a narrower audience:

 

• Valeria Sosunova, 12storeez Marketing Manager

In the holiday period, we target the same audiences as usual. But throughout the year, depending on the style of the collection, we can give preference to a certain group. For example, in early fall we can target office workers more.

 

Don’t forget chatbots. Help not only your customers, but also yourself.

In the holiday season, retailers work themselves to the ground — it is difficult to expertly serve every customer in time. And if at an offline store this problem can only be solved by increasing the number of shop assistants, online you can rely on the Messenger chatbot. It can answer the most popular user requests and only switch the customer to you in special cases. By the way, many US users prefercommunicating with the brand and asking questions directly to the brand.

 

And one last thing

To hook the potential customer even more, offer special sales to those looking for Christmas gifts. For example, make delivery free — this is the best surprise for those who, while adding products to the shopping cart, forget that delivery isn’t included in the price. By the way, 84% of US customers claim thatfree delivery leads to them making purchases more freely.

Merry Christmas!

 

Aitarget’s how-to guide to get benefits from an Instagram update

Great news – now businesses can boost Carousel posts published in the Instagram profile:

It’s important to note that not every campaign goal can take advantage of this update. You cannot create a commercial post from an organic Carousel for Engagement, Messages, and Video Views goals, or for campaign goals which aren’t suitable for boosting posts in general.
You can use organic posts from your Instagram account in campaigns with a goal for Conversions. Here’s our guide for you to create ads with existing posts via Ads Manager.

How to boost Instagram posts via Ads Manager

You can use and promote content that’s already been posted on your Instagram profile to create ads. This is done using Ads Manager.
Before you start, check if you have connected your Page with an Instagram account.
1. Create a campaign: open your Ads Manager and click “Create”.

2. Choose a suitable goal for your campaign and continue.
Note: you cannot promote existing posts for Store Traffic, Catalogue Sales, Lead Generation, and App Installs.

3. Set up your ad sets as usual. Choose an audience and budget then go to the next step.

4. In the “Identity” section, assign a business Page which is connected with your Instagram account and this account itself.

5. Switch to “Use Existing Post”. In the “Creative” section, open a pop-up list of publications.

6. Go to an Instagram tab and choose the post you want to promote.

When finished, don’t forget to click a “Confirm” button. That’s it!

With less than a month until Black Friday, Aitarget shares tips from e-commerce brands about getting ready for the sales stampede

On 29 November, the holiday shopping season will rev its engines and take off around the world as Black Friday dawns. From the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas and into the New Year, this is a vital time for retailers to connect with customers and boost sales.But what should you be doing to get ready for Black Friday?

Aitarget, a Facebook marketing partner, has surveyed e-commerce businesses from the beauty, fashion, DIY, and electronics industries to gather insights on how they’re getting ready for the sales season, and tips for you to speed your way to sales rather than crashing.

Each year a growing number of stores run ad campaigns and make special offers in relation to Black Friday. The internal Black-Friday. Global data for 2018 in the United States shows a 2063 percent increase in sales compared to an ordinary day.

So how do you launch the most effective advertising campaign in a highly competitive market to net the largest number of buyers? In this guide Aitarget, ILE DE BEAUTE, Aizel, OBI, and M. Video share their tips for successful campaigns in the lead-up to Black Friday.

Don’t hate Mondays

Our main advice: in all the hubbub about Black Friday, don’t forget about Cyber Monday, especially if you have an online store. While Black Friday was originally focused on bricks and mortar retailers, the following Monday has always been devoted to online shopping.

Shopaholics eagerly wait for both days, and your competitors will be preparing for them.

It’s best to lay the foundations for your campaign in advance rather than leaving them until just before the big sales on the days themselves.

OBI, a multinational home improvement store, is announcing its promotions a full week before the massive sales start, said Daniil Shcherbakov, Digital Media Planner at OBI.

Okay, so you want to start early and focus beyond Black Friday, but how do you do that?

“In several pieces of research the largest brands noted that they earned the highest profits from their own channels and audience,” says Shcherbakov of OBI. “We use the standard pool of channels, but are also trying to attract a new audience for whom such promotions will help them become acquainted with our brand. For such activities we may use methods like thematic icons in the navigator, placement on the general ground dedicated to the action (Black Friday Sale), and opportunities for customers to sign up for an email posting a week before the start of the promotion with the CTA: ‘Be the first to know about discounts’.”

Polina Ross, Head of e-commerce advertising at cosmetics chain ILE DE BEAUTE, also advises not to limit sales to weekends only, but to start, on average, a week earlier.

“We expect even greater growth in competition not only on Black Friday, but also on Cyber Monday and ‘Bachelor’s Day’ (11 November), since all of these shopping holidays are gaining more and more popularity in Russia,” says Ross. “To extend the commercial effect of Black Friday, this year we are increasing the duration of our announcements and local activities, which traditionally end with a big sale. We try to use the most attractive and ‘clean’ creative with a truly advantageous offer for the client. So for your offer to be attractive for customers, it’s better to focus on quality, not quantity.”

Get moving

Social media users love video content, so take advantage. But keep it short: your video clips should not be so long that the user’s attention gets scattered.

Aitarget recommends that on average your video should be no longer than 10 seconds. This is the sweet spot for interesting a potential buyer without fatiguing them.

Optimise your video ad for different formats: square for news feeds, vertical for Stories.

Remember you can play with more than just the length and format.

For example, use Stories stickers, including interactive ones. Add call-to-action elements to your ad: swipe, arrows, bright CTAs to buy right now.

Experiment with your video and find ways to entertain the audience. For example, for advertising in the News Feed, you can use AR-creatives (augmented reality).

Don’t go overboard though. Sergey Ilyushin, a specialist in targeted advertising at Aizel, an online apparel retailer advises against persistent promotions. ‘Nothing aggressive – swipe up and other classic methods that ‘do not press down’ on the user.’

Share the festive spirit

By the time Black Friday rolls around at the end of November, people are already looking ahead to the rest of the holiday season and thinking about gifts for friends and family for Christmas and the New Year. So don’t limit your focus to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Demonstrate to users that they can use Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts to buy goods not just for themselves, but to get ahead with their holiday shopping and stock up for loved ones. Shoppers will appreciate your advice, and may return to you for purchases even after the November sales and promotions have passed.

Harness the power of Dynamic Ads to bring customers back.

At a time of the year when users are actively looking for the best offers, they will make their shopping choices by comparing several product pages. Sergey Ilyushin of Aizel advises using dynamic ads to remind buyers they’ve already seen a suitable product on your site.

“We ride on dynamic advertising, one of the most effective formats today,” says Ilyushin. “If you have a powerful creative, then static banners will be profitable. It’s better to use the widest possible targeting in conjunction with retargeting in order to quickly lead the client through the funnel.”

Your offer should be very clear, making it easier for a customer to make the purchase.

Pavel Ivanov, Internet Marketing Manager at consumer electronics retailer M.video highlights the need for creativity in your online advertising.

“Our offer is the value that we give the audience, and call to action is part of the offer, not a separate entity,” he says. “To convey the main idea to the audience, it is important to use advertising formats to their maximum. Creatives are more about emotions, so they should contain a minimum of text information, only the main benefit.”

Keep it clean and clear, says Ivanov, with text like ‘Discounts up to 70%’, ‘Black Friday’, and ‘Cashback 25%’.

“It is important that sentences are short, using numbers and verbs. Your title can be used as an additional CTA or time restriction, for example, ‘only until 5 December’ or ‘Hurry, sale only on until everything is snapped up’.”

Use what you already have

Do you need an idea for a Black Friday ad? Just look at your product catalogue – you already have enough there to create an effective announcement. Launch catalogue sales advertising, but boost the standard elements with brand design and individual overlays.

Better product information leads to higher conversions.

Transfer the description, price information, branding and discount, delivery terms, and product rating from your catalogue directly into your creative. Harnessing the power of the Aitarget tool, this data will automatically appear in dozens of your catalogue ads.

Here’s a look at how the beauty industry does it:

Ad created using the Aitarget Tool

And here’s how the DIY industry does it:

Ad created using the Aitarget Tool

“For the DIY industry, it is important to announce not a specific product, but a product category,” says Shcherbakov of OBI. “An exception may be a brand product at a super low price. But the DIY industry doesn’t just contain power tools, and it’s necessary to offer customers a wide range of discounts within the same product category.”

Therefore, continues Shcherbakov, OBI uses three main components: a large logo, category and size of the discount, and the terms of the action. “For creatives aimed at creating knowledge about the action: logo, maximum discount, bright inscription Black Friday.”

Appeal to everyone

Have you already chosen your products that will form your special offers for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Great – but just make sure that your list contains products of different price categories. Even if you are a ‘luxury’ brand, it is best to create an image of inclusiveness for everyone during the holiday season and for seasonal discounts.

Focus on your customers; doing so can encourage customers to buy more and pay more in future because their gratitude for your customer focus is more valuable than price.

Embrace the holiday spirit

Lean into the season, and the holiday theme, by creating ads that will be associated with the holidays, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Mention the reason for the promotion directly in your ad image or video: the buyer will know this is a temporary offer and act more quickly.

A good tip is to ensure your advertising communicates the main message strongly, without being too flashy, says Sergey Ilyushin of Aizel. While there is no clear understanding of what makes the best creative, it is important to try new things and experiment as much as possible, says Ilyushin. He recommends aiming for three main things:

1. Don’t include all your features in the text: it’s better to try to convey only the most important things that separate you from your competitors.
2. Dream with your catalogue: add something to the product card to distinguish your offer.
3. Don’t overdo it: emphasising everything in bright red and all caps descriptions won’t generate revenue, and will only mix you in with other offers and make you invisible for customers and become part of the noise of the season.

Ad created using the Aitarget Tool

DIY chain OBI also adheres to minimalism. Daniil Shcherbakov agrees that creatives that are too bright not only attract fewer potential buyers, but even scare them away.

“In addition to the three components of the banner (logo, category discount, deadlines), the only things to use are ‘Hurry up to buy’, ‘Hurry up until’, ‘Hurry up to be the first’,” says Shcherbakov. “During such holiday campaigns, outdoor advertising, social networks and the Internet as a whole are overflowing with motley creative. There is a conviction that such promotions are not the time for the battle of creators – communication should clearly convey the main message for the buyer who is interested in the maximum benefit. If the product is not mass but niche, then a creative concept can have a greater impact on attracting traffic.”

With the number of ads on social media growing every day, your campaign must stand out against the background. Original visualisation will help attract the attention of potential buyers. Pavel Ivanov of M.Video advises not to limit yourself in the choice of formats.

“There are some basic recommendations that will help you make a successful campaign,” says Ivanov. “Use a non-standard approach to become noticeable within the first seconds. Come up with an original idea to keep attention to the maximum. Create an understandable offer to convey the message within the first seconds.”

M.Video uses the maximum number of formats in its campaigns, says Ivanov. “For Awareness stage, it works best with videos and Stories, which allow you to get the most coverage and reduce CPM by 20–25%. For the Consideration stage use Carousel or Collection with specific offers. For Conversion stage, dynamic formats work best.”

#theworldmustknowwhatibought

Being ‘Instagramable’ is an important criteria for selecting images for social networks, which means the best opportunity to get into someone else’s news feed. Bright colours, minimalism, laconic phrases on postcards are what customers will remember and what will distinguish you from competitors. Make your package attractive so that the buyer will post it on social networks or recorded “unpacking” videos. Product placement in natural form.

Get to work

It’s not only retailers, but also shoppers who are planning ahead for holiday season discounts. It’s much better to strategically create campaigns during this period than just to run ads spontaneously. Black Friday and Cyber Monday may only be one weekend, but businesses can earn significantly more than any usual weekend. It’s prime time.

By the way, don’t write off your advertising experiences throughout the rest of the year.

Pavel Ivanov considers that analytics and successful cases will accelerate success during this stressful shopping period:

If a placement or format works out positively in always-on campaigns, then on Black Friday it will show a high result.

So follow our tips and guidance to establish a good relationship with potential customers and encourage them to buy when the time is right.

And finally: don’t rush to extremes, remember that your main task is not to advertise the discount, but to prompt the buyer to action.

“Please don’t lose your mind during the period of discount offers in the pursuit of each dollar,” says Sergey Ilyushin of Aizel. “Try to stand out against the general background of competitors, make clear communications, and don’t use the most garish colors in your creatives – this will only scare away potential customers.”