Category: Advertising

If you’re new to social media marketing, 2020 is an interesting time to get started. The whole COVID situation has altered the games of many advertisers. And even the tech giants have lowered the overall bid cost. Brands have reported less income, and vice versa less spend on advertising. Similarly, for organic social media, some innovations have won the traditional feed page, which was mainly counted out of the books for many years.

So where does that leave your brand’s social media marketing strategy? Well, it depends on your brand, audience and marketing strategy. In this blog, you will know all about organic and paid social media. Read on to learn more.

What is Paid Social Media Marketing?

Paid social has become an essential component of advertising, over the last couple of years, on social media platforms. It is mainly due to the different algorithms the tech giants are now using. Back in good old days, organic content used to reach thousands of users on its own. But now with increased competition and altered algorithms, the organic reach is as minimum as the 100-metre sprint.

In simple words, a campaign is considered “paid” when there is money behind to promote the posts on digital media platforms. This is done by using specific funds/marketing budgets to boost social posts for further reach, or by designing and running optimized digital ads to connect with a specific audience to generate leads, clicks or traffic.

The main social media channels which run paid social are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Apart from these Google, Youtube, and other similar channels also accept paid promotion.

Each digital media platform uses its own unique strategy in order to reach followers / targeted audience and garner interaction, and paid advertising is a large part of those strategies.

The days of using organic posts exclusively to reach a target audience have now vanished from marketing steps, so utilizing paid social in your marketing plan is invaluable.

Paid ads take you beyond the reach of traditional organic posts and allow you to attract leads outside your existing customer base. Here, you will be able to determine specific demographics, geographics, lifestyle traits and other details to reach and target select locations, interests and more. Which further helps in generating quality leads.

What is Organic Social Media Marketing?

On the other hand, the organic social strategy relies completely on audience interaction and posts to engage with followers. All posts on social pages with no financial backing are considered organic posts and will only reach customers through the platform’s ever-changing and often veiled algorithm.

The reach depends on audience’s engagement with the post. Liking or disliking the post, commenting on the post, sharing it with others are the actions considered by the algorithm to either show it more people or shred it in the vast ocean of other similar posts.

More interaction garners further reach, encourage more participation from the audience and ultimately establish the brand as legitimate; that’s why consistent interaction on all social channels is extremely important in organic social media strategy.

Although this method is time-consuming, it is important to establish relationships with your followers and clients on a regular basis. This will not only foster strong relations and loyalty, but you will also learn about the current and potential customers’ expectations from your brand.

Related Post – Tips & Tricks In Organic And Paid Facebook Advertising

 

Advantages of organic social media

1. It’s completely free
2. Organic social media works well if you’ve amassed a large following
3. The organic posts create better loyalty and generate more trust It helps to build a community
4. You can boost organic posts as well (if needed)
5. Organic posts have better chances to go viral on the internet

Advantages of paid social media

1. Paid promotion can amplify your reach
2. Paid posts can target more of your desired audience specifically
3. You can utilize any budget to reach as many people as you want
4. It helps to increase metrics like click-through rate (CTR), cost-per-lead (CPL), and return on ad spend (ROAS).
5. Paid social complements your search marketing efforts and act as a better alternative if any of the channels are underperforming
6. It provides a lot of flexibility in the ads you run

 

Merge Organic and Paid Social for a More Holistic Approach

Image Source: Digital Marketing Philippines Website

There is no answer to the question- paid vs organic social media traffic, which one is better? Because both work well at their respective places. And for the holistic approach, it is recommended to run both kinds of ads.

While organic social media posts help you build trust with customers, and delight them with quality content, paid social media content helps you put your brand in front of the right audience and attract new leads.

At The Bottom

In short, paid and organic social media marketing shouldn’t omit each other out. Instead, they should be used as complementary methods to reach business objectives.

Try to come up with a strategy that uses paid social media marketing content and organic social media marketing in the best efficient manner. In that way, when someone arrives at your page from an advertisement, they can also learn more about who you are and what you do. A mixed organic and paid social media marketing strategy can increase the potential success rates of any advertising campaigns.

Before you jump right into creating a hybrid social media strategy for your brand, consider the following questions:

• What do I want to achieve on social media?
• What my brand is offering?
• What is my digital marketing budget?
• Who is my target audience?

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you shape your strategy and find the right balance between paid and organic.

In case you face any problems then do reach out to one of the top marketing agencies in Pune – Seagull advertising. Our experts will help you out with all your queries regarding digital marketing.

Machine Learning for advertising is the newest buzzword. After the internet and targeted ads, it is the newest development that will catapult advertising into a new realm. So what is machine learning and how can advertising benefit from it?

In this new blog, we take a look at artificial intelligence and machine learning in digital advertising and how business, agencies, and advertisers can capitalize on the same. We also take a look at some of the examples of how advertisers are using machine learning in its nascent stages.

What Is Machine Learning in Advertising?

Image Source: Educba Website

Machine learning in advertising is the name of the process by which advertising tech looks at data, analyzes it, and comes up with conclusions to improve a task. In simpler terms: it’s how advertising technology learns, improves and grows.

The technology can learn anything- mapping customer journeys, yearly buying cycle, the effectiveness of ad copy, audience targeting and segmentation. The applications are endless.

The catch with machine learning is that it gets better the more it gets used. Machine learning has self-learning capabilities, means with every iteration it becomes better at applying its knowledge as it efficiently learns from previous mistakes. It is like AB testing but taking it to another level.

Let us Take a Look at Some Real-life Examples:

1. Audience Testing Through Machine Learning:

Image Source: Industryweek Website

Let’s say you are a shoe company that sells sports shoes. Now you may assume that you can target men, who are preferably young, go to the gym, or play a sport and then you target those audiences. But your assumptions and knowledge about the world limits who you choose to target.

Whereas, in machine learning, the system operates on a HUGE dataset and analyses audience patterns. Which means the machine is able to pick up on audiences you may have missed out on, or drop audiences that you may have chosen, but won’t get you any conversions.

So the machine may target young boys and girls, young women, and young and old men- based on how likely they are to convert and make a purchase, how much they are interested in your product, how quickly will they buy it after seeing the ad etc.

 

2. Improving Ad Copy / Creative

Image Source: Adweek Website
You may write an ad copy for the same shoe brand in the earlier example for a New Year offer. It can say “Run Faster, Towards A Better You,” with a bold creative.

Now, the problem with humans writing copy and designing creatives is that you cannot measure the effectiveness of the creative when it comes to direct translation towards sales. Yes, you may like it, your audience will appreciate it too, but maybe it could have been better? Maybe a little colour tweaking or change of a comma would have made the creative infinitely better.

Here is where machine learning has the advantage. Machine learning can track audience viewing patterns, how long they look at an ad, how often viewers click on an ad, run A/B testing for creative and copy etc. Machine learning used for advertising can track, analyse, and improve every part of an ad creative.

 

Related Post – Things You Should Know About AI in Advertising

 

3. Personalization

Image Source: Martechtoday Website

The more personal a digital ad seems the more likely a person is to click on it. Which is why when an ad or an email has your name in it, you feel more enticed to read it. But what if it is not just your name, but your entire personality that can relate to the ad?

The colour, the language, the design, them knowing your name, capitalising on your interests- the more personal the ad gets the better. Which is exactly what machine learning does. It takes personalization to the next level. So the same product can be advertised to millions of users but using machine learning models for advertising means that the ad has a different version for each individual.

And that is it. These are just some of the examples taken from the vast majority of capabilities that MI and AI have in advertising. We are currently truly at the cusp of an AI revolution and soon the world of digital advertising is going to be much more dynamic, customized, and improved.

Want more insights into marketing and advertising? Keep following the blogs at Seagull!

OTT services are also known as Over The Top Services which are available on the internet globally. OTT services include forms of content consumption that go beyond TV and Radio, so they include platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO, Hotstar and more. The growth of OTT platforms in India has also been abundant.

Many of the services offer subscription models and advertising models. Which means that they sell spots to advertisers on their platforms to show products and services in between content that streams.

So how can you use OTT advertising & marketing to your advantage? Let’s take a look:

1. Increasing Audience Size on OTT

 

Image Source: Mediaindia Website

Multiple users are completely or partially migrating to streaming services. They either have not bothered to get a TV connection, or they are reducing the number of TV channels they subscribe to because most content is being consumed through OTT. In many cases, users have had TV subscriptions but are cutting the cord and letting the subscription go in the past few years.

While research numbers for India are not available, a recent survey by Pew Research Center (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/13/about-6-in-10-young-adults-in-u-s-primarily-use-online-streaming-to-watch-tv/) indicates that 61% of Americans ages 18–29 watch television through streaming services today, while only 31% of them mostly use a cable or satellite subscription. A mere 5% mainly watch TV through a digital antenna. For people ages 50–64, these numbers are 10%, 70%, and 15% respectively.

Which means that the audience size for TV may dwindle, but OTT is a promising place to be in which shows only growth.

2. Advanced Placement

OTT ads are dynamic, meaning that advertisers can pull or push ads towards a certain audience and tweak them instantaneously. This is unlike TV where the same ad is shown to each and every audience (regardless of relevance) for a long period of time.

Ads targeting on OTT platforms is dynamic, meaning you can decide what age, gender, and type of audience you want to show your ad to. While some of this dynamic ads tech is still in its nascent stage in India, the tech is bound to grow in the coming years.

3. Types of OTT Ad Insertion Methods

Image Source: Mediashark Website

I. Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI)

This is a method where there is a separate ad stream and a separate video stream. The client can decide where in the video will the ad appear, and the ad thus gets inserted in that point of the video. This is when the video stream stops and the ad stream starts.

The advantage is that the client can decide where to put the video. But because there are a separate video and ad stream, the ads are susceptible to ad blockers as ad blockers can detect when a separate ad stream is playing.

II. Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI)

Content on an OTT platform generally comes through a server. In SSAI the ad is pre-inserted on the server-side into the video stream and then reaches the viewer.

This means there is no separate video stream and ad stream, as the server combines the two and sends them across.

The biggest difference is that these ads are not susceptible to ad blockers.

 

Related Post – Secret Tricks On How To Excel On A Short Digital Marketing Budget

 

4. Challenges in OTT advertising

Image Source: Ecallis Website

OTT platform marketing comes with its own set of challenges. First of all, there aren’t wide set industry standards in place, so different services function at different rates and cost differently. Currently, there is also no support for third-party ad serving and measurement.

Finally, there are also a number of other discrepancies as ecosystems of OTT providers are closed, so each provider has different visual standards, measurements, and conversion tracking.

And that is it. This was a basic breakdown for all new marketers on what OTT services are and how they function. Want to know more about digital marketing? Get in touch with us at Seagull today!

Facebook advertising provides a lot of tools to boost ROIs for your business. It is important to use the Facebook platform to target your audience. There are both. organic and paid methods of using Facebook advertising. Implement some of the tips and tricks and track the results.

5 Minutes Read

Facebook is an incredible instrument for not only growing your social reach but also to optimise your business reach and growth. It has one of the biggest user-bases with over 2 billion monthly active users among all other social platforms.

The social media platform is an apt space for anyone searching for a place to visually showcase their business. With the kind of active and engaging viewership on Facebook, it is mandatory to promote your business here. Facebook advertising India provides the audiences and advertisers with innovative plans and solutions. It is the most cost-effective advertising investment any business can make.

Even if you’re a complete newbie, you’ll have a good grasp of how marketers can leverage both organic and Facebook advertising business effectively. A good Facebook advertising agency will help you showcase your business to a much larger audience than your existing network. You can even implement some of the strategies on your own and use Facebook effectively.

 

Facebook Advertising Benefits

As your prospective customers are already active on Facebook,  you need to create a presence of your business. Facebook provides constant attention from its set of audience for the growth of your business. Its users are more than the population of China, imagine what kind of wonders it can do for your business with the right kind of planning.

Facebook allows you to target a specific set of audience as per your choice of budget. As per the application’s statistics, the accuracy of ads is about 89% through a targeted campaign. Facebook is very effective in converting visitors into prospective customers with constant remarketing. It provides a focused approach to funnel a visitor into a lead.

Related Post- Social Media Marketing For Your Real Estate Business

 

Tips to leverage Organic Facebook 

1. Build A Facebook Group

The biggest benefit of the Facebook group is that it is one of the few places you can get real organic reach on social media. Once your target audience has joined your Facebook group, you can engage with them and sell them your products. Groups can be incredibly active places and bring huge revenue into your business. Thus building your own Facebook Group is often tremendously valuable.

 

2. For Leveraging

Starting a conversation with your prospect on messenger is a lot more personal and a lot more engaging. Facebook Messenger marketing is a massive opportunity for a lot of businesses. You can answer a lot of prospect questions quickly and convenience them to buy your product or service. Facebook Messenger will be more effective for businesses with high average customer values.

 

3. Build an Email list: 

 

You can use Facebook to build your own email list for free. Every time you advertise your target market on Facebook, you have to pay and set a certain ad budget. You can convert some of your target markets into email subscribers on an ongoing basis for free.

 

4. Focus on mobile-first content

Ensure that all your content is planned to meet the mobile-based practices. Include more portrait videos in your campaigns so that mobile users can easily watch the video in full-screen without having to turn their phone. You should test mobile-specific formats of the content.

However, the content created for mobile typically works well on the desktop too.

 

Related Post- 7 Facebook Real Estate Marketing Strategies That Will Dominate 2020

 

Tips to leverage Facebook Advertising 

1. Use Facebook Pixel: 

Linking Facebook Pixel with your website is absolutely a no brainer. You can take full advantage by tracking the actions people take on your website and you can use the same to retarget website visitors. To record the leads in your Facebook advertising account, you need to add an event code on specific pages.

 

2. Use automatic placements: 

You can run a campaign using automatic placements by choosing a conversion objective. Automatic placements usually give you the best results. Facebook generates the highest number of conversions and optimises your campaign by putting your ads in locations where people are more likely to convert. Some placements get much better results as all placement options are not equal.

 

3. Use Facebook Lookalike audience: 

 

A Facebook lookalike audience is very much similar to another group of people that have already interacted with your business or have done some purchases. You can create this set of look-alike audiences on the basis of your custom audience. This feature is extremely useful as advertisers can take a list of leads or customers and upload that to Facebook and use it to create a lookalike audience.

 

4. Learn from your competitors’ ads:

It is time-consuming and costly to work out on what delivers results in your industry. Being able to grasp from your competitors’ Facebook Ads can be of great use. By using the Facebook Ad Library tool, you can take a look at anyone’s Facebook ads. If your competitors are generating great results with their Facebook ads you can even see how long they have been running ads for and where those ads are sending people. Taking this as an advantage, it’s always better to model from what they are doing.

 

5. Monitor Ad Relevance Score

To check how well your ad is being received by your target audience, You can check the ad relevance score on the scale of 1-10 on Facebook. The positive and negative feedback can determine your ad relevance score. Facebook rewards the ads that have high relevance scores (8+) with lower Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) and does the opposite with low relevance scores.

Here is why,

Facebook is now extremely good at working out who is likely to take the desired action with its better targeting algorithm. Using these Facebook advertising tips can make the process easier and a lot more effective for you. Try out these tips to utilise the best of your business and lower ad costs with increased conversion rates, promising you high ROIs. The learning phase takes some time and conversions are likely to be expensive during the initial phase.

If you are seeking some introductory knowledge about PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, then this article is for you. It lists down various types of PPC Ads on Google, Facebook and various other platforms like Instagram, Bing, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. In addition, it also consists some a brief understanding of an effective landing page and iterates how you can drive your audience to make them take meaningful actions and track the entire customer journey through analytics—interested to know more? Then let’s go. 

3 Minutes Read

 

Investing in PPC campaigns allows you to promote your product or service to your target audience and to those who are actively looking for solutions. The campaigns help your brand get massive reach and exposure allowing you to spend as much you’re willing to. But before diving into intricacies, lets’ understand PPC better.

 

What Is (PPC) Pay Per Click Advertising?

PPC or pay per click marketing is a type of internet advertisement; it is also referred to as CPC (cost-per-click). Advertisers bid to have their ads shown on search engine results and websites for the purpose of promoting an offer, brand or product.

The advertiser pays publishers every time a visitor clicks their ad, hence the model is known as pay-per-click. If a visitor sees an ad but doesn’t click it, the advertiser doesn’t have to pay as no one clicked but is made aware of the ad impression.

Each platform provides a detailed guide with exact steps you need to take to create PPC campaigns. Do your analysis, choose the right platform you are looking to start PPC advertisements and then get insights of features the platform has to offer you according to which you can optimize your advertising campaigns.

 

Now that you know What Is PPC Advertising let deep dive into understanding the platforms and use.

1. Google Ads

The Google Ads platform is a versatile tool which helps advertisers manage both texts, i.e. Search Ads and Display Ads.The Search Network is a great place to advertise for a wide range of businesses, and it’s especially good for local businesses.While Display Network known as image ads help you build your campaign based on an objective like awareness (impressions), visits, engagement, and actions such as buy, call, visit a location.

2. Facebook Ads

Facebook allows you to target the demographics that are likely to be interested in your products or services. You can narrow your audience based on criteria like language, age, gender, geographic location, and more.

Facebook’s ad delivery system works on an auction structure. It runs automatically to determine which ads will be seen in a user’s feed. Facebook determines an ad’s total value based on three factors: your bid, the estimated action rate, and the ad’s overall quality and relevance.

 

A similar system works on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Bing. Though the basics remain same, pricing and audience are hugely different on all platforms.

Related Post- How Performance Marketing is Helping Clients Grow Better?

 

What Is A Landing Page?

It’s a standalone page created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. A visitor is directed to this page after they click on ads shown on Google, Bing, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or other similar places. Landing pages are designed with a single focus or goal, known as a call to action (CTA) You’re going to need to fill the funnel full of visitors for your landing page to work. Having fewer links on your landing page increases conversions. That’s why expert marketers always use a dedicated landing page as the destination of their traffic.

 

One advantage of landing pages over website pages is that LPs generate better data of people clicking on ads. Then the same data can be used for remarketing, campaign customisation and other paraphernalia.

 

Digital marketing fetches great results because of the metrics it provides. And the same goes for PPC advertising, though the analytics greater efficiency can be achieved for the brand. So let’s understand analytics a little better. 

 

Measurement Analytics 

Marketing metrics and KPIs are the values that make it easy for the marketing team to decide the goals and analyse the performance based on those values. Integrate your Ads account with Analytics to understand the customer cycle. With tracking your conversion rate, you can optimize your campaigns and blow away your competition by tracking your customer journey.

Goal setting helps Google Analytics or any other platform analytics to map the data and measure the key performance indicators (KPIs). Analytics help you track ad impressions, CTR (click-through rates), bounce rates and more importantly conversion rates. Conversion rate helps you analyse how successful you are in manipulating your traffic to perform the desired action on the ad and website.

Analytics platforms like Google Analytics, Hubspot, etc. can track conversion actions like a purchase, submission of a contact form or lead generation form, engaging through chat, subscribes or signs up, downloads some material or information, and revisits your website. 

 

To Conclude…

PPC Ad is a fairly simple and flexible method which helps you to target an audience once you have a clear goal and objective. Plan your budget, choose the right keywords, write a good ad copy and create effective landing pages to use PPC ads and grow profits.

 

And if you need more help in the same, contact our expert team at Seagull Advertising, and we will be more than happy to help your brand grow better.

There is no magic ingredient to make your content go viral, so it’s better to incorporate time tested practices. Tap into all the social media platforms to understand its algorithm. To go viral on the internet, keep a planned approach in terms of content backed by research. 

5 Minute Read

Today everyone on the internet wants their content to become viral. But how do things go viral on the internet?

More importantly, how to get viral on the internet?

Is one of the most common questions asked. Well, there is no magic formula for making something viral. If virality experts are to be believed, there is a method to the madness, which is called the science of virality.

The most viral ones share certain characteristics between them such as short runtime, a short and catchy title, an element of surprise, irony or laughter with musical qualities. Easily relatable and digestible content is what makes the base for virality.

Let the content truly connect with other human beings. Focus on the content and put that in a visual form that is preferably useful to your audience and voila: there are higher chances for your content to go viral. Originality is not necessary for virality, figure out creative ideas irrespective of how that happens, you will continue to have the opportunity to make it viral.

Here are some more points of consideration: 

1. Know Your Audience

Understand why your followers follow you, understand their background and what they are looking for accordingly deliver posts that fulfil. You cannot build your audience until you have built your brand. Determine what niche or area of expertise you want to occupy, such as an industry expert, social media maven or brand influencer. With some experiments, get to know some actionable insights, and you will start pushing highly engaging content. Start attracting your audience by cultivating posts of audience interests. 

2. Do Your Research 

The wise thing to do here is to focus on a few selected platforms where most of their target audiences interact and engage in content marketing activities. Tap into all the social media channels like Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. Look for your target market and what type of content works the most on each platform. In-depth research would help you create a roadmap to roll out your viral content. 

3. Consider Current Trends & News

 

If something is happening currently, you better take a chance and pick that particular topic to create some new content. People are constantly active everywhere, and your content could be viewed easily. Analyse if incorporating this newsworthy trend into your viral content is worthwhile.

People are searching for these trendy topics on Google, Twitter, Facebook and everywhere else. Keep an eye on the Google News section and check out Google Trends. Google Trends tool can help you explore what people are searching all over the world and how you can get started with using it to harness some traffic for your content to go viral hopefully. News also breaks out first on the trending section of Twitter and Facebook, so pay attention to such trending topics there as well.

4. Find Your Niche

You must know what would you go viral for on the internet?

Accordingly, identify the category of your viral content. Virality is of different types and categories. There are different methods of virality for different products or ideas. You need to identify your approach; then weave content around it. Don’t expect results in one go; persistence is the key to create something good on the internet. 

 

Related Post- Content Strategy: Your Company needs it, Surely!

 

5. Infectious Virality

When you get more people to use the product you already use, this type of virality works well, and thus you can build a community around it.  It is similar to word-of-mouth, but here you are referring to the product for yours, and others benefit. Through invitations, you spread infectious virality. Most of the social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn came to the forefront in their initial days in the same way.

 

6. Outbreak Virality

Your content gains ultra-fast virality if it’s shared with other people. Some things are extremely funny that a common psychological state of mind pushes people to share it with the next person. That is why memes and cute animals go viral. 

 

7. Incentivised Word-Of-Mouth Virality 

To help the company and the customers equally, you can provide a little incentive to people for referring your product to friends and family. It is similar to paid word-of-mouth. It’s a win-win as you get new customers and customers get discounts or incentives.

 

8. Make It Visual 

The attention span of the average web surfer is getting shorter and shorter. So avoid a big block of text from screens to have a better chance of catching the eyes of people. Many graphic design tools help you to create extraordinary content. Major platforms like Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest,  and  Facebook are almost entirely dedicated to pushing around visual content. People are more likely to notice photos largely in the news feed now, so work on catchy visuals.

Related Post- Outbound vs Inbound Marketing – Strengths & Weaknesses

9. Positive Emotions

Humour, awe and wonder work extremely well for virality than negative emotions like anger. People tend to share something that makes us laugh or gape in awe.

 

10. Quirkiness

Let your content stand out. Be unique in your own way; sometimes, bad content becomes viral just because of how uniquely bad it is.

11. Element of Surprise 

Shock or surprise them, jolt them out of slumber. Being normal and usual is behind the rules of virality. As internet users are constantly looking for something new, an element of surprise is one of the good ways to catch their attention.

  

12. Wow Factor 

By including a wow factor in your shareable content, you can have multiple cycles of viral content. You will effectively reach more people than ever earlier. The most shareable content evokes strong positive emotions by offering practical but actionable advice.

Conclusion

To help your brand get recognition and wider reach, try out these time-tested practices that can enhance the chances of creating viral content. Incorporate some of the practices in your viral content marketing strategy to get expected results, and don’t forget the science behind what makes content go viral

Video advertising is winning the hearts of marketers all over the world. It has become a holistic business approach as over 50% of consumers prefer video ads over other types from their brands. Video marketing is a new medium to reach potential audiences and it provides brands with positive ROI.

Videos across different channels offer consumers content that can be quickly and easily digested. One can create short video ads to promote and market products or services to increase engagement on digital and social channels. Sight, sound, and motion have always been the most engaging ways to reach an audience. Short-form video ads should be produced in a conversational, actionable, and measurable way.

About 86% of marketers make short video ads and video content to advertise, educate, and entertain. Video ads are a trend in digital marketing which businesses can’t afford to miss. New formats and rise in consumption have made social media and YouTube the most effective and engaging medium for video ads.

In terms of advertising expenditure, videos have become the fastest growing digital channel. Video marketing has become a part of every business strategy and media plan. About 48% of people have made their last online purchase as the direct result of Facebook short video ads.

 

Why Make Short Video Ads?

Video content is flooded everywhere over the internet. Marketers and advertisers are giving their best to create valuable content and grab the attention of potential customers. Customers watch the ad only if it’s relevant, as a result the amount of time people spend watching ads has declined.

Brands are focussing on short video ads to beat the skip button and to serve short attention spans. People share videos they relate with and video ads are shareable, which helps in increasing the reach. Video advertising gives more flexibility to position the product or service and offer something exciting. Prominent brands use humour, shock, and action to create compelling short and effective pre-roll ads.

According to analysts, the 5G network will be even more beneficial for video ads. 5G could drastically cut the timeframe needed for video ad creation and that’s another reason for marketers to add video-based advertising to the marketing mix now. Video ads have proved to be great at driving awareness, engagement, and conversions.

In 2020, 92% of marketers consider video ads an important part of their marketing strategy, as people prefer video over text to learn about a certain product or service. At the brand awareness stage, video ads on social media can help drive people to the company’s website and engage with a brand. They are also beneficial through the nurturing stage, as they can help to increase the click-through rate by up to 300%.

Related Post- Things You Should Know About AI in Advertising

 

Types of Video Ads 

 

1. Skippable Ads 

Skippable in-stream ads play before, during, or after other videos. After 5 seconds, the viewer has an option to skip the ad. One can use skippable in-stream ads before, during, or after other videos on YouTube and across websites and apps running on Google video partners.

2. Non-Skippable Ads 

Non-skippable in-stream ads are 15 seconds (or shorter) and play before, during, or after other videos. Viewers don’t have the option to skip them.

3. Masthead Ads

This format is used when a company wants to drive awareness for a new product or service or reach a massive audience in a short period of time. Masthead Ad autoplays without the sound for the full duration of up to 30 seconds. 

4. Facebook in-stream ads

In-stream ads allow advertisers to place 5-15 second videos directly within live and on-demand videos on mobile devices. These short mid-roll ads can be optimized for video views, brand awareness, app installs, reach, or engagement. Video ads can appear as pre-roll or mid-roll ads and run up to 30 seconds in length. 

5. OTT Ads 

OTT allows marketers to utilize targeting, ad insertion, and advanced analytics to create shorter and even more personalized ads. Viewers watching these ads from an OTT streaming device can’t skip or install an ad blocker. 

6. In-Game Video Ads

These video ads can be used while the game is loading or in-between levels. They can be often seen in online, social, and mobile games. These ads are shown during required pauses in the game and are up to 30 seconds.

One doesn’t have to be a professional designer to make videos. There are various short video ads software and tools available over the internet. The Adobe after effects templates help to create stunning high definition video ads. Facebook Mobile Studio allows users to create mobile ads right from the smartphone. Both paid as well as free video ad maker tools effectively create expected video ads. Every tool has a short video ads tutorial for reference. Think like a mobile user and create your ad in a way so that people will understand it without words.

Related Post- Why is Video Content good for SEO?

Some short video ads examples which have been trending over the internet in India are as below: 

OPPO F15 – #FlauntItYourWay

Tagline of Freedom, Fun & Flair, OPPO F15 is a sensation. #Flauntityourway is definitely a hype by Kartik Aaryan and it doesn’t seem like cooling down. It is a mere 23-second promo video ad. Kartik’s looks and OPPO’s smartphone are booth wooing people. 

PUMA 

PUMA is introducing XETIC Technology in their shoes and had PhDs work overtime to create the new XETIC Tech featured in the Calibrate Runner.

Checkout Puma’s latest Facebook Ad

Kia Carnival – Extravagant by Design

This ad is a must watch and has created a sense of suspense among the audience. The 30-second ad ends as soon as Kia features its new car. Before viewers can get a full view of the car, the ad ends with a mere glimpse of its new model. Kia Carnival is designed to be a treat to your senses

Finally,

Ensuring the use of the latest techniques of video ads can help you to see positive returns for your brand. If you overlook this trend, you’ll face a competitive disadvantage.

For businesses to remain in the competitive online landscape today, they must adapt to the rapidly evolving changes. Owing to these changes and the development in Artificial Intelligence (AI), what was once considered as mere fiction, is now becoming a reality. Marketers can no longer rely upon old methods and educated guesses forever as we are living in an era where marketing technology is moving fast and consumer interests and behaviours are difficult to predict. 

For savvy marketers, AI is no longer a new vocabulary. Large budgets are allocated for its implementation. Marketers have witnessed various applications with Machine Learning (ML) to successfully manage marketing campaigns with AI in digital advertising. AI-powered tools have now become widely available to small and mid-sized businesses. 

Artificial Intelligence in Digital Advertising 2020

Implementing AI in advertising is helping marketers build in-depth customer insight reports, content creation, and data-driven marketing strategies. It has taken the marketing industry by storm without a large human influence.

Through AI in digital advertising, marketing practitioners have managed to improve their personalization approach with cheaper costs. AI records and stores the data for future optimization, whenever a prospect or a consumer interacts with a product. This increasing productivity and performance, showcasing one of the limitless possibilities of the AI technology.

Unlike traditional marketing practices, AI takes sales forecasting to a higher level with the ability to understand consumers better. Implementing AI in marketing leads to the creation of detailed and more accurate consumer profiles. Tons of data from advertising platforms provides measurable impressions, click-through rates, bid levels, and demographics across search, content, and social media channels.

Marketers optimize their digital marketing campaigns by analysing data on what works and what doesn’t. Therefore, AI makes a natural fit for advertising. 

Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising, with the help of AI, helps to dictate how much you pay and how your ads are displayed. AI systems power today’s ad exchanges and the entire ad performance and budget effectiveness dictated by the complex interplay of data points.

Related Post- 7 Facebook Real Estate Marketing Strategies That Will Dominate 2020

Performance and Spend Optimization

AI in advertising analyses how your ads perform across specific platforms, then offer recommendations on how to improve ad performance and spending. It saves your time and highlights performance issues you didn’t notice. It also makes decisions on its own about how best to reach your advertising KPIs.

 

Ad Creation and Audience Targeting

AI-powered systems create ads for you partially or fully, based on what works best for your goals. Ad copies are written in a fraction of time, which perform better than human written ad copies. Platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon, and Google have AI systems that look at your past audiences and ad performances. KPIs and real-time performance data is measured and new audiences are identified who will be likely to buy from you.

Google Ads

Google has implemented AI in its advertisement model. AI helps to identify the users’ taste, show ads as per interests, and create text and display ads. Google AdWords uses an automatic auction-based system, allowing advertisers to plan the lowest possible cost per conversion, giving a high return on investment.

For most of the business owners, innovative digital marketing trends are among the top priorities. 

Related Post- How Performance Marketing is Helping Clients Grow Better?

AI Revolutionising the Retail Industry

AI is changing the face of the retail industry, representing the future of modern business. It is revolutionizing the retail industry by making it cost-effective to deliver a personalized, immersive, and optimized experience for every customer.

Beyond data crunching, studying purchasing preferences, consumer behaviour, and buying sentiment, AI is put to good use to stay in the competition. AI-driven algorithms personalize the user experience, increase sales, and build loyal and lasting relationships into e-commerce retail processes.

For retail marketing, companies use AI to deploy chatbots, gather data, and predict purchases to create a more customer-centric e-commerce experience.

Here’s how some major e-commerce leaders are implementing AI in retail and advertising to boost sales: 

 

Chatbots 

Retailers have realized that excellent customer service is critical to run a successful business.

AI has an effective and better customer service solution with the help of chatbots.. Chatbots also help in backlinking to increase the traffic on the company’s website. 

Visual Search

Customers get the same or similar type of clothes, and also get suggestions about what would go well with them.  Visual search systems powered by AI allow customers to upload pictures and find similar types of products based on colours, shapes, and patterns.

Voice Search

Companies, such as Walmart, Kohl’s, Tesco, and Costco, use Google or Amazon AI technology.

They provide customers with easy and quick voice search. With the help of Alexa, customers can just ask for a particular product item and its delivery status by voice search, without typing anything.

Amazon

Amazon is the king of e-commerce retail AI. It has integrated AI at every step of its process right from its web service to product recommendation to automated ads. Amazon’s algorithm is strong and the entire business has been rebuilt on AI.

Olay

Olay, the Procter & Gamble skin care leader, has an AI powered skin advisor. The advertising campaign had an online service analysing a user’s skincare needs at a very granular level. The AI performed a deep learning-powered skin analysis and recommended more personalized skin care for women. The makeup and skincare business has disrupted the way in which the skincare industry functions with the help of AI. Know more about this case study to  understand how Parc built and enabled smarter skincare with ML and AI for Olay

 

 

Podcasts have been gripping audiences from everywhere, and there has never been a better time to start podcasting. Many business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers are capitalising on the popularity of this medium. Starting a podcast is easy, as it has tons of business opportunities. 

 

It is no surprise that podcasting is an excellent opportunity to build a genuine connection with your audience. So, you must be curious about how podcasting can help your business. This article is for you to understand how you can launch your podcasts and take advantage of this fantastic marketing platform.

Why Should You Podcast? 

As of July 2020, there are over 1 million podcasts only, but if you compare it to blogs, there are over 600 million blogs. It is wrong to ignore the benefits which podcasts can bring to your business, considering this number. Podcasting is a much less crowded space than blogging, to get a competitive advantage now is the perfect time to get started. People prefer tuning to podcast platforms as podcasts can be sanity savers; moreover, they are informative and educational.

People draw tons of inspiration and enjoyment from various podcast topics. From a business perspective, you can deliver content beyond written content and establish credibility for your brand by reaching a mass of people at once on the podcast platforms. Plus, podcasts in India are gaining a lot of popularity as they offer a unique experience. So why hop on the bandwagon? 

Leverage podcasts as a marketing tool

Podcasts are just a piece of conversational content that is communicated directly to the listener. Creating a podcast does not require significant financial investment. Sharing information through podcasts creates a more personable and intimate experience for your audience than reading your content. To put it simply- podcasts make brands even more tangible.

Also, every podcast platform provides the potential to drive traffic back to your website by a link. At the end of every podcast, you can direct your listeners to your site. Podcasting has genuinely gone mainstream on Apple podcasts. After it, Podcasts on Spotify have a massive number of active listeners as Spotify is available on both android and ios.

To help you avoid common rookie mistakes, here are a few recommendations on how to get started with podcasting and hack your way in the podcast journey.

 

Choose a Niche 

As a podcaster, you can attract your set of audiences, positioning yourself as an expert in a particular topic or field. You can encourage and influence listeners to purchase your products and services or promote your business. So find out your niche for your podcasts and be focused on those particular topics. Narrow your range of topics into multiple episodes and make it appealing to your potential audience to tune to your new adventures. Plan your podcasts topics and structure your content according to the episodes.

 

Gear to get started

Invest enough to create a quality podcast by using quality equipment. You do not need a professional studio to record quality content for your listeners. All you need is purchasing a high-quality mic. The better your microphone is, the better your podcasts sound quality will be.

Do your research while buying the right set of microphone, headset and pop filter. Browse a couple of options on amazon and see what best fits in your budget. Check which equipment can let you record your podcasts more comfortably. After finishing the recording, you will want to make specific edits and adjustments in your podcasts for better sound quality.

For editing your podcasts, you will find many podcast editing software at a surprisingly affordable price. Be a perfectionist, after recording and editing, make sure everything sounds right before releasing it to the world. Choose a professional introduction with fantastic music and catch the attention of your audience in the first 60 seconds to make them continue listening to your podcast.

 

 

Related Post- 9 Reasons Why Content Marketing Should Be Part of Your Marketing Plan

Hosting Your Content

Once you are ready to export, launch your finished podcast to distribution platforms, it’s time for hosting. It’s a misconception among podcasters; you can’t directly upload your podcasts on the platforms like Spotify and Itunes. Create an account on a media host on a subscription service to store your audio files.

Please choose the right hosting service as they make it easy to upload your podcasts by providing stats, marketing tools and RSS feed which is a URL. Publicize your RSS feed to the listeners and let them find, download and subscribe to your podcasts. Verify if your podcast landing page includes podcast artwork and description text whi9ch reflect the look and feel of your brand. Platforms such as iTunes and Spotify pay attention to these details while promoting you.

 

Related Post- Content Strategy: Your Company needs it, Surely!

 

Be a guest or find guests 

Just like movie promotions, you can head out to collaborate with other podcasters and make your guest appearances in your niche. In the same way, you can invite a few famous people in your podcasts. In this way, you will be able to get a new set of audiences by cross-promotion. You can recommend specific episodes on each other’s platforms and be benefited with increasing audiences. 

 

Advertise on Social channels 

Promote your podcasts most creatively on social networks. Use rich media, images, videos, teasers to communicate about your new podcasts. Link your posts with the URLs of the podcasts on Spotify. You can also create behind the scenes content for your stories on Instagram and Facebook. Poll your target audience on social media for the topics they would want you to discuss. 

At the end

Podcasting gives you access to movers and shakers in your industry. Boost your confidence and tie up your shoes to get started on launching your brand on podcast platforms. Make a difference to your brand by experiencing the podcast market.

 

Now it’s time for your voice to be heard!