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When you hear the word advertising, what comes to mind?
Do you think of banner ads on your favorite website? Those hilarious Super Bowl commercials? The billboards along the highway or posters in the subway stations?
While most of us have a pretty good idea of what advertising looks like, we often struggle to nail down exactly what it means — and how to do it well.
From the printing press to pop-up ads, advertising has certainly changed with the times. Despite this, though, the need for advertising hasn’t changed, and neither have the techniques and best practices that make for quality advertising. That’s what we’ll cover in this guide.

Advertising is one of the oldest types of marketing and aims to influence the actions of its audience to buy, sell, or do something else.
Good advertising is designed to be extremely influential, memorable, and, at times, risqué.
But, how does advertising work?
How does advertising work?
Advertising has a simple principle — get people interested in a product being sold.
After arousing interest, the goal is to persuade people to purchase the product, even if they hadn’t previously thought about buying it. Ads work by using psychology to influence the way people think and feel about a product or service.
Depending on the goals of your ad campaign, advertising can go to work for your company in a variety of ways:

To raise awareness of your brand
To drive potential customers to your business
To promote sales for both new and existing products
To introduce a new product or service to the market
To differentiate your product from your competitors’

Advertising can also be executed in various ways. Radio commercials, billboards, branded t-shirts, and social media endorsements all count as advertising — as we’ll discuss later on in this guide.
What are advertisers?

Advertisers are the people at a company who are responsible for advertising a product or service. They promote messages about a brand’s products and services to build public preference for the brand.
“Advertiser” can also refer to the entity that’s paying for advertising on a billboard, in a magazine, or through a website or mobile application.
Advertisers are important because the whole business of advertising is dependent on them. It’s the advertiser that incurs the cost of advertisements, so if they decide it’s not worth running ads, then the advertisement industry will be in big trouble.
All advertisers are marketers, but not all marketers are advertisers. Let’s dig deeper into the differences between advertising and marketing.

Advertising is a subset of marketing, which is the umbrella term for communicating with your audience.
Marketing includes a number of different channels, such as:

social media
email marketing

public relations

SEO

paid advertising.

Alternatively, advertising is just one component of marketing.
A company’s overarching marketing strategy will typically include an advertising plan. The advertising portion zooms in on the specific process of creating and publishing the persuasive messages to get customers to take action.

A Brief History of Advertising
Advertising is one of the oldest segments of business, save for currency and trade. Once products and services arose, so did the need to make them known.
The oldest confirmed piece of advertising dates back to 3,000 B.C. Technically, it was a print ad from ancient Egypt promoting the capture and return of an escaped slave.
Incidentally, the ad also mentioned the slave owner’s shop — a rug business — which inherently advertised his storefront, too. The slave was never caught, but the rug owner did discover a brand new method of bringing in traffic: advertising.
Let’s fast-forward about 4,000 years. Here’s a brief look at the past five centuries of advertising:
1472: The first poster advertisement is placed on church doors in London.
1650: The first newspaper ad — a reward for 12 stolen horses — is published. (What’s with these reward-based advertisements?)
1704: The Boston News-Letter prompts its readers to place ads in its paper.
1870: The Powers style of ad copy is born. This style packed a punch — it was short, to-the-point, truthful, and convincing. Powers said the focus should be on why the consumer should buy your product or service — a message that still resonates for good reason today.
1880: Postcards become one of the hottest new ways to reach customers.
1902: Unilever creates the “longest client-agency relationship in advertising history” when it hires J. Walter Thompson Company to advertise its Lifebuoy Soap.

1902: Mellins Food advertises its brand on 25 airship flights, becoming the first brand to take this approach.

1904: The Campbell’s Kids are created, piloting the change in advertisement focus from a single ad to an entire campaign.

1922: Radio ads are born, and businesses purchase 10 mins for $100. Two years later brands would increase their investment by sponsoring an entire radio show, a concept that would eventually become known as “sponsored content.”
1925: Advertisers start to appeal to emotions, focusing on what pleasure customers would receive from their product or service. This old Ford ad exemplifies this perfectly.

1975: VCRs are introduced, and consumers begin to record shows and, therefore, skip advertisements.
1990: Computers become more popular and accessible at home, with over 5 million homes connected to the internet.
1994: The first email spam campaign launches. Banner ads are also introduced.
1995: Search engines like Yahoo! and Alta Vista are born. Ask Jeeves and Google would follow in 1997 and 1998, respectively.
2005: YouTube and Facebook (for college students only) launch.
2008: Brands start to realize the importance of having an online presence for their potential customers. Procter and Gamble pilot the concept of the content hub with BeingGirl.com.

2012: Online videos reach almost 170 million viewers.
2013: Sites like Pinterest and Instagram join the social network scene.
2020: Advertising soars on digital platforms including social media, podcasts, pay-per-click (PPC), and more. Customer data plays a larger role in advertising targeting and retargeting. Lastly, a rapid increase in mobile devices sees a boost in mobile ads and SMS marketing.
History teaches us that advertising is an ever-changing concept, just like shopping habits and how and where consumers spend their time.
Whereas almost 140 years ago, postcards were the newest form of advertising, brands today are building chatbots for Facebook Messenger and integrating artificial intelligence into their marketing and sales platforms.
Things in the advertising world move fast. Now, let’s take a look at how advertising methods have changed and what marketers and advertisers are using today.

Advertising can look like many different things. Here are the different advertising types and channels advertisers have been using over the years.
1. Print Advertising
Print advertising refers to posters, bulletins, flyers, and other physically-printed promotions. It also refers to newspaper and magazine ads.
How we design and consume print advertising has changed over the years, but it’s been a steadfast advertising medium — especially as digital advertising has evolved (which we’ll cover next).
Unlike digital media, print advertising can’t be tracked and analyzed as clearly. Fortunately, brands have found brilliant ways to incorporate print advertising into broader digital campaigns.
2. Billboards and Public Transit Ads
Billboard advertising encompasses print advertising on a much larger scale. Due to their size, the design, placement, and cost of billboard and public transit ads are different from typical print advertising.
For example, billboards are typically designed with few to no words so that viewers have time to process the message while passing by in a car or train. Also, these ads are used for brand awareness, so they usually only include a brand name or phone number (versus a website).
3. TV Commercials
TV commercials are short advertisements developed and paid for by companies and organizations looking to capture the audience of a TV show or network program. TV ads have been around since the invention of the television and have since changed drastically with the birth of streaming TV.
TV ads have a wide reach (millions) and provide viewers with a multi-sensory ad experience — something print ads and some digital ads can’t quite do. Alternatively, TV ads are expensive, avoidable by your audience, and hard to target as accurately as other channels.
4. Radio
Radio advertising refers to spoken advertising spots aired on radio channels between music and other programs. This method dates back to 1920 when commercial radio first aired.
Radio advertising is particularly powerful for local and regional advertising. Nowadays, podcast advertising is a similar but more effective method, especially for national audiences.
5. Event Advertising
Events (both in-person and virtual) are opportunities to connect with your audience while promoting your brand and products. You can host your own event (as HubSpot does with INBOUND) in the form of a conference, webinar, roundtable, or luncheon.
Another form of event advertising is by sponsoring an event or purchasing a booth at a conference or trade show. This is less expensive than hosting your own event, but you still get to engage audience members and promote your brand.
6. Direct Mail
Direct mail advertising includes postcards, pamphlets, and catalogues mailed directly to the homes of your target audience. A direct mail advertising strategy is more personal than others on this list, but it’s also very costly. (Consider the cost of postage alone.)
Another direct mail strategy is electronic mail, typically through the form of email newsletters or promotions. This overlaps with our next section — digital advertising. That’s what we’ll unpack next.

Digital Advertising: How to Advertise Online
As of today, there are over 4 billion people using the internet. This number is up 300% from 2005. Point being, internet usage is skyrocketing, and it’s not stopping.
If you’re not advertising online, you’re behind the curve. Not only does the internet offer you direct access to more than half the global population — including more than half of your target audience — but it also provides so many different advertising types and channels on which to advertise.
Marketers now have the flexibility to reach their target audiences on multiple fronts, in multiple ways, for multiple budgets. There are also a number of tools (many of which are free) that can help you execute your advertising strategy.
Here are the most common ways to advertise online:
Paid Search Advertising
Whether Google, Yahoo, or Bing, all search engines have their own paid advertising. This is referred to as pay-per-click, or PPC, and involves bidding on keywords and placing ads at the top or sides of search results.
When someone performs a query using one of those search engines, advertisers have the ability to display ads above organic search results. That’s what makes PPC so powerful — it gives your advertisements prime real estate in front of people already searching for relevant topics.
Here’s an example on Google:

The top listings in the red box are advertisements. Organic search results, those that came up as a result of SEO, were below the map snippet.
Download our free Ultimate Google Ads PPC Kit to learn everything you need to know about paid advertising on Google.
Social Media Advertising
Social media platforms know how valuable their content is, and that’s why they offer the option to sponsor or boost posts. Social media ads> put your message in front of your target audience and encourage them to engage, click-through, and buy.
More and more, social media sites are prioritizing ad space over organic content because, well, it brings in more revenue.
Whether you’re a budding or brand new business, consider running some social media advertisements. These will not only advertise your products and services but also promote your social media pages and grow your following.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter each have their own version of ads like these.
Here’s how they appear on their respective feeds:
Facebook

Download our free lookbook of 50 Facebook Ad Examples We Actually Clicked.
Instagram

Download our free guide to learn how to run Instagram ads, define goals, moderate engagement, and measure success.
LinkedIn

Download our free guide on How to Run Successful LinkedIn Ads.
Twitter

Download our free guide on How to Use Twitter for Business.
Native Ads and Sponsored Content
Sponsored content has been around since 1922, when brands would sponsor entire radio shows. Today, sponsored content refers more to native ads and blog or article content subsidized by brands.
Have you ever read a Buzzfeed article that heavily referenced or recommended a certain product or service? It was likely sponsored by a certain brand.
Check out this article, 10 Reasons To Put Away Your Phone On Your Next Trip, promoted by agoda, a hotel or destination booking site. Does it blatantly promote agoda’s services? No. Its primary purpose is to entertain and inform, although agoda is referenced a few times throughout the content.
At the top, the byline reflects agoda’s sponsorship, just before the content starts. And, as you scroll down the page, another ad sits within the content.
Sponsored content is a great way to promote your brand in content your audience is already familiar with.
Banner and Display Ads
Banner and display ads are an extension of search ads and follow a similar PPC model. But instead of a text-based ad, consumers see a more visual advertisement.

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Banner ads are typically the horizontal boxes on top of a web page, whereas display ads are smaller in nature and shown on the side (like in the screenshot above).
Whether you opt for traditional print ads in magazines or subway stations or choose online promotion on social media or search engines, there are a few rules that make for great advertising. Below are some advertising best practices to apply to all your ads.

Advertising Best Practices
There are a lot of best practices, tips, and tricks when it comes to advertising. It’s an art that’s been perfected over the years, and with the rise of modern types of advertising channels and new media, best practices continue to manifest.
These advertising best practices are:

Appeal to emotions
Create positive associations
Establish a bandwagon effect
Focus on benefits over features
Leverage storytelling

In this section, though, we’re going to cover these five famous advertising concepts that still work today — regardless of what type of advertising method or medium you’re using.
When used correctly, these advertising techniques will do wonders for your brand and products.
Appeal to emotions.
While you may not consider the ASPCA a business, their unforgettable Sarah McLachlan commercial is the perfect example of using emotional appeal to entice people to take action.
For most of us, the images in that commercial are hard to watch — we may even turn away. But since it tugs at our heartstrings, we’re more likely to donate to animals in need after seeing the horrors they’re going through.

Create positive associations.
When consumers associate your product with a feeling of happiness, state of achievement, or accomplished goal, they’re more likely to take notice, remember your product or service, and make a purchase.
Actually, you’ve probably been on the receiving end of this before without even realizing it. Have you ever seen your favorite celebrity or Instagram influencer posing with a product or brand and found that you wanted to be, do, or look the same? Companies create this subconscious connection in advertising hoping that you associate your positive feelings with the product or service they’re promoting.
For example, Under Armour uses Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to create a subconscious connection with customers. It apparently works, since his Rock Delta shoes were the fastest-selling Under Armour shoes of 2017.

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Catchy songs like “Nationwide is on your side” is an example of helping people associate friendliness with the Nationwide brand. Coca-Cola has a brand advertising campaign that associates their product with friends, family, and fun. When you consider what refreshments to serve at a party or bring on a picnic, Coca-Cola wants you to think of them.
As you create your advertisements, consider what feelings, desires, or goals with which you want your brand to be associated. Weave these feelings or goals into your advertisements through stories or videos. Look for influencers who align with your brand’s core values and demeanor and include them to promote positive association.
Establish a bandwagon effect.
People want to fit in. It’s human nature. Neither you nor I are immune to it.
And it’s this base human desire that makes the bandwagon effect so effective. People don’t want to be left out. They find value in their peers’ opinions, and they certainly don’t want to be the only ones not using the latest and greatest product.
Brands like Maybelline understand this concept well and use it to their advertising advantage. One tube of their top-selling mascara is purchased every two seconds, a statistic that establishes social proof and further supports their claim of “America’s Favorite Mascara.”

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Use customer testimonials, survey data, or shareable content to advertise your brand as one worth following or buying into. Take another approach by promoting a discount for sharing your brand with a friend or family member — so your audience will do the selling for you. Either way, use your advertising to create an inclusive environment people will want to join.
Focus on benefits over features.
Features and benefits are two very different things. Features are the details of the product or service you’re selling, such as the measurements of a couch or the ingredients of a protein bar. Benefits, on the other hand, explain why a person should buy a couch or protein bar from you and how their life would, well, benefit from such a purchase.
Advertising should focus on the benefit your product or service brings, not explain what you’re physically selling.
Consider how Southwest Airlines advertises. Instead of explaining, line by line, what a Business Select ticket offers, Southwest paints a picture of what life would be like if you made a purchase. In this advertisement, they focus on the benefits.

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Rather than wasting precious ad space on your product specifications or service details, talk about the ways a purchase might positively impact your customers. If you do it right, your creative, benefit-packed advertisement would then inspire them to research the features on their own.
Leverage storytelling.
Not unlike our desire to fit in is our penchant for a good story. Storytelling helps paint a bigger picture of a brand or company, not simply promote a single product or service. Also, when stories resonate with someone, it’s far easier to motivate him or her to take action.
Storytelling is the one technique you should try to infuse in all your advertising. In fact, if you haven’t started crafting your brand’s overall story, you should definitely do so. Research shows that stories that illustrate a brand as “necessary, believable, and integral” are the most effective for engaging and influencing consumers.
Dove employs storytelling in its campaign partnership with Operation Homefront. The videos feature real stories of military men and their families being reunited. The advertisements don’t directly promote Dove products but instead tell the Dove brand story (and pull on a few heartstrings, too).
Determining your brand story will help you learn how to best discuss your brand in all marketing efforts, not just advertising.
Next, let’s take a look at some of the most memorable ad campaigns, a few of which put these best practices in action.

Five Memorable Ad Campaigns
The best advertisements are the best teachers. Whether it’s the copywriting, design, medium, or target audience, well-executed campaigns can always teach you something new about advertising or positioning.
(Consider Westinghouse Electric’s “We Can Do It” ad …)
Here are five campaigns that left a noticeable mark on advertising history.
1. Nike: Just Do It

In the late 1980s, Nike launched its “Just Do It” campaign.
At the time, Reebok was outselling Nike, and Nike needed to act fast to compete against the sneaker conglomerate.
But it wasn’t just the three-word phrase that earned global attention. Their new ad campaign also focused on real people wearing and working out in their products, as opposed to simply featuring clothes and sneakers themselves.

This powerful combination of people plus product helped Nike go from $800 million in 1988 to $9.2 billion just 10 years later.
2. The Absolut Vodka Bottle

Did you know Absolut’s “Bottles in the Wild” ad series is the longest uninterrupted campaign in history?
The campaign was Absolut’s attempt to grow their name internationally, especially throughout the United States. It featured the Absolut bottle in different cities and countries worldwide.

It launched in 1985 and ran until 2000 — lasting an impressive 25 years.
Absolut’s campaign helped grow the company from a tiny slice of the vodka market share (2.5%) to over half the U.S. imported market share.
To this day, the Absolut brand is the fourth largest spirit company, thanks to its focus on the overall story, not just the product itself.
3. Miller Lite

The folks at Miller Lite used differentiation to reach their goal: to get “real men” to willingly drink light beers. With their “Great Taste, Less Filling” campaign, they maintained a leading position in the light beer market for several decades after this first campaign aired.

4. Volkswagen

Though Volkswagen has officially discontinued its production of Beetles, its iconic “Think Small” campaign will be forever ingrained in advertising history.
Doyle Dane & Bernbach (DDB) advertising agency knew it had to change the mind of consumers if it wanted to compete with industry leaders. So, VW admitted that though the Beetle was, in fact, tiny, it was still a force to be reckoned with and worth a purchase.

Authenticity and honesty went a long way in this seemingly small campaign.
5. Dos Equis

With its edgy, cool, and sophisticated aesthetic, it’s no surprise “The Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign put Dos Equis on the map.
This campaign created a positive association between the Dos Equis beer and the feeling of sophistication and poise. Sales quickly jumped by 22% after the campaign launched.

Even more impressive was how Dos Equis found success in a time when craft beers grabbed a foothold in the market and imported beer took a 4% hit. This campaign was a major component of that success.
To learn how to grab the attention of your audience, learn from the professionals. These campaigns are a great example of how brands have used real stories, real people, and real talk to grow their businesses.
Advertising Helps You Grow Better
Equipped with a dense, dynamic history, advertising is an incredible tool to add to your marketing toolbox.
Between print ads, radio sponsorship, TV commercials, and social media promotion, the opportunities to advertise and promote your brand are endless.
To best connect and engage with your audience, speak your customer’s language, appeal to their emotions, and tap into their desire to be a part of a community, create a clear and authentic brand story to illustrate how your brand aligns with their values.
By applying these tried and true practices to your advertising, you’ll build a magnetic brand that attracts customers, establishes a following, and generates revenue.
Do this and your brand will grow into a household name that stands the test of time — just like advertising itself.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

When it comes to your business’ branding strategy, establishing a logo is one of the most critical tasks.
Your logo will be pervasive throughout your marketing campaigns, and it’s one of the most prominent branding elements people will think of when someone mentions your company.

Mounting research backs up how important a logo can be to your brand. In fact, a recent study from the Journal of Marketing Research found that an effectively designed logo can “influence brand evaluations, purchase intentions, and brand performance.”
Not sure what it takes to create a killer brand logo? To give you a better idea, check out our list of stand-out logos below.
Logo Examples
1. Geometric Logos

Geometric shapes are highly effective at creating stylish and fun designs. Some can even evoke feelings of movement. It’s particularly popular amongst big brands from Google to Adidas — also proving that you don’t need to belong to a specific industry to use it. The final result is often a clean and modern design.
2. Negative Space Logos

Negative space logos are all about leveraging what you don’t see. Because these logos take more thought to execute, you can typically spot subtle meanings. For instance, you may see hidden letters, icons, or names. A great example is the FedEx logo which uses negative space to create an arrow between the “e” and “x” letters.
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You don’t have to be super obvious with your negative space. Often, these logos use it to add small details that complement the main visual.
3. Typography-Based Logos

Typography can add a clever spin on traditional logos. We often see two varieties — one where typography enhances the imagery (see Hatchet), and the other where typography is incorporated within the imagery, giving it structure (see Burger King).
In the examples above, we see the text and graphics working in harmony — in other words, you can’t have one without the other.
4. Hand-Drawn Logos

Hand-drawn logos feel similar to a personal signature. It gives brands an authentic, rustic, down-to-earth, and even child-like feeling. Most incorporate a sketch of a scene, object, idea, or symbol. Because no two hand-drawn designs are alike, this style almost guarantees a unique and original logo.
5. Overlapping Logos

By using multiple layers, you can create more complex and colorful logos without overwhelming the viewer. It’s an effective strategy that “interrupts” visual elements — or even text — within a design. That said, these logos can be hard to pull off without a designer, so we recommend leaving this trend to the professionals.
Logo Examples in Ads
6. McDonald’s

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McDonald’s “Follow the Arches” campaign highlights the power of logos — even if you can’t see all of it.
It features a portion of its golden arches logo along with a simple line of text — such as “On your left” and “On your right.” With the creative use of its logo and signature colors, consumers instantly recognize the brand — and know that it’s just around the corner.
7. Curtis

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Curtis brings the smell and taste of fruit to life. Add the steam on top, and your mouth begins to water. The yellow logo on the tea label also brings a nice contrast to an otherwise monotone color scheme.
8. Nescafé

This black-and-white ad for Nescafé features rows and rows of zig-zags. It seems confusing at first, until you read the tagline, “Nothing wakes you up as Nescafé.”
Suddenly, these zig-zags become Z’s to represent sleep, and they eventually “wake up” and transform into the Nescafé logo. It’s a playful ad that uses symbols to illustrate the relationship between sleep and coffee.
Logo Examples in Literature
9. Underhill Press

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Here’s another example of an ad that uses the power of symbolism in its logo. Books are born from trees — which is an obvious comparison. But trees also symbolize wisdom, growth, and learning — which artfully plays into the brand’s ethos. Trees are also a critical resource to the environment, as books are to people.
10. Rosebery

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You can see a logo a hundred times without recognizing its full meaning — which is why I like this logo in particular.
Not only does it depict a child reading, but the book also doubles as wings. You can interpret it in multiple ways — for example, books can give kids wings to unleash their imagination or understand the world around them. It’s an effective logo that calls for a second — or even third — glance.
Sources for Logo Inspiration
Arguably the hardest part of creating a logo is knowing where to start. To light your creative spark, we’ve compiled a list of logo inspiration to get the ball rolling.
1. Creative Market

Creative Market is a designer’s playground with over 3 million unique fonts, graphics, themes, photos, and templates.
Use the search bar to browse through logos that match your style or profession. If something catches your eye, you can purchase and download designs right on the platform — or simply use it to gather inspiration.
2. Dribble

Dribble operates as an online portfolio for designers. In fact, it’s one of the largest platforms for designers to share and promote their work — making it an ideal hub for finding inspiration.
Plus, if you want to hire a professional, you can contact artists directly on Dribble or use its Project Board to post a job.
3. Logoimport

Logoimport is an Instagram account that shares designs, illustrations, and graphic inspo from various designers. The account does a great job of tagging the artist on each post, so if something piques your interest, you can view more of an artists’ work with just a few taps.
4. Behance

Owned by Adobe, Behance is a social media platform for artists to showcase and share their creative work.
What’s unique about Behance is its advanced search functionality. Want to browse logos that are all blue? No problem. Want to browse logos that are solely made with Photoshop? You can do that, too. With Behance, you can quickly narrow your searches to see the most relevant designs.
Logo Samples That Anyone Can Use
You don’t need to hire a professional designer — or have an extensive background in graphic design – to create an eye-catching logo. Instead, online resources can help you design one in just a few steps. Take a look at our list below:
1. Canva Templates

If you can’t pin down exactly what you want your logo to look like, try browsing through Canva’s premade design templates. Once you land on a design you like, simply click to download it. This will open the Canva editor where you can customize the text and color scheme of your logo.
Keep in mind that some Canva templates are free, while others may require a Pro account.
2. Logomakr

Logomakr is a tool that allows you to design a logo from scratch with thousands of stock icons and hundreds of fonts. If that’s too much of a feat, you can simply use one of its templates and customize the text, color, and graphics to match your branding.
Although Logomakr is a free tool, you have the option to pay for professional assistance should you need help designing your logo.
3. Logo Garden

If you think it takes days to create a logo, Logo Garden, a design tool, says it can be done in minutes. Its software contains a vast library of graphics, fonts, and colors to build even the most intricate logos. If you get stuck along the way, it also offers design tips and videos to guide you.
After the design is complete, just download it to your computer for a small fee.
4. Designimo

Designimo is a great starting point for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the design process. When you visit the website, you are prompted to share your company name. Once you do so, it will open a new screen with a variety of logos that feature your company name.
From here, you can visualize what style and colors best fit your brand. Or, narrow down your search results by industry — such as real estate, health care, or apparel. This will populate the most relevant designs to pick from.
5. GraphicSprings

GraphicSprings is a design software that promises beautiful logos in three easy steps — first, pick a template from its library, which are categorized under different industries. Then, edit the graphic and text of your logo with its easy drag-and-drop menu. Lastly, download your design for a small fee. Voila, it’s just that simple.
Creating an Effective Logo
Even if you think you’ve landed on a perfect design that’s classic, memorable, and valuable to your messaging, it can be helpful to look at what brands around you are doing to modernize, evolve, or improve their own designs. This way, when it’s time for your logo to get a refresher, you’ll be ready with some great ideas.

“Hi, I am Rogers, a webmaster, a blog writer and a normal E-commerce businessman. I have been running Amazon and Shopify stores for more than 3 years. During the period of running my own stores, I’ve been super aware of the exhaustion and helplessness of doing e-commerce business sometimes. This is the main reason why I created my ecommeCommerceerce tool collection website. There are over 300 tools and software I used or knew collected on this site, which help sellers with their product research, supplier finding, data analysis, keywords finding, SEO, Affiliate marketing… I believe these tools, software, and tutorials can improve our efficiency to some extent. I’m still working on some details right now, but it’s basically done.” Hope you can enjoy my collection here and I also wanna say thank to some kind people here who once gave me feedbacks and encouragement! I wish you all do well, and most importantly, be healthy~ (Here’s the site address) (Btw, If you have any suggestions for the site, please let me know right away:)
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This question, just like pretty much any question about email marketing, has a very simple answer: it depends. Why? Because there are so many variables that come into play with any email marketing campaign. There may be best practices to go off of or even some more methods that seem to be tried and true,…
The post What Day and Time Should You Be Sending Your Email Newsletters? appeared first on Benchmark Email.

Hiring generally comes with ebbs and flows. During one six-month stretch in 2021, a particularly busy season, I spent more than 120 working hours in six months asking more than 350 individuals the same seven questions for our Buffer values screen. At the end of each conversation, I’d turn the conversation over to them, and many of them asked the same few questions, which I’ll cover in another post.
In that time and with the intensity of the sheer volume of calls, I’ve gained a lot of clarity: about hiring, about what candidates are looking for right now, and about myself as well.
Here are a few of those reflections and some of our values questions that you can ponder, too. We’ve been told they’re thought provoking for many candidates.
Hiring at Buffer
Buffer’s hiring process has grown and evolved a lot over the past eight years that I’ve been on the team. One thing remains constant and vital: we begin interviews with a values screen. (Psst, we also intentionally do not seek out “culture fit” anymore – here’s why.)
The general process looks like this:

Application review: We’re reviewing resumes and asking role-specific questions.
Values screen: We screen candidates with Buffer’s values in mind, we do about 15-20 values screens per role via Zoom.
Role or team interview: The hiring manager or fellow teammates interview candidates via Zoom.
(Optional) Technical screen: This is an exercise and then an interview for technical roles done via Zoom.
Executive interview: A final interview with a member of Buffer’s Executive team.

Sometimes the order of these move, or in some roles we find we need to add a take-home test, but this is the process template we start with when we’re hiring.
Our pipeline is fueled by inbound applications and because we are hiring from a global talent pool, we can have upwards of 600 to 800 applications for one open spot on the team. That’s a staggering amount of applicants, and it’s a highly flattering problem to have. The values screen as a first step in the process after reviewing applications helps us reduce a pool of really qualified candidates down to those who are also super aligned with Buffer.
What is the values screen?
The values screen is a nebulous thing and it’s the one interview where you don’t have “wrong” answers in the classic sense. The questions are prompts for us to converse and for us to listen to how a candidate speaks about themselves, their career, and their outlook on a few of our values. It truly is more about the heart behind it and less about a right or ideal answer. Or as one candidate called it, a “vibe check.”
We also tend to value characteristics that otherwise might not be seen as “correct” by other interview standards. Here’s an example: We used to ask the question, “How do you feel life has turned out for you so far?” The goal here wasn’t to hear any one answer. We used this question to measure resilience, optimism and authenticity.
We stopped using this question because 2020 has made this a bit more of a loaded and personal question. We now ask, “What motivates you in life?”
Here’s another secret: I don’t look for answers that fit the mold. If someone says, “Continuously learning or solving a puzzle,” that’s great and fine. If someone says, “My family or money,” that’s also fine. In fact, the more off-the-cuff or true the answer rings, the better.
Who progresses past the values screen?
It’s cliche to some extent, but it’s absolutely true at Buffer: We want to find people who we feel will be equally content here at Buffer as we will with them and their skill set.
Sometimes candidates are exceedingly qualified, but their answers lead me to think they won’t feel as successful in our unique work environment. This is definitely a judgement call and I’m not always correct. But all interviews involve some measure of subjectivity. We have typically four to five rounds of interviews and include a diverse set of interviewers to double check against bias and inconsistency.
This is all evolving
As I write this, I’m handing over all of hiring to our new Talent Acquisition and Onboarding Manager, Janet, as I transition my role to focus more on engagement and culture-building activities for our company. While I learned about HR and hiring while on the job here at Buffer (and thanks to a certification from the Society of Human Resources Management), Janet has spent many years in recruiting and is already offering a fresh outlook on our hiring approach, pipeline management, and applicant experience.
So while some of the elements I’ve touched on might evolve over the next few months or years, I hope it offers some insight to how we’ve hired at Buffer and what we look for.
What questions do you have about how we hire or our values screen? Send us a tweet!