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After months of hard work, multiple coffee runs, and navigation of the latest industry changes, you’ve finally finished your next big marketing campaign.
Complete with social media posts, PPC ads, and a sparkly new logo, it’s the campaign of a lifetime.
But how do you know it will be effective?

While there’s no sure way to know if your campaign will turn heads, there is a way to gauge whether those new aspects of your strategy will be effective.
If you want to know if certain components of your campaign are worth the effort, consider conducting a marketing experiment.
Marketing experiments give you a projection of how well marketing methods will perform before you implement them. Keep reading to learn how to conduct an experiment and discover the types of experiments you can run.
What are marketing experiments?
A marketing experiment is a form of market research in which your goal is to discover new strategies for future campaigns or validate existing ones.
For instance, a marketing team might create and send emails to a small segment of their readership to gauge engagement rates, before adding them to a campaign.
It’s important to note that a marketing experiment isn’t synonymous with a marketing test. Marketing experiments are done for discovery, while a test confirms theories.
Why should you run a marketing experiment?
Think of running a marketing experiment as taking out an insurance policy on future marketing efforts. It’s a way to minimize your risk and ensure that your efforts are in line with your desired results.
Imagine spending hours searching for the perfect gift. You think you’ve found the right one, only to realize later that it doesn’t align with your recipient’s taste or interests. Gifts come with receipts but there’s no money-back guarantee when it comes to marketing campaigns.
An experiment will help you better understand your audience, which in turn will enable you to optimize your strategy for a stronger performance.
Performing a marketing experiment involves doing research, structuring the experiment, and analyzing the results. Let’s go through the seven steps necessary to conduct a marketing experiment.
1. Brainstorm and prioritize experiment ideas.
The first thing you should do when running a marketing experiment is start with a list of ideas.
Don’t know where to start? Look at your current priorities. What goals are you focusing on for the next quarter or the next year?
From there, analyze historical data. Were your past strategies worked in the past and what were your low performers?
As you dig into your data, you may find that you still have unanswered questions about which strategies may be most effective. From there, you can identify potential reasons behind low performance and start brainstorming some ideas for future experiments.
Then, you can rank your ideas by relevance, timeliness, and return on investment so that you know which ones to tackle first.
Keep a log of your ideas online, like Google Sheets, for easy access and collaboration.
2. Find one idea to focus on.
Now that you have a log of ideas, you can pick one to focus on.
Ideally, you organize your list based on current priorities. As such, as the business evolves, your priorities may change and affect how you rank your ideas.
Say you want to increase your subscriber count by 1,000 over the next quarter. You’re several weeks away from the start of the quarter and after looking through your data, you notice that users don’t convert once they land on your landing page.
Your landing page would be a great place to start your experiment. It’s relevant to your current goals and will yield a large return on your investment.
Even unsuccessful experiments, meaning those that do not yield expected results, are incredibly valuable as they help you to better understand your audience.
3. Make a hypothesis.
Hypotheses aren’t just for science projects. When conducting a marketing experiment, the first step is to make a hypothesis you’re curious to test.
A good hypothesis for your landing page can be any of the following:

Changing the CTA copy from “Get Started” to “Join Our Community” will increase sign-ups by 5%.
Removing the phone number field from the landing page form will increase the form completion rate by 25%.
Adding a security badge on the landing page will increase the conversion rate by 10%.

This is a good hypothesis because you can prove or disprove it, it isn’t subjective, and has a clear measurement of achievement.
A not-so-good hypothesis will tackle several elements at once, be unspecific and difficult to measure. For example: “By updating the photos, CTA, and copy on the landing page, we should get more sign-ups.
Here’s why this doesn’t work: Testing several variables at once is a no-go when it comes to experimenting because it will be unclear which change(s) impacted the results. The hypothesis also doesn’t mention how the elements would be changed nor what would constitute a win.
Formulating a hypothesis takes some practice, but it’s the key to building a robust experiment.
4. Collect research.
After creating your hypothesis, begin to gather research. Doing this will give you background knowledge about experiments that have already been conducted and get an idea of possible outcomes.
Researching your experiment can help you modify your hypothesis if needed.
Say your hypothesis is, “Changing the CTA copy from “Get Started” to “Join Our Community” will increase sign-ups by 5%.” You may conduct more market research to validate your ideas surrounding your user persona and if they will resonate better with a community-focused approach.
It would be helpful to look at your competitors’ landing pages and see which strategies they’re using during your research.
5. Select your metrics.
Once you’ve collected the research, you can choose which avenue you will take and what metrics to measure.
For instance, if you’re running an email subject line experiment, the open rate is the right metric to track.
For a landing page, you’ll likely be tracking the number of submissions during the testing period. If you’re experimenting on a blog, you might focus on the average time on page.
It all depends on what you’re tracking and the question you want to answer with your experiment.
6. Execute the experiment.
Now it’s time to create and perform the experiment.
Depending on what you’re testing, this may be a cross-functional project that requires collaborating with other teams.
For instance, if you’re testing a new landing page CTA, you’ll likely need a copywriter or UX writer.
Everyone involved in this experiment should know:

The hypothesis and goal of the experiment
The timeline and duration
The metrics you’ll track

7. Analyze the results.
Once you’ve run the experiment, collect and analyze the results.
You want to gather enough data for statistical significance.
Use the metrics you’ve decided upon in the second step and conclude if your hypothesis was correct or not.
The prime indicators for success will be the metrics you chose to focus on.
For instance, for the landing page example, did sign-ups increase as a result of the new copy? If the conversion rate met or went above the goal, the experiment would be considered successful and one you should implement.
If it’s unsuccessful, your team should discuss the potential reasons why and go back to the drawing board. This experiment may spark ideas of new elements to test.
Now that you know how to conduct a marketing experiment, let’s go over a few different ways to run them.
Marketing Experiment Examples
There are many types of marketing experiments you can conduct with your team. These tests will help you determine how aspects of your campaign will perform before you roll out the campaign as a whole.
A/B testing is one of the popular ways to marketing in which two versions of a webpage, email, or social post are presented to an audience (randomly divided in half). This test determines which version performs better with your audience.
This method is useful because you can better understand the preferences of users who will be using your product.
Find below the types of experiments you can run.
1. Website
Your website is arguably your most important digital asset. As such, you’ll want to make sure it’s performing well.
If your bounce rate is high, the average time on page is low, or your visitors aren’t navigating your site in the way you’d like, it may be time to run an experiment.
2. Landing Pages
Landing pages are used to convert visitors into leads. If your landing page is underperforming, running an experiment can yield high returns.
The great thing about running a test on a landing page is that there are typically only a few elements to test: your background image, your copy, form, and CTA.
3. CTAs
Experimenting with different CTAs can improve the number of people who engage with your content.
For instance, instead of using “Buy Now!” to pull customers in, why not try, “Learn more.”
You can also test different colors of CTAs as opposed to the copy.
4. Paid Media Campaigns
There are so many different ways to experiment with ads.
Not only can you test ads on various platforms to see which ones reach your audience the best, but you can also experiment with the type of ad you create.
As a big purveyor of GIFs in the workplace, animating ads are a great way to catch the attention of potential customers. Those may work great for your brand.
You may also find that short videos or static images work better.
This Instagram ad from We’re Not Really Strangers uses multimedia to make its post stand out. If you’re testing out PPC advertising, try diversifying those ads to capture the interest of more audiences.
Additionally, you might run different types of copy with your ads to see which language compels your audience to click.
To maximize your return on ad spend (ROAS), run experiments on your paid media campaigns.
4. Social Media Platforms
Is there a social media site you’re not using? For instance, lifestyle brands might prioritize Twitter and Instagram, but implementing Pinterest opens the door for an untapped audience.
You might consider testing which hashtags or visuals you use on certain social media sites to see how well they perform.
The more you use certain social platforms, the more iterations you can create based on what your audience responds to.
You might even use your social media analytics to determine which countries or regions you should focus on — for instance, my Twitter Analytics, below, demonstrates where most of my audience resides.

If alternatively, I saw most of my audience came from India, I might need to alter my social strategy to ensure I catered to India’s time zone.
When experimenting with different time zones, consider making content specific to the audience you’re trying to reach.
5. Copy
Your copy — the text used in marketing campaigns to persuade, inform, or entertain an audience — can make or break your marketing strategy.
If you’re not in touch with your audience, your message may not resonate. Perhaps you haven’t fleshed out your user persona or you’ve conducted limited research.
As such, it may be helpful to test what tone and concepts your audience enjoys. A/B testing is a great way to do this, you can also run surveys and focus groups to better understand your audience.
6. Email
Email marketing continues to be one of the best digital channels to grow and nurture your leads.
If you have low open or high unsubscribe rates, it’s worth running experiments to see what your audience will respond best to.
Perhaps your subject lines are too impersonal or unspecific. Or the content in your email is too long.
By playing around with various elements in your email, you can figure out the right strategy to reach your audience.
Ultimately, marketing experiments are a cost-effective way to get a picture of how new content ideas will work in your next campaign, which is critical for ensuring you continue to delight your audience.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Hi, I just built a web app where you can create image & video dynamically for marketing. It’s like canva but dynamic, you can generate your images or videos through form, spreadsheet and API (zapier coming soon) Here’s the url https://duply.co ​ Would love to hear perspective from marketing side – What do you think about the app? – What features are missing / need to change / improve? – or any other ideas you have Thanks
submitted by /u/distartin [link] [comments]

Do you think that marketing automation tools are relevant for someone who’s working alone in a marketing department? (I don’t refer to email tools like Mailchimp, but tools like Active Campaign, Hubspot…). What’s your opinion?
submitted by /u/Calista110 [link] [comments]

Looking for inspiration for your online portfolio? Learn from these 12 top-notch portfolio sites.

 

 

Email marketing personalization is a surefire way to boost performance in this channel. According to Smart Insights, up to 63% of consumers won’t buy from brands that don’t use personalization*. Email marketing practitioners know many tricks to personalize email campaigns even better. Here are 5 turbo-charged ways to personalize emails.

 

There is no need to convince anyone about the necessity of using personalization in email marketing. It is quite a well-known fact.

 

Personalized emails have a 29% higher unique open rate (OR) and a 41% higher unique click rate (CR) than non-personalized ones. (Active Trail)
About 75% of consumers find the idea of “living profiles” (highly detailed customer profiles) valuable if they were used to provide more personalized experiences. (Accenture)

 

The top three reasons to use personalization in email marketing are (SaleCycle):

 

better OR (82%),
higher click-through rate (CTR) (75%),
greater customer satisfaction (58%).

 

The question arises, “How do you do it?” when everyone has it as standard? The answer is to go above and beyond what your competition is offering.

 

5 turbo-advanced ways to personalize an email

 

Easy to say, but how to implement it? What specific mechanisms are worth using when creating an email to mesmerize your audience? Here are 5 examples.

 

#1 Find a logical connection to encourage discovery of new products [Online drugstore example]

 

The connection between products worth recommending is not always obvious. What motivates a person buying, for example, perfume in an online drugstore? Most likely they have their favorite fragrance compositions. Thorough analysis of purchased products allows you to suggest products that are likely to be of interest to individual clients. You can, of course, recommend products already bought, or chosen by people who have already bought the product, but there are many other, more impressive possibilities.

 

The idea: 

Emails personalized regarding the favorite perfume lines / fragrances / fragrance notes

 

Conditional content helps you tailor a 1-to-1 message to your recipients

 

The setup:

 

To carry out this procedure, you will need a solid description of the assortment in the XML file. In the description, it is certainly worth marking the fragrance notes and fragrance category for different perfumes. This will make it easier to recommend perfumes with similar notes, but for example from different price shelves (upselling), or whole fragrance lines of different products (cross-selling).

 

This is the data you will use:

transactional data
declarative data
visits to a website
visits to a mobile application
transaction analysis (XML)

 

Actions: 

 

Using selected data, you can segment your recipient groups into appropriately named groups, e.g. floral fragrances, Channel, musk (fragrance notes). You can also assign appropriate tags to contacts based on preferences and transaction history.

 

Those are the features you can use:

With your audience and recipients already segmented, you can start sending diversified content to them based on the segment they belong to. There are many ways to personalize email, but in this case the best choice will be Conditional Content and Dynamic Banners. You have several scenarios to choose from, such as:

 

Discover new [Fragrance line] fragrances
Set of [Fragrance name] perfume + body lotion
We just added a [fragrance note] perfume that you might like

 

#2 Paint the world with your favorite team’s colors [Sports streaming service example]

 

To quote a 2004 study by Alain Decrop and Christian Derbaix “Color seems to be the key attribute of a ‘good’ football fan. Half of our informants spontaneously refer to that attribute when defining a ‘good supporter’. It is seen as an easy way to make a distinction between a football supporter and another person. Colors are related to clothing items such as scarves, hats, or shirts.” The Effect of Identification with a Sports Team and its Performance on the Willingness of Fans to Pay for Team Products study says that the level of identification with a team is one of the key factors (along with team performance) affecting fans’ willingness to spend money on team-related activities and items.

 

The idea: 

The entire message (layout, content) is tailored to the aesthetics of your favorite team/sport plus it presents interesting facts about your favorite athletes

 

Transactional data is an excellent basis for email marketing personalization

 

The setup:

Take information about purchases, visited websites, declarative data and in-app behavior and prepare 3 segmentations based on them: favorite teams, favorite sports, favorite sportspeople.Then group the graphic materials and order banners in the colors of selected teams.  Finally, prepare interesting facts about people from the world of sport and divide them according to the sport they practice and the teams they belong to.

 

This is the data you will use:

transactional data
declarative data
visits to a website
visits to a mobile application
transaction analysis (XML)

 

Actions:

Instead of drafting a separate email to each sports enthusiast, create a universal message that automatically serves your readers information about their idols. You can send information about upcoming broadcasts, offers from the fan store, and even interesting facts about the lives of celebrities associated with specific sports.

 

Those are the features you can use:

Using advanced hyper segmentation capabilities, you can target people from a variety of predefined segments, such as those interested in making a purchase or avid fans who frequently visit the website. Then, using personalized banners and conditional content, customize messages to show information that will interest them.  You can create, for example:

 

newsletter for [athlete’s name] fans
gadgets offer for [soccer team name] fans
educational series for [sport name] fans

 

#3 Address your customer’s shopping habits [Apparel eCommerce example]

 

A research article The Influence of Product Price on Consumers’ Purchasing Decisions states that “price is an important factor in the purchasing decision, especially for products that are frequently purchased, and in turn, influences the choices of which store, product, and brand to patronize.” Following this logic, consider a campaign that will leverage this very factor to convince customers and clients to make a purchase.

 

The idea: 

Personalization by price range combined with recovery of abandoned carts through offering cheaper products / progressive discounts

 

The CDP platform offers the possibility to automatically grant progressive discounts

 

The setup:

Prepare a product feed (XML) and make sure you have access to the AI recommendation module.

 

This is the data you will use:

transactional data
RFM
product feed

 

Actions:

Prepare a mailing that implements an AI-driven recommendation scenario. You can combine it with abandoned shopping cart recovery. You will encourage shoppers by showing them slightly cheaper products and additionally adding a personalized discount.

 

Those are the features you can use:

When preparing the message, make room in it for AI recommendations with additional filters (filters: price range). Furthermore, configure the appropriate segmentation rules that will assign discounts. To display the discount in email, use personalization formulas in the body of the email. You will get a message showing products from a selected price range and also encourage your recipients to make a purchase with an attractive progressive discount.

 

#4 Use data to make others’ lives easier [Delivery company example]

 

According to Harvard Business Review “after controlling for other factors that drive repeat purchases in the transaction-based business (for example, how often the customer needs the type of goods and services that the company sells), customers who had the best past experiences spend 140% more compared to those who had the poorest past experience.” Post-transaction emails, including the shipping message, are a very important part of the customer experience. That’s why it’s worth taking care of them.

 

The idea: 

Personalization using package details combined with footer personalization with region manager signature

 

Post-purchase message with shipping details makes life easier for buyers!

 

The setup:

Create a message that provides the orderer with all the details about the package. Also add a footer of the person who is in charge of customer service in the region to which the package is sent. You can read about how to do this in the article: 3 Out-of-the-box Ideas For Personalizing B2C Emails.

 

This is the data you will use:

external events (e.g. RESERVATION)

 

Actions:

In desired places in the message, add fields that pull value from external events. This way each message will be fully personalized and responsive to the needs of the selected recipient.

 

Those are the features you can use:

You will definitely need segmentation rules to assign a set of details needed for personalization. Also, make use of the formulas for personalization. These are responsible for displaying the package details and the personalized footer in the body of the email.

 

#5 Take advantage of the specifics of the VIP sector [Jewelry eCommerce example]

 

Price is the first threshold of entry into the VIP area of luxury products. Unlike the premium class, luxury goods are distinguished by the fact that not everyone can have them and they are perceived as artifacts of luxury. This is why customers who buy them often like to be treated like a closed VIP club. Upselling and raising prices while limiting product availability works very well in this group.

 

The idea: 

Personalization using scoring, RFM segmentation and VIP funnel, so that the exclusivity of recommended products increases along with the spending

 

Singling out VIP customers is a good practice in the high-end products industry

 

The setup:

Your main tool will be a sales funnel, which you can easily create in the SALESmanago system. To add a new sales campaign (funnel) go to CDP → Campaigns and funnels → Add new campaign. Then fill in the right fields, add campaign stages, choose how to add contacts to the funnel and save your progress.

 

This is the data you will use:

transactional data
RFM

 

Actions:

Using RFM segmentation and transactional data, prepare a set of rules that will add customers to the campaign and move them down the purchase funnel if they reach the required in-store spend cap. The funnel will be the basis for segmentation in the VIP campaign. Order appropriate banners and graphics for your messages as well. You may also decide to change the layout and color scheme as the prestige level in the campaign increases.

 

Those are the features you can use:

Segmentation rules are the basis in this case. They will assign specific contacts to the appropriate stage in the funnel. Of course, you also need the funnel itself. While creating an email campaign, use dynamic banners, which will differ depending on the segment. You can also leverage conditional content and AI recommendations with additional filters (filters: products marked as exclusive in the product feed).

 

Advanced email personalization: a brief closing note

 

Personalizing emails is a lot of fun. Discovering newer and newer ways to reach your audience 1-to-1 is a fantastic analytical and psychological exercise. A thorough knowledge of your target group and a hyper-personalization tool make this process much easier.

 

If you have any email personalization ideas and want to test them in practice, be sure to email your account manager at SALESmanago. Let’s explore the vast possibilities of our CDP platform together. 

 

*Source: Smart Insights

When you think of online shopping destinations, Twitter may not be the first place that comes to mind. However, with ecommerce sales continuing to rise due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, social platforms want in on the action.
On Instagram, business owners can add a “shop” feature to their profile, allowing users to make purchases directly from the profiles of their favorite brands. Similarly, TikTok teased an upcoming shop feature and integration with Shopify earlier this year. Now Twitter is testing new strategies to integrate online shopping experiences into the user experience.

The platform previously had a “Buy Now” button before retiring the feature in 2017 to focus on other avenues. Now Twitter appears to be circling back on this idea giving business account holders new tools for converting customers on the platform potentially turning Twitter into a space where buyers can discover new products while engaging in conversation with brands and communities.
Here’s what we know about Twitter’s commerce experiments so far.
Why Twitter Is Testing Ecommerce Features
In early 2021, Twitter executives announced their goal to double revenue to $7.5 billion and reach 315 million active users by the end of 2023.
Working towards such ambitious goals, Twitter is looking to introduce new revenue streams to help grow and monetize its user base – and one of those key streams is an ecommerce play designed to give businesses the tools they need to drive conversational sales.
During Twitter’s 2021 investor’s call Bruce Falck, Revenue Product Lead at Twitter said:
“We’re also starting to explore ways to better support commerce on Twitter. Our MAP (mobile application program) efforts help us understand how our users are transacting on the platform. Installing an app via an ad is in itself a form of commerce. We know people come to Twitter to interact with brands and discuss their favorite products.
In fact, you may have even noticed some businesses already developing creative ways to enable sales on our platform. This demand gives us confidence in the power of combining real-time conversation with an engaged and intentional audience.”
Essentially, the platform has aggressive business goals over the next two years and sees commerce as a viable way to increase engagement and revenue opportunities outside of traditional advertising.

Then we’re also thinking about commerce. Helping people buy things on Twitter. We want to be really thoughtful about how we do this so that we’re helping advertisers find their customers and continue to own that relationship with the customer. $TWTR— Twitter Investor Relations (@TwitterIR)
March 3, 2021

Twitter’s Ecommerce Test
The Shop Module
In July 2021, Twitter rolled out a robust ecommerce test: The Shop Module.

Image Source
The Shop Module will allow brands to display products in a carousel format at the top of the profile. When a user visits a brand’s Twitter account, they will be able to scroll through a handful of products, have the ability to tap in to learn more about each product, and eventually purchase.
This initial test is designed to determine the shopability of Twitter profiles. Though consumers typically visit Twitter to connect directly with brands for questions and customer service inquiries, Twitter is looking to understand what in-app behavior can drive users to make a purchase. As more data is collected, it will be interesting to see if Twitter can see a clear link between conversation topics and sales of related products through the platform.
Twitter has rolled out this feature to a small number of brands across industries based in the United States, and Twitter users based in the U.S. who use the English app on iOS devices are currently able to see it live.
With the feature being deployed to business profiles offering vastly different products, Twitter is also testing which product verticals sell from the platform. See The Shop Module in action below.

Image Source
Shoppable Twitter Cards
In March 2021, Twitter also began testing commerce features for organic tweets. Essentially, tweets that feature a direct link to a shopping page or product can generate a new Twitter card with a “shop” button and auto-populated product details.

Image Source
When a user clicks the shop button, they would be taken directly to the product page of the account’s website. The shoppable Twitter card appears very similar to promoted tweets. With this feature, Twitter is testing the viability of commerce through organic shares.
At the time of publication, this feature is still an experiment and hasn’t been rolled out to all Twitter users. It has been reported the shoppable Twitter card has been seen by international users and on Android devices.
How Brands Could Leverage Social Commerce on Twitter
Even if your company profile hasn’t been granted access to these new features, now is the perfect time to put a strategy in place so you can be ready to use Twitter’s commerce tools to your advantage.
1. Create organic conversation around products and services.
Consumers engage with brands on Twitter to ask questions and surface customer service inquiries. Start organically aligning your content on Twitter with products and services you’d like to highlight in the space to prepare your audience for what’s ahead with these new commerce features.
For example, a skincare company could start a conversation with its audience on Twitter about creating the ideal skincare routine. The company’s profile could start a thread with educational tweets about each essential step of an effective skincare routine and why each step is beneficial.
The audience would likely join the conversation sharing steps of their skincare routine and asking for product recommendations, creating space for the brand to share more information about its products to an engaged audience.
By continuing to prime the audience with these types of interactions, once the skincare brand gains access to Twitter’s commerce features, they can begin featuring the products discussed and measuring the audience’s response (through clicks and purchases).
2. Select a variety of products to feature on The Shop Module.
If your company profile is granted access to The Shop Module, use it as an opportunity to conduct research on what products best resonate with your Twitter audience. Try incorporating a variety of products at different price points, and regularly assess which products are getting the most click-throughs and purchases.
3. Take an experimental approach.
In the initial stages, don’t rely too heavily on using these new features to drive more sales. Instead, take a more experimental approach to gauge performance with your audience then refine your strategy when you have a more robust set of data.
When rolling out these new features, Twitter has clearly stated it is testing things out to better understand user behavior. Marketers should take the same approach to learn what resonates with their unique audiences.
With social media platforms giving brands more opportunities to sell through their platforms, marketers can find innovative ways to organically connect consumers to products and services they’ll love.