Category: Marketing Automation

Someone please tell me u can confirm this behavior, and that I’m not crazy and that exporting it like that is actually invalid csv… submitted by /u/meyerovb [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/AutomationMarketer [link] [comments]

HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE: 5 REAL WAYS TO EARN MONEY ONLINE How to Make Money Online: 5 Real Ways GET PAID TO USE FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND YOUTUBE 1. Start Dropshipping Let’s start our list off with one of the most popular ways to make money online. According to Google Trends, dropshipping’s popularity is rapidly growing, highlighting its viability as a way to make money online. With success stories about how an entrepreneur made $6,667 in eight weeks or how a store owner made six figures selling just one product, there’s plenty of proof that dropshipping is a real way to make money online. 2. Try Print on Demand Take a 1-minute quiz to find out what type of social media job you are best suited to. Click here TO Start. Print on demand is proving to be a popular option too. Graphic designers are turning to the business model to sell their designs on clothing and other products to monetize their art better. With their unique designs, they can create a consistent and established brand for their business. 3. Make Money with Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money online. Throughout the years, its popularity has gone up and down, but it continues to prove to be a stable way to make money online. The best part about affiliate marketing is that you can be an affiliate for nearly any company, from Shopify to Amazon to Uber to FabFitFun. 4. Become an Influencer Building a personal brand can also help you make money online. Did you know in 2019, Cristiano Ronaldo earned $975,000 for every sponsored Instagram post, making him the highest-paid influencer? While it may seem like reality stars, singers, and athletes are the biggest influencers, keep in mind that even smaller-scale influencers can make more money today than they did a few years back 5. Become a Writer With a growing interest in content marketing, more brands are looking for great writers to create content. The secret to succeeding as a writer is to be an expert in a niche. A lot of writers try to be generalists, writing for a wide range of categories, from food to tech. However, having a niche focus as a writer allows you to write better content. Take a 1-minute quiz to find out what type of social media job you are best suited to. Click here TO Start. submitted by /u/Nikonpaz [link] [comments]

I would love to hear about your attitudes as a professional in this field! Short 5 min explorative survey. Questions about your job, data, practice. https://forms.gle/BcFDgq1BU1XEGfH99 submitted by /u/Accomplished-Fix8587 [link] [comments]

People often think that because I run a self-care startup, I must live a perfectly balanced life. Even I assumed that I knew the boundaries and habits I needed to put in place to take care of myself while running my company.And yet, despite spending the past three years building Silk + Sonder—thinking about self-care every day, writing monthly journaling prompts for our members, and even being the voice of the audio meditations on our app—I recently found myself experiencing burnout like I never had before.It wasn’t caused by a major company event or life crisis, just the typical requirements of being a founder. Every day, I was switching between big-picture thinking and putting out short-term fires. I was constantly making decisions across operations, product, marketing, and growth. I had been saying yes to every meeting and was constantly finding another problem to tackle.Without me really noticing, my personal care habits started slipping: I wasn’t going to the gym, wasn’t eating the right foods, and was feeling pressure to keep the people in my life happy even though I had less social time than ever. I was overextending myself, but as a founder, I’m so used to operating outside my comfort zone and facing challenges left and right that I didn’t think anything of it.Until one day, when I woke up with a headache so intense that I couldn’t even look at my phone. I took some Advil and hoped it would subside by the time I finished my morning journaling—but found I couldn’t even look at the words on the page. When I started feeling nauseous, I knew something was wrong. I managed to eke out a text to my assistant to clear my calendar for the day, then texted a founder friend for advice. “I think you’re experiencing burnout,” she said. I was in disbelief because I always associated burnout with heightened anxiety, not debilitating exhaustion.I spent the next eight hours lying on the couch doing absolutely nothing. I needed to unplug, but even my go-to unplugging tools like a book or a podcast felt too draining.After a day of rest, I was thankfully ready to get back in action. But I knew that if I didn’t address the root cause, I’d be incapacitated again before I knew it. And while some good, old-fashioned self-care spurred my immediate recovery, the long-term solution involved deeper changes in how I was approaching my work.Here are the strategies that have helped me escape and avoid the burnout cycle since.I started by reassessing my energy needsImmediately, I knew I needed to make some adjustments in how I was spending my time so that I could better protect my energy.Making my calendar work for meFirst, I looked for ways to rework my calendar. I tend to operate best when I have two to three hours of focused work a day, but leading up to the burnout I had been ignoring that structure. So I blocked off some uninterrupted work hours each day and looked for meetings I could cut from my calendar, such as recurring check-ins where updates could instead be shared asynchronously.Using an energy map to delegateI also revisited how I was spending my time by creating an energy map: writing down all my daily and weekly tasks and categorizing which of them charged or drained me. I knew I wanted to spend most of my day on energy-giving activities, so this became an instant guidebook for what I needed to delegate. I noticed that sourcing candidates and taking the screening calls was draining a lot of time and energy, and it could readily be handed off.  To this day, I’ll create a new map when my to-do list feels like it’s getting out of hand.Reserving time for myselfFinally, I looked for ways to recommit to my wellness needs. I started pre-booking workout classes throughout the week so I wouldn’t neglect exercise and became more intentional about spending my weekends filling my cup with activities like journaling, reading, and fun social outings.The “wheel of life” from our Silk + Sonder journals is one of my favorite tools for figuring out which areas of my holistic well-being could use some attention.I’ve worked on strategizing instead of reactingOne of the problems that led to my burnout was that I had fallen into reaction mode, constantly playing whack-a-mole with every question, need, and problem that came up. I knew that I had to get more strategic about how I was approaching the needs of my business so that I could focus on the most important tasks, rather than being pulled in a thousand directions.Choosing one primary goal every dayI started by adopting a technique we recommend in our Silk + Sonder planners, in which you pick one thing to get done each day that will make everything else easier. I like to focus my one thing on expansive creative thinking for my business or tasks that make me a more effective CEO. I know that, unless the company is literally burning to the ground, these should take priority over other tasks that come up throughout the day.Carving out dedicated time to do your “one thing” can be valuable whether you’re running a business or just trying to figure out how to prioritize your daily work tasks.Setting realistic expectations with my teamI also had to be more transparent about when I could address questions or review deliverables from my team members, even if it wasn’t on their deadline. I’m always tempted to stop what I’m doing and address their needs—especially when I’m holding them back from getting something done—but I found that communicating realistic timelines has been better received than over-committing and under-delivering (or working myself into the ground to deliver anyway).Empowering my employees to make their own decisionsFinally, I’ve been working on removing myself from every business decision. If a teammate comes to me for input in an area I don’t know much about, I’ll be honest with them that, while I’m happy to talk through it, I trust their expertise. This helps empower them with the knowledge that they can make decisions without me. All around, it’s been better for them, better for me, and better for the business.I’m consistently building new positive habitsFinally, I’ve found that the journey to create healthy habits to avoid burnout is a continuous one. Not only have I regularly had to adjust or recommit to habits when I feel burnout creeping on again, I’ve had to remind other people in my life of my needs. After all, I am the best advocate for my own well-being.Habit trackers are a favorite journaling tool of mine for actually sticking to new healthy patterns.Reducing notifications & checking messages on my own timeFor instance, to reduce the temptation to context switch and reshift intended priorities, I’ve disabled Slack notifications and email previews from my phone and computer. I am aware of my tendency to invite distractions in—especially if they help others move faster—but I’ve realized that, more often than not, my involvement can wait. To preserve time for flow and creative thinking, I check these accounts a few times per day on my schedule. I use this same approach in my personal life, reminding my fiance and family members that, just because I’m not in a meeting, doesn’t mean I’m available for personal or home-related questions.Training my team on when to treat something as urgentPeople know that if there’s a true emergency they can text or call me, but I’ve also been working on training my team on knowing when something is truly urgent. I encourage them to ask themselves, “Is this so urgent that whatever Meha is working on, she needs to stop right this second to help deal with it?”It’s hard to do this when you feel like everyone is looking to you, but ultimately I think founders put more pressure on themselves than they need to. I’ve found that my team appreciates my trust in them, as well as my transparency around my needs. In fact, they respect that I’m setting myself up to do my best work for them and for the business.

 

 

As we launched our Customer Preference Center at the beginning of this year, it opened up an entirely new world of hypersegmentation possibilities. Now, the creative utilization of many of our features will enable you to deliver a message always tailored to individual needs and tastes, and turn your CDP into the Customer Intimacy Platform, building long-lasting relationships.

In many of our articles, you will find all kinds of praises for zero-party data. Well, we focused on them for a reason:

it is  the best answer to data privacy regulations and the cookieless eCommerce world, it enables you to create a business model around a very efficient CVL-ROI approach, it’s the only dataset type the companies can honestly call green data

But also:

zero-party data allows you to go back to the roots of commerce, a one-to-one approach to the customer, which is exactly what the overwhelming majority of customers expect from the brands today.

In this article, we will show you how to do it exactly and what CDP features will provide you with the necessary tools.

In other words, we will show you the practical means for hypersegmentation. But first …

 

A few tasty stats to awaken the imagination

 

77% of marketing ROI comes from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns. Non-targeted campaigns show a 50% lower CTR than segmented campaigns. Segmentation leads to 3 to 5% increase in returns on promoted sales. Segmentation causes companies to be 60% more likely to understand customers.Only 4% of companies segment with multiple data types.  Using personas makes 90% of companies more knowledgeable about their customers

The obvious benefits of targeting make us wonder, why so shockingly few companies combine the datasets. Especially when zero-party data enrich profiles built on first-party behavioral information.

 

Website automation – personalized content with zero-party data

 

With Website automation you are able to deliver in real-time, contextual, fully automated, and personalized touchpoints. It enables creating advanced scenarios of providing content for the website, such as:

pop-up and exit pop-updisplaying consent forms of Web Push notificationsopening Live Chat windowchanging text in the chat bubbleperforming any javascript on the website

When you create a scenario, you configure the set of customer features and indicate which behavior on the website should trigger a particular content.

Now imagine this, combined with zero-party data

Example:

Using Customers Preference Center, the online shop gathered information, that the particular clients preferred color is red, and that she likes summer dresses, it also acquired information about her price range. 

Rules of Website Automation work for both anonymous and monitored contacts. In this case, it will aid our efforts towards monitored ones. Now all this data can be activated when creating automation rules. You can now:

greet the customer with the pop-up containing the selection of red dresses in her price range.start Live Chat with the proposition of all products in her price range, fitting her the type of dresses she specified. display the exit pop-up with the selection of shoes fitting both the summer red dress and the price range.

Zero-party data will enable you to hyperpersonalize all the messages in the pop-up and Live Chat channels.

 

Custom Modal Designer – pop-us on time and preferred device

 

Custom Modal Designer is an advanced creator that allows you to create not only pop-ups containing a form, but also pop-ups with only graphics. Extensive visual personalization options for each widget will make your popups catch the attention of every user. The Designer allows selected groups of users to display pop-ups containing special offers based on their behavior on the website and CDP data.

In addition, you have the option of setting the exact location, display time, and pop-up display pause time. 

This is a perfect opportunity to utilize the information about the message time and frequency, gathered via the Customer Preference Center.

Example:

Our customer, a fan of red dresses, specified in the Customer Preference Center, that she would like to receive information about the products. You can easily adjust the time of display according to the customers’ preferences.

Also, remember, you can ask virtually any question using Customer Preference Center if you feel it will be useful for your operations. For example, if you asked your customer whether she prefers to browse on the computer or smartphone, you can design a graphical pop-up with Custom Modal Designer specifically to fit the specification of the preferred device, which will save you a lot of work.

 

Personal Shopping Inbox – a great supplement to the Customer Preference Center

 

The Personal Shopping Inbox combines the benefits of several marketing tools. First and foremost, it is a notification center and wishlist combined with recommendations and loyalty program information. It combines One-to-One Messaging, Wishlists, Special Offers, and Recommendations in one fully customizable personal space for each and every website visitor.

Among the possible applications of Personal Shopping Inbox you will find: 

boost in-store conversions, increasing cart value, collect zero- and first-party data.

Example:

Our customer, as it turns out, is looking for much more than red dresses. Her Wishlist is full of autumn products, like wool tights, trousers, and coats of various colors. This is all zero-party data, not in any way worse than this collected via the Customer Preference Center. It will become a great feed for Website Personalization, pop-ups generated in Custom Modal Designer, and Recommendations that are a part of the Personal Shopping Inbox. You can easily pick and recommend products related to her choices, within the preferred price range.

And since we started talking about recommendations

 

Recommendation Frames – customers’ preferred products right on the main page

 

Product recommendation frames are the most modern tool enabling full personalization of the offer presented in your online store, for both monitored and anonymous users, using its own unique technology to place frames on the website.

To understand it better – here is how it may look. Not only product has been personalized, the looks also can be adjusted to fit the style.

 

 

Remember, the following example will be completely customized, so the exact look from the creator may look completely different. It is up to you and your needs. 

Example:

This is the place, where our red summer dress-loving customer, who also likes coats and trousers in the time of autumn, should see all the products related to her preferences, within an interesting price range, right after she enters the website. The combined data from Wishlist and Customer Preference Center are the perfect feed for Recommendation Frames. Usually, recommendations are based on first-party data and customers’ online behavior. Recommendation Frames in SALESmanago can easily be built on much more reliable zero-party information.

 

Web Push Notifications – the perfect mix of zero and first-party data

 

Dynamic Web Push notifications are brief, customer data-driven messages with personal recommendations displayed in a browser window that can be sent as both mass and 1-to-1 communications.

The perfect combination of datasets to feed Web Push notifications is zero and first-party data mix.

Example:

Exactly as in the case of Recommendation Frames, data from the Customer Preference Center and Wishlist will provide you with the perfect set of information, when it comes to zero-party data. The difference is the time of a message – notifications can be sent at time preferred by the customer. Combining the feed with first-party behavioral information will get you the best results.

 

Personalized banners – because why not personalize all website?

 

Personalized banners allow you to tailor the content of your website to specific users’ interests. This content can be adjusted by the segmentation tool or the stage of the funnel where the contact belongs. The content can also be adjusted to the automation rules tool.

And we are not talking about the old definition of segmentation. Traditionally, eCommerce segmented customers according to demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and geographic characteristics. But these days are long gone now as new marketing tools allowed for hypersegmentation. According to Cap Gemini hyper-segmentation is “advanced and real-time customization of offerings, content, and customer experiences on an individual level.”.

It is not about creating just a few segments, capacious enough to contain relatively large groups of people, so everyone can fit somewhere. Hypersegmentation means creating as many segments as possible, sometimes only for a moment, even for a single customer, to deliver an extremely personalized experience. 

There is only one condition for such action to make sense – such segments must be actionable.

Example:

So basically yes, you can have as many website content compositions as many customers you have. In time, when your relationship with the customers matures and you will amass enough zero-party data, our red dress fan will see a completely different website, then her, sport wear-loving colleague, visiting the same online store. 

 

Wrapping up

 

You are able to action all the information gathered via Wishlist, and, first and foremost, Customer Preference Center, to hyperpersonalize:

time and content of all the messages that are being sent to the customerscontent and style of all the banners and recommendationsand even the whole of your website

to the needs and preferences of even a single customer!

Orchestrating most of the mentioned functionalities may require some resources and effort, or even require elements of the Enterprise bundle. If you want to utilize them, contact us! 

 

Do you want to optimize your website but have trouble communicating with the technical folks running it? Then, you need an SEO glossary.
Jargon alone shouldn’t stop you from making your site the powerful marketing tool it can be.

This is a list of the most essential search engine optimization (SEO) terms to help marketers communicate with developers and understand how to optimize their websites.
# | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | W | X |
40 SEO Terms You Must Know!

Numbers
2xx status codes – Code sent by the server to say that the request was successful.
301 Redirect – The process of permanently redirecting a webpage from one URL to another.
302 Redirect – The process of temporarily redirecting a webpage from one URL to another.
4xx status codes – Code sent by the server to say that the request was unsuccessful and the information was not found.
5xx status codes – Code sent by the server to say that there was a problem with the server.

A
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) – An open source project by Google to help publishers create webpages and content that are optimize for all devices.
ALT Text/Alt Attribute – A description of an image in your site’s HTML. Unlike humans, search engines read only the ALT text of images, not the images themselves. Add ALT text to images whenever possible.
Anchor Text – The actual text of a link to a web page. On most websites, this text is usually dark blue and underlined, or purple if you’ve visited the link in the past. Anchor text helps search engines understand what the destination page is about, it describes what you will see if you click through.
Authority – How reliable a website is based on search engine’s algorithm.

B
Backlink – A link pointing to an external webpage.
Black Hat – Practices that go against Google’s webmaster guidelines.
Blog – A webpage that includes blog posts related to specific topics and/or industry.
Bookmark – A link to a website saved for later reference in your web browser or computer.
Bot – A software application that is programmed to complete specific tasks.
Bounce Rate – The amount of users who leave a webpage after only viewing one page.
Branded Keyword – A search query (keyword) that refers to a specific brand. E.g.: “Nike shoes”
Breadcrumb – A web link that lets you know where you are on a website and how far you are from the homepage.
Broken Link – A link that leads to a 404 error page. This can happen if a webpage is removed without a redirect. (See 4xx status codes)
Browser – Software that allows you to access information and data on the internet. The most common browsers include Google Chrome, Safari, and FireFox.

C
Cache – A storage location that collects temporary data to help websites, apps, and browsers load faster.
Canonical URL – The canonical URL is the best address on which a user can find a piece of information. Sometimes you might have a situation where the same page content can be accessed at more than one address. Specifying the canonical URL helps search engines understand which address for a piece of content is the best one.
ccTLD – Stands for country-code top-level domain and is used to define the domain for a specific country or region. E.g. www.mysite.co.uk
Cloaking – A black hat practice used to display different information on a webpage than what was expected.
Conversion Form – A form through which you collect information about your site visitor. Conversion forms convert traffic into leads. Collecting contact information helps you follow up with these leads.
Crawler – A program used by search engines to gather information on websites and accurately index them.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – The part of your code that defines how different elements of your site look (examples: headers, links).

D
Deep Link – This can refer to two things: A link pointing to content on a mobile application or a link pointing a webpage other than a homepage.
De-Index – When a search engine removes a website or webpage from search results.
Disavow – When you tell Google to ignore links because they’re low-quality, spam, or artificial.
Do-follow – A hyperlink that instructs search engines to follow the link instead of the “nofollow” attribute. (See nofollow)
Domain – The main web address of your site (example: www.yoursite.com).

E
External link – A hyperlink that points to a webpage on another domain. This is also known as a backlink. (See backlink).

F
Featured Snippet – Highlighted excerpts that appear at the top of some Google search results, known as position 0.
The Fold – The “fold” is the point on your website where the page gets cut off by the bottom of a user’s monitor or browser window. Anything below the fold can be scrolled to but isn’t seen right away. Search engines place some priority on content above the fold since it will be seen right away by new visitors.

G
Google My Business – A local business directory from Google.
Google Search Console – A free Google tool that allows you to monitor how a website is performing.
Guest Blogging – The practice of publishing a blog post on a website owned by someone else.

H
Header tag – Code used to designate headings and subheadings from paragraphs.
Headings – Section headers on your website that are placed inside of a header tag, such as an H1 or H2. This text is often presented in a larger and stronger font than other text on the page.
HTML – The code part of your website that search engines read. Keep your HTML as clean as possible so that search engines read your site easily and often. Put as much layout-related code as possible in your CSS instead of your HTML.

I
Image Compression – The practice of reduce an image’s file size to speed up a web page.
Indexing – A process used by search engines to analyze the content of website and catalog files.
Inbound Link – A link from another website to yours.
Internal Link – A link from one page to another on the same website, such as from your homepage to your products page.
Indexed Pages – The pages of your website that are stored by search engines.

J
Javascript – A scripting language that allows website administrators to apply various effects or changes to the content of their website as users browse it.

K
Keyword – A word that a user enters in search. Each web page should be optimized with the goal of drawing in visitors who have searched specific keywords.
Keyword Difficulty – Refers to how competitive a keyword is and how difficult it will be to rank for it.
Keyword Research – The process of searching for keywords to target in your content based on volume, keyword difficulty, and other factors.
Keyword Stuffing – The overuse of keywords in your content in an attempt to rank higher.

L
Lazy Loading – A method used to improve page speed by deferring the loading of an object until it’s needed. An example of this is the infinite scroll on websites.
Link Building – The activity and process of getting more inbound links to your website for improved search engine rankings.
Link Juice – The value or authority a website gains when receiving a backlink from a high-authority website. (See backlink.)
Link Schemes – What Google defines as spammy tactics used to trick Google’s PageRank and increase search rankings by buying or selling links, excessive cross-linking, or other manipulative tactics.
Long Tail Keyword – Longer, more specific queries that include more than three words.

M
Metadata – Data that tells search engines what your website is about.
Meta Description – A brief description of fewer than 160 characters of the contents of a page and why someone would want to visit it. This is displayed on search engine results pages below the page title as a sample of the content on the page.
Meta Keywords – Previously used by search engines in the 90s and early 00s to help determine what a web page was about, the meta keywords tag is no longer used by any major search engines.
Minification – The practice of removing unnecessary characters in the source code to help a page load faster without affecting functionality.
Mobile-first Indexing – This refers to Google primarily using the mobile version of a webpage for indexing and ranking. In the past, desktop was the go-to.

N
Nofollow – When a link from one site does not pass SEO credit to another.

O
Organic traffic – Refers to visitors who discover your website on the SERPs instead of a paid ad.

P
Page Speed – Refers to how quickly a webpage loads. Influencing factors include file sizes, the source code, and the web server.
Page Title – The name you give your web page, which is seen at the top your browser window. Page titles should contain keywords related to your business. Words at the beginning of your page title are more highly weighted than words at the end.
PageRank – A number from 0-10, assigned by Google, indicating how good your overall SEO is. It is technically known as ‘Toolbar PageRank.’
Pagination – When a series of content is broken up into a multi-page list. Think of category pages on e-commerce sites.
Panda – Was previously a separate Google algorithm to track down black hat tactics but now is part of Google’s core algorithm.
People Also Ask – A feature that can show up on the SERP to show related questions and answers to a query.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) – Advertising method in which an advertiser puts an ad in an online advertising venue and pays that venue each time a visitor clicks on his/her ad. Google AdWords is the classic example of this.

Q
Query – The words or phrases a user enters into a search engine.

R
Rank Brain – Machine learning component of Google’s algorithm which works to understand queries and deliver the best results.
Ranking Factor – The factors that influence a website’s ranking on search engines.
Redirection – When a URL is moved from one location to another. (See 301 and 302 Redirect).
Referrer String – A piece of information sent by a user’s browser when they navigate from page to page on the web. It includes information on where they came from previously, which helps webmasters understand how users are finding their website.
Rel=canonical – An HTML tag that tells search engines which version of a webpage is original and which is duplicate when there are multiple pages with similar content. (See canonical)
Responsive design – A design practice that allows a website to adapt to any device it’s viewed on, making it a better user experience.
Robots.txt – A text file that tells search engine crawlers which areas of your website are accessible and which ones they should ignore.
RSS Feed – RSS stands for ‘really simple syndication.’ It is a subscription-based way to get updates on new content from a web source. Set up an RSS feed for your website or blog to help your followers stay updated when you release new content.

S
Search Intent – Refers to the reason why a user conducts a search.
Search Volume – The number of times a keyword is searched in a given period, usually a month.
Seasonal Trends – Natural increase and decrease of keywords during specific times of the year. E.g.: The keyword “Halloween costume” sees an increase in the fall months and a dip in the spring and summer.
Seed Keyword – Short-tail keyword, also known as a root keyword, which is the primary keyword you want to rank for and considered the umbrella term.
SEO – Stands for search engine optimization and refers to the tactics used to optimize your website page to reach and maintain a high ranking on search engines for particular keywords.
SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page) – The page that you are sent to after you run a query in a search engine. It typically has 10 results on it, but this may vary depending on the query and search engine in question.
Sitemap – A special document created by a webmaster or a piece of software that provides a map of all the pages on a website to make it easier for a search engine to index that website.
Social Media – Online social networks used to create online communities.
Spider – Also known as a web crawler, it’s a computer program that browses the internet and collects information about websites. (See crawler)
SSL Certificate – Stands for “Secure Sockets Layer” and is used to encrypt data that passes between a web server and the browser. A website without an SSL certificate is vulnerable to hackers who may gain access to confidential information.
Status Code – The response code sent by a server following a request. (See common status codes)
Structured Data – Any set of data that is organized and tagged to help search engines understand the information.
Subdomain –
A subsection of a primary domain used to better organize your website and allow easier navigation.
T
Traffic – The amount of visits to your website.
Title Tag – The title of a page on your website, which is enclosed in a <title> HTML tag, inside of the head section of the page. It appears in search engine results and at the top of a user’s web browser when they are on that page.
Traffic Rank – The ranking of how much traffic your site gets compared to all other sites on the internet.
U
Unnatural Links – What Google describes as creating links that a site owner doesn’t vouch for or place for editorial reasons. (See link schemes).
URL – The web address of a page on your site (example: www.yoursite.com/contact).
User Experience (UX) – Refers to the feeling users have when interacting with a product, service, or (in the context of SEO) a website or mobile application.
W
White Hat – SEO tactics that comply with best practices and don’t manipulate search engines.
Website Navigation – The elements and components on a page that allow you to easily access the various webpages on a website.
X
XML – Stands for extensible markup language which is used by search engines to understand website data.
XML Sitemap – A file that lists a website’s important pages so that search engines can easily find and crawl them.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in Dec. 2011 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. 

Equal parts social media platform and search engine, Pinterest had over 431 million active monthly users in early 2022. But the popularity of the platform means it’s a crowded space, and the task of getting followers on Pinterest can feel daunting.
Fortunately, there are tactics you can implement right now to increase your real follower count on Pinterest to increase web traffic, drive sales, and help your grand gain authority.
Here, we’re going to dive into everything you need to know to grow your Pinterest audience today.

1. Use a Pinterest business account.
On Pinterest, business accounts have access to tools such as unique content formats, advanced analytics, shopping features, and the ability to create an ad account to promote your content. 
When creating a new account, you can opt to turn it into a business account during the setup process. If you have an existing account, you can convert it to a business account to maintain authority.
2. Optimize your username and Pinterest bio.
Your username and bio are completely searchable. Make sure you include search terms related to your niche that your customers may be looking for on Pinterest to increase profile visibility. 
For example, content creator Chelsea Clark added the keyword “plant-based wellness” to her Pinterest profile, making her content more likely to show up for users who include the term “plant-based” in their Pinterest search.

Image Source
3. Post Idea Pins.
Idea Pins are a multi-page video-based format that Pinterest rolled out globally in 2021. The beta version of this feature rolled out in 2020 and was called Story Pins, and was initially used similarly to Instagram Stories. 
Now, the Idea Pin feature allows creators and businesses to record, edit, and share up to 20 pages of content within one post. Notable Idea Pin features include the ability to record voiceovers, add transitions, tag other accounts, and add music. 
Because Idea Pins don’t expire after 24 hours like story features on other social media platforms, creators can use the feature to grow their reach and engagement. 
4. Include text on your Idea Pins. 
Once you get the hang of creating Idea Pins, try including text overlays to make your content more accessible, and easy to understand. Text on Idea Pins is also searchable within Pinterest, so make sure you include keywords potential followers are searching for.
5. Focus on a specific audience. 
Even if your products or services could, in theory, be purchased by anyone, you should laser focus your Pinterest marketing strategy. You’ll find that as you narrow your target, the better you’ll be able to create content that actually resonates with them. By identifying a niche and dominating it, you can expand your reach as your content is consumed, shared, and recognized. 
Creating a buyer persona is the first step to defining your audience, humanizing them, and understanding their needs.

6. Post original images.
84% of Pinners use Pinterest to decide what to buy — which means it’s critical you position yourself in front of them by creating original content for your brand. Try posting original infographics, graphics, or photos that reflect your brand’s message. Additionally, when you do re-pin, make sure you’re re-pinning content that aligns well with your own brand.
7. Include relevant topic tags to increase video reach.
Pinterest is no longer encouraging the use of hashtags and instead recommends creators use topic tags to categorize their content and improve reach. Here’s how you can use the topic tag feature:

8. Create a cohesive brand for recognition on the platform.
People do business with those they like, know, and trust, so the goal is to go from a stranger in your prospects’ eyes to being known and trusted. On Pinterest, that means increasing the number of impressions your content earns from your target audience. An “impression” refers to any time a prospect “sees” you or your brand. If you don’t have a consistent look and feel, your content won’t be recognized as being related, which means you never build that trust. 
According to Forbes, color improves brand recognition by up to 80%, and consistent brand presentation across platforms increases revenue by up to 23%. The big takeaway is that a consistent (and recognizable) brand identity is paramount to increasing ROI for your Pinterest marketing efforts. By building a brand identity, your target audience will start to recognize you in the niche, which is the first step to building trust.
9. Post infographics to promote proprietary data for your company.
Infographics are a perfect mix of data, visual, and written content, making them extremely shareable. For this reason, 40% of marketers reported that infographics were the type of visual content that helped them reach their marketing goals in 2021 according to Venngage. 
Infographics do well on Pinterest, particularly, as it’s a visual platform with the capability of displaying long, vertical images. By creating a custom-branded infographic and sharing it on Pinterest, you’re establishing credibility by educating your audience. It also gives another opportunity for “impressions” to increase your brand recognition if the infographic is branded properly.
10. Use keywords in your board names and pin descriptions.
Pinterest users typically find brands through hashtags and searches, so it’s important you include both in your descriptions and images.
When writing your pin description, it’s critical you remain specific and descriptive. This ensures the highest chance that your pin will match a user’s true search intent. For instance, let’s say you have a pin for healthy dinner recipes. You’re more likely to have users find and engage with your pin if it’s saved to a board titled “Healthy Recipes” (which is what they are likely searching for) than something vague like “Healthy.”

11. Include relevant keywords in your Pinterest name, too.
Pinterest marketing doesn’t just come down to the shareability of individual posts but also discoverability. You’ll want to position your brand in front of Pinterest users who are actually searching for your content. By including a couple of relevant keywords into your Pinterest name, your account is more likely to show up for interested searchers.
12. Use Pinterest Trends to plan your content.
Those using Pinterest business accounts have access to a tool called Pinterest Trends, which shows which keywords and topics are trending across various niche areas. Use the trends tool to find what your potential customers are searching for and let these results inform what content you share.
Pinterest also creates an annual report called Pinterest Predicts, which outlines which topics will likely trend on Pinterest for the upcoming year based on search patterns and unique data.
13. Share new content weekly.
According to Pinterest, the recommended posting cadence is at least one original pin per week. To get the most out of your Pinterest traffic, make sure your pins lead back to your website (or that you’re linking your Idea Pins to your products).
14. Be active and engaged on Pinterest.
Like any social media site, Pinterest favors active accounts. This includes ensuring you pin on a regular basis, manually pin others’ pins, and follow other boards. If you have trouble keeping up with your Pinterest activity, create a social media calendar to have a more focused and organized publishing strategy. You can also try using a tool like Tailwind, which allows you to schedule your Pinterest pins ahead of time.
It’s vital you re-pin often. Consider going to the “Explore” and “Trending” pages and re-pinning from there. The more you re-pin and engage with other boards, the more likely you are to increase your reach.
15. Follow other users.
If someone is following a business with similar content to yours, chances are they’d be a good follower for you as well. Take some time to research competitors’ and follow their followers — if your content is up-to-par, they’ll more than likely follow you back.
Alternatively, perhaps there are businesses with products or services that work well in conjunction with your own. For instance, let’s say you’re an interior designer, and you find a company that sells handmade furniture on Pinterest. You might follow some of their followers since their followers are likely interested in either decorating or sprucing up their home.
16. Add a Pinterest follow button to your newsletter or website.
You can likely increase traffic to your Pinterest account if you embed a Pinterest follow button in an email newsletter or on your website. Since traffic to your site, or subscribers to your newsletter, are probably already interested in your product or services, they’re a strong audience to target.

Plus, depending on where they are in their buyer’s journey, your Pinterest account might actually help them decide whether your business is the right fit for them.

17. Use Pinterest sections to organize your boards.
Pinterest sections are similar to H2 sections of your blog posts — they enable you to organize your full Pinterest board into categories, so users can more easily find exactly what they’re looking for.
For instance, take a look at Twins Mommy Blog’s board:

 

While the full board is about “Starting a Blog,” it’s then divided into five sections, including how to make money blogging and blog traffic tips. A user might only check out the make money section and re-pin that content without needing to see or re-pin the rest of the board.

Sections, then, make your individual content more likely to be found and re-pinned.
18. Promote your pins.
If you have a business account on Pinterest, you could consider putting money behind a pin to increase visibility and reach — similar to paying for an ad on Facebook.
For instance, take a look at what I see when I type “travel” into Pinterest:

 

One of the first pins, prominently displayed under the search term “Travel,” is Wikibuy’s promoted “How to Travel Like a Pro” pin. Promoted pins have been proven successful — in fact,
50% of Pinterest users have made a purchase after seeing a Promoted pin, and Promoted pins are re-pinned an
average of 11 times.

For increased visibility and reach, then, why not?
19. A/B test your pins to see what works.
You don’t have to throw spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. By testing different variables with your audience, you can continually improve your campaigns as you learn more about what resonates with them. 
Here are some different variables to compare on Pinterest: 

Alternate headlines for your pin title
Alternate thumbnail images for your pin
Alternate post copy for your pin’s description

Just be sure to only test one variable at a time. Set a time period to run the test, and then compare each post’s performance using Pinterest analytics. Just make sure your A/B test’s results are statistically significant before you make any decisions on future runs.
20. Use Pinterest’s free shopping tools.
If you’re looking to drive traffic to specific products, you can create Product Pins that have additional metadata to make them even more searchable which increases your chances of being found by users on the platform. 
21. Join the verified merchant program.
Increase your company’s credibility by becoming a verified merchant on Pinterest. Accounts that are a part of the program receive a coveted verified check mark confirming the account has been vetted by Pinterest, have products show up under related search terms, can activate a profile “shop” tab, and are able to access unique insights to see conversion data.
Image Source
22. Apply for Rich Pins.
If you anticipate users pinning content directly from your website, you may want to consider applying for Rich Pins.
Rich pins automatically pull in key data from your website when Pinterest Pins are created, and allow existing pins to remain up-to-date with what’s listed on your website. There are three types of rich pins:

Product Rich Pins pull accurate inventory and product availability information from your website. 
Recipe Rich Pins which include a recipe name, list of ingredients, and pertinent cooking information pulled from blog posts that feature recipes. 
Article Rich Pins that include the title of an article, meta description, and author information. 

Rich Pins are free to use. To get started, add the necessary meta tags provided by Pinterest to your website, then submit an application. 
23. Re-pin older content.
Pinterest Pins have a lifespan of about four months, which is significantly longer than other social media platforms such as the 15-minute span of a tweet, or the 48-hour span of an Instagram post.
With this in mind, don’t be afraid to pin older content to new boards to continue its lifespan even further and engage with a whole new audience. 
If you do decide to create pins from older content, make sure you refresh the images for better engagement. 
24. Claim your website on Pinterest.
If you haven’t already, make sure your company’s website is claimed by the official Pinterest account. According to Tailwind, 80% of Pinterest accounts with high engagement have claimed their websites on Pinterest. 
In the image below, you can see the publication The Good Trade has claimed its website with the globe and checkmark symbol next to the company’s URL.

Image Source
25. Schedule your pins.
Like most social media platforms, the key to success on Pinterest is consistency. To make sharing to Pinterest simple and easy, consider scheduling your pins in advance so they can go live when your audience is most likely to engage. 
You can use popular software such as Tailwind to schedule your pins or use the scheduling tool within the Pinterest platform. 
Reasons to Avoid Buying Pinterest Followers
Sure, there are tools you can use to buy Pinterest followers but this method is not in your best interest.
Buying Pinterest followers essentially means you’re buying fake accounts to increase the number of followers you have, which will make it look like your business is popular on Pinterest. This can be tempting — why do the hard work of cultivating a following, when you can pay less than $20 for 1,000 followers, instantly?
Unfortunately, buying followers does more harm than good. Here’s why.
1. It’s against Pinterest guidelines.
In fact, your company could be banned from the site if Pinterest figures out you’ve bought followers according to their guidelines.
2. You’ll tank your engagement (and overall performance, too).
Increasing your follower count can actually harm your success on Pinterest since Pinterest’s algorithm doesn’t just measure follower count — it also measures engagement metrics.
For instance, let’s say you have 100 real followers and 1,000 fake ones. You post a pin that is re-pinned 10 times. Out of your real followers, that’s 10% — an incredibly good engagement number. But Pinterest calculates 10 re-pins out of 1,100, which is less than one percent.
Ultimately, more followers could decrease your engagement metrics, which will make both Pinterest and your real followers believe your content isn’t actually that good.
3. Buying followers doesn’t result in ROI. 
Those fake followers will never become real customers. You will become much more successful on the platform if you take the time and resources you would’ve dedicated to buying followers and use it instead to implement some of the strategies listed above.
It’s critical you work diligently to find and engage with real people — because only real people can help you figure out what your potential future customers expect and prefer from their online content.
Now that you know how to increase your number of real Pinterest followers, it’s time for the most time-consuming but most fun part of Pinterest marketing: creating and implementing a content strategy for your business.
Editor note: This post was originally published on March 25, 2019 but was updated for comprehensiveness.
 

In 2022, it’s clear that Instagram is no longer just a photo-sharing app.
Not only has Instagram become a thriving social media channel with all sorts of video, Story, and even live stream features, but it’s even evolving into a shopping platform that fuses e-commerce and social media together.
And, our recent survey of 580 Instagram marketers found that using the app’s shopping tools enables the highest ROI of any Instagram strategy.
But with a wide variety of shopping tools popping up in feed-based posts, Reels, Live video, Stories, Guides, and the dedicated Shop tab, it can be challenging to figure out where to start.
To help marketers and business professionals like you, let’s take a deep dive into Instagram’s shopping tools to find out:

Which Instagram Shopping Tools Perform Best?
Using Instagram shopping tools is the strategy with the highest ROI and also the strategy used most by Instagram marketers. Most importantly, it’s just getting started.
While just 37% currently use the app’s shopping tools, 94% of them will increase or maintain their investment this year. On top of that, 1 in 3 plan to use Instagram shopping tools for the first time this year.

Also, marketers who leverage Instagram’s shopping tools are 15% more likely to say their Instagram strategy was effective last year than those who don’t. So which tools perform best?
Of the shopping tools, Instagram Live Shopping and Instagram Shops have the highest ROI and are the most leveraged.

Additionally, the use of both live shopping and shops will grow significantly in 2022, with 55% planning to try Instagram Shops and 48% planning to use Instagram live Shopping for the first time.

Instagram Feed Post Shopping, Instagram Stories Shopping, and Instagram Guides Shopping are all used by over 1 in 3 marketers and also lead in terms of ROI.
Reels Shopping has the lowest use and ROI, however, 42% of Instagram marketers plan to use Reels Shopping this year, the 3rd highest of any Instagram shopping tool.
Should You Sell or Launch Products Exclusively Through Instagram Shopping?
Using Instagram Shopping tools is a powerful marketing opportunity, but should you also have an external website to sell your goods and services?
41% of Instagram marketers say most of the brands they work with use Instagram shopping tools exclusively and don’t have a separate website, while 59% use a mix of both.
83% of Instagram marketers say they have worked with a brand that launched a product exclusively on Instagram and 59% of them say launching exclusively on Instagram is better than launching elsewhere.

Launching a product exclusively to your Instagram audience can also be a great way to boost brand loyalty and reward your followers.
This is just one of the many benefits marketers are seeing from using Instagram’s shopping tools. Let’s take a look at what other benefits marketers are getting from social shopping.
The Biggest Benefits of Instagram’s Shopping Tools
Leveraging Instagram shopping tools comes with a wide range of benefits, most notably increased product discoverability, a simplified shopping experience for your customers, ease of partnering with influencers, and the ability to integrate your products into content, making it look more authentic.

I mentioned how Instagram is focused on helping creators monetize their content, and one way to accomplish all of the above is to leverage Shopping from Creators.
While not exactly new, this feature was initially rolled out only to a select few influencers in 2019. It took until March 2022 for Instagram to officially announce that it would be expanded to all users in the U.S.
Shopping from Creators allows influencers to tag your brand’s products directly in their posts, so users can find and purchase products without leaving Instagram. This combines all the benefits listed above, and excels at making partnering with creators easy and look authentic.
Despite all the benefits selling on Instagram offers, there are also challenges. Let’s dive into the top struggles marketers face with Instagram’s shopping tools.
The Biggest Challenges of Instagram Shopping Tools
The top two challenges marketers face with Instagram shopping tools seem to contradict each other – while 38% of those who use Instagram shopping tools struggle with making sales, 45% are having problems due to too many sales and supply chain issues.
Another 37% complain about selling fees, which are currently at 5% per shipment, with shipments under $8 racking up a flat fee of 40 cents. However, fees are being waved through June 30, 2022, to help small businesses recover from the pandemic.
36% of Instagram sellers also take issue with the fact that they don’t have full access to the shopping tools the app has to offer. As the app fully embraces social shopping in 2022, you can expect access to open up to more users.
Social Shopping Is The Future
There’s never been a better time to start selling on social media, and Instagram is the best place to do it.
If you’re ready to get started, take a look at our 2022 Instagram Marketing Report for a detailed breakdown of which strategies, features, and formats are most effective on the app. For a few examples of how brands leverage Instagram Shopping, check out this post or this detailed ultimate guide.
Curious about your overall Instagram strategy, beyond Shopping? Check out our Instagram Engagement Report for even more data.

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