Category: Marketing Automation

To state the obvious, researching, finding, and buying digital ad space is a time-consuming process. In fact, an article by the Wall Street Journal compares it to “pulling out weeds online.”
But what if there was a middleman who could connect advertisers to websites that are seeking advertisers (and vice-versa)? Enter the ad network.

Let’s learn more about ad networks, how they work, and the best networks for digital marketers.
The chief function of ad networks is to collect unsold ad inventory from online publishers and match them with advertisers looking for ad spots. This makes it seamless for both sides to interact and, ultimately, come to a deal.
The benefit of using an ad network depends on which side you fall. For publishers, it helps to secure buyers for unsold ad space, although the revenue is typically less than what they could earn from direct sales. For advertisers, it helps to find inventory that fits their audience and budget.
It’s important we make a distinction between ad networks and ad servers. While both operate as advertising technology, they serve two distinct purposes.
An ad server is used by both ad networks and advertisers to run, track, and manage advertising campaigns. An ad network is also an advertising technology, but it’s used exclusively to broker buys between publishers and advertisers.
Different Types of Ad Networks
If you need to find an ad network that fits your particular audience or industry, odds are you’ll have no problems finding one. There’s an overwhelming amount of ad networks for different topics, audiences, and formats.
Here are four main types:

Vertical networks: Ad networks that are topic-specific, such as fashion, automotive, or business.

Premium networks: Ad networks that offer inventory from popular publishers.

Inventory-specific networks: Ad networks that provide a specific type of ad inventory, such as video or mobile.

Targeted networks: Ad networks that offer specific targeting capabilities that are built into the ad server.

So how much does using an ad network cost? Like most online advertising, it depends.
Some ad packages have a fixed rate, while other options may charge you on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) basis. Other times, an ad network will bring inventory to auction and use real-time bidding (RTB) technology to match ad impressions with the highest bidder.
How do ad networks work?
Ad networks are a powerful tool for both advertisers and publishers. But exactly how do they work? Here’s a traditional model of an ad network — but keep in mind that because of evolving technology, these steps are ever-changing.

To start, ad networks aggregate a large number of publishers with available inventory.
Meanwhile, the advertiser creates a campaign using the ad network’s campaign panel. When creating the campaign, the advertiser fills out details about the budget, target audience, and more.
On the publisher side, they install the ad network tags on their website.
When a match occurs between an advertiser’s campaign and a publisher’s supply, the ad details are sent to the publisher. The ad network earns money by taking a cut of the ad revenue, or by marking up inventory before selling it.
Once the ad is live, the advertiser can track and manage its performance in the ad network’s campaign panel.

Ready to give ad networks a try? Here’s a list of the 9 best ad networks for both advertisers and publishers.
Best Ad Networks
1. Google Adsense

When it comes to ad networks, Google Adsense is one of the oldest — and largest — networks. And with its great reputation and sophisticated technology, it’s not going away anytime soon.
Google Adsense can publish ads in various formats and provide super detailed targeting options, like behavioral targeting. But be warned, Google AdSense holds its advertisers to a high standard of quality, so prepare to follow the rules.
2. Media.net

Media.net is one of the most distinguished ad networks on the web, making it a popular alternative to Google Adsense. Some of its most well-known publishers include CNN, Forbes, and Esquire.
Bing and Yahoo power Media.net, exposing publishers to a large pool of both national and local advertisers. On the flip side, advertisers can leverage the ad network to create contextual ads across multiple inventories, including search, native, display, and mobile.
3. PopAds

PopAds is one of the leading ad networks specializing in pop-under ads. As a refresher, pop-under ads appear under an active window for desktop and mobile users.
PopAds offer instant approval and competitive CPM rates. And, unlike other ad networks, there’s no minimum traffic requirement.
4. PropellerAds

Another heavy hitter in the ad network sphere is PropellerAds. PropellerAds offer a variety of ad formats, including display, native, pop-under ads, and push notifications.
PropellerAds unite publishers and advertisers through its Self-Service platform.
With the platform, you can create campaigns and see real-time reporting for your ads, making it easy to track and manage campaigns.
5. BidVertiser

BidVertiser is an attractive option for publishers — just take a look at its monetization model. In addition to earning money each time an ad is clicked, a publisher also earns a little extra when the click leads to a conversion, such as a sale for the advertiser.
BidVertiser also has a bidding system to ensure publishers secure the highest revenue for each ad impression.
6. Adcash

Adcash offers a number of ad formats and tools to help publishers monetize their traffic better. What’s better, their technology can bypass those pesky ad blockers. With a clean interface and straightforward reporting tools, it’s one of the most user-friendly ad networks on the market.
7. AdThrive

AdThrive is an ad network specializing in publishers in the lifestyle industry, including travel, food, and fashion. So, if you fall into one of these niches (or not, you can still join), you may thrive on this platform.
AdThrive follows a “creator-first mindset,” and part of the deal is guaranteeing payouts for publishers — meaning, even if AdThrive doesn’t get paid by an advertiser, they will still pay you.
8. Amazon Affiliates

Amazon Affiliates is one of the leading affiliate ad networks on the web. As an affiliate, you can use link-building tools to direct readers to certain products. Here’s how it works: If a visitor clicks on a native shopping ad and makes a purchase, you earn a commission.
It’s also important to note that Amazon Associates has strict rules and policies, more than other ad networks.
9. Propel Media

Propel Media specializes in display and push ads. It’s also one of the best ad networks for reaching a high-intent audience. Using intent-based technology, it can analyze customer intent and match it with highly relevant content in real time.
The right ad network can help advertisers reach their target audience and increase conversions. And for publishers, it’s an effective way to secure buyers and fill ad inventory. However, there’s an overwhelming amount of ad networks available, so carefully weigh your options.

You need people who you can email, and you need them quickly. Oh, and if you could get them pretty cheap, that’d be great, too.
That’s the mindset many marketers find themselves in when they’re on the phone with a list-purchasing company: We need new people to email to support our sales team. Acting on that moment of desperation, however, can cause more harm than good.

Yes, thousands of contacts are a credit card swipe away, but your email marketing program — a critical part of a well-rounded inbound marketing strategy — can seriously suffer. Curious why buying email lists is a legitimate email marketer’s kiss of death? Read on.
Plus, we’ll give you a list of squeaky-clean and effective ways to build your email marketing list without simply buying one.
Methods of Acquiring an Email List
Before we get into the pitfalls of buying email addresses, let’s review three ways marketers are currently able to acquire their email lists:
1. Buy an email list.
You work with a list provider to find and purchase a list of names and email addresses based on demographic and/or psychographic information. For example, you might purchase a list of 50,000 names and email addresses of people who live in Minnesota and don’t have children. There are several sustainable ways to use email marketing to grow your business. This isn’t one of them.
2. Rent an email list.
Also working with a list provider, you identify a segment of people to email — but you never actually own the list. As such, you can’t see the email addresses of the people you’re emailing, so you must work with the provider to send out your email.
3. Own an opt-in email list.
Someone voluntarily gives you their email address either online or in-person so you can send them emails. They may pick certain types of email content they wish to receive, like specifically requesting email alerts when new blog posts are published. Opt-in email addresses are the result of earning the interest and trust of your contacts because they think you have something valuable to say.
When it comes to rented or purchased lists, you may come across vendors or marketers who say, “This email list is totally opt-in!” This means the people on the list opted in to email communication from someone at some point in time — the list provider, for example — by filling out a form or checking a box to receive more content from that provider.
What “opt-in” lists don’t mean, however, is that email recipients opted in to receive email communications from your business. This is a critical distinction, and the next section of this post will go into more detail on why this type of “opt-in email list” (should be read with air quotes) is not a good idea for your email marketing program.

1. You’ll violate the rules of consent under GDPR.
Most email marketers around the world are legally required to allow recipients to opt out of emails they no longer want to receive. Contacts must be able to do this directly in the email message. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a European data privacy act that doubles down on the opt-in side of this relationship — and found that purchased email lists are simply not compliant.
GDPR has revamped numerous aspects of a digital marketer’s use of customer data throughout Europe — on a website, in social media, and via email. You don’t even have to work in Europe to fall under the act’s jurisdiction; if your recipients live in Europe, they’re protected by GDPR.
With GDPR now governing all email correspondence across Europe, adding an opt-out option to your email template no longer cuts it. Under this act, you must have explicit consent from your contacts to send them emails. Explicit, in this case, means the checkbox a person must click to opt into an email subscription isn’t pre-checked when they see it on your website. And when you buy your email lists, the people on it haven’t been given this option — making you non-compliant with GDPR before you send your first email.
Want some non-legal reasons to avoid the purchased email list? We’ve got those as well, below.
2. Reputable email marketing services don’t let you send emails to lists you’ve bought.
If you’re using email marketing software or plan to in the future, you’ll find that reputable companies will insist that you use opt-in email lists. You might be saying, “I’ll just use a non-reputable email marketing vendor.”
Alas, ESPs on shared IP addresses that don’t require customers to use opt-in email lists typically suffer poor deliverability. Why? One customer’s ill-gotten email address list can poison the deliverability of the other customers on that shared IP address. You’re going to want to hitch your wagon to the light side of the email marketing force if you want your emails to actually get into inboxes.
3. Good email address lists aren’t for sale.
Unless your company is in the middle of a merger or acquisition, you’re not going to come across a high-quality email list you can purchase. If it’s for sale, it means the email addresses on it have already been deemed non-responsive or unqualified for marketing outreach.
While bought email addresses might’ve at one time had value, they’ve likely been spammed to the ends of the earth — otherwise, they’d still be in the desiring hands of the company selling them. Think about it, would you sell or share the email addresses of those who have voluntarily opted in to receive email from you?
4. People on a purchased or rented list don’t know you.
I referenced this earlier, but it’s worth going into some more detail on this subject. Rented and purchased lists are sometimes scraped from other websites, which, I think we can all agree, is a dirty way to acquire email marketing contacts.
But let’s say the email addresses you’re looking to purchase were not taken from another site but rather earned legitimately. Email list purchase and rental companies might tout that those lists are “opt-in.” Sounds great, right?
Not really. Email addresses that belong to an “opt-in” list have opted to receive emails from, say, the list-purchasing company — not your company. Even if the opt-in process includes language like, “Opt-in to receive information from us, or offers from other companies we think you might enjoy,” the fact is the recipient doesn’t recall having a prior relationship with you, specifically. This makes it highly likely for the recipients to mark you as “spam” when you arrive in their inboxes. Hey, if they don’t recognize you or remember opting into communications from you … can you blame them?
​​After all, the most prevalent type of spam is advertising-related email — accounting for approximately 36% of all spam messages.
This takes us to our next point.
5. You’ll harm your email deliverability and IP reputation.
Did you know there are organizations dedicated to combating email spam? Thank goodness, right? They set up a little thing called a honeypot, which is a planted email address that, when harvested and emailed, identifies the sender as a spammer. Similarly, things called spam traps can be created to identify spammy activity; they’re set up when an email address yields a hard bounce because it’s old or no longer valid, but still receives consistent traffic. Fishy, eh?
As a result, the email address turns into a spam trap that stops returning the hard bounce notice, and instead accepts the message and reports the sender as a spammer.
If you purchase a list, you have no way of confirming how often those email addresses have been emailed, whether the email addresses on that list have been scrubbed for hard bounces to prevent identifying you as a spammer, or from where those email addresses originated.
Are you really willing to risk not only your email deliverability, but also the reputation of your IP address and your company? Even if you find the light after purchasing or renting email lists and decide to only email those who have opted in with your company, it’ll take you months (or maybe years) to get your Sender Score up and rebuild the reputation of your IP.
6. You can come across as annoying.
How do you like it when you get an email in your inbox from a company you’ve never heard of? I bet that’s not the kind of company you want to buy from or work for.
If someone didn’t ask to hear from you, it doesn’t mean they won’t want to hear from you later. It’s your job to prove to them — through helpful content and valuable offers — that they should stay up to date with your company via email. If you force your email content on anyone too early, even if you know in your bones they’re a great fit for your products or services, you risk preemptively losing their trust and their future business.
7. Your email service provider can penalize you.
Buying email lists doesn’t just damage your deliverability and brand reputation — it can also put your email account at risk. Email clients like Gmail, Yahoo!, and Outlook don’t want to be associated with accounts that recipients repeatedly flag as spam. Email service providers like AWeber go as far as immediately closing your account if it suspects you’re sending unwanted content.
If these consequences are too daunting, we came up with some alternatives to paid email lists that’ll gain your customers’ interests.
Paid Email List Alternatives
1. Shift your outbound marketing strategy to inbound.
Buying email lists is another form of outbound marketing — it’s the method that pushes messaging out to potential customers. Not only is it costly, but it doesn’t guarantee a higher ROI as a result.
When you shift your strategy to inbound marketing, you’re repositioning your business to build brand awareness and customer relationships through content creation and social media tactics.
2. Conduct lead generation campaigns.
Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and nurturing their interests with the goal of making them into customers. This can be achieved through effective marketing campaigns with enticing call-to-actions.
Some examples of lead gen campaigns include:

Sharing blog posts with informational content
Promoting product offerings across social media channels
Offering product trials or coupons that lead to your landing page

Your business can get creative with campaigns to better engage your audience, especially with our next point in mind.
3. Show thought leadership through your content.
With the content your business shares to an audience, you have the ability to display thought leadership. This tactic is used in content marketing to build trust and gain credibility in your field.
To become a thought leader, your business needs to display brand helpfulness through informative content like tutorials, listicles, and other posts that help your target audience learn something new.
If you want to use both email marketing while implementing these alternatives, read on to see how to do it right.
How to Grow an Opt-In Email List for Free
Now that you’ve learned a few ways to acquire email lists, let’s explore how you can acquire them through the third method stated earlier in this article — the opt-in method.
Generating your own list of email contacts who have opted in to receive content from you doesn’t just comply with legal regulations and protect your brand reputation. It also presents you with opportunities to grow this list through genuine relationships with new customers. We’ve already written about clever ways to go about doing this, which you can check out here. But, below are the basic best practices that have a very big bang for their buck when it comes to consistently growing an email list.
1. Create gated assets so there’s a reason for people to give you their email address.
Webinars, ebooks, templates, etc. — these are all good long-form, premium content assets that people may find valuable enough to give over their email address. The more gated assets you have to put behind landing pages, the better — a wider variety of content will make it easier for you to attract a wider swath of people.
2. Create useful tools.
If ebooks aren’t your jam, create tools instead. I don’t recommend a one-or-the-other approach, but if you have more development talent than writing talent, this may be a more attractive option for you. These tools can be valuable enough to some of your website visitors that they’ll trade you their email address for a free demo of the product you built. Then, for your first email, ask them what they thought of the tool. It’s the perfect icebreaker.
For example, we created Website Grader — which is free to use, but prompts you to input an email address. We also took a similar approach to a more recent tool, the Blog Topic Generator.
3. Promote those gated assets on your marketing channels.
Now that you have some gated assets that can capture email addresses, spend a considerable amount of time making sure the world knows about them. You have plenty of channels at your disposal — social media, PPC, and email are common ones to turn to. But, none will provide lasting returns quite like your blog. Consider this scenario:
You promote your new gated assets by blogging about subject matters related to the content assets you’ve created. Put CTAs that lead to the asset’s landing page on every one of those blog posts.
Now let’s say your blog posts get about 100 views per month, and your visitor-to-lead conversion rate on the blog is about two percent. That means you’d get two leads from a single blog post each month.
Then, let’s say you write 30 blog posts a month. That means you’d get 60 leads in a month — two from each blog post. Now keep doing that for a year. The work you did to blog that first month will continue to drive leads throughout the year. That means you’re actually getting 4,680 opt-in contacts a month by the end of 12 months because of the compounding effects of blogging — not just 720 opt-in contacts (60 leads*12 months).

4. Run creative email marketing campaigns.
Most people don’t think of email as a lead- or contact-generating channel. But because people forward helpful emails to colleagues or friends, it can expand your database if you simply make forwarding or sharing email content easy for recipients. Include calls-to-action in your emails that make sharing an obvious choice for recipients, particularly with your most useful assets.
If you already have a pretty large database, you also likely have some contacts that have gone quite stale. If so, I recommend running a re-engagement campaign that can help you both scrub your list and prevent the kind of spam and IP issues I addressed earlier, as well as reawaken old contacts that might have forgotten about you, but would actually be great fits for sales.
5. Include sharing buttons in your emails.
Consider adding share buttons to your email so your email recipients can forward the emails they liked most to friends and colleagues they think would like it, too.
Have a few different buttons on your email template: separate social media buttons that produce pre-written social posts linking to a webpage version of your email, and an “Email to a Friend” button that transfers the email into a compose window so your contacts can instantly forward the message. Just make sure your email has an opt-in button so each new viewer can subscribe to more emails from you if they like what they see.
Attract Customers without Breaking the Bank
There’s already plenty of noise your business has to break through to get to your customers — so don’t let your paid email marketing efforts end in their spam box. Instead, we hope you use this article to devise a strategy to attract prospects with impressive content, assets, and tools that nurture them from leads to customer advocates.
This article was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

 

A proper automation can save your business a lot of marketing dollars. Marketing Workflows are one of the neatest and most effective ways to implement automation in your marketing processes. For those of you who want to get inspired or simply are not workflow-fluent yet, we made 20 ready-to-use templates based on eCommerce top performers’ processes. 

 

More and more processes get automated: from sales funnel to digital advertising. 

 

Advertising automation can save businesses $130,000 a year in costs. (business.com)
By 2022, 80% of all advertising processes will be automated, according to Adobe.
Global spending on marketing automation tools is predicted to exceed $25 billion by 2023 — a 14% annual growth rate. (Forrester)
Lost productivity and poorly managed leads cost companies over $1 trillion annually, some of which could be saved with database automation software. (CMO Council)

 

Many businesses understand the benefits of marketing automation, but not everyone has the knowledge to implement it right off the bat.

 

Oftentimes, it’s helpful to take a sneak peek at the effective automations implemented by the most successful players on the market. You can get inspired or create your own process based on a specific template. Using our experience in working with global eCommerce brands, we decided to give you ready-to-take tools to make your business more profitable from day one.

 

An eCommerce treat: 20 ready-to-take Workflow templates 

 

Based on our years of experience working with top eCommerce performers, we have prepared 20 ready-made Workflow templates that you can easily adapt to your needs. All of them can be found in our Workflow Library (Automation Processes → Workflows → +Add new Workflow).

 

Workflow templates: Win-Back Campaign

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: Customers who have already bought products from your store, so you can encourage them to buy again in the future.

 

The mechanism: Depending on the merchandise you offer, the time between purchases can vary. Use a win-back campaign that automatically reminds the customer of your store and offers added value to give them another reason to come back and buy again.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Increase Customer Lifetime Value for each customer in your database. Encourage customers to come back to your store and purchase new products via personalized emails.

 

 

How it works: After a successful transaction, Workflow waits a certain amount of time and checks if the customer has made another purchase. If yes, Workflow is finished. If the system doesn’t register a new purchase, it sends a recommendation email to the contact to encourage them to make a purchase. At the same time, the system sends an alert to the user and appropriately tags the contact to use the acquired information in other automation processes.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Inspire your existing customers to make another purchase by sending them personalized recommendation messages reaching them through various channels.

 

 

How it works: The first step is to check if an external event occurred (e.g., purchase). If the result is positive, the workflow ends. Otherwise, the system sends an email with the viewed products to encourage the customer to buy.

 

In the second step, the external event is checked again. If the purchase still did not happen, the system selects another way of communication with the customer. If the customer has been assigned an appropriate tag indicating an effective communication channel, the next incentive will be sent to them via this very channel.

 

Then, the system will check once more whether the customer was persuaded to buy. The customer’s behavior can be easily tagged for use in later campaigns.

 

Workflow templates: Abandoned Cart Recovery

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: Customers who add items to their cart but do not complete the transaction.

 

The mechanism: Only a small percentage of the shopping carts created (24.4%) result in purchases. The remaining 75.6% are abandoned and forgotten. The good news is that you can significantly reduce the cart abandonment rate in your store. Sending a reminder email about products left in the cart is a solid tactic. Such an email makes customers reconsider their purchase. This easily translates into completing at least some of the previously abandoned shopping carts.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Recover interrupted conversions. Remind customers about the products they left in a cart by sending an email with the selected products.

 

 

How it works: When a cart event is detected, Workflow checks to see if a follow-up event has occurred, after a certain amount of time. If the system registers a purchase event, Workflow finishes.

 

If not, the contact will be sent an email with the products from the abandoned cart to encourage them to buy. The contact will also be assigned appropriate tags to be used in subsequent campaigns.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Reach customers who abandoned their carts in various channels and remind them about the products they wanted to buy. Keep customers in loop by adding them to sales funnels and send incentives for them to complete the transaction.

 

 

How it works: Workflow launches for the contact that generated the cart event. After a certain amount of time it checks if there was a follow-up purchase. Once a purchase is recorded, Workflow will add the contact to the appropriate stage in the funnel, assign a tag, and give an appropriate scoring.

 

If there is no purchase, the system will send an email with the products from the cart to encourage the customer to buy. At the same time, the contact will be assigned a tag.

 

After the specified time, the cycle of verification and sending messages will be repeated until a purchase is made. However, the communication channels selected by the system will change. This increases the chance of reaching the customer.

 

Workflow templates: Repurchase Reminder

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: For customers who buy products that wear out or have limited-time access.

 

The mechanism: If you offer products that can be bought multiple times—e.g., because of a limited number of uses (cosmetics, pharmaceuticals) or because of a limited access time (a premium content subscription)—you can use that knowledge to effectively resell the product and, at the same time, make clients’ lives easier and improve their customer experience. Knowing the expected time of product usage or access expiration, send a reminder about repeat purchase or subscription renewal. Do it while the customer still has the product so they don’t have to restock in a hurry.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Send customers an email if they forget to buy general goods and other products that wear out or have a limited expiration date.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts after the contact purchases particular products. After a certain amount of time, in which the customer will probably use up the purchased products, Workflow checks if they bought them again. If yes, Workflow will end.

 

If not, the system sends an email to the contact reminding them about the products and encouraging them to buy. It also tags the contact. After this action, Workflow will end.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Remind customers to repurchase general goods and products that wear out or have a limited expiration date. Send them a personalized email, and if that doesn’t work, go mobile and send a follow-up SMS reminder.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts after contact purchases particular products. After a certain amount of time, in which the customer will probably use up the purchased products, Workflow checks if they bought them again. If yes, Workflow will end.

 

If not, the system sends an email to the contact reminding them about the products and encouraging them to buy. It also tags the contact. Then the system checks if this action resulted in a purchase. If not, it makes another attempt to contact a customer but, this time, changes the communication channel to SMS.

 

Workflow templates: Post-Purchase Upsell

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: For customers who have recently made a purchase.

 

The mechanism: There are many ways to increase the value of a purchase. One of the tactics is upselling. It is about offering customers more expensive products than they have used before. If your customer has made a purchase, you can recommend other products in the near future that are of higher quality or grade, and therefore higher in price. This increases the profit of the transaction.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Increase the value of a transaction. If your customer has made a purchase, in the near future, you can send them an email to recommend other products that are of higher quality or grade, and therefore higher in price.

 

 

How it works: Workflow reacts to the appearance of a purchase event. After the event occurs, it sends a specially prepared message to the contact with additional products they may be interested in. The contact is tagged, and the process ends.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Upsell higher-value products to customers who have made a purchase. Reach out to them via email, SMS, and a display campaign.

 

 

How it works: Workflow reacts to the appearance of a purchase event. After an appropriate time, the system sends a specially crafted message to the contact with additional products that may be of interest to them. The system checks if a customer has made a purchase. If yes, Workflow finishes.

 

Otherwise, the contact is added to the appropriate Custom Audience group and is included in the advertising campaign, where appropriate ads are targeted to them.

 

Workflow checks if this action resulted in a purchase. If not, it attempts to communicate with the customer again using another communication channel—SMS. If this doesn’t work, the system sends an alert and finishes Workflow.

 

Workflow templates: Subscription Renewal

 

Category: Engagement

 

For whom: For customers who purchase access to products or services as a subscription.

 

The mechanism: Sending a reminder about an expiring subscription is a great convenience for the customer. It’s on you—they don’t need to worry about when to renew their access. This improves customer relationships, positively impacts customer experience, and prevents churn rates from increasing.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Send your customers an email reminder about an expiring subscription to improve customer relationships, positively impact their experience, and prevent churn rates from increasing.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts after product purchase. After a time corresponding to the length of the subscription—e.g., 15 days—the system checks if there was a repeat purchase. If not, it sends a reminder email and an alert to notify the recipient about the subscription purchase. Finally, the contact receives a tag and the Workflow ends.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Remind customers to renew their subscriptions. Reach them through a variety of channels: email, mobile, and display.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when an external purchase event is detected. After it occurs, the system waits an appropriate amount of time and checks if the contact has made another purchase / subscription renewal on their own.

 

If there was no purchase, the system sends a specific message and adds the contact to the Custom Audience group for better ad targeting. After implementing these actions, Workflow checks again whether the contact has purchased the product.

 

If not, the system proceeds with the next communication steps with the contact in order to encourage them to buy. This time, as a communication channel, it uses a text message. If this doesn’t work, Workflow sends an alert before it finishes.

 

Workflow templates: Onboarding New Contacts

 

Category: Welcome Campaign

 

For whom: For customers who have just registered on the site.

 

The mechanism: When a new person registers on the website they are just getting to know the company and its merchandise. A simple guide will help them navigate this new territory. With properly set automation, when a new lead registers on the site, you send them general information about the company as well as a description of your products and services. Onboarding flow is not only a sales tool. It also works to familiarize a new customer with your company and the products you offer.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Lead new customers by the hand and show them your system through a series of educational emails. Test different paths to know what time intervals between emails work best.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when the contact receives the selected tag. After waiting for a specified time, Workflow launches into the A/B/X test phase and starts one of the two onboarding paths. This allows you to test which path will bring better results. Each path consists of a series of scheduled messages sent at specific time intervals. These intervals vary depending on the selected path. When all messages are sent, the system assigns an appropriate tag to the contact and finishes Workflow.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Introduce new customers to your system with a series of educational emails and effectively drive them down the funnel. Respond directly to your customers’ behaviors and their clicks on the messages you send.

 

 

How it works: This Workflow can be triggered by two types of events: assigning an appropriate tag and adding a contact to the system. If a contact starts the Workflow by having a tag added, the next step is to add another tag then add the contact to the appropriate stage in the funnel. After this sequence, Workflow waits the indicated time, after which it sends the contact an onboarding start message. After the set time, the system checks if the contact opened the message. If not, the contact is given a tag, and the Workflow sequence ends. If the message was opened, the contact is given another tag and proceeds to the next stage of the funnel. The whole sequence repeats until the onboarding is complete.

 

If a contact gets into Workflow after being added to the system, they are first sent a message in which they have to click the appropriate link to start the onboarding sequence.

 

Workflow templates: Lead Nurturing

 

Category: Engagement

 

For whom: For customers interested in the product.

 

The mechanism: Only a small percentage of customers are willing to make a purchase at the first contact. It takes several dozen brand interactions with a customer for them to become ready to buy. Lead nurturing is about sending brief information about the product and company to familiarize the customer with a brand and accelerate the purchase decision. In this scenario, after showing interest in a particular product, the customer will receive emails with information about that product—its description, features, main benefits of purchase, and so on. These emails will be sent intermittently, providing content that is useful to the customer, sustaining their interest, and leading to a purchase.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Send new contacts a series of educational emails so they learn about your brand and the products you offer.

 

 

How it works: Workflow is started when the contact is assigned a tag. Then the system waits for an appropriate amount of time and sends the first lead-nurturing message. After waiting the specified period, Workflow sends another message. The sequence is repeated until the end of the cycle. Finally, the contact is tagged and Workflow finishes.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Educate new contacts about your brand and products with a series of short emails. Monitor continuously whether the messages are engaging the recipient and whether they are completing the planned micro-conversions.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when a contact is added to the system. At this point, the automation rule checks whether the contact is assigned to some stage of the campaign. Depending on the stage in Workflow and the campaign, appropriate messages are sent to the contact. After sending an email, the system checks if contact opened the message. If yes, the sequence proceeds, and the contact receives another message. If not, the system makes another attempt to reach the contact with the selected message. When the lead-nurturing cycle reaches the email with recently viewed products, Workflow checks if it triggered a purchase. If yes, the contact is sent to the appropriate stage of the campaign. If not, the system continues trying to encourage the recipient to buy the products by sending another message with the recently viewed products.

 

Workflow templates: Remarketing Campaign

 

Category: Engagement

 

For whom: For contacts who have visited your website.

 

The mechanism: High traffic and low conversions—this is one of the biggest pain points of eCommerce. Some customers visit your website, browse it, but leave without converting. Fortunately, when customers visit your site, they leave virtual footprints behind. You can use these footprints to convince them to return to your store and make a purchase. Reach out to customers who have left the site and prompt them to browse your content again to increase the likelihood of a purchase. To do this, you can, for example, send a tailored message or display a bespoke banner on virtually any web page. These messages will redirect people back to your site.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Reach out to customers who have left the site with a recommendation email and make them browse your content again to increase the likelihood of a purchase.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when a contact visits a specific URL. The algorithm checks if a purchase was made. If yes, Workflow finishes. If, for some reason, the contact did not decide to buy, the system sends them a personalized message with relevant products. At the end, Workflow adds a tag to the contact.

 

Advanced 

 

Goal: Send multi-channel recommendations to contacts who have visited the website and browsed products. Use Web Push notifications, emails, and display campaigns

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when contact visits a specified URL. The system checks if they made a purchase. If yes, Workflow finishes. If not, the system tries different ways to reach the customer. The first step is to send a Web Push notification and add the contact to the appropriate custom audience group for better ad targeting. After waiting a certain amount of time, the system checks if this action brought the expected effect (purchase). If it does not happen, there is another attempt to reach the contact. The system sends an email with the recently viewed products and displays an appropriate banner ad on the website. The cycle of waiting and checking for the event to occur repeats itself. Based on the tags, the system selects communication channels. The next step (if there is still no purchase) is to move the contact to another custom audience group to show them a different set of ads. After a reasonable amount of time, the system sends another message and again checks for the occurrence of a purchase event. If the contact goes through the whole cycle and still hasn’t made a purchase, the system tags him with the appropriate tag and finishes the Workflow.

 

Workflow templates: Post-Purchase Cross-Sell

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: For customers who have purchased a product from your online store

 

The mechanism: Selling to existing customers is easier than selling to brand new people. Cross-selling is a technique of offering customers products that are complementary to what they have just bought. It can take many forms—from a simple recommendation email to a complex sequence of cross-channel communications triggered by specific customer behaviors.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Get the customer interested in additional products by sending them an email with a well-chosen, personalized recommendation.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when contact makes a purchase. In response to the event, the system sends the contact an email with products they may be interested in. It automatically tags the contact and adds them to the appropriate custom audience group for better ad targeting. Then Workflow finishes.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Offer the customer products that complement their purchase. Show them a tailored, personalized recommendation in a channel that matches their preferences.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when contact makes a purchase. In response to the event, the system adds them to the appropriate custom audience group for better ad targeting and displays a personalized banner. After waiting for a suitable time, the system sends an email to the contact. Then the system checks if the contact has made a purchase. If not, based on the tags, the system selects the optimal communication channel to try again to reach the customer. After waiting the specified time, the system checks if the contact has made a purchase. If not, it triggers another automation rule and sends the last message to the contact. Then Workflow finishes.

 

Workflow templates: Customer Satisfaction Survey | NPS

 

Category: Engagement

 

For whom: For current customers.

 

The mechanism: Feedback helps you grow and improve the way you serve your customers. It gives you a chance to transform them from ordinary customers into brand ambassadors. One feedback tool is the NPS survey. The biggest advantage of the NPS survey is its simplicity. One question gives more than one answer. It also allows you to divide your contact base into Promoters and Detractors. With SALESmanago, you can send automatic queries to users who have just made a purchase. For their convenience, you can customize the language of communication according to their preferences.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Improve customer relationships through NPS surveys. Send an email that encourages your customers to share their feedback right after a purchase.

 

 

How it works: Workflow is triggered by the external event purchase. In the first step, the system runs through a condition that checks the contact’s cards and their details. Depending on the value of the relevant detail, Workflow sends the appropriate email to the contact and then finishes.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Ask customers for feedback through NPS surveys. Remind them to complete the survey in different channels to increase your chances of success.

 

 

How it works: Workflow is triggered by an external purchase event. In response to this event, the contact is sent a message with a survey. The system checks whether the contact completes the survey. If so, the contact will be assigned the appropriate scoring and will be moved to the indicated stage in the funnel. If they don’t fill out the questionnaire, the contact will be moved to the next Workflow stage. Using tags, the system selects an optimal communication channel and again tries to reach the contact with the survey. If after the next attempt the system still doesn’t note completion of the survey, it will make another contact attempt. This is preceded by an appropriate banner display and adding contact to custom audience for better ad targeting. If, after the last attempt, the contact completes the survey, the system assigns an appropriate scoring to them and adds them to the correct stage in the funnel. Otherwise, the account manager receives an alert.

 

Workflow Library: Wrap-up

 

As Pablo Picasso once said, “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” Feel free to use ready made templates and tools that will kickstart your marketing. After all, can you afford not getting satisfying ROI from your Customer Data Platform? If you are hungry for more, contact your success manager in SALESmanago, who will help you create your own, bespoke Workflow templates.

 

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

submitted by /u/Sixeven2021 [link] [comments]

Are you sick of hearing about Apple’s iOS 15 update that rolled out recently? Us too. But unfortunately, something tells us we’ll all be discussing it for quite some time.  This update changed email marketing. If you didn’t do much to prepare for this rollout, then you may be dealing with some unfortunate repercussions with…
The post How to Use Google Analytics to Track the Success of Your Email Campaigns appeared first on Benchmark Email.

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

Before they ever made a single jacket, Paynter Jacket Co. founders Becky Okell and Huw Thomas talked about historic couture on Instagram.
To their followers, it was a community to talk about all things jackets.
To Becky and Huw, it was product development research.
But to the startup world, it’s simply called “building in public.”
Originally driven by passion, building in public became Paynter’s recipe for success: By the time the duo launched the first Paynter jacket, it sold out in minutes.
Featuring insights from Buffer’s Small Business, Big Lessons podcast episode three and the accompanying unpublished interview, Becky and Huw explained how they chose to build in public, the ethos they share, and how building in public built Paynter.
Beck and Huw, Founders of Paynter Jacket Co. Rebuilding an iconic jacket and spotting an opportunity
Huw used to work for a small denim brand in Wales where he’d take fabric scraps from the cutting room floor and stitch together his own jackets. He also had a hobby of buying vintage jackets and taking them apart to see how they were made.
Then came the iconic blue jacket. He simply couldn’t take it apart but desperately wanted to recreate it.
Sharing his passion with Becky shortly after they met, the two decided to recreate this jacket together. They managed to get in touch with a retired Burberry pattern maker who developed the first pattern for them. From there, they attend Premier Vision, “the holy grail of fashion trade shows” as Becky put it.
“It’s basically your job to walk at least 20,000 steps over the course of three days or every day, and just meet as many people as you can, and explain what you’re doing, and try and get people on board,” said Becky.
After meeting so many different people and companies that help make the pieces of a single jacket, Becky and Huw began to think about sharing this journey online. They got the inspiration from a personal pain: they loved other designers’ work but wished those people would share their journeys.
“We were looking at the references of the brands that we really, really love and admire and thinking, I wish they had shared their process in their early days… why is their logo the way that it is?” said Becky. “Why do they have two logos? Why is their art direction the way that it is?”
This is how the two stumbled upon a concept that they would later learn is called building in public.
“We thought… if we’re ever going to be a brand that anyone references, it would be really cool to actually have almost an open book right from the start,” said Becky.
Cultivating a community with stories
After that spark at Premier Vision, the duo officially decided to launch a jacket company. It was supposed to take five months – but ended up taking nine – between attending the trade show to having their first jacket ready to launch. And they shared the whole journey on Instagram.
Paynter on Instagram“We shared the whole thing – things that we were happy with, things that we weren’t happy with – on Instagram,” said Huw. “We even got people to vote on what colors they’d like to see.”
Huw and Becky also shared their journey of building a business, including the less-flashy parts like figuring out how to fund the operation by selling possessions on eBay.
“We were very, very keen on keeping Paynter very independent, just run by the two of us, and we didn’t have enough to actually put through a production run with the factory,” said Huw. “So we shared on Instagram, us at the post office, sending the things we’ve sold on eBay just to raise as much money as possible to pay for production.”
Then, something clicked.
On a trip to Portugal to visit the factory where their jacket would be made, they shared the whole process of jacket-making in action: buttons, garment dyers, putting parts together, and more. Their audience couldn’t get enough.
“I think for the first time people’s names that we hadn’t heard of – they weren’t friends or family,” said Becky. “And that’s when you start to realize, wow, we’re not just talking to ourselves, there’s something more about this.”
People even wanted to pre-order jackets, but Becky and Huw realized the fabric wasn’t quite right. In keeping with their vision of a quality-first, independent brand, they made the tough call to delay batch one by four additional months so they could get the fabric they wanted. But the whole time, they kept talking to people on Instagram and sharing their journey.
Finally, Becky and Huw were ready to launch the first Paynter jacket. They had about 600 followers at the time and it sold out quickly.
Building in public touches every element of the business
Paynter has four launches per year and takes customer feedback very seriously. For them, building in public isn’t about sharing their journey one way, but interacting with customers throughout the creation process.
Becky and Huw from Paynter Jacket Co. “We always get customers involved before we’ve made all of the final decisions on a product,” said Becky. “For example, we know that there’s certain colors we definitely want to make, but we’d love to open up to the floor and see what colors customers would like. So that might just be in a simple Instagram voting system, it could be a TypeForm. It’s all pretty lo-fi, but we just want to make sure we’re listening to people and getting their opinions on things.”
“There’s a tiny card pocket that’s now on the inside of every jacket that we make, and we’ve got a guy called Max to thank for that pocket,” Becky continued. “He was on the Eurostar [train] texting us about his favorite jacket, but wishing it had a card pocket and we’re like, well, great, consider it done.”
They also get feedback on what people don’t like, which can be difficult at times but ultimately lead to amazing moments with customers.
“One of the best parts of taking our audience’s advice is showing that you listened,” said Huw. “For [example], batch number four. We had maybe 10 colors. We hadn’t quite chosen the final few, and there was this emerald green that we weren’t going to do but people just absolutely loved it, and so we brought it in and people just reacted really well. They go, oh wow, this is a brand that listens.”
Building a company with morals
Only doing four runs per year is a very conscious decision for Paynter. They always sell out and have demand for much more, but they don’t want to create any waste in the company, both in terms of production and the additional effort needed to maintain a larger operation.
Instead of expanding production, Huw and Becky invest their energy into telling stories with their jackets. Every Paynter jacket now comes with a thank you card that includes a link to a full digital story about the jacket’s origins, including videos from the artisans who make different pieces like buttons or pockets.
Beyond a culture of not wasting and not adding more to the environmental harms that fast-fashion can create, Becky and Huw also love the unique feeling customers get when they get a Paynter jacket knowing not everyone can get one and it’s incredibly high quality so it will last for a while.
And because of the small batches, there are multiple people in the world that are the only Paynter jacket owners in their country.
“Wow, that must be pretty cool,” said Huw. “You’re the only person in that country with that jacket.”

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

Have you ever wondered why those pesky social media algorithms exist? Though it may seem like they gatekeep your content, algorithms aren’t out to get you or hide your content from the masses. Let me paint a picture for you.
You’re connected with hundreds of people — maybe even thousands — on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But when you log in to each of these social networks, it’s likely that you don’t want to be bombarded by every single update from every single connection. That’d be pretty overwhelming, wouldn’t it?
That’s how the folks from each of these social networks feel — and they’ve done plenty of user research to validate that feeling. In fact, that’s exactly why the news feeds — and the algorithms behind them — exist.
All three of today’s most popular social networks have gravitated toward an algorithm-based feed in the effort to create better experiences for their users. The trouble is, each algorithm works differently. What’s worse, they’re constantly changing, making it hard for marketers like us to keep up.
To help get it all straight, we’ve put together this simple guide on how the news feed works on the three most popular social networks: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Let’s dive in.
Note: Keep in mind that the algorithms are constantly changing. We’ll continue to write about major social algorithm changes as they happen.

Essentially, social media algorithms analyze user behavior and prioritize content the platform believes the user wants to see and is most likely to engage with.

Image Source
News Feed Algorithm
Each major social media platform has its own version of a “news feed” style algorithm. Below we’ll dive into the specifics of feed algorithms for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but here’s an overview of what the algorithms for these platforms factor in when prioritizing content.
Engagement
When you first create an account on a social media platform, you’re more likely to see a mix of random content that may not align with your interests. But over time, you’ll see the content will be more in line with your interests. How does that happen?
Social media platforms begin learning your interests and preferences very quickly based on what kind of content you engage with. Once a platform has a good idea of what a user is likely to engage with, they are going to prioritize that type of content in the user’s feed.
Time on Platform
Why does what you engage with matter so much? Well because the more time you spend engaging, the more time you’re likely to spend on a platform. When you spend more time on a platform, you’re susceptible to see (and buy from) advertising that is shown to you. And the more time you spend engaging on a social media platform, the more insight that platform has into your preferences, purchases, and habits.
Now let’s get into the details of how the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram algorithms work.
Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm
Since the inception of the largest social media platform to date, Facebook’s news feed has been focused on personalizing the social media app’s user experience. According to eMarketer, we spend about 34 minutes each day using the platform.
To give users the best experience possible, Facebook’s team of engineers are constantly studying user behavior and picking up signals that show what kind of content each user is most interested in.
How It Works
The Like button has always been the epicenter of Facebook’s user experience — not only because we see it on everyone’s posts, but because it allows us to personalize our experience (and influence everyone else’s). Since it was first introduced in November 2007, it’s helped Facebook’s engineers figure out which posts were delighting users, boring them, offending them, and so on.
Nowadays, the algorithm that governs Facebook’s News Feed has become much more sophisticated. It isn’t just about the Like button anymore — and not just because reaction buttons are now in the mix. In fact, Facebook’s algorithm is by far the most complicated of the three social networks covered in this post.
Here’s a quick rundown of the most important things Facebook’s algorithm takes into account.
Relevancy Score
When picking posts for each person who logs on to Facebook, the News Feed algorithm takes into account hundreds of variables — and can predict whether a given user will Like, click, comment, share, hide, or even mark a post as spam.
More specifically, the algorithm predicts each of these outcomes with a certain degree of confidence. This prediction is quantified into a single number called a “relevancy score” that’s specific both to you and to that post.
Once every post that could potentially show up in your feed has been assigned a relevancy score, Facebook’s sorting algorithm ranks them and puts them in the order they end up appearing in your feed. This means that every time you log in, the post you see at the top of your News Feed was chosen over thousands of others as the one most likely to make you react and engage.
Ads are given relevancy scores, too, so that Facebook can show users the ads that could matter most to them. Again, this is supposed to give users a better experience — but it’s also helpful for the businesses that are paying for the ads. It’s calculated based on the positive feedback (video views, conversions, etc.) and negative feedback Facebook expects an ad to receive from its target audience. (Learn more about relevancy score for Facebook ads here.)
Prioritizing Friends
Before 2015, Facebook was predicting what users want to see on the News Feed based on more indirect signals, like Likes, comments, and shares of others. Eventually, it added options for users to filter out posts they don’t want to see. But what about helping boost the posts users do want to see?
Through studies and surveys, Facebook found that many users were concerned about missing important updates from friends they cared about the most. In response to these concerns, the social media platform began changing the News Feed algorithm to give more control to the users themselves.
It started in April 2015, when the company began giving priority (in the form of higher relevancy scores) to posts from friends over the Pages they follow and promotional posts. Later that year, in July, Facebook introduced the “See First” feature, which lets you actually hand-pick which accounts — whether friends or followed Pages — you want to see first at the top of your News Feed.
Now, when you want to prioritize a person or page to “see first,” their posts will appear at the top of your News Feed. To prioritize the people or pages you want to “see first”: click the downward-facing arrow in the top-right corner of any Facebook page and select Settings.

In the window that appears, scroll until you find News Feed Preferences and select it.

Next, select Prioritize who to see first.

Finally, select up to 30 of your Facebook friends to add as favorites. You’ll now see posts from these individuals first.

Time Spent on a Post
Facebook started monitoring how much time users spend viewing certain posts. Of course, the time you spend on a post can vary depending on your internet speed, the length of the post, and so on — and the folks at Facebook are aware of that.
However, the platform’s strategists found that dwell time, the act of spending a lot more time on a particular post in their feed compared to the majority of other posts they look at, is a good sign that the content was relevant to them.
How does this play out in the feed? If you spend more time on a particular post, Facebook is more likely to show that post on your friends’ News Feeds.
Video Engagement
In summer 2015, Facebook surveyed users on how they interacted with video on their News Feeds and found that many people who were interested in a given video didn’t necessarily Like it, comment on it, or share it with their friends. Since engagement is one of the primary ways Facebook measures people’s interest in posts, it had to come up with other ways to figure out whether people enjoyed the videos they were seeing.
To do that, the company started monitoring other forms of video engagement — like turning on the audio, switching to full-screen mode, or enabling high definition. So if you turn up the volume on a video or make it full-screen, the algorithm will interpret that as you enjoying the video, and will show you similar videos higher up in your feed.
The update doesn’t mean users will see more videos in their News Feed — only those who already engage more with video-related content.
Facebook’s algorithm is very, very complex, but we hope that gives you a good idea of what it considers important so you can tweak your Facebook marketing strategy accordingly. Now, let’s move on to Twitter.
Twitter’s Timeline Algorithm
Whereas Facebook makes most of the decisions about what will show up in your Facebook News Feed, Twitter’s historically taken a very different approach with what it calls the “Timeline.”
Your Timeline is the stream of tweets from the users you follow that shows up on your account home page when you first log in. It used to be that your Timeline was made up of every single tweet from every user you follow, in chronological order. But the folks at Twitter found that similar to what was happening on Facebook, users felt they were missing all the best tweets from the people they care about most.
The changes made to the Twitter algorithm aren’t nearly as platform-changing as the ones Facebook has made, but they are somewhat of a departure from the real-time element that has defined Twitter since the beginning.
How It Works
The engineers at Twitter have attempted two different approaches for surfacing the “best” tweets first on your Timeline: the “While You Were Away” feature and the even newer “Show me the best Tweets first” feature.
The “While You Were Away” Feature
This feature was added as an attempt to rid users of whatever FOMO (fear of missing out) they might have been feeling from the chronological nature of the original Timeline.
Basically, it’s a recap of some of the best tweets you may not have seen otherwise. How do these tweets make the cut? It’s determined by “user engagement”.
You can’t turn off the feature, but how often you see it depends on how often you use Twitter. The recaps pop up more frequently for users who check the app less often.
The “Show Me the Best Tweets First” Feature
The “Show me the best Tweets first” feature is a little more similar to Facebook’s News Feed. Why? Because it actually changes the content on your Timeline based on a tweet’s relevancy, rather than listing tweets chronologically.
By default, Twitter’s algorithm puts the tweets it thinks you’ll find most interesting at the top of your Timeline, these posts are still recent and in reverse chronological order. These tweets are chosen based on accounts you interact with most, Tweets you engage with, and much more.
The “Best Tweets” Feature
The rest of the tweets will be displayed right underneath, also in reverse chronological order. Unlike the “While you were away” feature, these “best tweets” won’t be highlighted or indicated in any way — so you won’t be able to tell where the “best tweets” stop and the rest of the tweets begin.
There are two ways to remove these “best tweets” from the top of your Timeline. One is a quick fix: You can always refresh your Timeline to see all new tweets at the top in the live way you might have been used to seeing in the past.
But if you want to always see your Timeline live, then Twitter does allow you to opt out of this feature if you’d like — unlike Facebook’s News Feed.
To opt out of this feature: Tap the three-star icon in the top right corner of your screen. Then tap Switch to the latest Tweets.

Is Twitter Moving Away From a Real-Time Timeline?
There’s no reason to believe so — at least not right now. One of the three sections of your Twitter timeline is composed of tweets displayed in reverse-chronological order. After you scroll through the “While you were away” Tweets and “Best Tweets” you’ll be left with the tweets from your followers starting with the most recent.
What might be an emerging trend on Twitter is the opportunity to subscribe to people’s tweets. While this feature wouldn’t disrupt the timeline’s mostly reverse-chronological order, it could add just one more section to your feed that you’ll need to scroll through before seeing the latest updates from your followers.
Twitter isn’t the only social media platform iterating its algorithm to show the most interesting content first — Instagram’s algorithm is giving Facebook and Twitter a run for their money.
The Instagram Feed’s Algorithm
As of January 2021, Instagram has more than 1.2 million active users on the platform making it a hotspot for marketers in nearly any industry. However, it’s a newer platform compared to the other two on this list, so many of us marketers are still trying to figure it out. The best place to start is from the bottom up — with the algorithm.
Instagram’s algorithm has evolved since 2016 when it first began sorting users’ news feeds in order of relevance rather than recency. Now, the algorithm works similarly to its parent company’s — Facebook. Using machine learning to aggregate six factors, Instagram can determine what content you’ll appreciate the most and influence your news feed to prioritize that content.
These six factors shared by TechCrunch are:

Interest: This is a prediction Instagram makes about how interested you’ll be in a particular post.

Frequency: How often you use the app that will determine what posts you see first when you open the app again.

Following: The more people you follow, the less likely you’ll be able to see everyone in your news feed.

Recency: How recently was a post published? This impacts when you’ll see a post in your news feed.

Relationship: Who shared the post and your connection to them will be a significant factor in how often you’ll see their content. This is influenced by tagged photos, engagement, and even how often you direct message them.

Usage: The time you spend on Instagram affects the content you see as well.

What about the Reels, Shop, and Explore pages?
With the advent of Reels, Shop, and the Explore page, there are several opportunities for Instagram users to naturally affect the factors listed above by interacting with content outside of their news feeds. If you enjoy cooking videos, for example, you may see more of those types of videos and reels in your news feed.
Is Instagram removing likes?
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention one of the more controversial Instagram algorithm updates — removing likes. Removing one of the most popular features of the app was initially tested as a measure against bullying and increased pressure to post content that garners more and more social approval for young Instagrammers.
The change began in several countries including Canada, Brazil, and Australia. Ultimately, Instagram decided against removing like counts for all users, and instead gave users the option to hide public like counts on their own posts, and the ability to apply this change to all posts in their feed under account settings.

Image Source
Other Key Algorithms
In addition to updates in the main feed, it’s important to note that each main area of a social media platform has its own algorithm. That means the content that gets shown to you on your Instagram feed is operating on a different algorithm than the Instagram stories that are shown to you.
The biggest differences are between how users are shown photo and video content, respectively. Let’s discuss some of the other key algorithms that impact what content users see and when.
Inappropriate Language
Social media platforms are constantly on the lookout for ways to keep users safe, especially younger users. Platforms may scan content for certain words or subject matter that may be deemed inappropriate, which could lead to that content being deprioritized in the feed.
Copyrighted Content
Have you ever tried to add copyrighted music or video clips to a piece of content? Chances are, it was either quickly flagged and removed or potentially had lower reach. That’s because copyrighted content is often not included in the licensing agreements social media platforms have, and can be a liability, and can impose legal consequences for users and platforms responsible for distribution.
It’s best to avoid including copyrighted elements you don’t have the rights to and follow the specific platform’s guidelines for appropriate ways to incorporate elements such as music in your content.
Cross-Platform Content
While repurposing content is a common best practice among marketers and creators, doing so can have implications on content reach.>
In early 2021, Instagram announced the algorithm will prioritize recommending Reels that do not have visible TikTok logos, in an effort to discourage users from cross-posting TikTok content to Instagram. That means if a user downloads a video they have created on TikTok and shares the same video with the TikTok watermark to Instagram, the Instagram algorithm will potentially show that content to fewer people.
For maximum engagement potential, Instagram’s @creators account encourages users to create fresh content for Instagram instead of cross-posting content from other platforms (particularly TikTok). To get around this, some users take to third-party websites to download their TikTok without watermarks and post to Instagram.
It’s All About Content Quality
The key takeaway for brands and individuals alike is this: Quality is Queen.
These algorithms are meant to filter out irrelevant and poor-quality posts so that the highest-quality content gets through. Control over what users see and don’t see is a collaboration between the social platform and the user. The user interacts with what they find interesting and the social media platform takes note and shows you more of that the next time you open the app.
The big lesson for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram marketers like us is to remember that it’s our job to post content to social that’s interesting, entertaining, helpful, and/or relevant to our audiences. This means picking relevant topics, writing delightful copy, and posting compelling images and videos.
By following these best practices, your posts will have a better chance of getting shown to users — so you can continue to inspire, delight, and educate them.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.