Category: Marketing Automation

We all know the importance of customer service for retaining customers and scaling a business — and it’s only increasing in value over time.
Consider, for instance, what happened when I called CorePower Yoga’s customer service team last week to complain about an incorrect charge to my account. What could’ve been a stressful and frustrating experience turned into me actually upgrading my membership.

That’s the power of good customer service — it’s where your customers’ loyalty starts, or ends.

Unfortunately, the past two years have been anything but easy on customer service teams. While customers’ expectations for customer service hit an all-time high, customer service reps simultaneously saw more difficult calls and increased escalations in 2020.
HubSpot’s Industry Data, for instance, shows a consistent rise in support tickets since the beginning of the pandemic — from 6% in March of 2020 to over 90% as of August 2021:

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However, as customers’ challenges and requests increased exponentially as a result of the pandemic, most service teams were still struggling to adjust to a fully remote setup. (Imagine the stress of a conversation with an unhappy customer from your kitchen table, where you might lack a strong phone connection or easy access to peers for help. Yikes.)
All of which is to say: COVID-19 had a strong impact on customer service, and in 2022 and beyond we’ll continue to see the ramifications of the pandemic on what customers expect from customer service, and how service reps will need to adjust to handle those new expectations.
Here, I spoke with six experts in the customer service industry to gather insights into the future of customer service. Let’s dive in.

How COVID-19 Impacted Customer Service
1. Service reps needed to adjust business offerings to meet new customer demands.
Microsoft’s Worldwide Support Leader Kirsten Gudmundson told me it’s vital service teams learn to adjust to their customers’ unique needs, which might be different than they were pre-pandemic.
“Listen, learn, evolve — quickly,” Gudmundson told me. “During the pandemic, our customers’ needs were evolving at warp speed as many had to quickly go through a digital transformation to stay relevant.”
Gudmundson adds, “It was imperative that we actively listened and adjusted our offerings to meet new customer demands and identified innovative ways to engage with customers.”
The pandemic required all businesses to re-route existing strategies and refocus their efforts. If you work for a B2B customer service team, then, it’s important to keep in-mind that part of your job is exhibiting patience and empathy when working with your customers.

Additionally, the ‘rule book’ you followed pre-pandemic might not work anymore. Part of the challenge of the service industry today is having the flexibility to alter your approach — and your business offerings — as you identify better ways to serve your customers.
As Gudmundson points out, “By making it easy for customers to get support and proactively providing services, we gave customers peace of mind, which allowed them to focus on this critical pivot point for their business.”
2. Burnout across service organizations increased.
According to a 2020 Gallup report, 76% of employees experience burnout on the job at least sometimes, and 28% say they are burned out ‘very often’ or ‘always’ at work.
Burnout has increased dramatically as a result of the pandemic. Work-life balance has blurred significantly. Additionally, some employees feel pressure to remain online to prove their working to their managers — and still others need to adjust to working from home while also taking care of their children or dealing with other household responsibilities.
Unfortunately, service employees are particularly at-risk of burnout. As researcher Kristina Hultgren writes, “call centre jobs are notorious worldwide for their high levels of turnover, absenteeism, employee burnout and emotional exhaustion.”
Kevan Gammage, Global Director of Customer Support at Brandwatch, told me he’s seen burnout increase for his own team after joining Brandwatch at the beginning of 2021.
“For us, the pandemic has been a bit of a ride,” Gammage says. “It seems like customers have been reasonable in understanding that our team is also impacted by COVID, but that only carries so far.”

“Our reps have certainly had to work under more pressure in general, and burnout has been a constant threat in our world. For example, our team has seen the type of tickets we get become much more technical in nature and subject.”

To deal with burnout, Gammage told me he’s needed to become more intentional about how he creates a connected environment for the team, even if that environment is fully remote.
Additionally, he told me, “We do our best to avoid burnout by encouraging our folks to take advantage of unlimited vacation. We also like to give the team specific self-development time to work on things that are more personal, like self-development or mentoring from teams they aspire to work in. So far, so good — but we have to continue to be creative for the team.”

3. Customers became more familiar with communication tools like Zoom and Google Meets.
Fatima Sbeih, Beautiful.ai’s Director of Customer Success, told me her team’s customer support requests nearly doubled at the beginning of the pandemic.
Sbeih says, “As a remote collaboration tool, new users adopted Beautiful.ai early in the pandemic as they transitioned to working from home. As a result, [our] customer support requests nearly doubled, leading to longer response times and adjusting priority levels for support tickets. This — coupled with the inherent collaboration challenges of remote work — resulted in a backlog of tasks.”

Sbeih told me, “Clear and concise internal communication became an even higher priority than before, as did the mental health of my team to ensure everyone felt supported.”

To ensure strong internal communication on your own support team, consider investing in powerful customer service tools, such as HubSpot for help desk software or JIRA for bug reporting.
Sbeih told me one of the most notable improvements to customer service that she’s seen has been a more geographically diverse talent pool that aligns with customers’ timezones. She notes that this has decreased wait times for first-time responses, and allowed for calls to be scheduled within business hours for each team.
As your team became more comfortable with remote software in 2020, so did your customers. This is a major benefit for remote support teams, as customers are more efficient at submitting and responding to requests on communication platforms outside of traditional phone calls. 
As Sbeih puts it, “customers became more comfortable with communication tools like Zoom and Google Meets, enabling easier assistance.”
4. Remote support coaching became a requirement.  
As people adjusted to this ‘new normal’, tensions were high. Along with the daily challenges they faced at their companies, customers also dealt with the extreme pressures of a global pandemic.
All of which is to say: 2020 wasn’t an easy year for anyone in a customer-facing role.
As HubSpot’s Team Lead of Customer Support in Berlin Takeaki Fujita puts it, “customer-facing teams were on the frontline for managing customer frustrations — which can be stressful for customer support teams to manage.”
Additionally, Fujita points out that the loneliness and isolation of a remote lifestyle can also impact the productivity of support reps. “Without teammates ‘on the floor’ for guidance, support escalations can increase if the rep feels stuck with no one to turn to for help … and this can slow down how quickly we can manage customer queries as a result.”

To mitigate the loneliness and frustration for your team, you might consider offering remote coaching for your support reps. As Fujita told me, championing collaboration within and across teams, encouraging transparency, and keeping communication channels open is vital for enabling reps to share knowledge and learn from one another.
Fujita adds, “Empowering reps with recurring virtual support and proactive coaching can lay the foundations for effective, personalized support interactions, which can only help our customers to grow better.”
5. Service reps needed to develop or nurture a stronger sense of empathy in their customer interactions.
When a customer is calling a customer service representative, they’re usually facing a challenging, frustrating, or disruptive situation. In 2020, it became increasingly important for service reps to lead with empathy in their conversations with customers.
As Moz’s Customer Support Lead Natalie Alexis puts it, “Early on, we saw an increase in customers seeking help for their businesses to survive. To better assist those dealing with the impact of the pandemic, our services had to evolve so we aimed to lead with more empathy in our interactions — this brought a sense of camaraderie with our customers.”
“But as the pandemic has persisted,” Alexis adds, “we’ve seen the impacts of the sustained stress on our customers. We’ve continued to focus on providing empathic service while acknowledging the increasingly stressful times we live in.”

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. This is particularly critical for customer support reps. To help your team develop empathy, consider how you might show them what your customers experience on a daily basis.
If you sell software, for instance, you’ll want to ensure your customer support reps have all been trained in how to use your software — the challenges they experience as they learn how to use your tools will help them understand and relate to your customers’ challenges, as well. 
Alnaica Augustave, an EMEA Customer Specialist at HubSpot, agrees that empathy has never been more critical in the support industry. She says, “COVID-19 has had an impact on customer service — particularly in the way of working and interacting with customers to have open communication and listening.”
Augustave adds, “We have seen an increase in customer service volume shifts with COVID-19, and in order to reduce customer frustration and anxiety, we have adjusted our infrastructure and focused on listening, increasing our empathy during this period.”
So … What’s Next?
Gammage told me that the pandemic has forced his support organization to learn how to roll with the punches — and this flexibility is going to remain necessary moving forward.
As Gammage puts it, “Going forward, I think that the expectations of customers will still be high, but reps should expect to have even more touchpoints with customers.”
You’ll want to ensure your customers are offered diverse options when it comes to getting in touch with your support team — for instance, perhaps you offer live chat, Messenger on Facebook or Instagram, SMS text messages, and a phone line. To streamline these processes, consider a tool like MobileMonkey, which enables you to see all customer messages in one place.
Additionally, as the remote customer support world continues to evolve, it’s vital you remain open to change and willing to adjust your team’s processes to fit the new needs of your customers.
As Sbeih told me, “Customer service has been, and will continue to be, successful in remote and hybrid environments. Work-from-home flexibility, retention, productivity, and work-life balance will continue to see improvements. However, the adjustment will remain a challenge for those who aren’t self-starters and may require extra support.”
Ultimately, it’s imperative your team listen to your customers and iterate over time to continue providing reliable, helpful solutions to their problems.
Remember: Your business’ success starts and ends with good support, so it’s vital you invest in your support team for the long-haul, particularly as the world adjusts to a world post-pandemic. 

Think about the last time you flipped through a confusing instruction manual. Where does that piece go? How do these parts fit together? If the instructions are subpar, you get frustrated and wind up looking for an explainer video some random person posted online.
If we can follow the storyline, we understand. If not, we get lost in the chaos. Information design aims to avoid confusion by presenting data in a way that’s easy to understand.
As a marketer, information design makes it simpler to share complex ideas — whether you’re distributing an annual report or getting buy-in for a new campaign. In this post, we’ll walk through the basics of information design, how to put it to use, and the tools you need to start applying it to your work.

Information design is integral to everyday life. For example, we follow a recipe to whip up a meal or navigate a museum using signs and exhibit explanations. When used effectively, it can help people complete a task, solve a problem, understand complex data, or follow a set of directions.
You may be thinking that information design sounds a lot like data visualization. While both are tied to graphic design and a core set of design principles, key differences set them apart.

information design
data visualization

Tells a story, which gives the data purpose.
Presents raw data in a visually appealing way but doesn’t provide purpose.

Uses logic and patterns that are easily understood by an audience.
Allows viewers to make their own conclusions, and aims to spark a specific reaction.

Provides conclusions, so the viewer doesn’t have to make their own assumptions.
Constantly evolves as new data becomes available.

Examples: How-to infographics, instruction manuals, or analytics reports that provide conclusions or predictions.

Examples: Analytics dashboards, demographic graphs, or performance charts.

Confused? You’re not the only one. The nuances between the two can be challenging to discern. The main thing to remember is that information design is about effectiveness and function, while data visualization is more about visual appeal and aesthetics. Both enhance a viewer’s ability to comprehend data, but only information design weaves storytelling into the mix.
Luckily, a set of principles exists that will help you turn complex information into attractive, coherent content.
Information Design Principles
Most fields have a set of guidelines to keep processes clear and consistent. For example, writers follow style guides, engineers adhere to code standards, and information designers practice design thinking.
Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving that puts people first. Like UX design, which considers the users’ needs above all else, information design principles are human-centered and give designers a process to follow. The goal is to ensure people don’t feel overwhelmed or confused as they navigate information.
While the principles are listed in a particular order below, know that this process isn’t always linear. You may have to repeat a step or jump back and forth between two to clarify information. Like all guidelines, you have to find what works for your situation and intention.
1. Empathize.
It’s essential to understand a problem before creating the solution. That’s why the first step in information design is about setting aside any assumptions so you can focus on users and their needs.
Start by getting curious. Ask questions, observe your audience’s behaviors, engage people in conversation, and empathize to understand their true motivations or problems. Use interviews, surveys, focus groups, or polls to learn what solution people really need. The aim is to understand how people may interact with the final design to make it as effective as possible — but know the design will only be as good as the information you collect.
2. Define the core problem.
Once you’ve collected information from your target audience, you need to synthesize it and define the core problem to be solved. Ideally, you center it around the people you’re aiming to help instead of your own needs.
For example, say you want to create a product page for a new portable speaker that your company will release. You may say, “We want to hit our sales goal, so we need to make a product page that’s focused on converting people into customers.” Instead, think about your customers and redefine the problem as, “People are looking for a speaker that can go anywhere, have great sound, and last for years.”
Defining the problem with your audience in mind changes the way designers, writers, and marketers approach the solution. And it often sparks creative ideas, which leads right into the next stage.
3. Ideate and brainstorm.
Not all ideas have the same impact. That’s why it’s essential to encourage everyone involved in the information design process to flex their creativity in this phase.
Give your tried-and-true brainstorming techniques a go, but don’t be afraid to experiment with new methods. Techniques like mind-mapping, brainwriting, free association, S.C.A.M.P.E.R, and storyboarding can stimulate ideas. Get as many ideas as you can for both the design and the story right from the start.
Once you’ve condensed your ideas down to a carefully curated list, map out your story outline to get a feel for how people will interact with and understand your design. This outline will serve as the foundation for the first iterations.
4. Prototype your ideas.
You likely landed on one or two strong ideas for the story and design. The prototype phase is where you expand upon those ideas to identify the best possible solution.
Prototypes are typically low-cost, simplified iterations, so don’t spend all of your resources perfecting the first version. Instead, focus on the visual hierarchy to make your story stand out. Then, before moving on to the next step, share the prototype with people involved in the project to make sure the information is accurate, precise, engaging, and easily understood.
5. Test your designs.
When your design is robust enough to explain your idea, it’s time to share it and collect feedback. Send it to teammates within your company who may provide insight or gather a group of people in your audience.
Take note of everyone’s reactions. Are they confused by the storyline or design? Do they know what steps to take? Is the information clear and accurate? Do people read or watch to the end?
Give people a few days to sit with the prototype and gather feedback. When you feel you have enough information, make any necessary tweaks. You may have to repeat this step multiple times because, often, the feedback inspires you to redefine the problem and rethink your story.
Information Design Examples
While there’s a particular way to approach information design, the design possibilities are near endless. Let’s look at some ways it’s used in business and marketing to help spark your ideas.
1. Media Economy Report Vol.13, Bureau Oberhaeuser

Industry trends don’t have to be a bore. This report from MAGNA GLOBAL acts as a thought leadership piece to share insights on where the eCommerce industry is heading and how the customer experience is changing. A blend of copy and well-designed graphics gives an overview of forces affecting the industry, highlights key takeaways, and provides predictions on how eCommerce will evolve.

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2. Advanced Keyword Research Tutorial, Brian Dean

Information design can go beyond written content. This explainer video from Backlinko gives life to the standard “how-to” post with a visually appealing design, animation, and clear instructions. If you want to experiment with content beyond blog posts, infographics, or reports, a video may be just the content for your next information design project.

 
3. The Deal Machine, Elisabetta Calabritto

Mergers and acquisitions require a lot of research, but this design makes reading about the challenges companies face downright enjoyable. It’s an excellent example of how information design isn’t just about interpreting charts and visualizing studies—it also incorporates graphic elements that delight the eyes. Large quote blocks, relevant images, and color influence how people comprehend information, so make sure to consider the visual flow when creating your design.

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4. Not Another State of Marketing Report, HubSpot

Marketing is constantly evolving, and people need to keep up with the latest trends, strategies, and stats. HubSpot knows this. Their annual report reflects their industry expertise, with chapters dedicated to each marketing niche. Need to know the latest SEO strategies? Skip to Chapter Four. This example is a lesson in knowing your audience, providing the data they need, and packaging it up in a design that’s easy on the eyes.
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5. Click & Collect: Reinventing Online Grocery Experience, Netguru

Case studies are necessary for educating your audience and providing proof that your product or service works. Netguru did a great job creating a case study that’s simple to scan and fun to scroll through. Interactive graphics catch your eye and explain how the product works. But my favorite moment had to be learning how the automated guided vehicles work.

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Information Design Tools
Everyone has their favorite tools, whether it be for note-taking, project management, graphic design, or content management. If your specialty is marketing, the following tools can help you put together cohesive, attractive content — without having to learn complex software.
Certain tools are more intricate than others, though, so loop in your design team if necessary. They are the experts, after all! Here are some valuable tools to consider:

Canva: A graphic design platform that is simple for non-designers to quickly get the hang of to create presentations, infographics, reports, and more.

Visme: Ideal for both experienced designers and newbies, this graphic design platform gives a variety of templates so you can create videos, infographics, documents, charts, and graphics.

Crello: Full of trendy templates, Crello is a graphic design tool with layouts for social media posts, marketing materials, presentations, and more. It also features a collection of royalty-free photos so you can spice up your information design documents.

Adobe Creative Cloud: A must-have for creatives, Adobe CC offers supreme control over your creations. Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Premiere provide powerful tools for starting a design entirely from scratch.

Procreate: This app is for artists who create digital paintings (think animations, graphics, and more). It’s more for designers than for marketers, but it’s perfect for those who prefer to work by hand before converting their work into programs like Adobe CC.

In a world where people are constantly bombarded with information, focusing on clear communication can improve conversions, increase customer satisfaction, and help you hit your goals. Effective information design makes it easy for people to gain insights and learn about your company. With the right data, story, and tools in hand, you can design content that’s just right for your audience—and hopefully prevent the frustration that comes from an incomprehensible set of instructions.

If you could improve your website’s performance by 10%, would you?
Site performance scoring is a complex web of metrics, and First Contentful Paint (FCP) is just one factor Google considers when evaluating page load speed. Responsible for 10% of a website’s overall performance score, FCP plays an important role in creating a positive user experience for visitors.
A site’s First Contentful Paint (FCP) is the total time it takes a page to load from the moment the request is sent to the point that any content is rendered on the screen.

The higher the FCP score, the slower the content loads. When visitors think a page takes too long to load, it can be a major red flag. In a study by Top Designs Firms, 42% of people said they would leave a poorly functioning website.
But a low FCP score shows that the page is loading quickly, which means content will be delivered sooner. And fast-loading content is one way to keep visitors scrolling your site. In fact, Deloitte found that a 0.1-second improvement in load time increased conversions by 8.4% for retail sites and 10.1% for travel sites.
When a millisecond makes a difference, it’s best to do whatever you can to improve your site speed. So let’s take a look at how to lower FCP to make your site as fast and user-friendly as possible.
What is First Contentful Paint?
First Contentful Paint (FCP) is the amount of time it takes for a user to see the first content on a website, whether it’s images, text, logos, background graphics, or non-white <canvas> elements. FCP evaluates how users experience a website’s page load speed by measuring what people actually perceive, rather than the results of a speed test tool.
In the timeline below, you can see FCP play out in the second frame when the first text and image elements appear on the screen.

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First Contentful Paint is one of six metrics tracked in the Google Lighthouse Performance report, along with Time to Interactive, Speed Index, Total Blocking Time, Largest Contentful Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift. Each metric measures an aspect of page load speed.

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First Contentful Paint is an important metric for judging the page load timeline because it marks the point where a user can see that something is happening on the screen. Without this reassurance, a user might leave the page to browse a faster website.
First Contentful Paint differs from the Core Web Vitals Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) because LCP measures the time it takes for the largest element on a website to become visible. On the other hand, FCP measures the first element to load, which isn’t necessarily the largest element.
A quick LCP helps assure people that the main content is useful to them. But a fast FCP reassures people that something is happening on the page, which can keep them around long enough for the rest of the page to load.
How to Test First Contentful Paint
FCP can be measured in the lab (pre-release) and in the field (real-world users).
Testing FCP in the lab is a good way to work out issues before your site goes live, but it isn’t the most accurate way to evaluate performance. That’s where field testing comes in, showing you how people interact with your site when there are differences in devices, network connections, and user interactions.
You can use the following tools to test First Contentful Paint:
Field Tools

PageSpeed Insights
Chrome User Experience Report
Search Console (Speed Report)
web-vitals JavaScript library

Lab Tools

Lighthouse
Chrome DevTools
PageSpeed Insights

For this article, let’s walk through what it looks like to run a test with Lighthouse – an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. (If you’ve never run this audit before, follow the link for easy step-by-step instructions).
Once you run the test for a given URL, Lighthouse opens a new tab to share the site performance overview. In the example below, the site is performing well in SEO and Accessibility but needs work on Performance and Best Practices.

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Going deeper, the audit also gives scores for each of the six performance metrics, including First Contentful Paint (FCP). In the test shown below, the FCP score is 2.5 seconds – a time that “needs improvement.”

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But you need to know what makes a “good” score in order to improve FCP.
The Ideal First Contentful Paint Speed
Google recommends a First Contentful Paint scoring of 1.8 seconds or less in order to provide your site visitors with a good browsing experience.

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But what determines your FCP score?
Like all things Google, there’s a method to the metric. Your FCP score is determined by comparing your site’s FCP time to FCP times for real sites, using data from the HTTP Archive. You can dive deeper to see how Lighthouse determines thresholds and metric scores.
When evaluating your FCP score, Google says “a good threshold to measure is the 75th percentile of page loads, segmented across mobile and desktop devices.” This helps get an accurate representation of the user experience.
If your site has a poor FCP score, there are steps you can take to shave off seconds and create a faster site that visitors want to scroll through. But first, let’s explore what leads to a poor score.
What Causes High First Contentful Paint
Large text files, slow server response time, and multiple page redirects can all contribute to a high First Contentful Paint score. If you have a high First Contentful Paint (FCP), it’s likely due to one of these factors:

Slow font load time
Slow server response times (TTFB)
High request counts and large transfer sizes
Render-blocking resources
Unused or inefficient CSS
Script-based elements above the fold
Lazy loading above the fold
Not inlining images above the fold
Excessive DOM size
Multiple page redirects

But keep in mind, the Lighthouse Performance score is a weighted average of all the metric scores – and the FCP makes up 10% of that total. As a result, the heavily weighted scores will have a larger impact on your overall Performance scoring. Here’s a look at how the other Lighthouse metrics are weighted:

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If your overall Performance score needs improvement, it can be best to spend time optimizing for Total Blocking Time or Largest Contentful Paint before tackling First Contentful Paint. As you implement good development practices across the site, it’s likely your FCP score will lower.
But if you want to improve FCP, you can take a few targeted steps to move from a red to a green score.
How to Improve First Contentful Paint
It’s not always simple to improve a First Contentful Paint (FCP) score. But with the right action plan in place, it’s easier to prioritize the major errors that have the greatest impact. Let’s break down how to go about it.
1. Create a list of high-priority issues.
The first step to lowering the FCP score for any site is to run the list of lab and field tests shared above to understand exactly what you need to work on.
Let’s hop back into the Lighthouse performance report from earlier. If the FCP score “needs improvement,” it’s best to reference the opportunities or diagnostics recommendations in the report. To see all of the recommendations, toggle to the “All” tab. Or for recommendations specific to the First Contentful Paint (FCP) score, toggle to the “FCP” tab.

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The above test shares two opportunities to improve FCP: eliminate render-blocking resources and ensure text remains visible during the Webfont load.
By learning the top issues affecting FCP, you’ll have a list of where to focus and what to fix.
2. Learn what to ignore.
Another helpful feature of the Lighthouse performance report is letting you know what you don’t need to focus on. This list is generated under the “Passed audits” section of the performance report.

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While it’s okay to ignore these non-issues, know that Google constantly updates the metrics used to evaluate page load speed. It’s good practice to routinely run tests to ensure site performance is on track – you may need to prioritize a “passed audit” one day.
3. Work with your web team to fix issues.
Once you know what issues to pay attention to, it’s simply a matter of taking action to improve the ones impacting First Contentful Paint (FCP).
This post won’t get into the weeds of web development. But these detailed guides from Google are excellent resources for understanding each factor that affects page speed and performance. If one is impacting your FCP score, you can take a look to learn how to fix the issue.

Eliminate render-blocking resources
Minify CSS
Remove unused CSS
Pre-connect to required origins
Reduce server response times (TTFB)
Avoid multiple page redirects
Preload key requests
Avoid enormous network payloads
Serve static assets with an efficient cache policy
Avoid an excessive DOM size
Minimize critical request depth
Ensure text remains visible during Webfont load
Keep request counts low and transfer sizes small

Whether your First Contentful Paint (FCP) score is showing red, yellow, or green, there are always improvements to be made. It’s the fun – and sometimes, frustrating – part of web development.
But remember, small changes can have a big impact. Reducing server response times, compressing images, and being aware of the elements above the fold can lower your FCP score, speed up your site, and ensure site visitors have a faster, longer browsing experience.

Do you think a new social media automation saas can have it’s place in the realm of other similar tools ? I feel like the more there are tools for some kind of need, the smaller becomes the space for new creative ways to tackle that need. Since there are a lot of such tools, i’m asking myself what could be the differentiator that would let someone pick my solution instead of other ones ? Is it the price ? Is it the user experience ? Are there other factors to consider ?
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Time is one of the most valuable resources we have — that’s why efficiency is something so many people strive for. The good news is that there are a plethora of marketing tools available today with the power to help you boost productivity and streamline monotonous processes or tasks — ad management tools are among the many options. 
In this blog post, we’ll talk about what ad management is, outline high-quality ad management software, and explain why they’re beneficial for all businesses.

What is advertising management?
Advertising management is overseeing different marketing activities and responsible individuals to ensure that campaigns are running effectively and target marketings are being reached. 
Depending on your business needs, advertising management can focus on various metrics that contribute to campaign success, like ROI or conversions or media placements that make sense for where your target audiences are. 
As there is often a lot to keep track of, many teams choose to use advertising management tools, which we’ll cover below.
Advertising Management Software
What are ad management tools?
Ad (advertising) management software and tools have the power to streamline and automate different aspects of advertising, including ad and campaign planning, collaboration, execution, sharing, monitoring, and analysis.
Why use ad management tools?
Ad management tools have many benefits. Here are some examples:

Save advertisers and marketers valuable time.
Improve productivity and efficiency.
Make collaboration simple.
Run cross-channel campaigns with ease.
Optimize your campaign structure.
Create insightful and customized reports with powerful analytics and reporting tools.
Visualize your data in a way that makes sense for your business and goals.
Increase the chances of successful ads and campaigns among your target audience.

Now, let’s review seven powerful ad management tools, meant for different types of ads, goals, and teams.
10 Best Ad Management Tools
1. HubSpot Ad Management Software

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HubSpot’s Ad Management & Tracking software helps you with your inbound marketing strategy and campaigns. You can run all of your campaigns out of this tool from start to finish — meaning, the HubSpot supports ad creation, management, and reporting across different networks.
Other unique and notable features you get from HubSpot’s Ad Tracking Software are:

Automate ad targeting using Lists that will sync your leads and audience for targeting opportunities.
Manage ad campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google.
Report on ROI and leads from the platforms you share your ads on (e.g., LinkedIn, Google).
Understand audience behavior by identifying which contacts took action and engaged with your ads.
Align ads with your other marketing efforts — this is simple because HubSpot Ads live with Marketing Hub.
Use data from your HubSpot CRM to inform your campaigns and help you determine which ads are most likely to convert contacts into paying customers.

Price of HubSpot Ad Tracking Software
Free, or you can start with/ upgrade to a paid plan depending on your needs and goals.
2. AdRoll

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AdRoll is a platform for ecommerce businesses that focuses on ads, email marketing, AI-based product recommendations, and cross-channel measurement. The platform acts as a home base for all of your business’s marketing and advertising activity. Here are some of AdRoll’s other notable capabilities:

Personalize dynamic ads using AI-powered product recommendations to target your audience members.
Share targeted videos and display ads to foster emotional connections with your audience.
Create relevant product offers, dynamic ads, emails, and other forms of outreach using data you’ve collected about your customers along with AdRoll’s 1.2 billion shopper profiles.
Use advanced measurement and attribution to identify growth opportunities and determine customer lifetime value (CLV).
Target your audience with paid digital media and account-based ad campaigns by integrating AdRoll with your CRM.

Price of AdRoll
Plans range from $0-$19 depending on your needs.
3. RollWorks

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RollWorks is an account-based platform meant to help you identify target accounts, engage them via ads and various channels, and measure your impact and success in doing so. The tool can identify target accounts, prioritize target accounts, automate various sales tasks, and account-based advertising. Here are some more things you can do with RollWorks:

Reach and engage highly-qualified accounts with ads, lead-gen tactics, and targeted account-based marketing (ABM) programs.
Use account-based ads to identify your target audience and encourage those people to visit your website.
Create retargeting ads to bring leads back to your site.
Integrate RollWorks with your HubSpot CRM to reach contacts that matter most to your business and view RollWorks data within the CRM.
Use dynamic messages to personalize your ads and make them relevant.
Automate your sales emails and follow-ups to save time and increase chances of engagement.
Easily track the success of your campaigns, account-based programs, sales automation sequences.

Price of RollWorks
The Starter plan costs $975 per month, and you can upgrade from there.
4. Influ2

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Influ2 is a person-based ad platform meant specifically for B2B. With the tool, show your ads to specific people and then measure the success of the ads among those targeted. Here are some other things you can do with Influ2: 

Select individuals to see your ads so they’re highly-relevant and targeted.
Improve brand awareness and recognition by only displaying curated ads and information to hand-selected audience members.

Connect Influ2 with your HubSpot CRM to sync contacts and targeting efforts with Sales and Marketing.
Use the Name-by-Name Tracker feature to see the names, emails, titles, companies, LinkedIn profiles of the people who interact with your ads.
Determine the best time to reach out to a prospect by tracking their engagement via views and clicks.
Keep your current customers engaged with person-based ads by offering relevant and informative content when they need it.

Price of Influ2
Contact Influ2 for demo and quote.
5. Adstream

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Adstream is an all-in-one digital asset management and ad delivery solution for broadcasters, publishers, and online services. It’s a Connectivity Suite, meaning it integrates and connects all aspects of your marketing including digital asset management and delivery, traffic management, media automation, and analytics. Here are some more notable capabilities:

Use a single workflow across marketing teams for total transparency and easy collaboration while organizing, creating, and sharing digital content.
Distribute your digital content among Adstream’s 79,000 global media destinations that the platform can connect you to.
Auto-adjust your content so it suits the different areas it’s being shared in around the world.
Add your incoming ads to the Traffic Management Inbox — here, you can easily review those ads as well as make edits, approve, and send them to another individual or team (e.g. Production).
Automate different workflows, or aspects of your workflows, to increase efficiency such as processes related to clearance or usage rights.
Measure the success of your digital campaigns and processes behind them with analytics, real-time reports, and tracking.

Price of Adstream
Contact Adstream for a quote.
6. 6Sense

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6Sense is an account-engagement platform with account-based advertising capabilities. The platform uses AI, big data, and machine learning to help you understand and identify your target audience’s buying behavior, prioritize sales and marketing accounts, and create and share personalized and engaging campaigns/ content. Let’s look at some more features:

Engage your target audience members at scale with highly relevant, unique, cross-channel messages.
Use account data to create targeted display ads that help you reach key players at target accounts.
Align Sales and Marketing as a single revenue team on the platform to accurately measure your account-based success.
Segment data about your target accounts for insight into the success of your campaigns among those specific accounts.
Use AI to help you predict prospect and account behavior throughout the buyer’s journey so you know when to target them with your ads, campaigns, and personalized messaging.
Refer to the platform’s Intent Data to discover which accounts are in the market for a product or service like yours with buying signals on first and third-party websites.

Price of 6Sense
Contact 6Sense for pricing information.
7. Celtra

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Celtra is a cloud-based software that automates creative production. With the platform, all aspects of collaboration will be streamlined and more efficient thanks to its cloud-based nature — team members can design, approve, and share digital assets among markets, campaigns, and more. Here are some more features to be aware of:

Use the Ad Builder’s templates to design unique and branded ads without any code — these ads can include ecommerce features as well as video and animation.
Get real-time reports that include over 100 metrics and dimensions to better understand the success of your creative work, campaigns, and ads.
Build user-friendly ad products to help you engage prospects.
Customize your ad products to suit your business with features like shoppable video, product galleries, and text and graphic overlays.
Gain access to Celtra’s support team and hundreds of on-demand videos and tutorials to help you achieve your goals on the platform.

Price of Celtra
Contact Celtra for pricing information.
8. Smartly.io

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Smartly.io is an ad management software for social media advertising. Its automated tool will help you build effective advertisements and experiences for your audiences on the social channels that matter most to your business. Algorithms also help you optimize your creative assets based on audience data, and you can bulk-update your ads in real-time. Some additional features to know:

Algorithms browse through your product catalog and data sources to create custom creative templates with copy variations based on target audience data. 
Custom KPIs and attribution windows for tracking performance and obtaining actionable insights that help you make effective decisions backed by data. 
Modular creative testing to ensure that you use the right kinds of ads in the right channels.

Price of Smartly.io
Smartly.io offers a self-service plan or a fully-managed plan; both charge a percentage fee of media spend. Contact Smartly.io for specific information. 
9. Marin Software

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Marin Software is an all-in-one platform for advertisers to manage search, social, and ecommerce ad spend. Its automated tools help you identify growth opportunities for search ads across major search engines, align your social channels to drive growth, and integrate your product feeds to optimize shopping campaigns. Let’s look at some more features:

Measure, analyze, and optimize all ad spend with first and third-party data to help you maximize ROI with informed targeting. 
Automated process for position-based bidding in search engines. 
Multi-channel advertising insights in one unified dashboard. 
The option to use managed services where in-house experts partner with you to drive results. 

Price of Marin Software
Contact Marin Software for pricing.
10. StackAdapt

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StackAdapt is a self-service advertising platform that digs deep into your business data to get unique insights that help you develop and deliver high-impact campaigns to your target audiences. It’s best for creative ad management, as its high-quality creative studio helps you match the most effective creative assets with campaign KPIs on a platform-by-platform basis. Here are some more things you can do with StackAdapt:

Multi-channel targeting for native, display, video, and audio ads
Access to a large ecosystem of media partners and publishers to advertise on.
Preview all ads on desktop or mobile, across 500+ publishers, and 23 different verticals to optimize them before sharing with your audiences. 
Machine learning and AI automate performance decisions, so your campaigns are most effective. 
Customizable reporting stack to help you obtain the most critical metrics. 

Price of StackAdapt
Contact StackAdapt for pricing.
Grow Better With Ad Management Tools
Your marketing team is bound to grow better with an effective ad management tool — don’t be afraid to experiment with various options to find the one that meets your needs and goals.

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Instagram marketing can be a hit or miss. Especially as you start implementing your social media strategy, it might take a while for your posts to start performing well.
When it does, your first instinct is to figure out what worked well and replicate it in future posts – a great move. What you can also do is boost your post to double down on its performance with a broader audience.

Find out how Instagram promotions work, how to set one up, and best practices to keep in mind when running one.
How are Instagram promotions different from ads?
Promotions give a second life to posts that have already been viewed and likely performed well. Ads, on the other hand, feature new content and are used as part of a campaign.
With a promotion, the goal is to reach a broader audience for more brand awareness and engagement. Or perhaps you want higher conversions on a particular post.
With an ad, however, you’re likely targeting a specific audience with a particular message in mind.
Whether it’s an ad or a promotion, it will show up the same way on Instagram with the “sponsored” label under the account name.
Instagram Promotion Goals
There are three main goals you can have when running an Instagram promotion:

More profile visits
More direct messages
More website visits

The goal you choose will determine where users are led after clicking on the CTA. While the first two goals will keep users on the social platform, the third will lead users to your landing page (LP).
Knowing your goal ahead of time is key to preparing your assets and having a plan for the influx in traffic, whether it’s on your profile, your DMs, or LP.
The first thing to know about running an Instagram ad is that you must have a business account. However, you may not have to link your Instagram account to a Facebook account to run the ad, a previous requirement up until June 2020, if this will be your first promotion.
1. Access the post you want to promote and click on the “Promote” button.

For Stories or Highlights, access your archive, select the post and select ‘Boost.’
2. Select a goal.

If you select “More Website Visits,” you’ll have to choose a destination for your users as well as your action button, i.e. your CTA. Here are the six button options:

Learn More
Shop Now
Watch More
Contact Us
Book Now
Sign Up

3. Define your audience.

When you choose “Automatic,” Instagram will simply target users who match your current followers’ interests and demographics, specifically those who have engaged with your content before. With the “Create Your Own” option, you can filter your audience by location, interest, age, and gender.
4. Set up a daily budget and a promotion duration.

Your daily budget range from $1 to $1,000 and the promotion can last anywhere from 24 hours to 30 days. Instagram recommends starting with a least $5 to reach a good pool of users.
5. Review your promotion and click “Create promotion.”

One thing to note is that Instagram will run your promotion on feeds, Stories, and the Explore tab – regardless of where it was originally published. Based on initial data, it will determine to run it where it performs best.
Once you submit your ad, it will go through an approval process, which usually takes 24 hours.
Best Practices for Building a Good Instagram Promotion
1. Promote top-performing content.
While you may be tempted to promote posts that need a little love, resist the urge. You may end up wasting money on a post that doesn’t have great potential.
If your brand is considering boost a one-off post, focus instead on posts with already high engagement.
Why? Well, these posts have already performed well with your followers. This is a good indication that they may perform well with the audience you haven’t yet reached.
2. Make sure your landing page is mobile-friendly.
Instagram is a mobile-first application.
As such, if you’re taking users to a website, make sure it offers a good user experience for mobile users. If not, you’ll end up with a high bounce rate and a low return on ad spend (ROAS).
A few things to keep in mind when designing for mobile:

Have a single-column layout – This makes the page much easier to scan and navigate.

Avoid too many images and videos – They may up too much space and crowd the site. And they can cause slower loading speeds.

Keep your copy short – What seems like perfectly spaced paragraphs on a desktop can easily become overwhelming on mobile.

3. Know your goal is ahead of time.
It’s important that you prepare your Instagram profile and/or landing page ahead of your promotion.
You want to make sure you’re ready to convert those users once they’ve clicked on your ad. Otherwise, what’s the point?
If your goal was to get more profile visits, be sure to have a visually appealing grid, a descriptive bio, and updated contact information.
If you’re hoping for more messages, consider adding a question in your ad to encourage conversation.
The earlier you start preparing, the more ideas you can develop to attract and convert your target audience.

 

 

Everybody agrees that the D2C strategy sky-rockets in the retail industry, and is, potentially, the next big thing for the manufacturers. It is seldom mentioned that it’s actually great for various eCommerce entities. Choosing the right model is key.

 

What D2C business is

 

For example, Andy Dune, founder of Bonobo, observed that Zappos’s growth had little to do with the product itself, but much to their excellent service. In response, Bonobo developed a culture of ultra-responsive customer support and saw their direct traffic rate increase by 53.3 percent. It was all about a great customer experience.  

 

Direct-To-Consumer is an e-Commerce strategy that allows companies, like manufacturers or CPG brands, to bypass the traditional chain of supply – wholesaler, distributor, retailer – and go straight to the consumer. No middlemen. Cost efficiency is the most obvious reason to go D2C. But there are more.

 

Reasons to move to D2C

 

According to the Direct-to-consumer Purchase Intent Index, 69% of Americans who are familiar with D2C brands made at least one purchase from such a brand last year.

 

Besides delivering what consumers want, there are other advantages:

 

Reducing dependencies

 

You don’t have to rely on distributors or retail partners. The less you are dependent on other businesses, the better – this harsh lesson, taught by the 2020 pandemic, sank really deep.

 

Know your customer data

 

Selling via a third party does not give you access to the customer data. You don’t see customers’ reactions to certain products, so you don’t have the basic information on how to improve customer experience. 

 

D2C allows you to be at least one step closer to your customers. SALESmanago will help you not only gather a tremendous amount of data about your customers. It will also enable you to use this data effectively to your advantage.

 

Control your brand

 

The way the customers think about you is partially shaped by the customer experience provided by the third party. It may be good or bad, but you don’t have direct control over it. 

 

With D2C you gain back this control because you communicate directly with your customers.

 

 Expand your territory

 

Distributors and retail partners have their reach and you cannot do much about this. No matter how excellent your product or service is, your partner’s networks and centers have their limits. 

 

D2C enables you to transcend these constraints and reach even for the globe.

 

Reduce costs

 

One might argue, that the current post-2020 reality, with record unemployment rates, forces the companies to tighten their budgets, reduce the costs to meet the requirements etc. The truth however is, that the cost-efficient solutions always replaced traditional ways of achieving the same result. 

 

D2C done right will enable you to strengthen the bonds with the customer while reducing the cost of the process via automation, self-service, and D2C shipping.

 

5 strategies within D2C model (and their pros and cons):

 

Not everyone is a manufacturer. Choosing the right strategy for your company involves careful evaluation of the business to ensure the goals, resources, and investments align with its values. Furthermore, you also have to have technological capabilities to support moving to D2C. 

 

The most common D2C strategies present on today’s market are:

 

Touch point commerce

 

This D2C strategy enables you to embed commerce in non-commerce digital touchpoints, like social media, games, and IoT. Involves the consumers stronger, enables to gather feedback, and braces the company to employ new methods of connecting with the customer in the future.

 

It gives great:

 

Insights. Embedding commerce in other kinds of activities will provide you with a unique view of customers’ behavior, customs, preferences. 

Customer Experience. Additional activity during the shopping process turns it into something special and, by definition, fun. 

Convenience. Taking part in an activity that is exciting and natural creates no burden for the users in the process.

Flexibility. Many possible formats and a variety of products and services possible to sell in such a way give the brand great business flexibility.

Affinity. Going that extra mile for the consumers and providing them with something less mundane than ordinary shopping bonds them with the brand stronger.

 

Weak as a source of:

 

New offerings. It will not make way for the new offerings to the market any easier.  

Product development. Additional action and fun help to sell the product, but it is not designed for product development, however great insight into customer preferences will surely be of help.

Digital Revenue. Another side of gamification is slowing down the purchase process. A little smaller group of dedicated customers will eventually generate a decent amount of revenue.

 

Any e-commerce brand will be able to employ this strategy.

 

Succes example: Mymuesli 

 

 Personalized D2C

 

Establishing one-to-one relationships with the customer via personalized programs, involving backend technology and e-commerce capability. Through personalized contact via forms or quizzes, detailed information about customers’ needs is gathered. Then the product is carefully selected from the offer to perfectly suit these needs. Increases engagement through customized experience and provides insights. 

 

It gives great:

 

Insights. A one-to-one relationship with the consumers will provide you with perfect insight into their needs and customs.

Product Development. This strategy is designed for those who plan to develop their product as the bond between the customer and the brand tightens and information is gathered.  

Affinity. Delivering a tailored product along with knowledge sharing, guidelines, etc. will create an exceptional level of brand affinity, leaving the consumer almost with no alternatives after a while.

Convenience. In an extremely consumer-oriented strategy, they will feel that the brand takes many decisions out of their hands, answers all the questions, and provides them with all the necessary expertise. 

New offerings. New offerings emerge naturally as the brand gets to know the clients better.  

Customer Experience. This strategy is centered on providing the best customer experience possible.

 

Weak as a source of:

 

Digital Revenue. Loyal customers will pay gladly for tailored products and expertise, but the customer service process is both time and effort-consuming. 

 

Manufacturers have the most tools for this strategy.

 

Succes example:Just Right Pet Food

 

Subscription

 

This strategy provides the company with a direct source of revenue through recurring shipments of an item tailored to consumer needs. 

 

It gives great:

 

Affinity. Going that extra mile and delivering a product when it is needed creates a strong bond between consumers and a brand. 

Flexibility. Any FMCG product can be subject to a subscription strategy. 

Digital Revenue. The best strategy for a stable income for the brand. Moreover, the time of purchase is an option predefined by the brand and accepted by the consumer.

Convenience. Having a product at their doorstep when needed takes one thing from the consumer’s head. 

New offerings. As the existing subscriptions work well for the consumers without their attention, there is plenty of room to present them with new products to fit into a subscription strategy.

Customer Experience. A very convenient form of purchase in pair with excellent customer service makes the consumer feel treated individually.

Insights. A choice of products for subscription says very much about the needs and preferences of the consumers.

 

Weak as a source of:

 

Product Development. This strategy is centered around recuring delivery of the product as it is. In this sense, it is about certain habits. And although there is always room for change, we are talking more about minor improvements than development.

 

This strategy does not assume product development. Any e-commerce brand can employ it. 

 

Succes example: Dollar Shave Club

 

Digital store

 

Fully functioning e-commerce website aimed at the sale of company’s products, and generate immersive customer experience through content. 

 

It gives great:

 

Affinity. Customers tend to trust and prefer the retailers they know. The same is true about digital stores. If the customer service is without flaws, the customers are unlikely to turn their back on the brand they can trust.

Flexibility. Any type of goods can be sold with this strategy.

New offerings. The structure of the digital store is ideal to highlight new and special offers. Moreover, this is what the consumers are used to and what they expect.

Insights. Most digital stores offer a large variety of products. On-site behavior patterns provide the brand with very valuable data. 

 

Weak as a source of:

 

Product Development. This strategy does not assume the product development, however, the feedback may help introduce improvements, especially in the case of the manufacturers.

Digital Revenue. A fully functioning e-commerce website is built around the transaction. A broad spectrum of clients, making decisions faster than in the case of other models, will generate decent revenue. Discarded cart however is also a norm, and lack of personalization will make the clients choose by the price. 

Convenience. Of all the presented strategies this is one of the least convenient. Depending on the UX execution, it may be even confusing. The consumer does not have to visit the retailer, but all the choices are still to be made and the consumer is usually left with them with only minor guidance. The personalization is usually also minor. 

Customer Experience. Depending on the execution, industry, the price range of the products, etc. the experience may even be delightful. But it is still simple shopping, with no extra mile in it.

 

Great for most e-commerce brands.

 

Succes example:Nespresso

 

Knowledge hub

 

This strategy engages consumers through content. Builds unique engagement centered on the brand – informs, educates, inspires. 

 

It gives great:

 

Customer Experience. Education and inspiration done right will always be a delightful experience.

Affinity. Sharing knowledge and expertise creates a strong bond and a sense of gratitude on the consumer’s side.

 

Weak as a source of:

 

Insights. This strategy is not centered around gathering consumer data, though the way consumers interact with content, shifts in their interests, and purchase intent, will surely provide the brand with some insight.

Product Development. By interaction and feedback, some information may prove useful in product development, but this model is not the best choice in this field.

Flexibility. Knowledge or know-how the brand shares are not flexible in themselves, because they are not a matter of preference or opinion.  

Digital Revenue. The nature of knowledge sharing and lack of e-commerce infrastructure is not designed to generate revenue. For this, consumers should be redirected to another source, i.eg. digital store.

Convenience. It is not the simplest way to buy a product, more a way to create brand affinity. 

New Offerings. Since the activities are not backed by e-commerce infrastructure, there is no room for this strategy to offer new transactions. The strategy is centered on the value of the product, not its price.

 

Any consumer brand will do fine with this strategy. It is, however, very specialized.

 

Succes example:Patron’s Cocktail Lab

 

The future of the D2C business model

 

Even after stratospheric growth during the pandemic, the D2C retail model does not slow down:

 

source

 

The e-Commerce industry has seen ten years of growth compressed to three months! And it is projected to maintain 19,2% growth in 2021. The message, especially to all the consumer brands, is clear – D2C is not just a passing trend, rather a natural evolution of commerce. For a consumer brand, ignoring the evolution will likely mean to fade into the past.

Hello everyone, I am a owner of an e-commerce tool collection site. It mainly provides eCom tools for users based on specific categories, for example, “Product Research Tools”, “Advertising Tools”, “SEO Tools”. I started building my website from the middle of July this year. Up to now, the website has gradually gained some loyal users. I am very grateful to all the users who have given me hundreds of suggestions during this period. Thanks to them, I found a lot of shortcomings in the site and have been optimizing the site according to their suggestions. Some of them suggested that some additional value should be added to the site. I responded to this suggestion by adding a blog page to the site. I divided the blog articles into several categories: “Industry Dynamics”, “Amazon Related”, “eCom Shop Related”, “Other eCom Platforms”, “Tutorials”, ” SNS Marketing”, “Niche”. Especially, in the “Tutorials” section, I’ve been looking for some learning materials related to Amazon. Next, I’ll start to add some tutorials about how to run an eCom shop and other stuff. I hope these learning materials can help some newbies in e-commerce industry. To be honest, I am not a native English speaker, so I may not be able to write, collect or organize my language well in many places. But I’ve tried my best to add more value to the website by providing learning materials. I sincerely invite you guys to give me some precious advice towards the blog sections of my website(categories and content), for helping people who are in need of it. More importantly, if you guys feel that these articles are not suitable for English native speakers at all, I may stop collecting these study materials, or collect them and give them to some agents who’re native English speakers for translation and revision.Link
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