Category: Marketing Automation

You can apply marketing strategies all day, but if they aren’t effective, those efforts don’t matter in the long-term.
Measuring marketing effectiveness is crucial to improving your go-to strategies over time. Are your methods hitting KPIs? Are they helping your clients reach short- and long-term milestones? Use each campaign to learn and grow.
By measuring marketing effectiveness, you can better ensure high ROI or return on marketing investment, ROMI.

Measuring Marketing Effectiveness
How do you measure marketing effectiveness? Sure, you can look at traffic or sales metrics, but it goes further than that.
Ultimately, the KPIs you choose to measure can vary by company and strategy. But there are some metrics to pay attention to when measuring marketing effectiveness.
First, when you consider revenue, look into how much of the revenue is a direct result of the marketing efforts. This can help provide clear, high-level insight into how successful the marketing efforts are for the company.
Next, consider pipeline ROI or pipeline growth. Do you continue to generate more and more new leads via your marketing efforts? If not, your marketing effectiveness might be falling flat.
Conversion rates are also a strong KPI to review. Keep in mind that impressions, views and even clicks don’t necessarily translate to a successful marketing strategy. If users are clicking but not following through with a purchase, why aren’t they converting? Conversion rates can offer a better look at the success of your marketing.
When considering long-term effectiveness, look at retention rates. Are customers sticking around with your company for the long haul, or are they making a few purchases and leaving? Don’t forget to continue marketing to ongoing customers while also reaching new audiences.
Marketing Effectiveness Metrics
The types of metrics you consider can also vary by medium. Marketing efforts used to center on tangible but harder to measure media, like billboards, magazines, or television.
Today, digital marketing is front-and-center, and with it comes a wide array of things to measure to determine effectiveness. Here are three top marketing segments and metrics to consider for each.
1. Social Media Marketing Effectiveness
Social media marketing is newer to the scene, but it can be huge for company revenue and lead generation. Measuring marketing effectiveness on social media is pretty straightforward.
It’s easy to track the number of inquiries or leads through gated content on social media, and engagement can also be tracked through reposts/shares, comments, and follower count.
Conversion rate plays a role here too. If your account has a high follower count but comparatively low engagement rates, you can start investigating where to tailor your social marketing strategy for improved engagement, leads and revenue.
2. Content Marketing Effectiveness
Content marketing is vast, with options to market through a website, videos, articles, courses, and other digital content. The goal is not to say, “Hey, purchase my product and engage with my brand!” but rather to provide valuable, informational content for customers.
Because there are so many methods for content marketing, measuring effectiveness can vary widely depending on the source at hand. You might check conversion rates from your website to your paid online course, or you might consider engagement with your informational video or webinar.
3. Email Marketing Effectiveness
Email marketing is thriving. There are a number of metrics to consider when measuring email marketing effectiveness. First, you can review delivery, open, and click-through rates.
High delivery rates means your emails are reaching inboxes, but don’t depend solely on this metric. Open rates are important, as a low open rate can reveal that you need to focus on writing shorter, more intriguing subject lines.
Of these three, click-through rates are arguably the most important. Are potential customers clicking on links in the email, or are they opening it and then deleting the email? Click-through rates offer a higher chance of converting to revenue. Conversion rate is, again, important here and can help gauge marketing effectiveness for emails, content, social and traditional marketing methods.
How To Present Marketing Effectiveness
So you know how to measure marketing effectiveness, but how do you best share this information with external stakeholders? An insightful marketing report can show clients exactly how impactful last quarter’s marketing campaign was on business.
These metrics can also be used in requesting a higher marketing budget or determining strategies for the future.
Here’s how to prepare your presentation, from the data to include and how to organize it to truly show marketing effectiveness.
Data to Include
Typically, a marketing report will review quarterly campaigns. First, you want to include the goals of the marketing strategy for that quarter to measure the actual results against the expected outcomes. Include all methods of marketing, such as content, social and/or email, and their accompanying KPIs.
Also, include market research to identify the target audience within the report and ensure external stakeholders know why your strategy addresses this specific audience through these specific methods.
The aforementioned KPIs like conversion rates, social engagement, revenue as it relates to marketing campaigns, click-through rates for emails, and customer retention rates can all be included in the report for external stakeholders.
Organizing the Presentation
The presentation should be a sensible roadmap, starting with the goals and expected outcomes and leading through the metrics measured for each type of marketing. Goals can include traffic numbers, revenue, customer satisfaction, or lead generation.
Organize metrics by social, email, content, and any other inbound or outbound marketing types you pursued over the quarter. You can also note specific goals and results for each type of marketing.
Don’t forget to include explanations. Share what is doing well, and why; also outline what is underperforming, why, and how you plan to tackle that next quarter.
KPIs to Prove Effectiveness
Again, KPIs are crucial to share with external stakeholders, as they will clearly showcase marketing effectiveness.
For content marketing, show lead generation, conversion rates, bounce rates, and even SEO-related metrics like page rank on the search engine results page (SERP).
Email marketing should outline delivery, open and click-through rates. You can also analyze bounce rate, both emails that bounced back from unavailable email addresses and from your website’s pages that include email signups. Additional email marketing KPIs to consider are the number of emails sent, new subscribers for the quarter and unsubscribes per email sent.
Social media insights can also focus on lead generation and engagement rates. As social continues to develop, some revenue rates will be gauged directly from social, as platforms add shopping functions.
Measure Marketing Effectiveness To Inform Goals
You might spend weeks pouring energy into an email marketing campaign that just doesn’t generate the leads you had expected while leads are pouring in through social despite a lack of focused efforts there.
Without reviewing and analyzing your marketing strategies, it’s hard to know where to best channel your time, creative energy, and budget to continue boosting your pipeline and revenues.
Marketing effectiveness uses key metrics to identify high and low points of your marketing strategies, so you can share this information with external stakeholders and better inform future strategies and goals.

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Enterprise data modeling is nothing new. This tactic has been around for years, but it is still relevant to modern businesses today.
It can feel like an abstract, complex concept at times, but it is an important part of data governance, which helps manage and secure a company’s data assets.
In today’s world, data security is important, as is boosting productivity and efficiency with up-to-date applications and digital processes.
Enterprise data modeling can help ensure company apps and data are standardized, secure and in-line with the business mission.

What is an Enterprise Data Model?
Simply put, an enterprise data model is a visual representation, or graph, of an enterprise business’ data. It focuses on high-level, more abstract components as it tries to define and standardize an entire enterprise business’ data.
That means enterprise data modeling can be a massive task, but it will be important to help reduce duplicates, inaccuracies, and errors in a business’ data.
Why Do You Need an Enterprise Data Model?
There are numerous reasons why you might need an enterprise data model. Let’s dive into four, now. 
1. Improve Data Quality
Even small companies handle a lot of data on a daily basis. Over time, this data can quickly become irrelevant. Errors can slip in unnoticed, as can redundancies. The more issues in the data, the less accurate it becomes. When companies revisit data to inform decisions, data riddled with errors and redundancies can impact company sales and growth. By taking an overarching, comprehensive look at the data and defining it via enterprise data modeling, these issues can be addressed appropriately.
2. Defining All Data
Enterprise data modeling is a massive task, but that’s because it addresses all of an enterprise business’ data. A company can clean up data and align applications, so everything is cohesive and running smoothly, with an enterprise data model.
3. Managing Data
Similarly, managing data is easier when it is all addressed and defined in one graph. The enterprise data model will be more high-level, so deeper dives and more intensive data modeling will be needed to define the specifics. But overall, a company can better manage all the data assets it has when they are all placed in one data model.
4. Data Governance
Businesses rely heavily on technology, as do consumers. The more we move online, the more regulations that need to be in place to maintain privacy and security. Businesses that do not protect consumer data will find themselves in hot water. An enterprise data model can help identify a business’ data, better manage it, and ensure the business is complying with data and privacy laws.
Benefits of an Enterprise Data Model
The benefits of an enterprise data model are similar to the reasons a business needs it.
First, if a company wants to ensure high-quality data, it must remove redundancies and errors, and also apply any business-specific rules regarding the data. This can all be done through the extensive enterprise data modeling process.
An enterprise data model can also help a business be more cohesive and standardized in its processes by aligning the various applications and technologies the company uses daily.
Finally, a huge benefit to enterprise data modeling is its ability to help a business align its data with data governance. For example, GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, addresses how companies use customer data and gives more privacy and data control to the consumer.
When this regulation was implemented, companies needed to ensure that they were properly handling data. This regulation is still in effect, so newer businesses also must comply. Not complying with government data policies can lead to legal implications, which is what makes an enterprise data model so invaluable.
How to Create an Enterprise Data Model
The enterprise data model consists of a few smaller models. Starting with the enterprise subject area model, you’ll move through each of the following steps to create the enterprise data model.
1. Enterprise Subject Area Model
The ESAM is a high-level model that defines the main subject areas of a business as well as the relationships among these subject areas. For example, this could include Accounts, IT, Billing, Finance, Sales.
2. Enterprise Conceptual Model
Next, each ESAM is broken down further into enterprise conceptual models, which consist of major business concepts and how these concepts are related.
3. Enterprise Entity Model
Finally, the enterprise entity model includes the main interests for each business concept and details their relationships with one another.
Enterprise Data Model Example
The enterprise data model can be visualized as a pyramid. The entire pyramid is the enterprise data model, which, let’s say, is a retail store with a brick-and-mortar location and an online shop.
The top of the pyramid is the enterprise subject area model, with 10-20 business subjects defined. Those could include Stores, Staff, Warehouses, Products, Payments, and Customers, to name a few. Arrows would show how these subjects relate to one another.
Below that, the middle of the pyramid is a slightly more fleshed out enterprise conceptual model, which defines eight-15 main business concepts per subject area model. For example, Products could be broken down by ID and type, or Payments could be broken down by credit cards, debit cards, and cash.
Finally, the base of the pyramid is the enterprise entity model, which would identify the main areas of interest for each conceptual model.
Enterprise Data Model Tools
Now that you have a better understanding of enterprise data modeling, you might be ready to dive into this project. These data model tools will help make this process less taxing on your team.
1. Lucidchart
Teams can work together on Lucidchart to create collaborative diagrams and data models. It meets international privacy and security standards, making it a safe option.
Drag-and-drop components allow team members to build data models with ease, and each person can select portions of the diagram and leave feedback comments. You can test it out for free, and prices range depending on business size.
2. Erwin Data Modeler
The Erwin Data Modeler is specifically tailored to visualizing and standardizing enterprise data assets.
All data, whether from a data warehouse or in the cloud, can be handled in one interface, and automated models can help reduce redundancies and errors to improve data quality. Pricing varies by business needs, but you can explore this modeling tool with a free trial before committing.
3. Diagrams.net
Diagrams.net (formerly draw.io) is a free data modeling tool that allows you to make flowcharts and graphs for your enterprise data. Drag-and-drop features make it easy to place shapes, lines and arrows exactly where you’d like on the gridded, blank diagram.
You can also draw free-hand shapes. Newly added in February 21, diagrams.net also offers data governance options, and you can store all data models on your enterprise-level storage platforms, like Dropbox or Google Drive.
4. ER/Studio
Ideal for enterprise businesses, ER/Studio handles company data with ease. This enterprise data modeling software allows for forward or reverse engineering, source and target mapping, naming standards and more. You can model data from various sources and define and enforce standards within this tool. This is a paid tool, and prices vary depending on needs; you can also request a demo.
5. Ab Initio
Another popular tool for enterprise businesses, Ab Initio incorporates self-service and automation into your data models to improve efficiency. Users can model and catalog data securely, complying with data governance. The tool will even generate automated operational data quality rules for data processing. Licensing rates vary.
Improve Data Management With an Enterprise Data Model
Sure, enterprise data models can be intimidating. But they are more important than ever in our data-driven world. Enterprise data modeling can help standardize data assets for a business and better manage and secure these assets.
Most importantly, an enterprise data model can help a company avoid legal troubles by complying with data governance. By using one of many tools for data modeling, this arduous but crucial task can be made simpler and more collaborative.

Hello, Have you tried to merge marketing automation and data analysis. Usage of data and data manipulation to create full customer experience. We are doing this on daily basis, But we are limited to predefined dashboards etc. Is there any tool with custom tracking and data storage, as well as data manipulation for customer journey? I am looking for something where i can use Python knowledge.
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This article is part of a larger series that focuses on diversity and equity in marketing. As a company, we are committed to identifying actions we can take in the fight against racism and injustice, and elevating BBIPOC voices is paramount to inspiring change. Follow along and read other posts in this series here.

This post is authored by Anyssa Roberts, writer and journalist.
For the last two years, I’ve witnessed dozens of families and individuals celebrate the most gratifying accomplishment of their lives—paying off their debt. 
I was a marketing copywriter for Ramsey Solutions, an influential personal finance company in Tennessee. I created content that made sales while improving our audience’s lives. I even followed the financial principles myself and celebrated my own debt-freedom in 2020, as a single, Black woman with an immigrant background.
Personal finance changed my life for the better and influenced the way I interact with marketing. That’s why it bothered me to read that Black people are most likely to consume products but are financially behind white and Latino counterparts, according to research. While most Americans report feeling as though they live paycheck to paycheck, minorities are most likely to face ongoing wealth gaps compared to their white peers. 
In marketing, we, of course, want people to buy from us, but we also want our products and services to improve the lives of the people who use them. But where does this financial discrepancy lie in the Black community and how can we as marketers better support one of our largest consumer populations?
Black Buying Power
Black people are major consumers in the American economy and spend more than $1 trillion a year on goods and services.
“At 47.8 million strong and a buying power that’s on par with many countries’ gross domestic products, African Americans continue to outpace spending nationally,” said Cheryl Grace, Nielsen’s Senior Vice President of Community Alliances and Consumer Engagement and co-creator of the DIS Report in 2019.  
We dominate as consumers in the beauty and personal care categories—a multi-billion dollar industry—and make up 90 percent of the consumers in the ethnic hair care category. We’re also 20 percent more likely than the total population to say they will “pay extra for a product that is consistent with the image I want to convey,” according to Nielsen’s report.
In short, our dollar matters. 
It’s unfortunate, however, to see so many dollars exiting the Black community only to leave us beautiful and broke. 
Why Black People Trail Their Peers Financially
The average white family has eight times the wealth of the average Black family and five times the wealth of the typical Latino family, according to the Federal Reserve. 
Let’s take a look at a couple of the reasons why Black people are behind when it comes to financial development and building wealth:
Lack of Access to Resources and Financial Education
Black people are more likely to face systemic financial challenges that limit their wealth-building ability. Some examples include having fewer financial resources, less access to employer-sponsored benefits and greater income volatility a TIAA study found. These challenges already limit financial advancement and are made worse by low financial literacy.
Financial literacy isn’t high amongst American adults in general. But in a study, Black people answered 38 percent of financial literacy questions correctly, and only 28 percent answered more than half correctly.
Low financial literacy also influences buying and investing habits. Black people have a tendency to get rid of assets too early or not acquire them at all, according to a TIAA research study. 
These barriers hinder sound financial decision making as well as good financial management.
Expensive Spending Habits
The data shows that Black people like to shop, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, too much reliance on consuming products and services rather than producing them can hurt us more than help.
Nielsen reported that 52 percent of Black people find in-store shopping relaxing, compared to 26 percent of the total population. And about half of Black consumers say they enjoy wandering the stores looking for new, interesting products.
Currently, Black women trail behind Latino and white women in financial security, according to a research study by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA). In their report, they found that 71 percent of Black women and 60 percent of Latino women had at least one expensive behavior in relation to the use of credit cards. Only 49 percent of white women had at least one expensive behavior.
The Role Of Marketing In Black Consumption Practices 
A Nielsen report stated that Black consumer spending is highly influenced by advertising. Black people reported being 42 percent more likely than the rest of the American population to respond to mobile ads. They’re also more likely to respond to ads on television, radio and the Internet.
This is good news for us in marketing, because it means our ads are working; however, when we zoom out and look at the big picture of our impact on an already vulnerable community, we have to pause and analyze the full impact.
Expensive cars, clothes, hair, jewelry and vacations are perfectly fine products and services to market to the Black community, but if our marketing departments are targeting a community solely to buy their products without thinking of how they can serve that community, then we’re doing more harm to our customers than good. 
Like many populations, Black people appreciate and almost demand to see themselves in marketing, but is our product or service helping or hurting? Are we selling a false image of success—something that makes us want to keep up with the Joneses rather than live meaningful and productive lives? As I shared earlier, we want people to buy our products and services, but we should also be concerned about the communities we are marketing to. 
So how can we better support them as marketers?
How Marketers Can Help
As marketers, we don’t have to stand idly by while we watch one of the main consumer populations in America struggle. We can do something. In fact, it’s expected of us. Nielsen reported that 42 percent of Black adults expect brands they purchase from to support social causes. That’s 16 percent higher than the total population. 
Here are just some of the ways we can support the financial advancement of Black people as marketers:
Support and Mentor Black Business Owners
By nurturing up-and-coming business owners, you support the growth and expansion of Black-owned products. This is important because it helps to balance the flow of money entering and leaving the Black community. It also creates more positive representation of Black entrepreneurs for the next generation to aspire to.
Support the Expansion of Financial Literacy Resources in Black Communities
Financial literacy is key to the advancement of the Black community. By sponsoring school financial literacy and entrepreneurship programs in Black populated areas, you’re helping to transform and uplift the Black community in a way that’ll impact generations.
Oppose Systemic Racism That Causes Financial Challenges
Racism is malleable and doesn’t always look as overt as it did during slavery or the Jim Crow era. Today, systemic racism affects Black people in many ways, including financially. 
Underfunded schools and lack of support for first generation college students hurts exposure to education that qualifies people for better paying jobs. Unfair hiring practices and poor employee benefits also negatively impact Black communities financially.
By taking a stand, being aware of your marketing practices and supporting social causes that positively impact the Black community, you’re helping to support one of the largest consumer bases in America and developing a better relationship between you and your customers.

 Anyssa Roberts is an award-winning journalist, copywriter and editor. She has written for the USA Today Network, The Spruce, Ramsey Solutions, a Dave Ramsey Company, among other marketing and news organizations. Currently, she uses content to help customer-centric brands hone their unique voice and connect with their audiences.
Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Anyssa earned her B.A. in journalism from the University of Kentucky and resides in the Nashville, Tennessee area.
Anyssa is passionate about personal finance and helping people to take control of their money. When she’s not writing, she can be found researching tiny houses, experimenting with new cocktails or solo traveling. Connect with her on LinkedIn or reach out via email. She’d love to hear from you.

Visit this page to see more in the series, or check back in a week for our next guest post. 
CM Group is a family of global marketing technology brands including Campaign Monitor, CM Commerce, Delivra, Emma, Liveclicker, Sailthru and Vuture. By joining together these leading brands, CM Group offers a variety of world-class solutions that can be used by marketers at any level. Headquartered in Nashville, TN, CM Group has United States offices in Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York City, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, and global offices in Australia, London, New Zealand and Uruguay.
The post Why Black People Are Top Consumers But Lack Wealth appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

If your website is like a house, then your website’s URL is like that house’s address. It defines where your website lives online, similar to how your home address determines where you live in a neighborhood, helping your visitors easily find your site. URLs also help Google understand what your website’s pages are about.
There are technically five elements of a URL, and they’re discreetly important for optimizing your site’s user experience (UX) and SEO. To help you develop a concrete understanding of every part of a URL, let’s explore each of them in detail.

Below is an illustration of the different parts of a URL. 
Let’s break down this URL structure below. 
URL Structure
Scheme
The scheme tells web servers which protocol to use when it accesses a page on your website.
Nowadays, HTTPS — which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure — is the most common scheme. It tells your web browser to encrypt any information you enter onto the page, like your passwords or credit card information, so cybercriminals can’t access it. This security protocol protects your website visitors and implementing it will help your site rank better on Google. That’s why implementing SSL is a must-do on any technical SEO guide. 
Other schemes you might see are mailto://, which can open your computer’s default email service provider to help you draft an email to the email address you entered in the URL, and ftp://, which is a standard protocol for transferring computer files between a client and server on a computer network.
Subdomain

If your website is like a house, your subdomains are like specific rooms in that house. A subdomain in a URL indicates which particular page of your website the web browser should serve up. For instance, subdomains like “blog” or “offers” will provide your website’s blog page or offers page.

Subdomains also bucket your website into its main content categories and shows Google and your visitors that there’s more information on your site than just a homepage.
Second-level Domain

Your second-level domain (SLD) is the name of your website. It helps people know they’re visiting a certain brand’s site. For instance, people who visit “mlb.com” know they’re on Major League Baseball’s website, without needing any more information.

Top-level Domain

The top-level domain (TLD) specifies what type of entity your organization registers as on the internet.

For example, “.com” is intended for commercial entities in the United States, so a lot of American businesses register with a top-level domain of “.com”. Similarly “.edu” is intended for academic institutions in the United States, so a lot of American colleges and universities register with a top-level domain of “.edu”.
Subdirectory

A subdirectory — also known as a subfolder — helps people as well as
web crawlers understand which particular section of a webpage they’re on. 

For instance, if you own an online store that sells t-shirts, hats, and mugs, one of your website’s URLs could look like “https://shop.yourstore.com/hats”. Notice that the subdomain is “shop” and the subdirectory is “hats.” That means this URL would serve up the “Hats” page, which is a subfolder of the “Shop” page. T-shirts and mugs would be other subfolders of this page.
URL Structure: Subtle Yet Essential
Even though URLs might seem simple and frivolous, they’re actually important for your website’s UX and SEO. And now that you understand the anatomy of a URL, check out the blog posts below to learn more about technical SEO.

Troubleshooting an HTTP 500 internal server error is like solving a mystery.
You don’t know what exactly happened or why it happened — all you know is that something’s wrong and you need to fix it.
To guide you through the hassle of troubleshooting the dreaded HTTP 500 internal server error, let’s go over what it exactly means and its most common causes and solutions.

Here’s what your 500 error page might look like in your browser:

How to Fix a 500 Internal Server Error
Unlike other server-side errors like a 502 code or a 503 code, a 500 internal server error is it doesn’t immediately tell you what the problem is, nor does it tell you how to fix it. If the error persists for too long on your site, it could even negatively impact your SEO.
So, let’s dive into a few potential causes of the error. Then, we’ll present some solutions so you can try to fix the issue.
Potential Causes of a 500 Internal Server Error
A 500 internal server error is, as the name implies, a general problem with the website’s server. More than likely, this means there’s an issue or temporary glitch with the website’s programming.
Some potential causes of a 500 internal server error include:

Corrupted or broken .htaccess file
A permissions error
Faulty third-party plugins or themes
The PHP memory limit being exceeded

Fortunately, there are a few effective solutions for fixing most of these problems.
If You’re Trying to Load a Page with a 500 Internal Server Error:
1. Refresh the page.
This might seem obvious, but if it’s a temporary loading issue, you might find success if you refresh the page. Before trying anything else in this list, reload the page and see what happens.
2. Come back later.
Since the error is on the server side, I’m willing to bet the website owners are working as quickly as possible to resolve the issue. Give it a few minutes or up to an hour or so, and then reload the URL and see if the development team has fixed the issue.
3. Delete your browser’s cookies.
If clearing the browser history doesn’t work, you might try deleting your browser’s cookies. If the cookies are associated with the error-prone webpage, deleting the cookies might help reload the page.
4. Paste your URL into the website “Down for Everyone or Just Me.”
Head to downforeveryoneorjustme.com and paste in the URL where you’re seeing the internal server error. You’ll either be told that the website is only down for you, or that the website is down for everyone.
If it’s a problem with your server, this should help assuage any concerns that it’s an issue with your own computer.
If the 500 Internal Server Error is on Your Own Website:
1. Deactivate a plugin or theme.
Newly activated software, add-ons, or third-party scripts might be conflicting with your current server configuration. To determine this, try (carefully) deactivating or uninstalling your software add-ons one at a time to identify what exactly is causing the internal server error.
If you run a WordPress website, this is easy to do with plugins. From your dashboard, choose Plugins > Installed Plugins, then deactivate the first plugin. If the error resolves, you know this plugin is part of the issue. Reactivate the first plugin, then repeat this deactivate-reactivate process one at a time for all plugins to determine which ones are causing your error.
You might find that having fewer active plugins on your site helps things run more smoothly. Alternatively, if you just upgraded your software, your current plugins or themes might not be compatible with the new upgrade. Deactivating plugins or themes one at a time until the error disappears is the best way to find the root cause of your problem.
2. Use a plugin like WP Debugging to identify the issue.
If your site is powered by WordPress and you’re comfortable with WordPress debugging processes, consider installing a plugin to help you identify the issue with your server.
The debug plugin WP Debugging, for instance, helps you figure out exactly what’s wrong with your site, which will result in a speedier fix.

Image Source
3. Ensure your PHP setup is configured correctly.
If the issue is related to a PHP timeout, consider creating timeout rules or error handling in your script to resolve the issue. Here’s a full list of php.ini directives to configure your PHP setup. Additionally, wrong permissions on a file or folder that has a script, like a PHP or CGI script, won’t allow the script to run. Check your permissions and make sure you set them correctly on your server.
4. Check the code for your site’s .htaccess file.
Incorrect coding or improper structure with your .htaccess file could be the reason you’re seeing the 500 internal error. The .htaccess file helps you manage how long resources should be stored in a browser’s cache. Try editing the file if you’re seeing a 500 internal server error.
To locate your .htaccess file, access your website files through a file manager like cPanel or via FTP/SFTP. The file will probably be located in your public_html directory. There’s a good chance your server will hide this file from view by default and you’ll need to toggle hidden files on to see it.

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Coding errors in .htaccess and custom scripts can also cause an HTTP 500 internal server error.
5. Ensure your new software is installed correctly.
Finally, check to see if your recently installed or upgraded software actually failed to install or upgrade. To refresh your software, check the vendor’s website for instructions.

Last Resort: Ask a Server Administrator for Help
If troubleshooting popular software problems or debugging server-side scripts doesn’t fix your HTTP 500 internal server error, you should read about the most common causes for this type of issue in your server’s documentation — an HTTP 500 internal server error can occur in different operating systems for a multitude of reasons.
You can also ask your service provider to access your error logs and find evidence for the root cause of your problem.
Internal server errors are irritating because they’re unhelpful — it’s basically the web server’s way of saying, “Eh, I’m not sure.” Hopefully, one of the above steps will resolve the problem so you can get back to life as usual.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Has there ever been a hotter moment for health and wellness brands? It seems like every year, people are becoming increasingly conscious of their lifestyle and habits. And experiencing a pandemic has meant that the market for healthy living has opened up in an entirely new way — people are willing to invest in their…
The post 3 Wellness Brands Sending Great Emails appeared first on Benchmark Email.

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In practically any discipline, it’s a good idea to have others evaluate your work with fresh eyes, and this is especially true in user experience and web design. Otherwise, your partiality for your own work can skew your perception of it. Learning directly from the people that your work is actually for — your users — is what enables you to craft the best user experience possible.

UX and design professionals leverage usability testing to get user feedback on their product or website’s user experience all the time. In this post, you’ll learn:
What usability testing is

Its purpose and goals
Scenarios where it can work
Real-life examples and case studies
How to conduct one of your own
Scripted questions you can use along the way

What is usability testing?
Usability testing is a method of evaluating a product or website’s user experience. By testing the usability of their product or website with a representative group of their users or customers, UX researchers can determine if their actual users can easily and intuitively use their product or website.

UX researchers will usually conduct usability studies on each iteration of their product from its early development to its release.
During a usability study, the moderator asks participants in their individual user session to complete a series of tasks while the rest of the team observes and takes notes. By watching their actual users navigate their product or website and listening to their praises and concerns about it, they can see when the participants can quickly and successfully complete tasks and where they’re enjoying the user experience, encountering problems, and experiencing confusion.
After conducting their study, they’ll analyze the results and report any interesting insights to the project lead.

What is the purpose of usability testing?
Usability testing allows researchers to uncover any problems with their product’s user experience, decide how to fix these problems, and ultimately determine if the product is usable enough.
Identifying and fixing these early issues saves the company both time and money: Developers don’t have to overhaul the code of a poorly designed product that’s already built, and the product team is more likely to release it on schedule.
Benefits of Usability Testing
Usability testing has five major advantages over the other methods of examining a product’s user experience (such as questionnaires or surveys):

Usability testing provides an unbiased, accurate, and direct examination of your product or website’s user experience. By testing its usability on a sample of actual users who are detached from the amount of emotional investment your team has put into creating and designing the product or website, their feedback can resolve most of your team’s internal debates.
Usability testing is convenient. To conduct your study, all you have to do is find a quiet room and bring in portable recording equipment. If you don’t have recording equipment, someone on your team can just take notes.
Usability testing can tell you what your users do on your site or product and why they take these actions.
Usability testing lets you address your product’s or website’s issues before you spend a ton of money creating something that ends up having a poor design.
For your business, intuitive design boosts customer usage and their results, driving demand for your product.

Usability Testing Scenario Examples
Usability testing sounds great in theory, but what value does it provide in practice? Here’s what it can do to actually make a difference for your product:
1. Identify points of friction in the usability of your product.
As Brian Halligan said at INBOUND 2019, “Dollars flow where friction is low.” This just as true in UX as it is in sales or customer service. The more friction your product has, the more reason your users will have to find something that’s easier to use.
Usability testing can uncover points of friction from customer feedback.
For example: “My process begins in Google Drive. I keep switching between windows and making multiple clicks just to copy and paste from Drive into this interface.”
Even though the product team may have had that task in mind when they created the tool, seeing it in action and hearing the user’s frustration uncovered a use case that the tool didn’t compensate for. It might lead the team to solve for this problem by creating an easy import feature or way to access Drive within the interface to reduce the number of clicks the user needs to make to accomplish their task.
2. Stress test across many environments and use cases.
Our products don’t exist in a vacuum, and sometimes development environments are unable to compensate for all the variables. Getting the product out and tested by users can uncover bugs that you may not have noticed while testing internally.
For example: “The check boxes disappear when I click on them.”
Let’s say that the team investigates why this might be, and they discover that the user is on a browser that’s not commonly used (or a browser version that’s outdated).
If the developers only tested across the browsers used in-house, they may have missed this bug, and it could have resulted in customer frustration.
3. Provide diverse perspectives from your user base.
While individuals in our customer bases have a lot in common (in particular, the things that led them to need and use our products), each individual is unique and brings a different perspective to the table. These perspectives are invaluable in uncovering issues that may not have occurred to your team.
For example: “I can’t find where I’m supposed to click.”
Upon further investigation, it’s possible that this feedback came from a user who is color blind, leading your team to realize that the color choices did not create enough contrast for this user to navigate properly.
Insights from diverse perspectives can lead to design, architectural, copy, and accessibility improvements.
4. Give you clear insights into your product’s strengths and weaknesses.
You likely have competitors in your industry whose products are better than yours in some areas and worse than yours in others. These variations in the market lead to competitive differences and opportunities. User feedback can help you close the gap on critical issues and identify what positioning is working.
For example: “This interface is so much easier to use and more attractive than [competitor product]. I just wish that I could also do [task] with it.”
Two scenarios are possible based on that feedback:

Your product can already accomplish the task the user wants. You just have to make it clear that the feature exists by improving copy or navigation.
You have a really good opportunity to incorporate such a feature in future iterations of the product.

5. Inspire you with potential future additions or enhancements.
Speaking of future iterations, that comes to the next example of how usability testing can make a difference for your product: The feedback that you gather can inspire future improvements to your tool.
It’s not just about rooting out issues but also envisioning where you can go next that will make the most difference for your customers. And who best to ask but your prospective and current customers themselves?

Usability Testing Examples & Case Studies
Now that you have an idea of the scenarios in which usability testing can help, here are some real-life examples of it in action:
1. User Fountain + Satchel

Satchel is a developer of education software, and their goal was to improve the experience of the site for their users. Consulting agency User Fountain conducted a usability test focusing on one question: “If you were interested in Satchel’s product, how would you progress with getting more information about the product and its pricing?”
During the test, User Fountain noted significant frustration as users attempted to complete the task, particularly when it came to locating pricing information. Only 80% of users were successful.

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This led User Fountain to create the hypothesis that a “Get Pricing” link would make the process clearer for users. From there, they tested a new variation with such a link against a control version. The variant won, resulting in a 34% increase in demo requests.
By testing a hypothesis based on real feedback, friction was eliminated for the user, bringing real value to Satchel.
2. Kylie.Design + Digi-Key

Ecommerce site Digi-Key approached consultant Kylie.Design to uncover which site interactions had the highest success rates and what features those interactions had in common.
They conducted more than 120 tests and recorded:

Click paths from each user
Which actions were most common
The success rates for each

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This as well as the written and verbal feedback provided by participants informed the new design, which resulted in increasing purchaser success rates from 68.2% to 83.3%.
In essence, Digi-Key was able to identify their most successful features and double-down on them, improving the experience and their bottom line.
3. Sparkbox + An Academic Medical Center

An academic medical center in the midwest partnered with consulting agency Sparkbox to improve the patient experience on their homepage, where some features were suffering from low engagement.
Sparkbox conducted a usability study to determine what users wanted from the homepage and what didn’t meet their expectations. From there, they were able to propose solutions to increase engagement.

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For example, one key action was the ability to access electronic medical records. The new design based on user feedback increased the success rate from 45% to 94%.
This is a great example of putting the user’s pains and desires front-and-center in a design.

The 9 Phases of a Usability Study
1. Decide which part of your product or website you want to test.
Do you have any pressing questions about how your users will interact with certain parts of your design, like a particular interaction or workflow? Or are you wondering what users will do first when they land on your product page? Gather your thoughts about your product or website’s pros, cons, and areas of improvement, so you can create a solid hypothesis for your study.
2. Pick your study’s tasks.
Your participants’ tasks should be your user’s most common goals when they interact with your product or website, like making a purchase.
3. Set a standard for success.
Once you know what to test and how to test it, make sure to set clear criteria to determine success for each task. For instance, when I was in a usability study for HubSpot’s Content Strategy tool, I had to add a blog post to a cluster and report exactly what I did. Setting a threshold of success and failure for each task lets you determine if your product’s user experience is intuitive enough or not.
4. Write a study plan and script.
At the beginning of your script, you should include the purpose of the study, if you’ll be recording, some background on the product or website, questions to learn about the participants’ current knowledge of the product or website, and, finally, their tasks. To make your study consistent, unbiased, and scientific, moderators should follow the same script in each user session.
5. Delegate roles.
During your usability study, the moderator has to remain neutral, carefully guiding the participants through the tasks while strictly following the script. Whoever on your team is best at staying neutral, not giving into social pressure, and making participants feel comfortable while pushing them to complete the tasks should be your moderator
Note-taking during the study is also just as important. If there’s no recorded data, you can’t extract any insights that’ll prove or disprove your hypothesis. Your team’s most attentive listener should be your note-taker during the study.
6. Find your participants.
Screening and recruiting the right participants is the hardest part of usability testing. Most usability experts suggest you should only test five participants during each study, but your participants should also closely resemble your actual user base. With such a small sample size, it’s hard to replicate your actual user base in your study.
To recruit the ideal participants for your study, create the most detailed and specific persona as you possibly can and incentivize them to participate with a gift card or another monetary reward.
Recruiting colleagues from other departments who would potentially use your product is also another option. But you don’t want any of your team members to know the participants because their personal relationship can create bias — since they want to be nice to each other, the researcher might help a user complete a task or the user might not want to constructively criticize the researcher’s product design.
7. Conduct the study.
During the actual study, you should ask your participants to complete one task at a time, without your help or guidance. If the participant asks you how to do something, don’t say anything. You want to see how long it takes users to figure out your interface.
Asking participants to “think out loud” is also an effective tactic — you’ll know what’s going through a user’s head when they interact with your product or website.
After they complete each task, ask for their feedback, like if they expected to see what they just saw, if they would’ve completed the task if it wasn’t a test, if they would recommend your product to a friend, and what they would change about it. This qualitative data can pinpoint more pros and cons of your design.
8. Analyze your data.
You’ll collect a ton of qualitative data after your study. Analyzing it will help you discover patterns of problems, gauge the severity of each usability issue, and provide design recommendations to the engineering team.
When you analyze your data, make sure to pay attention to both the users’ performance and their feelings about the product. It’s not unusual for a participant to quickly and successfully achieve your goal but still feel negatively about the product experience.
9. Report your findings.
After extracting insights from your data, report the main takeaways and lay out the next steps for improving your product or website’s design and the enhancements you expect to see during the next round of testing.
The 3 Most Common Types of Usability Tests
1. Hallway/Guerilla Usability Testing
This is where you set up your study somewhere with a lot of foot traffic. It allows you to ask randomly-selected people who have most likely never even heard of your product or website — like passers-by — to evaluate its user-experience.
2. Remote/Unmoderated Usability Testing
Remote/unmoderated usability testing has two main advantages: it uses third-party software to recruit target participants for your study, so you can spend less time recruiting and more time researching. It also allows your participants to interact with your interface by themselves and in their natural environment — the software can record video and audio of your user completing tasks.
Letting participants interact with your design in their natural environment with no one breathing down their neck can give you more realistic, objective feedback. When you’re in the same room as your participants, it can prompt them to put more effort into completing your tasks since they don’t want to seem incompetent around an expert. Your perceived expertise can also lead to them to please you instead of being honest when you ask for their opinion, skewing your user experience’s reactions and feedback.
3. Moderated Usability Testing
Moderated usability testing also has two main advantages: interacting with participants in person or through a video a call lets you ask them to elaborate on their comments if you don’t understand them, which is impossible to do in an unmoderated usability study. You’ll also be able to help your users understand the task and keep them on track if your instructions don’t initially register with them.

Usability Testing Script & Questions
Following one script or even a template of questions for every one of your usability studies wouldn’t make any sense — each study’s subject matter is different. You’ll need to tailor your questions to the things you want to learn, but most importantly, you’ll need to know how to ask good questions.
1. When you [action], what’s the first thing you do to [goal]?
Questions such as this one give insight into how users are inclined to interact with the tool and what their natural behavior is.
Julie Fischer, one of HubSpot’s Senior UX researchers, gives this advice: “Don’t ask leading questions that insert your own bias or opinion into the participants’ mind. They’ll end up doing what you want them to do instead of what they would do by themselves.”
For example, “Find [x]” is a better than “Are you able to easily find [x]?” The latter inserts connotation that may affect how they use the product or answer the question.
2. How satisfied are you with the [attribute] of [feature]?
Avoid leading the participants by asking questions like “Is this feature too complicated?” Instead, gauge their satisfaction on a Likert scale that provides a number range from highly unsatisfied to highly satisfied. This will provide a less biased result than leading them to a negative answer they may not otherwise have had.
3. How do you use [feature]?
There may be multiple ways to achieve the same goal or utilize the same feature. This question will help uncover how users interact with a specific aspect of the product and what they find valuable.
4. What parts of [the product] do you use the most? Why?
This question is meant to help you understand the strengths of the product and what about it creates raving fans. This will indicate what you should absolutely keep and perhaps even lead to insights into what you can improve for other features.
5. What parts of [the product] do you use the least? Why?
This question is meant to uncover the weaknesses of the product or the friction in its use. That way, you can rectify any issues or plan future improvements to close the gap between user expectations and reality.
6. If you could change one thing about [feature] what would it be?
Because it’s so similar to #5, you may get some of the same answers. However, you’d be surprised about the aspirational things that your users might say here.
7. What do you expect [action/feature] to do?
Here’s another tip from Julie Fischer:
“When participants ask ‘What will this do?’ it’s best to reply with the question ‘What do you expect it do?’ rather than telling them the answer.”
Doing this can uncover user expectation as well as clarity issues with the copy.
Your Work Could Always Use a Fresh Perspective
Letting another person review and possibly criticize your work takes courage — no one wants a bruised ego. But most of the time, when you allow people to constructively criticize or even rip apart your article or product design, especially when your work is intended to help these people, your final result will be better than you could’ve ever imagined.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.